Master of Death

by deadwoodpecker

It is 1977, and He Who Must Not Be Named is ascendant. Hoping to lure out a mighty foe, he organizes a theft of Nurmengard. But as others have discovered before him, it is unwise to play with Grindelwald's possessions... This fic is H/G, and is set in a slightly-altered from canon reality.

28. chapter twenty

It did not take long for Harry to discover just how much he had been sleep-walking through his classes, only to now awaken more than halfway through the term: the other students were reviewing what they had learned the last several months, and Harry was struggling to recall the purposes of the spells. The only class that didn't trouble him was Potions; in fact, the garrulous Slughorn had become increasingly friendly toward him. "I heard you helped old Fleamont Potter with his son," Slughorn said casually, one Friday, just after Harry had created a perfect Camouflage Elixir, which performed nearly the same function as a Disillusionment Charm, though with greater longevity. He'd been writing notes in the margins of his textbook when Slughorn heaved up to lean on his desk.

"He did most of it, yeah," said Harry. "But didn't you know that?"

Slughorn slapped him on the shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "I did," he said, cheerful. "Well, I read it in the Daily Prophet, of course, but now I've heard from Fleamont Potter himself."

Harry peered at him, startled.

"Always have to check the sources, dear boy," he said. "But Fleamont said himself it was no exaggeration! He won't let on what ingredient it was, but he said you went to great lengths."

"Well, I—"

"And it's the mark of a true potioneer!" said Slughorn. "He's willing to go the distance for his potion. You've learned that well."

"Erm, thank you," said Harry.

"I'm impressed, my boy," said Slughorn, who actually applauded him. "Impressed! You're living up to your name!"

Harry hid a wince and leaned back in his chair. "Thank you, sir," he said, hoping Slughorn would not take that as an invitation to chat further. Thankfully, the Professor moved on to help Reginald Belby, whose cauldron was squawking with distress.

His potions notes forgotten, Harry clasped his hands behind his neck. The Peverell name. That niggled at him; he grew curious enough about what Dumbledore had said not long ago, that they ought to establish themselves as Peverells.

"But what do you think that means?" Harry pressed.

"I don't know, Harry," said Ginny. There was robust color in her cheeks. This was the third time he'd asked her the same question, and he was beginning to irritate her. But Harry was so pleased at her lack of paleness that he almost wanted to ask her again. "It could mean a lot of things."

"But—"

"If you'd stop dithering and go ask Dumbledore, he'd be able to tell you."

Harry grinned, gave a quick glance to make sure they were still alone, and gave her a kiss. "I'll do that," he said. "Or, better yet, we can do it together. You're a Peverell here, too."

"Good," Ginny said decisively, squeezing his hand. "I've got loads of my own questions…"

Dumbledore received them the next day in his office. There was an expectant sort of air about him when Ginny asked their questions, as though he had been anticipating this. And perhaps, Harry acknowledged, he had. Content to let Ginny do the asking, his gaze wandered around the room. It was full as ever, but the mess it had been at the end of October had been pulled in in the intervening weeks. There was a row of new shelving under the portraits, the bottom row of which were muttering and glaring, so Harry had to suppose it was a new addition. Upon the shelves sat bottles of silvery memories and stacks of parchment and even a map of the British Isles.

Harry squinted: there, on the second shelf, was a book that seemed bloodstained. Whatever project Dumbledore was working on — and surely it had something to do with Voldemort — it was dark in nature. Mildly intrigued, he tried harder to read the title.

A gentle touch on his leg brought him back to the discussion.

"—in case you are still here after the end of spring term," Dumbledore was saying, a grave expression on his face, "there are certain avenues that would be closed to you should you remain as you are. For example, your options for housing would be quite limited."

"You've said that before. But what," said Ginny, leaning forward, "would we have to do? In order to be able to… find other housing, or visit St. Mungo's?"

"The simple answer is, you would have to meet with a Ministry official and provide him with proof of your status," said Dumbledore.

"It's never as simple as that," muttered Harry.

"It isn't," agreed Dumbledore. "Even for non time-travelers, it is a complex matter. It does not help that in recent years, the Ministry has essentially slashed the Department of Births and Records, leaving few workers to meet the demands of the population."

"But why?" Ginny asked, perplexed. "Aren't people obsessed with blood status?"

"They are," said Dumbledore. "But purebloods already have what is essentially magically binding proof of their so-called purity of blood. They don't need to establish their identities: they've had it since birth. Their documentation, if you will, from the Halls of Heritage, is incontrovertible proof. The Ministry Department is—"

"—for Muggleborns," said Ginny, an expression of distaste on her face.

"And half-bloods. They make it as difficult as possible to get an appointment," said Dumbledore. "It can be months or even years before they're able to."

Harry made a low sound in his throat. "Will we even be able to get one? Before summer, I mean?" It seemed to go unspoken that he and Ginny would not be living with Sirius after their graduation from Hogwarts.

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "In fact, I know someone in the office. I can make it for you."

Harry nodded. "Thanks," he said. But he was still wary of other complications. "What else do we need to do?"

"You need to have proof of who you are," said Dumbledore. "My contact in the Department is not such a good one that he will fabricate new identities for you. You will have to do that yourself."

As Harry looked at Ginny, a sense of foreboding settled over his shoulders. He could see that reflected in her eyes. Hadn't they already fabricated identities? But the gravity in Dumbledore's voice led him to believe this would be an entirely different matter, and much more complex than the hasty story they had come up with a year and a half ago.

"And what," asked Harry, "does that entail?"

And Dumbledore told them.

"Now this," he said with great satisfaction, "is from the Halls of Heritage themselves–"

"What are those?" Harry asked.

It was Ginny who answered. "A bit of pureblood nonsense," she scoffed. "It's a museum to the old families, where they can go and boast about having their names written on the walls. That, there," her head tilted toward the scroll, "is how they track families… but I've never seen a blank one," she added. Her grin turned impish as she looked at Dumbledore. "But Professor, how did you get a blank one?"

"Do you know," said Dumbledore, "I've had it for many years, and have been saving it for, shall we say, a rainy day. It seems to me the time has come."

"So it's a way to track pureblooded status," said Harry.

"Yeah," said Ginny. "All pureblooded couples get one when they get married… their children are added to it as they come, and their grandchildren as well. The longer you live, the more complex it becomes, of course."

"So a smaller version of the family trees?" Harry asked, looking from one to the other.

"Exactly," said Dumbledore and Ginny together.

"But since the purebloods are so protective of their blood status," said Ginny, pointing at the scroll, "a blank one is never given out."

Dumbledore just smiled, looking rather pleased with himself.

Rather impressed, Harry sat back in his chair.

"Shall we begin?" Dumbledore asked, after having given them a moment.

"Yeah," said Harry, "But I have something I want to say first." Then, taking a deep breath, he said: "Ginny and I are not brother and sister, and I don't care if it isn't real, and that it's simply a disguise." His forearms itched, and he rubbed them up and down. "On that scroll, I want us to be cousins – distant cousins, if you please." It was not easy, making a demand like that, but Harry held himself very tightly and did not blink as he stared at Dumbledore. "If you insist that it's the 'easiest' way, I won't do it."

"And neither," said Ginny, without hesitation, "will I."

"Very well," said Dumbledore, capitulating quite easily. A corner of his lips twitched, as though he had the fleeting instinct to smile. Harry didn't much care. "We will have to build a more complex family tree, but that might even be for the best; it may even be wise to show an entire branch of the Peverell family that went missing, rather than just one isolated family that cropped up a couple of years ago. How many generations do you want to go back? I would suggest no more than four; a fifth or sixth generation would bring you into having to trace known members of the Peverell family."

"Four generations, then," said Harry.

"Ah, then," Dumbledore said, "We have the joy of creating an entire, fictional family. Let us begin."

It was more fun than Harry expected. For a couple of hours, the three of them argued over names and backstories, Dumbledore suggesting the most outlandish of names: "Horvellus" was rejected for the man meant to be Harry's father, and was relegated to a great-great uncle who died young. As to Ginny, she was firm that her parents were to be "Arnold" and "Mary".

"And mine ought to be Ron and Hermione," said Harry, once they'd worked around to his fictional parentage. "It'll be easy to remember!" he defended, when Ginny laughed so hard she nearly fell off her chair, and definitely knocked their plate of sandwiches askew. "I'm not joking, I'll remember their names."

"They always were very protective of you," Ginny said, wiping tears off her cheeks. "I think Ron would be proud."

Harry threw a chip at her. "Good thing he'll never know."

"He might," Ginny said, eyes sparkling, "you'll have to convince me not to tell him once we get back…"

Dumbledore seemed content to allow them their fun. Once they'd written out four generations of Peverells on a bit of parchment – Harry was pleased to note that they were able to do a bit of generational shifting, and Ginny was officially, for Ministry purposes, his second cousin once removed, and hardly related to him at all in the legal sense – the professor brought out an especially fine quill. "I've harvested this ink from the Great Squid," he said, "and it cannot be erased or altered."

And then, with flowing script, he carefully wrote out the fictional Peverell family they had spent the last hours creating. Harry and Ginny sat in silence, watching, as the names they'd all chosen were written out, joined together. A wave of light-headedness washed over Harry as he saw the names Ronald and Hermione Peverell linked with Harry Peverell. Ginny was equally solemn as her name was linked with Arnold and Mary; she was their only child.

"It's done," said Harry, after a solemn moment.

"Ah, but Mr. Peverell, it is better to say it is done for now," said Dumbledore. "There are two more requirements, one of which will take much longer than the space of a few hours."

Harry traded a look with Ginny. "What's that?" she asked warily.

"Now," said Dumbledore, "you two need to create some memories, so there is no hint of suspicion."

"But–"

"How?"

The portraits behind Dumbledore muttered under their breaths as Dumbledore conjured up ten filmy white orbs. "I want you two to have a daydream – a fantasy, if you will, of this fictional background we have given you," he said. "Try to make it as detailed as possible, if you may. The Ministry, you see, has charms that could see through this sort of… evasion. But I think if you each should have five solid dreams we can pretend are memories – I will place them in the surface level of your thoughts – that will be good enough for my friend at the Ministry. He is a thorough young man, you see."

And for the first time all morning, Harry balked. He did not say a word aloud; he took his five orbs and placed them in his bag; but something within him recoiled at his new task. Shouldering his bag, Harry nodded to Dumbledore and followed Ginny out of the office, straggling behind, giving one last look behind him, suddenly regretting the necessity of all of this.

HPHPHPHPHPHP

Ginny threw herself into it, researching the climate and environment of the archipelago in which their fictional island was located, safe from Muggle eyes and wizarding society as a whole. The day after their meeting with Dumbledore, she announced that there ought to be a storm in their past, one they both remember. "Just a gigantic storm," she said, face lit with enthusiasm, speaking rather loudly for the library, earning a glare from Madame Pince. "One that uprooted trees and destroyed – hmm – destroyed Arnold's boat… we weren't in it, but it capsized. And you could remember it too!"

And so Harry was cajoled and prodded into filling up his first orb with a very dramatic storm, unable to help himself getting caught up with Ginny's stories.

And yet, he couldn't share her enthusiasm. Perhaps he had chosen poorly, naming his fictional parents after his two oldest friends. When he thought of them, it was as they had been… he could not seem to muster up the energy to fill another orb. It felt… off.

After tossing and turning one night, and dozing during Divination enough that Old Bones had to rap his knuckles on Harry's desk, twice, he found himself in the Great Hall for lunch, seated across from his father. It was a rare moment that they were alone. Instead of eating, Harry pushed his food around his plate, stomach churning with the longing to ask James how he would feel if his own son replaced him with a fictional father.

"James–"

"Harry, look at this." James spoke over him. He, too, was uncharacteristically pale, a troubled line creasing his brow.

Almost grateful for the interruption – his tired thoughts could not seem to marshal a properly worded question. Slumping down and listing a little to the side, Harry said, "Yeah? What is it?"

"My father sent me this," said James, still troubled. He thrust a piece of parchment into Harry's hands.

"Erm," said Harry, accepting it. Reading the letter, his shoulders tightened. "This happened to Simon?" he asked, troubled. "How does your father know?"

"His – Simon's – grandparents wrote to him," said James. "And now I'm worried if… well, what if…" But he could not seem to continue.

Two days previously, only a week after Harry had visited him, Simon Burke had apparently gone mad in the Ministry, ranting about a mirror, claiming that a nightmare was coming, and jinxing everything in sight. There was no trouble with subduing him – it was only the shock of the episode that allowed him to get very far into the Atrium before his grandmother was able to take him in hand. He only has a boy's spells, after all, the grandmother had written.

"But–"

"What if it's going to happen to us?" James said, in a rare vulnerable moment.

Harry stared at him. Had he ever seen his father so serious and concerned? There was a tightness around his eyes and lips that made him look older. "I don't think it will," Harry said, finally.

"But–"

It was Harry's turn to interrupt. "I think," he said slowly, "whatever happened to Simon Burke to make him like this"-he waved the letter–"it happened before the draught. He woke up, erm, raving, didn't he?"

"I don't remember much from that first day we woke up," James admitted.

"Well, I do," Harry told him. "His grandmother had to take him into a different room because he was so agitated. He was upset, I mean. I think he could've been remembering what happened before someone forced the draught on him. D'you remember anything?" he pressed. He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it anyway.

"Everyone asks that," said James, with a sad shake of his head. "But I still don't remember what happened, just that it was a bit windy."

"Windy," Harry repeated.

"Yeah," said James. "That's it. Not exactly helpful."

Harry gave James's letter from his father back. "I don't think your dad sent you this because you need to be worried," he said. "I could be wrong, but… When Dumbledore and I went to see Simon–"

"You went to Knockturn Alley?" James's face went slack with astonishment. "With Dumbledore?"

"Uh, yeah," said Harry. "But anyway, Simon seemed more like a boy than–"

"Why?" James demanded, laughing a little. "Why did you two go?"

Harry wished he hadn't mentioned it. "The Burkes thought they had a debt to me," Harry said, shrugging a little. "I didn't want it… so I gave it to Dumbledore."

This seemed to shock James even more. "Dumbledore wanted something from them?"

Harry wished his father would stop saying 'Dumbledore' like that. There was a peculiar sort of intensity in the set of James's face; Harry felt a frisson of recognition. He would not be getting away from this conversation without satisfying James's curiosity. "I'm not really sure," said Harry, not untruthfully. "But I think it was just information. It wasn't anything from their shop, or anything."

"Information," James murmured, gaze sliding away, moving past Harry, and seemed to rove over the scattering of students at the Gryffindor table. "That makes more sense than what I was first thinking."

Harry laughed. "Oh, look," he said, with great relief. "There's Lily!"

Lily was not alone. In her arms was a lively little cat, Nimue, writhing around, licking her owner's face. To Harry's amusement, James launched himself off of the bench and toward the entrance. "Nimue!" he cried, seeming to have forgotten his earlier worry over Simon Burke, and his reputed madness.

Harry slumped further, toying with his mushy peas. The sight of his parents made him wish Ginny wasn't trapped at the library, racing to catch up with the rest of their class by the start of spring term. He watched them out of the corner of his eye. They remained at the entrance: James was now snuggling both Lily and Nimue. He would, it would seem, have to manufacture some memories of a false set of parents to present to the Ministry of Magic. But the only memories he had of his real parents were these stolen ones. He had no memory of being encircled in their arms the way Nimue was now; surely, they had done so at least once in the short fifteen months they'd had together?

James returned to the table, alone.

"Where'd Lily and Nimue go?" Harry asked.

"Oh, she just brought Nimue down to see me," James said, looking much improved, and far less worried. The parchment was gone out of his hand; his worries seemed likewise tucked away. "But the cat doesn't like the Great Hall… too crowded…"

"I'd forgotten all about Nimue," Harry admitted. He shouldn't have done.

"She was with Lily's mum," James said, with a tiny grimace. He cut a glance at Harry. "Didn't you want to ask me something?" he asked.

"Oh," said Harry. "Right." But suddenly, now seemed exactly the wrong time. James was, in a word, distracted. And how exactly would Harry even approach the conversation he wanted to have with his father? "You know what," he said, making a sudden decision, "I've completely forgotten about it, anyway…"

"Are you sure?" James pressed.

"Yeah," said Harry, hiding his reluctance. "Yeah, I…" He screwed his face up, pretending to think. "I think it was something stupid."

James shrugged. "Well, if you remember…"

"I'll come find you," Harry promised.

His father left a few moments later. Harry sat by himself a while, letting the dull roar of the other students wash over him, chuckling a little when Old Bones came in on his magic carpet, in high good spirits, swooping over everyone, laughing, his hair sticking out in every direction. In an odd way, he was similar to Old Bones, who had a family but was estranged from it. Would becoming a Peverell in every legal sense be a sort of estrangement?

Harry didn't know the answer to that question, and there was only one other person he could ask, one other person who might understand, but it was the one person with whom Harry was beginning to fear he was well and truly estranged from.

HPHPHPHPHPHP

The night before their appointment at the Ministry, Harry paced his small bedroom. No one else had gone to bed; this close to the common room, the noise was unavoidable. For the first time in a while, he had gone to his room before he and Ginny had had a chance to say a proper good night to each other, but the day of hammering out the details of his fictional background had given him a head that ached. And — if he were to be honest with himself — there was an ache lower, in the vicinity of his chest, that felt like his establishment of a proper wizarding identity was a betrayal of his parents, of whom he was proud.

Harry paused in his pacing. His thoughts had, perhaps inevitably, led to Sirius the Elder, whom he had neither seen nor spoken to since Halloween night and their trip to Nurmengard. Apart from Ginny, Sirius was the only one who would understand.

Then he was kneeling on the slightly uneven floorboards, wand in hand, breaking the small charms that had kept his most secret possessions safe. His fingertips touched the Marauder's Map first; shunted it aside and got caught up in the slippery fabric of his invisibility cloak. Tangled up in it was the cold, hard surface of the mirror.

Harry pulled it out, eyeing it, rolling it between his palms. Indecision gripped him for an instant. Then, in a firm voice, he said: "Show me Sirius." The reflection went milky. "Show me Sirius," he commanded. "Show me Sol Black."

The milky fog cleared. Harry was now peering into a room not his own. He recognized it from the days he'd spent there over the summer — the days when he was not helping Fleamont Potter. It was Sirius's sitting room, which was nearly as barren as it had been last time Harry had seen it. The only addition to the furniture was a spindly-legged chair.

"Sirius?" Harry called. "Sirius!"

For a moment, Harry experienced a sense of vertigo. The memory of kneeling in Umbridge's office, desperate to talk to Sirius, intruded so forcefully into his mind that he might have been there, back in 1996. The sensation passed as quickly as it had come, leaving only a slight dizziness that translated itself into a headache. Rubbing at his scar, he frowned. Was Sirius there and ignoring him? Was he sitting somewhere just out of the mirror's range, silent as a stone, waiting for Harry to give up?

These thoughts crowded together, until the pain in his head tripled.

"Sirius, if you're there…" His voice trailed away. Harry forced it louder. "Sirius, if you're there, please talk to me."

No one answered. There was no hint of movement in the room beyond the mirror. Harry grew convinced that his godfather was not there. And of course he isn't, he told himself. Sirius wouldn't just ignore me like that. But there remained a tiny suspicion that kept him peering into the sitting room for another ten minutes before he finally broke the connection.

It was some time later that he went to Ginny.

It was late enough that the common room was emptied of other Gryffindors, except one, who'd fallen asleep with her head on a textbook, stretched out on a sofa, her snores audible over the crackling of the fire. Harry watched her for a moment, but she did not show any signs of waking. Wishing he'd thought to bring the invisibility cloak, he knocked on Ginny's door. Wake up, wake up, wake up, he urged.

One of the logs dropped in the fire, sending a spray of sparks at the same moment a bleary-eyed, tousled Ginny opened her door.

"Can I come in?" he whispered.

"Yeah," she said, opening the door wider.

She crawled into her bed, then patted the space next to her, inviting him to join her under the covers. Despite his worry, excitement fizzled in his veins. Giving his head a shake to clear it, Harry joined her, still wearing his dressing gown.

"I don't know if I really want to do it," he said in the darkness.

Her arms wound around him. "I th-thought you might not," she said.

"I just… it feels a little…"

"It's just a story we're telling, to me," said Ginny.

Harry thought of the hours they'd spent in Dumbledore's office, concocting a plausible origin that was both magical and detailed.

"All right," she said gustily, "it's a little more complicated than just a story."

Harry let out a reluctant chuckle.

"But I don't think of Arnold and Mary Peverell as anyone other than my parents, just given a fictitious existence," said Ginny, rising up on one elbow. A sliver of moonlight fell on her cheek. Harry brushed a tendril of her hair out of her face, smoothing it behind her ear. "And you've given your fake parents the names Ron and Hermione, so there's–"

"-some sort of emotional tie there, yeah," said Harry, as she fell back into his arms. "Dunno. It just feels like bad luck."

"It's different for me," Ginny said, with a giant yawn. "I don't have a problem because really – the parents I kn-kn-know aren't here…"

"And mine are," said Harry. There was a comforting familiarity to the question. Something inside him had eased, leaving him to marvel that he was here, in bed, with Ginny wrapped all around him. "So you don't think it's like… denying them?"

"No." Her breath tickled his neck as she sighed.

Instead of questioning her further, Harry held her tighter, kissing her on the lips, burrowing them both further under the covers. With one hand, he tugged the yellow blanket – the one her mother had knitted unknowingly for her daughter – higher up over them. His hands trembled, but he hid them under the covers before she noticed. They had never been so horizontal together before; Harry could not help the places to which his mind was going. It did not take long for arousal to totally blot out worry, not with the way her arm was draped over him, her body pressed against his, and her breath tickling his neck.

Harry kissed her again, tentative, sliding his tongue along the seam of her lips.

Pulling back, he whispered: "Ginny?"

But it was only a soft, sleepy snore that answered him.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHP

The day of their appointment dawned early; Harry barely managed to fill his orbs in time, aside from the one he'd done with Ginny. He hoped that the Ministry official would not take it amiss that his memories were not going to be nearly as creative nor clever as Ginny's. As they came in and presented Dumbledore with the orbs, he gave them a crisp nod.

"Should you choose to back out," said Dumbledore, "now is the time to do so."

Harry thought about it. After his attempt to speak with Sirius last night through their charmed mirrors, Harry had continued to pace. On the one hand, it had felt like a betrayal, on the other hand, it was a sensible choice; due to Harry's own actions, they were likely to stay in the past for even longer. "I'm not going to back out," he said, finally. "I realized last night that I wasn't… trying to pretend they – my parents – don't matter."

"We're just doing it for practical reasons," said Ginny, following along his train of thought.

"Exactly," said Harry.

"Well-reasoned," said Dumbledore, quite cheerful. His wand rose in the air; a long scroll formed at the tip and plopped out to land on his desk, unfurling as it did so. "And now," said Dumbledore, "I've just a small charm to perform. And," he said, looking a bit grave, "I will need a bit of your blood."

"Our blood?" said Harry.

"It will need to be sealed," explained Dumbledore, though this was hardly an explanation at all. "All it will take is a small dab from each of you."

Harry looked down at the scroll, which hardly seemed so benign anymore. "All right," he said, finally.

Small pins were handed to each of them. Harry stuck his in the soft, fleshy part of his thumb, then pressed it under his name. The parchment seemed to drink it, and it glowed a moment. The same occurred when Ginny pressed her thumb down beside her name. The air around it thrummed with a subtle power. Harry relaxed only when the power faded, sinking into his chair.

"And the charm," Dumbledore said quietly. The orbs swirled in the air, becoming a silvery sort of mist, like a gaseous form of the memory liquid. Harry's hands clenched together, as it went in his ears, and an oily slick of memory – vaguely featured parents hugging him as his own parents had hugged Nimue, taking walks on the cliff with his family, the great storm that was Ginny's idea – covered the surface layer of his thoughts. And then they were there, within him, a fantasy made a step toward real.

It was the oddest feeling, when Dumbledore's wand pressed lightly on Harry's wrist. The old enchantment, that had him looking like someone who was not at all related to James Potter, rippled over him; Harry felt it like a physical thing. His heart gave a great thump as Dumbledore said a word that Harry didn't recognize.

There had been many moments in his childhood when Dudley Dursley had made sport of him: forcing him to play hide and seek with him and his neighborhood friends. It was never a happy outcome when Harry was found by Dudley's gang. His heart would thunder in his chest as he tried to find a place where they couldn't find him – he'd once lost himself so well that Uncle Vernon had locked him in a cupboard for a week for troubling them when the other kids couldn't find Harry and had come to complain to the adults about it. It was that exact feeling that was resurrected within Harry at that moment: he was hiding something, he was hiding himself.

After a taut moment where part of Harry fought it, he forced himself to let go. His shoulders sagged in relief as Dumbledore dropped his wrist and moved away from him.

"Well," said Dumbledore, clapping his hands, and giving them very little time to process what had just happened, "we've an appointment at the Ministry that we're about to be late for. Shall we be off?"

"Erm, right," said Harry, coming to his feet on legs that shook. "Right. Let's go."

HPHPHPHPHPHPHP

It had been a year and a half since Harry had been there. None of the circumstances of his visits to the Ministry of Magic had been pleasant: first, he'd gone on trial due to his use of the Patronus Charm; then, he'd gone on what he'd thought was a rescue mission, but had ended up being an ambush. Glancing over at Ginny, he could not help but remember that that instance was the beginning of all of this. His gaze lingered on her face, turned away from his, marking the hollows in her cheeks that had appeared some time during her sleep, and had never really gone away.

Ginny looked older.

This niggled at him all the way to the lifts, following in Dumbledore's wake. It took on a sort of formless weight that was neither guilt nor grief, longing or desire. Just a quiet, continuous understanding that they were growing older here in the past, and that Harry was, at the heart of it, complicit.

It was not the opening of the lift door that broke through the cloud; nor was it Dumbledore's stepping into it. It was a familiar though unwelcome voice, that had Harry twisting around, lips pressing together, the old scar on his hand throbbing with remembered pain. I must not tell lies. The words sliced through his thoughts; they fell away, forgotten for now. For there, with the unlikely companion of a rather dogged-looking Peter Pettigrew, was Dolores Umbridge.

"—improper use of Ministry time," she was saying.

A muscle in Harry's cheek twitched. Unlike Ginny, Umbridge had aged backward. This had not made her any less toad-like; if anything, her relative youth had her looking more amphibian. The bow atop her head was ever-so-slightly, deliberately set askew.

"Be sure to remind me after my meeting with the Junior Undersecretary to the Minister," she said, seeming to swell with self-importance. "Do be a good boy, Petty."

Peter, who seemed numb, only nodded.

Ginny stirred beside him. "Poor Peter," she said, under her breath.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. Harry forced himself onto the lift, surprised to find his hand had gone to his wand. Umbridge and Peter followed; she was now staring at Dumbledore as though he were a tasty morsel.

"Dumbledore!" she said, thick lips forming an unctuous grin.

Slightly taken aback, Harry maneuvered to the back of the lift. In 1996, Umbridge had had a very thin veil over her contempt for Dumbledore, which had grown thinner over the course of the year until she had participated in the attempt to arrest him. Now, she seemed almost dazzlingly pleasant, speaking to Dumbledore as she might have Fudge. But Harry knew where to look: there was a coldness in her flat black stare.

"—headed?"

"To the Department of Births and Records," said Dumbledore. "And you?"

"I've a meeting with the Junior Undersecretary to the Minister," she said.

"And what was it you said before?" Dumbledore inquired, still quite cordial. "About improper use of Ministry resources?"

Umbridge's eyelids flickered. "Oh, I'm quite sure it's—"

But Peter Pettigrew interrupted. "It was just a fellow wanting to make a few sickles," he said. There was an edge to his usually mild tone that startled Harry, drawing his attention away from his future tormentor and toward one of his father's oldest friends. "He's set about handing out advertisements for some sort of business – as though people can't charm their own homes."

Umbridge tittered. There was no amusement in it. "Ah, Dumbledore," she said. "You did not – quite – teach Petty here not to interrupt."

"Isn't his name Pettigrew?" Harry asked. "It's Pettigrew, isn't it, Peter?"

Peter had turned red in the face. Umbridge seemed too astonished to say anything.

It was Ginny who cut in. "How are you anyway, Peter? It's been ages… You and yours came through the pox okay, then?"

"We did okay," said Peter, with a fleeting glance at Umbridge. Harry was bolstered to see there was resentment there. "Finished up NEWTs… Got a job here—"

"Hem hem," said Umbridge. "Perhaps we can endeavor to socialize with our friends when we are not at work?" With a hard, fleeting stare at Harry, she added: "Petty. You've an owl, I know."

The lift doors whooshed open. Umbridge fluttered with insincere well-wishing, all aimed toward Dumbledore; Peter was quiet, but managed a "Tell James and the others I said hello". When the doors closed behind them, there was almost a palpable sense of relief in the air.

"Nasty woman," Ginny said casually, startling Harry into a laugh.

Dumbledore appeared distracted. At one time, he might have admonished them to show her some little respect; but that would be far in the future. Now, he did not seem to care that Harry and Ginny did not like her, and were not afraid to make that plain. The wound on his hand was still throbbing. Again, the sentence he'd been forced to carve into the back of his own hand again and again flitted through his thoughts. I must not tell lies.

And the lies he was about to tell to a Ministry official were just about the biggest lies he could think of. Instead of this quelling him, Harry now felt almost eager to do it, to rebel against Umbridge and her admonishments. He said as much to Ginny, in a whisper, and it was his turn to make her laugh. Some of the tension he'd felt in his shoulders since Dumbledore had solidified his idea went out of his shoulders. It was properly subversive, what they were doing, wasn't it? Just like creating Dumbledore's Army under Umbridge's nose…

There was a quiet ding and the lift doors opened once more. They were on the very highest floor of the Ministry – at least, it was the highest level the lift visited. There was a windy sort of feel to the place, which was odd, as Harry knew they were underground. But paper airplanes winged by in a proper stream, buffered by an unseen wind. Whereas most floors had an open feel to them, this one was cramped and tight. Harry could only see three desks, at which only two people were working, though it was difficult to see them. There were mounds of paperwork surrounding them. The third, a wizard, rushed toward them, arm out-stretched for a handshake.

"Professor Dumbledore!" he said, clearly delighted. "You are here!"

"Did you think I wouldn't be, Dane?" Dumbledore asked, just as clearly amused. "I was the one who set the appointment, was I not?"

Dane waved his hand. "We had a bet on, you see – Cornelius, you owe me a galleon!"

Startled, Harry glanced over to realize it was a much-younger Fudge who sat behind one of the towering stacks of parchment. A bowler hat perched on top one of them, threatening to topple it over. He made an amused sound of disgust. "And so I do!"

Bemused, Harry exchanged a glance with Ginny.

"It's a trick, you see." Dane was answering the unspoken question that hung in the air. "People will set up an appointment, pretending it's from someone important, then the lift doors open and – no, it's just someone who wanted to jump the line." He said all of this very fast, jerking his chin toward one side of the room to the other.

"Hmm," said Dumbledore.

There was enough censure in his tone that the wizard before them seemed to deflate. "We try to accommodate all of them," he said, with a hint of a whine.

"I'm certain you do." Dumbledore nodded, gesturing toward Harry and Ginny. "And we three would like to thank you for holding an appointment open for us. We are much obliged. Is there an office to which we might go, or should you conduct your interview here?"

Dane accepted the prodding. "Come, come," he said, still genial. He led them to a small door, opening it to reveal a tiny room that had a table, two chairs, and shelving with even more stacks upon it. Part office, part storage room, it was cramped with all four of them in it. To his surprise, he found scorch marks on the floor. Some people were unhappy with their interviews, he thought.

"So," Dane said, with bright, keen-eyed interest, as Dumbledore conjured two more chairs, "how can I help you? Your letter mentioned that these two are Peverells?"

"Indeed," said Dumbledore.

"And you have proof of this?"

The back of Harry's neck prickled, and he tried to fix his face into a look as innocent as possible. They had worked for this; they'd even created a false layer of memories, dim ones, of false parents and upbringing on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. A complicated feeling rose up within him; with effort, he tamped it down.

"Indeed we do," said Dumbledore, pulling out the falsified Peverell family tree, and smoothing it on his lap. No longer plain and white, it was filled with names and magical filigree. Harry's stomach churned and he fought a grimace.

"Well!" said Dane, blinking his eyes. "That's that, mostly settled! Your parents must have kept it all this time?" This, he asked of Harry and Ginny.

"Separate parents," said Ginny, voice slightly loud. "Erm, I mean, my family kept the tree…"

"You only need the one, if you're both on there," agreed Dane, quite charitably. "Cousins, I expect?"

"Yeah," said Harry, "but distant ones."

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "I'm happy to see this is less complicated than I expected," he cut in smoothly. "Who knew that a couple Peverell cousins left our shores several hundred years ago, and went on to create an entirely hidden line?" He chuckled a little. "My great-grandfather knew a Peverell, you know, one of the last. They always were adventurous."

"According to the stories, they certainly were!" Dane boomed. He was tapping his wand on the family tree, prodding it to rise from the parchment; roots spread out, and a tree formed, shooting up toward the ceiling. Fascinated, Harry watched as branches unfurled and fruit formed, bearing names. "It's all here!" he said. "You've no idea how many times we've seen faked trees…"

"Ah?" Harry inquired.

Dane cut him a sidelong look. "Well, we can't really blame them, but–"

Again, Dumbledore cleared his throat. Dane subsided, a faint blush climbing into his cheeks. "And, well, I've things to ask you."

Harry had been expecting an interview, but it was even more thorough than he expected. He was questioned on his parents, his grandparents, and his great-grandparents: he only faltered a couple of times, but Dane seemed to take that in stride, commenting that he didn't know the names of all of his great-grandparents either. But Ginny delivered her lies smoothly and with candor, adding personal spice to Harry's own, slightly-wooden recital. He could not help but be impressed. When she spoke, the leaves on the family tree rustled…

"Well," said Dane, at last. "That's good enough for me."

Ginny smiled warmly. "It's a pleasure to think of them again," she said.

Harry coughed. "I hadn't thought of them in years."

"I understand," said Dumbledore.

For the first time, Dane's face fell into less congenial and more sorrowful lines. "I would that… if I could only…" His words fell away. Harry watched him, curious.

"I do," Dumbledore said gently.

Dane's shoulders slumped. "If only every meeting were so easy," he murmured. Abruptly, he pulled himself upward; the sorrow might as well have been vanished by his wand. "And you two! Even more distant cousins than I supposed"-Harry exchanged a laughing glance with Ginny–"and all we've got to do is a quick, painless little charm." He stood, coming to stand behind them. His wand was short and rather stout, almost a small club. "This is just Ministry confirmation that you are who you say you are… it stands up even to any sort of transfiguration – even Polyjuice!"

"So people can't permanently steal someone else's identity?" Harry asked.

"Not if they need anything from the Ministry," said Dane. "It's… oh, almost a magical signature. No need to worry, if you ever have to get official paperwork–"

"He's getting his Apparition license today," said Ginny, "and we've got to find a place to live."

"That will do it."

Dane then rapped his wand on Harry's head. There was an immediate feeling of an egg being cracked. The falsified memories swirled within his thoughts, responding to the pressure of Dane's wand, swirling upward to meet it in a sensation that made Harry's stomach swoop. They were falling, falling out of him, slipping through his fingertips. A sudden worry had his hands clenched around the armrests. What if–? But the door within his mind remained locked, closed tight, and unperturbed by the Ministry spell…

After another moment, it stopped.

Harry gasped out a breath, and forced his hands to loosen their grip. Grimacing, he rubbed at his head.

"Not pleasant, is it?" Dane asked, clucking with sympathy. This did not prevent him from doing it to Ginny, whose face screwed up in a grimace, color flooding her cheeks. "But it's only this once, I promise. There. That's both of you done! And in such a short amount of time, too, I'd blocked out two hours for this!"

"I've found things proceed smoothly if I've come fully prepared," said Dumbledore.

"Yes, yes, quite, quite," said Dane, flashing a grin. "Again, if all of my appointments were so smooth…"

"I understand," said Dumbledore, rising to his feet, and gesturing to Harry and Ginny. "We will take their family tree, now."

"You may want to take it over to the Halls of Heritage," Dane suggested.

He seemed to expect some sort of answer, so Harry shrugged. He did not know what, precisely, the Halls of Heritage were, but he expected them to be some sort of museum to pureblooded supremacy. He would not go there unless he absolutely had to, and not a moment before. He and Ginny murmured their thanks, trailing after Dumbledore's sweeping figure. Cornelius Fudge tossed them a kindly sort of wave, just as the lift doors opened.

They had, without any issue, established completely false identities with the Ministry of Magic. With a small smile, Harry rubbed his thumb over the scar on his hand.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHP

"It is done," said Dumbledore.

Harry's shoulders had relaxed the moment they exited the Ministry of Magic. His Apparition license was tucked inside his robes; he'd been Apparating regularly since the summer, after Sirius had taught him. It was nice to know that he would be doing it legally from now on.

"I'll teach you," he promised Ginny, who was still frowning. "It's not that difficult."

"Thanks," she said, brow clearing.

"Have you thought of where you should like to live?" Dumbledore asked, once they were well away from the Muggle telephone box that led to the Ministry of Magic.

Harry had done very little but think about it for the last few days, ever since their plans for establishing real, true identities in 1978 had come together. "I don't know," he admitted, glancing behind his shoulder, then performing the Muffliato charm. "I really don't. But I…" His shoulder blades twitched and he shook his head. "Maybe not in town?" he suggested.

"That leaves the entire British countryside," Ginny said wryly.

"Well, where do you want to live?" Harry countered. When she shrugged, he laughed. "See? It isn't so easy after all." His smile faltered. "Would you want to live near the Burrow?"

"I honestly… well, it's rather isolated, isn't it?" Ginny said. "I think I might rather Hogsmeade or Godric's Hollow."

"But not in the town," said Harry. "Right?"

"There is, in fact, a house not too far from your grandparents's home," said Dumbledore. "It would require no small amount of work, but I can help with that. It is located near enough to Godric's Hollow that you will not feel so isolated as you would should you choose a place near the Burrow. But it is far away enough that you will not be living atop other witches and wizards." If he was curious as to why Harry did not want to live so close to town, it was well hidden.

Harry did not expect that the witches and wizards living on the fairly crowded streets of Godric's Hollow would be much different than the Muggles who lived on Privet Drive. They would peer out their windows, notice his comings and goings, and learn his habits. It was the neighborly thing to do, after all. But what did Harry know of their allegiances? There was no reason why a Death Eater could not live alongside everyone else in Godric's Hollow.

Mindful of Ginny, he murmured, "It doesn't have to be Godric's Hollow… it could be Hogsmeade… or surely there's other wizarding areas in Devon.""

Ginny tugged on the sleeve of his robe. Harry halted. "I appreciate what you're doing," she said in a low voice. "But as much as I would love to live near the Burrow – would love to live in the Burrow, in fact… Harry, I think it might be painful to be – to just be their neighbors. It's not just because of the isolation."

Harry searched her face, looking for a sign that she was being selfless so that he could live nearer to his parents. But there was no such indication, just a gentle steadiness. Were Dumbledore not standing near them, Harry would have kissed her. Still…

"I'm certain, Harry," she added, exasperated and amused. "Just teach me to Apparate, and distance won't matter at all, will it?"

"No," Harry said. "It won't."

"So what's this house in Godric's Hollow?" Ginny asked, directing this question at Dumbledore.

"In fact, even from the time I was a teenager and first moved there, it was empty and rumored to be haunted," said Dumbledore, with great good cheer. They walked again, across the street, inviting the gobsmacked stares of the Muggles, who seemed surprised by their dress.

"Is it?" Ginny asked curiously.

"Naturally," said Dumbledore.

Harry laughed. "It'll be like still living at Hogwarts." He looked at Ginny. "Would you mind?"

Ginny shook her head. "I lived with a ghoul, remember? Ghosts will be easy."

"And six brothers," said Harry.

"Six!" said Dumbledore, astonished. "Dear me!"

They were still discussing it when they reached Hogsmeade.

"If you'll excuse me," said Dumbledore, "I've another meeting to get to."

"Where, sir?" Harry asked, curious.

Dumbledore gave him a long look. "At an orphanage," he said, finally. "And I am late. I do bid you two a good evening."

Once Dumbledore had strode away, wizard's hat pointed straight upward toward the darkening sky, Harry caught Ginny's hand and pulled her off to the side. This late in the afternoon, the walk from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts was empty of people. Still, Harry did not want any prying eyes to see them. Once hidden by the leaves and branches of the tangled wood – though they were careful not to stray too far into it – Harry wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair.

Her touch was gentle on his back, stroking away tension he hadn't known was there. It seeped out of him, down through his feet, into the earth below. Tracing a finger along her spine, Harry hoped he did the same for her. Pulling away a little, he looked down at her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I am," she said. "Did it… what did it feel like to you?"

Harry huffed out a breath. "I can't describe it," he confessed.

"I felt like I was hiding something," she said, brushing her thumb along his jaw, setting it to tingling in the wake of her touch. "I mean, I was hiding something. The entire interview was a lie–"

"And you did very well," said Harry, who remembered how impressed he'd been. "I think you were even better than Dumbledore."

"Thank you," she said, smirking a little. "You can thank Fred and George for that. I was always their look-out when they were doing something they didn't want Mum to know about. Ron never kept a cool enough head." For a moment, her expression faltered, crumbling into something like despair. The playful lilt was gone when she added, in a flat voice, "He never could stop his face from turning red."

Harry jostled her a little in his arms. "And yet," he said, "I seem to remember you blushing quite a lot."

This coaxed a smile from her. "Well, that was different," she said, sheepish. "That was you."

Harry kissed her again, slowly, brushing his lips against hers and drawing her up tighter against him. An image of her, seated across from him in the kitchen of the Burrow, face glowing red as a sunset, her elbow in a butter dish, flitted across his thoughts. Drawing back again, letting their breaths mingle together, Harry pressed his forehead against hers and squeezed his eyes shut.

"I'm sorry," he said finally.

"For what?" she asked, suspicious.

"I know how much you miss them," Harry offered. Sirius's anger with him, even weeks after, was nearly a palpable thing. Grimacing, he repeated Sirius's words to her, "We might have been home by now… back in the future. Where we – you – belong. It might've been that easy."

"It might have been," said Ginny, solemn eyes on his. "But it might have been a waste of a trip. I might still be asleep. I think I still would be. Do you regret it, Harry?"

"No," he said, without thinking. "Maybe I regret… not telling Sirius what I was about, but I don't think he would've let me go."

Her fingertip rested on his bottom lip. "You don't have to explain yourself to me," she said. "I think you made the right choice – I'm biased, maybe. And I still have hope that we'll get there – we'll get home again. We can make a different home here for a little while… it won't be the same. Ginevra Peverell doesn't exist any more than Arnold and Mary Peverell ever did."

"It felt strange, though, when Dumbledore did the charm, didn't it?" Harry murmured.

"Yes," said Ginny, "Like a lock being clicked…"

Harry didn't mention that a part of him had wrestled with that metaphorical lock, making the experience nearly painful; he also didn't mention that another part of him had slithered into hiding, nearly grateful for the ability to hide behind the Peverell name. Instead, Harry kissed her again, wanting a break from the discussion. She went along with him, offering him comfort in the form of kisses, until it was well and truly dark, and a bitter wind had found them, even nestled as they were in the shelter of the woods.

"Ready?" she said finally as they broke apart. She lit her wand and held it up to her face. "Do I look a mess?"

"You look like you've been having a snog," Harry admitted. Her lips were beestung, her cheeks pink, and there was a sort of bleary, slumberous look in her eyes that he did not think had anything to do with the Draught of Living Death.

A swat landed lightly on his shoulder. "You don't need to grin about it," she said, rather hypocritically, for there was quite a large smile on her face.

"Oh, I think I do," he said, offering her his arm. Together, they waded through the underbrush and plunged onto the road to Hogwarts once more. Ginny cleared them both of debris, sending twigs and damp leaves spinning back to the woods behind them.

By the time they reached the castle, it was a great relief to step into the warmth. When the doors opened, Harry felt the charms that heated the stones splash over him. It was not quite what Ginny did, whose warmth seemed to reach further places, but it was enough that he was quite cheerful as they reached the Fat Lady.

"Onyx tears," he said, confident.

"No," said the Fat Lady, holding up her hand. "That is not the password."

"It's changed only just this morning," said Ginny, "I only just heard it as I left. It's 'Pigwidgeon'."

"But – Pigwideon?" Harry asked, thinking of Ron's tiny, hyper owl as the Fat Lady swung open. "Did you tell her about him?"

"No," said Ginny, shaking her head. "Pigwidgeon was named for a character in an old Agnette book, set at Hogwarts."

"An owl?" Harry asked, curious.

"No, a wizard," Ginny said wickedly. "It's… they're famous. Pig was the hero's best mate, but he was a bit of a clod."

Harry was still laughing as he crawled out of the portrait hole. No wonder Ron had been in such high dudgeon about the name his sister had given his owl.

"You are in a better mood than I usually am after the Ministry."

The first to greet them was Sirius, who waved at them from his seat opposite Remus. In his hand were Exploding Snap cards; one of them exploded with a bang, ash flying everywhere.

Harry pulled his Apparition license out of his pocket. "Because I've got this!" he said, waving it around. "Now I can finally Apparate…"

"Haven't you been doing that for a while now?" Remus asked, scooping up his winnings, ignoring a now-scowling Sirius.

"Yes, but now he can do it with Ministry approval," explained Ginny.

This made the others laugh appreciatively. Like had become normal in the last little while, his parents and their friends had claimed the coziest corner of the Gryffindor common room as their own. Harry plopped down in the armchair set next to the fire, which had been held open for him, he supposed, and looked at his license again. Though he'd been Apparating since the elder Sirius had taught him how, there was something different about seeing it on thick, unbreakable parchment with the Ministry's stamp of approval.

"Congratulations," said Lily. "But Ginny, where's yours?"

"Haven't learned yet," said Ginny. "I was napping while Harry learned the trick of it; Harry said he'd teach me."

"He's a good brother," Lily said. "I'm sure he'll teach you in no time."

It was with a nearly audible snap that his gaze met Ginny's for a fleeting instant. But remembering Remus's presence, Harry forced himself to cross his ankles and stretch his hands over his head. "We saw Peter… he says hello, and he's sorry he hasn't made it up here yet—"

"We saw him in Godric's Hollow," Sirius said warmly. "He doesn't need to come check on the eighth-years. Though, I've got to admit, it's hard to believe little Pete graduated before us."

"It is strange," mused Remus. "He's doing well, then?"

There was a pause then. Quiet filtered in, seemingly heightened by the murmurs of the other students around them. In truth, Harry hadn't thought much about Peter Pettigrew at all in the last months, a fact that made him feel obscurely guilty. He could tell the others might have felt the same way, the way they were all peering around at each other.

"We'll all have to go down to London over Christmas to see him," Lily announced.

"We could," said James, dropping his arm down and squeezing her closer to him. There was a funny sort of look on his face, as though his face had blurred somewhat at the edges, softening the narrow points of his face. His voice dropped into a lower timbre, though still audible: "Or… we could invite him to Godric's Hollow."

Lily was even more curious than Harry, she leaned back, smirking at James. "For the pantomime?" she teased. "Your mum's still making you do it this year?"

"No," James said. "Well, yes, probably. But… I thought… we could have a… party. You and me."

"A party?" Lily repeated, brow furrowing. "For Christmas? New Year's?"

"If you want," he said.

Sirius, who seemed to have sensed something Harry hadn't, groaned. "James! We talked about this!"

A quick gesture, and Sirius now had a gag in his mouth, and was making outraged noises.

"I thought we could…" James swallowed. Another gesture, this time with a hand that shook so much that Harry could see the tremors from feet away.

"We could… what?" Lily asked softly. "James, what is it?"

Wordless now, James opened his hand, revealing something glinting on his palm. Harry shifted, leaning forward, a surge of adrenaline running through him. Ginny was equally stunned, eyes widening, glinting nearly as brightly as the ring his father was holding out to his mother.

"James!"

Remus laughed, one bright sound, before clapping his hand over his mouth.

Lily was nearly unstrung. "James," she repeated, "this had better not be one of your pranks."

"I'd be offended," James told her, "but I know you know it isn't a prank. I would never—"

"—I know—"

"I know we're young," said James. Sirius, still gagged, managed to make a scoffing sound. "But Lily…" He swallowed. "I know."

Harry thought that might not be a full explanation — or proposal — but the way his mother's face softened in nearly the same way his father's had a few minutes previously. Slowly, emerald green eyes brightened; when his mother's tears spilled over, Harry looked away. There had been another private moment between them that he'd witnessed. This was not the same, but still… there was an intimacy in the way they looked at one another, both laughing and teary-eyed and now giving each other fluttery little kisses.

"Did she even say yes?" Remus asked.

"Oh!" said Lily. "Oh James. I know too."

"Then put on that ring," said James.

Sirius finally managed to spit the gag out of his mouth. "You two," he groaned. "You're not even—"

"Didn't you tell me once that your grandfather had your mother when he was thirteen years old?" Remus asked, clapping him on the shoulder. "By Black standards, James and Lily are ancient."

Harry leaned back in his chair, ruffling his hair, no longer awkward at looking at his parents, who had regained some of their usual aplomb. The ring was on her finger; the two of them looked down at it, ignoring everyone else. A sense of displacement filled him. Today — when he had hidden his true self within Dumbledore's safe charm, further distancing himself from the Potter name and family — he was witnessing the spark of creation of his actual family.

Coughing out a lump in his throat, he took the goblet Remus had conjured. They toasted his parents, then, as Harry watched in wonder. This is it, he thought, this is where they begin to be a family.

Ginny tipped her own goblet toward him, with a tiny smile and an even tinier dip of her head. I understand, she told him silently, as clearly as though she said it out loud.