Harry had forgotten how uncomfortable muggle clothing could be. Years in wizard robes had acclimated him to looser outfits, longer sleeves, and softer fabrics. Now that he was wearing a jumper and jeans, he fought the urge to constantly scratch himself.

He looked towards the front of the bus, trying to figure out how long he'd been riding. Three hours? 800 years? He couldn't tell, since he was crushed between three passengers, and barely kept his balance by hanging on to a handrail.

Would anyone notice if he apparated?

He glanced around as he reached into his back pocket for the comfortable curve of his wand. It still felt wrong in his hand, almost like it was sulking since he used avada kadavara months ago. There was no guarantee it would work as it used to, which could lead to disaster. Harry sighed and let go of his wand.

Apparition was banned in Glasgow, anyway. It was the one muggle-only enclave in Britain; the city had been plagued by magic-caused accidents throughout the centuries. In 1851, after countless shipwrecks, plagues and explosions, the muggle Prime Minister had made a formal complaint to the Minister for Magic.

In response, the Ministry of Magic had passed a flurry of restrictions. Within the city limits, magic folk could no longer live, cast spells, wear traditional wizarding clothing, or use wizard money.

In other words, Harry Potter had to take the bus. The normal, slow, malodorous, muggle bus.

When he told Mr. Weasely he was visiting Glasgow, he'd suggested Harry get a cell phone and call "one of those new rideshare things." Harry refused. He'd heard rumors the phones were cursed to drain their owner's life force.

On the bus, however, he wished he'd bought one; it would have told him where he was. As the streets passed by, he realized he wasn't sure where his stop was. He looked up at a map posted above the door, but it was a meaningless tangle of brightly colored lines.

He turned to the passenger crushing him from his left, a large man with a tattoo of an eagle on his throat.

"Sorry, can you tell me where the Blairdardie stop is?"

As the man stared down at him, the eagle disappeared under his chin.

"You just missed it, mate."

With one huge hand, he reached out and pulled a cord by the window. A bell rang, and the bus skidded to a stop. With his other hand, the large man pushed him out the door with so much force Harry almost fell onto the street.

The bus trundled away, and he took a deep breath. After what seemed an eternity, he'd reached his destination: Ahab's Coffee

Harry knew about Starbucks. He was a tea drinker. He was a wizard who rarely visited muggle stores. But everyone knew about Starbucks.

Ahab's Coffee wasn't Starbucks, but it clearly wanted to be Starbucks. Starbucks had a mermaid logo; Ahab's was a whale. Starbucks baristas wore green aprons and visors; Ahab's wore teal. Starbucks had a carefully planned menu with a constantly rotating (but familiar) array of drinks and snacks.

Ahab's had unplanned chaos. The menu, scrawled on chalkboards on the back wall, was smudged and nearly impossible to read behind steaming espresso machines and the rush of harried workers.

Harry tried to read the choices, but by the time he got to the front of the line, he still had no idea what to order.

"Oh, Harry, you're early!" the woman behind the counter said.

He looked across at her but didn't see her face. His eyes were inextricably drawn to her apron. While the other workers' aprons had one or two pins, hers was covered from top to bottom in them.

There were aliens building the Great Pyramids, moon landings being filmed on Hollywood soundstages, vaccine hypodermics with large red Xs through them, maps of the Earth showing it as a flat disk, and countless more. His eyes zigged back and forth between pins that called for "Free energy now!" and to "End 3G." Together, they formed shiny jigsaw puzzle armor.

Luna. Of course it was Luna.

"I thought…" he said. "When you said to meet you here. I didn't know you worked here. I just thought it was coffee."

"I get a discount," she said, smiling brightly. "What can I get for you?"

He stared behind her at the smudged menu and shrugged.

"Not much of a coffee drinker, are you?"

He shook his head. "More of a tea with cream and sugar drinker."

"We do have tea, but… Do you trust me?"

He did trust her. He always did. In spite of her odd beliefs, he knew he could trust her opinion. There was a strange, kind integrity behind the dreamy smile.

Twenty minutes later, Luna joined him at his seat by the window. She held a drink out to him.

"You have to wait in line?" he said.

"We don't want to show favoritism. What do you think?" she said, gesturing at his drink.

He sipped it and was surprised he liked it. It was mostly milk, with just a hint of coffee. Mostly, it tasted like nutmeg. Yes, he thought, I do indeed trust you. He smiled at her and nodded.

"So, how have you been, Harry?" she said with that generic concern people got when they wanted to know how he was dealing with his grief.

His response was equally generic. "I'm good. One day at a time, you know? How are you? I was a little surprised you were working here. I thought you'd be running The Quibbler."

"I do. Took over after father died, but it's not really a full-time job. I have a couple reporters, a woman who runs the presses. Sometimes freelancers send me stories The Daily Prophet won't publish. It doesn't bring me in a lot of galleons, but that and this job cover my mortgage."

"You live in Glasgow?"

She quirked a smile at him. "I live outside the city limits, but it's only a couple blocks away." She gestured out the window.

They were interrupted by an older woman who asked Luna the code to the bathroom.

"How are the kids doing, Harry?" she said after the woman left.

Harry took his wallet out of his pocket and handed her a picture. It was creased and worn, but you could clearly see four people sitting outside on a picnic blanket. The three kids smiled and laughed as Ginny idly straightened their hair.

"Lily just graduated Hogwarts last year. Albus just got married and, you'll never believe this, to Scorpius Malfoy."

"I believe that," Luna said, running her finger over the creases in the picture.

Harry remembered how Luna pretty much believed everything.

"James is a resident at St. Mungos."

She handed the picture back. "What about Teddy?"

"Oh," Harry said, swapping the picture of his kids for one of Teddy Lupin, nervously adjusting his Hogwarts robes. "He's engaged. Spends most of his time at Grimmauld Place. I think he's trying to make it less gloomy before the wedding. It's a full-time job, especially since Kreacher passed on."

He winced at the memory of him and Ron decapitating the small corpse to place it on the wall with the other honored house elves who'd served the Black family. It was repulsive, but he wanted to respect Kreacher's wishes.

"Any medical issues?" Luna said, taking a sip of her drink.

He took the picture back. "None that I know of. Why?"

"Because of his mom."

Harry stared, confused. "Tonks?"

"She was a metamorphmagus."

Another moment of confusion.

"It's rare for a metamorphmagus, a woman metamorphmagus, to safely carry a child to term." Luna said.

Harry tried to think of something intelligent to say, but all that came out with was a simple question. "It is?"

She tilted her head to the side as if Harry was a peculiar artifact. "Yes. They have to maintain their form. It's like flexing a muscle all day and night for nine months. If they lose their concentration, even for a moment, they'll revert to their birth gender."

Harry's mind sputtered in tiny, confused circles. Luna's eyes widened and she sat back in her seat.

"Harry, didn't you know Tonks was assigned male?"

"She's… She was…" he said. What was the word? "Transgender?"

"I think they all are. Something about their innate magic reacts to their bodies and minds not matching up."

He scoffed, shaking his head. "Teddy's one, too, and he's a boy."

"Oh," she said, slightly surprised. "You were there at his birth? I've never seen a metamorphmagus birth. What was it like?"

Harry hadn't been there. He'd been off searching for horcruxes. Was it possible Teddy started as a girl? A Theodora? Impossible.

Then he remembered how once he'd met Tonks after leaving the Hogwarts express. She'd healed his broken nose and he noticed she looked different. She'd been pining after Lupin and couldn't focus enough to keep up her appearance. She'd become thinner and… Hadn't her face been a little… Hairy…?

It was dark. It could have been a trick of the light.

Then he remembered how Tonks had looked after she married Lupin. Her hair had turned brown, not the crazy blue and pinks she preferred. She might have been pregnant. Had she given up playing with her looks so she could save her energy and concentrate longer on keeping her child safe?

He stared down at Luna's apron, at a pin in the middle that called for the NIH to be replaced by a network of homeopaths. No, she must have been mistaken.

"What's your house like?" Harry said, trying to change the subject.

"Kind of an Art Nouveau/Celtic Revival thing," she said, and Harry had no idea what it meant. "Three bedrooms. Lots of sun. What about you? Same house?"

"Uh, yeah. It's closed up, though. I'm at Hogwarts most of the year," Harry said. "Did you say three bedrooms? Isn't that a lot?"

"I don't live there alone," she said.

He felt an anxious pang in his stomach. Didn't she say she was single the last time they'd met?

Luna reached into her apron and took out three pictures, laying them out on the table between them. Harry stared down at the faces smiling up at them.

"This is Min," she said, pointing to the little girl in the first picture. "She's four. This is Terrell. And this is Suraj. They're both twelve. The boys get one room and Min gets the little one. So, no, the house is just the right size."

Harry stared at the pictures, his eyes moving back and forth across the faces. The smiles, the eyes, the skin: none of them looked like Luna. What surprised him the most, however, was the pictures weren't moving.

"Your children are squibs?" he said.

He flinched a little. It was a rude question he wished he could take back. She didn't seem to take offense.

"They're muggles," she said, then examined his face for a moment and smiled. "Harry, are you feeling okay? I know you were attacked, but was your brain affected?"

Harry frowned at the pictures. Was he missing something? His memory had been affected, but he thought that was all. Had his thinking also been impaired?

Luna pointed from one picture to the next again. "Min's Chinese. Suraj is Indian, and Terrell's parents are from Ghana."

"They're adopted," Harry said, finally understanding.

"Did you really think I had kids from three different fathers, two in the same year?"

Harry wondered how Luna, a single woman with little income, was able to convince the government to let her adopt three children. He decided not to ask.

"Why are you really here, Harry? I've barely seen you in seventeen years. You didn't just want to see me."

Her face had always been hard to read. There was a kind of cheerful dreaminess behind it that was just short of occlumency. This time he could tell what she was feeling. There was a slight paling of her already white skin, the slightest frown, the way her eyes darted downward for a second.

She was disappointed. Sad. No, not just sad. Sorrowful.

"My memory was broken in the attack," he said. "I wasn't just injured, but it gave me a kind of amnesia."

He pulled his hands off the table, worried she might reach out to touch him out of sympathy. She made no move. She just watched him with those protuberant, blue eyes.

"Some of my memories are there, just beneath the surface, but I can't get to them. I see things. Hear things. Recently I've been hearing your voice."

Luna's cheeks flushed pink. He'd never seen her blush before.

"I hear you say 'I know a clarity spell.'"

Luna's entire face turned red. She put a hand on the back of her neck, just below her pony tail sticking out through the back of her visor.

"Harry, that's kind of embarrassing," she said, looking out the window.

"It's important. Your voice won't go away. I hear it over and over again, almost every week. If I don't remember, it'll keep going. And also…" He took a deep breath. "If I can't get my memories back, all of them, I may never remember who attacked me. I'll never know who killed Ginny."

Luna looked back at him. She was still flushed, but it was fading, being replaced by a look of determination.

"This isn't the kind of thing we should talk about in a crowded room," she said.

Moments later, Luna – having shed the glittering apron and visor and carrying an umbrella under her arm – guided him down the streets of Glasgow. It was misty and cold, and he wondered if the flush in her cheeks was from the cold or what they were going to talk about.

There was a strange nervousness building inside him. Whatever happened between them was subconsciously filling him with dread.

"You remember the Battle of Hogwarts?" she said. "Near the end, when Voldemort called us to give you over to him or he'd kill everyone?"

He nodded. He'd gone up to Dumbledore's office with Snape's memories. In the pensieve, he'd learned a piece of Voldemort's soul was embedded in him. The only way to kill Voldemort was to die.

"Neither can live while the other survives," the prophecy said.

When he came back down to the Great Hall, he saw all the dead and the dying. He saw the grieving and pain. It was all because of him. He knew he had to sacrifice himself and left for Voldemort's Clearing.

"I found you by the entrance," Luna said. "You had your invisibility cloak on, but your feet were sticking out. You seemed to be stuck in a loop. You headed towards the doors, then panicked. Staggered backwards a bit. I came over to see if I could help."

He remembered now. He'd passed by Ginny comforting a child, but didn't stop to talk to her. He was afraid what might happen if he did, that she might make him change his mind. No, that had happened outside. Luna must have talked to him before that.

Luna paused for a moment to open her umbrella. She held it above both of them and, like she did in the graveyard, began twirling it. They walked on.

"I asked you what was wrong. You lowered your hood and you looked… Bad. I mean, everyone was dirty and bloody, but your face. You were crying. Scared."

Of course he'd been scared. He had to willingly walk to his own death.

"You said, you had to die, but you didn't want to. That it was the only way, but you were scared. You kept saying 'I have to. I have to.' over and over. Your mind was in chaos. I realized you needed a little clarity."

They turned a corner and Luna stopped near a bank of mailboxes. A large, grey house sat in the middle of a long line of nearly-identical tract homes. The sunset made the windows glow orange. He started towards it, but Luna stopped him with a hand.

"I need your wand, Harry," she said, taking out a small key ring.

Harry defensively reached for his wand.

"You'll get it back," she said, opening a mailbox, "but it's a muggle house. We have muggle rules. No magic. No talking about magic."

He didn't move. The idea of giving his wand away was uncomfortable.

Luna sighed. "I promise you'll get it back. I'm locking it up in here for safety. It's really a story to be told in private."

She pointed. He followed her finger towards the house, then back towards her and the metal box. He drew his wand and put it in.

"Thank you," she said, and closed the little, metal door.

She locked it and then unfastened the tiny key from the ring. She handed it to him. Relieved, he took the key and put it in the pocket where he'd kept his wand.

"Come on, Harry," she said, taking his hand and drawing him in.

The front door creaked open, unleashing a cacophony of shouts. Someone was screaming. Instinctively, he jumped forward to face whatever horror was going on. He was met with a sudden silence and a strange tableau. Two boys in blue pajamas were standing on a couch, each holding the end of a black device the size of a chocolate bar. A little girl was off to the side, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. All three of them stared at him.

"Harry, put that away," Luna said, pushing past him. He realized he was brandishing the mailbox key, in his panic mistaking it for his wand. Embarrassed, he slipped the key back into his pocket.

"Mama Luna!" the boys shouted.

The three children ran to her, the boys grabbing her in hugs, the girl standing a bit away, still bouncing.

"A kiss for you," Luna said, kissing the top of Terrell's head.

"You're early," he said. "Did you get fired?"

"And a kiss for you," she said, kissing Suraj.

"We're too old for kisses," Suraj said, wincing.

"Well, then you get two kisses," she said, kissing his cheek.

She straightened up and looked around the room, confused.

"I'm missing a kiss. What's wrong? Where is my third kiss?"

Min jumped up and down more excitedly. Luna disentangled herself from the boys and stepped over to the little girl. Min was small, and Luna had no trouble swooping down to grab her and lift her over her head before kissing her cheeks. The little girl giggled but still said nothing.

"Now, why are we fighting over the remote?" Luna said, putting down the little girl, who went back to bouncing in place.

The two boys began talking loudly and simultaneously. Harry could barely make out what they were saying. Something about who got to choose what they watched on the television before bed.

"Suraj," Luna said, "did you finish your Python program?"

"It's not a program. It's a script."

"And?"

He looked away. "Almost. I just have to-"

"Almost isn't enough," she said, cutting him off. "Terrell, you agreed to do three portrait studies every day to get into the art program."

Terrell looked downcast. "You got me pastels! I can't work with them. I need markers. Copic markers."

"Finish what you can. Tonight, Min picks the show."

Min giggled and ran over to the couch to retrieve the remote. Suraj looked up at Harry, who was only a little taller than the boy.

"Who's the man with the key?"

"This is my friend Harry. We've known each other since secondary school. We're going upstairs to talk, then I'll come down and tuck you all in. Okay?"

The boys went back to their room. Min sat on the couch, her feet swinging constantly. Luna led Harry upstairs.

It was only then he was able to pause to look at the house. To his surprise, it was a normal, muggle household. The walls were a drab grey-white. It had a small kitchen with electric appliances and harsh, fluorescent lights. The stairs were covered in that thick plastic people put down to keep the carpet from wearing. Upstairs was a small landing with a railing where they could look down on the living room. There were two doors, one to a small master bedroom.

Luna drew him into her bedroom. There were no chairs, so Harry sat awkwardly at the end of the bed while Luna closed the door behind her.

"That day," she said, turning back to him. "You were very upset. Frozen. Unable to move forward or back. I told you I could help. I knew a clarity spell."

He remembered that. His memories were falling back into place in images and snatches. He was drowning. Stuck between fear and determination. Stuck between dying and watching everyone he loved die. Luna reached out to him. She reached out to him, and he clung to her like a lifeline.

"I took you to the cloak room," she said, stepping towards him. "You remember, on the side by the front doors? Nobody actually used it. It was filled with musty old clothes from a hundred years ago. I think the only things that used it were the moth lions."

"Moth lions?"

"You know. They eat moth larvae. They tend to live in old closets where moths lay their eggs."

He didn't know, but decided to let it pass. Talking was distracting him from the memories that were starting to stream through his mind.

She'd led him into the closet: a narrow space made narrower by all the clothes on hangers.

Dust plumed up as he brushed against them. In the back was a small table covered with hats. She swept them aside and hopped up on it.

Then Harry remembered it all.