Chapter Text
When he was ten Harry heard about Voldemort and imagined him being a bit like Emperor Palpatine and possibly falling off a mountain if he wasn’t able to turn good. And then there would be cake.
Voldemort didn’t look like Palpatine and his corpse was still lying where it had fallen, sword sticking out of him and surrounded by the remains of some armours. There wasn’t any cake.
***
Severus hugged Harry for fifteen straight minutes. He felt dizzy with relief and joy. Harry was alive and he was well and the monster was dead. There was no one who wanted to hurt him, no one who wanted to kill him or lure him into getting killed. They were all dead and Harry was alive, with his tangled hair and his smile.
Severus hugged Harry tight and closed his eyes. Then he took Harry by the shoulders, stepped back, and looked him all over, like parents do, quickly checking that there was no sudden subtraction or addition of limbs and other body parts.
But he was fine. Taller than he had been, a bit thinner. Not even scratches or blood stains when everyone in the castle had some.
“These glasses are too small” Severus said as he took Harry’s glasses and examined them. The frames had the paint chipped and there were scratches all over them. He tapped them with this wand to clean the dirt and dust from the lenses.
“Come Monday, I’m taking you to get a new pair.” He told Harry. They were too old and too small for his face anyway.
Harry grinned. As much as Harry was loved by extraordinary people, they were determined to give him an ordinary life. This included tsking over the state of his glasses.
They hugged some more and then they went on their way. There was much to do and he knew, they knew, that no one was going to interfere in their lives ever again.
***
The sun was attempting to break through the little clouds. The castle was oddly warm and everybody was thirsty and tired and a bit cranky. The idea of cleaning up after the battle was a punishment.
Harry went down to the kitchens and got a big bag full of glass bowls. Dobby cried with happiness when he saw him. Kreacher made a point of looking stern and unimpressed but he tried to push Dobby away and give the bag to Harry himself.
It was absurdly hot in the castle so Harry went around greeting people and passing bowls of ice-cream. He had been gone for a year and half and everybody was thirsty and quite tired, so no one stopped to question how exactly he was getting the ice-cream when the bowls in the bag were empty. They focused on greeting him instead.
Harry gave blackberry ice-cream to Bill, who was still looking very handsome. Fleur got raspberry and cream. Draco would get strawberry cheesecake but Harry had to put the bowl on the floor by his feet because he was busy being hugged by Sirius and there was a line of sniffling Slytherins waiting their turn. They all got ice-cream for the wait, green tea and lemon and butter pecan and tangerine. Sirius got an interesting mixture of pineapple, mango and papaya.
(And while they hugged Draco, they also moved him to a different area so he wouldn’t get to see his father’s corpse. It was not a pretty sight.)
He found Hermione on the fourth floor, near the Transfigurations corridor and McGonagall’s office. The corridor was full of debris and rubble, but the office itself was fine. Hermione was sitting on the floor by the door, crying and laughing at the same time. Harry gave her a bowl of orange and chocolate ice-cream with a cookie on top, the first he had gotten.
(Although Draco’s ice-cream had actual pieces of strawberry and cake crust in it).
Hermione waved her hand to acknowledge him but she didn’t say a word, she couldn’t, she had too many emotions choking her. Harry understood it, so he patted her lightly on the head and left her to it.
It was just a cat. It was just a cat but it was Hermione’s cat. Too often people will dismiss and play down the love for one’s pet, but that love is standing and big and solid. It was just a cat but Hermione hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye. You can’t explain to an animal that you didn’t abandon them, that you will return, that you think of them through the day. You are there and then you are not, and for the last year Hermione hadn’t been there. She had taken measures to prevent her parents from the grief of losing her, but there was nothing she could do for Crookshanks.
She stayed on the floor hugging the big orange ball of fury and fur. She buried her face on the fur and closed her eyes and rocked slightly and in that moment she did not have an angry ugly scar on her forearm and she had not been forced to kill anyone. She cried with relief and laughed with joy and ate her ice-cream while Crookshanks licked her chin.
***
Voldemort was dead and everything had come to a halt but there was still much to do. The infirmary remained open and working (there was an exhausted cheer when Madam Pomfrey declared Susan Bones out of danger). There were prisoners in a holding cell and the numbers were increasing as Kingsley made sure that the surviving attackers were arrested, he also had bowl of hazelnut ice-cream and he didn’t know how he had gotten it.
Tonks got vanilla. Harry wasn’t very surprised.
The faces turned into a blur as Harry went around the castle. He remembered giving something with caramel to Dean Thomas and him hugging Harry and laughing madly and kissing Harry because that was their joke now. He remembered seeing Luna and being oddly relieved that she was stansing. (Her flavour was mango).
Lavender Brown looked very pale and was full of crisscrossing red lines. She was in bed, with her eyes closed. The bowl Harry left on her bedside was snow white and smelled of flowers. It did not melt even though it took hours for her to wake up.
The twins were sitting on the stairs with Lee Jordan between them. They were berating him for getting in danger even though George had one side of his face covered in blood. He got chocolate and cookies, George did. Fred had peaches, Lee pistachio. Harry wasn’t sure what the others had, only that seeing Angelina Johnson alive was a gift.
***
Percy was incredibly tired. So, so tired. He was also eating a bowl of mint ice-cream, given to him by Harry Potter. He had been carrying quite a lot of ice-cream with him, Harry. But he knew somehow that mint was Percy’s favourite.
So tired. The idea of a remote island sounded so marvellous and so far away. He could not move.
Someone came to sit by his side. Percy saw first a bowl of brown ice-cream and then the handsome face of Oliver Wood.
“How you doing, Perce?”
“I am so tired.”
Oliver smiled. He had black soot and dried blood on his face, but his smile was wonderful like always.
“Well, I hear you have been very busy.”
“So busy.” Percy took another spoonful of his ice-cream. He was going to go to a place that also had ice-cream, he decided. Maybe Italy. Maybe further south. “I burn easily” he said.
“Ah.”
“I mean, sorry, I was thinking aloud. I want to go away but I get terrible sunburn, I can’t go to the beach.”
“You have very pale skin, that is true.” Oliver said, bumping his shoulder against Percy’s. Percy smiled and leaned a bit against Oliver for support. He was really tired and Oliver was all solid muscle. Plus it was Oliver, they used to share a room in Hogwarts. Oliver was really nice as long as you didn’t contradict him about Quidditch.
Percy took two more spoonfuls. There were chocolate chips on his ice-cream.
“What’s yours?” he said, pointing at Oliver’s bowl with his spoon. Somehow, this seemed like a very important question to ask. He was still leaning against Oliver.
“Coffee with chocolate beans.”
“Mine has chocolate too!” What a wonderful coincidence.
“Awesome.” Oliver extended the arm holding the bowl, his other arm coming to Percy’s back for support as he turned. “Do you want to try?”
Percy did. He took a spoonful of the coffee ice-cream and ate it slowly, closing his eyes and relishing the flavour as it melted on his mouth.
He opened his eyes, blinking.
Oliver was awfully close.
And then Oliver was kissing him and all Percy’s brain could manage was a panicked ____!!!!!!!!!____. Thank you so much, brain, you are no use.
Oliver leaned back, his eyes wandering over Percy’s face unsure of where to look, his eyes, his lips, maybe not his face at all. Percy felt himself blushing under that gaze.
The beautiful smile was gone.
“You didn’t…” Oliver said, and closed his mouth to swallow, but he went on because this was Oliver Wood, brave and nice and unafraid to admit his mistakes. “I thought, oh gosh, I am so sorry Perce. I though you would speak or stop me beforehand if you didn’t want it, because-”
“I… was not expecting this.” Percy said slowly as his brain seemed to reboot and finally get on the current time and place. His hands were cold from holding the bowl of ice-cream.
“But you are a seer, they say.”
“Doesn’t mean I can see every single thing that is going to happen. I certainly didn’t see this coming.”
“oh.”
They were back to how they had started. Not a hair more of space between them.
“I, um, I… I think I missed it.” Percy blinked quickly. It was just his luck. Beautiful Oliver with his beautiful smile and his stupid face gave him a kiss and Percy was too busy starting on his nervous breakdown to notice it. “You really took me by surprise, I didn’t even register it as it was happening.”
There was quite a lot of regret on Percy’s voice. Thankfully, despite the Hufflepuff drive and passion that moved Oliver Wood on any given day, he had quite a dose of Gryffindor courage.
“Would you like a repeat?” He said.
“Yes, please” answered Percy quickly. He would certainly like a repetition, slow if possible. He had his one kiss, he wanted to relish it.
“Okay, here I come. Three, two, one…”
This time, yes, this time Percy was in the moment and got to enjoy his very unexpected very nice kiss and neither of them finished their ice-creams but Percy was almost done anyway.
***
Severus was honestly surprised at having survived all of this. He also felt as if just now he could finally take a breath he had been holding perhaps since that spring day when he was lurking in the hedgerow and saw a toddler abandoned in the garden. Yes, he had been holding his breath since then and only now he saw that he had gotten away with it.
He was so tired, and he wasn’t finished, not yet. He had already hugged his son (was this the first time he let himself think of Harry that way? He had no idea) and he had buried his nose in his hair, because there is no smell like the one of your children. But now he also had to supervise that all the injured got treatment and that nothing dangerous remained loose, or at the very least find someone in which to delegate all those tasks. He was still Headmaster of Hogwarts, he couldn’t have trolls, ogres and firebirds wandering freely through the grounds.
He was pretty sure that if he tried to resign and drop the title on Minerva, she would kick him in the balls. Not even a hex or a curse, a plain old kick.
So he had two dozens tasks and somewhere on top was letting Remus know that they won and survived, hurray and confetti! Remus was free to come back with the kids. Also Harry was here and unharmed and he had grown although now that Severus saw him at a distance, dragging a dusty deatheater robe, he realized he was still the shortest of his year.
He could go get an owl and write a message and include proof that it was really him. But really, given the situation, sending a patronus was best. It was quicker and safer and there was no stairs involved.
It was just… a patronus.
He moved a bit away from the main group and then after looking at his surrounding he moved further out because in the last spot he had looked all dramatic and that had always attracted a teenager with a confession to make. Here by the shrubs was much better. The light was bad and he could cast his patronus unbothered and with no pesky questions.
“We won” he said “Voldemort is dead. Dead dead, not in unliving form. He left a corpse. Harry is here and is well. So is Draco, and the girl. Return at your convenience.”
That was it, really. But if felt like too little, just as when he sent him messages in those little post boxes and they always felt too little for what he wanted to say.
“I love you” he added at the end. That was it. Completely unnecessary, just as decorations are unnecessary, just like salt is unnecessary in food.
Merlin, it felt good to say it.
“Was that a lion?” asked Sirius Black, plague on the earth that he was. He was carrying a bottle of water and two sandwiches. He passed one of them to Severus and they shared the water.
“It was a bear” lied Severus, unwrapping his sandwich. The patronus still visible in the distance.
“A bear? Okay, I can say that, no worries” Sirius pushed Severus playfully with his shoulder. He had lost the leather jacket he had worn during the battle. If Severus looked back at the castle he had no doubts that he would spot Draco wearing it. Sirius’ eyes and nose were still red from all the crying he had done.
“But you know, if it were a lion it would fine too, more than fine.” Sirius went on, talking while he chewed. “Moody’s patronus is a badger, you tell me which one is better.”
***
Remus returned that evening with dozens of excitable children in tow. They had left with a backpack each with food and clothes so rather than a desperate escape for their lives, they had experienced something more like an educational outing. They had seen a very interesting creature (Mircilius) and picturesque places.
They also spoke of some vampires that fell over them and were in turn taken by the neck and slammed against a wall of rock. Then they camped outside, which was lots of fun, and they sang songs. They were only slightly disappointed that they didn’t get to meet Victor Krum.
Remus hugged Harry for fifteen minutes, his eyes closed as he lost himself in the smell of his son. After that he put his hands on Harry’s shoulders, gave a step back and examined him with a critical eye.
“You have lost weight. How have you been eating? You have also grown a lot. Look at you. We have to get you new clothes.”
Harry laughed when Remus said that he would take him shopping on Monday.
Later, Remus went and found Severus and they kissed for ten minutes not even caring that they were in a corridor. He would have liked to make love to him that night, but they had had a very long day and the one before had been longer still. They fell asleep in each other arms, still dressed and on top of the covers. They woke many times during the night still not believing that they had won, but each time they went back to sleep with a smile.
***
Harry found Ron sitting by himself outside the school, staring at nothing. There was still grime and blood under his fingernails and on his ears, but he had washed a bit. He had taken his sweater off (purple and maroon, so not his colours) and was sitting on top of it to avoid getting grass stains in his bum. If the sweater got some green in it, it would be no tragedy, perhaps an improvement.
Ron had grown as a young child in a big family. Not even the youngest which is a position of honour in a certain way and often featured prominently in fairy tales. No, he was the one just before, young but not the youngest. There were so many brilliant brothers before him that he knew he would never get to have an “-est” for him. Not the brightest or the funniest or the bravest.
Ron had gone through a process of acceptance in life. By the time he came to Hogwarts he had known and accepted that if he didn’t manage to do something magnificent and astonishing, he would be a bit of an embarrassment for the family. The runt, the one who did nothing remarkable. But even if he achieved a wonderful feat he would still be following the steps of his brothers and so it would not be something extraordinary. He could not win either way and he had accepted that.
By the time he was in his fourth year he had come to accept that his best friend, Harry Potter, was too much of a good person to resent him for all the attention he got and that Ron craved. During that year with the stupid trials Ron had come to accept that he would always be overshadowed by his brothers and friends. Talented Bill and Charlie and even Percy and his good grades, funny twins, clever Hermione, and lastly Harry who was very odd but still the Boy Who Lived. Ron was none of that and it was a bit like drinking black tea with no sugar, it wasn’t nice but he could take it and he could still care about all of them.
Ron had accepted a life of being the runt, the spare, the disappointment. Not even the black sheep of the family, not even that because Percy of all people beat him to it. Ron would be the grey dull brother, not so bad to be the outcast, not so good to be someone for himself. He had accepted it because at that moment making sure all the people he loved were safe was way more important than Ron’s sense of self-worth.
He had accepted it.
Perhaps this is not clear. He had accepted it. He was resigned to a lacklustre life, to becoming an insipid note in everyone else’s lives’ accounts. Ron Weasley, brother of the founders of Weasley Wizard Wheezes. Ron Weasley, older brother of record holder Quidditch player Ginevra Weasley. Ron Weasley, brother of William the curse-breaker and Charles the dragon-tamer. Ron Weasley, friend of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.
Never in his wildest dreams and fantasies in which he got all the recognition and awards, never, had Ron thought he would become Ron Weasley the One Who Slayed Voldemort.
You too would need a moment to stare at the treeline and the lake and let it sink in.
“I have ice-cream” said Harry. He looked around for a few seconds at a loss before dropping his bag on Ron’s lap and shrugging out the deatheater robe, folding it in two, and sitting on top of it next to Ron. Soon after, Ron was provided with a bowl of strawberry ice-cream. Excellent ice-cream. The kind that also has syrup and different textures and, in this case, three actual strawberries on top cut in a rose shape.
Harry did not have actual lemon slices in his ice-cream because that would be way too sour but after staring at the bowl for a while it transformed into a big hollowed out lemon, which was also very nice.
“This makes it better” said Ron after his second spoonful. Somehow the coldness and the sweetness was waking him up and bringing him back from the white limbo his mind had gone to.
“Always” Harry agreed.
It was very far from a summer day but it was warm enough with the hot castle at their backs. The sun had finally managed some uplifting shining, enough that they could stay there on their shirts, eating ice-cream and looking at the winter flowers. Two boys sitting in the green, two friends enjoying the small pleasures of life.
There wouldn’t be many photographs of the Battle of Hogwarts as everybody had been busy with something else. There would be more of the aftermath, of Kingsley looking all regal as he gave orders, of Severus organizing the clean-up, Hagrid with his sleeping flock of firebirds. But out of all of them, the one that would become iconic would be this one, taken by Colin Crevey. A photograph of The Boy Who Lived and the Boy Who Killed, sitting side by side in the grass and looking at the timid winter flowers. Both boys were giving their backs to the audience and while most magical photographs moved, this one would be one of the quietest. Just the wind gently caressing the top of the trees and their hair.
It was an image of peace.