Harry blinked and he was back in the corridor at Hogwarts. He was slumped sideways against the wall and he could feel Draco's head in his lap. He was almost afraid to look down, but he did and was relieved to see Draco staring back at him. Properly staring back, not that glassy-eyed dead look he'd had before.
"Hi," he whispered and Draco's mouth curved into a smile. He jerked his head in the direction of Voldemort and Harry nodded, turning his gaze to the other end of the corridor.
What he saw made his heart clench with fear. Their friends were all standing over the prone form of the Dark Lord, peering at him as though they couldn't quite believe he was dead.
Hermione and Blaise were a few paces back from the body, and so were close enough that Harry could see tear tracks on Hermione's face. Pansy appeared to have stabbed Voldemort with a basilisk fang, which explained why the Voldemort-thing had started screaming in the strange limbo place, and Ron was standing, holding the sword of Gryffindor casually over his shoulder. But as Harry watched, Voldemort's eyes started to open. Pansy noticed around the same time as he did, and he knew this because she gave a shriek and started pushing Ron away.
"Are you ready?" he asked Draco.
"No, but let's do it anyway." Draco scrambled upright and pointed his wand at Voldemort. "Expelliarmus!" Voldemort's wand flew out of his hand and Hermione had the presence of mind to catch it.
"Keep him down," Harry yelled as he pushed himself up from the floor. But their friends were so surprised to hear them make any noise that they all just turned to stare at them. "Go," he told Draco.
Draco pelted down the corridor, pushing past the other four, and stamped hard on Voldemort's face, similar to the way he had to Harry on the train at the start of the year. Harry expected to hear a crunch, but his joke about Voldemort's nose seemed to ring true as there was none, though blood did start to spurt out of the slits on the front of his face.
Harry took off running then, covering the ground faster than he thought he would. As he neared level with Ron, an idea took form in his mind.
"The sword," he yelled. "Give it to me." Ron's eyes went wide but he held the Sword of Gryffindor out nonetheless. Harry snatched it and kept running, stopping only when he was standing over Voldemort. He hefted the sword in his hand for a moment, marveling at how much lighter it felt now that he was no longer twelve.
"Get him upright," he said. Voldemort was blinking slowly up at him, clearly dazed from the stomp to the face. Ron and Draco hurried to comply, hauling Voldemort into a sitting position, though holding him at arm's length as though they could tell what Harry was about to do. Harry rolled his shoulders once, twice, and then swung the sword with all of his might at the place where Voldemort's head met his neck.
...
Harry was alive. Harry was alive!
Ron couldn't believe it. He, Pansy, Hermione and Blaise had come across the three bodies in the corridor just a few minutes ago and Ron had been so shocked he'd stopped walking. Hermione had immediately burst into tears while Pansy had headed straight to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and had started stabbing him with one of the basilisk fangs she was still carrying. Ron hadn't tried to stop her. He hadn't known what to do with himself, so he'd walked over and stood behind her while she took out her rage on the former Dark Lord.
But then He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had opened his eyes and Ron's blood had run cold. He'd frozen, not knowing what to do, but had been saved by Harry and Draco waking up too. Draco had run straight at Voldemort and stomped on his face, which had to be the most daring thing Ron had ever seen. He'd almost wished he'd done it.
And now? Now He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's head was sailing past Ron, spewing blood in wide circles as it spun. It was the most disgusting and yet most beautiful thing Ron had ever seen. The head fell to the floor with a dull thunk. They all stared at it.
"Is that it?" Ron asked.
"I bloody well hope so," Harry said. He dropped the sword and it clattered to the floor with a dull sort of finality.
"What now?" Pansy asked.
"I would say we parade around the castle, carrying his head aloft to show everyone that he's dead, but he doesn't have any hair to hold him up by."
"You could hold him by the ear?" Hermione suggested.
"Or — and I know, it's brilliant idea, no one else could have thought it up — you could levitate it in front of you because you're a bloody wizard," Draco said.
"Right," said Harry. "I always forget." But he grinned at Draco nonetheless.
"Hang on," Ron said. "How are you two alive? You were most certainly dead when we got up here." Blaise had even taken their pulse.
"It's a long story," Draco said quickly.
"Draco sacrificed himself for me," Harry said.
"Sorry, what?"
"He threw himself in front of Voldemort's killing curse and sacrificed himself for me." Ron looked over at Draco who was rapidly turning pink. "And, similarly to when I was a baby, his love sacrifice meant I survived."
"Aww, how cute." This was Pansy. "I didn't think Draco had that in him." She sounded both sarcastic and pleased in a way that only Pansy Parkinson could.
"Get stuffed," Draco muttered.
"But how did Draco survive?" Hermione asked.
"He's the Master of Death. Or something. He had all the Deathly Hallows."
"That explains basically nothing," said Ron.
"I'll tell you about it while we walk." Harry pulled his wand out of his pocket and performed a levitating charm on Voldemort's head.
"Should we also, I dunno, make an announcement?" Blaise asked. "You know, with a sonorous charm or something? I think people are still fighting."
"Good point." Harry cancelled the levitation charm and Voldemort's head fell back to the ground with a wet thump. Ron kicked at it when it started to roll too close and then regretted this decision when he got blood on his trainers.
Harry pointed his wand at his throat and whispered, "Sonorous." When he spoke again it was so loud that the five of them had to hold their hands up to their ears. "Hi, uh, it's Harry here. Just so everyone knows, uh, Voldemort is dead. I cut his head off. So, uh, you can stop fighting and stuff." Throughout the castle came the sounds of cheering. "For those of you who either don't believe me or who are morbidly curious, I will be bringing his head to the Great Hall as proof." He glanced around at the five of them as if to ask whether or not he needed to say more. Draco shrugged. Hermione shook her head. Blaise gave him a thumbs up. "Quietus."
"Perfect," Blaise said, which Ron thought was generous, but he wasn't going to say anything about it. Harry performed the levitation charm again and Ron took Pansy's hand. Then they all made their way down to the Great Hall in a triumphant, if a bit gory, procession.
...
"There had better be at least one bloody reporter here," Harry muttered to Draco as they neared the doors to the Great Hall. "I want them to see that it's done, tell the world about it and then not interview me."
"You do know they are going to interview you though, right?" Draco said. "No matter what you say now? This is the most important thing that's happened since you brought him down the first time." Harry sighed.
"I know."
"I can help. With some of the talking."
"Really?"
"Maybe, if you're nice." Draco looked down at his fingernails, feigning nonchalance.
"I'll give you sexual favors in return," Harry said and the corner of Draco's mouth lifted.
"I'd do it for you either way," he said, looking up at Harry.
"You've gone soft."
"Have not."
"You literally just sacrificed yourself for me. You've gone soft."
"Eh, you're worth it." Harry grinned and then pushed open the doors to the Hall. They walked through, Voldemort's head held aloft, to the sound of tumultuous applause. Above them burst firework after firework, showering them in multicolored sparks. Someone started up a chant of "Harry, Harry," and soon the entire hall was yelling his name.
He was grinning from ear to ear as he looked around at all the happy faces. The mood was one of celebration, so much so it took Harry a while to even wonder whether or not they'd suffered any casualties. He looked around the hall, taking in the sea of happy faces, trying to see who might not be there. But all of his friends seemed to be accounted for.
There was Seamus with his arm wrapped around the shoulder of Justin Finch-Fletchley. Dean was standing next to them, chatting animately, his hands flying everywhere as he related his experience of the fight. There was Neville, hand in hand with a girl that Harry still didn't recognize but must be his girlfriend, Clara or whatever her name was. He was standing in a crowd of Hufflepuffs that included Ernie, Hannah and Zacharias. Ernie's arm was up in a sling, but he looked otherwise unhurt.
Cormac had seemingly taken it upon himself to comfort both Lavender and Parvati, wrapping his arms around both of their waists, though as Harry watched, Padma came over and dragged her sister away. Luna was standing in a mixed year group of Ravenclaws from Dumbledore's Army that included Terry, Anthony and Cho. She looked as unperturbed as ever, staring up at the enchanted ceiling, even though her face was flecked with blood.
A short ways over from them stood a gaggle of Order members, including Moody, Tonks and Kingsley. It was perhaps the happiest Harry had ever seen Moody, which meant that he wasn't scowling quite as deeply as he usually did. Hagrid was sitting on the floor next to them, his face buried in his large, spotted handkerchief as he cried tears of joy, while Remus patted him gently on the top of his head.
Fred and George were the ones setting off fireworks and when Harry looked closer he saw both McGonagall and Flitwick helping them. Flitwick seemed particularly taken with them and was augmenting the pyrotechnics with excited sparks from his own wand.
In fact, now that he was looking, it appeared that all of the Weasley family were there. Ginny kept pushing off the attentive arms of her mother, while Bill and Fleur stood off to the side with Charlie and Percy. Percy seemed to be bleeding from a head wound, but Charlie was patching him up and none of the three of them looked too worried about it. A moment after Harry had spotted them, Ron went hurtling past him in order to hug his parents, dragging Pansy with him as a reluctant hanger-on. Well, there were worse times to meet your boyfriend's parents.
The only person he didn't see in the crowd was Professor Snape, and he didn't know if this was because he wasn't in the hall, or if something had happened to him.
Either way, he was distracted by the series of flashes that went off at that point. He turned to find Colin Creevey there with his camera. He wasn't the only one though. There was a man Harry recognized as the photographer who had worked with Rita Skeeter during the Triwizard Tournament, which meant Rita was probably buzzing around somewhere. He wondered briefly whether she was in beetle form or human. But then he spotted her blond curls in the crowd and it was all he could do not to roll his eyes.
"Do you think now's a good time to announce our relationship to the press?" Harry asked, leaning into Draco.
"You mean while they're distracted by all of this?" Draco pointed to Voldemort's head and then to the celebrations at large.
"Exactly. They can hardly print mean things about me if I've literally just saved the wizarding world."
"The whole school already knows about us," Draco pointed out. "And, er, I'm not quite sure how else to explain how we both died but then didn't."
"So we're doing this?"
"Fuck it," Draco said. "Let's do it." He wrapped his arm around Harry's waist and pulled him close.
"Fuck it," Harry agreed. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Draco's while the cameras continued to flash around them.
...
The sun beat down on Hogsmeade Station. The weather had been particularly nice since the fall of Voldemort, Of course, Harry thought it had very little to do with the fall of the Dark Lord, and everything to do with the fact that it was summertime. End of year exams had been canceled — even the standardized ones, which had been put off until later in the year — as a treat, though some of the OWL and NEWT students had grumbled about having to come back to sit their exams in September.
The final few weeks of school had been spent learning whatever the teachers had felt like teaching them. This meant lots of celebratory and decorative charms from Professor Flitwick, pepper-up potions and calming draughts from Professor Slughorn and more normal lessons from Professor McGonagall, albeit with no homework.
Even Professor Snape had seemed willing to go easy on them, though Harry wasn't sure if this was because he was giving them a treat, or because he'd been grievously injured during the battle and had needed the time to recuperate. He'd been found a few hours after Harry had entered the Great Hall, bleeding profusely from a neck wound he'd sustained from Fenrir Greyback, and had been rushed to St. Mungo's after Madame Pomfrey had stabilized him. From what Harry had heard, he would be spending a grudging summer with Remus on the off chance he did turn into a werewolf come the full moon.
And so the last few weeks of school had passed in a blur of enjoyable lessons and many evenings spent either in the Room of Requirement or the Chamber of Secrets, depending on how they were feeling. So long as they'd been of age, the teachers had turned a blind eye. Even now Headmistress McGonagall.
Dumbledore's funeral had been held on the grounds of the school on the second to last weekend of term. Wizards and witches had poured into Hogsmeade village, to pay their last respects to Dumbledore. There had been so many that both the Three Broomsticks and the Hog's Head had run out of rooms, which meant the countryside surrounding the village had been peppered with tents, making it feel to Harry more like the Quidditch World Cup than his headmaster's funeral.
The morning of the funeral, however, the mood in the Great Hall had been subdued. They had gathered by the side of the lake and everyone had paid their respects to Dumbledore before McGonagall had transformed the altar at the front of the ceremony into a large, marble tomb.
But now it was the start of the summer holidays and with Voldemort gone, Harry was at a loss for what he was going to do with himself. He had no obligation to go back to the Durlsey's now that no longer needed the protection that had come from living with them, and so he had decided he would never set foot in that house again. Which meant he didn't quite know where he would live.
He supposed he could always stay the entire summer at the Burrow — he knew that Arthur and Molly would always welcome him with open arms, even if he was dating Draco. He had received a polite letter from Molly asking wether or not the was sure that Draco was the right person for him a week after the battle and had pointedly ignored it. Molly meant well, but he could do without her meddling.
Because, yes, he was sure about Draco. Draco had died for him. And even though they'd both ended up not dying, the sentiment was still the same. He wasn't sure you could get a more definite declaration of love than that.
Draco had, of course, received an Order of Merlin First Class for his efforts, as had Harry for his defeat of Voldemort.
Draco had invited Harry to stay with them at the Manor, which Narcissa had enthusiastically agreed to. It seemed that even though Harry had thought he'd messed up the whole "meeting your boyfriend's mother" thing when Narcissa had come to the castle, he hadn't. Even Lucius seemed willing to grudgingly accept his presence. Draco had revived his father after the battle and had helped him sneak out of the castle so that Lucius could feign innocence and Harry had no desire to upset Draco by insisting they lock him up again.
Really, Harry thought, they were both just grateful to have their son, particularly after Draco had technically already died once. Draco's annoying boyfriend was just the price they had to pay for that.
"I think we should move in together," Draco said, squinting up at the blue sky above Hogsmeade Station.
"I beg your pardon, Malfoy?" Neville said.
"Not you," Draco waved him away. He turned and faced Harry. "Move in with me. We can buy a flat together."
"But I'm not of age yet," Harry said.
"So? I am."
"Thanks for rubbing that in."
"I'm serious though. Let's get a place. That way we don't have to stay with my parents. We can look for a place while you're at the Weaselys'."
"If mum lets you in the house," Ron said darkly.
"Ron, if you mother doesn't let my boyfriend in the house, I will leave," Harry said with more conviction than he felt. He supposed staying at Grimmauld was always an option if Molly really wouldn't let Draco visit. In fact, now that he'd thought of it...
"What if we lived at 12 Grimmauld Place?" Harry asked.
"What? Move in to your godfather's old house?"
"Exactly," Harry said. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it earlier, but then, it felt less strange to move into the old house with Draco than it would have been to do it alone. "It might be a bit stuffy now, but we can fix it up."
"I like this idea," Ron said. "There'd be enough rooms for us all to come and visit."
"Party house?" Seamus suggested, coming out of nowhere to ambush the conversation. Harry looked questioningly at Draco and the corner of Draco's mouth lifted in a smirk.
"Party house," he agreed.
"Once we get it tidy," Harry added quickly.
So things were looking up. Harry would spend the summer with his boyfriend, his friends and the Weasleys, who were essentially his adopted family. Then he would finish up his last year at Hogwarts, get his NEWTs and try one last time to win the Quidditch Cup. He had a whole year to decide what he wanted to do with his life. It was nice, he reflected, having time for once.
He hadn't forgotten his vision from the Ehwaz potion. The one where he'd been a chef and Draco had been an auror. He couldn't forget how happy they'd looked. So culinary school was an option, he supposed. He and Draco had saved the Wizarding world, which meant they could probably do whatever they wanted. But he had all summer and the subsequent school year to worry about that. For now, he would just enjoy his penultimate train ride home from Hogwarts, snuggled up against his boyfriend, ensconced amongst his friends, without a care in the world.
The End