chapter 5
"And now my job is to monitor Malfoy, I guess," Harry finished filling Ron in on why he wasn't at the raid the day before at lunch break.
"Why did Shacklebolt have to do you so dirty like that?" Ron asked, indignant on Harry's behalf. He took a bite of his sandwich.
Harry shrugged, not willing to tell Ron it was because Shacklebolt thought he wasn't getting enough rest. "It's not bad, honestly," he said, thinking about the rhododendrons that were half wilting at Grimmauld Place, and how he panicked when he woke up and saw their sorry state. "All I have to do is drop in, drop off the money, and leave. And it's only once a month."
Ron leaned back, a hint of a satisfied smirk on his face. "You having to give Malfoy money," he said. "Oh, how the tables have turned. I wouldn't blame you if he mysteriously turns up dead in his bed."
Harry shrugged again, because he still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about Malfoy. He certainly didn't think about killing Malfoy in his sleep, and it frankly jolted Harry how earnest Ron was about doing Malfoy actual bodily harm.
And it became so clear to Harry, so very clear how Ron had never forgotten, had never let go. It was written all over the slight crease in his brow, in his his smirk that disguised unresolved anger for satisfaction. To Ron, every insult that was ever hurled at him from Draco Malfoy's mouth was a bullet in a battle, in a war that began far before Voldemort's resurrection. It was not in Ron's nature to forgive such a thing.
Ron did not think of House rivalry as petty. He thought of the crown of "archenemy" as rightfully bestowed upon Malfoy's platinum blonde head with a spiteful spit and a kick into a cell in Azkaban. But Malfoy was not in Azkaban, and Ron could never quite reconcile with this reality.
Ron was different from Harry. Harry fought but didn't know why; Ron fought because he did know why, and all too well. Dead siblings and Gryffindor rage was more than enough to give him a purpose in life.
Harry said nothing more, and made a mental note to ask Hermione whether she knew how to take care of flowering bushes.
♢
Hermione, as it turned out, didn't know much about flowers. But she did know how to make a very nice cup of tea, and make a cup of tea she did.
"I heard about your new job, with Malfoy," she said sympathetically, handing Harry his cup and sitting down across from him. "Are you holding up alright?"
Why did everyone think Harry would either fall apart or somehow end up killing Malfoy? Harry sipped at his tea with irritation. "I just need Shacklebolt to stop giving me special treatment," he muttered. "Anyway, do you know anyone who knows something about flowers? I wasn't exactly like Neville in Professor Sprout's greenhouse."
"Neither was I," Hermione pointed out. "I just studied extra hard for all her exams. Anyway, if you want to talk flowers, why don't you just ask Ginny?"
Harry stiffened, fingers rigid around the handle of his cup. "Someone other than Ginny," he ground out.
Hermione softened. "Have you still not talked to her?" she asked.
He hadn't. Not once did Harry see her nor hear from her after the day he told her to leave. Ron didn't speak to Harry for weeks afterward, but eventually came around to the idea that maybe Harry and Ginny weren't meant to be after all.
That didn't mean it didn't hurt.
"No," Harry said shortly.
"You did defend Narcissa Malfoy, you know," Hermione said. "Ginny was bound to not take it well."
"I didn't see the point of holding a grudge," Harry said wearily. "She saved me, I repaid the debt. There wasn't much more to it."
"There was no debt," Hermione argued. "She was just saving her own skin, is all. She didn't do it for you."
"Exactly," Harry said. "She did it for Malfoy. I can understand that. Don't you see?"
Hermione gazed at Harry and slowly shook her head. "No," she said, "I don't. But... if you stand by what you did, I'll stand by it too."
Harry gave her a small, grateful smile.
"So," Hermione said, "Why do you want flower advice, anyway? Are you trying to start a garden or something? Grimmauld Place could use some lightening up..."
Harry tried not to contradict her. He did not want to lighten up Grimmauld Place—he didn't want to do anything with it. He had to leave it the way it was (although he could maybe make an exception for the horrible house elf heads). Trying to decorate the place, trying to change it... it would feel too much like trying to erase the war, all the people of the Order who had stepped in that house. Like erasing Sirius.
"Malfoy gave me some rhododendrons," Harry said. "But they're wilting a bit, and... what?" he asked at Hermione's incredulous face.
"Malfoy? Harry, are you out of your mind? It could be cursed!"
A sting of panic ran up Harry's arms and back, the way it always did when someone around him raised their voice or intensified their tone; a fight-or-flight reflex. For a single second, Harry did doubt Malfoy, like he had made a huge mistake. He was sixteen again, always suspicious, always snooping, convinced that Malfoy was up to no good.
And then the moment passed and his mind cleared, and Harry almost felt... ashamed. Ashamed for thinking such a thing.
"Hermione, there's no way Malfoy could do that," Harry said. "Magic suppressor, remember? He's got to wear that thing around his anklet. He can't do magic."
Hermione blinked. "Oh," she said. "That's right." She still looked skeptical, though. "But why on earth would Malfoy want to give you flowers? How do you know he didn't get someone else to curse you? Like a Death Eater?"
"If he did, it wouldn't be through rhododendrons, of all things," Harry said. "Besides, a Death Eater would have tripped the wards. He's not supposed to be within a hundred foot radius of one."
"Hm." Hermione still did not look convinced, but she trusted Harry and his instincts, too, so she dropped it.
"Well, I guess you could always ask Luna."
♢
After the war, Luna had held Harry up in more ways than one. Even more than Ginny had.
Ginny wanted to ignore it all. She wanted to let the things they had seen fade into the past, where she felt they ought to be left. She wanted to talk about looking for houses, and getting jobs, and becoming financially stable. The fire in her no longer blazed for revenge, or fighting. The fire in her blazed for the future. She wanted to forget it all.
And how could Harry blame her? Harry wanted to forget Fred, too, smiling in the green light. He wanted to forget Remus and Tonks, together in death, leaving behind their newborn son. He wanted to forget Dobby, his great tennis ball eyes looking up into the heavens.
But he couldn't. He had to keep them in his heart, huddle next to his sorrow and hold his grief close. He had to carry them. He had to remember them all. He felt responsible for all of them, all these people he had loved so dearly, these people who had died for him. Because of him.
"You can let them go, you know," Luna had said to him one warm August night at Shell Cottage, where she was staying while her father recovered from his imprisonment at Azkaban. The moonlight caught in her hair, and she looked up at the sky with eyes so dazzling, they could be stars themselves. The waves crashed against the rocky shore beneath the cliff they stood on, and Harry wasn't sure if he had heard her right. He gave her a questioning look.
"You can let them go," Luna said, tapping Harry's chest over his heart in that misty voice. "They get heavy, don't they? Like rocks in your ribs. But they deserve to be free. And so do you."
That was the first and last time Harry wept since Voldemort died.
He sank into the sand, and Luna did too, and she held his head against her as she patted his hair lightly, like the touch of an angel. He cried for the people who's lives had been so unfairly cut short, not because of him, but because of a bitter, angry, madman who in the end had only been a human in death. It was not Harry's fault. It was Tom Riddle's. Each tear that fell was a different soul that he had imprisoned inside of himself out of guilt. Each salty tear rejoined the ocean until there weren't any left.
He wasn't sure how long he wept. He only knew that Luna said nothing, and expected nothing in return, and he was suddenly so aware of the purity of her existence. He felt a great rush of affection for her, not dissimilar to the way he felt when he saw the painting she had made of her friends on her bedroom ceiling.
He looked up to tell her about it, how very sorry he was that he never really told Luna how much he valued her as a friend, but stopped when he saw her face.
Streaming down Luna's pale face were little drops of moonshine. Her face was as dreamy as always, her eyes hazy... but when she looked down at Harry, for the first time in all the years that Harry had known this girl with her head in the clouds, her sad smile was that of earthly anguish.
Luna wasn't a crier. She never cried after that, not to Harry's knowledge. When Harry visited Luna again at her own house, she opened the door and smiled.
"Hello," she said happily. "Why, those are lovely flowers. Have you checked them for Nargles?"
"Er—" Harry decided the truth would be the best option as he set the pot down. "No, I haven't."
"Would you like to come in?" Luna asked. "Before the Wrackspurts get in."
"Sure," Harry said, grinning.
"Daddy hasn't been the same since he was taken," Luna said as she led Harry inside. "I've had to learn how to cook... he doesn't get out of bed, most days."
"I'm sorry," Harry said awkwardly. He didn't have many nice things to say about Xenophilius Lovegood, and thought it best to not say anything at all.
"Oh, don't be," Luna said. "I read to him a lot, and I've taken over the Quibbler for the moment... he's getting better, you know."
The thought of Luna doing something as adult-like as running a newspaper publication was strange, to say the least. Harry could see her, getting up early every morning, bustling around in the kitchen and taking up food to her bedridden father... the war made her grow up, and it saddened Harry like nothing else.
"And when he's better," Luna continued, "I'm leaving."
Harry choked on the chamomile tea she had given him. "Leaving?"
"Mm-hmm," she said calmly, taking no notice of Harry's spluttering. "I'm going off to Madagascar, I've decided. That's where the latest sightings of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack have been."
Harry recovered. It was such a Luna thing to do, honestly. She was such a pixie-like person, flitting about the place, and he was more surprised that wanderlust hadn't taken over her sooner. Luna seemed surprised when Harry reached across the table and gave her a quick squeeze to her hand.
"You're going to keep in touch, I hope," Harry said.
"Well," Luna said thoughtfully, "I don't know... Umgubular Slashkilters like the taste of owls, you see, and I'm sure I'll be seeing a lot of them in the jungle..."
Harry only laughed.
"I heard you've been visiting Draco Malfoy," Luna commented.
Harry quickly sobered. "Yeah," he said. "Shacklebolt ordered it."
Luna tilted her head. "You don't seem very happy about it."
For Luna, that was a pretty perceptive observation.
Harry shrugged heavily. "I mean... it's Malfoy. I'm willing to be civil, but I think there was too much that went on between us, see? Can't really change the past."
"But you can change the future," Luna said earnestly. "Water under the bridge."
Harry barked a bitter laugh. "More like blood. It's a bit thicker than that, Luna. I don't think I'll ever be able to be around Malfoy and not forget how we hated each other."
"Oh, no one said anything about forgetting," Luna said. "Forgetting isn't good. It's building the bridge that's important, you know."
Luna might have had her head in the clouds, and she might have had to be a bit crazy to be planning to run off to Madagascar, and she might have had the wrong idea about Malfoy.
But she did give excellent flower advice.