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Magic Never Dies

Chapter The Last

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Harry's "allergy" to magic remained unabated, but once he had regained consciousness Madam Pomfrey's anxiety eased considerably and she seemed to find his care something of an enjoyable challenge. Hermione was helping her research her methods and she had to admit the theories involved were fascinating. They seemed to be looking at the very line between what physically defined witches and wizards from muggles, a grey area that had long been argued but insufficiently studied. It was a chicken-and-egg argument; did the presence of magic within them alter the structure of their physiology, or was there something inherent in their bodies that called out to magic?

Hermione was shocked to discover that the most useful and clearly thought out work on the subject she could find in the library, which was one area that thankfully remained mostly untouched by the battle, was written by none other then… Severus Snape.

From the look of it, the Half Blood Prince must have been curious about what made one magical for a very long time. Hermione would have been unsurprised to have learned that he had been working towards a counter for the magic draining potion almost since its creation, but she had only her suspicions to guide her. Had he thought that he himself would someday be forced to drink it by the madman he'd created it for? Certainly he must have long held suspicions that Dumbledore or one day Harry - wizards both powerful enough that Voldemort would have sought to destroy their magic - would be exposed to it.

Perhaps that would, in part, explain more of his long disdain for Harry? Distancing himself emotionally from a child he knew was more than likely to face the greatest loss a wizard could sustain, one he himself had both created and dreaded? Had Dumbledore known? Had Dumbledore perhaps left Harry at Privet Drive in part to force him to learn to survive amongst muggles against the chance that this might one day happen?

There was no real way of knowing, she doubted either Snape or Dumbledore's portrait would tell her the truth, and what did it really matter? If she had learned nothing else these last seven years she knew now that nothing about this particular battle between good and evil was ever simple and few things were in the end truly what they seemed.

If the struggle thus far had been based in some part on symmetry, as Lily Potter had suggested; if nature or old magic or the creator of all was at work balancing forces, was there any real justice in leaving Harry without magic after he had struggled so hard and sacrificed so much? Hermione understood better now that evil had to be equally ruthlessly met and squashed, and she knew that Harry had been born and bred to fight it one way or another. Was this really his destiny, or just another product of the fight that might be countered by those that loved him? Or better still, by one that hated him? Perhaps Snape's chance at redemption was Harry himself, but Hermione found herself wondering then if Snape was still at a loss for a counter to the potion. He certainly wasn't acting the way she might have expected if he was confident that he could undo what he had done.

Or as one that actually sought redemption would.

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The continued presence of the Ministry (Scrimgeour had gone, but left a party of petty officials behind) suggested that the rebuilding of Hogwarts was amongst its top priorities in the new post Voldemort era. From its coverage, the Daily Prophet certainly seemed to think so. The Quibbler, however, begged to differ, and ran long stories enumerating the ways in which the bureaucracy was hobbling progress. Its value as a dissenting voice had greatly raised its subscriber base, and Ron and Hermione knew the balance there was one of the few factors that kept Scrimgeour's ambitions toward Harry in check. It bought them time, and for this they were eternally grateful to Luna and her father.

Professor McGonagall was an entirely different type of administrator than Dumbledore had been, and the adversity of the situation played to her strength. She began, at last, to begin to place some of her own stamp upon the school she led. The Governors had been called in, the school toured and the damage assessed. Plans were made to provide classes provisionally to those who were due to take their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s on schedule, all fifth through seventh years anyway and in theory at least capable of dealing with the castle as it rebuilt itself and the wards were replaced. A full reopening to all students was scheduled for the following September. Letters were drafted and the school owls worked overtime.

She tentatively approached Ron and Hermione herself, bearing the Governors' invitations to rejoin their class without penalty for time missed in the first term. As the same could not be extended to Harry, one of them at least found themselves torn.

"You know he'd tell us to do it," Ron said. "Especially you."

Especially her. Hermione laughed silently at the thought of taking her N.E.W.T. exams whilst seven months pregnant.

"Ron," she said, "there's something Harry and I need to tell you."

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"You knocked up our best friend, the brains of the whole operation, before having any real clue how it was going to work out? We all thought you could bloody well die at any time, you idiot! Let me guess, it had to have been in the cave when you were offering to remind ME the words to a certain charm… Way to go, Harry."

Lest Harry feel the lack of a father under the circumstances, Ron had conveniently stepped up to fill the role.

"I know," Harry agreed, head hanging and fingers working the blanket that covered his knees. "It was stupid and… just stupid. There's nothing else I can say."

"Hmm, how about that you're going to marry her and start trying to stay alive? That'd be a start. "

Harry shot him a baleful look. "I asked her to marry me before we even knew, the day I managed to transform back from being a thestral. She did say yes, but she didn't want to tell anyone else then because of everything else going on. I know it was rotten timing but … I love her, Ron. It was a stupid thing to have done, but…" Harry flushed, and Ron realized it had been a long time since he had seen his friend this way, a regular guy somehow instead of the doomed Boy Who Lived. Years, probably. Harry had always remained just Harry to him, but any visions he might have had of any real future together had blurred off into mist long before the concepts of marriage and children should have entered the picture.

"I can't actually say that I'm sorry it happened," Harry said softly, guiltily, "because it wouldn't be true. I'm not."

"Tell me you aren't sitting there panicked, wondering how you're going to get on in the magical world with a wife and child and no magic," Ron said stubbornly. "I know you, Harry."

"I have Grimmauld Place and enough wizarding money to last us ages if we're careful. I can take care of the baby and Hermione can take her N.E.W.T.s with Ginny's year. She's the one with the mind that needs to keep busy. She can go on to University or do an apprenticeship or whatever will make her happy."

"And you're going to be happy playing Mum as a known squib? You'll be the target of every surviving Death Eater and you'll have no way of protecting the baby."

"What the hell is my choice, Ron? Be as mad as you want to be about me messing up in the first place but there's nothing I can do about it now. That's all I have left to offer. It's not any less than Seamus had, or Snape for that matter… Lord, that's hardly a compelling argument, is it? Shite." Harry buried his head in his hands.

"It's not the same thing. Your child will be a full witch or wizard even though you're…"

"Or a squib as well!" Harry cut across him defiantly. He lifted his head. "It even happens in pureblooded families, the chance is always there. And isn't that just what this was all about? I don't care whether it's a witch or wizard or squib. Blood is nothing. I love Hermione and I love the baby already and if I can kill Voldemort as a squib I can bloody well take on a bunch of left over Death Eaters."

Ron's face abruptly seemed to crumple, the anger wrung out of him to reveal the fear for his friend underneath. "I know you'd try. And if any one could, it'd be you. But Harry, without magic, you really don't stand a chance. I hate to be the one to say it, but I think you should go see Snape."

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Harry knew he should go see Snape. He wasn't entirely stupid, after all.

It had been hideously painful when Madam Pomfrey had scanned him again for signs of magical activity when he had first woken up; so much so that he still had a tendency to flinch at the mere presence of a wand. Considering he was for all intents and purposes trapped at a school for witch craft and wizardry where almost the entire population, however diminished, owned and used them, he was doing a lot of flinching. Flinching was hard work. Harry hurt in places he didn't even know he'd had muscles to flinch with.

He'd had the excuse of immobility to avoid dealing with Snape at first, but Madam Pomfrey had conjured him a perfectly functional (if decidedly wizard inspired and heavy on the leather-and-buckles) splint for his injured leg. She'd been fascinated by the muggle concept of immobilizing a broken bone, although the mere idea that it could take six to eight weeks to achieve healing astounded her when she could re-grow them entirely in magical children over night.

The biggest problem with Harry, they found, was that there was quite a large difference between a suddenly "magicless" wizard and a muggle whose body had never contained so much as an ounce of magic. While the arrangement of straps and braces effectively kept Harry's injured leg still enough to heal quietly, his other injuries proved far less predictable or likely to correspond with anything in "Modifying Muggle Maladies without Magic: a Mediwitch's Guide" - Madam Pomfreys' well-thumbed instruction manual to Harry at the moment. His healing process was turning out to be…somewhat dangerous.

To put in bluntly, while Harry appeared to have no facility for controlling magic, it was becoming increasingly clear with the passing of days that he was not entirely without magic within himself. Night time was the worst. As Harry's mind shut down gratefully into sleep finally undisturbed by visions from Voldemort (though visions of him still tended to plague his dreams,) Harry's body attempted to heal itself magically. Its frustration at its apparent failure to make use of whatever was still there somehow erupted in bursts of uncontrolled magic about the ward. Glass smashed, beds flew, curtains ripped, doors slammed and potion flasks and vials clattered on the shelves. Unconscious, he was still…

"Quite the wizard," Madam Pomfrey sighed on the tenth morning. Snape twitched beside her, looking at the wreckage.

"You're certain they weren't just… cavorting?" he sneered.

"Severus Snape! Stop poking fun at the poor boy, for goodness sake. He's of age, and he's just done in you-know-who and lost all his magic. Have you no sympathy at all?"

Snape had only looked at her as if she'd suddenly gone barking mad. Which of course she might well have been for even suggesting it, the greasy git.

Harry especially hated that Hermione steadfastly refused to leave the next bed over for safer sleeping sanctuary and so remained in the firing line he was nightly unaware of causing. He hated that others had to clean up after him; that they could repair such damage with a wave of their wand brought home to him again how useless he'd become.

He couldn't even be a squib right.

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"There is no guarantee that it will work," were the first words out of Snape's mouth when Harry limped into the dungeon potions lab where Snape had requested they meet. Slughorn had made changes in the room and Harry could tell they made Snape's skin itch. The rotund potions professor had fled squealing in fear when the battle started and had not been heard from since. No one had exactly bothered tracing orders for crystallized pineapple from Honeydukes yet. Harry wondered if after all that had happened Snape would stay at Hogwarts, and if so, what he would teach.

"Even if it doesn't, would it maybe stop the unconscious stuff?" he asked hopefully. "Even that…"

"It is not a panacea, Potter. Nor is it a simple potion. Do not think you will drink one foul tasting brew and regain your magic."

"Forgive me. It's just that's how I lost it."

Snape glared. Harry got a distinctly uncomfortable feeling.

"The problem is that it's you, Potter. I've worked for years on this and it shows every sign of being successful on an average wizard. Something you have never been. Something even now you are not. You should have no magic within you at all, and magic should be invisible and beyond your ability to feel. Yet you hurl objects with more force than most seventh years in your sleep and seem unable to distinguish winguardium leviosa from crucio in physical affect. I thought you would be the perfect candidate after the incident, but given recent events I am no longer certain I can help you at all."

Harry knew he should not be surprised. When the hell had anything in his life worked out properly? And what had ever made him think Snape might actually help him?

"So you won't let me try, then?" he asked.

"It is not you I do not wish to try. A wizard who has typically lost his magic, in a spell or potion accident, loses it completely. The body is unchanged, but in muggle terms even you might grasp, the pilot light to light the furnace has burnt out. The… donation of a small portion of magical essence from another witch or wizard of similar magical makeup can… reignite the flame."

Harry was impressed with the metaphor. He was no expert when it came to muggle mechanics - beyond the lawn mower, that is - but Vernon had made him relight the pilot light to the water heater at Privet Drive on several occasions under the theory that if there was a gas leak, it was only Harry getting blown up.

"Erm…okay. If it's not me you're worried about doing it, it would have to be the donor then. Why?"

Snape sighed and turned away. Who the hell had ever known he was capable of sighing?

"Because from what I can tell, your magic was well and properly drained the way it should have been. When Poppy scanned you there was no magic within you that matched your own original signature. There was and is, however, obviously still magic within you that your body simply doesn't know how to access or make use of… hence the wild exhibitions of unconscious fireworks at night. Until we can pinpoint what that magical energy is, you are an unfit host for any other. You might well unwittingly cause damage to the donor in the process."

Harry felt himself grow cold, his fingers stiff. "You think Voldemort…"

"No. That, I can assure you, was a magical signature I knew only too well, and this bears no familiarity to it. Neither Poppy nor I could place it at all against anyone you had possible exposure to directly after losing your own. There is no real reason to think it dark. It just seems to be… muted somehow. Blocked. It may not in fact be enough to spark off your own, though we can't be certain if you simply need time to recover from the effects of the potion first."

"You would have been famous, wouldn't you, if you could have fixed my magic. That would have gone a long way toward wiping clean the questions of who you were really working for. You could have…"

"Left Hogwarts, left teaching obnoxious, mouthy little brats, left off hiding from a madman in the godforsaken dungeons of yet another, if more benevolent, madman and had my own research facility somewhere safe from the grasping claws of the Ministry of Magic? Rub it in, Potter. You'll be not an ounce more magical when you're through. Can you begin to see why you drive me mad? You've never once done what you're meant to. If you're ever going to regain your magic, you'll just have to manage on your own. I can't help you."

Harry was no clearer as to whether Snape had manipulated circumstance for good or selfish purposes in convincing Voldemort the potion would do exactly the opposite of what it had done, destroying the horcruxes along with Harry's magic. He had no real way of knowing whether he had worked for so many years seeking a remedy for nameless lost wizards, for himself, or for Harry and the fame curing the Boy Who Lived To Become A Squib might one day bring him. Snape had been playing so many hands with so many different odds that Harry's head was left spinning. He sensed, however, that the game had come to little more than naught in the end.

There was no cure for Harry now, no public redemption for Severus Snape.

"So there's nothing I can do."

He ached to be gone, suddenly from Hogwarts as well as the potions class room. There was too much magic here; perhaps if he was back at Grimmauld Place… Good thought there, Harry. Or it would have been if you'd gotten around to clearing out the Dark Arts stuff in your super wizard days. With your luck you can imagine how it will affect you now…

He hadn't thought of that when he'd told Ron that they could raise the baby there. Hermione and Ron and Luna could do it, Lupin and Tonks would surely help. Harry knew that. And he could… watch. Cook. Pour them a cold butterbeer when they were done.

"No, Harry. I'm afraid not," Snape's voice cut across his thoughts. Harry was halfway out the door when it hit him and he turned.

"You called me Harry."

Snape did not look up from the parchment he had begun perusing on his desk. "It is your name, is it not?"

"But…why?" Harry persisted, although he knew it was unwise. "Why now?"

"Because it is somewhat easier to pass through these lips than `sorry,'" Snape said, still glaring down at the parchment, "and I thought by now its use might achieve roughly the same effect."

Bloody fucking hell.

The air sucked out of Harry's lungs in a gasp and he would have fallen were it not for the overpowering need to run, to be gone, to put the past so far behind him for awhile that it ceased to exist. He turned and limped down the corridor as fast as he could, his uneven gait threatening to pitch him to the floor more than once. He climbed innumerable stairs, cursing fruitlessly all the while, to find Hermione in the library. He closed her book without asking, shoving it along the smooth length of the library table with enough force that slipped over the edge to the floor. Madam Pince squeaked in outrage and he glared at her.

Even she could flatten you with a single wave of her wand now.

"Come with me," he begged Hermione.

She nodded without questioning him and rose to her feet, taking his arm to steady him as he lead her back through the still gritty corridors and down the steps to the Entry Hall and the doors.

She followed him outside and through the courtyard without a word. Snow was drifting from a glowering gunmetal sky; there was already a dusting across the grounds. It was the first time he had been outside since before. He headed resolutely down the walk that led toward the front gates and Hogsmeade.

"Harry," Hermione said at last. "Where are we going?"

He stopped and turned impatiently. "Home. I'm seventeen, legal even for a squib. I've killed Voldemort and I've lost my magic and I'm tired of being stared at like a specimen and pitied. I just want to go home, or as close as I've got to one, and I want you to come with me."

"Okay," she said unfalteringly, and stepping away from him she carefully transfigured her own sweater into a cloak for herself and her scarf into one for him. She held it out cautiously, like a bit of apple to a spooked horse.

He moved closer, emboldened by her lack of scolding. "I want you to come with me and to say you'll stay. For always. I want you to decide if the yes you gave me that morning at Hagrid's means yes even if I'm a squib for the rest of my life."

"We don't have to go anywhere for me to give you an answer to that," she said, easing the cloak over his shoulders. "Of course it means yes, whatever happens. More than ever now."

There was such utter conviction in her eyes than his knees felt like buckling once more. Once more the answer was to keep moving, to just keep on going wherever it led him. It had gotten him this far.

"Come with me then, Hermione, please. Even if it's just for tonight and we have to come back. I just need to be away from all this." His wave took in the castle behind them, hunkered down against the snow-heavy sky.

"Okay," she agreed again. "But you do realize we'll have to apparate or walk all the way into Hogsmeade for the floo. That's further than you've gone on that leg, Harry, and I… well, it's up to you."

He knew she was right about walking; knew also that she understood he wasn't about to walk back in to the Castle and ask to use Professor McGonagall's floo either.

"Would you… could you sidealong me, please?" he forced himself to ask.

"Isn't it going to… of course I will, Harry. Of course I will."

He realized Hermione was forcing herself to do a fair number of things she found unpalatable without dissent or complaint. He was watching the path beneath his feet but the sound of her voice was thick with unshed tears. His heart ached for her, both elated and sorry that she had chosen to love him.

They cleared the gates in silence and moved together to apparate. He slid his arms around her and felt hers draw him closer, moved with her in the familiar motion to begin and felt his world dissolve.

What a wonderful way to discover that apparition for him now was like being shoved through a rubber tube while experiencing all the enjoyment of a good crucio. He was glad she'd chosen the kitchen because it was mere steps to hurl what felt like everything he'd eaten for days into the sink. Even then he'd barely made it. He ran the tap, rinsing his face and drinking deeply from his cupped palms, trying desperately not to show how shaken he was.

"Sorry."

"Harry…"

"Note to self? No more apparition. Convenient, but I never did like the feeling," he said, and turned back toward her, trying to smile.

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It was glorious being alone. It occurred to Harry then that a large part of his perception of loneliness had come from being constantly surrounded by people he felt alienated from by the weight of their unspoken expectations. It hadn't altogether changed since dispatching Voldemort; he still constantly felt as if he was supposed to do something, he just was no longer sure what. He supposed regain his magic and stop making them feel awkward that he'd lost it in the first place.

Alone in the house with just Hermione for company he felt a deep sense of ease begin to settle over him like a warm blanket.

She flooed Hogwarts to let Ron know they were safe and where they were while he had a shower, and he heated tinned soup and toasted cheese sandwiches while she had her turn at the bath. They ate in contented silence on the floor before the fire in the front room in sweats and pajamas, splitting the last of the butterbeer between them.

"I was sort of afraid if some of the Blacks' old stuff would be a problem," he admitted. "We never did get the chance to clean this place out entirely."

"I think you should be fine in the main bit," she agreed. "Just don't go poking around the attics or anything. Ron and I…." her voice died off.

"I'd really appreciate it if you guys could do that," he said, picking at his crust.

"Much better for the baby," she offered.

His eyes sought out hers then. "Maybe you shouldn't do it. Maybe Ron could ask Luna to help."

She nodded, the curtain of her hair falling between them. He reached out and pushed it back.

"Did you see Madam Pomfrey?"

She nodded again, but this time drew forward gratefully, pushing their plates away and nestling against him. She still touched him as if he might break, but he was deeply relieved that talk of the baby brought her closer rather than put her off. There'd been little time or privacy in which to discuss it at Hogwarts.

"Is everything…okay, then? You're alright?" He didn't really know what to ask, he only wanted her to know they were never far from his mind.

"Fine. We're both fine. It's very early yet, she was actually amazed we even knew."

"I heard a heartbeat, an extra heart beat in you just before we climbed out the window that night."

She drew back very slightly so she could see his face.

"Harry, the baby barely has a heart yet. You can't normally detect a heart beat until the fifth week and barely even then…"

"I heard it," he repeated stubbornly. "I know I did. An extra little thump. I thought of it, of him or her, as little thump the whole time, that's what made it so real. I wasn't defending an idea, I was sure. You didn't seem to doubt me then."

"I didn't. And I don't doubt you now. You aren't the easiest person to love, you know. You require constant rearrangement of the known universe on a regular basis."

"I did," he said grumpily. "You'll be happy then if I'm right boring from now on, will you?"

He felt her lean in and kiss the tender skin beneath his jaw before her head tucked back under his chin.

"You'll never bore me, because I know you. I'll go to bed every night grateful that you're still alive and with us now that Voldemort is gone, and I'll wake up every morning wondering if this will be the day magic finds you again. And I'll never mind if it's not because it will give us something to look forward to the next day, and the next, and I have perfect faith that it will someday Harry Potter, because you are the single most magical person I have ever known or hope to."

Harry felt a tightness within his chest, a bracing within himself that had been part of him so long he had no idea it wasn't supposed to be there, break. A bright green light flashed from his memory and for the first time he could see past it; saw again with his own eyes. Time slowed immeasurably, the flash of light would take eons to reach him and in that time his gaze locked with his mothers' in the most astonishingly wonderful way. His grown mind knew it to be the hybrid legilimency he had discovered in himself, but of a desperate strength that easily rivaled Dumbledore's. The child knew it only for a mother's comfort and all of his instincts about what was unfolding in his bedroom were for the moment subdued as surely as a bumped knee healed beneath her kiss.

His mind flooded with images like a muggle film at high speed, most of them places and events and people he did not know. He recognized Hogwarts several times, barely recognized the cave above Durmstrang as it flashed by with an intense sensation he could not name. He saw Godric's Hollow as it was before Pettigrew's betrayal breached its safety. He felt the weaving strands of love and laughter and passion and delight, of anger brief as cloudbursts and forgiveness rich and powerful as chocolate after a dementor, all that made it home because Lily and James had loved there. He saw it all, too much for a 20 month old infant to take in or understand, felt it enter into his mind and heard a voice, Lily's voice. `Harry James Potter, you are the single most magical person I have ever known. Take heart and fight when the time comes to you. Always know you are loved. Abdo Memoria.'

The green flash hit her then and for the first time he truly had to watch her fall, but he did so as some hybrid of himself at not quite two and seventeen, more comprehending than a child could ever be, the pain at once worse and more bearable. His heart swelled in love and horror and regret and anger at her taking and he turned into the second flash of green, felt himself move not away from it but directly toward it, into it, as if he could not wait to feel its flare. He had a brief, blurred vision of Voldemort, his red eyes eager, wand poised. He held an object in his hand, waiting for Harry to die. And then the hate of the Avada Kedavra met the power his mother had infused in him with a sound like a single, solemn gong. The green light did not turn back on its master as he would have thought, it was simply gone, as surely as if it had never existed. Voldemort gave a heart rending shriek of utter disbelief and terror as his soul was wrenched from his body, a snake-like, writhing mist. It hovered, splitting horribly into two, there and then… gone as well.

And both grown and infant Harrys grabbed at their foreheads and cried as if their hearts would surely break. It seemed to Harry he was all alone in the world, the house around him quiet and cold, no one to hear him, no one to come. Mum always lifted him up when he cried, held him close to her and sang or hummed or spoke softly. Why didn't she move, why didn't she get up, come?

Grown Harry felt warm arms around him once more, a hand stroking his hair, soothing words, a gentle rocking. His scar burned with a sharp, stinging pain unlike anything Voldemort had ever caused and he pushed blindly into the small, cool hand that covered it. He could hear his own ragged breathing, barely a step from small Harry's sobs. Slowly, slowly the sobbing grew fainter and at last retreated again into the nonverbal recesses of his mind. The present took over once more and he became keenly aware of Hermione holding him and her repeated reassurances that it was over, that he was safe now.

Safe now.

He could feel something preparing to unfurl within him, the way his body would relax sometimes and grow heavy just before sleep. He didn't know what it was but it didn't frighten him as new discoveries about himself so often had, before.

He thought of the memories unlocked of Godric's Hollow, his perception even before he could properly talk of the sense of rightness and safety James and Lily's feeling for each other had given his first home. It was not the magic he remembered; it was love.

He took a deep breath and raised his head from her chest.

"What happened?" she whispered, eyes troubled and anxious.

"It was what you said. The last bit. My Mum said something almost just like it before she died. And she did something, with legilimency. There were all these images of things she wanted me to know but knew she wasn't going to live to tell me, memories and things that had happened to them. She pushed them all into my head and said `abdo memoria'"

"'Conceal these memories.' She wanted you to have them, but later, when you could understand them. Perhaps the words were a trigger," Hermione reasoned.

"How could she ever know for certain that someone would say…" he started.

"That you were the most magical person? Oh, Harry… believe it. For once, forget the Dursleys and Snape and Malfoy and just hear the truth and believe it. You are," she implored him.

He drew her closer still, onto his lap, leaning back against Mrs. Black's horsehair abomination of a sofa. "I saw it all this time. Not just a voice and a green light. I saw her. I saw him kill her. I saw him try to kill me. And Hermione, I knew then that she'd done something. I just… forgot, later. I wasn't afraid of the green light even though I understood it had hurt her. I knew it was going to do something else and it did. I watched Voldemort's soul come out of his mouth, but he couldn't properly make the horcrux because he was already dead himself. It split into two pieces and then just seemed to disappear. My head started to hurt like it was being split open and then I cried, because it was over and I knew I was alone and no one would love me like that ever again. Until you."

Her arms tightened around his back and she leant forward, bringing her lips to his. He kissed her back blindly and desperately glad again to have survived, to be alive and to have the chance to start again with her. He let his fingers frame her face and retrace the features he had watched grow from the bossy, bushy-haired girl who had barged into the train compartment looking for Neville's toad. She had come to mean so much to him that it was hard to believe somehow that they could be one and the same, that he could have ever not known her. She had never once looked away from the darkness of his past or the uncertainty of his future; had never left him alone even when he had been blind to her devotion or in his own despair uncaring or hurtful.

Her lips opened under his and he knew peace at last.

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Harry awoke the next morning to the probing of a cold wet nose against his neck. His eyes felt gritty and over-large for their sockets but the rest of him ached better than it had in a while and if he was not very much mistaken the lovely warmth snuggled close to his chest was Hermione.

His brain slowly put two-and-two together and reached the answer Crookshanks. "Hullo," he mumbled. "Go away."

A paw was next, velveted but with just a hint of claw. Harry supposed he had been on his own for some time now, even for the soul of independence. He had a cat flap and he was more than able to hunt for himself to supplement the enormous dispenser of dried food Hermione always left for him, but Crookshanks was a Hogwarts cat at heart, spoiled by the soft hearts and table scraps of the house elves. Although come to think of it, in Crookshanks case they were probably more like appeasements to a feared predator, a concept he better understood as the unprotected nape of his neck came under attack.

He rolled on his back to find they had never left the sitting room floor, but Hermione had thoughtfully done a padding charm and conjured them pillows and a thick quilt. One of the downsides of being unmagical now was not being the one to banish their clothes; he found he had no idea where Hermione had sent them to. He felt around for his glasses and sat up to get a better vantage point, shivering and tucking the quilt more closely around her where he'd been. Crookshanks rubbed along his ribs encouragingly.

He finally found them - neatly folded - on the sofa. Only Hermione could have been that overcome with desire and yet that neat at the same time. Re-clothed in sweats and socks he limped blearily into the kitchen, orange shadow at his heals.

Once Crookshanks was made happy with a tin of sardines found high on a shelf Harry heated water for coffee and tea and found mugs and spoons. The sugar bowl was empty, but he knew there was more in a sack in the pantry closet across from Kreacher's old abode. He saw that Ron had moved their supplies to the top shelves - Crookshanks was erratic in his efficiency as a mouser, hunting only when it suited him. He reached for the sugar and found it just beyond his reach. Bloody Ron. Bloody tall Ron. He'd have to get a….

The sack slid forward against his finger tips.

He brought it down, craning his neck to see behind it. Nothing. And his fingers kind of… tingled.

"It's nothing," he told himself, and refilled the sugar bowl.

Later, settled down before the fire and comfortably propped against each other with their tea and coffee, Harry remembered and flexed his fingers thoughtfully.

"Hand hurt, love?" Hermione asked without looking up from her book. Harry had seen she was reading "Magic: Now You Have It, Now You Don't." and felt uneasy even mentioning his suspicions.

"Overuse from last night I suspect," he told her with a grin.

<O><O><O>

Ron and Luna came from Hogwarts by Floo that afternoon, and stayed for dinner. Ron seemed to grow more uncomfortable and on edge as the day wore on; as if he had something to say and no idea about how to begin. Luna clearly knew about the baby and had been told not to say, a task Harry knew to be beyond her for much longer. The combination made for silences far too awkward for four people who had shared a cave together. Harry met Hermione's eyes and made a "are you going to call them on this or shall I?" face.

Never one to dance around an issue that could be attacked immediately, Hermione dove right in. "So, Ron, what's your big news?" she asked abruptly.

"Erm…" said Ron, panicked. Harry would have laughed if he hadn't felt for him.

"Come on then, spit it out," he added. "No time like the present."

"I, er… I think I'm… um… I wanted to… Oh hell. I'm going back to Hogwarts. When the new term starts. To take my N.E.W.T.s."

"Good for you, Ron," Harry told him. "Your Mum will be over the moon."

Hermione actually flew round the table, smiled enormously at Luna, and hugged him. His face, when it reemerged from her hair, was beet red and grinning.

"I am so proud of you, Ron Weasley. That's wonderful news," she told him.

"What about…" Ron started, but Hermione held up her hand.

"Wait. I feel a talk coming on." She glanced across the table and met Luna's dreamy blue gaze. "What about you, Luna?"

"Oh, yes," agreed Luna, nodding. "We do talk. I mean, we should talk. Yes."

"I feel," Hermione continued, her eyes shifting over to Harry with a sense of purpose, "we are all actually about to embark on a conversation about our futures without fear, or dread or uncertainty for the first time ever. A reason to celebrate if there ever was one." She moved to the end of the table and lifted her water glass. "To the four of us. And to you, Harry. Neville said it first. Thank you."

"Thank you, Harry," Luna concurred at once.

"Thanks, mate," Ron said seriously, nodding.

Looking at them, the faces of the people he loved best in all the world, Harry still saw the ones he couldn't save. Sirius. Cedric. Dumbledore. Charlie. His Mum and Dad. Countless others whose faces he had seen in through Voldemort's twisted gaze, whose names he had never known. It hurt; he doubted it would ever stop hurting. Still, turning from the gratitude and friendship of those who offered it so lovingly wouldn't bring them back. It had to be enough to never forget them, to never let their numbers grow as long as he could help it.

He nodded, unable to voice what he really wanted to say.

"You're welcome," he was what he managed, accepting it at last.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

The baby was born in August, not long after Harry's birthday. Hermione proved to be one of those blessed women born to birth babies, a fact that deeply shocked her sensibilities and secretly pleased her no end. She was deeply tired, but also deeply in love already with the tiny baby girl nestled in her arms. Something about the joyful discovery that love multiplied without diminishing the existing supply at all made her almost giddy, a deeply un-Hermione-like state of affairs. She was amazed to find herself kissing the small head and thinking again! like a child begging for another push on life's swing. She thought perhaps she'd wait awhile to share that thought with Harry, drained and sprawled across the bed beside her. Harry, it conspired, was not one of those men born to help birth babies. The process required more faith in nature than his own natural protectiveness could comfortably manage. He assisted Mrs. Weasley right up until the point that it became clear that both mother and daughter were safely parted and reunited anew then promptly dropped like a stone, breaking his glasses once more and giving the twins fodder for jokes enough to last at least through the child's adolescence.

Her name was Daisy. Daisy Elizabeth Potter.

There was, of course, a story to that.

Hermione had turned, by her very nature, to a book and begun a list of possible names for both genders early in her fourth month. Harry had swiftly crossed out Persephone and Ophelia and Angharad.

"If I can't spell it, we're not considering it," he'd said.

They'd made the mistake of leaving the list in the kitchen, where it quickly became an open forum for all passers through that somehow went on for the rest of the pregnancy.

The twins' suggestions all sounded like spells gone wrong or far more fitting an exotic dancer than a baby. Ron was fond of names better suited to a Quidditch team and indistinguishable as to gender, and Luna's were, well… Luna's. Mrs. Weasley provided nice serviceable names like Sarah and Mathew, but they all seemed wrong somehow when joined with Potter. They'd been working their way through flower names for a girl when Professor McGonagall had fire-called looking for Lupin one afternoon in early July. It turned out she was a surprising fount of knowledge when it came to names and their meanings. (`She should be,' an enormous Hermione had whispered to Harry as he patiently rubbed her feet. `Minerva means wise.') Harry didn't want to add the weight of Lily's name to a newborn baby, and both Pansy and Petunia had bad connotations. Even Lavender was marked forever by the Won Won affair. Harry had thought that if they had to use a flower it should be a simple, happy one.

"Like, I don't know… Daisy, or something like that," he'd said.

There'd been a snort from beyond Professor McGonagall on the other end of the fire at Hogwarts. An unmistakably Severus Snape sort of snort. Harry was quite certain it was followed by an invisible shiver of disdain.

"Merlin preserve us from a future in which a Daisy Potter might walk the halls of Hogwarts. Wandering after lights out and maintaining the family tradition of arrogant disregard for rules would be quite enough without the auditory assault of "Daisy' in association with `Potter'."

Thus the name.

Harry had said they could always call her by her middle name, rife with possibilities like Eliza or Beth, but now that she was here Hermione thought Daisy fit her perfectly. Her smoky blue baby eyes already revealed small swirls of green. Hermione knew most babies had bluish eyes at birth and only time would tell, but she cherished the idea of their daughter carrying on Harry's lovely eyes. The downy hair that crowned her head - wayward already - was Harry's as well.

Harry shifted on the bed beside her and one eye opened to reveal a slit of green.

"Omphe?" he asked, his voice muffled by the pillow. Reluctantly, he lifted his head and tried again. "Okay?"

"We're fine."

The `we're' intrigued him enough to slowly push himself up onto his forearms high enough to take in the baby again as well. Hermione thought she'd never tire of the look that stole over his face at the sight of her, fierce and tender all at once.

"Hullo there, Daisy," he said softly. "Haven't you got the most lovely mummy ever. Yes you do."

She felt herself smiling broadly, dazed with delight in them both. There were actually moments for her now when it seemed impossible to believe that Voldemort had still existed less than a year ago. The last eight months had brought many changes, but none greater than one in Harry himself.

They'd come to realize that Lily had left more than just memories locked away in her small son's mind. She'd given him a greater gift by far. There'd been enough of Lily's magical essence left in Harry to bring about the slow rebirth of his own. In unlocking the memories with her words, Hermione had unblocked the puzzling source of magical energy Snape had identified. Unblocked, Harry's body took over and began re-nurturing the spark into what it had once known. She had found it perfect somehow that it had taken his body roughly the same amount of time to rekindle his magic as it had taken hers to produce Daisy. He was quite close now to where he'd been the night he faced Voldemort.

So far, there were precious few in the Wizarding world that knew Harry Potter was anything more than a total squib, which was exactly the way Harry wanted it. He was finally left alone by those who would have hounded him otherwise, the ones like Scrimgeour who wanted nothing more than a puppet to mold to their own purposes or the likes of Rita Skeeter, who'd actually informed him there was little less newsworthy to the Daily Prophet than a squib. The unbelievably (to the average wizard) slow healing of his injuries without magic had put off any idea of pomp and ceremony before long, and the fickle interests of the average witch and wizard quickly moved on to their own lives without You-Know-Who.

Lupin and Tonks knew, of course. Both were frequent visitors to Grimmauld Place. They had married shortly after Harry and Hermione had paved the way for them and convinced them no one would find the slightest thing to gossip about in their age difference after tiny Hermione and her enormous middle and the limping squib-who-lived preceded them down the aisle when the weather warmed in June. It helped that the weddings were both small, Weasley-back-yard affairs and that having gotten themselves that far neither couple cared in the slightest what anyone else thought.

The many Weasleys obviously knew as well, including the freshly graduated Ron, who'd managed three N.E.W.T.s and was even now considering job offers, and Ginny, who'd softened appreciably with both of them once Hermione had become visibly and irreversibly pregnant and Harry's devotion to her in her condition proved equally visible and irreversible as well. Fleur and Bill, it was revealed, were not far behind Harry and Hermione on the path to parenthood, although Hermione despaired of how Fleur managed to maintain her veela grace whilst swelling to proportions rivaling the giant squids'. Luna Lovegood was an honorary Weasley already, all but inseparable from Ron these days and already enlisted as Godmother to his Godfather.

Professor McGonagall and Hagrid, his first and still unwavering mentors in magic, rounded out the small circle.

And now Daisy, as well.

"Do you want to hold her?" Hermione asked him. He pulled himself up and sat beside her against the headboard, nestling the baby against his propped knees so that they could both see her. She stared back at them sleepily and gave an enormous yawn.

"Boring already, are we? Just you wait," he told her.

"No," Hermione disagreed gently, leaning into his shoulder to watch her more closely. "Boring is good. Boring is lovely when you consider the alternative. Besides, who can be bored when the world is full of books to be read."

He smiled at her fondly and her heart still sped up.

"Tell us a story, then," he said. "As long as it's not the story of house elf liberation throughout the ages or anything like that. A proper story with `Once upon a time' to start and `they lived happily ever after' at the end."

"The house elves will at very least have a union within Daisy's lifetime; won't they sweetheart. Tell Daddy yes."

A small milky bubble blew from Daisy's lips as her eyelid dropped lower. Harry shook with silent laughter.

"Once upon a time," he prompted.

"Once upon a time," Hermione began softly, weaving her fingers with his as they watched their daughter's eyes slip closed.

And they lived happily ever after.

Fin.

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