Chapter Text
Caverin and Merina Elezra were happy to say they were quite extraordinary, thank you very much. At eleven years old — almost twelve, Caverin was often reminding his twin sister — they could levitate objects, pick any lock, and fly broomsticks hundreds of feet in the air. This was all possible because Caverin was a wizard and Merina was a witch, but the time had come for them to leave the sanctuary of Hogwarts, their school and their home.
“You can stay with us if you like,” said their friend and Quidditch mentor, Ginny Weasley, who’d come to meet them at King’s Cross station. “We have our own pitch — sort of — we could train there and Mum’s been going on about how empty the house is now that almost everyone’s moved out except for me and Percy —”
“A real magical house?” Caverin beamed. “Sign me up!”
“Thank you, Ginny.” Merina was always more hesitant to accept charity than her brother. “But we’re all set for the summer at our aunt’s. She’s expecting us.”
“Oh, excellent, I’d love to meet her,” said Ginny. “See about getting you your own broom —”
“She’s at work,” said Merina. “We’ll owl you. Maybe we can arrange a visit.” Privately, she doubted it.
Caverin took her aside with a pout. “Come on, Rina. We can just owl Auntie — can you imagine what her face will look like when an actual owl delivers the post directly to her kitchen table? She’ll throw a fit!”
“And call child protective services on the Weasleys, is that what you want?” She rounded on him. “What’s more, they’ll see Aunt’s house and throw us in foster care, is that what you want?”
“Don’t you get it? We don’t play by those rules anymore! We’re wizards! And so are the Weasleys —”
“We’re not above the law , Verin. Haven’t you been paying attention in History of Magic?”
“Who actually does though?”
“We’re staying with Auntie and that’s final.”
Reluctantly, they said goodbye to Ginny at Platform 9 ¾ and took the train to Lambeth.
To their surprise, their aunt was home when they arrived, flying down the walk towards them, arms outstretched, and tendrils of graying hair flying wildly.
For a brief second, Caverin thought she was going to hug them or something completely out of the ordinary like that. Merina saw the harsh glint in her eyes first and stepped in front of her brother, hand closing over her wand, which was sticking out of her back pocket.
Their aunt grabbed their arms hard enough to leave bruises.
The girl cried, “ Rictusempra! ”
Mrs. Elezra buckled to the ground in a laughing fit. Some of the neighbors peeked out their windows and Merina quickly stowed away her wand. Her aunt looked more a witch — the traditional Muggle depiction — than she did. Laughing mirthlessly, eyes stony, vice-grip on their wrists. The twins remembered Harry’s warning at King’s Cross the first time they met him and with the neighbours out, they didn’t want to risk making their magic known.
At the doorstep, their aunt wrenched their wands away before shoving them inside the house, where she threw the wooden sticks in the fireplace.
“ No! ” Caverin leaped forward but was blown back by a sudden blast from the destruction of the wands.
Their aunt took the brunt of it, smashing into the window and slumping to the floor, unconscious.
“Verin!” Merina helped him up. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” he grunted. “Do you still have the floo powder from McGonagall’s office?”
His sister nodded. Whenever they were called into her office (usually for misdemeanors), they snuck a bit of floo powder for emergencies like this.
They huddled together inside their tiny fireplace and yelled, “ The Burrow! ”
In a swirl of green smoke and black soot, they tumbled through to the Weasleys’ kitchen.
“Good heavens!” Molly Weasley jumped up from her rocker, knitting falling to the floor, needles still clicking of their own accord by magic.
“Terribly sorry, Mrs. Weasley.” Caverin was the first to stop sneezing. “We’ve, um, come to visit our friend, Ginny?”
“We’ll clean this up first.” Merina picked up the sweeping broom in the corner and began to clean the hearth.
“The cleaning spell’s Scourgify , dear,” Molly supplied, smiling at the twins’ good manners. “They never did place a particular emphasis on practical everyday spells at Hogwarts.”
“We…” Caverin hesitated. “We can’t. Our wands —”
“We lost them!” Merina exclaimed.
“For Godric’s sake, Rina!” he yelled. “You might be okay with living this, but I’m not! Not anymore! I hate living with that crazy old bat and I hate being too bloody proud to get help! We’re just kids! We shouldn’t have to —”
“Kids have parents,” she snapped.
“If I may,” Molly interrupted them. “If you bought your wands at Ollivanders, there’s a seven-year warranty now or as long as you’re in school, whichever is longer. You can replace them.”
“Thank you,” Merina said quietly.
“I’ll call Ginny for you.” Molly sent off a silvery light in the shape of a beaver that reminded Merina of Mrs. Beaver in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe . Molly spoke to the beaver in a whisper. The beaver nodded and ran off, fading into the sunbeams streaming through the window.
“What was that?” asked Caverin.
“It’s called a Patronus,” Molly answered. “A guardian against dementors and a very convenient little messenger. “Would you care for some refreshments while we wait?”
“Thank you,” said Caverin.
“No, thank you,” said Merina.
Molly prepared two glasses of milk anyway and two large cookies the size of pancakes. Caverin gobbled it all up in the five minutes it took Ginny to arrive.
“Alright?” She knelt in front of them.
Merina nodded, but Caverin shook his head.
“You live in Lambeth, don’t you?” she asked them. “Harry’s responding to an explosion there… looks like a wand deconstruction gone wrong.”
“Is… Is it fatal?” Merina clicked the heels of her Oxfords together nervously. They were technically boys’ shoes, but the styling and embellishments on the girls’ ones made them, in her opinion, unreasonably priced.
“No, your aunt should be fine, barring a trip to St. Mungo’s, but we take it very seriously when a Muggle relative tries to quash the magic out of Muggleborns.” Ginny licked her thumb and rubbed the soot off their cheeks. Then she realized she was becoming her mother and stopped. “You won’t have to live with her anymore. You can stay here for the summer. Alright?”
Caverin had a big “yes” on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t want to be anywhere without his sister. And contrary to her opinion, he had been paying attention when they discussed the law in History of Magic and he knew that even verbal agreements could be binding in the wizarding world.
“Rina?” he asked. “Please.”
Merina knew she was proud and it hurt that she couldn’t take care of them like she’d wanted to. But because of her pride, their aunt had almost died and despite the way she’d treated them, Merina didn’t think she deserved that fate.
“We can stay,” she agreed. “If we learn practical everyday spells from Molly so we can help around the house.”
“Yes!” Caverin exalted, throwing his arms around her in a big hug.
*****
Harry materialized behind a large oak on Privet Drive in the middle of the day, when everyone was at work. He walked up to Mrs. Figg’s doorstep and rang the bell.
“Oh, Harry!” she greeted him with a worn smile. “Come in, come in.”
“Happy birthday, Mrs. Figg.” He presented her with the usual cake. “Merlin’s socks!”
There were six lampshades, sans the lamp, half a curtain, and a torn up couch, not to mention the tell-tale pawprints all over the carpet.
Harry set about cleaning and repairing immediately. “You could get RACOM-C down to —”
“I could, but the furries will just start up again and I don’t want to discourage her.” Mrs. Figg nodded at the baby girl sitting in the middle of the warzone of a living room, surrounded by kneazles of every shape, size, and color imaginable.
“Delphi turns their furballs into toys — it’s their playing that causes most of the mess — and in return, they don’t change their fur back when she re-colors them.” Mrs. Figg cut up the cake and served it on her good china, but even that had stray bits of cat hair on it and had to be dusted before use. “It’s good for business, mind. Do you have any idea how many witches and wizards want a purple kneazle. It’s madness!”
Harry looked at the dark-haired baby. She looked unassuming enough. Hell, she looked like a Black. Like Sirius might’ve looked when he was younger. “That’s… a bit more than accidental magic though, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, your boss has been by on numerous occasions.” She pointed to the stack of tickets on the dining table. Harry could just make out Jeremia Podmore’s impatient scrawl. “But eventually, she just stopped coming. We’re fine, Harry. Aren’t we Delphi?”
Delphini cooed back and then her chubby little fingers went into her mouth, as if trying to determine the source of such a curious sound.
Harry sat on the floor in front of her. The child of his enemy. The powerful child of his enemy. Was this how Riddle had felt, looking at Harry, right before he tried to kill him?
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Mrs. Figg. “You’re wondering, ‘Who am I to challenge destiny?’ ‘Who am I, a boy whose entire life until now has been dictated by prophecy, to say that this child will not damn us all?’”
“Aren’t you wondering the same thing?” he asked.
“Your life was not dictated by prophecy, Harry. It was dictated by a man who believed in one.”
Harry swallowed. “Dumbledore.”
Mrs. Figg nodded. “Now maybe there is some greater design by some greater being out there, but part of that design is our ability to make choices that ripple out into other people’s choices, that ripple out into more people’s choices, and so on. We can’t control the choices Delphi will make, but we can control which choices we give her.”
At hearing her name again, Delphini gurgled and clapped. A brown kneazle turned key lime green. Delphini frowned and clapped again. The kneazle’s fur darkened to match the hue of Harry’s eyes. She looked from the kneazle, to the visitor, then outstretched her arms, appearing to present him with the gift.
She looked like a Black. Like Andromeda when she was that age. And right then, she reminded him of Teddy.
“You’re very talented, Delphi,” Harry complimented her and let her wrap a small hand around his finger in an approximation of a handshake.
*****
A pale-faced man with stringy, ash-blond hair was moved into the Azkaban basement for good behavior. It was the farthest from the dementors, so his head cleared enough to be able to think if he put some effort into it. The man began to see how weak the stone walls were due to the tide constantly crashing against them.
He had never been a powerful wizard by any means, but he was resourceful, and sometimes, that was a force greater than any raw magic. With his metal dinner tray and dull butter knife, he pried at the keystone of the arched wall until the guards summoned his tools away. Day after day, night after night.
On the first day of August, he was close — oh, so close — when his tray and dull knife were summoned away.
“ No! ” he yelled in frustration. “ No. No. No! ”
The man clawed at the stone with his bare hands until his fingers bled and water began to seep in through the cracks. He backed away and the next wave to crash into the wall broke through. One heavy stone hit his knee and another struck the side of his face like a suckerpunch. He held onto the bars of his cell as the current threatened to sweep him out to sea. He would go with it eventually, but first, he needed a wand.
“Help! Help!” he cried out hoarsely.
Two guards jogged down to his cell and unlocked it with their paired keys. While one attempted to stop the water, the other attempted to secure the prisoner. ‘Attempted,’ being the keyword.
The man wrenched the wand out of the Unspeakable guard’s hand and stunned him and his partner. Then he swam out of range of the prison’s wards, out of range of the dementors, and apparated away.
He materialized in Wiltshire, in front of a large manor, but he couldn’t get past the wards. They must be new.
“ Sectumsempra! ” he hissed and when the dark spell was absorbed into the ward, an alarm sounded from within.
A boy appeared just inside the wards — no, that wasn’t quite right. He was a man with the same steely gray eyes and platinum blond hair as the escaped prisoner. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the aurors right now.”
“You are my son. And this is still my house —”
“It is mine —”
“You’re both wrong,” said a stately woman with dark black hair, save for a few streaks of white. “This house is mine. What do you want, Lucius?”
Lucius Malfoy smiled. “Narcissa, my love —”
“If you loved me you wouldn’t be here right now. You wouldn’t ask what I know you’re about to —”
“I ask because I know you love me too,” he pleaded. “It’s only temporary. Until I can contact some old friends —”
“You have no more of those —”
“I can’t tell you their names for your own safety —”
“No, no.” His son, Draco, shook his head. “I think our safety pretty much went out the window the moment you set foot near us.”
“Then call the aurors.” Lucius put his hands up. “That’s what law-abiding wizards do when they don’t feel safe, isn’t it? Call them and see if they believe that neither of you helped me escape before chickening out —”
“You’re losing your touch, old man.” Draco snarled. “You’re not goading Gryffindors anymore.”
“He has a point, Draco.” Narcissa pursed her lips. “They won’t believe us —”
“Well, he can’t stay —”
“— for more than forty-eight hours,” she finished. “If he does, I’ll kill him myself and make it look like an accident.”
“Why can’t we just skip ahead to that part?” Draco pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Because we are family,” said Narcissa. “Despite everything else that we are, we must always have that.”
“You mean it is because we are family that we are everything else that we a—”
“I will take no more of your cheek, Draco Lucius Malfoy. Take down your wards.”
“Mother, please listen to me —”
“Take. Them. Down.”
“Fuck Merlin,” he muttered and let his father in.
*****
Hermione’s eyes opened at the sound of her alarm. She meant to sit up and turn it off, but instead, she rolled onto the floor with a hard thud.
The damned clock was still ringing.
“Enoim, thgirla?” Ron meant to roll left towards her side of the bed, but instead, he went right and fell onto the floor as well.
Hermione meant to move her right leg to stand, but her left jolted instead, hitting the bottom of the bed frame. She’d meant to say “ow” but it came out sounding like, “Wow.”
What Ron said next came out all garbled too, but it was probably for the best, because it was about what a fun night they’d had and Hermione was not in the mood.
Halfway around the world, Ginny was in the middle of the match that would decide whether the Harpies made it to the World Cup. Everyone started flying backwards.
“Shit, shit, shit!” She tried to signal for her captain to call a timeout, but every time Jones tried to speak, it came out backwards.
“Tuo emit! Tuo emit!” Eventually, she figured out that if she meant to say it backwards, she’d end up saying it correctly. “Time out!”
Their opponents, the Japanese National Team, were in the lead and wanted to end the game due to the extraordinary circumstances.
“On! No!” cried Ginny. More slowly, since she had to make herself intend to say it backwards, she said, “We… play. The rules state… ‘until the snitch is caught’… if the game… ends by natural or unnatural phenomenon… call a draw, Referee.”
The beater of the opposing team meant to advance on her menacingly, instead he took a step backwards, tripped over his robes, and fell on his bat.
Meanwhile, Harry and Jeremia jogged up the steps from the Underground. It was too dangerous to apparate when everything you did could turn out to be the opposite of what you’d intended. However, the two capable operatives had managed to get the hang of speaking (the key was being good at spelling and then to start thinking in syllables, not words) and moving backwards in order to move forwards.
“Well, at least the Muggles are just as confused as we are,” Jeremia grumbled as several people bumped into her on jerky legs.
Harry muttered a small diagnostic spell that would hopefully be missed amidst the chaos of Muggle London. “The source is the Big Ben.”
“Of course it is.” Jeremia looked down at her ticket book. There was a message from Christi when Muggle Liaison. Funnily enough, reading something written backwards on a literal opposite day, made you speak it correctly. “The PM wants to know when we will resolve this mess. Either that or he wants us to buy the queen a new dress. He hasn’t figured out backwards speech yet. I hope he has to give a public address before this is all over.”
Harry laughed and didn’t even bother sobering up when Jeremia shot him a death glare.
They were on their way to the bank of the Thames when someone shot out of a chimney.
“Mutnemom Otserra — Kcuf!”
“ Arresto Momentum! ” Harry caught the wizard before he made a pancake of himself in the middle of the busy street.
“Look out!” Jeremia pushed him out of the way as a car careened off the street in an attempt to turn the corner. (The driver had turned left instead of right.)
Harry sent a patronus to Percy to shut down Transportation until further notice and to get Christi to tell the damn prime minister to do the same.
“The Obliviators are never gonna get here in time,” said Jeremia. “I’ll do it myself. Go on, Potter. Put an end to this already.”
Harry nodded and sent another patronus to Bill and Fleur, asking them to meet him at Big Ben.
Back in Ottery St. Catchpole, Ron and Hermione were just stumbling out of the flat. They’d gotten the hang of speech (Ron still cursed backwards and Hermione kept missing out on blended consonants), but not movement.
Hermione looked up and down the narrow neighborhood street. “Oh my —”
“Can you imagine if they had flying cars like Dad?” Ron was itching to just start Reparo -ing everything.
“We’d better not try to apparate.”
“Good idea. I’m out of floo powder.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Of course, you are.”
“It’s no big deal. Mum will have some.”
“I have a hearing today!”
“I’m pretty sure they’ve postponed it.”
“Pretty sure isn’t sure enough!”
“It is literally Opposite Day! Can we just not be the couple that goes at each other’s throat the second shit hits the fan for once? ”
They walked to the Burrow in stony silence.
In Japan, Ginny was flying literal circles around her opponents, mostly because she kept getting her lefts and rights confused while also going backward, but the important thing was, she had the quaffle.
Eventually, she got the hang of it and flew right up to a goal post before tossing it through. Belatedly, the opposing keeper smacked straight into her and the referee called a penalty shot for the Harpies.
Taking her time to think backwards through what she wanted her body to do, Ginny scored again.
Then, probably because it was the day of opposites, Romilda, who was subbing for an injured Williams, managed to do her job as seeker and catch the snitch.
At the top of the Big Ben, which was ticking backwards, Harry met Bill, Fleur, George, and Angelina.
“It’s hardly a sophisticated bit of magic,” Bill explained.
“But it’s very dangerous,” Fleur cautioned, “especially since we get the opposite of everything we do now.”
“I’ve offered to just disintegrate Ben and be done with it,” said George, gesturing at a crate full of glass bottles containing bright pink liquid that smelled like the stomach acid of a creature that could digest anything . “But apparently that’s bad for Muggle relations.”
“So instead, we’re going to disintegrate it bit by bit and just conjure up replacement structures as we go,” said Angelina.
“But how was this done in the first place?” asked Harry.
“Can I explain when I don’t have to say words like, ‘antenebritique,’ backwards?” Fleur handed him a broom.
Harry took it. “Right. Sure.”
“One drop of acid —” George demonstrated on a floorboard, which promptly turned to smoky pink vapor. Sections of its neighbors also disintegrated. “— Then just fill the hole. Quickly, mind.”
At the Burrow, Ron and Hermione were disappointed to find that the floo network was down.
“See!” exalted Ron. “We couldn’t have used the floo powder if I’d had any!”
“That’s besides the point,” Hermione sniffed.
She switched on the wireless. Lee Jordan had all the latest:
Harpies won against the Japanese National team, 270 to 260, and were going to the World Cup this year. The Muggle Prime Minister just gave a public address that was supposed to ask people to go home and stay inside, but he might have just invited everyone to 10 Downing Street for a play date. Also, five Ministry of Magic officials, including the Boy Who Lived, were flying brooms around the Big Ben in a pink vapor cloud.
“They’re halfway up the clock now and Big Ben is ticking back and forth between ten and eleven in the morning…” said Lee. “Is it really only ten or eleven in the morning? This day has gone on long enough as it is, thank you very much!”
“Tell me about it.” Ron slumped backward into the couch. Then he shot up. “Come on, Mione. It’s going to take the Muggles ages to fix everything once we’re back to normal and you know they’ll start with London. It’ll take days for them to reach Catchpole.”
“Ron, we can’t,” she sighed. “The statute —”
“Harry loaned me his invisibility cloak for a stakeout.” Ron held the front door open behind him for her to follow. “It’s still at my place.”
Hermione blinked. “Brilliant. That’s… Brilliant.”
At the Harpies’ lodgings in Japan, Ginny slipped into her room unnoticed while the reporters swarmed Romilda, congratulating her on her ‘historic’ play.
She tried not to be bitter or jealous. It was all in the team, wasn’t it?
Still, she wished she could send a patronus to Harry, but she’d heard on the wireless that he was otherwise occupied.
She didn’t want to talk to her mum, who would simply tell her, with the best of intentions, “When I was a girl, I wanted to be a beater for the Chudley Cannons with your father, Merlin knows they need all the help they can get. We had all these grand plans, but there was a war going on, and then we were too old to play professionally. You’re very fortunate, Ginny, very fortunate. Don’t lose sight of that.”
And Ginny definitely did not want to talk to her brothers, who would say pretty much the same thing, except perhaps Percy, who would just tell her to quit.
She could clearly hear Romilda speaking to the reporters downstairs, “It was a team effort certainly. I was just glad to be a part of it. I’ve always believed in myself, you know, but I hope that after this, other people will start believing in me too. Because I’m done sitting on the sidelines when I know I can be great.”
Over the wireless, she heard that Opposite Day was over, the Chosen One had saved their arses again. Ginny couldn’t wait to tease him about it.
Her floo chimed and the unusual clock above the mantle, not unlike her mum’s at home, showed that whoever it was, was flooing in from the Japanese Ministry.
Ginny leaned into the fire. “Who is it?”
“It’s Harry,” said a disembodied voice.
Ginny pulled her head out of the flames and Scourgified herself quickly so she didn’t smell like Quidditch. Then she pulled the poker (it was really a lever) to let him through.
“Hey!” He scooped her up into a big hug. “I heard about the match from Ron. Congratulations, you’re going to the World Cup!”
“Thanks,” she mumbled, smiling slightly into his shoulder.
Harry put her down. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Just a little disoriented from doing everything backwards, I guess.”
Her boyfriend frowned. “It was Opposite Day here too?”
“Should it not have been?”
“The source was all the way at Big Ben.”
“Bad guys always go for the scenic route, don’t they?”
Harry chuckled. “I can’t believe you won a match flying backwards .”
“No one else will either.” Ginny finally got around to unlacing her boots and her feet thanked her for it. “Romilda Vane is still talking to reporters downstairs.”
“What happened to Williams?”
“Got into a bar fight with her brother for hitting on her girlfriend. Got a concussion. Who was the saboteur?”
“Dunno yet. Ron’s out looking with the Aurors. It’s rather nice to let it be someone else’s problem for once and just come and see you. Did you get your broom checked after the match? What were its stats?”
“I’ll get it tuned-up before I head back out again, like I always do —”
“I was thinking of getting you a new one. For your birthday.”
“People usually like to keep presents a surprise, you know,” Ginny deadpanned.
“I’m just letting you know so that if Jones decides to buy one for you, I still have time to get something else.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Hermione.”
“I mean, I could just snog you senseless like you do me every year, but I kinda want to be original at least.”
“Oh, I certainly hope I get a lot more than a snog for my birthday, Potter,” she purred, perching herself on his lap.
Harry’s eyes went glassy like he’d just been Confunded . “You look so hot in your Quidditch robes.”
“But…?” Ginny prompted him.
Now he was really confused. “But what? But nothing! You’re bloody gorgeous!”
Ginny rolled her eyes, stood, and dropped her robes at her feet. “Do I look hotter now?”
Harry nodded dumbly.
She grinned sinfully. “Show me how you treat a winner, Potter.”
*****
“Did you hear?”
“— Azkaban —”
“— escape —”
“— Lucius Malfoy —”
“— should’ve given him the Kiss when they had the chance.”
On one of their rare, synchronous days off, Hermione and Ron were chaperoning the Elezras, who had their second-year shopping in Diagon Alley, which was alive with gossip and repairs.
They got replacement wands with Ollivanders’ new warranty, got their books and potion ingredients (Thank Merlin for Gringotts student loans), but Merina drew the line at brooms.
Still, Ron slipped Caverin four sickles to buy ice cream Fortescue’s when his sister wasn’t looking.
“Where’d you get the money?” She narrowed her eyes at him, willing herself not to be tempted by the delectable, sweet cone.
“They were having a promotion. Twins get free ice cream today.” He spewed out a bunch of divination nonsense about Gemini.
Merina took the second ice cream cone just to shut him up, and because it was melting.
“Can we go to the menagerie?” asked Caverin.
“Sure, go ahead,” said Hermione. “We’ll meet you back at Leaky in an hour?”
The twins nodded and ran off.
“There was no promotion for twins at Fortescues, was there?” Hermione looped her arm through Ron’s.
“Nope,” he laughed.
“That was really nice of you. To find a way to give them that.”
Ron blushed. “‘S’nothing.”
Just then, a brown-haired boy, who looked about seventeen, came up to Ron and Hermione. “I can’t believe I’m meeting two out of three of the Golden Trio! This is the best day of my life! Will you sign my chocolate frog cards, please?”
“Dennis, you’ve known us for, what? Seven years now?” Ron signed the boy’s card anyway, as did Hermione.
Dennis grinned cheekily as he multiplied the signed cards. “And now I’ll be at least seven galleons richer before today is over. Thanks, you two!”
Hermione pursed her lips in disapproval as the boy walked away offering a signed chocolate frog card for a sickle.
“Oh, come on, Mione.” Ron nudged her shoulder. “The lad’s enterprising. You’ve got to give him that.”
“We shouldn’t be glorifying war this way.”
“You liked it when the put the memorial up in Hogsmeade —”
“We were honouring people . Those who didn’t get chocolate frog cards. Their lives —”
“So if it’s really the chocolate frog card people you’re upset with, sue Honeydukes. Don’t take it out on Creevey. He knows what war does. He lost his brother, didn’t he?”
“Exactly! He lost his brother! And now he’s turning us into collectibles, ready to inspire other brothers to fight other people’s battles and die for them.”
They were still walking side by side, but there was an invisible wall between them now.
Over the years, they had learned how to disagree, but that had been as friends, as friends with a common friend with bigger problems than who did or didn’t do their homework, who did or didn’t say what they really meant, who did or didn’t leave the toilet seat up in the tent they’d called home when they were on the run.
Deciding to be each other’s Person had been a step in the right direction, they were both certain. But they still had to learn how to be that and disagree at the same time.
For now, Hermione stepped closer to Ron and brushed some non-existent lint off his shoulder. When her hand dropped down to her side, their knuckles brushed. Ron held the door of the Leaky Cauldron open for her. They sat on the same side of the booth.
Hermione ducked her head, blinking rapidly to keep from crying. “I know I’ve been advocating for reconciliation since the beginning… with Harry… but…”
“Then Lucius Malfoy breaks out of Azkaban and makes you question whether people like him really deserve a second chance,” Ron finished.
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s where your prison reform project comes in,” he reminded her.
Hermione set her jaw determinedly. “Right.”
“One fight at a time, though, yeah?” Ron’s eyes were sparkling. “First, we need to find something edible on this menu.”
The corner of Hermione’s mouth twitched. “Following our guts, are we?”
Ron smirked. “Exactly.”