and often Sirius and Remus played pick-up games of Quidditch on the pitch in the back gardens. They went to Diagon Alley one morning and Draco bought everything in sight, including a pith helmet, and Harry promised all and sundry that he would be sure to take a photo if Draco ever actually wore it. On another afternoon Draco took the sword Terminus Est and carried it up the hill to his father’s mausoleum, where he wrapped it in layers of cloth and left it inside the plain marble structure. Sirius went with him, and when they came down again Draco seemed noticably lighter, as if he’d left a weight behind him at his father’s burial place. Ron came up to him and they spoke together, civilly and even thoughtfully, and never mentioned to anyone else, ever, what they had talked about.
The days slid by, langorous and golden. The evenings were often spent out on the lawn, picnicking, playing Flamingo Croquet, or lying on their backs watching the stars come out one by one. Nights, Harry spent with Hermione, and they did not talk about the future, and only a little bit about the past. It was a time that he would always remember as enchanted, as close to perfection as life could get without being unendurable in the ending or the recollection afterward.
The ending did come, as endings always do, and Harry said goodbye to Ron first, with a fierce hug on top of the Manor’s front staircase. A carriage had come to take him to Blaise’s house, where he would meet her parents — and afterward they were headed to the Burrow where she would, at long last, meet his. Ron looked half amused and half like someone headed to his own funeral, which Hermione remarked on as she hugged him too, before he climbed into the carriage alongside Blaise, and it vanished down the drive.
Hermione went next and that was more painful. She and Harry said their farewells privately, but there were still streaks of tears on her face when she carried her bags to the front steps of the Manor and waited there for the carriage that would take her to Chipping Sodbury to meet her parents.
Sirius, Narcissa, and Remus all bid her farewell, and then it was Draco’s turn and Harry went down the stairs with her bags to give them a moment to say goodbye to each other.
“Shall I write you?” he asked with langorous amusement, and she laughed.
“If you like,” she said. “The black roses at the reception — did you make those?”
“No, but they were my idea. You know I prefer black to white. Why should white get all the adulation when perfect darkness is so much more soothing to the eye?”
She touched his face lightly with her hand. “You remember when you asked me if there would be beautiful things where you were going?”
Draco remembered a long corridor, fading light and fainter voices. He said, “I remember.”
“I think I can safely say yes, now — there will be.” She dropped her hand.
“Take care of each other,” she said, and ran down the steps. Harry put her into the carriage, and as she leaned out of it to kiss him good-bye, the sunlight struck the glass ring on its chain around her neck and made it glow with the blue-white light of a star.
Harry came up the stairs. “There’s only us left now,” he said, and Draco had been worried that he would sound shell-shocked or distraught, but he sounded only meditative. “I suppose we’d better pack.”
“You haven’t packed yet??” Draco demanded, momentarily losing his cool.
“There’s a bloody carriage coming for us in an hour, and we’ve got a boat leaving at —“
“Calm down, Malfoy.” Harry was laughing. “I packed last night. And I don’t have three trunks full of hair product, either.”
They went to get their things, and when they returned, each with a bag slung over his shoulder (through the magic of one of his gadgets, Draco had managed to shrink his three trunks of hair products down to a manageable size), Narcissa, Sirius, and Professor Lupin were sitting on the stairs. At the foot of the stairs was a carriage, its doors open. “All these good-byes are wearing me out,” Sirius said morosely, as he stood up to wish them bon voyage.
“We’ll be in Greece in August,” said Narcissa, hugging Harry and letting him go. “Maybe you could meet us there.”
“That’s our honeymoon you’re inviting them on!” Sirius protested. He looked as if he might hug Draco, but settled instead for shaking Draco’s hand in a manful sort of way, and promising to send him money if he needed it. Draco forbore from saying that there was little chance he was going to need any money; even if he and Harry drank nothing but expensive champagne and ate nothing but caviar for an entire year, it was unlikely they’d dent the Malfoy millions — not to mention Harry’s own not inconsiderable fortune.
Lupin handed Harry a slender book. “I wandered the world for several years myself,” he said. “I’ve written down some of my favorite places. If you’re interested…”
“I am,” said Harry, pocketing the book. “Very. Thanks.” He smiled as Sirius joined them, and briefly clasped Harry’s shoulder.
“I just wish,” he began, and fell silent, though all three knew what he had been going to say, I just wish James and Lily were here to see you.
“I know,” Harry said. “But they’re at peace now. That’s what’s important.”
“Are you?” said Lupin quietly, his lined face thoughtful as he studied Harry’s expression.
Harry thought for a moment of Draco, saying, I am content, with such assurance that Harry had been startled. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll always miss them, my parents. But I remember what you said to me, Sirius. That the things we do for love, those things endure. They’re always with me.”
Sirius’ eyes darkened, and he gripped Harry’s shoulder again, hard enough to hurt. Lupin seemed about to say something when Narcissa’s voice rose over them, sounding perplexed, “I know, isn’t it peculiar?” she was saying, as she glanced over at a cluster of her white rosebushes, which lined the circular drive at the front of the Manor. One of the bushes sported roses which seemed to have turned overnight to a deep and glowing shade of scarlet. She frowned. “I don’t remember planting red roses…”
“Don’t fret about the herbaceous borders, Mother,” said Draco. “There are much more interesting things to fret about. Me, for instance. I’m about to go off into the wide world all alone—“
“Hey!” interjected Harry, affronted.
“—I might be kidnapped by gypsies, or set upon by bandits. Anything could happen.”
“In that case, I feel sorry for the gypsies and bandits,” said Narcissa, touching her son’s face with her fingertips. “If there’s one thing that doesn’t concern me, it’s you. My son can take care of himself.” She dropped
