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Chapter Text

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing . . ."
            ~Pascal, Pensées, translated by A.J. Krailsheimer

The place Harry had once described as 'like King's Cross station' was filled with a shining white mist, as if light itself had acquiesced to have form. This time, the high arched windows glowed with colour like stained glass, and as Harry stood again in this place of waiting, he was transfixed by its serene beauty. This time, nothing marred the silence of the high, hallowed space. And Harry, after gazing up in awe for several moments, looked down at his white-robed, barefooted self, and wondered why he was here.

As if his questioning thought stirred the air, the mist swirled and formed and parted before him. Figures walked towards him out of the mist, seeming almost to form from the mist as they came. Harry held his ground, waiting. He felt no threat here, no sense but a dreamy, still peacefulness. The figures came closer, nearly fifty or so of them, and suddenly Harry knew them. His heart soared and he stepped forward to meet them gladly.

Here were Fred, and Lupin and Tonks, and Colin, and all of those who had died fighting Voldemort and his followers at the Battle of Hogwarts. They crowded around him, and whispers of "Harry," "It's Harry," "Harry Potter," "No, it can't be!" "No!" began to echo through the vaulted room. The faces of all these fallen comrades were sad, angry, heartbroken.

It was Lupin who finally spoke. "Harry?" he said, his eyes filled with regret and disbelief. "I had so hoped we wouldn't see you here."

Tonks stepped up and took Lupin's arm. "Wotcher, Harry," she said, in a cheerless, subdued parody of her living self. "We all hoped... you wouldn't..."

Fred came forward next. "I was so sure you would win," he said, and Harry knew he'd never in life seen Fred look so disappointed or defeated.

And Harry suddenly understood. They thought he was dead, that Voldemort had killed him. That Voldemort had won the war they'd given their lives to help him win. He wasn't sure how it was that he was here, but he did know that he had beaten Voldemort. That he wasn't dead.

"But I did win!" he told Fred, and he grinned. "We won! Do you hear me?" he called out to the crowd that gathered around him. "We WON! Voldemort is dead!"

"But you're here..." said Lupin, "with us..."

"I dunno," said Harry. "I think I'm... dreaming... or something. But I know I'm not dead. I beat Voldemort and the war is over." He looked out at all the puzzled, grieving faces that surrounded him. "I think maybe I've come to say goodbye... and to tell you what happened, so that you know your deaths meant something before you go on." He had to stop a moment then, to take a deep breath. "I could never have done it without all of you," he added quietly, proudly. "All of you meant so much."

"Tell us what happened, Harry," said Tonks, and Harry saw the first glimmers of triumph sparkle in her eyes. "Tell us how you snuffed the bloody bastard! We've been going crazy to know what happened."

So Harry told them how it had come to be that he had defeated the greatest Dark Wizard of the age with a simple Expelliarmus spell. "He basically killed himself," said Harry at the end. "It wasn't really me at all." And when he looked out at all the friends and comrades who had died to help him win, he felt a great lump in his throat, and had to stop speaking, but all the faces that looked back at him now were smiling and joyous. That joy, he realised, just in that moment, was what he'd been brought here to give back to them.

"I think we can go on, now," said Lupin, and he was smiling, holding hands with Tonks. "I'm so proud of you, Harry. Your mum and dad would be so proud of you."

"You'll take good care of our little Teddy, won't you?" asked Tonks, and at Harry's nod, she stepped forward and brushed a misty kiss against his cheek. "We always knew we could count on you, Harry," she whispered.

Then she and Lupin turned away, and beyond them now, Harry could see a sleek, silver, light-filled train. There were no tracks and no wheels; it seemed to hover in mid-air, awaiting those who would travel on from this place. He heard their final words as they vanished into the light within the train's open car. "Goodbye! Goodbye, Harry!" He had to blink away the tears then, knowing he would never see them again.

Colin came forward next. "I wanted to fight," he said with solemn pride. "I knew I was too young, but I don't regret that I died, if you won." He smiled at Harry, and Harry wiped away his tears and smiled back. "Tell them that, when you go back. Tell my family. I don't want them to be sorry for what I did."

"You were great, Colin," he said, softly. "I'll tell them what you said." Colin beamed at him, just as he'd done so many times in life. Then he, too, stepped aboard the silver train and disappeared into the light.

Others came and shook Harry's hand, or simply passed near to smile and thank him. Some of them he knew by name, others he had never seen before in his life. But they all knew Harry. Harry thanked them from his heart, and gave up trying to keep the tears from rolling down his face, though he was smiling.

At last came Fred, and Harry knew that this might be the hardest goodbye of all.

"I can't pretend that it's not hard to be here without George," he said sincerely. "But you tell that one-eared bugger that I'm okay, yeah? And that I'm gonna come back and haunt him if he wastes one second of his life grieving over this." He looked so serious and stern, and so unlike himself, that Harry could only nod in answer. "Tell Percy he can't blame himself, either."

"I'll tell them," said Harry.

"Give my love to Mum and Dad, and Ginny and Ron and Bill and Charlie and ..." The corner of his mouth came up in a crooked grin. "... and tell Georgie he can have my ear."

"What?" said Harry, startled.

"You know... like one of those tranz-plants the Muggles do. Dad was telling us about it. George should take my ear. Obviously, I don't need it now and I want ole Holey-Head Georgie to have it." Fred was grinning cheekily at him now, just like his usual self again.

"Tranz-plants," repeated Harry, shaking his head, and grinning back. "Right. I'll tell him."

Fred held out his hand and Harry took it. "We owe you, Harry, me and George. You didn't ever let us down. And just know that I would have been glad to have you in the family," he added with a wink.

Harry blushed. "Thanks," he said. "I'll remember that." Then Fred was gone, stepping into the light inside the silver train, the last to board.

As Harry watched, the shining train moved forward, carrying all the dead of the Battle of Hogwarts on in a silent blaze of light, and then Harry was alone. For a moment, he stood smiling, drying the tears from his face with the cuff of his robe.

Then everything faded away, dissolving back into the shining white mist...

Harry woke slowly, stretching, and relaxing with a sense of comfort and safety that he hadn't felt in months. The late afternoon sunlight that slanted low and honey-gold through the west windows of the Gryffindor dormitory fell in warm stripes across the foot of his old bed. The first thing he remembered was that Voldemort was finally dead, and he sat up in a rush, elated, a joyous grin spreading across his face.

A moment later, the memory of Fred and Lupin and Tonks and Colin and so many others lying stilled forever on the floor of the Great Hall hit him, dealing a sharp, breath-catching blow to his heart.

Oh, God. So many.

Thinking of them, his dream came drifting back to him, first in small light-filled fragments, then in a rush of shining faces, smiles, and too-short moments; moments that made him smile again, that he knew he would always remember with bittersweet pleasure. The place in his dream had been very similar to the place he'd found himself in after Voldemort had cast the Killing Curse on him in the Forbidden Forest, the place where he'd seen and spoken to Dumbledore again.

But hadn't that all been in his head?

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real," said Dumbledore's clear voice again in Harry's memory.

Could it be real? Could this shining peaceful place really be... death? Harry let his thoughts sift through his questions until he found that same sensation of wonder and deep calm he'd experienced in the Place of Waiting welling up in his heart to silence them all. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed with the sense of joy he felt. In that moment, something shifted inside his mind.

Thinking back, he remembered other words that Dumbledore had spoken in that place:

"You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying."

Harry recalled the terrible fear he had felt when he'd walked into the Forbidden Forest knowing that he was going to die, but the feeling was distant now, almost as if it had happened to someone else. He had conquered that fear and accepted his death, and now, he realised, the way he saw life and death was changed forever. Dumbledore was right. There were far worse things in life than death, and then he smiled again. Even if he would never be afraid of death ever again, he was, in this moment, very grateful to be alive.

There was so much now to look forward to!

His thoughts went immediately to Ginny, and he ran one hand through his too-long, messy hair, remembering Fred's teasing, and feeling his face heat up. The last time he'd seen her was in the Great Hall, her head on her mother's shoulder. It was startling to realise that that had only been a few hours earlier.

The war had ended just that morning, but it seemed like ages ago, a different lifetime ago. He'd fallen into his old bed fully dressed; dirty from the months of camping, from the battle, from tramping through the Forbidden Forest in the dead of night, from lying dead or not-dead in the mouldering leaves and the dirt at Voldemort's camp. Too exhausted to do anything except pull off his trainers, he'd fallen asleep before his head had even touched the pillow.

Fully awake now, Harry reached for his glasses and found that the plate of sandwiches Kreacher had brought to him in the common room before he'd come upstairs, now sat refilled on the bedside table. He grabbed several, mentally thanking the old house-elf as he stood, stuck his feet back into his worn trainers, and headed for the showers. He needed to find Ginny. Really, it was past time that he should be finding her, he thought, but he was not going to go down until he was cleaned up.

The hot water of the shower went a long way towards making him feel like life could be normal again. He cast a couple of hurried cleaning spells on his clothes, spells Hermione had taught him during the long days in the tent, and put them back on. There would be time to find proper clean clothes later.

Finally, feeling cleaner and better fed than he'd been in months, Harry clattered down the Tower stairs to the deserted common room, amazed by the day. The long terrible year was done. The war with Voldemort was over at last.

That sense of euphoria bubbled up again, though he felt a little guilty for sleeping so long. He should have been downstairs before now; he should have been with the Weasleys, with Ron and Ginny, to share their grief. For a fleeting moment, he wondered why they hadn't come looking for him, why they weren't here now waiting in the common room, and he felt a growing urgency to get down to the Great Hall and find them.

The last thing Harry expected as he stepped out of the portrait hole was to stumble over Draco Malfoy.

Draco stood slowly. His pale hair was singed in places, and he smelt of burnt wool and smoke. There were streaks of black soot on his face, and a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. He looked as if he'd sat there, outside the entrance to the Gryffindor Tower, for hours.

Harry stopped short and eyed him mildly for a moment, as if nothing more consequential than a slightly scorched slug had chanced across his path. Then he brushed by with a nod and a murmured, "Malfoy," and headed for the stairs.

"Oh, bloody hell, wait!" The distress was obvious in Draco's voice, though he barely spoke above a hissed whisper. "Potter, wait!"

Harry turned, curious, belatedly realising that if Malfoy were up here, he must have been waiting for him, but Harry was still not at all inclined to stop. The Great Hall and his friends, and especially Ginny, were drawing him urgently downstairs. "What? Why?" said Harry, walking backwards for a moment, thinking that of course it would have to be Malfoy bothering him now, of all times. "I'm in a hurry."

Draco hadn't moved from his spot by the portrait hole, and his hands were balled into fists at his sides. He looked angry, but he also looked desperate, as if his only hope in the world was walking away from him fast and that brought Harry to a reluctant stop.

"What?" said Harry, again. He hoped he didn't sound too exasperated, but on second thought he didn't much care how he sounded. The thought of Ginny running into his arms from across the crowded Great Hall, lifting her grief-stricken face to be kissed, was not making him inclined to stand here talking to Draco sodding Malfoy.

"There's no one down there, Potter," said Draco in a low voice, as if he didn't wish to be overheard. "They've closed the castle and got everyone out. The... bodies have been moved to St Mungo's. I was already on my way up to find you when that new Minister Shacklebolt gave the order for no one to come up here and disturb you. There are a couple of Aurors waiting down there for you when you do come down."

Harry's imagined vision of Ginny waiting downstairs for him popped like a soap bubble. It took him a moment to wrap his brain around the idea of the castle being empty. It was something of a disappointment. "So what are you still doing here?" he asked, walking slowly back to where Draco stood. "Obviously, not disturbing me didn't apply to you..."

"I had to talk to you," said Draco hesitantly, ignoring Harry's sarcastic dig. "I hid for a bit to avoid the Aurors and waited up here so I didn't get turned out like everyone else." He paused and swallowed. "I want..." He hesitated again, studying Harry intently. "I need my wand back."

It suddenly occurred to Harry why he hadn't seen Lucius or Narcissa Malfoy fighting in the last battle and why he'd seen all three Malfoys simply sitting at a table in the Great Hall afterwards. None of the Malfoys had wands. Harry remembered that Lucius's wand had been snapped when Voldemort tried to use it against Harry on the night he'd left the Dursley's. Harry himself had taken Draco's wand. And Draco had lost his mother's wand in the Room of Requirement just before the Fiendfyre had swept through, nearly claiming all their lives.

The Great Hall had been swarming with Aurors looking for any remaining Death Eaters when Harry had left. He wondered if the senior Malfoys had been arrested, and if the Aurors were looking for Draco. And that thought recalled something he'd been curious about for a long time.

Harry pulled out his own newly repaired holly wand and pointed it at Draco. "Show me your arm," he said.

Draco took a step back, and bumped up against the wall behind him. Harry advanced on Draco until his wand was only an inch away, pointed at Draco's throat. "Let's see it, then," he said, quietly. "Roll up your sleeve."

Draco's chin came up, and Harry could see that he was trembling, but he did as Harry demanded. "I wanted you to win, you know," he said sullenly, as he pulled up the left sleeve of his jumper.

"Oh, right," snorted Harry. "You're hilarious."

Draco glared at him. "Wanting you to win doesn't mean I thought you could actually do it. No one believed you could actually do it!" he retorted, unbuttoning his shirt cuff and rolling the sleeve back. "And in case it escaped your notice, most of us are not immune to the Killing Curse. Just because you don't die, doesn't mean any of the rest of us dared to flaunt any difference of opinion in front of the Dark Lord, or my lunatic aunt. Or my stupid deluded father, for that matter." His voice had lost its anger and now just sounded sad. "I wasn't even safe with my idiot best friends any more. Openly siding with you would have been an instant death sentence."

"Okay, okay," grumbled Harry, thinking suddenly of Cedric Diggory and feeling the same acute sting of guilt he always felt about that horrible senseless death. "I get it. Lumos." Harry held the lit tip of his wand over Draco's bared forearm. It was skinny and pale and unmarked.

Harry looked back up in surprise and met Draco's eyes. He'd been so sure that Malfoy had taken the Dark Mark. Draco looked every bit as surprised as Harry, if not more so. "Was it there?" asked Harry. "The Dark Mark?"

Draco nodded. His eyes were wide. "Oh, sweet Merlin," he whispered. "You did this..." Then, as if his knees had buckled under him, he slid slowly down the wall to sit on the floor.

Harry crouched down in front of him. "What do you mean, I did this? How?"

Staring intently at his own arm, Draco didn't seem to be able to take his eyes off that pale unblemished patch of skin. "He's dead, you idiot," he said softly. "You killed him and all his spells are gone." Then he closed his eyes and smiling, let his head thump back against the wall. "I thought I'd never be free of that ghastly thing."

Harry remembered how, in the moment Dumbledore had died, he'd been released from the spell that had held him immobile on the Astronomy Tower and nodded. "I see," he said. "Right. Now there's no proof that you were one of them."

"Don't be thick, Potter," said Draco, opening his eyes to glare at Harry again. "I have my memories, they have Veritaserum. That's all the proof they need." He paused then, and a slow smirk appeared on his face. "But just so you know, before you get all set on turning me in, we've been let off. My father talked to Minister Shacklebolt already, and he's letting us go home."

Harry snorted. "Oh, that's just bloody brilliant. Your father was most definitely not on my side..."

"My father is a complete and utter arse," said Draco, breaking in and shocking Harry speechless, "who has a great vault of money he has pledged to help with restoring this school, or whatever else the Ministry wants. So save your breath, Potter. I know what my father was." He stared defiantly at Harry for a moment. "But my mother said she'd helped you," he said, continuing in an earnest voice. "She thought maybe... you would help me... and give me back my wand."

It was a long few seconds before Harry spoke. Malfoy was looking at him with hope in his eyes, one eyebrow up in question and traces of his earlier smirk still lingering at the corner of his mouth. Harry sighed. "She did help me," he said finally. "I doubt that I would be here now if it weren't for her, and I'll make sure the Ministry knows that. But she helped me because I told her you were alive and safe at the castle, and that was because I'd already fished your sorry arse out of the Fiendfyre. So I figure we're even, as favours go."

"Oh," said Draco, and his face fell. He looked down, away from Harry. "About that..."

Harry waited while Draco seemed to struggle with what he was about to say.

"For that... and for this," he continued slowly, indicating his now unmarked arm, and meaning also all that was implied by its disappearance, "...I wanted to say..." His voice trailed off, and he had to clear his throat before he could go on, but finally he said it, though it was somewhat mumbled at the end. "I wanted to say... thank you."

In spite of his sudden inarticulate speech, Draco sounded completely sincere. Harry hadn't even known the git could be sincere. It was disconcerting.

"And I suppose you think that makes everything all right? That I'll believe you now, and forget everything else that happened?" said Harry, a bit incredulous, thinking of Katie Bell screaming and screaming as she hung suspended in mid-air, of Ron drinking poisoned mead, and Greyback invading the corridors at Hogwarts.

Draco looked back up at him at that, his expression desperate again. "I don't expect you to care what happens to me," he said, his voice low and tense with emotion, "but I did try to help you at the Manor... even though I was walking a very thin line then. I think, maybe, you owe me a little for that. I just want my wand back, Potter... that's all I'm asking for."

A series of other memories flashed through Harry's mind: the vision of a pale and haggard Malfoy forced to cast Crucio on Rowle, Malfoy refusing to identify Harry at the Manor, and stopping Crabbe and Goyle from trying to kill him in the Room of Requirement, which Malfoy had done even if it wasn't with Harry's best interest in mind. He felt a little ashamed that he'd momentarily forgotten those things. Then he remembered Dumbledore's willingness to try to save Malfoy that night on the Astronomy Tower in spite of the cursed necklace and the poisoned mead and letting the Death Eaters into the school. It was the last thing the headmaster had done in life, and that weighed heavily with Harry. Still...

"I don't think I owe you anything, Malfoy," said Harry quietly. "Granted, I would have tried to save almost anyone from that horrible Fiendfyre, but the reason I came back for you was mostly because of what you did at the Manor." He paused, considering the options. "If I did give you the wand back," he asked finally, "what were your plans, after that? To just walk out of here and what... go back to Daddy and pretend none of this happened?"

"No... I don't know. I just want to go home." Draco groaned, and one hand came up to cover his face. "I just want this fucking nightmare to be over. I want my life back the way it was before that bloody snake-faced monster came back and stole everything from us."

Harry frowned. "You know that's not going to happen."

"Oh, no shit, Potter." Draco was glaring at him again, anger taking dominance over the desperation of a moment ago. "Just give me my wand back. You don't need it now." He eyed Harry's holly and phoenix feather wand that Harry was still pointing casually at him. "Or are you starting a collection? What do you have now? Three?"

"Look," said Harry, irritated, and rushing to derail that train of thought. "I'm sorry your life is fucked up. I'm sorry for a lot of things that happened that are not my fault. But the truth is I'm not sure I can give you your wand back. For one thing, it probably won't work right for you. I had a long talk with Ollivander after we rescued him from your father, and he told me that wands change allegiance if they're taken by force. It's really not your wand anymore."

And I can't let him try to win it back from me so that it would work, thought Harry, coming to the most important bit, because that would make him Master of the Elder Wand again. But Harry didn't want to say that out loud. He didn't want to remind Malfoy of that.

"For another thing," he went on, thinking fast and hoping Malfoy would buy it, "I'm guessing the Ministry will want it. It's the wand that defeated Voldemort. They'll probably want to put it in a er... museum... or the Department of Mysteries... or something. Not that I want them to..." His voice trailed off. He knew it sounded incredibly lame even as he said it, but it was the best excuse he could think of to avoid giving the hawthorn wand back.

But it was too late and Draco's train of thought had not been derailed. Draco had a sly calculating look in his eye and his hand darted out to hover over Harry's holly wand. "I heard what you said in the Great Hall this morning — that I was Master of the Elder Wand all that time. Maybe I don't need that old hawthorn wand back. If I grabbed this wand away from you right now, wouldn't I be Master of the Elder Wand again?"

Harry had always had good reflexes, most likely from a childhood of dodging Dudley's blows, but a year on the run had made those reflexes lightening quick. He was on his feet with his wand pointed at Draco's nose before the git had even finished his sentence. "Don't even think about it," he said flatly.

Draco looked up at Harry for a few intense seconds before his hand fell to the floor at his side. Then he closed his eyes and let his head drop back against the wall, defeat written clearly all over his face.

In those few seconds, though, Harry had seen the small spark of hope, that spark that had lit Draco's eyes earlier, fade and die. And he found he didn't like that. Not at all.

Harry remembered vividly how bereft he'd felt when his holly wand was broken. It had felt as if a part of his own body was missing. He could certainly understand why Malfoy wanted the hawthorn wand back. And worse, ever since he'd mentioned the Fiendfyre a few minutes ago, he couldn't stop the realisation that Malfoy was only here, alive and speaking and... well... still here at all, because Harry had made an effort and saved him from being horribly burned to death. And maybe, supplied a little niggling voice in Harry's mind, just maybe, he should follow that up by at least making an effort to be civil.

"C'mon, get up," said Harry, his voice softer, tempered now by guilt. God, why was it that Malfoy could get under his skin like this, every single time. He felt like he'd just kicked a wounded puppy.

Draco scrambled up, and Harry could see that, though he tried to stand and face Harry with his earlier confidence, the bravado was obviously false: he was trembling and had to keep one hand against the wall to brace himself. He didn't meet Harry's eyes, instead he turned his face away, and as close as Harry was now, he could see the faint tracks of earlier tears running through the soot and blood on Draco's face.

It was probably those bloody tear tracks that did Harry in, that made his heart turn over, just the smallest bit.

Harry understood in a flash of insight that all Malfoy had ever known of power was the kind that took and showed no mercy, that forced its will on those who were weaker and sought to destroy any opposition. There was nothing in Malfoy's experience that had taught him the power of benevolence, or cooperation, of sharing, or compassion. He'd been taught to ridicule those qualities as weaknesses. And Harry understood that all Malfoy expected from Harry, now that Harry was in a position of power, was the same cruel brutality he'd known before. But Harry was not going to go along with it. Damn it all to hell, he was not going to act like Voldemort all over again, not even with Malfoy.

And suddenly that compassion Harry'd thought of a moment ago as only an abstract idea became a living breathing and solid presence in his gut. Malfoy had come to him here, asking for help, and Harry had treated him with nothing but distrust. It didn't matter if part of him believed Malfoy deserved that distrust. Malfoy had been the victim of his father's deluded ambitions, and of Voldemort's vindictive egomania, as much as anyone. Harry just hadn't seen it quite that way before.

And now that he had seen it, it couldn't be unseen. Harry's heart made a choice then and there, and he wondered in that split second, if he would come sooner or later to regret it. But that didn't change his decision at all.

"Malfoy," he said, trying to make his voice both stern and gentle, "can you promise me that you will never, ever, fight me again? Can you swear, by whatever you hold dear, that you will never, for the rest of your life, try to best me in a duel?"

"What difference does it make, Potter," whispered Draco, "if I don't have a wand. But if you must know, I hope I don't ever have to fight anyone in a duel, ever again, for as long as I live. I've had enough of it. Will that do?"

Draco was extraordinarily pale and looked ready to sink back to the floor. Harry abruptly thought of another reason, besides his own very scary and intimidating presence, why that might be. "When was the last time you ate something?" he asked, concern suddenly overriding everything else.

"No idea... maybe yesterday morning..."

Harry sent a mental apology to Ginny, wherever she was. The thought came back to him, that he and Ginny would have time, lots of time, later. Right now, it seemed he was stuck dealing with a nearly fainting Draco Malfoy.

Harry turned to the Fat Lady and said, "Let me back in. You know I don't know the password. I need to get him inside."

The Fat Lady in the portrait was nodding and beaming at him, all set to open up, but at the word "him," gave a little shriek. "Oh, no!" she cried, her hands fluttering nervously around her face. "Harry, love, you can't bring him in here!"

Harry's eyes rolled up to the ceiling. This was too much. He was Harry Potter, he'd just killed Voldemort, and he needed the sandwiches and the hawthorn wand from his room. He was not going to be thwarted by a bloody over-protective painting. He stuck a finger right up to her painted face. "The war is over," he said, heatedly. "Now OPEN UP!"

It was not the password, but he was Harry Potter, and he'd just killed Voldemort, and she obeyed him with only one small squeak of protest.

So much for not using power to push people around, he thought ruefully, as he let Draco climb in through the portrait hole. But if he had anything to say about it, then all the fighting was going to stop. He was going to stop it right here and now with Malfoy, for starters.

With a flick of his wand, Harry lit a fire for light in the dark Gryffindor common room. "I'll be right back," he told Draco, then sprinted up the stairs. He got to the first floor landing, stopped and called down, "Hey, the loo is up here on the first landing. If you want to get cleaned up, or anything." He didn't wait for a response, but ran up the rest of the way to his dorm room.

Now that everyone was out of the castle, he knew he wasn't going to be coming back here. He gathered all his things from his old room, the moleskin bag, the two wands that were his but not his, and the Invisibility Cloak, then straightened the bedclothes on his bed. This room had been home to him for six years. It felt odd, knowing he might never see it again. He stood for several moments, just looking around, memorising and remembering, then with a deep breath, walked away from this old life toward the new one opening up before him — the one he hadn't been sure would ever happen. On the way out, he picked up the plate of sandwiches.

Draco was in the common room when Harry came back down, sitting in the armchair next to the fire. His face was cleaner and his hair was wet; it looked like he'd put his entire head under the tap. He practically leapt onto the plate of sandwiches when Harry held it out to him, scoffing down the first sandwich in three bites. Two more followed in quick succession, and Harry was vastly amused by the fact that he was feeding Draco Malfoy sandwiches in the Gryffindor common room. It went against all the natural laws of the universe.

"How is it you have sandwiches in here?" Draco complained, between bites. "There's not a soul in the castle, and yet you have sandwiches. I probably shouldn't be so surprised."

Harry snorted back a laugh at the thought of calling Kreacher and giving Malfoy a real surprise. He laid the hawthorn wand on the table next to Draco instead. "Maybe this will surprise you, as well," he said. "I can't promise it will still work for you, but I'm giving it back."

If Harry had expected Draco to grab the wand immediately, it was his turn to be surprised. Draco just sat very still and stared at it. Then he lifted his chin and stared at Harry. And Harry couldn't fight the grin that took over his mouth because that spark of hope was back in Malfoy's eyes.

"Just like that?" asked Draco in an unsteady voice. "No catch?"

"Just like that," affirmed Harry. "Although, if you remember, you did promise not to duel with me ever again."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Like I was going to do that, anyway, Potter, after you killed the fucking Dark Lord with an Expelliarmus. I'm not stupid."

"I never thought you were stupid, Malfoy. I think some of the choices you made were stupid..."

"Oh, right, choices," retorted Draco, waving a sandwich. Eating seemed to have effected an instant revival of his attitude. "My father was in Azkaban, and my aunt let the Dark Lord live in my house. My mother's life was threatened. Exactly what kind of choices do you think I had?"

"No, okay, maybe you didn't have much choice, really," said Harry, sitting down in the chair across from Draco. "But I always thought you were proud of it, of being with him and taking the Dark Mark. On the train to school, at the start of Sixth Year, you certainly seemed to be."

"Yeah, well things didn't turn out the way I thought they would, did they?" He finished the sandwich he was holding, then went on in a low voice, his eyes fixed firmly on the fire. "At first, I was still outraged that they'd dared put my father in prison. I was blinded by that and didn't know what I was getting myself into. My father had always talked about how brilliant the Dark Lord was. How we were going to be his most powerful partners. I wanted to do anything to hold on to that for us while my father was gone." Draco took a deep breath, then looked back at Harry. "But it turned out that the Dark Lord was a monster, and then it was more about just staying alive from one day to the next," he said. "He was deranged and inhuman and cruel, even to his followers."

Harry nodded. "That's why he had to be stopped."

They stared at each other for several long seconds until Draco said quietly, "In the end, I wanted him stopped as much as you did." He looked back at the hawthorn wand. "But," he said, pausing, and slowly reaching out to pick it up, "what really is insane is that you did it with this. With this old wand that I've been carrying around since I was eleven. It's like..." He sat for a moment, silently running his fingers up and down the wand before he continued. "...like it knew how much I wanted to kill the Dark Lord, but wouldn't ever dare, and it found a way to do it... with you."

Harry sat up straighter. This was the very thing that fascinated him too, after talking to Ollivander, after his experiences with the different wands. Harry had been so frustrated with Hermione's refusal to acknowledge that the wands had some kind of innate magic. Suddenly Harry had all kinds of questions. He realised he'd wanted to talk to Malfoy for ages, to know what had happened, what he'd been thinking. He thought of Ginny and again reminded himself that they had lots of time to be together in the future. Malfoy was here now, and in a talking mood evidently, and Harry wanted to take advantage of that. The world was just going to have to think he was still taking an extremely long nap...

Harry really wanted to discuss the theories of wandlore with Malfoy, but the first question that popped out of his mouth was something entirely different. It was something he'd been wondering about for a while. "So why didn't you identify me at the Manor when you obviously knew it was me."

Draco shrugged. "I hated the Dark Lord being in the house. I didn't want him to come back for any reason." He looked up at Harry, his eyebrows drawn down in seriousness. "And of course he was furious with us that you escaped. Exactly what I was afraid would happen." He shuddered, and Harry saw a shifting expression of pain and revulsion flit across his face at the memory.

"So nothing to do with me, personally, then?" said Harry with a half-grin, realising with surprise that he was teasing Malfoy, and there was no animosity behind it. "You weren't really trying to help me at all, like you claimed earlier?"

Draco looked caught out and Harry was mildly amused to see his cheeks go slightly pink.

Then Draco's head tipped back against the chair and he let his breath out in a huff. "Potter," he said in a strained voice, "I helped you because if anyone had a chance of defeating the Dark Lord, it was you. I would have done anything..." He raised his head and looked pointedly at Harry. "...anything, that is, that didn't involve me fighting him myself, to get rid of him."

"Hmm," said Harry. "But if you thought I was the only chance of defeating him, then why were you helping Crabbe and Goyle try to capture me to hand over to him?"

Draco took a deep breath and shook his head. "Look, there's no way I'm going to be able to give you reasons that you will like for everything I did. Mostly, I was doing whatever I could to survive, and for us, since my father had involved us so deeply, survival with the Dark Lord meant pleasing him and giving him what he wanted, not just staying out of his way."

"It just seems like you and your family want to be on whatever side you think is winning, or that has the most power, regardless of what is involved. I saw you sucking up to both sides during the battle — just in case."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"I find that morally reprehensible."

"Big words, Potter. I'm impressed." Draco paused and looked away and stared for a moment into the fire. "The truth is, I didn't know what side I was on, really. My own side, maybe? So, yeah, I did whatever I had to, whatever would keep me or my parents safe for that moment." He paused again. "You have no idea what it was like..." he added so softly that Harry barely heard him.

"Yeah, actually I do," said Harry quietly. "And I guess I can understand that. I did some things out of desperation this year that I'm not proud of."

Draco turned back and studied Harry intently, and Harry met his eyes steadily.

"And I wished more than anything that I didn't have to fight him myself, too," said Harry quietly. "I wasn't so sure of my chances."

A feeling of understanding seemed to pass between them, then, and Draco nodded once. "So no glory or quest for power and fame for you?" he asked.

"Hardly," said Harry, and was gratified when Draco nodded again.

"Ah. Then, as I always suspected, it was your immense, overbearing, albeit selfless and heroic need to fight evil and save the world," said Draco, looking altogether pleased with himself at turning the tables and smugly daring Harry to deny it.

Harry had to admit that he'd set himself up for that one. "You wanker," he said, making sure his voice was teasing, giving Malfoy a crooked grin to let him know he got the joke on himself.

Draco's eyebrows shot up, then his eyes narrowed, and the corner of his mouth curled up into his old smirk. He gave a short snort. "Am not," he said. Then he did grin. "Well, not bloody lately."

Harry couldn't help it. He laughed out loud. Malfoy was grinning back at him openly now. They weren't fighting and it felt fantastic.

In fact, Harry was surprised to find that he was honestly enjoying this conversation. They had been through so much, had had so many parallel and shared experiences, and yet had never talked to each other. The prospect of being able to talk about them now was riveting. Harry knew he needed to go soon, but he found he didn't want to. There were things he wanted to know, things he was discovering that he wanted to talk to Malfoy about, like the wands. And speaking of wands...

"You should try that," said Harry, indicating the hawthorn wand that Draco held in his lap. "See if it still works for you."

Draco looked down at the wand in his hand, his expression serious again. He held it up and studied it intently for a second, then said, "Lumos." The tip of the wand glowed blue and it cast a small circle of light. "It does feel a bit different," he said, "but it works. I'll just have to get used to it, won't I? Or it will have to get used to me." He ended the spell, and tucked the wand up into his sleeve with a satisfied nod, then raised one eyebrow at Harry. "It's not like I can get another one... unlike some people I know." Then he sat forward, avid interest in his eyes. "Will you let me see it? The Elder Wand, I mean."

"I don't know," said Harry hesitantly, suddenly uncomfortable. The less said about the Elder Wand, in his opinion, the better. He stared back at Draco who was still looking at him expectantly. "I'd rather not," he said finally.

Draco sat back, looking disappointed, but not surprised. "Fine," he said, softly, sounding more let down than angry.

But before Harry could reply, the door to the common room opened and Professor McGonagall walked in, followed by two Aurors in uniform. "I will check on him," she was saying fiercely, "but I will not wake him if he's still sleeping. He deserves all the time he needs..." Then she stopped so suddenly when she saw Harry and Draco sitting by the fire, that the Aurors nearly walked into her.

Harry stood up, and Draco stood up behind him.

"Potter?" said McGonagall, and her eyes flicked over his shoulder to Draco and then back. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes," said Harry. "We were just about to come down."

"Isn't that the Malfoy boy?" asked one of the Aurors. "He's supposed to be with his parents. Minister Shacklebolt placed them under house arrest until further notice."

Harry turned around. "Forgot to mention that little detail, didn't you," he said in a low voice, feeling much better now about Shacklebolt's decision to let the Malfoys "go home."

Draco just shrugged and smirked at him. "It's just temporary," he whispered back. Then he stepped past Harry and faced the Aurors and Professor McGonagall. "I've been up here with Potter the whole time," he announced. "It was my wand, you know, that he used to kill the Dark Lord."

Harry supposed he didn't mind the truth-stretching. He thought he could see through Malfoy's posturing now, to the fact that he often responded to fear and insecurity with this kind of pumped-up bravado.

McGonagall was frowning at Draco, but one of the Aurors stepped forward and motioned to Draco to come through. "Well, you're coming with me now," he said sternly. "I'll be seeing you get back home straight away."

Harry supposed that he, himself, was now going to be someone Malfoy would try to ally with, to be important. Obviously, Malfoy still thought being important, or at least knowing the "right" people, was important. He was a little disappointed to think that that's all that had happened between them here this afternoon — that Malfoy was still siding with anyone who could further his position in life. Really, he chided himself, he should have known...

And then Draco turned around to face him, with his back to the Aurors, and that genuinely sincere expression was back on his face, the one that Harry had never seen before today, the one that somehow reached straight into Harry's heart and snagged him against all sense. "Potter," he said softly, meeting Harry's eyes with open honesty. "Thank you." He patted his arm where the wand was now safely hidden inside his sleeve, and nodded once. Then without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked away with most of his old swagger intact, going out through the portrait hole with the Auror.

Harry wondered if he would ever see him again.

"If you're ready, Potter," said Professor McGonagall, "Auror..." She turned to face the man in question, waiting for him to answer her implied question.

"Oh," he said, straightening up. "It's Thompson, Ma'am."

"... Auror Thompson will escort you to the Burrow. They are expecting you."

"Okay," said Harry, as he gathered up his few belongings, "but there's something I need to do first." He hesitated, then deciding he needed her help, asked, "Professor McGonagall, may I speak with you a moment... privately."

"Of course, Potter," she said, smiling at him. "Just give us a moment, would you please, Auror Thompson," she said graciously, while ushering the Auror to the portrait hole. "I assure you, Potter will be quite safe with me." After the portrait had closed, she hurried back to Harry. She looked worried. "Potter, is something wrong?" she asked. "And what was Draco Malfoy doing in here?"

"Doesn't matter," he said. "We were only talking. What matters is this." He drew the Elder Wand from where it was bundled up in his Invisibility Cloak.

"That is Dumbledore's wand," she said, puzzled. "How...?" Then comprehension hit and she sank into the chair that Harry had been sitting in earlier. "That is the Elder Wand, isn't it? The wand you won from Voldemort..."

"Who took it from Dumbledore's tomb, yes," affirmed Harry. "I want to put it back there where it will be safe. I don't want to keep it."

"Oh, but Potter, you can't do that," she said. "It won't be safe there at all. The tomb is completely broken apart. We had to move the headmaster's body. It was left exposed... We all wondered what had happened."

"Bloody hell," said Harry before he could stop himself. Of course, it was broken. He'd known that, had seen it happen, but had completely forgotten the vision he'd experienced through his connection with Voldemort's mind. "I'm sorry, Professor," he added, for his language.

She waved his apology away. "My thoughts exactly," she said wryly. "The thought of Voldemort here on the school grounds..."

Harry nodded absently; he was thinking hard. There had to be somewhere else to put the wand, some safe place in the castle. He did not want to carry it around with him. The Room of Hidden Things had been destroyed in the Fiendfyre so that was no longer a possibility. Then a memory and an inspiration came to him. "Dumbledore's portrait," he said out loud.

"Potter, you can't put the wand into a painting," said McGonagall.

"No," said Harry, "but there's a secret vault behind the painting. We can put it in there."

"I'm not going to ask you how you know that, Potter," said McGonagall. "Dumbledore seems to have told you a great deal that he didn't share with the rest of us."

"Actually, it was Professor Snape that told me about it... in a way. But that's a long story. Do you agree that I can leave it there? I don't want to take it with me. It's too dangerous."

"Yes, all right." She stood up. "That seems a fitting place for it, until the tomb can be properly restored."

Harry had to fight down the urge to hug her. He gave her a wide smile instead. "Thank you, Professor."

She looked at him fondly for a moment, smiling back. "If I may make a suggestion?" At Harry's nod, she continued. "I'm assuming that the fewer people who know the whereabouts of this wand the better?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"Then, if you will entrust the wand to me, it will save time and we will not need to make needless explanations to Auror Thompson out there. You can go on ahead to the Weasleys' and I'll make sure the wand is safely hidden in the vault. That is, I'm assuming Dumbledore's portrait can help me locate and open it?"

"He definitely can," said Harry, beaming at her. "Thank you! There's no one I would trust it with more than you, Professor."

McGonagall pulled a large handkerchief from her pocket and Harry placed the Elder Wand into her hands. She wrapped it carefully and hid it in her robes. "There now," she said. "I'll contact you by owl when the repairs are made to the tomb. I know you'll want to see it replaced properly then."

Feeling immensely lighter now that the responsibility of the Elder Wand was lifted from him, Harry gave in to his earlier urge and swept McGonagall into a hug. "Thank you so much, Professor," he said. "You have no idea how much better I feel knowing I don't have to carry that thing around with me."

"Oh, go on, now, out with you," she exclaimed, shooing him toward the portrait hole. "I'll take care of this straight away, and you're not to worry about it."

Though she sounded like her usual stern self, Harry saw that her expression was pleased and he knew that she had been touched by his unexpected hug. He grinned back at her as he stepped through the portrait hole.

Auror Thompson was waiting for him in the corridor. "Mr Potter," he said formally. "Minister Shacklebolt asked me to report to you and to accompany you to the Burrow. You are to have round-the-clock protection until the three most dangerous remaining Death Eaters have been found and arrested."

"Oh?" said Harry, as they started down the stairs together. Behind him he caught a glimpse of Professor McGonagall leaving the common room and heading for the stairs up to the headmaster's office. He turned his attention back to Auror Thompson. "Who escaped?"

"Yaxley, Macnair, and Rookwood," replied Thompson. "Until we're sure there's no threat of reprisal from them, Minister Shacklebolt wants you kept under guard."

"I saw all three of them fall in the Great Hall during the last battle," said Harry, keeping pace with the Auror as they continued down the stairs to the Entrance Hall. "They were all unconscious or knocked down when I started the duel with Voldemort. What happened to them?"

"It's difficult to know," said Thompson, "but at least one of them must have regained consciousness while everyone was focussed on you and the Dark Lord. It's our hypothesis that this one cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and the others and they slipped out and escaped during the confusion and celebration that followed your victory. We believe it must have been an unusually powerful Disillusionment Charm, since they were not detected. In any case, their bodies were not found in the Great Hall. We have to assume they are alive and at large until we can ascertain otherwise."

"I see," said Harry, with a sigh. He'd been so sure those men had been defeated and caught.

They had reached the entrance doors and Thompson looked at him with sympathy as he held the door open for Harry. "We'll get them, Mr Potter, don't you worry. You've done your bit." Then he grinned. "And a great bit that was, too. One for the history books, that was."

"Er... right," said Harry, but he smiled back, and stepped out into the cool spring evening. He took a deep breath; the air was crisp and clean and refreshing. The thought of Ginny came to his mind and he smiled wider. He would be seeing her, finally, in a few minutes...

They walked in silence the rest of the way to the gates, then Harry took hold of Thompson's wrist and let him Apparate them both to the Burrow.