Chapter Text
No one knew exactly how to activate the magic of the Roaming Summer Party. Or at least, no human knew. But it was enough, apparently, for seven teenagers to linger in the graveyard after a funeral and, an hour later, fumble a bottle of wine so it shattered against a half-buried headstone, painting the almost-worn-away face of a cherub in shades of ruby and pink.
Maybe the crucial ingredient delivered that day to the graveyard was George, wielding the dark, unfocused power of a twinship severed. Though he stalked off before the service finished and long before the wine was inadvertently sacrificed, he did spat on the paving stones hemming the graveyard as he went.
Or it could have been sparked when Luna pricked her thumb on the thorns in the bouquet she’d brought along to leave on the coffin. The tiny wound didn’t close for hours, so that she left a tiny trail of herself from the hedge where she’d gathered the brown, twisting brambles in the first place to the hallowed earth they broke to bury Fred, and in the hot, damp clasp of Ginny’s hand, and on Harry’s temple when she’d reached up to brush back his hair.
Everyone who later heard the Party was invoked that day would assume it had to do with Harry — his general, overall exceptionalism. Hermione knew better, and even she would remember how he looked that day and wonder if the Party was the magical world’s last ditch effort to tether its Savior to Earth before he wasted away.
The graveyard was old and small, reminding Harry oddly of the cemetery in Godric’s Hollow where he’d seen his parents’ graves, except there was nothing magical here, no Charms that hid messages from Muggle eyes. It was a sunny day, which didn’t align with what Harry had imagined when he’d been dreading this day. He’d expected to stand in a circle of people dressed in black cloaks, all holding aloft the slick domes of umbrellas against a ceaseless grey drizzle.
Instead he was wearing jeans and an untucked button-down shirt, and the sun was unspeakably radiant. Birds sang and threw themselves onto the low limbs of the verdant trees sheltering the graveyard.
They were six days into July, after a long and exhausting June full of rushed trials and Prophet headlines that nourished in Harry a swelling and constant urge to do violence. All that itchy rage was drained away by the past hour, though, and in its absence Harry found something worse, like he’d been hollowed-out and now, immaterial, he would be carried away by the next determined breeze as surely as an unwelcome and unanchored ghost.
This general existential despair left Harry standing at Fred’s graveside long after the service.
Hermione couldn’t determine the extent of his inner turmoil, but she could guess. He looked terribly gaunt and silent, standing there staring at the Charmed sod where upturned earth had been. Hermione hovered a few steps away, and behind her with their hands shoved in their pockets were Dean and Seamus, and behind them, Lavender with her arms around Parvati’s and Padma’s waists.
“Harry,” Hermione said. She slid her hand into the nook of Harry’s elbow. She felt his trembling and the hard protrusion of his ribs against the back of her hand and wanted to cry, again, but her eyes — and her head, and her whole face really — were too swollen and used up from weeping what felt like nonstop, in the horrible anticipation of this day.
Harry jerked his head up like he’d been roused from a dream by her touch, her voice. He swayed toward her and she propped him up. He was so much taller than her but it was still easy, like steadying a swaying reed.
“Where’s Ron?”
“With his family,” Hermione murmured, but the words felt strange to her, wrong. The three of them were the family, weren’t they? But when the Weasleys had left the graveyard they’d done it in a knot, crowded together with their heads bent forward, like a stand of stubborn flames in a stiff wind. It had been impossible to follow them.
“I don’t want to go to another funeral, ever again.” Harry wiped his eyes with his wrist. Hermione noticed that he’d been biting his nails, and that even his hands looked thin. “But I’ll have to, won’t I?”
Hermione worried her lip, but on the inside, where it wouldn’t show. “I reckon you will. But right now, Dean and Seamus have cheap Muggle wine.”
Just under an hour later Harry was bent over his knees, quaking with laughter, and Hermione had found a few tears after all, she laughed so hard in turn.
“Now, it’s Lav’s turn,” Dean said, smug in the aftermath of his success, and pointed at Lavender in command, a gesture that might have been more forceful if he could do more than just uncurl his index finger from around the plastic cup in his hand and aim it at Lavender.
The scar slanting over Lavender’s eyebrow and down her cheek was still dark red and angry, but with her flushed cheeks and her sly smile, Harry was sure she’d never been lovelier.
“This isn’t my natural hair color. I once flirted with Slughorn to get out of a disaster mark on a potion. This is the first time I’ve had Muggle wine, and it’s not so bad.”
“Guessing either of the first two feels like a trap,” Dean said cautiously. “And this wine is perfectly horrid, but you’ve had three glasses.”
“Are we calling these glasses?” Padma asked, frowning doubtfully at the small paper cup in her hand. Seamus had found a dusty, somewhat-squashed stack in the boot of his car to accompany the wine.
Parvati squinted down at Lavender over the rims of a pair of smart half-moon spectacles Harry was sure he hadn’t seen before. “I know they’re all true. She’s cheating.”
Hermione gaped at Lavender, torn between disapproval and horror. “Not Slughorn?”
Lavender inspected her fingernails. “All flirting took place at an appropriate distance. Well out of range.”
“You can’t play the game in bad faith, Lav!” Parvati insisted. “It’s called Two Truths and a Lie.”
Lavender smiled coolly. “If that’s really what all of you think, then you can all drink.” Her grin sharpened. “It wasn’t just once. I got a lot of rubbish marks in Potions.”
Padma made a retching sound and everyone else laughed again, including Harry; his abs were sore with it. It felt so much like crying, a cousin emotion, that same aftertaste of exhaustion, catharsis.
“Okay there, Harry?” Seamus poked him in the ribs and then furrowed his brow and engaged in a more thorough examination of Harry’s prominent ribs. Harry yelped and batted his hands away.
“Why are you so skinny?” Seamus demanded.
Hermione made a strangled sound, but Seamus forged ahead before Harry’s smile could even fade.
“It’s not fair! Depression’s just made me fat!”
Harry cocked his head thoughtfully, his arm still wound protectively around his middle. Seamus had put on a few noticeable pounds.
“It’s fine, Seamus,” Dean called, sitting with his back against a tree. He held what was left of their second bottle of wine aloft and waved it around in an unclear gesture. “It’s cute on you. Makes you even more huggable.”
Seamus scoffed. Harry dissolved into what could only be described as giggles. Hermione let out a long, relieved breath.
“Your turn, then, Finnigan,” she declared, eager to change the subject.
Seamus blinked, then smiled slyly.
“I’m huggable. I’m punchable. I’m fuckable.”
Hermione found that Seamus was within arm’s reach, conveniently, so she pinched his arm. He jumped and his wine sloshed onto the front of his white t-shirt, which was clinging to his softer-than-remembered midsection, not that she was noticing.
Parvati rolled her eyes. “This is not the way the game is played.”
“Everyone can agree on the punchable aspect,” Dean said, with a troubled and faraway expression like he was contemplating a deep philosophical question. “The rest is either a truth or a lie depending who you ask. In my case the lie is clearly that you’re fuckable, as demonstrated by our sorry attempt in fifth year.”
“Isn’t it the opposite of the point of the game if no one drinks?” Hermione couldn’t help pointing out.
“Seamus will drink,” said Lavender, “and get a boost to his ego, based on the way Harry’s ogling his arse.”
Heads swiveled in Harry’s direction. Harry guiltily lifted his gaze from Seamus’ backside.
“Harry!” Seamus gasped, delighted.
Harry was too full of catharsis and bad wine to do anything but smile shyly back and shrug one shoulder.
After a long pause, laughter consumed the group once more. Seamus tipped back the remaining contents of his paper cup, wiggling his lower half invitingly at Harry at the same time.
Padma leaned towards Seamus and messily kissed his cheek, and he snatched her firmly around the waist, twisted his head and kissed her mouth. She was so surprised that the third bottle of wine sailed out of her hand and fell with a ring of shattering glass and a spray of red.
“That was the last one!” Dean moaned, holding the second bottle, now mostly empty, against his chest like a newborn.
Padma and Seamus were snogging in earnest, Hermione was pretending hard not to notice, Harry was watching with unabashed interest, and Lavender had yet to surface from the grips of hilarity, sliding slowly down the trunk of Dean’s tree to flop beside him and grope, still laughing, for the remaining wine while he squeaked indignantly and twisted away.
Therefore, it was Parvati who heard the music first.
The notes were very faint at first, almost indistinguishable from the ordinary hum of insects and rush of breeze. The change was that these natural notes gained a sudden deliberate rhythm, coalescing around the ring of friends and rising into a gentle crescendo, some hybrid of instrument and voice, all the small sounds of a summer night recomposed into a chorus.
“Um, you guys,” Parvati murmured, slipping off her perch.
“Oh, hey, where’d you get those?” Harry asked, looking at the row of earthenware jugs that had appeared in a row where she’d just been sitting. A scent wafted from them, oranges and hyacinth and the unmistakable sting of strong alcohol.
“I didn’t,” Parvati said, feeling a tickle of premonition on the back of her neck. She looked up and sure enough, the stars were coming out in a hazy and totally unfamiliar pattern, winking with unnatural brightness, like the entire sky has been pulled down close enough to touch.
“Oh, fuck,” breathed Padma, who had disentangled herself from Seamus, to his chagrin. She absently patted his head, pointing up. “A fairy sky.”
Harry unnoticed, picked up one of the jugs and closed his eyes as he inhaled the intoxicating smell of its contents.
“It’s an invitation,” Seamus said with forced calm. “That’s all. If we don’t accept it, everything will be f—”
“Harry, what are you doing?” Hermione exclaimed, but it was too late. Of course Harry had picked up the mysterious jug of unknown origin and drank from it.
He lowered the jug and blinked at her. His mouth was red like he’d just been aggressively kissed, and his pupils were huge. “Merlin, Hermione. You’ve got to try this stuff. It’s—”
“Fairy wine,” Padma said grimly.
Seamus rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Well, then,” he said in a resigned tone. “Invitation accepted. I guess we’re having a party.”