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A hand reached across the center console of the car and rested on her thigh, just above her knee.
Ginny’s leg stilled under the reassuring touch of her husband. She hadn’t even realized she’d been shaking it.
Harry gave her a gentle smile before the traffic light turned green and all the cars began moving once more.
“You can wait inside King’s Cross,” he said, quietly enough that the bickering children in the back couldn’t hear them as he stared straight ahead at the road. “Say goodbye before we go through the barrier.”
“I’m going to see them both off.” Her voice came out with far more of a bite than she intended. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to snap.”
Harry squeezed her leg. “I know.”
Slipping her hand under his, she interlaced their fingers together. “I want to see both James and Albus off.”
He squeezed her hand.
Sometimes she wanted to demand where the irrational, overly-emotional boy she’d once known had gone. To push, to yell, to fight. But Harry had spent the past nineteen years attempting to become the type of husband he’d always looked up to and the type of father he’d always wanted. Steadfast, supportive, reassuring. True.
Much as when Harry set his mind out to do anything, he’d succeeded.
All it did was increase her guilt on the days when she thought about what might have been different.
Still, the day was about James and Albus. Not her. She pushed it all down and focused on her children. On warning James to stop teasing, on the drive to King’s Cross. On finding two trolleys—without magic—loading them, and then helping Harry guide their family through the crowded station, even as Muggles shot James and Albus funny looks with their owls.
Lily clung to Harry’s arm as he tried to guide Albus’s trolley. “It won’t be long, and you’ll be going too,” he reassured her.
“Two years,” she said. “I want to go now!”
Ginny’s heart went out to her. Watching older brothers go off on adventures while you were stuck at home was a feeling she knew all too well. Still, as a mother, she was grateful for the extra time at home with Lily. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to all of them yet.
“I won’t! I won’t be in Slytherin!” Albus yelled behind her.
Ginny rounded on her two sons. “James, give it a rest!”
“I only said he might be,” he said, giving Albus a smug little smirk. “There’s nothing wrong with that. He might be in Slyth—”
He glanced back up at Ginny and immediately fell silent.
There was nothing wrong with Slytherin. Morgana knew she knew it. But the way James teased him, with the implication that there was… it was too much for her. On that day of all days in particular.
As they reached the barrier, James took the trolley from her. He still managed to throw Albus a cocky look before he took it at a run and disappeared.
Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that he was just being a thirteen year old boy.
“You’ll write to me, won’t you?” Albus asked in a small voice.
“Every day, if you want us to,” Ginny said without hesitation.
“Not every day,” he said. “James says most people only get letters from home about once a month.”
Ginny almost snorted. “We wrote to James three times a week last year.” At least.
“And you don’t want to believe everything he tells you about Hogwarts,” Harry said. “He likes a laugh, your brother.”
For a moment, Ginny remembered standing on the platform herself, Fred and George promising to send her a toilet seat. She didn’t know if she wanted laugh or cry. Instead, she reached down and took Lily’s hand and followed after Harry and Albus through the barrier.
It was filled with the familiar thick white steam that somehow seemed denser than she remembered. Perhaps it was a good thing. Perhaps she wouldn’t see him at all.
She didn’t know if that was actually what she wanted or not.
It only added to Albus’s anxiety, however. “Where are they?”
“We’ll find them,” she promised.
They continued down the platform, weaving through the crowd. Ginny’s hand tightened on Lily’s. She had grown used to the stares and whispers over the years, but it always made her anxious anytime she was with her children. She and Harry had done everything they could to keep them out of the papers, and had been largely successful, but as they aged it was going to be harder and harder to control.
Percy’s disembodied voice echoed through the haze, lecturing someone on broomstick regulations. She and Harry exchanged a quick glance and then Ginny tried not to laugh out loud when Harry started walking faster.
For not the first time, she wondered if Harry had talked with Ron and Hermione ahead of time and forgot to mention something to her, or if he just had a sixth sense about his friends. Sure enough, Harry slowed down before they could see the faces of the four figures standing next to the last carriage.
“I think that’s them, Al.”
“Hi,” Albus said, immensely relieved as Rose smiled at him.
She looked absolutely precious in her Hogwarts robes. Of course she was already dressed and ready, her mother’s miniature in every way.
Ginny hugged Hermione as Ron greeted them.
“Parked all right, then?” Ron asked, as if Harry hadn’t grown up in the Muggle world. “I did. Hermione didn’t believe I could pass a Muggle driving test, did you? She thought I’d have to Confound the examiner.”
“No, I didn’t,” Hermione said. “I had complete faith in you.”
Ginny shot her a knowing look as Ron and Harry started loading Albus’s things onto the train.
“I taught him to drive, obviously I thought he’d have to Confound the examiner,” she hissed. “He always forgets to check the mirrors because he relies on Supersensory Charms. I still swear he Confunded him but I’m pretending to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Mum says Rose and I should be proud if we get Ravenclaw,” Hugo told Lily.
“If you’re not in Gryffindor, we’ll disinherit you,” Ron said, coming back up to the group. “But no pressure.”
“Ron!” Hermione snapped, throwing a concerned look at Rose.
From the terrified look on her face, she was as concerned as Albus was about the Sorting.
“He doesn’t mean it,” Ginny said to Albus. He stared up at her with his big green eyes, looking almost exactly as his father did the day she met him on that very platform.
“Look who it is.”
Ginny followed Ron’s line of sight, but before she saw whoever he was looking at, her gaze snagged on a pair of silvery gray eyes she hadn’t looked into for nineteen years.
Except they belonged to a small eleven year old boy, one with white-blond hair and dressed in the finest robes money could buy.
Her heart squeezed so tight that, for a moment, it felt like she couldn’t breathe.
A little boy who—if things had been just a little different—could have been her own.
A bright bubble of laughter burst from her as she soared across the bright blue sky. Not a single cloud in sight, just the warm sunshine and the feel of her broom between her legs.
For weeks, this was what she had needed. A chance to fly off and leave everything behind and just be.
It wasn’t her first time flying over the Dorset National Landscape, but the beauty never ceased to amaze her. Rolling green hills to her left, the sea to her right, the scent of salt air all around her… there was nothing like it.
As she flew, she saw the tiny speck standing on one of the limestone cliffs. Angling herself forward, she tested the upper limits of her broom’s acceleration, streaming towards them. If they were a muggle, she had plenty of time—and skill—to pull up, but—
She recognized the shock of white-blond hair and the billowing black robes. Her heart squeezed and she managed to gain even more speed as she hurtled towards him, angling herself to a stop just next to him and dismounting in one easy movement.
“Merlin, you’re insane.”
She smirked before she jumped up to throw her arms around him.
Draco caught her, holding her close and burying his head in her hair, inhaling deeply. He was thinner than the last time she’d held him—Azkaban would do that to a man, no matter how short of a time—but the way he held her was the same. The warm, spicy, woody scent of his cologne was the same. Everything about their world had changed, but they were the same.
She pulled back, determined to get a true look at him for the first time since right before the battle. Since she’d felt her DA Galleon burning in her pocket and fled back to find Harry, Ron, and Hermione had returned and all hell had broken loose.
For all of her Sixth Year, the broom shed at the Quidditch Pitch had been their secret. Even after she lost flying privileges early on in the year and the entire Gryffindor team was disbanded, she went to the shed just to sit by the brooms and remember what it was like to fly. What it felt like to be free, to be able to leave whenever she wanted. To pretend, at least for a while, that their world wasn’t as fucked up as it had become.
One night, after watching Neville get publicly beaten in the Great Hall for refusing to cast the Cruciatus, she’d picked up a beater bat and started destroying things. She’d barely gotten anywhere before a droll voice had stopped her tantrum.
Instead of beating up the shed, she’d screamed at Draco. Called him names, asked if he was happy, if he’d finally gotten everything he’d wanted, and then told him to rot in hell before she stormed out and left him there.
The next time, only a few nights later, he was there yet again. After she demanded to know what he was doing in her space, he was the one to explode and tell her she didn’t own the Quidditch Pitch before he stormed out.
It wasn’t until the night she found him curled up in the corner, hugging his knees, that for once she didn’t fight, she just sat down in her own corner and inhaled the familiar, comforting scent of broom polish.
After a long stretch of silence, Draco had finally spoken. “How did you survive it? Being controlled by him?”
No one had ever asked her that before.
Not even Harry.
But in that moment, she realized that Harry wasn’t the only one who knew what it was like to be controlled by Tom.
It was the first turning point for them.
The second one came weeks later during yet another fight. Only that time instead of storming out, Draco had kissed her.
And then stormed out.
She found herself tumbling head first into something she’d never imagined. Never expected. Even though she and Harry had broken up, she was supposed to be waiting for him. It was implied.
But Draco… Draco was there for her, in one of the worst times of her life. In the worst moments of her Sixth Year, she wasn’t thinking about what Neville or Luna would do when she got back to the Room of Requirement. She was thinking about Draco. About the way he would heal each of her wounds and then kiss each one better.
After Easter, when she needed to go into hiding after Harry, Ron, and Hermione were caught and barely escaped, she was terrified she’d never see Draco again. But the Room had made a new door, a passageway to the broom shed.
Neville and Luna thought it was there to serve as another emergency escape route.
Only she knew it was for her.
That night, she had been the one to kiss Draco’s wounds better.
Hell had followed, none of them knowing what would happen, and then Harry came back. Came back and managed to survive death yet again and saved the day.
Draco had gone to Azkaban to await his trial. Ginny had buried Fred.
Scars from the war would linger. For a lifetime. Ginny had her uncles’ birthdays memorized growing up. Not because she ever knew them, but because she saw the pain her mother felt on those days. On the anniversaries of their deaths.
But the war was over and they had won. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had helped exonerate Draco at his trial. They could finally be together.
For real.
No more hiding, no more passing one another and pretending the other didn’t exist.
Draco staring down at her at the edge of the limestone cliff in the Dorset countryside was proof.
The familiar look of love in his gaze was there, but so was heartbreak. Mourning. The bags under his eyes were as deep as they were at the end of his Sixth Year. Haunted.
She cupped his cheek. “What is it?”
“Kiss me,” he whispered. “Please.”
Normally, he never bothered to ask, but maybe he needed it to feel real.
She slid her hands into the back of his hair, bringing his head down so she could actually reach his lips. His kiss was desperate, almost feral. Like it was their very first and very last kiss all at once.
Her head spun, like it did anytime Draco kissed her, but she knew him. Knew that there was something more.
Pulling back, she dropped down from her tiptoes. “What is it?”
He pressed his forehead against hers, hands tightening around her waist. “Promise me you’ll listen first.”
“What?”
“Please, Ginny,” he said. “You’re going to get mad and you have every right to be but you have to let me explain myself. Please. If you’ve ever felt anything for me at all, let me have this.”
She drew back. “Oh, Good Godric,” she said. “Are you going to try to be noble?” she demanded with a laugh. “If so, stop it.”
He looked at her with such love, such heartbreak brimming in his eyes she felt all of her laughter die.
“What is it?”
He ran a hand down his face, clearly wrestling with himself. “You know my family has been friends with the Greengrass family for years. Generations. Whatever.”
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.
“Astoria, Daphne’s younger sister, inherited a blood curse,” he said. “It can only be broken through marriage to a male member of the Black Family.”
“You’re not a Black,” she said. “You’re a Malfoy.”
Moisture glistened in his eyes. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “So I let them run the tests. We had it verified by three different Cursebreakers. I can save her, but I’m the only one. If I don’t marry her—” His voice broke.
He cleared his throat, but the silence between them lingered.
Ginny wrapped her arms around herself. As if she squeezed tightly enough, she wouldn’t feel the now all-too-familiar feeling of her heart shattering.
“I love you,” Draco said. “I love you like I’ve never loved anything before, even myself.”
She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or sob or smack his arrogant face. She knew what he was trying to say but, Merlin, he was such a prat sometimes.
“But I really, truly, wish that you hadn’t made me a better man,” he said. “Because once upon a time, I wouldn’t have hesitated to make the selfish choice. I wouldn’t have hesitated to pick you.”
Hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she realized that he was going to make her say it. Whether because he wouldn’t or couldn’t.
“But you have to pick her,” she whispered, the words cutting like a thousand knives.
Draco squeezed his eyes shut. “I have to pick her.”
There wasn’t a question about it. Not if her life was on the line. But… fuck.
How was she ever supposed to say goodbye?
Draco stood staring at the sea, tears trailing down his face. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him cry.
Walking forward, she slipped her hand into his.
He drew back as if she’d burned him. “Don’t,” he spat. “You… you’re supposed to hate me. To be furious. To storm off.”
She took another step, bringing herself back within arms reach of him. Lifting her hand, she cupped his cheek and swiped at his tears with her thumb. “No,” she whispered. “If this is goodbye, I want to make sure you know how much I love you.”
“Would you still love me if I was that selfish person?” he whispered.
“No,” she admitted. “Because then you wouldn’t be you.”
At his core, Draco was loyal. True. He’d risked everything to keep his mother alive. He’d nearly done the same for her the night Amycus had almost caught them together. If Snape hadn’t walked around the corner and pulled Amycus away, who knows what would have happened to Draco, let alone her.
“You’re spoiled, but you’re not selfish.”
He barked out a watery laugh. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“You can’t tell me you don’t agree,” she drawled.
He rested his forehead against hers, finally surrendering to her embrace. “Sometimes it feels like I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wanted… except what matters most.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to hold back the tears.
“The best brooms, rare books, bejeweled… everything, it means nothing,” he said.
“Well, you’ve never had a Firebolt so you can’t really say you had the best broom—”
He laughed again, but it was so broken, so pained. “I love you, Ginny,” he said. “I will always love you. But I have to…”
“You have to do the right thing.”
Before he could step back again, she tightened her arms around him. There would be time for heartbreak later. Time for tears and moping and pain.
But if this was to be the last time they saw each other… “If this is goodbye, we should make it count.” Without another word, she pulled him down for another kiss.
A shriek cut across the platform and Ginny’s head snapped up, the memory broken. Her gaze landed on Draco for the first time in nineteen years. Since they’d cleaned themselves up and dressed and Draco had taken one last look at her before flying away on his broom.
“Promise me you’ll be happy,” he said. “That’s the only way I can do this. If you promise me you’ll move on and find happiness.”
He somehow looked entirely different and yet exactly the same. Wearing a stuffy black coat buttoned all the way up, his hair styled just so. He had never looked more like Lucius, save for the hints of creases at his eyes and around his mouth. Laugh lines. Relief and irrational jealousy warred inside her at the sight of them.
At least he had found something to make him happy as well.
There was no sign of happiness on his face at the moment. He stared, stricken. Ginny followed his line of sight and saw Lily.
Unlike her namesake, Lily had inherited Ginny’s eyes. Wide and brown. Her nose and cheeks were dusted with freckles, and she had the red hair to get lost at any Weasley family reunion. She looked as much like Ginny as Scorpius did his father.
His gaze darted up and she met the silver gray eyes she once thought she would spend the rest of her life staring into.
For a brief moment, she felt the same rush of loss and grief she had felt the day they said goodbye. The full weight of all they had lost, all they had sacrificed. A world where it was her by his side. Where she would have cut the buttons off the tops of his coats rather than let him walk around all stuffy. Where Scorpius and Lily weren’t strangers on a platform, but brother and sister.
He tore his gaze away and glanced around at the others, lingering on Harry ever so briefly with a familiar flash of irritation.
She could almost hear his voice. I know I said I wanted you to be happy, but bloody fucking Merlin, Ginny. Potter?!
A small hand slid into his elbow. Draco nodded to the group and turned back towards his wife and son. She watched the way Astoria lifted a second hand, as if to provide comfort, the way Draco leaned in towards her as if to receive it, the way they both looked at Scorpius as if he hung the moon and stars.
“So that’s little Scorpius,” Ron muttered. “Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother’s brains.”
A wave of fierce protectiveness went through Ginny, so sharp it nearly took her breath away.
“Ron, for heaven’s sake,” Hermione said, half exacerbated, half amused. “Don’t try to turn them against each other before they’ve even started school!”
The implication being that all bets were off once they got to school.
Scorpius looked so small, so serious, already dressed in his Hogwarts robes. Sticking close to his mother and father, otherwise all alone.
“You’re right, sorry,” Ron said. He leaned down. “Don’t get too friendly with him, though, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pureblood.”
Long, calloused fingers wrapped around her fist. Ginny glanced up to see Harry watching her with a look of concern. She flashed him a quick smile, trying force her hand to relax.
“Hey!”
She turned, grateful for whatever distraction James was about to provide, though there was a chance she would regret that thought in seconds.
“Teddy’s back there,” he said. “Just seen him! And guess what he’s doing? Snogging Victoire!”
Well, it appeared he had finally gotten off his arse and done something about his crush.
“Our Teddy! Teddy Lupin! Snogging our Victiore! Our cousin! And I asked Teddy what he was doing—”
“You interrupted them?” Ginny nearly burst out laughing. “You are so like Ron—” He’d never quite gotten the concept of Harry’s private space down anytime Ginny was staying over when he and Ron were still roommates.
“—and he said he’d come to see her off! And then he told me to go away. He’s snogging her!” he added, as if he hadn’t already repeated it half a dozen times.
Ginny caught Hermione’s eyes over his head and she had to fight to hold back her giggle.
“Oh, it would be lovely if they got married,” Lily said in a dreamlike whisper. “Teddy would really be part of the family then!”
“He already comes round for dinner about four times a week,” Harry said. “Why don’t we just invite him to live with us and have done with it?”
His sarcasm was—as usual—completely lost on their children.
“Yeah!” James said. “I don’t mind sharing with Al—Teddy could have my room!”
“No,” Harry said swiftly. “You and Al will share a room only when I want the house demolished.”
Honestly, that would be getting off easy.
Harry pulled out his battered old watch. He’d never replaced the one that used to be her Uncle Fabian’s that her mum had given him for his seventeenth birthday. “It’s nearly eleven, you’d better get on board.”
Ginny pulled James into a tight hug before he had a chance to resist. “Don’t forget to give Neville our love!”
“Mum!” He drew out her name with all of the annoyance a thirteen year old could muster. “I can’t give a professor love!”
She grinned, unable to resist teasing him. “But you know Neville—”
James rolled his eyes. “Outside, yeah, but at school he’s Professor Longbottom, isn’t he? I can’t walk into Herbology and give him love…”
Ginny shared another smirk with Hermione. Rosie’s eyes widened as if she’d never considered that before. Hermione bent forward to whisper something to her, no doubt reassurance about seeing Neville.
James swung his leg, pretending to kick Albus. “See you later, Al. Watch out for the Thestrals.”
“I thought they were invisible?” he said, panicked. “You said they were invisible!”
Ginny shot James a sharp look but he merely laughed before throwing his arms around Harry in a quick hug and then hopped onto the train, barely taking the time to wave before he raced down the corridor to look for his friends.
“Thestrals are nothing to worry about,” Harry told Albus. “They’re gentle things, there’s nothing scary about them. Anyway, you won’t be going up to school in the carriages, you’ll be going in the boats.”
Ginny hoped all of her children went the majority of their lives without being able to see Thestrals. She wrapped her arms around Albus, kissing him on the head as she squeezed him tight. “See you at Christmas.” It felt far too long, but at least Neville would be there to look out for him. She hoped he did write every day.
“Bye, Al,” Harry said, hugging him next. “Don’t forget Hagrid’s invited you to tea next Friday. Don’t mess with Peeves. Don’t duel anyone till you’ve learned how. And don’t let James wind you up.”
“What if I’m in Slytherin?” Albus whispered.
Harry crouched down so he was level with him. “Albus Severus,” he began, soft enough that only Ginny and Al could hear him, “you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.”
Though no one had said a word, they’d gotten a fair number of side-eyes when Harry had announced Albus’s full name to the family. The risks Snape took to protect Harry were well known, but the fact that he saved Ginny’s life and protected her and Draco by keeping their secret remained between her and Harry. And Draco, she supposed.
“But just say—”
“—then Slytherin House will have gained an excellent student, won’t it?” Harry asked. “It doesn’t matter to us, Al. But if it matters to you, you’ll be able to choose Gryffindor over Slytherin. The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account.”
“Really?”
“It did for me.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny saw an older boy knock into Scorpius right as he was going to step onto the train. He turned to apologize, saw who it was, and simply smirked before he hopped onto the train.
Scorpius glanced over his shoulder at his parents. Draco looked like he was about to step forward but then Scorpius straightened, turned, and boarded.
Even after nearly two decades, she knew scars from the war still remained. She had more than her fair share. But to take it all out on an innocent boy…
Albus jumped into the carriage. Ginny stepped forward to get the door, but wrapped her hand around his upper arm. “Al, do you see that boy over there?”
He glanced over. “The one Uncle Ron said to beat?”
Merlin. She was going to beat him. “Yes,” she said. “I want you to be kind to him. His dad made some mistakes back when he was in school and I’m worried some students might be mean to him because of it.”
Albus frowned.
“Just be kind,” she said. “Other kids will follow your lead.” Maybe he could use his father’s fame to overcome Scorpius’s father’s infamy.
Albus climbed in and she shut the door behind him. He and Rose hung out the windows, noticing for the first time everyone looking at them, some going so far as to whisper and point at Harry. “Why are they all staring?”
“Don’t let it worry you,” Ron said. “It’s me, I’m extremely famous.”
Ginny couldn’t help but smirk as the children laughed. Sometimes her brother wasn’t completely worthless.
The train started pulling away. Ginny watched as it carried away what felt like her beating heart outside her body in both her boys. Harry walked alongside it, continuing to smile and wave even though she knew his heart was breaking too.
Parents started turning away as the train rolled out of sight, heading back towards King’s Cross or Apparating directly away.
Draco and Astoria were one of the last to leave, waiting until they could no longer see the train. Draco didn’t glance Ginny’s way again, but Astoria did. Her blue eyes were warm and soft as she looked at Ginny. She nodded deeply to her, as if in both thanks and acknowledgement.
For all that Scorpius looked like the son Ginny once imagined that she might someday have, he wasn’t hers. He was Astoria’s. As much as it had broken her heart at the time, five innocents had stood on the Platform that morning because of the decision she and Draco had made together, almost nineteen years to the day.
James, Albus, Lily—whom she loved more than she had ever believed possible—as well as Astoria and Scorpius.
For those four children, and the warm glow in Astoria’s eyes as she held Draco’s arm, Ginny knew it was all worth it.
She smiled at Astoria and nodded her head in return.
It looked almost like a weight had lifted from her shoulders as she curled into Draco before he Apparated them away.
Ginny looked down the platform to where Harry was standing, hand still raised in farewell even though the train had long disappeared from sight. She reached down and slid her hand into his free one. “He’ll be alright.”
His free hand lowered to rub absentmindedly against his lightning scar. “I know he will.” He looked at her, emerald gaze assessing. “How are you?”
“As good as I can be after saying goodbye to James and Albus.” She knew that wasn’t exactly what he meant. Stretching up onto her tiptoes, she pressed a kiss to his lips. “I love you, Harry.”
He smiled and squeezed her hand.
“Dad! Mum! Uncle Ron said we can go get ice cream!” Lily’s voice echoed down the nearly empty platform as she ran towards them. “Can we? Please? Please?”
“As long as Uncle Ron is paying,” Harry said with a smirk, reaching down for her hand as well before they turned to walk back towards where Ron, Hermione, and Hugo were waiting for them.
Ginny began absentmindedly picking up the living room as she came downstairs from putting Lily to bed.
Harry was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a piece of parchment and gazing off through the window with a thoughtful expression.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
He tapped the letter against the table. “Neville wrote.”
“Oh yeah? How did the Sorting go?”
“Rose followed in the ancient Weasley tradition and got Gryffindor,” he said. “Albus also went in his ancient family tradition.”
“That’s—” Something about the glint in Harry’s eye made her freeze. It took her a moment to remember that before Fleamont, all the Potters had been— “Slytherin? Al did get Slytherin?”
He lifted the letter with a look of wry amusement. “Neville writes, and I quote, Al told me to ‘tell my mum I did what she said to look out for Scorpius and tell my dad I did what he said to ask for Slytherin.’”
Ginny lifted a hand to cover her mouth. It was so…so Albus. “That’s not what we…”
Harry let out a rueful laugh. “I know,” he said. “Can’t say I’m anything but proud of him, though.”
She walked over and melted into his embrace, for once the same height as him.
“I think we did okay by him, Gin.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Me too.”
He looked up at her, emerald eyes intense. “Any regrets?”
For once, there was no doubt in her mind. Not after seeing the way Draco and Astoria stood together, the sight of little Scorpius. The way she loved each of her three children.
The way Harry had been there for her for the past eighteen years. How he supported her, helped her nurse her broken heart. The way he was content just to be friends, without pressuring her in any way, until she realized it wasn’t what she wanted after all.
His quiet, steadfast love. Different from the burning passion she’d once felt, but no less deep. No less true.
“No,” she said. “No regrets.”
He let out a breath. “You know, if they stay friends, we’ll probably have to become friends with his parents.”
The unspoken question hung in the air. “I think I would like that,” she said. “It might be nice to get to know Astoria.”
Harry’s gaze flicked over her, but she must have convinced him because his shoulders fell as if he’d just set down a heavy weight. “I am sorry you got your heart broken,” he said. “But I can’t deny that I’m grateful for the life we have and that I cannot imagine one without you.”
She rested her head against his. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For being you. For being the best husband and father to our children I could ever imagine.”
“I love you,” he said. “All of you, so much.”
She tilted his face up and kissed him. Soft, sweet, filled with the promise of hope for the future. “I love you too, Harry,” she said. “More than I can ever say.”
“Promise me you’ll be happy. That’s the only way I can do this. If you promise me you’ll move on and find happiness.”
“Only if you promise the same.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Promise me, Draco. For me.”
“Okay.”
She hadn’t believed him that day. Knew he hadn’t meant it, was just saying it so she would agree. But after seeing him with Astoria and Scorpius, something told her that at some point in the past nineteen years, he had.
“You’re happy?” Harry asked.
She nodded. “I am.” Just like she’d promised Draco she would be.