Chapter Text
The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Prologue
What do you do with yourself, after a war?
You first engage in a lot of logistics. In the immediate aftermath of Voldemort’s defeat, Ginny Weasley felt in constant motion. If she stopped moving, it felt like the world would tilt and then fall off its axis. If her family stopped moving, stopped pulling together for each other, for Molly, for George, it felt like they would simply fall apart. There was a funeral to arrange. There was George to be there for, to sit with. There was Molly to hold, to help with in the kitchen, to greet mourners for. There was barely any time to grieve, even though Ginny felt like she was always crying.
And then there were the other funerals to attend. Other people to mourn and remember, food to be prepared and delivered in person to other families so that they could also have something in their pantry in the middle of the night, having forgotten to eat for most of the day.
It was five weeks before Ginny had some time to herself.
It was 7 June 1998, a Sunday morning. The Burrow was quiet when Ginny blinked awake at 5.05 am. The red lit numbers were still glaring in her digital clock on her bedside table, which was an old Christmas present from Arthur, while the pale early dawn rays spilled gently into her room. Ginny’s room was in a corner of the Burrow and had the largest windows relative to room size. Ginny never liked drawing her curtains.
There were no funerals, memorials, gatherings, or hearings to attend that day.
Ginny slipped past a still-sleeping Hermione who was sharing her room and washed up quickly. Then, quietly so as to not wake anyone else, she slipped out of the front door with her broom.
The morning air was crisp as Ginny kicked off, and she felt the initial slap of cold air as she took flight. It was good to be flying again; it felt like she was finally breathing after having held her breath for what had felt like an eternity. She could not remember when she last was on a broom.
More importantly, it felt like her hands were humming against the wood grain of her broom, as if her bones were coming alive again. Just being by herself, moving in the air.
She did low, large circles overhead of the Burrow, still tethering herself to some extent, knowing that it would cause too much concern if she were not within sight of her family, and Harry and Hermione, once they woke up.
Harry. Since the Battle of Hogwarts, they had held hands and each other but hadn’t talked much in substance. Ginny was not yet sure what to hope for if they did.
***
It was 7 June 1998 when Draco Malfoy felt like his life could be his own again.
Immediately after the Battle of Hogwarts, time seemed to stand still for the Malfoys. Where previously Draco had felt like he was scrambling desperately, on the precipice of death and destruction at any moment, suddenly the Malfoys were unable to move in any which direction of their own accord. They stayed as close as they could together and simply reacted to what the victors required of them. Things happened, Aurors and lawyers appeared, summonses were answered.
Consequences were still imminent but also felt entirely outside of his control in a curiously different manner to when he was living in fear of Lord Voldemort. As he watched Harry Potter take the stand to vouch for him and Narcissa, Draco was detached to the point of calm. He felt each breath in and out of his lungs: long, slow, and measured, easy in the low-ceilinged court room. His enmity towards Potter felt like a distant dying howl through a long tunnel. He remembered that he had been shaking violently when he brought Death Eaters through the Vanishing Cabinet – so violently that he thought he would not be able to hold onto his wand.
On 6 June 1998, Lucius Malfoy started serving his ten-year sentence in Azkaban.
After Draco returned to Malfoy Manor with Narcissa that night – finally, in the quiet of his own room, the tears came. Then, hours after, feeling like his bones had turned to water from the day and from the exertion of grief, Draco fell into the deepest sleep that he ever remembered having.
Waking up on the morning of 7 June, Draco realised, as if for the first time, that there was no one else’s agenda for him to fulfil.
Everything he was to do that day would be entirely of his own volition.
***
If Harry were the kind of person who thought about such things, he would have realised that, at least for him, 7 June 1998 was the start of the rest of his life.
He had had some time to adjust to the realisation that there was no more Voldemort. No more fighting to stay alive, to stay ahead of destruction. But when Harry woke up that morning, he woke up with the singular notion that he was going to be happy.
It wasn’t that there was no more mourning to do, or no more Hogwarts to rebuild. But Harry had, after a series of expedited hearings, no more obligation (at least legally) to the survival or integrity of wizarding Britain. There were no more funerals to attend. There was only him, and the Weasleys, and Hermione, and weeks before the new school term – if Hogwarts could start on time, if he wanted to return to Hogwarts – ahead of him.
He and Ginny could have a new beginning, without any shadow cast over their relationship.
The word “relationship” didn’t feel enough for what Harry hoped for what he and Ginny could have, would have. Holding her felt like home. Holding her felt like the ability to breathe deeply and slowly, luxuriously. Holding her felt like being awash in enveloping sunshine.
He knew that being with her, he would be complete.
Harry just had to make sure that Ginny knew it too.
***