Chapter Text
It was a perfect day for flying. That was the only thing on Harry Potter's mind as he sat at the kitchen table of the Burrow, buttering a scone, his eyes caught on the glint of a dragonfly’s wing just beyond the glass.
He wasn't allowed to leave the Burrow’s wards until the Order of the Phoenix declared things safe enough. Safe enough for what? No one agreed. Voldemort was dead, and things had never been safer. The breakfast table was silent; everyone was always a little too sleepless, a little too on edge. And so he stared out the window.
Mere weeks, he thought. Years would have made more sense. He could have cut himself open and counted the rings and believed that answer sooner. Years would have explained the feeling.
Three weeks since the night he walked into the Forbidden Forest. Three weeks since he was reborn. It was the closest word he had for it. Not because he had died—though he was certain he had—but because he had come back to something unrecognisable.
If he had to name it, he thought it was the train on his mind. The train he could've taken back in that impossible place, but hadn't. He had come back wrong somehow. When Dumbledore told him about the prophecy, Harry had felt condemned and on borrowed time. Now he found himself unused to the idea of thinking widely, of looking forward.
He had not forgotten how greener the grass had looked right before he walked into the forest, how perfect every flower, how sweet every birdsong. Some of that he had managed to carry to that place and back.
He didn’t have a word for it, not yet, the awareness that he had come back for a reason. Not the Chosen One, not the Boy Who Lived, but perhaps…
‘We should play some Quidditch,’ said Ginny, suddenly, putting down her tea. ‘The weather is great.’
The word Quidditch rang like a windchime. Harry stopped halfway through his scone; almost at once, everyone glanced toward Mr Weasley. Arthur’s gaze landed somewhere behind Harry, the grandfather clock with hands for all members of the family. Harry looked over, his gaze inevitably drawn to the space left by Fred’s hand.
Two days ago, they had, at last, come to rest at the Burrow. This return to domesticity proved no less astonishing than their concealment had been. Mrs Weasley, who seemed to have abandoned sleep entirely, immediately set about repairing them. Ron and Harry were compelled to shave, and both underwent the dubious improvement of having their hair cut in preparation for Fred’s funeral.
It had taken place the previous afternoon, in a small hollow at the edge of the orchard where the ground sloped gently toward the river. The Weasleys had chosen it because the trees grew thickly there, though the branches were still too young with leaves to afford much shade. People later agreed that it had been a fine service, though Harry could recall almost nothing that had been said.
The only thing he remembered was afterwards. Long after Mrs Weasley had been coaxed upstairs and discreetly dosed with a Sleeping Draught, the rest of them sat outside in the garden passing around a bottle of Firewhisky. Nobody seemed willing to go to bed. They spoke in fragments at first, half-stories and abandoned sentences, until eventually Bill started recounting the time Fred had convinced a five-year-old Ron that garden gnomes migrated south for the winter. George, who had not spoken a single word all day, took the bottle and said hoarsely, ‘He packed them little scarves and everything.’
‘Well…’ said Mr Weasley. ‘Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to spend some time outside.’
Ron got up so quickly his chair toppled over, and Ginny, laughing triumphantly, took Harry’s hand and ran outside; the mere thought of brooms was enough to lift them all above the floor.
The broom rose cleanly beneath him, and the ground fell away in a familiar, welcome rush. For a while, they flew around aimlessly, basking in the sunlight and the breeze through their hair. It made them all giddy, and they laughed in the same way little children laugh: at everything and at nothing.
They flew longer than any of them meant to. Each time Ron began to drift toward the ground with exaggerated groans about starvation, Ginny, who had gotten unspeakably better since he last saw her play, would call out another variation—Sloth Grip Rolls, Thimblerig Shuffles, Finbourg Fligs and increasingly improbable combinations of dives, sweeps and rolls—and they would rise again, for it was a joy to be exhausted on purpose.
When the Quaffle nearly hit him in the face, he took it as an excuse to drop out and obey Hermione’s call for tea. She hadn’t joined them, but sat a little apart, reading and writing. She had been tirelessly working for the last few weeks, writing in minuscule script on both sides of whatever parchment she could find. He hadn't asked.
The first good news they had received in weeks was that Crookshanks, as it turned out, never left the Burrow after they had to run away the night of Bill and Fleur’s wedding. The cat was now cosying on her lap, following her everywhere as if convinced that if he let her out of his sight, she might vanish again.
She scooted to the side to make space for him on the stone steps. The incoming mist gathered low around them, like a second, paler dusk. The sky was losing its blush, the first few stars blinking in the pale light of the early evening. He helped himself to a chicken sandwich.
‘I was reading yesterday’s Prophet,’ she said, lifting the paper from where it had been tucked under her arm. ‘McGonagall says the school will open. They’re asking for volunteers to help with the repairs at Hogwarts.’
He hadn’t allowed himself to think about Hogwarts. It belonged to that same uncertain stretch ahead of him, the future that had opened without warning and refused to take shape.
‘We could go, all of us, Ron, Ginny,’ she went on. ‘I don’t mean just to help out, but back to school.’
‘But we dropped out.’
She gave him the look she would have given a first-year student for talking back to her, and in her kindest yet most authoritative voice, the sort that came from almost never being wrong, she said, ‘McGonagall wouldn't prevent us from finishing our education.’
Harry wasn’t so sure. He knew he wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that maybe being a student was something of a magical contract, and that anyone who left the school could not rejoin. Hermione, of course, approached it as she approached everything else: as a problem with a reasonable solution. But Hogwarts, and magic, had never struck him as especially reasonable.
‘I think we can make the school better,’ she said, taking his silence for thoughtful consideration. ‘Things got so bad so quickly I keep thinking there has to be something we can do to prevent it from happening again.’
There it was. It was a little early in the week to be discussing how to change the world, so he nodded; with Hermione, it was easier to go along. ‘Is that what you’ve been working on all these days?’
Hermione gave him a look, as if debating whether or not to tell him. ‘No… although I do have a list.’
Harry took a sip of tea, smothering a smile. ‘Of course you do… Are you seriously planning on telling McGonagall she should improve the curriculum?’
Hermione shrugged ‘Well, someone has to.’ Harry watched her, the way the words seemed to outrun themselves, as though she were already years ahead in her own mind. He wasn’t sure if that was admirable or exhausting. Maybe both.
Ron and Ginny joined them on the steps, still flushed from flying, helping themselves without ceremony to what was left of the sandwiches. The evening gently gathered around them, Ginny picking apart their flying with ruthless precision, planning future drills and game plans as if the Gryffindor v. Slytherin match were but mere weeks away instead of almost a year ahead.
Pop!
They turned. The sound came from somewhere beyond the orchard. Wands were drawn almost in the same motion, the easy warmth of the evening dropping away at once. Harry was already on his feet, turning toward the sound, every instinct snapping into place.
A figure was approaching up the path. A tall, dark silhouette, moving with purpose. No one spoke, and Harry realised he had been holding this breath.
Then the light from the old bulb above the door caught the edge of her hat, the line of her shoulders—Professor McGonagall.
They did not lower their wands at once. There was a brief, strange pause, as though all of them were waiting for something else—for a password, perhaps, or proof that she was who she appeared to be. Before any of them could speak, Mr Weasley came hurrying out to meet her, already extending his hand.
‘Professor! I didn’t expect you so soon—you’re the first to arrive.’
‘Arthur,’ she said shortly. Then her gaze moved past him, settling on Harry. ‘I was hoping to have a word with Mr Potter.’
‘Ginny,’ Mr Weasley said, touching her shoulder, ‘Why don’t we go inside and give your mother a hand?’
She brushed past them without a word, but Harry could see her biting the inside of her mouth. McGonagall’s glance followed them back to the kitchen before returning to Ron and Hermione.
‘Very well. The two of you can stay, but I expect you to listen without interruption.’
The three of them huddled on the same side of the old farm table but the Professor didn’t take a seat. She magically dusted off the surface of the table before placing her travelling bag on top. She regarded them for a moment, removing her travelling gloves with deliberate care, as though deciding where to begin.
‘There is a proposal—informal, as yet—put forward by an old friend of mine who’s accepted the Muggle Studies post. The suggestion is that students of your year might benefit from returning to Hogwarts for a period of supervised study. Not merely to complete their education, but to re-establish some sense of structure.’
Hermione straightened slightly, but did not interrupt.
‘She believes —and I am inclined to agree— that the war has made it clear that Hogwarts, for all its merits, has not always succeeded in challenging the assumptions its students bring with them.’
She stopped. She looked like she’d realised halfway through the conversation that persuasion was no longer a realistic outcome. Which was enough to unsettle them; they had rarely seen the Professor discomposed.
‘Potter,’ she said, more directly, ‘Narcissa Malfoy is under the impression that you would be willing to speak on her son’s behalf before the Wizengamot.’
He felt the shift of air and the brush of Hermione’s hair as his friends turned to look at him.
‘Is she correct?’
When he explained to them what had happened in the Forbidden Forest, what Narcissa Malfoy had done for him, Ron had been dismissive, complaining—not unwarrantedly—that the Malfoys would use that to escape any sort of accountability. But he had seen in Hermione’s gaze an awareness that this moment would come sooner rather than later.
‘I…’ The last time he had seen the Malfoys, they were sitting close together, Narcissa Malfoy's hands tight around her son's shoulders; amidst the celebration and mourning of the Great Hall, Harry’s gaze had lingered over the family before being whisked away. ‘She saved my life. She didn’t have to, but she did. That has to matter, but Professor…what does she expect me to say about Malfoy?’
At that, McGonagall exhaled softly and took the bench across from them. She looked, for a moment, more worn than he had ever seen her.
‘The current expectation is that the Wizengamot will place both Mr Malfoy and his mother under a period of probation—confined to their home and subject to Ministry oversight, instead of imprisonment in Azkaban. My intention,’ she continued, more firmly now, ‘is to argue that Mr Malfoy be placed at Hogwarts instead, under my supervision.’
Ron let out a short, incredulous breath. McGonagall did not look at him. ‘Not as a return to student life,’ she added, ‘but as a condition of that probation. His presence would be contingent upon his conduct, his cooperation, and his willingness to submit to the standards of the school.’
From her bag, she produced a stack of parchment and put it before them. ‘Such an arrangement will not be accepted without objection, but your testimony would go some way toward addressing that.’ She took a moment to stare at each of them. ‘I am not unaware of your history with Mr Malfoy. I don’t expect you to decide at once. You should consider it carefully—I will leave you a copy of the proposal to be presented before the Wizengamot. Please inform me as soon as you decide what to do.’
They watched her enter the kitchen. Ron was on the verge of saying something, but Mrs Weasley’s voice carried out from the kitchen, calling them in before he could begin. McGonagall did not join them for dinner. Through the open doorway, Harry caught glimpses of her and Mr Weasley moving about the sitting room, conjuring chairs, clearing space, whispering.
In the immediate aftermath of Voldemort’s defeat, he never made it to Gryffindor Tower, never got that sandwich from Kreacher. The Order had meant to hide only him, but Harry, Ron and Hermione had refused to be separated; even when there was room enough to spread out, they insisted on sharing a bedroom, close as ever, unwilling to break the habit of survival. For weeks they were spirited from one hidden lodging to another, like valuables too precious to leave unguarded, or worse, like children.
No one said it outright, but Harry didn’t need them to. The Order was meeting, and it was about him.
They were dispensed upstairs before anyone arrived. Mr Weasley explained that it would upset Mrs Weasley to have them at the meeting; nobody had wanted to argue that. On another evening, Ginny would have come up with them, uninvited, and demanded answers. Instead, she went straight to her room and shut the door behind her. Harry knew it wasn’t a good sign, and still found himself relieved not to have to explain any of it to her.
Hermione had not let go of the parchment. She sat cross-legged on the bed, already scanning the first page, her brow faintly furrowed. Ron lingered by the window, peering down into the darkening garden as though he might catch sight of someone through the trees.
‘That’s at least four people,’ he said after a moment. ‘I heard the gate go.’
Hermione didn’t look up. ‘It will be more than that.’
‘They’re probably discussing how long to keep this up,’ Harry said, sitting on the bed next to her. ‘My “housing situation”.’
Ron and Hermione exchanged a look. They had grown used to doing that lately, to finding small, private moments even when there was nowhere to go. ‘If we go back to Hogwarts,’ Ron said, after a moment, with a poorly assumed air of indifference, ‘the Order wouldn’t have to worry about where to send us next.’
He looked at Hermione, who had put the parchment down and was giving him a guilty look. ‘Sounds like it’s sorted.’
‘It isn’t,’ she said. ‘We’re just—’
‘We were just talking about it,’ said Ron.
Harry frowned slightly, more at himself than at either of them. He wasn’t even sure what had annoyed him. Going back to Hogwarts made more than sense. It was the only place that had ever felt like home. So why had it sounded, just then, like they were already on their way there without him?
Ron shrugged. ‘Better than this, anyway.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I suppose it is.’
Hermione quietly went back to her reading, and Harry, not in the mood to talk, slid down to sit on the floor. He let his head fall back against the bed frame, staring up at the underside of the mattress, as if it were the horizon of a foreign planet.
McGonagall had told him to think it carefully—that she didn't expect an answer right away, but the truth was that had his friends not been there, Harry thought he would have agreed on the spot. When she said that Draco and his mother would not be sent to Azkaban, that felt right; he didn't want that for them. Ron would have said it was him playing the hero again. Hermione might not have said it outright, but she would have thought it. But they hadn't seen Draco that night at the Astronomy Tower. Harry remembered all too well the trembling hand; Draco, who ought to have been triumphant, looked as though he might vomit.
He had pitied him then.
Two days passed since McGonagall’s visit. They knew each other well enough to be aware of what was going through each other’s head, but to speak would have made it too real too soon. Hermione—of this, Harry was sure—had read McGonagall’s parchment at least three times but had made no comment on it.
They had been briefed on the meeting of the Order. Harry had been right in thinking himself the topic of conversation: with nearly all suspected Death Eaters caught and awaiting trial it was determined to be as safe as it ever had been for Harry since the day Voldemort heard of the Prophecy.
He was, in no uncertain terms, free to leave. But leave where, he thought (scrubbing the pot Mrs Weasley had used to fry them some eggs that morning as an excuse to remain alone by the sink), no one had discussed leaving the Burrow but Harry knew he couldn't stay there forever.
The sun had come out, bringing with it the first true wave of summer. He opened the window, hoping for some breeze; the warm water coming out of the tap had him sweating. Then he heard, ‘The whole thing’s ridiculous!’
It was Ron. He closed the tap, and listened in. ‘Malfoy’s not suddenly going to turn into any less of a tosser because McGonagall gave him an essay on Muggle Studies.’
‘I agree,’ Hermione was telling him, ‘Which is why she left us this copy. You and Harry should—’
‘I don't want to read it!’
He set the pan and brush aside as quietly as he could and moved toward the garden door. They weren’t outside; more likely in Mr Weasley’s shed, where the perpetually open window carried their voices across the yard.
‘He hasn’t said anything,’ Ron went on, his voice lower now but no less heated, ‘which probably means he’s going to do it. He’s probably already owled McGonagall—'
‘He wouldn’t. He’s just… worrying about how we’ll take it. And frankly, I can’t say I blame him—look at you. Stop pacing!’
‘So what—You think Harry should help him?’
‘This isn’t about whether Malfoy deserves it, Ron. It’s about whether we’re going to support Harry’s decision—’
‘It’s the Malfoys!’ Ron burst out. ‘Muggle-hating, pure-blood nutjobs—the same Malfoys who nearly got Ginny killed, who said all that rubbish to you, and to me, and my family, and called you a—’
‘I know perfectly well what they called me. But I knew Harry would want to help them after he told us what happened in the forest—’
‘So you don’t think I should do it?’
‘Harry!’ Hermione whipped around. ‘That’s not what I meant! I just think, after what you told us, it makes sense that you’d want to—’
‘I can’t believe this,’ Ron cut in. ‘Are we actually talking about letting a Death Eater walk back into school like nothing happened?’
‘McGonagall isn’t just “letting him back,”’ said Hermione. ‘If Malfoy is willing to follow her rules then—’
‘Then she’s lost her mind.'
‘So I’m mental too, then?’
‘No, that’s not—’
‘You didn’t see him. The way Voldemort was using him.’ Harry closed his eyes. Even now, the vision of Draco’s gaunt face mingled with his dislike. ‘I know he’s a git. I know what he’s done. But Dumbledore—he was trying to help him even then… I think he deserves that chance.’
Ron shook his head. ‘Sure, whatever.’
Hermione watched him leave, then turned back to Harry with an apologetic look that only bristled more against Harry’s nerves. ‘He’s acting like I want this. I don’t.’
‘I know,’ she said calmly. ‘He was hoping things might just go back to normal, but they won’t.’
Harry didn’t know what to say to that. He was also waiting for things to rearrange themselves into something more reasonable.
‘Harry, can we talk for a minute?’
‘I don’t want to talk about Malfoy right now…’
‘It’s…not about that.’
He sat beside her on the edge of the old table, with a sinking feeling that whatever this was, he wouldn’t like it. It was there in Hermione asking for his time, in her hands folded over her lap—a conversation she didn’t want to have but that there was no avoiding.
She took a deep breath. ‘I know I said we could go back to Hogwarts, the three of us… to help with the repairs,’ She glanced at him. ‘But I’ve been thinking there might not be a better time for me to go to Australia.’
Harry stared down at his shoes, too ashamed to meet her eyes. He hadn’t thought about Hermione’s parents. Not since she’d told them what she’d done. ‘O-of course. You should go, ‘Mione.’
He could feel her gaze on him. Carefully, she said, ‘Ron says he wants to come along.’
‘Right,’ he said. He looked away, out toward the glistening grass, rustling in the distance with gnomes enjoying the first day of summer. He thought of the many moments he had witnessed between the two of them—stolen glances, meaningful silences—he had been conceited enough to think it was him they were discussing. ‘That makes sense.’
‘It would only be for the summer,’ she added, a little more agitated. ‘I think we could be back by September. I’ll know more once we find them.’
‘Of course,’ he said, drawing in a breath. Then, with a faint attempt to lighten the mood, ‘McGonagall would never forgive you if you didn’t come back and let her make you Head Girl.’
He and Ron didn’t talk for the rest of the day. In fact, he avoided everyone when he could. Ron’s words made it plain that his decision to help the Malfoys would be interpreted in many ways: sanctimonious, naïve, undeserved—all probably true in one way or another. But he was prepared to make that choice; he could handle people's disappointment. What he wasn't so sure he could manage was, now that he had seen Ron’s reaction, breaking the news to Ginny.
The days were thinning. Harry knew it, just as he knew Hermione’s silence was not an oversight but a calculated disapproval. She had given him three of those looks today alone, the kind that carried the weight of unsaid things, and that urged him, in no uncertain terms, to just get on with it.
He exhaled slowly through his nose and closed his eyes. They had just finished dinner and were lounging in the living room. The Burrow breathed around them, its walls full of familiar sounds: the clatter of plates in the kitchen, the distant croon of the wireless, the occasional hoot from Pigwidgeon, who had been unceremoniously shut in Ron’s room after dive-bombing Mrs Weasley’s laundry line. Harry let himself sink into the couch, into the press of Ginny’s feet against his thigh, into the rustling of the magazine as she turned another page. He could almost believe, for a moment, that nothing had changed.
There was a disturbance in the air.
An eagle descended like something out of myth, the candlelight caught on its outstretched wings, glancing off bronze, and landed in front of Harry. Mrs Weasley came running after it, dishrag still in hand. ‘That’s not one of the school owls—’
Harry’s stomach turned watery. He had a bad feeling about the imposing, stately bird now extending its leg towards him. He untied the green sealed letter, and the eagle, its duty fulfilled, gave a single powerful beat of its wings and lifted off into the dark.
He could feel everyone’s eyes on him as he stared at the parchment.
‘What is it?’ Ginny asked.
He sat down suddenly. The couch beneath him creaked, and for a moment, he could not look at them.
‘Well?’ asked Ron impatiently, but when Harry’s lips parted, the words would not come. They stumbled somewhere between his mind and his mouth. Ginny darted forward and snatched the letter from his grasp. She gasped, and it was Hermione next to her who announced it for all. Her voice was precise, yet it quivered ever so slightly, as if uncertain whether to treat the words as a triumph or a tragedy:
‘Harry's been granted the Order of Merlin!’
Mrs Weasley surged forward, pulling him into a tight, breath-stealing hug. ‘Oh, Harry, dear!’ she exclaimed, her voice thick with emotion. ‘The Order of Merlin! Of course they would! Of course they should!’ She pulled back just enough to cup his face between her hands, her eyes shining with pride and tears. ‘First class, is it? Well, of course it is! I’m so proud of you, dear.’
Before he could respond, she released him only to start bustling about the room with renewed energy. ‘We’ll have to get you new dress robes, of course,’ she muttered, half to herself, already making plans. ‘Proper ones this time, Ron and Ginny too, you'll need something nice for the ceremony. This is an honour, a proper honour, and we’re going to be there to support him!’
Harry wished she would stop talking. His stomach clenched uncomfortably at the way she said “proper honour,” as if it were something he should feel grateful for. As if it weren’t tangled with all the things he would rather forget.
Mrs Weasley, undeterred by his lack of enthusiasm, clapped her hands together. Her voice buzzed in the background, but Harry barely heard it. He was still staring at the parchment in Hermione’s hands, at the neat, official script stamped with the Ministry’s seal. The Order of Merlin, First Class.
The highest honour in the wizarding world.
He felt detached from the moment, as if watching it unfold from behind the telly's glass.
‘You don’t have to be nervous!’ Ginny said, misreading his expression. ‘I know you don’t like speeches, but Hermione can help you write one, and we’ll all help you practice—’
He could feel Hermione watching him closely. Ron, too, had gone quiet. He nodded, because it was easier than saying what was really on his mind.
The night paraded on with plans to be made, things to get, and people who ought to be Owled as was proper. And when Mr Weasley arrived home, the discussion was renewed, full of excitement about the upcoming ceremony.
Eventually, as the house began to wind down, Mrs Weasley and Ginny disappeared upstairs to discuss Ginny’s robes for the event. Hermione caught Harry’s eye and tilted her head toward the door. Without a word, he followed her outside, stepping into the cool evening air. Ron trailed behind them, letting the door fall shut with a soft click. The sky stretched vast and dark above them, speckled with stars, the world hushed but for the distant rustle of wind through the trees.
They sat down on the worn wooden bench just beyond the garden, the night folding around them. For a long moment, none of them spoke. Then Hermione exhaled, rubbing her hands together for warmth. ‘It's a great honour.’
‘I can’t accept it.’
Ron and Hermione shared a look, the kind of look that said he was reacting in a way they had expected. ‘I can’t. They all think I have some spell or some secret why I survived the Killing Curse, but there isn’t. You know that. All I did was—’
‘You don’t have to accept it for yourself,’ Hermione said softly. ‘You can accept it for everyone who fought. For everyone who didn’t make it.’
‘Then give it to them. Give it to Fred. To Lupin and Tonks. To Colin, Snape. I don’t want it.’
There were a thousand things he wanted to say, but none of them would come. If a part of him had really died that day, he hoped it would stay there. But it had followed him back.
‘I know you don't want to play along with the Ministry, Harry,’ she said, her hand reaching out to touch his wrist. ‘They love their pomp and medals but did little when it actually mattered.’ She pulled on his wrist to make sure he looked at her as she spoke, and there were tears in her eyes as she said, ‘But if you think you don’t deserve any recognition for what you did, that you weren’t brave enough, that you didn’t do enough, then Harry, you’re wrong.’
Harry closed his eyes briefly. He hadn’t wanted to talk about this, not tonight, not ever. He wanted to argue, to tell her she didn’t understand, but they did. They were perhaps the only ones who understood.
He looked down at her hand on his wrist, leaning into the warmth of it. Real in a way that honours, or the Ministry’s recognition, was not. His throat felt tight. ‘I don’t know how to do this,’ he finally admitted. ‘Go to the ceremony. Stand there like it doesn’t feel wrong.’
‘I know,’ Hermione said, her fingers squeezing gently before letting go. ‘And if you really don’t want it, we’ll help. We’re with you, Harry.’
‘Yeah, mate, Hermione will help you write the best rejection letter the Ministry’s ever seen. But personally,’ said Ron, cutting in. ‘I think you should do it. Even if it’s just to see the fit Malfoy throws when he finds out.’
A breath of laughter escaped Harry, cracked and unexpected. ‘I can hear it already. "St. Potter, Order of Merlin for Best Use of Unearned Fame."’
Hermione giggled, though with a disapproving shake of her head.
‘Or,’ Ron added, nudging him, ‘wait till you get your own Chocolate Frog card. That’ll finish him off.’
Harry huffed a laugh, glancing between them. For everything the war had taken, for all the ways it had changed them, Ron and Hermione remained. He didn’t know how to say thank you for that, but he hoped they knew.
‘Since we’re talking about Malfoy,’ Harry said after a moment, glad to seize the moment to steer the conversation elsewhere. ‘I haven’t given McGonagall my choice. I want to make sure we’re okay with this.’
Hermione nodded, as if she had expected to hear him say those words for a while. Ron’s jaw tensed, but still he said, ‘Yeah. I just got a little too excited at the thought of a Malfoy-free year, that’s all.’
‘We’ll save the destruction of Slytherin House for later.’
Ron snorted, and to Harry’s surprise, even Hermione grinned. ‘I know you’re joking,’ she said, ‘but maybe we should get rid of House Slytherin.’
Ron slung an arm around her shoulders, feigning horror. ‘Did you put that on your list?’
Eyes glinting with mischief, she said, ‘I did.’