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By December, Harry had discovered that the Ministry’s preferred method of reassuring the wizarding world was to place him in front of it.
They wanted photographs of him looking rested and interviews in which he spoke calmly about reconstruction, unity and the bright future waiting for them all now that Voldemort was gone. They wanted him seated beneath flattering light, his scar visible but not alarming, while somebody asked whether he had always known that good would triumph in the end.
Harry had never known that.
He had known how to keep moving, how to lie when the truth would frighten everyone around him, how to stand upright while injured, and how to make a plan from three impossible choices before pretending it had been the sensible one all along. None of that looked particularly reassuring in print.
The Minister arrived at Hogwarts shortly before lunch, and Harry learnt of it when the Great Hall fell silent in the peculiar spreading manner of a room discovering that someone important had entered it. He had been halfway through a piece of toast when the hush reached the Gryffindor table, followed by the low scrape of benches and a dozen heads turning towards the doors.
The Minister stood beside Professor McGonagall in immaculate plum-coloured robes, smiling with every visible part of his face except his eyes, and Harry felt his stomach tighten before the man had even begun to speak.
It had already been a bad week.
Sleep had come in broken pieces, never lasting long enough for him to forget himself. Every time he closed his eyes, the forest returned in fragments: damp earth beneath his trainers, his mother’s voice, the weight of the Snitch in his hand. Sometimes it was Fred beneath the fallen wall; sometimes Remus and Tonks lying side by side, their hands almost touching. Once, he had woken with his wand drawn and the name Sirius trapped behind his teeth.
By morning, exhaustion made the castle feel too bright and too full of movement. People asked whether he was all right, then looked wounded when he failed to produce the correct answer, and Harry had no patience left for the Minister’s version of concern.
Professor McGonagall’s gaze found him across the hall, apology already written into the stern lines of her face, and that was all the warning he needed.
Harry abandoned his toast, ducked beneath the table and ignored Ron’s startled, “Mate, what—” as he pulled the folded Invisibility Cloak from inside his robes. He had begun carrying it again two days earlier, although not because he expected danger.
That was what he told Hermione, at least.
Sometimes Harry simply needed the world to stop looking at him.
He slipped the Cloak over his head and shoulders, waited until his hands vanished beneath its silvery folds, then crawled between the benches as discreetly as a fully grown eighteen-year-old could manage while several students attempted not to notice the apparently self-propelled movement of discarded napkins.
Behind him, the Minister began speaking.
“Mr Potter and I have been discussing the possibility of a brief public address—”
Harry reached the doors before the sentence ended.
The corridor beyond the Great Hall was cold and nearly empty. His footsteps still made noise, but the distant swell of voices covered them as he moved quickly towards the marble staircase.
He had reached the second-floor landing when he saw Luna standing beside a tall window, through which the winter light entered thin and colourless, turning the loose fall of her hair almost white. She was attempting to tie a narrow red ribbon around the neck of a stone gargoyle, which appeared deeply offended by the process.
“There,” she murmured once she had finished. “You look much less hostile.”
The gargoyle bared its teeth.
Luna nodded sympathetically. “It can take a while to adjust to kindness.”
Harry stopped, and something in his chest loosened.
He had intended to go to the abandoned classroom near the Astronomy staircase, where nobody ever thought to look for him, yet without making any conscious decision, he crossed the corridor towards her instead.
Luna glanced in his direction before he reached her.
“Hello, Harry.”
He paused beneath the Cloak. “You can’t see me.”
“No.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“The corridor changed.”
Harry looked around. “Changed how?”
“It became less empty.”
Luna reached for the edge of the Cloak as naturally as though she had been able to see it all along, found his hand beneath the fabric and slipped her fingers through his.
Harry stared down at the place where their joined hands had disappeared.
She had started doing this since the afternoon beside the lake, though not constantly, because Luna did very little constantly. When they walked together, however, her hand sometimes found his as though it had wandered there by accident and decided it liked the place, and Harry had not yet learnt how to respond without becoming acutely conscious of every finger he possessed.
Today, he closed his hand around hers at once.
Luna looked towards the Great Hall, where the Minister’s voice could still be heard carrying faintly through the corridors.
“Are you hiding?”
“Yes.”
“From anyone particular?”
“The Minister.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“Not in the usual way.”
Luna considered this. “Those are often the most tiring people.”
Harry almost smiled.
“He wants me to give an interview.”
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Then it’s fortunate he can’t see you.”
“It usually doesn’t stop people.”
“No,” Luna agreed. “People are very good at seeing what they expect, even when it isn’t there.”
She began walking while keeping hold of his hand, and Harry went with her.
They moved slowly along the corridor. Luna did not ask what had happened or whether he had slept, nor did she tell him that the Minister meant well, that one interview might help people, or that perhaps it would be easier to agree and get it over with.
She only walked beside him, her shoes making soft sounds against the stone while Harry’s footsteps followed invisibly beside them. To anyone watching, Luna Lovegood appeared to be strolling through the castle with one arm slightly extended and her fingers curled around empty air.
Most students were accustomed to Luna.
They were not accustomed to this.
A pair of third-year Hufflepuffs stopped speaking as she passed, one staring at her hand before whispering something to the other. A Ravenclaw boy glanced behind Luna as though expecting the person attached to her arm to materialise several steps late, but Luna seemed not to notice any of them.
Harry noticed everything.
Normally, their attention would have made him tense, but beneath the Cloak it felt distant and almost absurd. No one was looking at him. They were looking at Luna, who had never appeared particularly troubled by being misunderstood.
He tightened his fingers around hers, and she squeezed back.
They had nearly reached the moving staircases when Hermione appeared at the far end of the corridor, walking quickly with a roll of parchment in one hand and wearing the expression she usually reserved for urgent problems other people had created. The moment she saw Luna, she changed direction.
“Luna,” she called. “Have you seen Harry?”
Luna stopped, and Harry stopped beside her.
Hermione approached, lowering her voice as she glanced over her shoulder. “The Minister is looking everywhere for him. McGonagall is trying to keep him occupied, but apparently he came all this way because he expects Harry to give some sort of interview.”
“Yes,” Luna said. “Harry mentioned that.”
Hermione’s eyes flicked towards the empty space beside her, and Harry could almost see the instant she understood.
“Did he?”
“He’s right here,” Luna said. “Can’t you see him?”
Hermione’s mouth twitched.
Behind her, several students had slowed down to listen. Harry recognised two Ravenclaws, a Slytherin girl from Ginny’s year and one of the Hufflepuffs who had stared at Luna earlier.
Hermione looked directly at the place where Harry’s face was hidden beneath the Cloak. “No,” she said solemnly. “Strangely enough, I can’t.”
Luna glanced around at the small gathering audience, all of whom looked back at her with varying degrees of confusion.
“Just because you can’t see my boyfriend,” she said, “doesn’t mean he isn’t here.”
Harry inhaled at precisely the wrong moment, his breath catching in his throat and emerging as a strangled cough beneath the Cloak, which made every head in the corridor turn towards the sound.
Luna’s eyebrows rose as she looked vaguely in his direction. “Oh dear. The Wrackspurts must be troubling him again.”
Harry coughed harder while Hermione pressed her lips together, though her eyes had already begun to shine with barely restrained amusement.
“Wrackspurts,” she repeated.
“They become quite active when Harry is surprised.”
Harry finally found enough breath to mutter, “Luna.”
“Yes?”
“You just called me your boyfriend.”
“I know.”
In the stunned silence that followed, the students behind Hermione looked from Luna to the apparently empty space beside her. One of the Hufflepuffs whispered, “Is Potter actually there?” and his friend answered, “I don’t know,” without taking his eyes from the place where Harry stood.
Luna turned her head towards them. “Of course he is. It would be very strange to invent a boyfriend and then choose Harry.”
Hermione made a sound suspiciously like a laugh disguised as a cough, while Harry felt his ears burning beneath the Cloak.
“Right,” Hermione said, recovering herself with visible effort. “Well, I haven’t seen Harry. I’ll be sure to tell the Minister that.”
“That would be helpful,” Luna replied.
Hermione looked once more towards Harry, her expression softening beneath the amusement. “Take your time,” she said quietly, before continuing towards the Great Hall and shepherding the curious students away with a glare sharp enough to discourage further investigation.
Luna resumed walking, and Harry went with her because she was still holding his hand and because his mind had temporarily stopped producing useful instructions.
They descended one of the shifting staircases in silence while Luna’s thumb moved once over the side of his hand. Harry watched her profile beneath the shelter of the Cloak, noticing the tiny glass stars hanging from her ears and the way they caught the weak light whenever she moved. There was no embarrassment in her face, nor any sign that she regretted the word or considered it particularly momentous.
“Are the Wrackspurts settling?” she asked.
“There are no Wrackspurts.”
“That sounds like something a person with Wrackspurts would say.”
“You called me your boyfriend in the middle of a corridor.”
“Yes. That seems to have upset them.”
“It didn’t upset—” Harry stopped and tried again. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because people will think—”
He faltered.
Luna glanced towards the empty space where she knew he was. “What will they think?”
Harry had no answer that did not sound ridiculous.
They would think that he and Luna were together. That she wanted them to be together. That Harry had spent nearly every afternoon since November looking for her without admitting that he was looking. That he knew which table she preferred in the library, which teas she disliked and which corridor she used when she wanted to avoid Peeves. That he had begun sleeping better on the days she sat beside him. That when the Minister entered the Great Hall and the world became too loud, Harry had not gone to the empty classroom after all.
He had gone to Luna.
Or perhaps he had simply started walking, and she had become the place his feet understood as safe.
“That it’s true,” he said finally.
Luna’s expression remained serene. “Would that be bad?”
Harry’s heart stumbled.
They reached the end of the staircase, where the corridor bent sharply towards an unused gallery. No portraits hung there, only pale rectangles where frames had been removed during the reconstruction, and the castle felt hushed around them, the sounds of lunch and ministerial interference left behind.
Luna continued walking.
Harry did not.
Their joined hands pulled gently between them, and when she turned back, he tugged her towards him.
The movement surprised them both. Luna stepped beneath the edge of the Cloak, and Harry caught the fabric with his free hand before it slipped from his shoulders. For one awkward second, they were crowded together beneath the silvery material, Luna pressed close enough that the bells on her bag touched his leg.
The outside world vanished as the Cloak transformed the bright corridor into a dim enclosure made from breath, warmth and the faint scent of lavender tea that seemed to cling permanently to Luna’s clothes.
She looked up at him, and Harry forgot every sensible thing he had ever known.
“Hello,” Luna said.
“You can see me now.”
“Yes.”
Her voice was very soft.
Harry’s hand remained tangled with hers between them, while her other hand rested lightly against his chest where she had placed it when he pulled her beneath the Cloak. His heart was beating hard enough that there was no chance she could fail to notice it.
Luna glanced down. “The Wrackspurts seem worse.”
Harry laughed, helplessly and a little breathlessly, before leaning down and kissing her.
It was not careful.
He had meant it to be. He had imagined, in the unguarded moments when his mind wandered somewhere warmer than memory, that kissing Luna would be gentle and tentative, something he could begin slowly enough to understand.
Instead, months of noticing her seemed to arrive at once.
The lake in September. Her shoulder against his beneath the beech tree. Her hand finding his beneath the blanket in November. Her voice telling him that his eyes knew when he was about to laugh. Every corridor in which she had joined him without asking where he had been, and every silence she had allowed to remain a silence.
Harry kissed her because she had called him her boyfriend and because, absurdly and wonderfully, he wanted the word.
Luna made a small sound of surprise against his mouth before rising slightly onto her toes and kissing him back, her fingers curling into the front of his jumper as the contact steadied and unsettled him all at once.
Harry had kissed before. He knew the physical shape of it: the closeness and warmth, the moment of hesitation before two people decided whether to continue. This felt different, however, because he was not trying to reach anything beyond it.
He was not proving that he had survived or trying to recover a future he had once believed he wanted.
He was simply kissing Luna because he wanted to.
When they drew apart, they remained close enough that the tips of their noses nearly touched. Luna studied him while Harry stood with his face hot and his breathing uneven, yet the images that had plagued him all week were gone. They had not been defeated or healed, only quieted for a moment by something happening here and now.
“That was quite decisive,” Luna said.
Harry swallowed. “Was it?”
“For you.”
He gave her a wounded look. “I can be decisive.”
“Yes. Usually when you’re about to do something dangerous.”
“This wasn’t dangerous.”
“No,” Luna agreed, glancing towards the hand still resting over his heart. “Though your heart seems unconvinced.”
Harry followed her gaze before looking back at her. “You really meant it, then?”
“What?”
“Boyfriend.”
Luna’s eyes drifted upwards as she considered the question, leaving Harry to wait, suddenly nervous in an entirely different way.
“I thought it suited you,” she said at last.
“That isn’t exactly an answer.”
“It can be, if you like it.”
Harry looked at her.
Outside the Cloak, the Minister was still somewhere in the castle, waiting to place Harry before the world and ask him to make everybody feel safe. Tomorrow there would be more questions, photographs and letters, and more people insisting that he owed them an explanation for the life he had survived.
Inside the Cloak, Luna’s fingers were caught in his jumper and her mouth was still pink from his.
Harry did not need to reassure anyone here. He only needed to tell the truth.
“I like it,” he said.
Luna smiled, slow and bright. “Good. I would have had to find another invisible boyfriend otherwise.”
Harry pulled her closer before she could say anything more and kissed her again, and this time he felt her smiling.
When they finally emerged from beneath the Cloak, the corridor was still empty. Luna took Harry’s hand as though nothing unusual had happened, although her hair was slightly mussed and her glass-star earrings had become tangled together.
Harry kept the Cloak over himself as they began walking again.
“Are you going to stay invisible?” she asked.
“For a while.”
“All right.”
“You’re still going to tell people I’m here, aren’t you?”
“Only if they ask.”
Harry looked at her, though Luna continued gazing serenely ahead.
“And if they ask who you’re holding hands with?”
“My boyfriend.”
His ears warmed again, but this time he did not choke.
Beneath the Cloak, hidden from the castle, the Minister and every person who thought they were entitled to see him, Harry smiled as Luna’s fingers tightened around his.
Together they walked on: the strange girl who had always seen him, and the boy who, for once, was perfectly happy not to be seen at all.