FIC: Patchwork: PG
Title: Patchwork
Author: rose_whispers
Rating: PG
Prompt: 105) We don't accomplish anything in this world alone ... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.--Sandra Day O'Connor.
Word count: 5009
Summary: Harry Potter isn't a weapon. He is a quilt.
A/N: Thank you with big fawning smooches to thescarletwoman for the fantastic beta and who, along with inell and cocohufflepuffs, put up with my wibbling about writer's block.
The war isn't won by Harry Potter.
Oh, the history books will say that Harry defeated Voldemort in hand-to-hand combat on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, killing the Dark Lord single-handedly. Really, it's an interesting story that the history books will tell you- you'll have to read them some time. They won't be fiction, exactly, but they won't be the truth, either. They'll be good for a laugh, at any rate.
And it isn't open war, either. There are raids, yes, and casualties, but never do two sides march against each other. After Dumbledore, the Order loses Mundungus Fletcher, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Nymphadora Tonks, among others. Bill Weasley dies of his wounds, his brother Ron following after an ill-fated attempt at revenge. Severus Snape dies in the midst of a sting operation, and no one can ever sort out just which side he was working for. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Scores of Death Eaters and dark sympathizers lose their lives in the aftermath of Voldemort's Last Stand, and many more escape and disappear.
It will be said that Harry Potter is the Order's greatest weapon. The history books will sing an epic tale of a Potter who has been molded by Dumbledore and Destiny both, a fearsome hero with bulging biceps, a jutting jaw, and the quickest drawn wand in all of Europe.
Which might all be true, or might not be. But Harry Potter isn't a weapon. He is a quilt.
~*~
Minerva doesn't want to send the boy off to his doom. Really, she doesn't. She watches him in the corner of the sitting room at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, in deep and lively discussion with his best friend. Amazing how the young can be both animated and serious at the same time. Minerva hasn't felt young in a long time. She used to be able to fool herself into think she was still... what is the word they use? Ah yes, "spry". Still spry after the decades she has lived. Lived through. Spry is a word used to describe the elderly. It sounds like a compliment, an acknowledgement of health, agility, and sharpness of mind, but it whispers with a sly wink to the young ones in the room that the person who is spry has no right to these qualities. The spry should really join their peers as decrepit, drooling creatures who don't know if today is Tuesday or Saturday and make lists of things for reasons they cannot remember.
She is old, but not really all that old for a witch. Certainly far younger than Dumbledore was when he died. And yet she feels so much older than he ever acted. When she sits in the Headmistress's office she feels dwarfed by his portrait, his reputation, and the loss she still experiences whenever she thinks about him. No one would understand what exactly they were to each other. People like to say "friends" or "lovers" without realising that there exists a relationship between the two. They had never been lovers, exactly, unless one counted the way their minds had met one another and sparked. Sparred. Scarred, at times. Days they argued, she at the top of her voice and he in his subtlest whispers, were not uncommon, but neither were evenings spent in quiet companionship, especially in the peaceful years. That was love beyond the traditional definition. Maybe "love" isn't even the right word. She's preoccupied with words lately. Another one she hates is "spinster". She calls herself a confirmed bachelor. It seems to suit her better. It sounds more independent, more a choice. Less like no one wanted her. She wonders how selfish it would be for her to die of loneliness. She doesn't want a man- doesn't need one, or the complications of that kind of relationship. But she misses Albus and she misses peace and she wishes that she doesn't have to do what she is about to do. Harry Potter deserves to live as long as she, or even half that long. To send him to face down this most fearsome terror is gruesome and twisted and just plain wrong.
Her years now are shaped by sorrow. She misses Albus so much that to speak with his portrait seems a hollow mockery of all that he had been, and sometimes she flips the hated canvas over, listening to his pretended snores muffled by the wall. He was a better pretender than most people give him credit for.
And what is she? Pretender, too, but of an entirely different magnitude. Headmistress, head of the Order. Minerva can give commands that are immediately carried out. She can send a thrill of fear to the very toes of the most hardened seventh year students. She can hex Death Eaters and dish out sarcasm to Ministry officials. But it never feels real. Not any of it. It feels as though she is occupying the place that rightfully belongs to Albus. She wonders if anyone has caught on yet that she doesn't know what she's doing.
Potter hasn't. The boy is clearly as loyal to Albus as ever he was, and he... it isn't that he is disrespectful of adults these days, it is simply that he is an adult now. He has grown up and filled out, still too angular and looking as though he hasn't eaten quite enough, but strong too. Potter has come a long way since he first entered Hogwarts. He has been under Albus' nearly invisible guidance all this time, and probably doesn't realise how very much the older man has influenced him. Minerva prefers a direct approach. She has taken it upon herself to instruct the lad. She sees in him a strength that wells up from the inside, and more brains than most people, like Severus, ever believed he had. Severus. Another man she misses, in spite of it all. Potter and Severus hated each other- hate each other still, come to that. Is it unforgivable that she taught Potter to use the Unforgivables? That she fostered in him enough of that hatred for Snape, Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, the Malfoys, and even Dumbledore himself for the wickedest of Killing Curses? She has given Potter the tools he needs to face Voldemort. No one knows how Harry is meant to defeat this wizard, greatest living now that Albus Dumbledore is gone. She has spent hours drilling him in the most advanced hexes and the simplest charms. In that he gave her no grief, acquiescing that an easy expelliarmus saved his life once. He is as ready as a boy his age will ever be for the task at hand.
God she's lonely, but she has to be strong. She's worried but she has to instill confidence. And she needs a good, stiff drink.
She is startled out of her reverie by a firm, warm hand on her shoulder. She looks up at Molly Weasley and smiles thinly. Neither woman speaks. Neither needs to say a word. Molly understands. They've been through this all once before, side by side when they were so much younger. Minerva is fashioning an army, gathering together the lives of her makeshift soldiers into one strong side. Sending some of them to their deaths. She has no family as Molly does, but it doesn't mean she fears for them all any less.
Molly pats Minerva's shoulder again and moves across the room to a comfortable armchair, where she takes an idle minute or two to watch Harry. She doesn't know what to make of the poor dear. He's just a baby. That's all he is, and he hasn't had the kind of childhood that all little ones deserve. Why, sitting here now, watching him talking to Hermione, she can't see the man he is nearly finished growing into. No, in her eyes, he'll always be that scrawny little thing, only eleven years old and completely bewildered by the world of magic. Confused but not too frightened to walk up to her, a perfect stranger, to ask how to get to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. He'd struck her as familiar, and when he'd told her his name for the first time, she wasn't overawed like some folk are. She didn't want to shake his hand, she wanted to feed him a proper meal. Well, of course he was James and Lily's son-just look at him.
Watching him now, she sees more of Lily in him than James. Well yes, he does have the same hair as his father, and roughly the same features, but his face is softer, like Lily's, and his fabled eyes are just exactly the shape and shade of hers. It's not only physical, though. Indeed, he has the brashness of his father but he has so much strength, too, and that strength Molly remembers in Lily. Harry has his mother's heart.
But he has never known a mother. Not until he met Molly Weasley anyway. Molly isn't flattering herself when thinks that she is a surrogate mum to the boy. Poor thing, all alone in the world is what he is. She hates Dumbledore sometimes for leaving him with those awful, horrid Muggle relatives. Just what that man was thinking Molly will never know. Blood protection her eye, she would gladly have taken him in and raised him as her own if Dumbledore had given her the chance. Why was sending the boy away Dumbledore's decision alone? She wouldn't have starved him or neglected him like those terrible Dursleys, but neither would she have fawned over him and spoiled him like some Wizarding families might have done. No, he'd have taken his lumps just like the rest of her children, and he'd have taken her love, too, hers and Arthur's. Though he definitely has that now. Molly knows what's best for a child, always has, and she could have raised him properly. He really could have been Ron's brother. She thinks they both would have liked that.
And at that thought, Molly winces and closes her eyes. Too often now her babies come to her, her eldest and youngest sons. Bill had been so handsome-such a looker, that one, and he knew it, too. She thinks he would have been all the more so had he cut his hair and worn a respectable set of robes, but it doesn't matter, especially not now. Those wounds that never truly healed had always harboured infection, and that infection ran through his blood and into his brain. That's what his Healers said, at any rate, and in the end, he didn't recognize any of them. Not even Fleur, though she stayed by his bedside the whole time. Fleur's not a bad sort, really. Molly has become accustomed to her capricious ways now. Oh but she'd wanted to get rid of her at first. She knows that Ginny thought Tonks would have been suitable for Bill, but Molly had always known how Tonks loved Remus. No, it wasn't that Molly had had any one specific girl in mind for her Bill. She just hadn't wanted a vainglorious little kitten like Fleur to take over Bill's life. To take Bill away from Molly.
You-Know-Who's minions managed to do that anyway.
And Ron. Really, if she was the unreasonable type she would blame Harry for that. Ron became used to heroics because he was Harry's best friend. He'd gone traipsing all over the Forbidden Forest, hadn't he, and after Death Eaters and all kinds of places he should never have gone. Her Ron was a true Gryffindor, though, and if his courage faltered, he never showed it. Part of her wants to hate him for going after Fenrir Greyback the night Bill finally succumbed to that damned infection. Ron, no matter what had happened in the years preceding, was no match for an enraged werewolf. That some unknown Death Eater caught him with a Killing Curse just before Greyback reached him was really a blessing. Her boy, they told her, didn't suffer. Not physically, that is; she knows that Ron was tormented watching the pain of Bill's slow slide into death. Hermione told her once that Ron blamed himself for Bill's injuries, though she never told Molly why.
And maybe that's why Molly can't blame Harry for Ron's death. Ron's nature isn't Harry's fault. And now Harry is the one who needs her more than anyone else. She knows that the boy will face You-Know-Who soon, but she doesn't know what that battle will bring him. He is clever and strong and quick with his wand, and his spirit is a triumphant one. Molly has given him all that she can. She will always consider him a part of her family. She has tried to show him what unconditional love is. She's fed him and given him a place to sleep whenever he's needed it. She's looked after him whenever he's allowed her to do so, and a fair few times that he probably would have preferred her not to. She's tried to give him a home and a family.
Really, she's always tried to do that for all of her children. The most difficult thing a mother can do is let her babies go off into the real world with all its problems and dangers. Molly has stood by them, raising them with morals and a strong sense of self-worth and justice. She's nurtured all the lives in her care, Arthur included. Harry, Hermione, and Fleur too, come to that. Together, they have all made one strong unit that frays every now and again-she tries not to think of Percy and fails-and now... The only thing harder than going to war is to let the ones you love go instead.
Disappearing into the kitchen, she returns promptly with a tea service and two large mugs floating behind her. Harry and Hermione have been talking in the corner for an hour now, and really, they must be getting thirsty. Or hungry. Maybe she'll go prepare them a proper tea. They could probably use some scones with lovely Devonshire cream to keep their strength up. And baking something will soothe Molly's nerves too. She watches them for a moment or two. Hermione has grown into her looks, her wild hair giving her a unique, unkempt beauty. She's begun wearing glasses too, now, and they make her look quite sharp. Molly doesn't know how the poor girl soldiered on after Ron's death as well as she did. She certainly hasn't shown interest in any other boy since. Molly thinks that she and Harry would make a smart match, especially now that Ginny has started seeing that Longbottom boy. At the same time, part of her loves the girl all the more for her loyalty to Ron. She has no doubt that, like Arthur and her, or Lily and James, Ron and Hermione would have married straight out of Hogwarts and had a long and happy, and probably at times exasperating, life together. She knows that one day Hermione must move on if she is ever to feel whole again, of course, but still... She thinks of Hermione and Fleur as her daughters now, her two young widows of whom she'll always take care.
"Brought you some tea, dears," she says, using her wand to move the service and cups to the small end table between her two foundlings. "Just hang on two shakes and there'll be fresh scones as well."
"Oh, you don't have to-" Hermione begins, but Molly is already sailing back into the kitchen. She smiles when she hears them both call "thank you" after her. She'll bring Minerva some tea, too, with something a little stronger added to it. Maybe they can retire to the kitchen together and leave the young people some time to themselves.
Hermione shoots Harry a wary look. "She had that matchmaking gleam in her eyes again," she warns, and Harry laughs. He doesn't laugh enough these days, but he's doing all right. Hermione worries about him constantly. Worries about all of them rushing off to their doom without a clue what they're doing.
"Who does she want to match up now?" Harry asks, and Hermione can't help but roll her eyes. Boys! Honestly, they are so blind sometimes.
"Me and somebody, I suppose," she replies solicitously. She doesn't want to be the one to break it to Harry that Molly is envisioning them together wearing wedding robes and blissful smiles. Hermione can appreciate that the older witch wants to see them both move on from the deaths all around them, and from the loss of Ron in particular. Her heart constricts, but she pushes the pain aside ruthlessly. It's been a year, damn it, and she isn't a slave to her emotions. She can think and function just as well as she ever did, even if she does cry herself to sleep most nights.
She never shared a bed with Ron to do anything other than sleep, and even that happened only a handful of times. And always with Harry present. She doesn't know which of them took Ron's death harder, her or Harry. What bothers Hermione most is how much time she and Ron wasted being first blind and then childish. She knew by the time she was fourteen that there was more to her and Ron than friendship, though Ron hadn't really woken up to that fact until a couple of years after that. Even now she can't quite explain why she loved him-loves him- and Hermione is good at explaining things. She had loved the exact pattern of freckles across his cheeks and nose, and knew their configuration more perfectly than the constellations she'd studied in Astronomy class with Professor Sinistra. He had this way of brushing his fringe out of his eyes when it got too long, particularly when he was emulating Bill without even realising it. And she had loved his courage- loves it still. Ron always felt things more than others did- his loves, his jealousies, his sense of right and wrong. When he fought with Harry or fought beside him, he gave his entire self to it and never thought of the consequences.
She hates that he never thought of the consequences.
She loves that he was afraid of spiders but not of going after Fenrir Greyback.
She hates him for going after the werewolf.
And honestly, just because Molly up and got married when she was far too young is no reason Hermione needs to be partnered off. Molly is lucky she and Arthur fit so well, that's certain. And just because getting married was how they responded last time 'round, why should Hermione be the same? Who has time to think about finding a bloody soul mate when war is on your doorstep and you could die at any moment? Or he could. Damn Ron! Damn him for being a noble idiot and for making her love him and dashing off like a suicidal fool to avenge his dead brother by adding to the body count. And Molly wants her to pair off with someone else now? How is that healthy? Men are stupid and macho and don't understand that you can protect yourself better than they can protect you because their ways are always violent and ill thought out.
Oh, she's protected now. She'll never make the mistake again of giving her heart to someone who would rather die for the cause than live for her. She blames herself for Ron's death because she should have stopped him, just as she knows Ron blamed himself for Bill's death. Ron always said if they'd just listened to Harry about Malfoy, or if they'd not trusted Snape, or if they'd not been blindsided by the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, they could have changed the circumstances that saw Bill mauled by Fenrir Greyback. Bill never would have had those infected lacerations and he never would have died. Ron never believed her that he was being stupid about it and overcomplicating matters, one of the few times she ever accused him of such. Arguing with him is one of the things she misses most. They were such good combatants, and god, it hurts when she remembers that she'll never be able to snipe and be sniped at again. She never thought she would feel such kinship with Fleur Delacoeur. She downright hated her, in fact, for being so effortlessly pretty and for tying Ron's tongue up just by glancing in his direction. Now they both understand what it's like to lose the man they love, and while they rarely talk about it, they seem to be on the same side now. Solidarity through the most excruciating loss. So no thank you, she doesn't want another boyfriend after having to mourn for Ron. She wonders if she'll ever stop mourning.
And anyway, look at Remus and Tonks. Molly matched them up, didn't she, and they are completely ill-suited for one another. Remus always looks like he's afraid he'll hurt Tonks' feelings and Tonks always looks like she's tiring Remus out. The conversations between them that Hermione has overheard are always friendly, but she doesn't perceive any real passion there. She wonders just how long they'll last when they're not held together by the pressure of coming death.
Well, no matter what Molly thinks, Hermione isn't going to believe that she is only whole and healthy if she has some random man at her side. And that man is definitely not going to be Harry! She loves Harry, yes, but not like that. It's hard to explain. She glances across the little table and sees him intently preparing tea for them both. She can't help her almost maternal smile. Harry is such a paradox to her. He could never pay attention in History of Magic or Potions, and he always turned to her for answers. Ron did too. Neither of them cared enough about those subjects to take them seriously. But when Harry thinks something is important, nothing can deter him. From something as simple as fixing the tea properly to charging into the Forbidden Forest to steal school Thestrals and fly to bloody London to face down Death Eaters at the Ministry of Magic, when Harry believes in something, he throws himself into it. At least she is there to temper his recklessness with a little thought now and then. The only reason he isn't more headstrong is that she is there, trying to help him plan things out. He laughs at her sometimes, though never maliciously, but he also listens to her. From time to time, anyway, and that's better than nothing.
She knows he probably liked Ron more for a best mate. They probably had more fun together, off flying their brooms or talking about girls or whatever it was they did when she wasn't with them. Hers is a quieter friendship with Harry, but lately that seems to be exactly what they both need. Hermione gives him a push when he needs it, but she's also one of the only people left who doesn't expect him to be anything other than himself. She is his touchstone and his calm centre. She helps him to think things through, and while she sometimes gets exasperated with him when he wants to go charging off like Ron did, she also just sits with him when he needs it. She treasures their shared silences as much as their conversations. No, they're not lovers and they never will be. They don't want to be. But they are closer than friends and Hermione will do anything to help Harry survive and stay sane.
After he hands her a teacup, prepared just the way she likes it, Hermione watches Harry touch his pocket lightly. She isn't sure if he is aware that he does it, and she doubts that anyone else would even notice. But she knows that in his pocket, protected by anti-rumpling charms, is a photograph of his mum and dad. She doesn't know where he got it from or how long he's been carrying it with him, but she's seen him sneaking a look at it a few times, and guesses that he touches and studies the photograph whenever he is alone.
For her part, Lily watches over her baby from within the confines of the image and from without. She lives on in a myriad different ways. Maybe the Lily that once was is gone forever, or maybe she isn't. Maybe she has reincarnated, or moved on to a different place, or lies unmoving in the ground at Godric's Hollow. It isn't for the living to say. But the Lily that loved Harry-she continues on. Her memory is preserved in the generations older than Harry. She is remembered as child and student, mother and warrior, by those who once knew her. She is something of legend now, with her fiery hair and her flashing green eyes.
She lives on in Harry's eyes.
But it isn't just that, the superficial looks he has inherited from her. Lily has given the boy more than even he realises. He is her legacy.
Dumbledore told him how Lily's love saved him. It wasn't baby Harry who vanquished Lord Voldemort the first time, though he is credited with it. It was Lily. Lily's sacrifice combined so potently with her magic that she shielded her son and rid the world of a great darkness for a decade.
Voldemort offered her a chance to go free-how many people know that? He wanted the baby, her baby, dead. Not her. He told her to step aside, but she didn't. Her husband was dead, and the only way any of this could have happened was if Peter had told Voldemort himself where to find them. In those last, terrifying moments, when they knew someone was in the house, when they realised that he had come for them himself, she didn't know which was worse: that Peter might have betrayed them or that he might have been found and tortured into giving away their whereabouts. Gentle little Peter... she'd kill them if they'd hurt him. Or Sirius and Remus would, if she didn't survive this. She was as loyal to her friends as any Hufflepuff. Harry has her sense of loyalty.
She died not knowing that Harry would live. The green light that brought with it hatred and death also brought the knowledge that she was leaving her baby defenceless. And in that last half a second, galvanized by fear and strength and deepest love, unseen, not consciously understood, wandless and wordless and purely elemental, she protected him.
And how could she not? Though Harry has almost no memories of her, they had loved each other completely. He doesn't know how his whole face would break into a beatific smile whenever he saw her, or how he would flail his little fists to get her attention, reaching for her. She always reached back, until he was deposited at the Dursleys'. And even then, she protected him. Had his parents survived, Harry would have fought more with his dad as he grew up. He is closer now in disposition to her, even if he is given to bouts of temper the way James had been. He and his mum would have understood each other better. She would have delighted in his escapades even as she scolded him about causing too much mischief. She would have practiced Charms with him and worried when he flew too high on his broom.
But "what ifs" and "should have beens" bring little comfort on the eve of battle. Instead of a wistful memory, Lily becomes a symbol of enduring strength, of never giving up. She is all that the Order is fighting for, all that the Order should be.
She would have been proud of the man her baby boy has become, nearly as old now as she was when she died. But she is with him in all the ways the dead can stay with the ones they leave behind. She is present in photographs like the one in his pocket and she exists in stories retold to him. She is alive in his heart because his love for her has never wavered, even when he isn't aware of it. And Harry's heart is Lily's. His spirit is too. The dead have no need to fear death, and so she is his strength, his support. She is his courage, and when he triumphs over Voldemort, it will be for the memory of all those lost to him, including and especially her.
~*~
When Harry Potter finds himself alone in Diagon Alley, alone utterly because Voldemort has forcefully Disapparated everyone else around them and because Voldemort is now dead, he knows that it is finally over. He has served the purpose that he was destined by circumstance to serve. He will stumble back to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, though the history books will say that he strode proudly to the Ministry and declared the world a safe place once more. He will collapse onto the bed that once belonged to Sirius Black, and he will sleep for days. He won't hear about the others who died on the outskirts of his duel with Voldemort. He won't be able to recount exactly what happened between them, so the Ministry and the Daily Prophet and the groups of witches and wizards celebrating in the streets will have to fill in the blanks for themselves. Harry's legend will grow, and no one will take the time to remember the contributions these women have made. They've given him life, brains, and skill. Courage, strength, and love, all from different sources, all stitched together into one person. Harry Potter is who he is because of all that they have offered freely to him.
The war isn't won by Harry Potter. It is won by them all.
Fin
Author: rose_whispers
Rating: PG
Prompt: 105) We don't accomplish anything in this world alone ... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.--Sandra Day O'Connor.
Word count: 5009
Summary: Harry Potter isn't a weapon. He is a quilt.
A/N: Thank you with big fawning smooches to thescarletwoman for the fantastic beta and who, along with inell and cocohufflepuffs, put up with my wibbling about writer's block.
The war isn't won by Harry Potter.
Oh, the history books will say that Harry defeated Voldemort in hand-to-hand combat on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, killing the Dark Lord single-handedly. Really, it's an interesting story that the history books will tell you- you'll have to read them some time. They won't be fiction, exactly, but they won't be the truth, either. They'll be good for a laugh, at any rate.
And it isn't open war, either. There are raids, yes, and casualties, but never do two sides march against each other. After Dumbledore, the Order loses Mundungus Fletcher, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Nymphadora Tonks, among others. Bill Weasley dies of his wounds, his brother Ron following after an ill-fated attempt at revenge. Severus Snape dies in the midst of a sting operation, and no one can ever sort out just which side he was working for. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Scores of Death Eaters and dark sympathizers lose their lives in the aftermath of Voldemort's Last Stand, and many more escape and disappear.
It will be said that Harry Potter is the Order's greatest weapon. The history books will sing an epic tale of a Potter who has been molded by Dumbledore and Destiny both, a fearsome hero with bulging biceps, a jutting jaw, and the quickest drawn wand in all of Europe.
Which might all be true, or might not be. But Harry Potter isn't a weapon. He is a quilt.
~*~
Minerva doesn't want to send the boy off to his doom. Really, she doesn't. She watches him in the corner of the sitting room at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, in deep and lively discussion with his best friend. Amazing how the young can be both animated and serious at the same time. Minerva hasn't felt young in a long time. She used to be able to fool herself into think she was still... what is the word they use? Ah yes, "spry". Still spry after the decades she has lived. Lived through. Spry is a word used to describe the elderly. It sounds like a compliment, an acknowledgement of health, agility, and sharpness of mind, but it whispers with a sly wink to the young ones in the room that the person who is spry has no right to these qualities. The spry should really join their peers as decrepit, drooling creatures who don't know if today is Tuesday or Saturday and make lists of things for reasons they cannot remember.
She is old, but not really all that old for a witch. Certainly far younger than Dumbledore was when he died. And yet she feels so much older than he ever acted. When she sits in the Headmistress's office she feels dwarfed by his portrait, his reputation, and the loss she still experiences whenever she thinks about him. No one would understand what exactly they were to each other. People like to say "friends" or "lovers" without realising that there exists a relationship between the two. They had never been lovers, exactly, unless one counted the way their minds had met one another and sparked. Sparred. Scarred, at times. Days they argued, she at the top of her voice and he in his subtlest whispers, were not uncommon, but neither were evenings spent in quiet companionship, especially in the peaceful years. That was love beyond the traditional definition. Maybe "love" isn't even the right word. She's preoccupied with words lately. Another one she hates is "spinster". She calls herself a confirmed bachelor. It seems to suit her better. It sounds more independent, more a choice. Less like no one wanted her. She wonders how selfish it would be for her to die of loneliness. She doesn't want a man- doesn't need one, or the complications of that kind of relationship. But she misses Albus and she misses peace and she wishes that she doesn't have to do what she is about to do. Harry Potter deserves to live as long as she, or even half that long. To send him to face down this most fearsome terror is gruesome and twisted and just plain wrong.
Her years now are shaped by sorrow. She misses Albus so much that to speak with his portrait seems a hollow mockery of all that he had been, and sometimes she flips the hated canvas over, listening to his pretended snores muffled by the wall. He was a better pretender than most people give him credit for.
And what is she? Pretender, too, but of an entirely different magnitude. Headmistress, head of the Order. Minerva can give commands that are immediately carried out. She can send a thrill of fear to the very toes of the most hardened seventh year students. She can hex Death Eaters and dish out sarcasm to Ministry officials. But it never feels real. Not any of it. It feels as though she is occupying the place that rightfully belongs to Albus. She wonders if anyone has caught on yet that she doesn't know what she's doing.
Potter hasn't. The boy is clearly as loyal to Albus as ever he was, and he... it isn't that he is disrespectful of adults these days, it is simply that he is an adult now. He has grown up and filled out, still too angular and looking as though he hasn't eaten quite enough, but strong too. Potter has come a long way since he first entered Hogwarts. He has been under Albus' nearly invisible guidance all this time, and probably doesn't realise how very much the older man has influenced him. Minerva prefers a direct approach. She has taken it upon herself to instruct the lad. She sees in him a strength that wells up from the inside, and more brains than most people, like Severus, ever believed he had. Severus. Another man she misses, in spite of it all. Potter and Severus hated each other- hate each other still, come to that. Is it unforgivable that she taught Potter to use the Unforgivables? That she fostered in him enough of that hatred for Snape, Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, the Malfoys, and even Dumbledore himself for the wickedest of Killing Curses? She has given Potter the tools he needs to face Voldemort. No one knows how Harry is meant to defeat this wizard, greatest living now that Albus Dumbledore is gone. She has spent hours drilling him in the most advanced hexes and the simplest charms. In that he gave her no grief, acquiescing that an easy expelliarmus saved his life once. He is as ready as a boy his age will ever be for the task at hand.
God she's lonely, but she has to be strong. She's worried but she has to instill confidence. And she needs a good, stiff drink.
She is startled out of her reverie by a firm, warm hand on her shoulder. She looks up at Molly Weasley and smiles thinly. Neither woman speaks. Neither needs to say a word. Molly understands. They've been through this all once before, side by side when they were so much younger. Minerva is fashioning an army, gathering together the lives of her makeshift soldiers into one strong side. Sending some of them to their deaths. She has no family as Molly does, but it doesn't mean she fears for them all any less.
Molly pats Minerva's shoulder again and moves across the room to a comfortable armchair, where she takes an idle minute or two to watch Harry. She doesn't know what to make of the poor dear. He's just a baby. That's all he is, and he hasn't had the kind of childhood that all little ones deserve. Why, sitting here now, watching him talking to Hermione, she can't see the man he is nearly finished growing into. No, in her eyes, he'll always be that scrawny little thing, only eleven years old and completely bewildered by the world of magic. Confused but not too frightened to walk up to her, a perfect stranger, to ask how to get to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. He'd struck her as familiar, and when he'd told her his name for the first time, she wasn't overawed like some folk are. She didn't want to shake his hand, she wanted to feed him a proper meal. Well, of course he was James and Lily's son-just look at him.
Watching him now, she sees more of Lily in him than James. Well yes, he does have the same hair as his father, and roughly the same features, but his face is softer, like Lily's, and his fabled eyes are just exactly the shape and shade of hers. It's not only physical, though. Indeed, he has the brashness of his father but he has so much strength, too, and that strength Molly remembers in Lily. Harry has his mother's heart.
But he has never known a mother. Not until he met Molly Weasley anyway. Molly isn't flattering herself when thinks that she is a surrogate mum to the boy. Poor thing, all alone in the world is what he is. She hates Dumbledore sometimes for leaving him with those awful, horrid Muggle relatives. Just what that man was thinking Molly will never know. Blood protection her eye, she would gladly have taken him in and raised him as her own if Dumbledore had given her the chance. Why was sending the boy away Dumbledore's decision alone? She wouldn't have starved him or neglected him like those terrible Dursleys, but neither would she have fawned over him and spoiled him like some Wizarding families might have done. No, he'd have taken his lumps just like the rest of her children, and he'd have taken her love, too, hers and Arthur's. Though he definitely has that now. Molly knows what's best for a child, always has, and she could have raised him properly. He really could have been Ron's brother. She thinks they both would have liked that.
And at that thought, Molly winces and closes her eyes. Too often now her babies come to her, her eldest and youngest sons. Bill had been so handsome-such a looker, that one, and he knew it, too. She thinks he would have been all the more so had he cut his hair and worn a respectable set of robes, but it doesn't matter, especially not now. Those wounds that never truly healed had always harboured infection, and that infection ran through his blood and into his brain. That's what his Healers said, at any rate, and in the end, he didn't recognize any of them. Not even Fleur, though she stayed by his bedside the whole time. Fleur's not a bad sort, really. Molly has become accustomed to her capricious ways now. Oh but she'd wanted to get rid of her at first. She knows that Ginny thought Tonks would have been suitable for Bill, but Molly had always known how Tonks loved Remus. No, it wasn't that Molly had had any one specific girl in mind for her Bill. She just hadn't wanted a vainglorious little kitten like Fleur to take over Bill's life. To take Bill away from Molly.
You-Know-Who's minions managed to do that anyway.
And Ron. Really, if she was the unreasonable type she would blame Harry for that. Ron became used to heroics because he was Harry's best friend. He'd gone traipsing all over the Forbidden Forest, hadn't he, and after Death Eaters and all kinds of places he should never have gone. Her Ron was a true Gryffindor, though, and if his courage faltered, he never showed it. Part of her wants to hate him for going after Fenrir Greyback the night Bill finally succumbed to that damned infection. Ron, no matter what had happened in the years preceding, was no match for an enraged werewolf. That some unknown Death Eater caught him with a Killing Curse just before Greyback reached him was really a blessing. Her boy, they told her, didn't suffer. Not physically, that is; she knows that Ron was tormented watching the pain of Bill's slow slide into death. Hermione told her once that Ron blamed himself for Bill's injuries, though she never told Molly why.
And maybe that's why Molly can't blame Harry for Ron's death. Ron's nature isn't Harry's fault. And now Harry is the one who needs her more than anyone else. She knows that the boy will face You-Know-Who soon, but she doesn't know what that battle will bring him. He is clever and strong and quick with his wand, and his spirit is a triumphant one. Molly has given him all that she can. She will always consider him a part of her family. She has tried to show him what unconditional love is. She's fed him and given him a place to sleep whenever he's needed it. She's looked after him whenever he's allowed her to do so, and a fair few times that he probably would have preferred her not to. She's tried to give him a home and a family.
Really, she's always tried to do that for all of her children. The most difficult thing a mother can do is let her babies go off into the real world with all its problems and dangers. Molly has stood by them, raising them with morals and a strong sense of self-worth and justice. She's nurtured all the lives in her care, Arthur included. Harry, Hermione, and Fleur too, come to that. Together, they have all made one strong unit that frays every now and again-she tries not to think of Percy and fails-and now... The only thing harder than going to war is to let the ones you love go instead.
Disappearing into the kitchen, she returns promptly with a tea service and two large mugs floating behind her. Harry and Hermione have been talking in the corner for an hour now, and really, they must be getting thirsty. Or hungry. Maybe she'll go prepare them a proper tea. They could probably use some scones with lovely Devonshire cream to keep their strength up. And baking something will soothe Molly's nerves too. She watches them for a moment or two. Hermione has grown into her looks, her wild hair giving her a unique, unkempt beauty. She's begun wearing glasses too, now, and they make her look quite sharp. Molly doesn't know how the poor girl soldiered on after Ron's death as well as she did. She certainly hasn't shown interest in any other boy since. Molly thinks that she and Harry would make a smart match, especially now that Ginny has started seeing that Longbottom boy. At the same time, part of her loves the girl all the more for her loyalty to Ron. She has no doubt that, like Arthur and her, or Lily and James, Ron and Hermione would have married straight out of Hogwarts and had a long and happy, and probably at times exasperating, life together. She knows that one day Hermione must move on if she is ever to feel whole again, of course, but still... She thinks of Hermione and Fleur as her daughters now, her two young widows of whom she'll always take care.
"Brought you some tea, dears," she says, using her wand to move the service and cups to the small end table between her two foundlings. "Just hang on two shakes and there'll be fresh scones as well."
"Oh, you don't have to-" Hermione begins, but Molly is already sailing back into the kitchen. She smiles when she hears them both call "thank you" after her. She'll bring Minerva some tea, too, with something a little stronger added to it. Maybe they can retire to the kitchen together and leave the young people some time to themselves.
Hermione shoots Harry a wary look. "She had that matchmaking gleam in her eyes again," she warns, and Harry laughs. He doesn't laugh enough these days, but he's doing all right. Hermione worries about him constantly. Worries about all of them rushing off to their doom without a clue what they're doing.
"Who does she want to match up now?" Harry asks, and Hermione can't help but roll her eyes. Boys! Honestly, they are so blind sometimes.
"Me and somebody, I suppose," she replies solicitously. She doesn't want to be the one to break it to Harry that Molly is envisioning them together wearing wedding robes and blissful smiles. Hermione can appreciate that the older witch wants to see them both move on from the deaths all around them, and from the loss of Ron in particular. Her heart constricts, but she pushes the pain aside ruthlessly. It's been a year, damn it, and she isn't a slave to her emotions. She can think and function just as well as she ever did, even if she does cry herself to sleep most nights.
She never shared a bed with Ron to do anything other than sleep, and even that happened only a handful of times. And always with Harry present. She doesn't know which of them took Ron's death harder, her or Harry. What bothers Hermione most is how much time she and Ron wasted being first blind and then childish. She knew by the time she was fourteen that there was more to her and Ron than friendship, though Ron hadn't really woken up to that fact until a couple of years after that. Even now she can't quite explain why she loved him-loves him- and Hermione is good at explaining things. She had loved the exact pattern of freckles across his cheeks and nose, and knew their configuration more perfectly than the constellations she'd studied in Astronomy class with Professor Sinistra. He had this way of brushing his fringe out of his eyes when it got too long, particularly when he was emulating Bill without even realising it. And she had loved his courage- loves it still. Ron always felt things more than others did- his loves, his jealousies, his sense of right and wrong. When he fought with Harry or fought beside him, he gave his entire self to it and never thought of the consequences.
She hates that he never thought of the consequences.
She loves that he was afraid of spiders but not of going after Fenrir Greyback.
She hates him for going after the werewolf.
And honestly, just because Molly up and got married when she was far too young is no reason Hermione needs to be partnered off. Molly is lucky she and Arthur fit so well, that's certain. And just because getting married was how they responded last time 'round, why should Hermione be the same? Who has time to think about finding a bloody soul mate when war is on your doorstep and you could die at any moment? Or he could. Damn Ron! Damn him for being a noble idiot and for making her love him and dashing off like a suicidal fool to avenge his dead brother by adding to the body count. And Molly wants her to pair off with someone else now? How is that healthy? Men are stupid and macho and don't understand that you can protect yourself better than they can protect you because their ways are always violent and ill thought out.
Oh, she's protected now. She'll never make the mistake again of giving her heart to someone who would rather die for the cause than live for her. She blames herself for Ron's death because she should have stopped him, just as she knows Ron blamed himself for Bill's death. Ron always said if they'd just listened to Harry about Malfoy, or if they'd not trusted Snape, or if they'd not been blindsided by the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, they could have changed the circumstances that saw Bill mauled by Fenrir Greyback. Bill never would have had those infected lacerations and he never would have died. Ron never believed her that he was being stupid about it and overcomplicating matters, one of the few times she ever accused him of such. Arguing with him is one of the things she misses most. They were such good combatants, and god, it hurts when she remembers that she'll never be able to snipe and be sniped at again. She never thought she would feel such kinship with Fleur Delacoeur. She downright hated her, in fact, for being so effortlessly pretty and for tying Ron's tongue up just by glancing in his direction. Now they both understand what it's like to lose the man they love, and while they rarely talk about it, they seem to be on the same side now. Solidarity through the most excruciating loss. So no thank you, she doesn't want another boyfriend after having to mourn for Ron. She wonders if she'll ever stop mourning.
And anyway, look at Remus and Tonks. Molly matched them up, didn't she, and they are completely ill-suited for one another. Remus always looks like he's afraid he'll hurt Tonks' feelings and Tonks always looks like she's tiring Remus out. The conversations between them that Hermione has overheard are always friendly, but she doesn't perceive any real passion there. She wonders just how long they'll last when they're not held together by the pressure of coming death.
Well, no matter what Molly thinks, Hermione isn't going to believe that she is only whole and healthy if she has some random man at her side. And that man is definitely not going to be Harry! She loves Harry, yes, but not like that. It's hard to explain. She glances across the little table and sees him intently preparing tea for them both. She can't help her almost maternal smile. Harry is such a paradox to her. He could never pay attention in History of Magic or Potions, and he always turned to her for answers. Ron did too. Neither of them cared enough about those subjects to take them seriously. But when Harry thinks something is important, nothing can deter him. From something as simple as fixing the tea properly to charging into the Forbidden Forest to steal school Thestrals and fly to bloody London to face down Death Eaters at the Ministry of Magic, when Harry believes in something, he throws himself into it. At least she is there to temper his recklessness with a little thought now and then. The only reason he isn't more headstrong is that she is there, trying to help him plan things out. He laughs at her sometimes, though never maliciously, but he also listens to her. From time to time, anyway, and that's better than nothing.
She knows he probably liked Ron more for a best mate. They probably had more fun together, off flying their brooms or talking about girls or whatever it was they did when she wasn't with them. Hers is a quieter friendship with Harry, but lately that seems to be exactly what they both need. Hermione gives him a push when he needs it, but she's also one of the only people left who doesn't expect him to be anything other than himself. She is his touchstone and his calm centre. She helps him to think things through, and while she sometimes gets exasperated with him when he wants to go charging off like Ron did, she also just sits with him when he needs it. She treasures their shared silences as much as their conversations. No, they're not lovers and they never will be. They don't want to be. But they are closer than friends and Hermione will do anything to help Harry survive and stay sane.
After he hands her a teacup, prepared just the way she likes it, Hermione watches Harry touch his pocket lightly. She isn't sure if he is aware that he does it, and she doubts that anyone else would even notice. But she knows that in his pocket, protected by anti-rumpling charms, is a photograph of his mum and dad. She doesn't know where he got it from or how long he's been carrying it with him, but she's seen him sneaking a look at it a few times, and guesses that he touches and studies the photograph whenever he is alone.
For her part, Lily watches over her baby from within the confines of the image and from without. She lives on in a myriad different ways. Maybe the Lily that once was is gone forever, or maybe she isn't. Maybe she has reincarnated, or moved on to a different place, or lies unmoving in the ground at Godric's Hollow. It isn't for the living to say. But the Lily that loved Harry-she continues on. Her memory is preserved in the generations older than Harry. She is remembered as child and student, mother and warrior, by those who once knew her. She is something of legend now, with her fiery hair and her flashing green eyes.
She lives on in Harry's eyes.
But it isn't just that, the superficial looks he has inherited from her. Lily has given the boy more than even he realises. He is her legacy.
Dumbledore told him how Lily's love saved him. It wasn't baby Harry who vanquished Lord Voldemort the first time, though he is credited with it. It was Lily. Lily's sacrifice combined so potently with her magic that she shielded her son and rid the world of a great darkness for a decade.
Voldemort offered her a chance to go free-how many people know that? He wanted the baby, her baby, dead. Not her. He told her to step aside, but she didn't. Her husband was dead, and the only way any of this could have happened was if Peter had told Voldemort himself where to find them. In those last, terrifying moments, when they knew someone was in the house, when they realised that he had come for them himself, she didn't know which was worse: that Peter might have betrayed them or that he might have been found and tortured into giving away their whereabouts. Gentle little Peter... she'd kill them if they'd hurt him. Or Sirius and Remus would, if she didn't survive this. She was as loyal to her friends as any Hufflepuff. Harry has her sense of loyalty.
She died not knowing that Harry would live. The green light that brought with it hatred and death also brought the knowledge that she was leaving her baby defenceless. And in that last half a second, galvanized by fear and strength and deepest love, unseen, not consciously understood, wandless and wordless and purely elemental, she protected him.
And how could she not? Though Harry has almost no memories of her, they had loved each other completely. He doesn't know how his whole face would break into a beatific smile whenever he saw her, or how he would flail his little fists to get her attention, reaching for her. She always reached back, until he was deposited at the Dursleys'. And even then, she protected him. Had his parents survived, Harry would have fought more with his dad as he grew up. He is closer now in disposition to her, even if he is given to bouts of temper the way James had been. He and his mum would have understood each other better. She would have delighted in his escapades even as she scolded him about causing too much mischief. She would have practiced Charms with him and worried when he flew too high on his broom.
But "what ifs" and "should have beens" bring little comfort on the eve of battle. Instead of a wistful memory, Lily becomes a symbol of enduring strength, of never giving up. She is all that the Order is fighting for, all that the Order should be.
She would have been proud of the man her baby boy has become, nearly as old now as she was when she died. But she is with him in all the ways the dead can stay with the ones they leave behind. She is present in photographs like the one in his pocket and she exists in stories retold to him. She is alive in his heart because his love for her has never wavered, even when he isn't aware of it. And Harry's heart is Lily's. His spirit is too. The dead have no need to fear death, and so she is his strength, his support. She is his courage, and when he triumphs over Voldemort, it will be for the memory of all those lost to him, including and especially her.
~*~
When Harry Potter finds himself alone in Diagon Alley, alone utterly because Voldemort has forcefully Disapparated everyone else around them and because Voldemort is now dead, he knows that it is finally over. He has served the purpose that he was destined by circumstance to serve. He will stumble back to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, though the history books will say that he strode proudly to the Ministry and declared the world a safe place once more. He will collapse onto the bed that once belonged to Sirius Black, and he will sleep for days. He won't hear about the others who died on the outskirts of his duel with Voldemort. He won't be able to recount exactly what happened between them, so the Ministry and the Daily Prophet and the groups of witches and wizards celebrating in the streets will have to fill in the blanks for themselves. Harry's legend will grow, and no one will take the time to remember the contributions these women have made. They've given him life, brains, and skill. Courage, strength, and love, all from different sources, all stitched together into one person. Harry Potter is who he is because of all that they have offered freely to him.
The war isn't won by Harry Potter. It is won by them all.
Fin