Chapter Text
2021
Draco
New York in September was warm and loud and full of people moving with more urgency than Draco felt was necessary. He walked without a destination, hands in his pockets, eyeing the city his daughter was about to live in.
Lyra’s apartment was small and slightly alarming. He’d floated her trunks up three flights of stairs and stood in the middle of it, trying to find something positive to say. He was coming up empty, staring at the water stain on the ceiling while Hermione charmed the locks and Lyra explained, with confidence, that she was lucky to have found a flat in this area.
Draco was fairly certain New York was not a place he’d enjoy living if this were considered a lucky find.
Hermione and Lyra had been in the same shop for forty-five minutes.
He only knew because he’d been standing outside it for forty-five minutes, which was how long it had taken him to understand that he was not, in fact, needed inside. Lyra had made this clear within thirty seconds of their arrival, at which point Hermione gave him the look that meant go find something to do, and he accepted his dismissal with what he felt was considerable grace.
He walked for a while. He looked at the giant skyscrapers and watched as two men in construction hats yelled at each other. He bought a coffee from a cart on the street and drank one sip before tossing it in a nearby bin.
He ended up outside the Woolworth Building without entirely meaning to.
He stood on the pavement and looked up at it for a moment. Then he went in.
Draco wasn’t even sure if he’d be allowed in the building. He wasn’t, nor had ever been, an employee at MACUSA. Plus, there was that whole being a war criminal thing that he was sure put him on some kind of watch list.
Surprisingly, the security barely batted an eye when he told them he was coming to see a memorial portrait. He felt the sticker he was forced to put on his freshly pressed shirt was a bit humiliating, as it read CIVILIAN in large letters, but he supposed he’d been called much worse.
He found the memorial room easily and was shocked by how many portraits greeted him. Unlike the portraits he’d grown up with, most of these were modern. It was jarring to see someone in a jumper rather than 18th-century battle armor.
He spotted Owen Green’s portrait right away. He looked the same as he had at the Christmas party all those years ago, having a spirited discussion with several other portraits.
“Nah, the Saints will always make a comeback. That’s what they do. Just wait. I’ve got a good feeling.”
“You say that every season,” one portrait said.
“And one day I’ll be right, won’t I?”
Draco approached and cleared his throat. He felt all the portraits turn to look at him, and suddenly felt silly for coming. Why would he think this was a good idea? He was about to leave when Owen’s voice addressed him.
“Draco Malfoy.”
“Owen. I’m sorry to interrupt. I was in the area and thought I might stop by for a chat.”
Owen made a gesture to the surrounding portraits, who expeditiously left their frames.
“Mr. Malfoy, what can I do for you today?”
“Please, call me Draco. As I said, I was in the area and…”
“For Little Harp, right?” Owen said with a gentle smile. “Luke mentioned Hermione reached out to keep an eye on her.”
“Yes. Lyra’s starting her healer program. We’re helping her move in. Hermione and Lyra went shopping, and I found myself with free time in the city.”
Even as Draco said the words, he knew he didn’t really have a reason for being here. He’d just started walking with a vague idea and ended up in front of the MACUSA building.
“Well, I’m glad you could stop by. Though I do think the Empire State Building would have been a more exciting stop.”
Draco looked at the portrait but didn’t see any malice in his expression.
“Do you remember that Christmas party? Hermione’s first year at the Ministry, when you told me I was lucky to have her?”
“Of course.”
“I guess…” he stopped and ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I just wanted to say you were right. And I’m sorry, and thank you.”
Owen didn’t look surprised, and Draco didn’t know if that was because he was a painting or because Owen was just a genuinely good person. He was handling this better than Draco would have had the roles been reversed.
“I guess I could say the same to you, if you want to get technical,” Owen said.
Draco, for whom vague and reserved conversations were not uncommon, was quite stumped by Owen’s declaration. It must have shown on his face because Owen began laughing softly.
“I only mean I’m sorry you lost years with Lyra and Hermione, and thank you for letting me have them.”
Draco couldn’t tell whether he should be offended. He decided not.
“I’ve tried. I know I could never be you, and I never tried to overwrite you. I knew I shouldn’t even try, even in the beginning. I just…” He stopped. “You should know that you’ve never been forgotten. Not by either of them. Not ever.”
Owen stayed quiet for a bit, which Draco was beginning to understand was just Owen’s way.
“How is she?” Owen asked. “Hermione.”
“She’s good. Really good.” He paused. “Happy, really happy, I think. I hope.”
Owen nodded once. “And you two are…”
“Together. Yes. For years now.”
“Good.” He said it, and Draco thought he meant it. Then, after a beat, “You ask her to marry you yet?”
Draco reached into his coat pocket and produced the ring. He’d chosen it years ago and carried it ever since, with the understanding that when she was ready, she would say so and not a moment before. She knew it was there. She’d never asked to see it.
“Several times, actually,” he admitted. “I think she’ll say yes one of these days.”
Owen stared at the ring. Then he looked up at Draco with an expression that was equal parts amusement and solidarity.
“You know we were never officially married either, right?”
Draco stared at him. No, he had not known that in fact.
“Almost seven years,” Owen said, laughing at what Draco assumed was a memory. “Seven years and she never quite got around to it.”
Draco started laughing, too. It came out startled and genuine.
“I’ve got you beat there, I think I proposed the first time ten years ago,” he said, still chuckling.
“Ouch,” Owen smiled as he said it. “I loved that woman more than anything, and she had seventeen reasons it wasn’t quite the right time yet. I think she’s morally against marriage as a construct but knows if she says it aloud, she’d be annoyed with herself.”
“She told me she’d think about it,” Draco managed.
“She told me the same thing.”
They laughed together for a moment, two men united in the experience of being completely undone by the same woman’s stubbornness. It was possibly the strangest thing that had ever happened to Draco, and he’d experienced his share of genuinely strange things.
When it faded, he still had the ring in his hand.
“She’ll say yes,” Owen said. “When she’s ready, I think she’ll say yes.”
“I know,” Draco said. “And I’m not going anywhere in the meantime.”
“No. I don’t suppose you are.”
Draco put the ring back in his pocket.
He was about to go when something else came out before he’d decided to say it.
“I’m terrified,” he said. “To leave her here. Lyra. She’s across an ocean, and her apartment has a water stain on the ceiling, and I want to pack everything up and move here. Hermione and I would, if Lyra wouldn’t be completely annoyed with us about it.”
Owen laughed again, and it was warm with amusement.
“Sounds like you turned out to be a pretty good dad,” he said. “Bumpy start and all.”
Draco looked at the floor for a moment. He hadn’t expected that to hit him the way it did.
“She’s everything,” he said, when he trusted his voice.
“I know,” Owen said. “I’m glad you get to see it now.”
Draco nodded once. Owen nodded back. Draco turned and walked back through the memorial room toward the lobby.
He stepped out into the New York afternoon, ring in his pocket right where it always was (just in case) and walked back toward the shop.
***
Hermione
She’d known about Henry for almost a year before Draco did.
Lyra had told her on a floo call, face flushed and trying very hard to sound casual, and had asked her not to tell Draco yet. Hermione had agreed without argument because she understood why it was necessary. Draco would need to be ambushed. Given too much time to think about the idea of Lyra having a boyfriend, he would construct elaborate concerns and work himself into a state that would be counterproductive for everyone.
So when Lyra came home for Lucy and Albus’s wedding weekend with a tall, dark-haired man named Henry standing beside her on the doorstep of the townhome, Hermione was the only one who wasn’t surprised.
Draco opened the door and looked at Henry with an expression that moved straight from confusion to a potentially murderous rage.
“Draco, this is Henry, my boyfriend. Henry, this is my dad, Draco.”
Hermione watched Draco cross his arms. She watched Henry extend his hand and hold it there, steadily, without flinching, which told her everything she needed to know about him.
She pulled Draco into the kitchen on the pretense of getting drinks and told him quietly to stop acting like a twat, which he only replied to with a huff of indignation.
By the end of the weekend, Draco had softened, which she’d expected. What she hadn’t entirely expected was the way he’d soften. Hermione saw Draco watching the way Henry looked at Lyra and could tell he was relenting.
Henry looked at Lyra like he knew she was the most important and magical thing he’d ever laid eyes on. Hermione recognized it because she’d seen it before, in different eyes, over many years.
She suspected what was coming after watching them together that weekend. She didn’t say anything.
A few weeks after they’d gone back to New York, Draco came to find her in the kitchen and had the look that told her he was done processing something and needed to say it aloud now.
“Henry asked me if he could marry Lyra,” he admitted, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.
Hermione kept her face neutral. “And?”
“I said no.” He paused, and Hermione almost started yelling at him. “And then I said yes. And then I asked for a copy of his academic records.”
Hermione stared blankly at him. What a twat, she thought in amusement.
“He provided them,” Draco said, sighing like he’d hoped for a different outcome. “Immediately. He had them ready.”
She thought that said everything about Henry that needed to be said. She also thought that said everything about Lyra’s preparation for this visit that also didn’t need saying.
“So you’re okay? You’ll be okay when they’re engaged and eventually married?”
Draco moved from the counter and sat down at the kitchen table, looking a bit defeated. “Yes.”
She sat across from him. They looked at each other.
“She’s happy,” Hermione said definitively.
“She’s happy,” he agreed, and his voice was steady, and she could tell it cost him something to keep it that way, and she loved him all the more for it.
***
That autumn, they were getting ready for bed when Hermione said, without looking up from the book she was setting on the nightstand, that she thought she might be ready for Draco to ask her again.
Draco, needing no further explanation, went down on one knee on the bedroom floor in his pajamas before she’d finished the sentence.
He had the ring out already. He’d been carrying it for years, waiting, and he didn’t waste a single second of the moment she finally gave him.
She said yes. She was always going to say yes. She just needed to get there in her own time.
They told no one and went to the registrar’s office at the ministry during their lunch break to make it official. Hermione sent a brief owl to Harry and Ginny that evening that said only ‘Draco and I got married’.
Their response arrived quickly and contained seven exclamation marks, which was more than she’d ever seen Harry or Ginny use before.
They told everyone else gradually. Narcissa brought over an extravagant set of china and hugged Hermione, whispering “finally,” in her ear.
Luna had claimed she’d known it would happen the day it did. And Pansy was pissed that she didn’t get to help plan anything.
Their lives were good, though they’d always be complicated. Hermione thought she liked that, though. It kept things interesting. They still argued, still had their habits and their edges, still occasionally drove each other mad in the ways that people who know each other very well inevitably do. He still didn’t tell her anything until it was resolved. She still worked until she forgot to stop. These things didn’t go away, only became familiar, and familiarity was its own kind of comfort.
Hermione had spent the years since Lyra left building something she was proud of. Three major pieces of legislation, each harder to pass than the last.
The first restricted the use of betrothal contracts on minors and required any existing contracts to be reviewed by the Wizengamot. The second integrated a mandated-reporter system into the wizarding world, requiring Hogwarts professors, healers, and mediwitches to report signs of abuse or coercion directly to the Auror Department. The third, which Harry had helped her write, established mandatory sentences in Azkaban for domestic violence and for anyone found to be using betrothal contracts to force marriages.
She’d had help. Pansy had provided years of case files and testimony. Narcissa had sat in on every session of the Wizengamot and looked at every dissenting member until they found reasons to change their votes. Andromeda had given medical testimony that no one in the room could refute. Ginny had, on one memorable occasion, been asked to leave a session for reasons that were never fully explained but that Hermione suspected involved a threat.
The laws were passed. All three of them.
She'd never stopped thinking about girls Lyra’s age who had to endure more than anyone ever should. She often thought about Astoria, who had written a letter a few years back, telling them that she and Clara were now married and had chosen to stay in Canada, where Daphne lived.
Hermione thought about every name of all the girls she’d never known and every case Pansy had closed before Hermione even knew the operation existed. She thought the work wasn’t finished and never would be, but that it was moving in the right direction.
That was enough to keep going.
Vega Potions’ Diagon Alley storefront was a success. Draco hired a freshly graduated Ravenclaw named Priya, who ran it with an efficiency that reminded Hermione of Draco at his most focused. Draco had started consulting with St. Mungo’s on potion formulations after he became a master potioneer, which Healer Matthews had arranged and then bamboozled him into accepting a position on St. Mungo’s board of directors. Draco found it infuriating, and Hermione found it deeply funny and well-deserved.
They travelled. They went back to the coast every year. They had dinners in Muggle London, arguments about magical theory, and Sunday evenings at the lab. They visited Lyra in New York and were careful not to visit too often, which required genuine restraint on both their parts.
The years went by, and they were good. They were really, really good.
2024
The night before Lyra’s wedding, Henry stayed with his family, and Draco got his own hotel room and left the women to it.
Lyra arrived at the hotel suite Hermione had arranged for the night and for the wedding day. She came in with her wedding dress in a bag and a bottle of wine in her hand. She was very calm, and Hermione had expected it. Lyra was never one to panic under pressure. Plus, Pansy was panicking enough for everyone.
They sat on the bed the way they used to sit on Lyra’s bed for so many years, cross-legged, facing each other. The wine sat between them as they talked about everything and nothing as they’d always done. Hermione listened as Lyra spoke about flowers the same way she’d listened as Lyra told her about her school days in primary school.
And then Lyra set down her glass and looked at Hermione with the expression Hermione had known since Lyra was three years old, asking questions that nobody wanted to answer.
“I want to say something,” Lyra said. “And I need you just to let me say it without interrupting.”
Hermione set down her own glass. “Alright.”
“I’ve been thinking about how old you were when you had me,” Lyra said, looking down at the comforter, tracing the pattern which Hermione had watched her do a thousand times at home.
“I’m almost that age now. And I keep thinking about what that must have been like. Moving countries, building your life, everything from nothing. And doing it all because that’s just who you are.”
She looked up then. “I don’t know how you did it. I really don’t. I moved to New York with a healer program to go to and an apartment that I know Draco paid three people to vet beforehand, and I still cried for an hour on my first night.”
Hermione said nothing. She’d promised she wouldn’t.
“I know there are things you did for me that I don’t know about,” Lyra continued. “Things you decided and sacrificed and carried without telling me because you didn’t want me to carry them too. I know that’s who you are and I know you’d do it all again and I’m not asking you to explain any of it.”
She looked at her mother steadily. “I just want you to know that I know. And that means everything to me. All of it.”
Hermione kept her face neutral, but barely.
“And Draco,” Lyra said. “I know that wasn’t easy either. Letting him back in. I know how much it cost you to trust him again, and I know you did it for me first and for yourself second, and I know that’s not how it should have been, but I also think it turned out alright.”
“It did,” Hermione said quietly.
“He’s a good dad,” Lyra said. “He’s a really good dad. And I know that you’re part of why. Because you gave him the chance to be one.” She paused, taking a breath.
“I just wanted to say thank you. For all of it. For every decision you made that led to me having this life.” She looked down at her hands, at the ring on her left hand, at the hotel room in New York where tomorrow she was going to marry someone she loved. “I have a really good life, Mom.”
Hermione pulled her daughter into her arms and held on.
She thought, briefly, of Owen. Of his portrait in the memorial hall, of the way he'd said “hello” to Lyra in the hospital room the night she was born, of all the years he’d spent giving Lyra exactly what she needed before Hermione had known to ask. He would have loved this. He did love this; she was sure he was watching and smiling. She knew that.
And she thought of Draco. Not the man who had fainted in Diagon Alley or the man who had cowered in the face of her questions in that coffee shop. She thought of the man who had kept a chalky piece of concrete on his worktable next to his cauldron. He had named his company after Lyra’s constellation without telling anyone.
The man had gone down on one knee on a bedroom floor in his pajamas the moment she’d finally said she was ready.
She thought about every hard thing. The war and the grief and the years of not knowing and the terror of being a mother and the even greater terror of letting someone back in when letting someone back in was the last thing that felt safe.
And she looked at her daughter, who was almost the age Hermione had been when she was born, who was going to get married tomorrow to a man who looked at her like she was his entire world, who had turned out to be everything Hermione had hoped for and more things besides that she hadn’t known to hope for yet.
None of the hard things felt like very much, compared to this.
“You’re welcome, my love,” she said into Lyra’s hair. “I’d do it all again for you - every single bit of it.”
***
Lyra
Lyra Granger-Green knew she had a habit of accidentally worrying her parents.
She wasn’t reckless by any means. She’d graduated from Hogwarts top of her class (duh). She’d had no more major incidents that required them to come to the headmistress’s office. She’d been named head girl her seventh year and then had been accepted into a prestigious Healer Program with a concentration in Muggle medicine techniques.
The stress came when she told her parents that the program was in New York. She’d only told them about applying to schools in Europe because she didn’t want them to worry unless she’d actually gotten in, which she did. And which her parents had immediately asked four hundred questions about.
After the dust settled and they realized what a great opportunity it was, Lyra packed her trunks, and she, her mom, and Draco went to New York. They stayed with her for a few days before leaving her all alone in the big city.
Her mom had cried, which she’d expected. Draco had become extremely quiet, handed her a wad of US dollars that was far too much, and hugged her, whispering how proud of her he was.
Lyra waved and smiled and then promptly sobbed for an hour in her scary little apartment in New York, where she knew no one.
Her first days of the Healer Program were both exciting and scary. Lyra loved the research the program demanded, and she’d begun making friends in her cohort. People were always curious about her because of her accent - American with some New York and some leftover Louisiana words (from Owen) mixed with her slowly developed British accent.
And then when they’d found out who her mother was, they became even more interested. And god forbid she let it slip that Harry Potter was her godfather.
She didn’t mind, though. She’d spent all of Hogwarts being proud of who she was, who her parents were, which included both Draco and Owen.
Then, in what Aunt Luna would definitely call an act of fate, she’d met a kind man named Henry one night at a bar with karaoke. The wizarding world was slow to catch up to Muggle technology and had only recently become enamored with karaoke. Henry had, as she’d later find out, lost in his fantasy football league and was therefore required to sing Taylor Swift songs in a crowded wizarding bar.
Lyra had been feeling especially homesick. Lucy had just left after a visit, and her mom and Draco wouldn’t be visiting her for another month. She’d mostly just gone out to stop feeling sorry for herself.
Lyra heard the beginning notes to Fearless by Taylor Swift and, as if it were a romantic comedy, the dance floor parted and there stood a tall, handsome, and terribly off-pitch Henry.
Lyra walked toward the stage without even realizing what she was doing. She just had a flashback to Jiggy and showing the song to Draco and Owen giving her that small pink iPod and how Lyra had always associated the word fearless with her mom. It felt like the universe or the gods or the two beers she’d had were telling her to go towards this man.
They’d spoken for hours until the bar closed down, and then they’d kept talking for the next two years.
He had gone to Ilvermorny and had grown up in New York City. He was a senior at Boston University’s School of Theoretical Magic, working on his mastery of curse-breaking. He listened as Lyra spoke, and Lyra found herself hoping he’d keep talking to her about anything forever.
In what she would later refer to as a “total aunt Luna move,” she was certain she would marry this man from the moment she met him.
They did the long-distance thing for a year until Henry moved back to New York. They swapped weekends; either she would take the train to Boston, or he would come to New York.
She met his family, who were kind and overbearing and reminded Lyra of the Weasley family (if the Weasleys used the F word liberally and took American football as seriously as they took Quidditch).
Lyra told her mom on a floo call after about a month of dating, but asked her not to tell Draco. She wanted to tell him herself. Or at least that was what she told herself. In reality, she knew she needed to tell him at the exact right time. Draco did not do well when he had too much time to stew over something.
So, after almost a year of dating, she and Henry went to London for Lucy and Albus Potter’s wedding. Her parents knew she was coming. They did not, however, expect Henry to be standing next to her on the steps of the townhome.
Draco answered the door, and Lyra spoke quickly, “Draco, this is Henry, my boyfriend. Henry, this is my dad, Draco.”
Draco’s eyes had gone wide at the word boyfriend, and he’d immediately crossed his arms. She rolled her eyes and silently thanked the gods when her mother appeared.
The visit had been fine. Draco had calmed down after her mom pulled him aside and told him to stop acting like a twat. Her mom warmed to Henry immediately, which Lyra was thankful for.
Lyra would later find out that Henry had asked Draco for his permission to ask her to marry him. Draco, predictably, said no. Then, he immediately took it back and said yes after Henry produced his school records, which Lyra had told him to pack because she knew Draco.
They were engaged by Christmas.
The past year had been chaotic to say the least. Henry had graduated already and moved back to New York. Lyra was finishing up her healer program, apartment hunting, and wedding planning.
They chose New York for their wedding location. It was a place that was special to both of them. Aunt Pansy had basically taken over. She’d even purchased an iPhone to text with Henry’s mother about plans. She might have been the only person Lyra had ever seen Pansy intimidated by.
And slowly everything came together. And today was the big day. She was marrying Henry. Her mom and Draco were in town. Lyra was due down the aisle in T-Minus forty-five minutes.
Instead of fixing her veil, she was currently standing outside the Woolworth building, where the MACUSA offices were.
She’d exited her bridal suite under a disillusionment charm, only to smack directly into Draco, who was standing guard.
“Draco?” She’d whispered, confused. “Why are you standing outside my door?”
“In case you decided to pull a runner, come on. Let’s find your mum. I’ve already got an emergency portkey. We can let Pansy deal with the guests. Henry’s a smart man, he can figure out what’s going on…”
“Draco… I’m not running away,” she’d cut him off before he could plan any more of their escape. “I need to do something, will you help me?”
“Always. What do you need?”
And so she and Draco had apparated to the Woolworth building after she’d told him she needed to see Owen. He only nodded, took her arm carefully, and they blinked away from the venue.
He was now standing outside, intercepting patronuses, as people inevitably noticed the bride had disappeared.
Lyra was in full makeup, hair done, and wearing her wedding dress as she walked in and found the sign for the memorial hall.
“Dad,” Lyra said when she’d spotted his portrait, who appeared to be placing some sort of bet with the other portraits.
He looked up, and she saw his smile for the first time in almost fifteen years. She hadn’t come with her mom when the portrait had been unveiled because she hadn’t needed to all those years ago. And then she hadn’t come when she’d moved back to America because she feared she’d use his portrait as a crutch. But she knew she had to see him today.
“My Harp, come here so I can get a look at that fancy dress.”
A small part of Lyra thought maybe he wouldn’t recognize her. She was, after all, now closer to the age he’d been when he died. She should have known better.
She walked closer to his portrait and did a little twirl. Her wedding dress was functional - a slip dress. Aunt Pansy had tried to fight her on it, but she stood her ground, saying she didn’t want to look like a cupcake.
Lyra didn’t think she’d have such a strong reaction to his portrait. Maybe it was the fact that it was her wedding day or the realization that he’d missed so much - it was culminating in tears, and she really didn’t want her make-up to run.
“You look so beautiful, my Lyra. Who’s the lucky man?”
And she told him about Henry, about how he’d gone to Ilvermorny as Owen had, and how he had a big family, and how Mom liked him immediately, and how Draco took longer. She found herself telling him about her healer program and how scared she’d been about moving to America. She told him that it made her think about how Mom moved when she was pregnant and about all the brave things she did.
She told him that she was going to be a healer at a large magical hospital in the city and that she’d known since she was eleven, watching people she loved need help and deciding she wanted to be the kind of person who could give it.
And then she said the things she’d never gotten to say out loud and hadn’t realized until she was grown, here in this memorial hall where the oil-painted version of the first man who’d ever loved her could hear them.
She told him that she thought some of who she was had come from him. The kindness and the silliness. The instinct to run toward instead of away. That she thought he would have liked Henry. That Henry was good and steady, listened when she talked, and his mother reminded her of Mrs. Angler, who had lived in the apartment below theirs.
She told him that Mom was happy. Really happy and that she’d finally married Draco.
She told him that Draco was good. That he was, against most reasonable expectations, one of the best people she knew. That he was currently standing outside this building, intercepting patronuses so she could have this moment, which she thought said everything.
Lyra told Owen that she’d never forgotten him. That she still told people about him and that she wished both he and Draco could have walked her down the aisle today,
Owen only looked at her, smiling as she spoke. His eyes were bright, just as she remembered them.
“Sounds like you found out what the secret spell was,” he said.
Lyra laughed and cried at the same time, which did nothing good for her makeup, and she didn’t care at all. She was a witch, for fuck’s sake. What good was magic if she couldn’t use the glamor charms Pansy had taught her?
“Thank you, Dad,” she said. For the first time and the last, out loud to Owen Green.
Owen smiled at her, and it was the smile that had lived in her memory for so long. She remembered it from when she was small, and he’d swing her up onto his shoulders and call her his curious Little Harp, and she’d felt like the most important person in any room she’d ever walked into.
“Go get married, my Harp,” he said. “Henry is lucky to have you. I love you, and I’m so proud of you.”
She laughed again, told him she loved him, wiped her eyes very carefully, and turned to walk back out into New York to marry Henry.
Draco was exactly where she’d left him, hands in his pockets, a slightly harassed expression on his face that suggested the patronuses had been numerous.
“Ready?” he asked, smiling when he saw her.
“Ready,” she said.
He offered his arm. She took it. They apparated back to the venue together, the bride and her father, thirty minutes before she was due down the aisle.
***
The day went by the way she’d been warned it would. It was both faster than she expected and slower than she wanted, all at the same time.
She remembered it afterward in pieces rather than sequence. The flowers, which Pansy had selected and which were perfect, and which Lyra had not been consulted on and hadn’t cared about one bit. The way Henry looked at her when she came down the aisle was the same way he’d always looked at her, just a little more so today.
Lucy, standing at the altar ahead of her, already crying, one hand resting on the small curve of her stomach, her maid of honor and her oldest friend, and the girl who had once sat in a train compartment in a yellow jumper, not knowing anyone.
She’d told Henry about the morning and about slipping out under the disillusionment charm and smacking into Draco and the emergency portkey he’d had ready, which Henry wasn’t offended by. She told him about the Woolworth Building and Owen. Henry had listened, then smiled, kissed her, and said he was glad she’d had that moment. She’d thought, not for the first time, that she’d chosen well.
Uncle Theo cried through most of the ceremony, which he made no attempt to hide and which Luna seemed to find deeply endearing. At one point, Eulalia, now ten and totally unimpressed by formal occasions, handed him a tissue and rolled her eyes.
Pansy stood at the back of the room and looked, for the first time in Lyra’s memory, completely serene. Watching everything she’d planned come together the way she’d planned it was, Lyra thought, probably the closest Pansy Parkinson got to peace.
Ginny had attempted to hug Lyra several times throughout the day, but couldn’t do it without crying so she got hammered off champagne and made Henry promise not to hurt her.
Harry and Ron found her during the cocktail hour. They came together, which she suspected had been coordinated, and each kissed one of her cheeks at the same time, while the photographer snapped a photo. Harry told her she looked beautiful, and she hugged him, thankful for her godfather who’d been there during every stage of her life. Uncle Ron said she looked brilliant, then got slightly emotional, tried to hide it, but only managed to poke himself in the eye with his fork. Pansy appeared at his elbow with a drink and steered him away as she shot Lyra a wink.
Narcissa found her before dinner.
She appeared at Lyra’s side with the composure she brought to every occasion and looked at her granddaughter for a moment without saying anything, which was Narcissa’s version of being overwhelmed and maybe a little sentimental.
“I’m very proud of you,” she said finally. “I want you to know that.”
“I know, Grandmother,” Lyra said with a small laugh. Always formal, was Narcissa Malfoy.
“I didn’t bring a gift.” She smoothed her robes. “I intend to purchase a property for you. Have Henry contact my estate agent with your preferences, and it will be handled. Location, size, number of rooms… whatever you’d like.”
Lyra looked at her, stunned.
“Grandmother, you can’t just buy us a house.”
Narcissa looked at her, confused, as if she found this statement genuinely puzzling.
“I can and I will,” she said, leaving no room for argument. “I’m choosing to. Let the estate agent know.”
Lyra had been around Narcissa long enough now to know that this was not a conversation she was going to win. She kissed her grandmother’s cheek instead and felt Narcissa’s hand press briefly against her hair the way she did when she was trying to say something she didn’t have words for.
“Thank you,” Lyra said. “For everything. Not just the house.”
Narcissa’s composure held, but only just.
Jiggy, Andromeda, and Teddy hadn’t been able to come. Teddy’s wife was due to give birth any day now. Jiggy learned how to floo call and Lyra tried to speak with him at least once a month.
Lyra had suggested a father-daughter dance as a possibility early in the planning, and Draco had said it was entirely up to her. However, Lyra saw how much he wanted it and absolutely wasn’t going to say so.
So she’d decided to have one, obviously.
He held himself together for most of it. She could feel him working at it. There was a slight tension in his shoulders, the way he was focusing on something just past her head, all the tells she’d learned over years of knowing him. She let him have it. She knew to give him space to feel things.
Then, near the end, she looked up at him and said very quietly, “I’m glad you fainted in Diagon Alley.”
He laughed. It came out a bit broken at the edges, and he pressed his mouth to the top of her head the way he had always had, and she felt him exhale slowly against her hair.
“Me too,” he said. “Me too.”
The dance with her mom was different. Her mom held her just like she’d always done. They didn’t talk much. Lyra took in the warmth of her, the familiar heartbeat she’d fallen asleep to more times than she could count, and felt the full weight of being loved by this woman for her entire life.
“I love you,” her mom said, near the end.
“I love you too,” Lyra said. “Thank you for everything.”
Her mom pulled back and looked at her face, the way she sometimes did, as if memorizing it.
“You’re so welcome,” she said and kissed her cheek.
***
Later, she was standing with Henry’s arm around her shoulders, watching the dancefloor, when she saw them.
Draco and her mom were dancing. Her mom’s head was tilted up toward him, and he was saying something, and she was smiling the smile that Lyra had always loved seeing on her mom’s face. Lyra watched them.
She thought about a park in London and a rock and a man who crouched down so she didn’t have to reach up. She thought about a lively kitchen table and a life book and a Polaroid pressed flat with a thumb. She thought about a birthday party and a glitter incident and a star chart and a sofa and pink boots in the rain and all the small accumulated moments that had built this, whatever this was… this life, this family, this room full of people who had chosen each other over and over again across years and loss and oceans and every hard thing in between.
She thought about Owen, who had given her so much in such a short time.
Now, she watched her parents dance.
Henry pressed a kiss to her temple, and she leaned into him, not looking away.
Draco was saying something, and her mom laughed, and the sound of it carried across the room, and Lyra felt it land somewhere in her chest, where she kept the things that she loved the most.
She nodded once, to herself, satisfied with everything around her. Then she turned to Henry and kissed him.
Yep, she thought. This is it.