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Chapter 34

Harry

Draco gets pardoned.

Harry’s not sure why it comes as a shock, really, especially considering how he and Hermione and George have been showing up at the ministry once a week lobbying for a change in his criminal status, but now that the proof of the change is staring up at him in black and white, Harry can’t help but feel like the ground had fallen out from underneath him.

“It’s over,” Draco says, and he’s got tears in his eyes, and Harry pulls himself out of his own head long enough to notice the tears in his boyfriend’s eyes and the way that his hands are trembling, just a little, the most they have in days, and realizes how great this must be for him, to not be a marked man for the first time in five years. There’s a difference between telling yourself that you are innocent every night before you go to sleep and having the government proclaim it to the whole world, as the Daily Prophet would surely say in tomorrow’s paper. “It’s all over.”

Over is really a funny word for it. There’s been a never ending series of moments where Harry thinks it is over only to find that he is wrong—killing Voldemort just to realize that his supporters are still out there, thinking that he is walking away from the auror department to let other people handle it and finding that box from Moody, a message from beyond the grave, leaving that behind only to be pulled back in when they drop a chandelier on his boyfriend’s head during the attempted murder of his best friend.

It’s all very confusing, this back and forth, but finally, Harry was having to come to terms that finally, after years of fighting, he was finally going to be at peace. The fighting was done and the funerals were over and even past sins were being forgiven, like that owl to Draco showed.

What’s a solider without a war to fight in? It was something that Ron said in the first nights of the tentative peace after Voldemort had fallen, and Harry didn’t have an answer. Didn’t bother to answer, really, because beneath all the grief was the hum of victory and the idea that he was going to spend the rest of his life with his arms around Ginny, that mostly, everyone he loved had come through okay, even though they weren’t okay at all.

That had been a bad feeling, waking up and realizing that it would never end, not for him.

This feeling was worse, because he knows that it makes him a terrible person, wishing that maybe this would have waited just a few more months.

“That’s great!” Harry hears his own voice and wants to cringe, because it is much too cheery and much more robust than it should have been. He wants to cover it up by holding Draco, wrapping him in a hug or kissing him on the cheek, some tactile symbol of how much he cares about him, but it seems like he is struck dumb by the news. Draco is too caught up in the idea of being free that he doesn’t even notice. “We should celebrate!”

“Merlin, I’ve got to call Hermione.” Draco’s voice is faint, like he might pass out from excitement at any moment. “Think she’ll mind if I just floo over?”

“When you have news like this?” His voice is still too forced, too wrong. “Not a chance.”

“Hey.” Draco’s eyes fix on Harry for the first time since Draco’s shout drew him into the kitchen, and then he draws him into a kiss, because they’re boyfriends and get to do stuff like that now just to prove to each other that they can. That they want to. That hopefully, they will always want to. “I know you did a lot to get me here. That a lot of people thought you were crazy for never giving up on me.” He draws him even closer and makes Harry look into his eyes, like he would miss some of the seriousness of the moment if he was looking at the floor. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” Harry felt miserable. “I didn’t do anything that the ministry shouldn’t have done ages ago.”

“Still,” Draco said, and he is happy again, like nothing was wrong between them. “Thank you.”

He kisses him one more time and then leaves the room, presumably to call everyone that their floo network was connected to and shout the good news into their empty living rooms until he grows hoarse. Harry takes the time to sink down onto one of the kitchen chairs and catch his breath, head tucked between his knees, like he had just gotten the wind knocked out of him and needs a minute to curb the nausea.

Harry was happy for him. Honesty. The only troublesome bit was that the idea of Draco being on probation was the foundation of their relationship, where Harry always knew that he would be here, a permanent promise he could not default on. And maybe it was sort of screwed up in a way (alright, definitely screwed up) but beyond everything else, the fact that they were roommates was the one thing that would chain them together even when the world around them was trying to pull them apart.