“I have to apologise to you”, she looked at him seriously. They found their old spot by the lake and took their time now that the castle was still in ruins and people were counting the dead and mourning. However, they had their own priorities. Winning the war was first, and that was now done. This came second.

“No, you don’t”, he was adamant. “In fact, I have to apologise to you”.

“You can do that later. However, the fact that you were at fault doesn’t mean that I’m blameless. I refused to believe you. I was faced with the person who bore a scar on his forehead from Voldemort trying to kill him as a baby in the crib, while stepping over the corpse of his mother to do it, and I defended him because it suited me. He literally tried to murder an innocent baby who was the last offspring of a great noble family while talking nonsense about pureblood supremacy and what not. In hindsight, it was obvious as day, and I refused to admit it because it would make my father look bad, and my father could do no wrong because he would sing me lullabies and tell me stories and tales when I was a baby. Harry, I wronged you by not believing you and I’m deeply sorry”.

“Thank you”, he smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. “My turn”, he sighed. “I wronged you horribly. I don’t even know whether I should explain what I was thinking, because it was so worthless and undignified, but I think you deserve to hear it. You see, I wanted to experiment. I wanted to see what other girls would feel like. With you, I couldn’t actually say what we were. I didn’t have a word. ‘Girlfriend’ wouldn’t fit. ‘Friend’ was too superficial. I wanted to see if what I felt with you was something that happened with any pretty girl, because I thought it couldn’t be just you. After all, you were in the enemy camp. I feared you would turn on me when Voldemort came back, and I already felt he was coming back for a year. When he did, I wanted to force myself away from the emotional danger of falling for you the way I knew I should if I allowed it. I wanted to be on the right side of the war when it happened. So, I tried to reproduce what we had as closely as possible with Cho, and I didn’t feel anything. It was just nice. That was around the time when Voldemort was actively trying to influence my mind through the scar, and I was afraid that my mind was damaged, and I was turning cold and empty like he is, so I doubled down on my stupidity and tried harder, to no effect. I was just constantly angry, hurt, abandoned, complaining, blowing off steam on my friends who didn’t do anything. Then Sirius died, and I felt it was my fault, because it kind of was, and I wished I could die, truly. I wished for it when Voldemort tried to possess me, and Dumbledore said it was love and it hurt Voldemort like nothing else. I missed you, and I hated missing you because I thought you were the enemy, so how can I miss the enemy, there must be something wrong with me. Then you took the dark mark and started conspiring to kill Dumbledore, and I said yeah, that’s what she is now, and I hated you until I almost killed you, and then I held you and realised that you are everything to me, and that I loved you and would give anything to get you back. But I couldn’t sit at your bedside and see that you are well, because Dumbledore called and I had to go with him on a mission, and you know what happened when we returned. He was half dead from some terrible potion he had to drink, and then he petrified me under my cloak and you came.”, he sighed and closed his eyes. “Then I saw you weeping and begging him to save your family, and I saw the full reality of what you actually were while I hated you and lived in my imaginary world that justified my betrayal of your love and trust. I am incredibly sorry.”

Now she wiped his tears. “I know you are, and you should be. You broke my heart and left it like that for two years. You could have waited until I calmed down and then talked to me. You could have guessed that my feelings were hurt. You could have apologised. Instead, you acted as if I was nothing to you, I was an enemy who finally showed her true face, while I needed your shoulder to cry on because I had Voldemort, werewolves and villains at home and I was scared. Why didn’t you? I mean, reach out. Apologise. Ask how I felt?”, she sobbed.

“You have to understand that I’m much dumber than you. I didn’t know what we were. We never actually talked about it, we didn’t have words. There was the unresolved allegiance thing. It gnawed on me and stopped me from falling for you or even understanding what we are. I didn’t know that you changed your mind. I was so preoccupied by all sorts of important stuff that was going on, that I couldn’t even deal with something as complex at the moment. My mind was a mess. I had visions from Voldemort every now and then, and even when I didn’t, I had the ever-present darkness in my mind. I was half past insane, to be honest. Also, everybody seemed to be after me, so I was super defensive.”

“That actually sounds somewhat like what I was going through”, she reminisced. “I was feeling miserable and feeding the feeling with everything – if I hit my foot and it hurt, I used the pain to make myself more miserable. I just fed the darkness with more darkness. It looks like this might not be unrelated, or accidental. It might have something to do with the overall darkness enveloping everything after Voldemort’s return, and we just got swallowed by it and invented our own rationalisations as to why we are feeling the way we are”.

“That’s actually a good point, although I wouldn’t wish to use it to excuse myself; merely to understand part of it. I definitely wronged you, and I almost killed you before the lights in my brain started turning on. Eventually, Hermione gave me the word I was looking for, the word that explained what you are to me”, he smiled through tears.

“What is it?”, she looked at him curiously.

“Wife. She said you’re my wife. Not a school girlfriend. Not a friend. She said that I should never play with your heart because you’re a serious person. Will you be my wife, Lyra Malfoy? I love you and I promise to love, cherish and protect you forever”.

“I will”, she sobbed. “I swore to be your wife when I was eleven. I just waited for you to ask. You surely took your time”, she tried a smile.

…

“This was my first kiss, you know”, she smiled later.

“This is going to sound weird, but I think it was mine, too. When I kissed Cho and Ginny, it didn’t feel like I’m actually myself – it felt like I’m watching it from a slightly disembodied position and going through the motions, not actually feeling anything. That’s why I was scared that Voldemort scrambled my brain permanently and I’m turning into a zombie. Now, I felt like my true self, doing what I actually want, choosing my destiny, and it’s no longer scary the way it used to be – in the oh my God, I’m falling for a death eater girl way – but it’s still scary in the sense how important, right and good it is. It feels like kissing my own life. And now I can finally admit to myself that I love you”, he smiled.

“I’m sorry for just assuming things and not saying things in words”, she smiled back. “I assumed it’s all perfectly obvious – what we are, what we’re doing. But I didn’t actually confirm it with you, and it would be the most reasonable thing to do. I think I just expected you to say it, because that’s traditionally how it goes, but I didn’t realise that you wouldn’t know. Too many assumptions. Talking could have saved us from all sorts of heartache.”

“I don’t think that’s the case”, he mused. “I think I didn’t want to know. The political part was too much of an issue for me, so much so that I turned parts of my brain off rather than face the truth. Lyra, I thought about it all after I almost killed you. I realised that touching your body switched on parts of my brain, because I’m so deeply wired to you. And it’s not just touch. It’s looking at your face while we talk, seeing your thoughts move it, feeling your physical presence that feels like space within my mind. Honestly, I think I can feel your emotions and thoughts from the scent of your sweat, which feels like something fresh, pure and clean. I was always so deeply in love with you that word “love” didn’t match the feeling because it’s too shallow and means all kinds of silly stuff, especially when you’re a messed up kid like me. I have to tell you one thing. When I temporarily died in the forest, before I came back, I was in a place that felt like the King’s Cross station, only obviously non-physical and made of light. It felt like home, like safety, like everything’s finally OK. And what I realised was that I felt that feeling before, because it felt like you. It felt like the look in your eyes, the freshness of your skin, purity of your scent, like the sense of having you physically present beside me. You feel like home. To say it’s merely love is to diminish its dignity.”

“I knew it couldn’t be just me”, she smiled like an exploding star.

“So, what do we do now?”, he raised his eyebrows.

“We get married, finish school, hunt the remaining evil creatures that made our lives hell, and make babies. Not necessarily in that order, though.”, she laughed.

“We can compromise on the order, but we’re definitely making babies”, he kissed her.

“Do you need an instruction manual?”, she joked.

“Yes, in fact. But as always, learning things from you is much more fun”, he laughed.

“I guess school first, then we get married, and then, I guess, we teach each other what goes where. It can’t be that hard to figure out, since everybody does it”, she giggled.

“Well, they obviously don’t do it enough, or we wouldn’t be having a population crisis”, he grinned.

“Three at the minimum”, she lifted three fingers, and he kissed them.

“More if possible”, he agreed. “And I was thinking about another thing. When everything came back to me, I also remembered one of our first proper conversations, where you told me that the Malfoy name will die with you because you’re a girl. Always be proud of being a girl. And your name is not going to die. I’ll make our joint surname Malfoy-Potter. We’re blending two important, ancient lines, and they should be equally represented, but yours goes first, because from now on you always come first. Not after war, not after work. First.”

“Wow”. She kissed him and they just stayed like that, breathing. “I always wanted you to be proud of me. This feels… like that, plus some burden or guilt being relieved. It feels like my ancestors are proud of me, as well. I don’t know if it’s just in my head, but it feels real”.

“Well, why would the fact that it’s in your head mean it’s not real?”, he asked, and kissed her again.

…

“Come. We need to help people clean up the mess. Comfort them”, she prompted.

“Yes”, he nodded. They had the priorities straight: win the war. Put their future on the right tracks. Then everything else.

So, time for everything else.

“I thought about your arguments and I think I am ready to offer you my answer”, Harry nodded.

“I will not even try to refute your arguments themselves. They are too well thought out, and statistical data pool is too shallow. I decided that this course will not be productive. Instead, I might offer something else”

Lyra nodded. “Go ahead”.

“I am the only child of my parents. You are the only child of yours. Our lines are at the risk of extinction if either of us is killed in some accident, duel or if we fail to have children. However, the Weasleys are in no such danger, would you agree?”

“I would. There’s too many of them”, she nodded.

“Exactly. So, my argument is that the wizarding families should work on having at least three children per couple. One is an extinction certainty, because it produces half the replacement. Two replaces the couple in question, but any accident, which becomes a certainty on statistically significant numbers, reduces this below replacement. Only three or more children per couple offer a reasonable guarantee of survival of the magical lines”, he finished.

She thought about it for a while. “What about dilution of wealth? If you split property into multiple family branches, it will dilute rather than concentrate”.

“This is of marginal importance, because it is offset by greater earning power of more contributing wizards and witches. Also, the argument is moot because the alternative is biological extinction. For instance, if you had multiple siblings, the greatest problem would be who inherits the big house. If you are alone, the greatest problem is extinction of your line. Literally, pick one or the other”, he offered.

“Your argument, as far as I can tell, is perfectly valid, and I accept it”, she conceded. “The argument that magical families should have at least three children is water-tight, and any opposition to it is not reasonable”.

He couldn’t believe it. “Wait, I won?” He smiled widely.

“No, we won”, she smiled back. “We solved a problem. It benefits both of us. It keeps our community alive. It prevents our extinction. It makes the war irrelevant and unnecessary. It makes the issue of integrating muggle-born wizards moot. The only problem that remains is marrying outright muggles. I think I can say with conviction that I am not at all happy with how that looks, statistically speaking.”

“I have to agree”, Harry nodded. “Whilst I am pretty convinced that marrying muggle-born wizards will not dilute magical blood, and instead offers a solution to inbreeding of the magical community, marrying non-magical people does solve inbreeding but introduces such a high statistical probability of non-magical births, or reduction of magical potential, that I would be extremely disinclined to play with that kind of fire. So, while this argument isn’t over, I think we can agree that the risk to reward ratio is unfavourable”.

“I have to agree”, she smiled. “So, we now need to start making babies and not stop before three, and hopefully stop killing each other in stupid internecine wars”.

“Look how sweaty we are”, he pointed at their joined hands. “This was stressful”.

“Of course it’s stressful. If we miss something, the price is too big to pay”, she shrugged. “But we can relax now and change the topic to something more soothing”.

“About that; do you want to go with me to the Yule ball?”, Harry smiled sheepishly.

“Of course I do”, she smiled brightly. “I am happy that you thought of me. After all, I was afraid I still occupy a non-girl category for you somehow”.

Harry thought about it. “No, that’s not quite true. Your femininity is an overwhelming force. But you do occupy a special category for me. You are frightening. And I don’t mean it because you’re dangerous or powerful, although you of course are. I mean it because you matter so much, that I get jitters before I come to you with an argument. I hold your hand to see if something hurt you, because I know exactly what your hand does when I do, so I can instantly stop and apologize. I feel that twitch of yours like my own pain. But every other girl somehow fits a completely different group for me, and I don’t know why that is”.

“I don’t like something about this”, she frowned. “It can mean two things, and I really, really don’t like option two”.

…

Lyra walked slowly to their favourite spot overseeing the lake. She wanted to tell him that she understood now about Voldemort. They are now on the same side, but he’s the only one she can tell without fatal consequences. She had a feeling he might be there.

She saw him, but he wasn’t alone. He was with another girl – Cho Chang. She was crying, likely over Cedric Diggory dying. Harry was comforting her. They embraced. Then they kissed.

Lyra’s heart froze. She just stood there and her tears welled up.

It was their place. That was supposed to be her. He never kissed her like that. They were together, they were courting for years. They were so intimate, that their thoughts and bodies worked like a single unit. Everybody told her they look like they are already married, and she felt like they were, like it’s a certainty. She turned and ran, didn’t stop until she was alone and she cried. Then she went out, and saw Harry and Cho holding hands in the corridor. He looked at her, saw her, and she couldn’t bear it, so she turned away and ran again. She didn’t cry again; she felt dead, hard, and anger welled up. This was betrayal. It was ugly, dirty, violent betrayal. He threw away everything they had, everything they were, he trampled on her heart, on her soul, and replaced the scary girl for one of the safe, soft ones, the ones that don’t make him scared. The one from the “actual girls” category. She felt humiliated, dirty and ugly, unlovable and discarded, and she felt such hatred of him for making her feel that way that she never thought herself capable of such emotion. And then she looked at him like that, and he froze. She knew him well enough to be able to read his thoughts from his eyes. He’s thinking I decided for Voldemort now that he’s back. Stupid imbecile. Her anger flared even hotter, and he ran away. I guess I’m truly scary now, she thought. Scary, hurt, discarded, replaced, alone, forever. I will never have children. My family name will die with me. I will never again love, or feel loved.

The light in her heart died. Two years of darkness, anger, humiliation and fury passed, when she kept herself alive only for her parents.

And then he struck her, and he shot to kill. His Sectumsempra against her Crucio, and he won. He held her broken, bleeding body, and begged for her to come back to him, that she’s everything to him. And as her life was fading, the light in her heart came back.

Later, she though she may have imagined it, but the light persisted. And then, at the funeral, he came to her, and told her he loved her and was hers if she would have him, and her heart, her soul, her life, it all came back at once and never again went away. Except for those five minutes when she thought him dead. But let’s never, ever think about that.

…

As their third child was born and she looked at her green eyes, she smiled.

Option one. I really, really like option one.

“Nice”, she nodded appreciatively as she saw him approaching her secluded spot overseeing the lake. “I’m glad you wore them”.

“It would be impolite to refuse the gift from my princess”, Harry smiled back. “But why?”

“Those rags on your sublime majesty were an eyesore, my lord prince”, she seamlessly switched into the princess thing. “My honour demanded that something be done about it, and now seemed preferable to later”.

He accepted the hand she offered, and they sat down together. “Hermione made me a list of literature I will need in order to hope to keep up with you”, he grinned. “It’s a big list”.

“Excellent”, she smiled like a sun. “In the mean time, I will teach you self-respect by respecting you as you deserve”.

“You are scary, you know that?”, he nodded in dismay. “But there’s something I would like to talk to you about. You see, it appears that Sirius Black is out of Azkaban and seems to be after me. Can you tell me the history behind all that, because I’m completely clueless and you mentioned that your mother was a Black?”

“I do know a thing or two about that”, she nodded, serious now. “However, none of it makes any sense. You see, the story that goes around now was that Sirius was somehow a secret follower of the Dark Lord, who betrayed your parents, killed Peter Pettigrew and destroyed half a street, and was locked up in Azkaban as a murderer and a Death Eater”.

“That’s the story I heard”, he nodded.

“Well, here’s the thing. It’s good that you’re sitting because this is going to be hard to hear. The actual Death Eater in the house of Black was his brother, Regulus. He disappeared after being disillusioned about the Dark Lord, which means he was probably killed for treason. Sirius, on the other hand, was known as the family traitor of the house of Black. He didn’t want to have anything to do with them and their obsession with the Dark Lord, pure blood and dark magic. I’ve frequently visited their town house with my mom and I can understand why. The place was grim and dark, full of dark artefacts, and even their house elf was mostly insane and weird, regardless of how politely he treated me and called me ‘the young mistress’. My mom saw it all as background and seemed not to perceive it, but I found it creepy. Apparently, Sirius would agree. He mostly hung out with your father as a kid, and they were inseparable. Snape hates both of them, because there seems to be some bad blood between them, and Peter Pettigrew was some kid who followed them like a pathetic creature. Sirius Black was your godfather, Harry. He was the best friend of James Potter and Lily Evans. The Death Eaters continue to see him as a staunch enemy. There is absolutely no reason for me to believe that he ever switched sides, or felt anything but hatred and contempt for the Dark Lord. There’s something seriously wrong with that story. I think you should be very careful, just in case I’m wrong, but you should ask questions first, and reserve curses until you know what’s going on and who the actual enemy is”, she finished.

Harry was stunned. “He’s my godfather?”

“Yes”, Lyra nodded. “I am not certain enough to actually bet my life that he was framed by the death eaters, but close enough”.

“Is there anything you don’t know, princess?”, Harry managed a smile.

“I don’t know who actually betrayed your parents and framed Sirius, my lord prince”, she grinned. “However, I think asking Sirius himself might be the best way to find out”. She thought for a second. “Anyway, how did you find me here?”

“Wizard, remember?”, he grinned. Also, he thought, in possession of the Marauder’s map, that showed a solitary dot labelled “Lyra Malfoy” by the lake. But why did it also show the name Peter Pettigrew near Ron? Also, why are we still holding hands?

“Did you survive?”, Ron looked up towards Harry as he entered the common room.

Harry looked at him in silence for a few breaths. “Ron, that was the most frightening experience I ever had, and I met Voldemort in person”, he whispered.

“Did she curse you?”, Ron rose in alarm.

“I wish”, Harry smiled, as Hermione joined them. “Being cursed, hated, beaten and bullied is something I can deal with. This was like talking to Dumbledore, only if in the end I wiped Dumbledore’s tears away and hugged him to make him calm himself. It’s nothing like I ever experienced in my life. I can’t share what we talked about, because it’s private, but man…”

“You mean, the enemy has a point?”, Hermione smiled.

“I don’t think the enemy is the right word any more. She feels like a library of books I’ve never read, with ideas I never thought of, arguments the power of which I never imagined, and all the ideas are expressed and finished by a mind I cannot hope to match. Even if she’s wrong somewhere, she’s better and smarter than me, and she’s also a better person than me. I feel completely, positively dwarfed. It’s not that she has a point. She has such a mind-bogglingly good and devastating point that I can’t even figure out how to approach arguing with it”, Harry sighed. “I think she could beat Dumbledore in an argument. I’m like nothing next to her.”

“Good”, Hermione nodded. “I’ll make you a list of books to read. This will force you to stop slacking”.

“Oh, the mail is arriving”, Ron perked up.

A package for Harry arrived. “Where did that come from?”, he wondered. “There’s a note, it says: ‘For next time; LM’. Emporio Armani? What the heck?”

Hermione giggled. “Let me see. Yeah, she got you proper clothes, and they seem to be exactly the right size. She’s good”.

“Blimey”, Ron looked miffed. “Why can’t I have a scary girlfriend who buys me clothes?”

Hermione slapped him on the head and smiled. “Step up your game, Weasley, and things might happen”.

“Hello, princess”, Harry smiled, approaching Lyra who was reading something in the hallway.

“Your graceful lordship honours me with his presence, my lord prince”, she closed the book and curtsied elegantly.

Harry froze and fumbled incoherently. “I’m, sorry, it was supposed to be a joke”.

“Oh come on, Harry. It was funny, and I went along with it. For someone who is friends with Granger, I would expect you to be able to keep it running for at least three lines”, she smiled brilliantly. She offered him her hand and he took it effortlessly, as they sat down.

“There’s a lesson for me: don’t joke with a girl who’s smarter than you”, he grinned.

“I’m not smarter than you, Harry. It’s just that I wasn’t raised in a barn.”

“Well, about that. I have a question for you. I understand that you were brought up as a pureblood aristocrat. You’re actually a proper Princess. It doesn’t even feel like a joke. I also had the chance to feel your kindness, sophistication and respectfulness. It’s absolutely lovely. However, it seems to be restricted to a very select group of people, like myself, and when you’re addressing people like Ron and Hermione, you feel like a completely different person, and I find it jarring and hurtful. Why is that? What’s your actual problem with them? You seem to think Hermione is smart”.

“Of course she’s smart. She’s smarter than me. I could hold my own in most cases but she would eventually outclass me. Her brains don’t have anything to do with it. I don’t think she’s stupid. I think she’s an existential, extinction-level threat to our civilization and our way of life”, she replied seriously.

“But why?”, Harry was utterly shocked. “She’s a good person. She’s kind, generous, protective, brave and perceptive. She would never hurt anyone”.

“It’s not about her as a person, Harry. I would actually agree with your assessment of her. However, I will have to ask your permission to use an analogy that you might find offensive or hurtful”, she looked at him expectingly.

“Go ahead. I really want to know what you really think”, he nodded.

“Do you know what a mule is?”

“An offspring of a donkey and a horse”, he offered.

“Exactly. It’s also sterile, in a sense that it can’t have offspring of its own. We wizards and witches bond for life. Unlike the horrid muggles, we don’t have marital infidelity, divorce, pre-marital sex and other horrors. Every boy and a girl is a virgin until marriage. We usually don’t re-marry if our partner dies before us, and stay alone and faithful until death reunites us. So, if we commit to the person we can’t have children with, or the child is sterile, or non-magical, two separate, precious lines of our magical world, with ancient traditions and heritage, unique stories we tell our children before bed time, magical jewellery, books and artefacts passed across untold generations, it is all gone, lost forever. There’s few of us. Each of us is precious and unique. We can’t be replaced with similar specimens. We can’t be replaced once we’re gone. Hermione is a threat to us the way a mule is a threat to a horse that mates for life. Once he commits to her, his heritage is lost forever to the sands of time, Harry. It’s potential tragedy. Not certain – there are cases like your mother, who married a pureblood wizard, and they had you. You are a glorious victory that was snatched from the jaws of a potential horrible tragedy, because if not for you, magically powerful and precious as you are, the Potter line, ancient almost as this castle, would have been lost forever”, she finished emphatically, with incredible passion reflecting in her beautiful face. Harry was stunned, completely out of words.

“I will have to think about this. I never even considered any of the possibilities that you mention. Thank you for telling me this, Lyra”, he nodded appreciatively.

“But what about Ron and his family? They are purebloods? Why the contempt? I’ve seen how your dad feels about Ron’s dad. I don’t understand the implication, other than it’s about poverty”.

She took a few breaths to calm herself down after her passionate speech. “Yes, it’s about poverty”, she nodded. “Some in the pureblood community use a term ‘blood traitor’ for magical families who don’t care about blood purity, and Weasleys qualify. However, neither I nor my father care about that”, she continued. “Arthur Weasley had many offers of promotion at his job in the Ministry. Those would come with a significant increase in earnings and prestige. He turned them all down. Do you know why?”, she prompted.

“He has an interest in muggles”, Harry offered.

“Exactly. He is treating his job as an extension of his hobby. He is ‘following his passions’, as they would put it. He’s just trying to be happy. Essentially, due to his childish selfishness, he is condemning his family to a life of poverty and squalor, because he cares more about his hobby and ‘being happy’ than the wellbeing of the family that’s been entrusted to him. He’s a terrible patriarch, and thinking about how he allows his children to suffer brings tears to my eyes, Harry, and it makes my father furious”, she looked at him with eyes full of both tears and perfect honesty. “Harry, they are all about ‘feeling good’ at the moment. Molly is all about everybody having nice food, a warm bed and feeling happy. They don’t care that they can’t buy decent clothes, new books, that Ron couldn’t buy a new wand in his first year and instead had the broken one that backfired spells at him. Do you understand how much seeing this hurts my feeling of duty, decency and propriety?”, a tear dropped down her cheek. “I want to wake them up somehow and make them remember their duty and what’s right. However, they are so self-righteous that they never listen, always raising the issue of the Dark Lord as if it has anything to do with it. We are furious at them because we see those precious, wonderful pureblood children in rags and squalor while they should be princes and queens. I could never get tired of beating Arthur Weasley with a stick, even if my hand hurt”, she managed to laugh through her tears.

Harry thought he was stunned before, but never in a million years would he suspect this to be her actual reason.

He wiped her tear with his finger. “I’m really, truly sorry for misjudging you, Lyra”, he said and bowed to her, the way he saw the professors bow to each other, and hoped he did it right. “You are absolutely precious”.

She embraced him and just held him until she calmed down.