𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄

Part 14

1.

One August, Pyrrha gets an owl.

Harry walks inside from the yard, sweat dripping down his face. It’s been a hot summer, and mowing the lawn at noon only makes it worse. Viola is still playing outside, making mud pies, but Abraxas is flopped out in front of the telly, watching a rematch of a football game.

He opens the fridge and pulls a beer out for himself. He twists the lid off and stands up to close the door.

Malfoy looms over it. His eyes so huge and his mouth so tight that Harry doesn’t know what to say except, “What?”

“Your. Daughter,” Malfoy says through his teeth, “thinks she is going to Hogwarts.”

Harry grins. “The owl came?”

Malfoy slams the fridge door shut. The bottle clang inside and Harry is nearly slammed in the face with a falling jar of mustard. Malfoy stomps up to him, pointing a finger in his face. Harry winces and tries to move away, but Malfoy only pushes closer. “If you think she is going there where they’ll all ask about our family then you are bloody-”

Harry shakes his head, laughing a little. Malfoy sneers. “Malfoy, the Fidelius charm has kept up all these years, why would it stop working if she went there?” Malfoy blinks, and Harry goes on, “Besides, don’t you want her to learn magic?”

Malfoy blinks again. “Durmstr-”

He’s faltering. Harry smiles, curling a hand around Malfoy’s side and pulling him closer, but in a far less threatening manner, especially when Malfoy leans into him easily, their bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces. “Wouldn’t you miss her too much if she was all the way in Eastern Europe?”

Malfoy won’t admit when Harry is right, so he says nothing and curls his lip a little, but Harry knows well enough it’s all show.

“Everything will be fine,” Harry says, “now, show me the owl. I reckon we ought to frame her letter, or something. Isn’t that what parents do?”

Malfoy shouts out for Pyrrha. She barrels down the stairs, waving something in her hand and shoving in into Harry’s face shrieking and laughing and saying, “They sent me a letter, Dad! They sent me a letter!”

Harry unfolds it, glancing up to Malfoy with a cocked eyebrow. Malfoy nods, slow and careful, and Harry starts to read, his smile spreading wider with the familiar words:

Dear Miss Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place…

“So can I go?” she asks, beaming.

“Of course,” Harry says.

Malfoy sniffs.

2.

Pyrrha goes off on the Hogwarts Express without a hitch. And there are no reporters from the Daily Prophet waiting for them at King’s Cross, as Malfoy had moaned about at home.

Luna meets him on the platform. She smiles at Pyrrha and scratches her chin with a quill pulled from behind her ear. “Are you excited to be starting Hogwarts?” she asks.

Pyrrha nods vehemently. She squeezes Harry’s hand a little tighter.

“Do you feel old, watching her go off to school?” Luna asks when they stop for a tea afterwards.

Harry swirls his teabag around the mug by the string. “Dunno, I guess so. It feels…like I was at school not very long ago. Like, I’m waiting to go back and find Dumbledore in the Great Hall and Snape sneering in the dungeons and have my old dorm back.”