Harry trudged through the quiet halls of Hogwarts, Daphne's sleeping form held carefully in his arms. Even though they'd finally done what they had set out to do, anxiety still rose in him like bile at the angular bones that dug into his skin. He pushed the feeling back, trying to take solace in her perfect sleeping features. No matter the vitality the curse had stolen from her, she wasn't quite emaciated, and thanks to both of them, she would make a full recovery. Even with the heartening thought, he still picked up the pace, tracing a familiar path back to the Hospital wing. He slowed as he arrived, taking care to push the quieter door carefully open with his foot. It swung open, its familiar creak a welcoming death-knell ahead of the bustling fury that was Madam Pomfrey.

"I've never been-How you could-In all…" The matrons face shifted through a confusing mix of apoplectic rage, and pure relief. She decided to lean into the anger, and pointed a shaking finger at Harry, then over to a bed. "Her. Over there."

Harry followed instructions, gently carrying Daphne over to the bed he'd absconded with her what felt like days ago. He set her gingerly on the bed, her pallid, sleeping face unchanged for the jostling motion. He swiped a finger across her forehead, pushing some of her golden hair away from where it rested across her eyes.

"Sit down," Madam Pomfrey grunted as she shouldered her way between him and Daphne. She pulled the large heavy sleeves of her sleeping-robe up and pointed with one exposed finger over to a chair across the room. "Over there somewhere. I need to check her over, and then decide whether or not I'm going to push the Headmistress to expel you."

Harry dropped into a nearby chair, even the threat of expulsion sliding off the exhausted joy that still radiated through him.

"I didn't take her for any-" he tried, to be cut off by a sharp glare from the matron.

"I'd like to think I know you well enough to know that you didn't remove Miss Greengrass from the infirmary against her will, or for untoward reasons." He sat up a little straighter but paused as her glare deepened. "I do, however, know that you took her from here without so much as a note, nod, or comment." Her mouth opened to continue her tirade, but she snapped it shut and returned to her slow wand movements across Daphne's prone form.

"I know that she's not well," Harry said into the silence. "That's why I came and got her. We figured out how to cure her."

"Yes, I can see that." She rested her hands on the side of the bed and bowed her head a moment. A slow sigh escaped her, and she straightened, pointing her wand to the back of the hospital wing. With a quick incantation and a flick of her wrist, a dozen small bottles of various potions soared through the air to land on Daphne's bedside table. She methodically lifted each one, checking their contents with a quick shake. Satisfied, she covered Daphne with another quick wave of her wand and strode over to Harry. "Just because I'm overjoyed to find one of my students to no longer be standing at Death's door, does not mean I am happy with you Mr. Potter."

"I understand, Ma'am."

"I'm sure you do. I am to assume there is some reason that whatever she had was not brought to my attention, as there is also a reason as to why the cure could not be performed here. In the hospital wing. Where such things tend to happen most often?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he answered, stuffing as much apology into the affirmation as he could.

Rather than answer, she studied him for a long while, her practiced eyes probing far deeper than he found comfortable. As the urge to fidget beneath her stare became near to unbearable, she finally relented and shook her head. "I have never been so saddened, nor overjoyed to have a student graduate from my care Mr. Potter. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you have been a handful of the strangest kind during your stay at this school. You have chosen to end your time here by both stealing, and then curing, one of my patients…"

"There's still a few months left." He watched as the joke fell dead against the cobblestone floor.

"If you come in here with so much as a cough I will pull every favor Minerva has ever owed me to have you expelled. Understood?" Harry swallowed and nodded, shifting his gaze properly down to his feet. He almost jumped in surprise when her stern voice came far softer and much more tired. "You've shown such remarkable strength of character over the years, despite your rather obvious distaste for the rules, that I believe you had no choice. I can't imagine what it was that made you act as you did, but I am glad to see that Miss Greengrass is recovering."

"Me too," he said, shifting his gaze over to where Daphne slept, her chest slowly rising and falling beneath the thick winter sheets.

"There's no doubt in my mind that you would stick around even if I told you not to, so you may stay. Try to get some sleep yourself. You look exhausted." Without so much as a goodnight, Madam Pomfrey bustled off to her quarters.

The hours wandered by as Harry sat in his chair, staring at the marvel that was his girlfriend. No matter how many times he reminded himself they'd been successful, he found his thoughts trying to return to their anxious state, every pause between her breaths an agony of uncertainty. He focused on her breathing, and her peaceful expression, letting the evening slip by as he did his best to absorb the reality of their victory. His focus never wavered, only fading as his lids finally grew too heavy, and he succumbed to the exhaustion the brief stay in the St. Mungo's had done little to cure.

~~XxX~~

"Y-you what?"

Astoria's obvious irritation at being cornered by both Harry and Daphne melted away. It hadn't been easy to get her to agree to talk privately. Daphne had suggested a temporary kidnapping, reasoning that her sister would likely come around once she'd heard the news. They'd eventually settled on waiting for her after dinner one evening, and doing their best to subtly not-exactly-kidnap her. They'd herded her into a nearby alcove while Harry cast his usual privacy charms around the three of them.

"I'm cured," Daphne repeated, her hands held tightly together in front of her middle.

Astoria stared, her gray-blue eyes unblinking. Her gaze briefly flitted over to Harry, before returning to her sister. "Cured? Not moved?"

"Cured."

"Broken?"

Daphne shook her head in response. "You know I didn't have any luck with that aspect of my research. We found another method that removed the curse from me."

Astoria lapsed back into silence, her stare never waving from her sister's nervous features. Her eyes narrowed and her chin trembled slightly before she clenched her jaw tight.

"How am I supposed to feel about this?" she finally burst out, a faint laugh escaping alongside a sob. "I'm still so furious with you." The fair skin of her face tinted red with strain, and tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes. "But now you're not going to die."

Daphne's hand twitched towards her sister, but she instead let her arms drop to her side with a shrug. "I guess that means you get to be mad at me for as long as you want."

In a flash of blond hair and outright sobbing, Astoria flung herself forward, wrapping her arms around Daphne's middle, burying her face in her shoulder as she cried. "It's going to be so long," she barely managed between heaving sobs. "How could you?"

"Easily," Daphne said, returning her sister's enthusiastic embrace. "I'm sorry for forcing the hard part on you. I'm so sorry."

~~XxX~~

Later that evening, after Daphne had gone to find Tracey with the Marauder's Map, Harry sat uncomfortably with Ron and Hermione in the Room of Requirement. Three simple but comfortable chairs sat in front of a roaring fire. He wasn't uncomfortable for their judgmental scrutiny, or their ham-fisted refusal to talk to him. Two things he'd been afraid of. Instead, they simply sat patiently, openly, and waited.

"Before we graduate might be nice," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "I'm not too keen on spending the last few months waiting for you to speak up."

"Sorry," Harry said, then grimaced. "But also…you know…sorry."

Ron laughed aloud while Hermione chuckled softly next to him, shaking her head.

"That was the worst, mate," Ron said, his laughter slowly dying down.

"Well I am," Harry said indignantly. "There were reasons I had to do things the way I did them."

"Besides the whole legal issue?" Ron asked, a small grin still on his face.

Harry winced again, his serious discussion with McGonagall coming to mind, as well as the far-too-formal invite to a meeting the Minister Shacklebolt. He turned to Hermione. "I'm sorry if I messed up any opportunity you might've had getting into the Ministry after school. I've got a feeling Shacklebolt is going to tear me a new one at the very least." He shrugged weakly. "Hopefully I won't go to Azkaban."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't think you'll go to Azkaban. And besides, if I were only getting into the Ministry because of our association, I'd turn down the offer. I prefer to get a job there on my own merits." Her eyes searched his, a familiar inquisitiveness poking against his significant secrets. "I know you won't tell us why you attacked Malfoy Manor on your own, and we aren't mad. We still trust you, Harry. How could we not?"

He shrugged miserably, his gaze falling to his hands clasped tightly in his lap. "It felt wrong to keep you guys out of the loop. I wouldn't have been surprised if you were furious, especially after everything we've been through together."

"It's because of everything that we're not," Ron chimed in.

Hermione nodded vehemently. "He's right." She leaned forward and touched Harry gently on the knee, bringing his focus back up to her. "You're a good person, Harry, and you make your decisions based on a moral compass that's always steered us true." She paused and smiled gently at him. "Was it the right thing to do?"

He nodded.

"Then that's the last I want to hear about it."

Ron nodded his agreement. "We're not even all that bothered that we missed a fight. We've had enough of those for one lifetime. We just wanted to make sure you knew we've still got your back if you need us."

Harry made a herculean effort not to let his answering smile tremble.

He wasn't entirely successful.

~~XxX~~

The heavy door to the Minister's office closed with a rather final click and Harry let out a slow breath. Daphne waited for him just outside the door and pushed off the wall as he approached. She glanced up and down the long hall.

"Well, I don't see any Aurors or Dementors, so I gather you aren't going to be carted off to Azkaban?"

"Seems that way," he said, holding out a hand, which she eagerly grabbed. "Seems a lack of evidence that I was at Malfoy Manor, and a letter from Cedric stating that I was visiting him when the attack happened has been enough to keep me in the clear."

Daphne frowned up at him as they approached the single golden elevator at the end of the hallway. "There's a lot of ways they can find out the truth. Those are pretty flimsy reasons for letting you off. Aren't you worried about it coming back to haunt you?"

Harry shrugged, pulling open the gate and stepping into the elevator. He shut it behind them and hit the button to take them to the atrium. "If they wanted to pursue it they would have. I think Kingsley is about as happy to be done with it finally as he is mad with me for taking it into my own hands. He did tell me on no uncertain terms that I'll not be allowed to join the Ministry now."

"He might think you didn't trust him to get the job done," she said, laying her head on his shoulder as they descended past the multitude of bustling floors.

"Maybe," Harry allowed. "But the truth is, he wasn't getting the job done." A bell chimed their arrival, and they stepped out into the milling crowd outside the elevator. "But nobody has to know that's not why I did it."

"If you're okay with it, so am I," she said, walking alongside him as he navigated them through the busy atrium. "I'm just glad I don't have to come to visit you in Azkaban. I wasn't looking forward to that."

He grinned, stepping around a small group of young Ministry employees that were on a quick lunch break. "I bet I could break out of there. It'd be a challenge, but not impossible."

She laughed lightly, pointing to a spot on the floor as they passed. "I'm not sure that's something that someone who received a First Class Order of Merlin right there less than a year ago should say."

"I forgot to tell you about that. For the most part, I don't really have one anymore. Besides the obvious reason, that is. Kingsley said if it wouldn't cause such outrage since they can't convict me of anything, he'd strip me of the award. I've still technically got it, but only because I'm sneaky," he said, dropping his visitor's badge on the exit desk without even a glance.

"You're not sneaky. You're you. That's why nothing is happening to you." She grabbed his hand and led him past all the floos and over to the telephone box elevators.

They slid into the box together, pushing in tight so he could shut the door behind them. "I'm properly sneaky when I need to be," he said, grinning down at her blank stare. "I'll tell you later why my invisibility cloak is top-notch."

Her stare faded into a look of confusion before she lifted up onto her tiptoes and planted a quick kiss on his lips. The camouflaged elevator slowed as they neared the surface, paltry daylight filtering through the dirty glass as they came to a stop.

The dingy midday sun sat high in the noonday sky, its rays weakly piercing the gray clouds overhead. Daphne pulled him by the hand from the cramped telephone booth elevator and out from the shadow of the building.

"It's been a very long time since I've been to London," she said, darting a quick glance back as she grabbed him by the hand and led him down the street. "In celebration of your newfound inability to ever work for the Ministry, I'd like to take you out on a date."

"I'd like nothing more."

Her answering smile brought with it a warmth the sun failed to provide. She was radiant, healthy, and whole. And despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary-

So was he.

~~XxX~~

AN: So! I ended up posting the whole thing! Turns out posting even daily gives me a sense of completion and satisfaction that I don't have the wherewithal to push through to get to work. So hopefully those of you who have found it enjoy it! If you end up giving it a second readthrough, hopefully the hints and foreshadowing land well :D

Thanks for checking out my story. As always, thoughts and concrit are very welcome.