The Last Two

Harry Potter kicked the ground at the grave and let his tears fall, Three years, he thought, Three years, Gin. I miss you every day.

It was a bright and sunny early summer day. The cemetery at Hogwarts had spots reserved for all the heroes of the battle, and a broad swath of that hallowed ground was already full. In fact only three spaces were left. One for Hagrid, one for Harry, and one for his friend that had accompanied him that day.

"Come on, Harry. Let's go home," Lavender said as she hooked his arm. She had just returned from the spot she regularly visited. Fresh flowers and shamrocks lay on the grave of Seamus Finnigan, her husband of more that ninety years.

It was always this way. They would Apparate here every Sunday just after noon, walk among the stones, talk to their friends, laugh at the antics that Rose and James had charmed Fred and now George's headstones into doing, smile at Ron and Hermione, sharing one grave forever in an embrace, and weep at their own mates stones. Then Lavender, always Lavender, would gather a broken Harry and Apparate them back to the flat they shared. It had been a simple decision to share the flat. No one knew them better than they knew each other, they were the last, and it looked like they would be around for a while.

Lavender barely looked older than fifty, though she was entering her one hundred and seventeenth year, and Harry didn't look much older than she did. Her agelessness had to do with being a werewolf. Most didn't live long because they took their own lives or someone did it for them, Lavender was different in many ways from any other werewolf. Harry attributed his longevity to the curse. Some part of Riddles magic had left him slow to age.

Their flat was the one she and Seamus had used while on assignment in London. Both had kept their houses, one in Ireland, one a short way from the Burrow in Surrey, but they didn't visit them often. The times they did it was to retrieve a book or a piece of furniture they needed. Other than that they stayed in the less memory riddled flat. It was easier that way.

They popped back into reality in their sitting room. It was huge as central London flats went; two expansive bedrooms with in suite bathrooms, a large comfortable sitting room, and a very serviceable kitchen with a door that let out to the rooftop sunroom. Lavender helped a distraught Harry to the couch and went to the kitchen to heat the kettle.

"Why do we keep doing this to ourselves, Lav," Harry said through his hands.

Her voice floated in from the kitchen. "Because we love them, all of them, and we have to, you know that. If we didn't go part of us would die."

"It just seems sometimes that we're torturing ourselves," he sighed, and leaned back on the couch while he closed his eyes. He felt her come into the room. He knew he felt her because no one could hear Lavender unless she wanted them to. Part of her training had been in silent movement, and she never lost the habit. Soft lips pressed against his and he responded, kissing her with a pent up passion. It was always like this now too, first the weeping, then the morose malaise, then the lovemaking.

Neither of them felt any guilt about it, they had talked that out after the first time a year and a half ago. Ginny had told Harry and Lavender, as she lay dying, that as they were the last of the D.A. they should seek shelter in each other, but it had taken a long time to come about. They hadn't been in any hurry, but then one day it had just happened, and they learned that the two of them were the only ones that could grasp the emotion of the other. They told themselves weren't in love, but they were better than friends, and it worked.

He looked up into her eyes with the half smile he always gave her. "You are the best friend a man could have, you know."

"Am I?"

"Yeah," he said as he undid the lowest button on her blouse. "You guarded my children for twenty years, saved their lives several times, saved ours several times; you're smart, funny, and a spectacular lover."

"Charmer," she said as she undid the buttons at his collar.

"It's true, Lav."

She chuckled. "Well for a legend you're not so bad yourself."

"'Zat so?"

"Oh yes," she said and wandlessly undid his buckle and lowered his flies.

He finished the buttons of her blouse and she shrugged it off her shoulders while she finished his.

His hand stroked lightly and slowly down her left side. The scars were still there, they always would be, but Seamus, and now Harry had been enthralled with them. Both had told her that the scars made her more beautiful, that they spoke of her bravery and resilience, and that they were damned sexy. The best part was she knew they were telling the truth.

"On your feet, Potter," she said as she hauled him up off the couch.

"Yes, Professor Finnigan," he said with a smirk, and he lowered the zip on her skirt. Lavender was still in amazing physical condition. She had been Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts for more than seventy years. Whole generations of British witches and wizards had been taught by her, and she was an institution at the school.

"Shall I put you in detention, Mr. Potter," she asked coyly while she pulled his trousers down and stepped out of them.

"Please," he said in an earnest, almost pleading voice.

She stroked her hand down the side of his face and took his hand. "Come on, Harry, the tea can wait."

An hour later they were lying on her bed; her head nestled in the crook of his arm. "So, we haven't talked about what you want to do on summer holiday," he said.

"I'd really like to take the shuttle out to the moon one day," Lavender said as she drew patterns in the hair on his chest. "I'm just apprehensive about that. Don't know how my sweet would react to actually being on the moon."

Harry smiled at her pet name for her wolf side. "Wouldn't do to have her come out mid flight, would it?"

She chuckled. "Might give the other passengers a bit of a start, yes."

"How 'bout Australia then? You liked it there when you went with Hermione looking for the stones."

She stretched and hugged him. Mmmm, not a bad idea. You ever been to Tibet?"

"No." he twirled a lock of her still blonde hair in between his fingers. "Went to China with Kingsley. God when was that? Must be eighty years ago now." Harry smiled. "Gin and I went to India with Padma and Parv once."

"Parv told me all about it."

"Yeah, they showed us their ancestral village, some of the local Hindu temples, and the Kama Sutra temple," he said and laughed.

"So that's where you got some of your prowess," she said, hugging him.

"Well it was… instructive."

"I can tell."

"Thanks Lav." He turned on his side so he could look in her eyes. "I don't know how I'd have survived after Gin if you hadn't been here." He kissed her tenderly.

"Well you two were there for me after Shay passed." She let a single tear slide down her face. "That year was so awful. First Angelina, then Anthony, then Luna and Shay a month later, and there we were not really getting any older while everyone else was dying around us."

"Yeah, well at least you'll outlive me, that's got to be some consolation."

"For you."

"You'll have Selene and Hagrid," he said, and hugged her."

"Well that's a long way off just now, and we still haven't decided who's getting us for dinner today."

Harry ran his hand down her hair, and looked around the room. Everything was neat and orderly, even her perfumes and cosmetics on her dressing table were placed in the order she used them. Lavender, it turned out, was the most disciplined person Harry had ever known. He smiled and kissed the top of her head. "Let's see, it was Al and Melanie last week, Rose, Scorpius, and the whole Malfoy clan week before last, Selene and Alphonse before them. Hmmm, I think its James and Leigh's turn.

"Lilly and Lorcan messed up the order with that trip to Pakistan, we'll have to do dinner with them twice in a row when they get back," she said as she stretched and yawned.

Harry raised his arm up and concentrated. A few moments later his wand flew from the sitting room into his hand.

"I still teach that sixth year," Lavender said with a chuckle. "It's surprising sometimes how fast the kids can pick up the wandless magic."

"You mastered the wandless accio in about twenty minutes as I recall," he said, laughing himself. Closing his eyes he concentrated again. "Make a place for us at dinner…Oh, and tell Sirius I have his broom kit." A moment later, Harry's silver stag patronus flew from the end of his wand and out the window.

"You dote on that great great grandchild of yours you know."

"Which one?"

"Ha, ha, very funny," She said, smiled, and slapped his arm. "All of them really, but Sirius the most. He's twenty eight you know."

"And the captain of the British Quidditch team in this year's Olympics," he said proudly, and the turned to her looking worried. "I don't really favor him all that much, do I?"

Lavender hugged him, rose on her arms and kissed him. "Yes you do, but not so much that the others are jealous." She kissed him again. "Don't be concerned about it, they're all fine and they all love you."

"And you."

She looked in his eyes, so much like her own, and she saw how much he cared. "I know," she said.

"Lav?"

"Yeah?"

"Should we get married?"

She looked at him, bemused. "What brought this on?"

"People talk."

She chuckled. "Is Harry Potter worried about what people think?"

"Not about me, no," he said, and looked at her with a tender concern. "But what about you? You're the most notable professor at Hogwarts, and I have heard grumblings from some quarters about our living arrangement."

Her professor face appeared. "Next time you hear that send them to me."

He laughed and hugged her. "Yeah, that'll happen. I think Selene and I are the only people on earth that are brave enough to stand up to you."

"You forgot Rose."

He half shrugged. "True, but she doesn't so much stand up to you so much as argue her way around a particular point."

She smiled "Sometimes I hear Hermione so clearly in her."

"Me too, and you're dodging the question."

She laid her head back on his chest. "We're happy Harry, and I don't care what the socialites and media think. It's the kids I care about. If you think it's important I wouldn't say no, but I know I'm not Ginny and you know you're not Shay, so I don't think we have to." She chuckled. "And besides, since when do you care what people think?"

"Yeah, okay, we'll shelve this till a future day, but if you ever think it's important just say the word."

"Done, but right now we should get dressed and on our way out to Surrey." Rising up on her elbows she looked out of the window at the cloudless blue. "Lovely day, let's fly."

Harry laughed. "Want to race again, Finnigan?"

"Want to lose again, Potter?"

"Oh that's it," he said, and leapt out of the bed. "You're going down today."

"Ten galleons?"

"Done!"

And the race was on.