Chapter 12: Birthday

It's hard to remember. I don't want to, but I have to.

It was real, and I can't forget what's real. It's hard enough to keep track of dreams. I don't want to dream: everything's all right in dreams, and things aren't all right. I want to remember him, the real Severus. Not someone I imagined.

The night in his flat, that was real. And our dreams were real too. Half of what we shared together was dreams, but I don't ever want to think that we never lived them. We did. I have to stop; I can't go on like this anymore, wondering.

No. I have to think about it. I have to remember. Focus. Think!

The fireworks died down. He fell. It took two tries to break the Ignis Alba ampoule, and then it exploded and burned. There were ashes… there are still ashes. Only they scattered all over when the storm blew through the broken windows. I reckon with the next storm they'll all be gone: flying on the wind instead of lying on Hogwarts' floor.

It's not right; he doesn't even have a tombstone. I should've done something, left a mark while I still had the chance. His name: I could've traced 'Severus' in the ashes.

I thought he'd be with me after it was all over. Ghosts are supposed to guide the dead, but I never even saw him. I'm not angry at him for dying, he couldn't help it. But why didn't he take me with him?

I wish I could die again. I don't want to be a ghost anymore. How can I stop being one?

How can I stop being?

Stop, please! I want it all to stop.

So stop it. Open the door.

Severus? Is that you?

Who else would it be in this damn tunnel: Lupin perhaps?

I don't know. I remember you leaving.

Foolish boy, I never left.

Really?

Yes. Open that door.

I can't. It's locked.

You're a wizard: you can do anything you want to do.

Y'mean I'm magic?

Yes, you are magic, Harry. Now use it!

I'm trying, I… Severus?

Severus, are you still there?

Were you ever there?

Severus, where are you?

I still remember. I must always remember what happened.

I keep hearing voices. It's not good to hear them. Hermione said so in our second year.

I can't move things around. Last thing I moved, well, I lifted it high, all the way past the staircases to the top and then it broke and burned and Severus was gone.

Why did he leave me? I wish he could take me with him.

All those times I complained about the chill in his flat, it's nothing compared to how cold Hogwarts is now. Is this what happens to ghosts when they disappear? They freeze to death after death. Is that what will happen to me?

I don't like downstairs. That's where he was when it happened. Gryffindor Tower's far from there, so that's where I stay.

How long has it been? Days? Weeks? Years? Doesn't matter.

Nothing matters now. There's a broom cupboard upstairs that's quiet and dark. Every time I pass it by, I want to crawl inside and wait forever, until he opens the door and lets me out and everything'll be all right again. But nothing'll ever be all right, 'cause he's gone, and that's the only thing that stops me from slipping in through that door and never coming out.

I want him so badly I can taste it, like tears. How am I supposed to go on like this? It can't have been that long, but I miss him already, so much.

Is this how it's going to be from now on? I don't want to live like this! I don't want to exist at all.

There are so many things I didn't get to say. I'll never get to say them now. I wish I'd said them when I had the chance.

Along the draughty corridors, for miles and miles, she goes…

Severus?

She often catches cold, poor thing, it's cold there, when it blows…

Where are you?

The question is, where are you?

I'm here. Alone. Waiting.

What are you waiting for?

I don't know. For things to change. For someone to open this door. For you.

You're in the cupboard again.

Yes.

You know you can't stay there forever.

Help me!

I can't. You're on your own now.

NO!

Don't leave me alone!

"Harry?"

"Severus?" Are you there?

"Harry? Is that you?"

"What d'you suppose happened to him?"

"I don't know, dear."

I still hear voices…

"It can't be him!"

"Harry? Are you all right?"

"Where's Snape? That's what I want to know."

"Severus? Why would he even be here?"

"Someone had to light the fireplaces. You're not trying to tell me Harry did, are you? Besides, how d'you explain the note?"

"Harry, who kept the fireplaces lit?"

I don't know. I didn't. And Severus didn't. But he asked… "Dobby."

"Did he say Dobby? Who's Dobby?"

"That's what I thought, can't make it out."

"Then where's Snape?"

"Harry, tell us, where is Severus?"

"Where's he going?"

"Forget where, what happened? What did the git do to make him like that? "

"Now, dear, don't jump to conclusions…"

"Should we follow him?"

"You can't catch a ghost, Remus."

"What do you propose we do, wait another week till he shows up again in another corridor?"

"Harry, wait!"

"Harry!"

"Is there anything Dobby can do to help?"

"Yes, explain this."

"The potion Dobby found for Professor Snape didn't work, and Harry Potter so hoped it would. But it didn't. And now Professor Snape is gone. Dobby is so very sorry."

"I'd better get back."

"How is it?"

"Bad. No news on Russell Square. The Underground's closed. How's Harry?"

"Same. Saw him in Gryffindor Tower today."

"Hermione finally got through on her mobile. She said she'll be at the Leaky Cauldron as soon as the Tube starts running again."

"Good. She'll know what to do. Dora?"

"Yes?"

"Be safe."

"I will. You too."

When Nymphadora Tonks first rang and said that Remus managed to Floo to Hogwarts, I didn't dare believe her.

Then they told me they saw Harry's ghost there, but Harry didn't look or act like himself at all. I wished I could believe they were lying. It couldn't be right. It must've been a mistake.

But when I heard Snape's flat was empty, I started to worry. My worries grew when Tonks mentioned that her nephew, Draco Malfoy, had contacted her for the first time ever, at a loss about Snape's whereabouts.

And then a miracle happened: Remus said that the Floo was working again. Hogwarts! I couldn't believe my eyes. The Floo took Remus and me past the wards and to the very heart of the Wizarding world: our school, that I'd never expected to see again. The castle wasn't the same as it used to be, but the place I remembered growing up was there nonetheless, underneath all the cobwebs and dust. Walking through those halls, hearing my footsteps echo from the stone ceilings, I finally started to believe again. That Hogwarts was there, listening. That it wouldn't harm me, even if I didn't have magic anymore. That it was waiting for us.

Neville and Tonks both agreed it was a terrible danger to return, channelling Mad-Eye's 'constant vigilance', but Remus and I knew better. The truth is, once we saw Hogwarts – all its potential and all that magic which survived for so long – we simply couldn't leave. We just couldn't abandon it forever, not again.

There was also Harry, in the stairway to our old Gryffindor common room. He didn't respond at all when we called out. For the very first time, I watched his ghost float away. It made me realise how much he wasn't a ghost before. He was always so lively; he talked and acted just like the Harry I knew. Not anymore. Now, hollow-eyed, pallid and sickly, indifferent to my cries, he truly was just a shadow of the man he was before, drifting away without even noticing us.

What happened to him to turn him into this listless, whispering, barely-there creature? What happened to Snape?

I followed Harry upstairs, and found him huddled in the window sill of the boys' dormitory, his head bowed and his knees clutched up to his chest, bony and still. He looked so much like the firstie I met in the Hogwarts Express.

"I told him… to live not hide… backing away… he owed it…"

His lips were moving, but I had to get as close as I could just to hear his whispers: his voice was so quiet it was as though I was hearing him across a great distance.

"Do I owe him the same then? I don't… I can't… just… it's hopeless…"

I reached out, though I felt as if I might scare him away like a wild bird. It was like reaching for Harry hidden under his invisibility cloak. My closest childhood friend still had to be there, hidden away.

"I couldn't save him." he whispers, "Just one man and I couldn't save him. From a stupid little accident we used to heal with a wave of a wand!"

"Shhh, it's all right."

You'd think ghosts can't cry, unless they're Moaning Myrtle. But I saw the tears in his eyes, and I knew they were real.

Just like Remus and Tonks did before me, I asked him the question no one knew the answer to yet. "What happened?"

His eyes were so empty. "Help me."

"How?"

"I don't want to owe him to live. No matter how I try, it hurts to live, and I want him back. I want to be with him." He stared, finally at me instead of through me. "He's gone," he said, and then he was Harry again, just for a while.

I mustn't let Harry see me cry. I'm his only hope. I can cry later. Soon I'll go home, away from Hogwarts and London, back to Reading where I'll see Neville again, and then I'll cry. Now I have to be strong, for both of us, Harry and myself.

His hair seems paler. It's hard to tell with ghosts anyway, but now more than ever it seems that the strands around his face have gone grey.

When I Floo to Hogwarts the second time from the Leaky Cauldron fireplace, I have a better idea of where to look for him.

We glimpse him often – climbing the dark staircases and drifting through the empty hallways – but to catch more than those glimpses, we have to go to Gryffindor Tower. That's his usual place. It takes an effort to get his attention, but when I call out his name a few times it brings him out of his stupor. Then he seems almost normal, if only for a while.

"Hermione," he sighs, "Why can't I follow the dead?"

"I don't know. I'm not an expert, but I never heard that it's possible."

"It must be possible, or the other ghosts'd all still be here. I didn't even get to say goodbye to him. He's gone and I'm stuck here. Help me! Please!"

I tell him the truth, and it doesn't hurt any less. "I can't. I am so sorry."

That weekend I go home, and hold onto Neville and he holds onto me. It makes things just a little better. Neville always does.

"It's like he asked me to kill him with my own two hands." That's what an exorcism would be! At least to Harry. "I can't do it! He has no right!"

Neville smells of mint and chamomile. It's peaceful. It's home.

I tell him everything: how Harry's all alone back at the castle, how he refuses to go anywhere or to speak to anyone for days. I tell him about Harry's empty eyes and how he shivers sitting out in his windowsill despite all the sunlight and summer air. He says he's freezing there.

It's like a part of Harry – the part that was still so alive – died along with Snape. I want that Harry back. What did Snape have that we don't?

I have to see him again tomorrow. Neville knows better than to try and talk me out of it. "Please, be careful," he says. "Watch out for the wards." And that's all.

"You should come with me next time," I tell him.

He nods. "Perhaps I will. Soon. What sort of state were the greenhouses in?"

Most of the tube stations are back to normal after the explosions. The Circle Line's not functioning, and they're still rebuilding King's Cross and Russell Square, but most of it's back to the way it was. We're survivors. We'll get through anything and so will London.

I saw a homeless man at the station today while I was waiting for the rain to pass. It was strange, but he reminded me so much of Headmaster Dumbledore. There was something about his eyes. He asked me if I was afraid of the storm. I smiled and gave him my spare change. He told me to be brave, that the worst of the storm was over. And then he picked out a marble – he had a handful of them – and gave it to me in exchange for the money. Only when I got outside, I saw that in the daylight the marble wasn't black like I'd thought, it was dark red with a yellow swirl in the centre.

I looked for that old man on my way back, but he wasn't there.

My exam results are in. It's a miracle. I don't know how, but I did it. I'm a lawyer.

"After all those times I thought he was a heartless git, it was his heart that was bad and I couldn't fix it."

We're sitting on a staircase which froze mid-turn seven years ago, and never connected to its destination. Harry's feet hang off the edge. There's a floor somewhere in the shadows beneath us, two storeys below. Harry stares down, as if contemplating whether to jump off into the dark.

I put my hand as close to him as I can.

He reaches out, his fingertips almost passing through mine. There's a faint, wistful smile on his lips. "Wish ghosts could touch people. I miss that."

"Me too. I can't offer a hug, but I can always listen."

"When I first showed up in his flat, I wanted to fix the world. Turns out I'd trade the world to fix one person." He looks off into the distance. "Is that selfish?"

"It's not selfish. It's human."

"It still hurts. So much."

"I know."

"Does it ever get any easier?"

I think back to Ron, to everything. "No." It really doesn't. "But you learn to live with it."

"Y'think I still can?"

"You can try. That's what counts."

There's a trace of a smile on his face. "He told me to live. 'Cause if I believe it, then I am alive."

"He was right, you know."

"Reckon he was." Harry nods at the half-full box of Filibuster Fireworks on the staircase. "We should set the rest of these off. Got any matches?"

Tonks gave me some. Even though Dobby and Winky promised to keep an eye on the fires, we've all taken to carrying either a box of matches or a lighter during our daily trips to Hogwarts, in case the Floo fireplaces go out or we find an unlit one.

I haven't even told Molly and Ginny yet. I must ring them later. The twins will have a heart attack. It's unbelievable, really; we have Hogwarts back! Just like before.

Hermione's about to leave. I walk her to the fireplace in the Great Hall, past our old Gryffindor table. "Thanks for the fireworks. It's quiet when you're all gone," I confess. "And cold." The chill settles in as soon as everyone leaves.

"You don't have to stay here all the time." She looks like she's about to lunge and hug me, if she could. She's had that look a lot recently. "You can come with us."

"I don't want to go back. Not just yet."

She looks up. Her lips are in a thin line. "He isn't coming back."

I know that! "If I leave, that means I've given up completely. I'm not ready to give up just yet." I don't think I ever will be.

"Just promise you'll let me know if Hogwarts gets too lonely."

"Yeah." Severus brought me here. Lonely and cold it may be, but it's my home. The only one I have.

"I'll be back tomorrow," Hermione says. "As soon as I can."

She looks like she's about to stay and spend the night here with me, so I smile and wave toward the fireplace. "Go on. I'll still be here in the morning."

She takes the plastic bag of Floo powder out of her purse and refills it from the jar on the mantel. "Wait," she says, "I completely forgot." There's an envelope in her hands, white and plain – no name or address on it. "I'm supposed to leave this here."

"What's that?" I peek over her shoulder.

"It's…" she runs her hand through her hair and continues, quick and soft. "Malfoy gave it to me. Said to put it here, at Snape's, uhm, where he died."

"I'll show you." It strikes me then: I'm the only one who knows. Without me, they wouldn't even have a clue about where he died. And so I lead her to the patch of burned stone at the foot of the grand staircase.

The envelope Hermione leaves isn't sealed.

I'm not curious at all. Who cares what the letter says! I'll never have enough strength to move the envelope, much less do anything else to it.

I try to ignore it, but no matter what I do, it's still there: goading me and taunting me, just by existing. Just like Malfoy always did. And after a while I can't help rising to the challenge.

I spend most of the night next to the letter and in the morning, I'm able to turn it around and unwrap it enough to read the writing inside. It's girly and the 'S's and 'L's curve like serpents.

Hi, Severus,

It's daft to write to you now, after you're already gone, but you said to write you a letter, and I keep my promises. I still can't quite imagine how you made it back to Hogwarts. How did you even find the place? I suppose you took your secret with you to the grave; a Slytherin to the end.

It'll be difficult, knowing I can't look forward to one of your rare visits. I hope you are at peace, and if you see Mum and Dad, tell them I'm doing all right.

I promise you one thing: Luc will know who you are to me, and who you were to his grandfather. And the best thing of all is, I can tell him all sorts of embarrassing stories about you now, and you won't be there to stop me.

I lied, it's not really the best. But at least I'm trying to find something good in this.

I will miss you.

Draco

After I finish reading, I want to break something or crawl into a deep, dark corner and never come out. I don't want Severus to be remembered with Lucius Malfoy, I want him to be remembered with me. Instead, I avoid any cupboards or broom closets and climb higher and higher, away from temptation.

It gets a bit better after the sun comes up. By then I'm calm. I'm not even angry at either of the Malfoys. If anything, I understand Draco, a bit. The sunrise seen from the roof of the tallest tower of Hogwarts reminds me of the sunrise I saw from the roof of his flat, only instead of London there's forest as far as the eye can see. It's beautiful.

I wish Severus was here to see it.

"I learned something from Harry today." When I'm back home, in Reading, the first thing I do after I walk through the door is kiss Neville. The look on his face reminds me of the time when I cast Petrificus Totalus on him, in our first year. He lets out a cough that sounds like a gasp, or perhaps a 'what'.

I slide my fingers through his soft hair and pull him close to me, forehead to forehead. "Life is short. Live it."

I smile. He smiles back. His face is red and he keeps staring and holding on, as if I've been gone for years, and not just a couple of days.

I kiss him again. And the second time it feels just as perfect as the first.

"Best Birthday Ever," he mutters into my shoulder in the morning.

I smile as I draw him close. It'll only get better. He hasn't seen the orchid we grew for him yet.

"You and him, who'd've thought," I manage to smile at Hermione, as we sit by the burning fireplace in the Gryffindor common room.

"Yeah." She gives me a shy grin. "Neville's sort of, well, he's doing a good job taking care of me. I'd like to learn to take care of him too." She has this look on her face: shy and soft. Warm. It's good; this place could use more warmth.

"What day is it?" I ask her.

"Thirtieth of July," she smiles. "Happy un-birthday, till tomorrow at least."

I've lost track of time completely. I didn't even realise that July was almost over or even that it was July. My birthday's almost here. Severus was right. I do owe him not to stuff up my life completely; whatever's left of it.

At midnight, I draw a birthday cake on the floor of my old dormitory. It takes a while, but after a few tries I manage to leave noticeable tracks in the dust. The cake looks more like a centipede, with twenty-five legs sticking out every which way. They're supposed to be candles, and I blow them out. I don't feel like twenty-five, but then, I don't feel like eighteen either. Perhaps I don't have an age anymore.

There are loads of things I don't have, but I'm still Harry Potter. I'm still a wizard. I'm still in this world because I wanted to bring magic back to it. And I can't do that by hiding here.

I should make a wish now, I reckon. What should I wish for this year?

Severus. I want him back.

I can't have him. I can't even hear his voice inside my head anymore, and that hurts. It's like losing him all over again.

I want him. More than anything or anyone in all the world. More than everyone else in the world put together.

But he's not all I want. It's taken me this long to remember, but it's true. I want magic back: taught and studied and understood and passed on again. I want to see Ginny's baby grow up. I want to apologise to Remus and Tonks for ignoring them, and just let them know how damn lucky they are to have each other. I even want to tell Malfoy that for once I understand exactly how he feels. Hermione needs looking after: she isn't a plant, so Neville can't be doing that good of a job taking care of her.

I've got a life to live. Severus said so. I made him promise once that he wouldn't waste his life, and he kept his word. Now I have to abide by the same rules. I can't throw away my life, even this ghost-life. I can't back away from living, no matter how hard it can be.

That means it's time to say goodbye to Hogwarts: all these places I remember, that kept me sane but are now driving me mad. I probably won't be back for a while. I've been hiding here too long already. It's time for Hogwarts to stop being a dream castle and turn back into a real place.

In the morning, I go back to all my usual places round Hogwarts, only this time I concentrate on seeing them as they really are, instead of how I'd like them to be. Our common room is still the same, or at least as much of it as I can see, under all that dust. The tables in the Great Hall look like four long cobweb-draped coffins, even with the fireplace burning in the corner. The sunrise shines through the remaining enchantments on the ceiling and the broken panes in the windows. The entrance is half-destroyed; the gargoyles' wings crumbled long ago under their own weight. I move on. There's nothing more for me here.

At the end I look back only once, as I walk to the main gates.

After all this time trying to understand, waiting and thinking and missing him, I still can't bring myself to say goodbye. So I don't. It's not goodbye; it never will be.

I'm almost through the gates when I realise there's one more place I haven't been in all the time I've stayed here. The dungeons. They belonged to Severus, and even after all this time it's still so hard to believe he's gone. But I have to accept it or I'll never be free, and he'd want me to be free.

I run back through the entrance, past the Great Hall, down the narrow stairway. At first I see the torches burning in the corridor, so I concentrate. The flames disappear, and now the torches themselves are covered with the dust and cobwebs of seven years, barely visible in the light coming down the stairwell. It's gloomy below, like descending into a tomb.

No, it's not a tomb. It's just dark, but if I closed my eyes it'd be like going down into the dungeons for another Potions class. I know the way, all the twists and turns and stairways. I can find the classroom without even looking: seven steps down and turn, then twelve down again to the very bottom, along the corridor, past the statues and the portraits. The torches are back, and this time I let them burn. It's better this way. It's hard to face the dungeons with Severus gone, but I am.

I am accepting it. I just want to leave the torches burning a while longer.

I force myself to walk into the Potions classroom and it's the same as it always was: the smells, the silence, the bottles on the shelves, all the slimy things in jars, glowing slightly in the torchlight. I don't want to see all this disappear. I don't want to see this room become a crypt, full of dust and broken glass. I don't want to think of it like that, but I have to, because that's what it is and Severus wouldn't want me to pretend otherwise.

I gather all my courage, and focus. If I don't face reality now, I never will.

The torches stay lit.

Brilliant, now I can't even do this! I'm getting worse. I should get out of Hogwarts before it's too late. I have to, or I'll never find any peace.

The room's still just as I remember it: the empty tables and chairs, the desk in front, the storage cabinet and a set of cauldrons. Severus' quill and a stack of unmarked homework scrolls on the desk, his blackboard and jars. Ingredients lined up in a row. Cinnamon… No. Coffee. I think it's coffee.

I move closer. His cloak is draped over the back of his chair: it's the long billowing cloak that used to scare the hell out of the firsties. I touch it. It's warm.

Enough of this! I close my eyes and focus, but everything stays the same. The cloak's still there. I can't help myself; I touch it again.

When I sit down, it feels a bit like he's holding me. Like he's still with me. I've told myself time and time again that I shouldn't pretend, but it's no use.

I rest my head in my hands. Think! It's so quiet. But then, it always is, underground.

What's that? I can just barely hear something. It's almost like breathing. My eyes sting and I rub them. I'm not cold anymore. It's warmer, but not like Hogwarts was warm. I haven't felt like this since that last dream we had. He was with me and I was so warm I forgot all the bad things. I leaned back against his chest and he held me. I closed my eyes and everything was all right.

I want that so much. I want him.

I'm wrapped in warmth, as if the cloak's slipped off the chair and around my shoulders. But that's impossible. What's happening to me? Is this what it feels like when you finally let go of someone you've lost?

Something touches the hair on the back of my head.

That can't happen. None of this is real. It's too much. I have to stop torturing myself. Focus! There are no torches. There is no warmth. I'm alone. And the only things still here are the broken jars on Severus' shelves.

Slowly, I take my hands off my face and look. The jars still aren't broken. I can just barely see my reflection in them. I'm in Severus' chair. What's that behind me? My shadow?

It moves. I don't.

What?

Arms slide around my shoulders: warm, solid. It can't be.

Severus?

I'm going mad. This isn't real. I have to turn around. But I'm too scared. If he's here somehow and I'm not quick enough to hold onto him, I'm afraid he'll disappear and I'll never see him again.

His arms tighten around me and I can feel a heartbeat against my back, his mouth against the back of my head. I clutch at his hands with all my strength. If he's an illusion, I'm not letting go of him long enough to find out.

I turn in his arms and his body is solid against mine, muscle and bone and skin. He's warm. He's real! All of him. The stringy strands of his hair and his beaky nose, his jaw rough with stubble, his scent. I must be dreaming!

But I'm not asleep and neither is he! I hold on and can't let go, not when he looks and feels so damn wonderful. His arms tighten around me, so close – all that time without him is gone like a bad dream and I clutch back, lost in wonder. Severus!

I must've said it aloud, 'cause he breathes "Harry…" and I just hang onto him with all my strength. My throat's tight and my eyes are stinging and it doesn't get any sweeter than this.

His lips are warm – soft, gentle touches against my forehead, my mouth, my cheek… wet, how? I thought I couldn't… But then I thought I couldn't breathe either, and I feel the air burning my lungs when I try to speak and I choke up instead.

"I'm here," he says before I can say anything. "It's all right."

I believe him, but at the same time I can't believe our own good luck. I fumble at his shirt until my fingers glide over his chest, and I'm lost in the feel of his bare skin, smooth beneath the hair. That horrible scar's completely gone, and I bend to rest my head against his chest, just to feel and hear the beat of his heart. My hands slide around his body, rub circles on his back; I can't keep them still, I'm eager for more touch, more of him.

I want him so badly. He has no idea how much I want him. How I've missed this, all the things he brought to my life: priceless, irreplaceable. Mine. That careful, gentle precision of his every touch, the warmth of his lips, his intense gaze. Severus. I thought I'd lost him forever.

"Don't leave. Ever." Not again. I'm going to get him to promise it. I have to be sure. I can't stand the thought of losing him again.

"I won't."

He holds me so tight and it's hard to believe it's his arms around me, his voice in my ear, but it's Severus and he's flesh and blood. He's real! I hold on to him with everything I am, and at long last, everything is all right.

Severus is with me.

It all comes down to a single question, one I suppose we all ask ourselves, at one time or another in our lives: 'Why am I here?'

I still don't know the answer, any more than I ever did. What I do know is that in all of history, only wizards have ever become ghosts. Only they have the magical strength to fight their way back after death. Harry had his magic when he died, and his sheer bloodymindedness; but I only had all the stubbornness I was born with and none of the magic. I have no explanation of how I made it back to Harry. I suppose he'd say I don't really need one: I'm here, and that's all that matters. But part of me can't help wondering how I managed to return to him.

First I saw muted colours, gentle pastels and greys; spinning like the world's reflection in a falling marble, only now the marble was clear, not dark blue. It reminded me of my strange dream in the shadow of the dead Willow, or even more like waking up from that dream and returning to reality. I could feel magic pulsing all around me, reassuring as bedrock: the echoing heart of an empty castle whose dungeons, corridors, towers stretched far away from me on all sides. The colours intensified, deeper and brighter, and when I realised I was standing behind Harry I reached for him at once. He turned in my arms and looked up at me. His eyes were the same bright green I remembered from when he was alive. When I saw the look in them and the thoughts behind them, I wished I could have made it back much sooner. Then he embraced me, and I finally knew why he mentioned so often that he was warm around me. It felt incredible, like basking in the light of a sun that shone only for me.

It still feels incredible, every stroke of his hands. Frantically I unbutton his collar and start on my own. Why do we wear clothes with so many buttons?

"Off! Now!"

Apparently Harry shares my thoughts. Who am I to resist him? At long last, I don't have only 'till the end of this dream' but as much time as I want, to touch him and kiss him, to have him; and clearly neither of us wants to wait forever.

Everything is a wonder: his soft, hungry mouth, the single breath we share and the slide and grip of his hands: too much and never enough and perfect. Each sensation is vital and instinctive as heartbeat, each breath is so desperately full of life.

It's horrible how close I came to losing this: losing him. I never would have known what a joy it is to simply touch. It's all so vivid, as if I've slept for years and have finally woken up. The colours and the light are dazzling, and each brush of his lips sets my skin ablaze.

I've spent so long just trying to survive that I'd forgotten, till now, how it feels to live.

His hot scent is such a beguiling contrast to the stale, smoky air of my old classroom. All those nights I spent alone in this very room – tidying up mangled ingredients and casting protective wards on the shelves – I never thought I'd end up back here, much less with him: once a troublesome student, but now simply Harry, someone I'm aching to hold.

At the moment I can't hold him as close as I'd like, not while he's hauling his shirt over his head without even undoing the buttons, then chucking it across the room along with his glasses. He fumbles with his belt, and staggers as he shoves down his trousers and pants before toeing out of his trainers and socks. He kicks impatiently to free his feet from the pile of clothes and shoes, and sends them flying.

I can't help but smile indulgently at his eagerness as I remove my own clothing in a manner that's only sedate by comparison with Harry's. It'd be easy to retreat into old habits of thought, to shy away and hide my body – my self – behind a cloak of reserve. But the need for secrets between us is long past and I refuse to mislead him, even for an instant, into thinking I don't want him.

My smile earns me one of those brilliant grins and his hands on me, wandering, curious, quick. Gentle fingertips skim across my chest, verifying what I've just seen for myself for the very first time: that cursed chain of scar tissue has gone. When Harry kisses along the line of healthy skin, my throat tightens, and I bend to press a kiss in turn to the back of his bowed head. One is all I manage as he sinks to his knees. At his first, exquisite touch to my cock I shiver all over. I expected hands, but it's his lips and nose teasing the curls at my groin; he leans closer as if drunk on scent and nearness and heat.

When nuzzling shifts to that first tender, tentative lick, I can't help myself: my whole body curls around him like a parchment scroll, and I follow him down to the floor.

The familiar classroom flagstones prompt a flash of thought – How odd, to be doing this here of all places – but the next instant all thought is lost in the storm of sensation that is Harry: writhing, wanting, within reach, and nothing else in the world matters. I roll us until he's spread below me, like a feast for all the senses. Warm skin taut over hard young muscle, lean lines of sinew in his thighs: he is temptation incarnate. In the flickering torchlight, his body glows like gold.

Impossible to resist.

And why would I even want to try? Harry welcomes me with open arms, with open eyes: and the mind behind those vivid eyes is wide open too. After so long, to see his thoughts again is intoxicating. Everything he might've said emerges in gasps threaded with kisses, but in his heavylidded eyes I see his passionate chant of Yes! Missed you! Want you! Or are these thoughts merely my own? They could well be; I want him just as much: his mind, his body, his closeness. His hair – as unruly as if we'd already spent a whole night together – invites a stroking hand. That reddened mouth looks as though it was made to be kissed, and feels like a revelation.

As we part with a languid slide of tongues and lips, a slight shiver races across his skin: the cool of the dungeons or the intensity of the moment?

"I see I'll have to warm you up," I whisper, "Properly."

"Oh god, you…" His eyes widen. "Yes." His grip on my arms is insistent as he pulls me down on top of him. With Harry wrapped around me – a perfect fit – I lose myself in a breathless kiss. His hands slide up and down my back, while I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in. So good. More. I want – something, anything, please! – yet I can't free my mouth to say a word of it: I'm too intent on covering his throat with hungry, nipping kisses. So I moan incoherently instead. Shivers of pleasure escalate to rocking and rocking becomes thrusts and it's incredible and tantalising and I need more of him.

I indulge myself: I revel in the velvety feel of the hollow of his throat. I smile at the way his stubble makes my lips tingle. As I tease his nipples with teeth and tongue, he gasps and his hands clutch my hair. Good, I'm getting to him. I take even longer to lick down the sensitive fold leading inward from his hipbone to the urgent jut of his erection.

"Ohyeah!" He sounds frantic. I smile against his skin.

"Mm. What?" Leisurely I lick away the smear of precome from the tip of his cock, and do so again and again, until his hands on my head start to shake and his breathing hastens to the urgency of his pulse. Then I have mercy at last and swallow him as deep as I can, curling my tongue around his shaft and rocking with his thrusts, feeling my heart soar at the sound of his overwhelmed cry.

His hands are persuasive, for all their shaking; they tug at my hair, pull my head up until I release him with one last, lingering lick. Panting, he pulls me to him, bumps his forehead against me. "Sev'rus," he hisses stubbornly: a one word argument. "Needyou. Now." He twists and arches, legs spread under my weight, until, in a single acrobatic maneuver, he bends almost double beneath me. His hand is on my cock, twisting, and he gives a full-body writhe that wrings a gasp out of me.

I can see myself in his eyes, my own wild-eyed glare, and I give a moan as deep as my need. I slip my hands behind his knees, bending them back as I rear up over him. Panting, helpless, all I can do is sob without tears – breathless Oh! s breaking past all reserve and control as I lean in and push. I breach him in a sudden lunge, and then sink slowly into all that tightness: the heated slide of sensation is achingly sweet. I come to rest at last, as deep in him as I can go, as close to him as I can come, and the moment is perfection, ecstasy more poignant than any pain.

I slide one shaking hand down his thigh and curl it around his hardening cock. He gasps and arches and I thrust and we're moving as one, so hard and good and right, and all at once there's no room for finesse or measured seduction in this tight hot need, nothing but endless, cresting waves of pleasure and Yes and Now and Harry! until he freezes and spills against my stomach. His pulsing grip on me is so tight it's like a fist closing round my heart and it thuds like death like death like death like rebirth blazing golden glory and for the first time in my life I scream aloud as I come.

When at last the world returns to me and Harry opens his eyes again, they shine so bright behind the haystack tousle of his hair. He even feels limp as a man of straw: his body – tautly arched when last I knew it – has relaxed into a soft, sweaty sprawl. His hands are still buried in my hair, unable to let go, just as I can't let go of him. A moment ago, his every breath was a cry raw with joy; but now, as my shaking hands slide over his beloved body, his breathing sounds a little like soft chuckles, and more like satiated sighs.

He smoothes my hair softly from my eyes and slips his hands around my shoulders. A content smile curves his lips, even though he can't be comfortable underneath me.

"Too heavy?"

"Yeah! I can see why people do this in bed." But as I try to shift my weight off him he holds on anyway, wrapping both arms and legs tight around me. "Mmm, don't move!"

"Brat. You'll have a bed by tomorrow: mine." I chuckle breathlessly, boneless and sated, resting my head on Harry's shoulder, and revelling in the unaccustomed sensation of looking forward to tomorrow: to many tomorrows yet to come. And then I draw him into a more comfortable huddle, with his head on my chest. Stretching out the arm that's not curled round him I just manage to grab my discarded cloak and drape it over us both, wrapping us close and warm. "That's a promise."

After a pause, he breathes a soft sound of surprise against my skin. "I reckon I could've picked any bed in Hogwarts ages ago, I just never thought a ghost would need one and I…" He groans and thumps his forehead against my chest. "I'm such an idiot."

Instead of teasing agreement, I smile slowly: the movement brushes his ruffled hair across my lips. I reflect absently that even though my bed here is fairly narrow, it should still be wide enough to accommodate one more skinny sod, especially if his habit of clinging to me like this becomes permanent.

After a deep sigh dazed with contentment, my gaze wanders. I look up at my old classroom chair from underneath: how odd something so familiar can look from a completely unfamiliar angle. Draped over the chair's arm is a single sock. Every other article of clothing Harry tossed so haphazardly aside disappeared, but the sock stayed: lurid red and gold, and is that a snitch knitted into the toe? I snort amusement at the sheer unlikely silliness of it, knowing that only one person would even think of wearing such things. His head moves a little on my chest, shaken by my laughter; he grins up at me, sharing my mirth.

Preposterous. Impossible. Irresistible.

And mine.

I arch an eyebrow at him. "Can I expect more of these …decorations in my bedroom as well?"

He beams up. "Count on it! So where is it, your bedroom?" He glances around as if expecting to find it in one of the jars. "Have I seen it before? I must've! I walked through every wall of this castle!"

It's just through that wall in fact, but it's more amusing to watch him guess.

"I wonder if I still can? I feel different with you around. Warmer, and harder." He smirks and adds, "Not that way!"

At my disbelieving look, his smirk dissolves into laughter, "All right, all right, not only that way! I mean, more solid. Like I forgot things over the years, and now it's nice to be reminded that I don't have to float all the time. Hang about," he adds suddenly as his eyebrows draw together, "M'I haunting you or are you haunting me?"

"Does it matter?"

"Course it does! I want to know how that works."

"Magic. Haven't you learned anything?"

"Oh, don't give me that!"

"Very well, then: 'Converging planes of existence for similar apparitions result in a strengthened manifestation, which becomes real for the ghosts in question.'"

"Easy for you to say!" he grins. "Hey, is that why the ghosts in the Headless Hunt didn't fall through their ghost horses?"

"I wouldn't know: I only have a hopeless Gryffindor to ride." It takes a lot of effort to deliver that line with a straight face.

It's worth it, though, just for the stunned look he gives me. And for the laughter that follows, of course: quick and warm, from his mouth pressed against my collarbone.

"I never thought I'd say this to you of all people," I add ruefully, "but you're overthinking it. All this, you and I," I stroke appreciatively down the sleek line of his back, and he wriggles that little bit closer to me, "it's perfectly simple: it all comes down to finding a common ground."

"Mmm." He stretches, flashing me a leer. "Does it have to be the ground? As I was saying, the beds are softer."

"Ah, but are they still softer, or doesn't matter matter anymore? An interesting hypothesis, Mis-ter Potter…" I declare in my driest classroom voice, before returning his leer and adding in a purr, "…we should test it at once."

"S'never too early to start planning!" Harry declares the next morning; already he's pacing and gesticulating with his usual eagerness in front of the burning fireplace in the Great Hall. "See, it's only just starting. Sooner or later there'll be students again: Ginny's son and Hermione's niece and everyone else we can find… bloody hell! How hard is it to Floo here at a decent hour? What time is it?"

From my vantage point by the mantel I glance at a self-spinning hourglass that's swept a narrow slope into the layered years of dust with its daily rotation. The level of sand barely reaches the six-thirty mark.

"What? Why're you laughing?"

"Nothing," I reach out to stroke the stubborn strands of his fringe back from his face, and look at him with amusement. "Just trying to imagine you with common sense."

He snorts. "Dunno why you bother; you've got enough of that for two. Anyway, we will reopen it, together. Everyone'll help: Remus, Tonks, Hermione, Neville. Dobby and Winky. You'll teach."

"Teach? Have you taken leave of your senses?"

"If Binns taught, why can't you? Potions, or Defence, or whatever you like. Hell, you can be Headmaster if you want."

"Headmaster?"

"Yeah. D'you want to?"

"Don't be absurd!" I mutter. Even though I'm most certainly capable of it, I remind myself sternly that I never for an instant wanted the arduous task of running an entire school.

"You do!" Harry beams. "You really do. Wicked! Why didn't you ever tell me you wanted to be Headmaster?"

"Nonsense. I'm simply hoping for some peace and quiet. Which I know perfectly well I won't get with you around."

"You don't need peace," he grins, "That's not what you're here for."

"Really? Then what am I here for?" I lead him past all the empty seats of the High Table, to my own former seat. "Enlighten me."

"It's simple." He shrugs. "Ghosts don't get peace, they get a second chance: at life. If only they're willing to take it. Like us."

After years of knowing him, he can still surprise me just the same. "When did you become so wise?" I murmur against the ear that's so temptingly close.

"You've been rubbing off on me," he declares happily. "Reckon it'll happen more often, now you're here with me. Forever."

"'Forever'? Hmph! You'll tire of me in a week."

"Oi! I was tired of you the very first time I saw you, sitting right here in this chair, not to mention all the years after that, listening to you moan and whinge…"

"Whinge? I never…"

"Don't forget, if it wasn't for me taking things into my own hands, I'd still be haunting your loo!" he adds with gleeful triumph.

"And if it wasn't for you, I…" …never would have looked at him long enough to see the gift that fate had hidden right under my nose. Love: unlooked-for, most certainly undeserved, in the unlikely guise of a scruffy-headed brat. If it wasn't for him, I would have lived – and died – alone.

"Tell me something happy!" he interrupts my reverie.

"Happy?"

"C'mon. One happy thought. It's not that hard, even you can do it."

I look at him, and I'm struck mute. When I try to think of something happy, all I can think of is Harry. But then, he's always on my mind; he has been ever since he first showed up in my flat in April, or even before that.

It hits me then, the thought staggering me with its impact: I can keep him. He is mine, for as long as he'll have me, or 'forever', as he claims. I can't help but smile, and I don't bother hiding it: it's worth it to see him smiling back at me.

He reaches out, a hand tracing my cheek, his eyes alight with discovery. As he leans in it's only natural to meet him halfway, and taste the warmth of his lips, feel him smile into the kiss, hold him close and inhale his scent and bask in all his crazy, bristling energy: more vibrant than the Floo-roused flames springing to life behind us.

If 'forever' means putting up with his antics and prying questions, with his grins and good mornings, with that look in his eyes and his roaming hands and his impetuous mouth, with Harry – simply Harry, with all that simple statement entails – then I will do so gladly.

After all, such is the price of magic.