The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters | NC-17 | by goneoffthelump
Title: The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters
Author: goneoffthelump
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2500
Prompt: Totally Smutty Epilogue Challenge
Summary: Ron needs a moment with Harry before they leave King's Cross.
Notes: Beta'ed & Britpicked by the lovely and talented alreeces & plotbunniofdoom. Italicised words are JKR's (as is everything else, of course), but you knew that already.
The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters
“Why are they all staring?” demanded Albus as he and Rose craned around to look at the other students.
“Don’t let it worry you,” said Ron. “It’s me. I’m extremely famous.”
Albus, Rose, Hugo and Lily laughed. The train began to move, and Harry walked alongside it, watching his son’s thin face, already ablaze with excitement. Harry kept smiling and waving, even though it was like a little bereavement, watching his son glide away from him.…
The last trace of steam evaporated in the autumn air. The train rounded a corner. Harry’s hand was still raised in farewell.
He stood alone for several moments, watching the empty expanse of track, until Ron sidled up next to him.
“Twenty-six years,” Harry said, “today.”
Ron smiled as Harry met his gaze.
“You’re making us sound old, mate.”
Harry chuckled softly. Ron brought a hand to Harry’s shoulder as both men looked back down the track, gazing after the train that carried their children.
“Who’d’ve thought?” Ron mused.
“That we’d live this long?”
Ron tutted, but chuckled. “That you’d still be putting up with me after all these years. But yeah, thirty-anything did seem impossible at eleven, didn’t it?”
“Not as impossible as it did at seventeen,” Harry said.
The hand on Harry’s shoulder tightened its grip and Harry heard Ron draw a tense breath through his nose.
“Sorry,” Harry muttered as he resisted the urge to take the hand on his shoulder into his own.
Ron sighed and rubbed his thumb against Harry’s clavicle.
“Who d’ya think Al and Rose are going to meet today?” Ron asked. “Anyone important?”
Harry smiled. “I hope so.”
Another few moments of silence passed before Harry gave in a little, reaching up and patting Ron’s hand.
“We should get going. Hugo and Lily have got to be getting restless.”
Ron pulled a face. “Have we really promised to spend all afternoon at the zoo?”
“I thought you liked the zoo?”
“I don’t mind it, it’s just… well it’s sort of our anniversary, isn’t it? Can’t you think of anything… better to do?”
“As a matter of fact, I can,” Harry answered, smirking. “And that’s precisely why we’ve agreed to take the children this afternoon. Hermione’s returning the favour this evening, taking Lily overnight. We’ll have the place to ourselves.”
Harry cast a quick glance down the platform before brushing his hand across Ron’s chest, making sure to tease a nipple.
Ron cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t think I can wait that long. How about somewhere we can have to ourselves right now?”
“Ron, we promised we’d take Hugo as soon as the train left.”
“No worries, we’ll be quick.”
Ron started down the platform, his long legs carrying him away rather more quickly than Harry would’ve liked.
“Ron,” Harry scolded, but started after him. “Ron!”
Ron didn’t answer, but looked back over his shoulder and winked as he made a beeline for a closed door about halfway down the platform.
“We can’t get caught sneaking off together,” Harry said as Ron put a hand to his wand pocket and unlocked the door. “Hermione’ll kill us.”
“She’s not the only one, mate,” Ron said, casting a look around before opening the door. “But we’re not gonna get caught.” He slipped through it and pulled Harry in behind him hastily.
The door swung shut quickly, but Harry was able to see the contents of the room before they were plunged into darkness.
“A broom cupboard? Well, this is romantic.”
“Oh, hush,” Ron replied, as the small space was illuminated by the tip of his wand. “Just gimme a minute.”
Harry smirked as Ron cast various spells, transforming the space around them into what was quickly recognisable as a compartment on the train that had just left the station.
The finishing touch was a window enchanted to show the countryside sliding past, and Ron turned to Harry expectantly.
“You sentimental old fool,” Harry said, smiling.
Ron’s ears pinked a bit as he shrugged and stepped forward, bringing their bodies together.
“It was beginning of everything,” he whispered.
Sighing with relief as he responded to Ron’s kiss, Harry silently conceded the brilliance of stealing this moment, what with a long day in public looming before them.
Ron’s hands roamed up Harry’s arms, over his back, and down to his arse, and Harry felt Ron’s arousal begin to assert itself against his jeans.
Harry pulled back and looked up at him. “You really do want to get us into trouble, don’t you?”
Ron grinned.
“I dunno, Ron,” Harry said, looking around the compartment. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“No?” Ron said disappointedly.
“It’s just that… well, I’m afraid you weren’t all that sexy when you were eleven.”
Ron blinked, nonplussed.
“And if we’re recreating that first journey, I’m not sure I can -”
“OK, OK,” Ron interrupted. “Forget the first. Let’s have the one we missed instead.”
“The one we missed?”
“Seventh year.”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“Still not sexy enough?” Ron asked, looking a bit indignant.
Harry smirked. “Oh, I think that’ll do. What exactly do you have in mind?”
Ron pressed his hands to Harry’s arse. “Whatever you want, Harry. You’re seventeen, in an empty train compartment with your dashing best mate,” he said, smiling.
“Dashing. Indeed.”
“Who you’ve secretly fancied for as long as you can remember.”
“Despite being terribly confused about my sexuality at the time, and thinking those feelings were for his sister?”
“Right. That’s all done. You know you’re gay already.”
Harry chuckled. “If only it had been so easy.”
“Focus, Harry.”
“Right. Sorry. So, what about Voldemort?”
“What?”
“Voldemort. If I’m seventeen, am I still trying -”
“Harry. I am trying to seduce you here, and we haven’t got loads of time, in case you haven’t noticed. Do you want to have sex in this train compartment or not?”
“Sorry. Yes. Just trying to get into character.”
“OK. Imagine you’re a regular wizard. A young, carefree wizard who’s on his way to his final year at Hogwarts. Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, utterly gorgeous, desired by most every witch in castle. But who only has eyes for a certain ginger dorm mate.”
Harry smirked.
“A certain ginger dorm mate,” Ron continued, “who wants nothing more than to suck your cock and feel you come down his throat before Hermione returns to the compartment.”
Harry would never know exactly how his cock would have responded at age seventeen to an offer by Ron to suck it; the first offer hadn’t come until a few years later.
But if it was any indication that its reaction now was precisely the same as it had been on that first occasion, he was fairly certain that his cock was perfectly in character.
He pressed against Ron’s body, nudging thigh with groin, and watched Ron’s pupils dilate.
“We’d better be quick about it, then,” he whispered. “Hermione’s bound to be back any moment.”
Ron growled and kissed Harry, more hungrily than before.
Quickly the pair devoured each other, hands and tongues questing with a sloppy exuberance more suited to men half their age.
Ron’s hands slid up to Harry’s shoulders as he stepped back to the seat and pushed Harry down into it.
Harry sat and looked up at Ron: his mussed hair nearly brushing the ceiling of the compartment, his chest rising and falling heavily, his eyes full of something that soaked the inside of Harry’s chest.
He felt a smile slide onto his face.
“What?” Ron asked.
Harry shook his head. “You’re looking at me like I just captained the Cannons to the League Championship.”
Ron grinned and sank to his knees, and Harry thought he might come just for the sight of it.
A hand ran up Harry’s thigh as Ron leaned in, kissing Harry’s mouth before sinking lower and bringing his hands to the waist of Harry’s trousers.
Harry’s lower lip was caught between his teeth as he reached for Ron, brushing his cheekbone and remembering the long fringe he used to love to smooth back.
His fingers slid into red hair and Ron’s eyes closed as he leaned into the touch and unfastened the button of Harry’s trousers.
His eyes opened again as Harry’s zipper came down, and their brilliant blue was all Harry could see as warm fingers sought and found his cock.
Harry groaned and let his head fall back against the seat.
He watched as Ron pulled him out and paused, eyeing Harry for a moment before chuckling.
Harry raised his eyebrows. “Watch where you’re aiming that giggle, mate. You’ll give a bloke a complex.”
Ron shot him a look. “I was just remembering the first time I did this.”
Harry snorted. “Yeah, OK. You’re allowed to laugh at that.”
Ron chuckled again before assuming a mildly indignant look. “So I take it you’d rather not pretend I’m seventeen for this aspect of the fantasy, then?”
“As far as technique is concerned, no thanks, if it’s all the same to you.”
Ron smirked, but gave no response other than to lean down and take Harry into his mouth.
As practised as Ron had become at performing this particular task, Harry had never seemed to become any more practised at receiving it, and he found himself reeling off the seat at the feeling of Ron’s mouth engulfing him.
He fisted his fingers in red hair as Ron’s tongue stroked him and felt his groin surge as Ron’s head began to bob.
Ron turned his eyes up to Harry’s face as his lips slid up and down and, catching his gaze, gave a cheeky wink without missing a beat.
Harry's already ragged breath hitched, and although he had never fancied himself the sort of bloke to get overly sentimental, he suddenly found his mind reeling away from him, spiralling across the years.
Images flashed in and out of it as though he were swimming in an overfull Pensieve.
Images of a smile he’d first seen on this very train, over shared sweets and Quidditch talk.
A smile that had been saving him from Dementors from the time he was thirteen.
A smile that reminded him just how much he had to live for, just how much he would die for, if it came to it again.
A smile that, until a moment before, had been wrapped liberally around his penis, pulling him closer and closer to orgasm.
But suddenly Ron’s mouth was gone.
The cold air of the compartment bit into Harry as he gasped and came, torn between the satisfaction of completion and the loss of Ron’s touch.
He was vaguely aware of a banging on the door as he focused his eyes and found Ron kneeling before him, wiping semen from his face.
“Thanks for that, mate,” Ron said, chuckling.
“I. Why. What happened?”
“Blimey, Hermione, we hear you!” Ron called towards the door as the train compartment melted away, and Harry found himself back in the broom cupboard. “Give us a bloody second, would you?!”
“Why are your hands so dirty?”
“Suppose I should’ve Tergeo’ed the floor before we got started. You’d think the room with all the cleaning supplies would be a sight less dirty, wouldn’t you?”
Harry looked at the floor, then back at Ron questioningly.
“I jumped to check that the door was still locked when Hermione started banging and I lost my balance. Ended up on my hands and knees in this filth.”
“So you fell, and I…”
“That was when you came all over the side of my face.”
“Sorry.”
Ron winked at him. “Kinda kinky, actually. But be quick, mate, zip up. She’s gonna spell it open in a second.”
Harry managed to tuck himself away as Ron rose to his feet and dusted off his hands and knees.
The door suddenly swung open, revealing Hermione, who was wearing a look that would have given a Basilisk a run for its money.
“Honestly, boys,” she said, “what is the purpose of keeping your corner of The Warren Fidelius’ed out of sight if you two are going to scurry off into the nearest broom cupboard every time we’re in public?”
“No one saw us, Hermione,” Ron interjected.
“Maybe Charlie and I should just move out, if you’re so unworried about appearances all of a sudden.”
“Come off it. You know you’d miss us too much,” Ron argued, smiling.
Hermione’s eyebrow quirked with more ferocity than Harry thought facial hair really had any business communicating.
He pitied the children, who would have been unable to detect the trace of amusement hidden in her glare, something that only he and Ron, after twenty-six years, were practised enough to recognise.
“I thought you liked living all together?” Harry asked.
He earned himself a bit of a look with that one, but a moment later Hermione’s face softened into an amused smile.
“You know I do,” she said. “It’s just that if you’re planning to take your relationship public, I’d really rather the entire Wizarding World not think I’m still married to half of you. If you don’t mind, that is.”
“Fair enough,” Ron mumbled.
“Sorry, Hermione,” Harry said.
“All right,” she said, “I only came in here because the children are getting overly excited, racing up and down the platform. You really ought to collect them and go.”
“OK, we’re going,” Ron said. “You’ll be home around suppertime, yes? And we’ll send them over? And you’ll keep them overnight?”
“Yes,” she answered, smirking. “And you’ve got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?”
~*~
Late that night, sweaty and utterly spent, Harry felt his mind drift away from the place where, for so many years, everyone he loved had resided. Away from the home whose many twisted, magical corridors connected a network of family and friends, and hid them away from a world hungry to believe a storybook ending.
His mind drifted north, to another home, to a certain four-poster in an as yet unknown corner of a large castle.
He snuggled closer to Ron and felt the hand on his back begin stroking small circles.
“He’ll be all right,” murmured Ron.
As Harry looked at him, Ron lowered his head absentmindedly and touched a kiss to the lightening scar on Harry’s forehead.
“I know he will.”
The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.
Author: goneoffthelump
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2500
Prompt: Totally Smutty Epilogue Challenge
Summary: Ron needs a moment with Harry before they leave King's Cross.
Notes: Beta'ed & Britpicked by the lovely and talented alreeces & plotbunniofdoom. Italicised words are JKR's (as is everything else, of course), but you knew that already.
The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters
“Why are they all staring?” demanded Albus as he and Rose craned around to look at the other students.
“Don’t let it worry you,” said Ron. “It’s me. I’m extremely famous.”
Albus, Rose, Hugo and Lily laughed. The train began to move, and Harry walked alongside it, watching his son’s thin face, already ablaze with excitement. Harry kept smiling and waving, even though it was like a little bereavement, watching his son glide away from him.…
The last trace of steam evaporated in the autumn air. The train rounded a corner. Harry’s hand was still raised in farewell.
He stood alone for several moments, watching the empty expanse of track, until Ron sidled up next to him.
“Twenty-six years,” Harry said, “today.”
Ron smiled as Harry met his gaze.
“You’re making us sound old, mate.”
Harry chuckled softly. Ron brought a hand to Harry’s shoulder as both men looked back down the track, gazing after the train that carried their children.
“Who’d’ve thought?” Ron mused.
“That we’d live this long?”
Ron tutted, but chuckled. “That you’d still be putting up with me after all these years. But yeah, thirty-anything did seem impossible at eleven, didn’t it?”
“Not as impossible as it did at seventeen,” Harry said.
The hand on Harry’s shoulder tightened its grip and Harry heard Ron draw a tense breath through his nose.
“Sorry,” Harry muttered as he resisted the urge to take the hand on his shoulder into his own.
Ron sighed and rubbed his thumb against Harry’s clavicle.
“Who d’ya think Al and Rose are going to meet today?” Ron asked. “Anyone important?”
Harry smiled. “I hope so.”
Another few moments of silence passed before Harry gave in a little, reaching up and patting Ron’s hand.
“We should get going. Hugo and Lily have got to be getting restless.”
Ron pulled a face. “Have we really promised to spend all afternoon at the zoo?”
“I thought you liked the zoo?”
“I don’t mind it, it’s just… well it’s sort of our anniversary, isn’t it? Can’t you think of anything… better to do?”
“As a matter of fact, I can,” Harry answered, smirking. “And that’s precisely why we’ve agreed to take the children this afternoon. Hermione’s returning the favour this evening, taking Lily overnight. We’ll have the place to ourselves.”
Harry cast a quick glance down the platform before brushing his hand across Ron’s chest, making sure to tease a nipple.
Ron cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t think I can wait that long. How about somewhere we can have to ourselves right now?”
“Ron, we promised we’d take Hugo as soon as the train left.”
“No worries, we’ll be quick.”
Ron started down the platform, his long legs carrying him away rather more quickly than Harry would’ve liked.
“Ron,” Harry scolded, but started after him. “Ron!”
Ron didn’t answer, but looked back over his shoulder and winked as he made a beeline for a closed door about halfway down the platform.
“We can’t get caught sneaking off together,” Harry said as Ron put a hand to his wand pocket and unlocked the door. “Hermione’ll kill us.”
“She’s not the only one, mate,” Ron said, casting a look around before opening the door. “But we’re not gonna get caught.” He slipped through it and pulled Harry in behind him hastily.
The door swung shut quickly, but Harry was able to see the contents of the room before they were plunged into darkness.
“A broom cupboard? Well, this is romantic.”
“Oh, hush,” Ron replied, as the small space was illuminated by the tip of his wand. “Just gimme a minute.”
Harry smirked as Ron cast various spells, transforming the space around them into what was quickly recognisable as a compartment on the train that had just left the station.
The finishing touch was a window enchanted to show the countryside sliding past, and Ron turned to Harry expectantly.
“You sentimental old fool,” Harry said, smiling.
Ron’s ears pinked a bit as he shrugged and stepped forward, bringing their bodies together.
“It was beginning of everything,” he whispered.
Sighing with relief as he responded to Ron’s kiss, Harry silently conceded the brilliance of stealing this moment, what with a long day in public looming before them.
Ron’s hands roamed up Harry’s arms, over his back, and down to his arse, and Harry felt Ron’s arousal begin to assert itself against his jeans.
Harry pulled back and looked up at him. “You really do want to get us into trouble, don’t you?”
Ron grinned.
“I dunno, Ron,” Harry said, looking around the compartment. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“No?” Ron said disappointedly.
“It’s just that… well, I’m afraid you weren’t all that sexy when you were eleven.”
Ron blinked, nonplussed.
“And if we’re recreating that first journey, I’m not sure I can -”
“OK, OK,” Ron interrupted. “Forget the first. Let’s have the one we missed instead.”
“The one we missed?”
“Seventh year.”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“Still not sexy enough?” Ron asked, looking a bit indignant.
Harry smirked. “Oh, I think that’ll do. What exactly do you have in mind?”
Ron pressed his hands to Harry’s arse. “Whatever you want, Harry. You’re seventeen, in an empty train compartment with your dashing best mate,” he said, smiling.
“Dashing. Indeed.”
“Who you’ve secretly fancied for as long as you can remember.”
“Despite being terribly confused about my sexuality at the time, and thinking those feelings were for his sister?”
“Right. That’s all done. You know you’re gay already.”
Harry chuckled. “If only it had been so easy.”
“Focus, Harry.”
“Right. Sorry. So, what about Voldemort?”
“What?”
“Voldemort. If I’m seventeen, am I still trying -”
“Harry. I am trying to seduce you here, and we haven’t got loads of time, in case you haven’t noticed. Do you want to have sex in this train compartment or not?”
“Sorry. Yes. Just trying to get into character.”
“OK. Imagine you’re a regular wizard. A young, carefree wizard who’s on his way to his final year at Hogwarts. Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, utterly gorgeous, desired by most every witch in castle. But who only has eyes for a certain ginger dorm mate.”
Harry smirked.
“A certain ginger dorm mate,” Ron continued, “who wants nothing more than to suck your cock and feel you come down his throat before Hermione returns to the compartment.”
Harry would never know exactly how his cock would have responded at age seventeen to an offer by Ron to suck it; the first offer hadn’t come until a few years later.
But if it was any indication that its reaction now was precisely the same as it had been on that first occasion, he was fairly certain that his cock was perfectly in character.
He pressed against Ron’s body, nudging thigh with groin, and watched Ron’s pupils dilate.
“We’d better be quick about it, then,” he whispered. “Hermione’s bound to be back any moment.”
Ron growled and kissed Harry, more hungrily than before.
Quickly the pair devoured each other, hands and tongues questing with a sloppy exuberance more suited to men half their age.
Ron’s hands slid up to Harry’s shoulders as he stepped back to the seat and pushed Harry down into it.
Harry sat and looked up at Ron: his mussed hair nearly brushing the ceiling of the compartment, his chest rising and falling heavily, his eyes full of something that soaked the inside of Harry’s chest.
He felt a smile slide onto his face.
“What?” Ron asked.
Harry shook his head. “You’re looking at me like I just captained the Cannons to the League Championship.”
Ron grinned and sank to his knees, and Harry thought he might come just for the sight of it.
A hand ran up Harry’s thigh as Ron leaned in, kissing Harry’s mouth before sinking lower and bringing his hands to the waist of Harry’s trousers.
Harry’s lower lip was caught between his teeth as he reached for Ron, brushing his cheekbone and remembering the long fringe he used to love to smooth back.
His fingers slid into red hair and Ron’s eyes closed as he leaned into the touch and unfastened the button of Harry’s trousers.
His eyes opened again as Harry’s zipper came down, and their brilliant blue was all Harry could see as warm fingers sought and found his cock.
Harry groaned and let his head fall back against the seat.
He watched as Ron pulled him out and paused, eyeing Harry for a moment before chuckling.
Harry raised his eyebrows. “Watch where you’re aiming that giggle, mate. You’ll give a bloke a complex.”
Ron shot him a look. “I was just remembering the first time I did this.”
Harry snorted. “Yeah, OK. You’re allowed to laugh at that.”
Ron chuckled again before assuming a mildly indignant look. “So I take it you’d rather not pretend I’m seventeen for this aspect of the fantasy, then?”
“As far as technique is concerned, no thanks, if it’s all the same to you.”
Ron smirked, but gave no response other than to lean down and take Harry into his mouth.
As practised as Ron had become at performing this particular task, Harry had never seemed to become any more practised at receiving it, and he found himself reeling off the seat at the feeling of Ron’s mouth engulfing him.
He fisted his fingers in red hair as Ron’s tongue stroked him and felt his groin surge as Ron’s head began to bob.
Ron turned his eyes up to Harry’s face as his lips slid up and down and, catching his gaze, gave a cheeky wink without missing a beat.
Harry's already ragged breath hitched, and although he had never fancied himself the sort of bloke to get overly sentimental, he suddenly found his mind reeling away from him, spiralling across the years.
Images flashed in and out of it as though he were swimming in an overfull Pensieve.
Images of a smile he’d first seen on this very train, over shared sweets and Quidditch talk.
A smile that had been saving him from Dementors from the time he was thirteen.
A smile that reminded him just how much he had to live for, just how much he would die for, if it came to it again.
A smile that, until a moment before, had been wrapped liberally around his penis, pulling him closer and closer to orgasm.
But suddenly Ron’s mouth was gone.
The cold air of the compartment bit into Harry as he gasped and came, torn between the satisfaction of completion and the loss of Ron’s touch.
He was vaguely aware of a banging on the door as he focused his eyes and found Ron kneeling before him, wiping semen from his face.
“Thanks for that, mate,” Ron said, chuckling.
“I. Why. What happened?”
“Blimey, Hermione, we hear you!” Ron called towards the door as the train compartment melted away, and Harry found himself back in the broom cupboard. “Give us a bloody second, would you?!”
“Why are your hands so dirty?”
“Suppose I should’ve Tergeo’ed the floor before we got started. You’d think the room with all the cleaning supplies would be a sight less dirty, wouldn’t you?”
Harry looked at the floor, then back at Ron questioningly.
“I jumped to check that the door was still locked when Hermione started banging and I lost my balance. Ended up on my hands and knees in this filth.”
“So you fell, and I…”
“That was when you came all over the side of my face.”
“Sorry.”
Ron winked at him. “Kinda kinky, actually. But be quick, mate, zip up. She’s gonna spell it open in a second.”
Harry managed to tuck himself away as Ron rose to his feet and dusted off his hands and knees.
The door suddenly swung open, revealing Hermione, who was wearing a look that would have given a Basilisk a run for its money.
“Honestly, boys,” she said, “what is the purpose of keeping your corner of The Warren Fidelius’ed out of sight if you two are going to scurry off into the nearest broom cupboard every time we’re in public?”
“No one saw us, Hermione,” Ron interjected.
“Maybe Charlie and I should just move out, if you’re so unworried about appearances all of a sudden.”
“Come off it. You know you’d miss us too much,” Ron argued, smiling.
Hermione’s eyebrow quirked with more ferocity than Harry thought facial hair really had any business communicating.
He pitied the children, who would have been unable to detect the trace of amusement hidden in her glare, something that only he and Ron, after twenty-six years, were practised enough to recognise.
“I thought you liked living all together?” Harry asked.
He earned himself a bit of a look with that one, but a moment later Hermione’s face softened into an amused smile.
“You know I do,” she said. “It’s just that if you’re planning to take your relationship public, I’d really rather the entire Wizarding World not think I’m still married to half of you. If you don’t mind, that is.”
“Fair enough,” Ron mumbled.
“Sorry, Hermione,” Harry said.
“All right,” she said, “I only came in here because the children are getting overly excited, racing up and down the platform. You really ought to collect them and go.”
“OK, we’re going,” Ron said. “You’ll be home around suppertime, yes? And we’ll send them over? And you’ll keep them overnight?”
“Yes,” she answered, smirking. “And you’ve got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?”
~*~
Late that night, sweaty and utterly spent, Harry felt his mind drift away from the place where, for so many years, everyone he loved had resided. Away from the home whose many twisted, magical corridors connected a network of family and friends, and hid them away from a world hungry to believe a storybook ending.
His mind drifted north, to another home, to a certain four-poster in an as yet unknown corner of a large castle.
He snuggled closer to Ron and felt the hand on his back begin stroking small circles.
“He’ll be all right,” murmured Ron.
As Harry looked at him, Ron lowered his head absentmindedly and touched a kiss to the lightening scar on Harry’s forehead.
“I know he will.”
The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.