Copper Shot With Gold

When all the moonlight fades,

And all the stars have ailed,

Will you see what

I’ve tried to make you see?

Will you know

That what I said is true,

That all the things I’ve ever

Done,

Have been because

Of you?

When all the moonlight fades,

And all the stars have ailed.

    Wind, harsh and filthy, ravaged the Entrance Hall. It tore into corners, exposing dead flesh and bleeding cuts. But for one boy, it exposed life.

    Harry Potter looked up from his place on the floor, aching with every ounce of his being.

    He was face down, lying on his stomach. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a mass of red hair - Ron’s - and next to him, closer than Ron was, a bundle of brown tresses. And he smelt, over the wind, the bitter stench of death, and smoldering skin, and gasping last breaths.

    “Voldemort,” he breathed, more to himself than anything. “I’m only a third dead. I lived. Did you?”

    He stared in front of him, at the remains of Voldemort - a bunch of tattered robes. He smiled despite his sadness, realizing that somehow - miraculously - he had lived, and Voldemort had died. He had fulfilled the prophecy.

    Ron was on his stomach as well, cheek pressed against the hard floor of the Hall. But Harry saw him breathe. And over the wind, he smelled life. Warm blood and working lungs, functioning brain and beating heart. He smiled.

    He extended scratched, dirty hands, and pulled himself towards Hermione. When he reached her, he turned her over, brushing tangled hair away from her face. She was dead, he knew it, she had not survived.

    He gathered her in his arms, holding her close as the last warmth escaped her. He found himself crying, hot, momentous tears spilling onto his cheeks and chin.

    I loved her, thought Harry. I did. More than anything. I - I’d have married her, if she’d lived. I’d have loved her forever.

    He sobbed into his hands, all happiness at the defeat of Voldemort vanishing. If ever I was to marry anyone, he thought, as more tears spilled down his face. It would have been her. It would have been her.

    Tears poured down his face so fast that they sped off his chin before they had a chance to dry on his cheeks. A few hit Hermione’s face; painfully hot against her wintry skin.

    And then, as Harry’s face turned up, to take in the surrounding area, of passed out members of the DA, dead Death Eaters, dead students, she blinked.

    The tears from Harry’s face spotted her smooth skin, and he wiped them away with a bruised thumb.

    Her eyes opened; dark pools of emotion that Harry could drown in.

    “Hermione,” he whispered, caressing her neck with his injured hand.

    She blinked again, obviously in pain, looking around her. “I’m…alive,” she said distantly, wincing in pain.

    “You are, and Ron is, and…I am too, I suppose,” he said, kissing her on the neck.     She smiled, the wind blowing fiercely across her face. They laid together like that for a long time, too tired and too hurt to move.

    “Hermione,” whispered Harry, stroking her cheek. She blinked awake again.     “Yes?”

    “I - I don’t…have a ring, or anything,” he said, embarrassment burning his cheeks through the dirt and blood. “But…I told myself, before you woke up, when I thought I’d lost you - that if ever I was to marry someone, it’d have been you.”

    She smiled ever so softly.

    “And…it seems a shame never to marry,” he said faintly. “So…do you think, that maybe, when all this is cleared up, we could get married?”

    She nodded, thin tears running down her face.

    “Have a wedding, with roses, and ribbons, and all the finest things…We can have that red-haired girl…from my dreams…and…I’ll buy you a ring, the best one Galleons can buy…”

    “I don’t need a ring like that,” she breathed. “I’ve got you.”

~

    The ending of the war. A cold time, when to many, deaths seemed to outnumber life, pain seemed to overtake pleasure.

    Black. It waved on flags outside wizarding homes, befuddling Muggles, though they never dared question it. Dark flags of mourning, dark robes, dark eyes.

    But, when people sat back and thought, and remembered things, and cried, most of them realized. There was so much life, so much good, that overrode all the pain and suffering. For most of them knew…the most important thing was that Voldemort was gone. Yes, lives had been taken, but from either side, and all those of the Dark were dead or fugitive.

    But for one day, on the outskirts of a tiny town in England, there was something else to be found…some other tears to be cried.

~

    Harry Potter stood, dressed in light, silky black robes, with green eyes alight, under an altar of white roses, and white lilies, and daisies.

    A long, white velvet carpet ran from the altar, over a low hill, and beyond. Harry was tense with anticipation, sweating despite the cooling charm Mrs. Weasley had placed over him.

    Ron came first, arm in arm with his little sister. Ron’s robes matched Harry’s - dark and satiny - and Ginny’s were ruby red, low cut, billowing magnificently behind her in the breeze. She carried a bouquet of red roses that matched her dress in one hand. They both grinned at Harry, taking their places at the back of the altar.

    Next came another pair of redheads - short and struggling with their robes. Harry grinned despite himself at the twins - that differed only in hair length - that Bill had brought to the wedding.

    The girl - Emma - was dressed in scarlet robes, too, though they were not as revealing. Her strawberry-blonde hair fluttered out behind her, loose of it’s binding spell. The boy - Leo - looking thoroughly disgusted at being arm-in-arm with his sister, was dressed in brand new black dress robes. He kept jumping aside when she threw rose petals from her basket onto the white carpet, the rings nearly falling more than once.

    Emma and Leo let go of each other as soon as possible, leaping to stand in front of Ginny and Ron, respectively.

    Harry stared down the white walk, unevenly spotted with crimson petals, waiting.

    And finally she came.

    He saw the white gown first, flying strikingly out behind her. In fact, he barely even noticed her father standing beside her.

    The white velvet was encrusted in rubies, denser at the feet of her gown and sparse past her waistline. The silk sleeves, though long and reaching past her hands, were slit up to the shoulders and flapped behind her in the wind. The veil, sheer and filmy white, did not cover her face but instead fell just to her waist. A tight row of rubies were stitched into the bottom hem of the veil.

    Her russet locks shone against the morning light, paled by the veil. Her face was radiant with delight, and when she saw Harry she smiled, a long smile that didn’t ever fade.

    Hermione had insisted on a Muggle wedding, Harry on a wizarding one. And thus, she was clad in a Muggle dress, he in robes. They both would take vows and wear rings, but Harry had pressured a wizarding spell to bind them, and the “blood” ceremony that would follow the vows would forever bind them through love.

    He smiled back at her, taking her hand as she neared the altar. They faced each other, hand-in-hand, grinning widely despite themselves.

    The vows. Harry had fretted over what to write for a long time, but when he had finally put quill to parchment it had come easily.

    “I don’t know,” said Hermione. “Why whenever I used to picture myself grown up, I was married to some blank figure - a cut-out in the air - with happy kids that looked like me.” She grinned at Harry. “I don’t know how I could have ever imagined that, when I had someone I loved so much, right in front of me. It was more than I could hope for to fall in love with my best friend…but lately, when I dream of life years from now…well, I can gladly say that you’ve conformed to that cut-out. I…I love you, Harry.”

    He smiled at her, squeezing her hand, and said, “I wrote a poem.”

    She beamed at him, unsurprised at the thought he had taken.

    “Moonlight fades, and

    Sunlight dies, but don’t you know,

    Our love

    Never shall.

    I’ve seen the Light,

    I’ve touched it now,

    And something tells me,

    I’ve caught it in my hands.

    I’ll hold it tight,

    Treasure it, and

    No day will come

    When it slips

    Away.”

    There was silence. Not the bad, uncomforting, awkward silence, but a good kind, in which everyone sat in awe, waiting for the first murmurs of appreciation and cooing.

    It started with Mrs. Weasley. Harry saw her, dabbing her eyes with a pink handkerchief. Then, she let out a loud, affectionate, tender, “Awww…”

    Most of the women in the crowd joined in, and most of the men went red and just clapped.

    The blood ceremony. Hermione had protested it, but Harry, not being properly religious or faithful, had argued for it, and in the end he had won Hermione over.

    It was simple; a gentle prick the base of the ring finger. Bleeding together until the combined blood fell into a glass vase.

    Hermione, upon agreeing with the ceremony, had insisted that a certain knife that had once belonged to Sirius be used. Harry agreed whole-heartedly, saying that was exactly what he had been thinking.

    It was a beautiful knife, silver, with a handle of emeralds. On one side, in the not-exact-middle, was a single ruby. The very tip of the stout blade was gold, as though the knife had been dipped it molten gold. It reminded Harry of Sirius; a little gold and red amid all the silver and green.

    It sat in a mahogany, velvet-lined box. There was no lock, but it refused to open without the proper words.

    Harry recited the verse that opened it, an old poem that Sirius had written.

    “One ruby amid the emeralds

    Like a drop of blood

    On grass.

    One gilded lily amid

    The solid silver

    Glass.

    One age-old lineage

    Shattered.

    Toujours Pur,

    Toujours Pur.

    One ruby amid the emeralds

    Like a drop of blood

    On grass.”

    The box opened to reveal the dagger, shining in the morning light. Harry drew it and steadied Hermione’s hand, palm up, against his own. She winced and he smiled slightly as a pool of blood gathered at the base of his finger.

    She did the same to him, and they held hands over a vase of water. A claret drop plunged in, rippling in the cool water.

    A rose, red and blossoming. Harry plucked it from Ginny’s bouquet and dipped it in the water.

    It opened magnificently, a spray of huge ruby roses, in a matter of seconds. Harry grinned and picked a bloom from the posy, handing it to Hermione with a shy smile.

    She accepted, a smile teasing her lips as Harry slid the ring over her finger.

    Harry grinned as she fitted his own band made of twisting rose, white, and yellow gold over his finger, hiding the tiny scar that would forever be a tribute to their love.

    They stood together and stared for an eternity, wind whipping Hermione’s sleeves and veil out behind her.

    They kissed, a slow, warm, enveloping kiss, to claps from the audience. Hermione pulled away slightly as Harry scooped her up into his arms, ruby-encrusted velvet fluttering behind them. She took the bouquet in her arms - white roses and lilies and daises, with a single red rose, and threw it.

    Ginny caught it. She looked shocked for a millisecond, then blushed. There was more clapping. Laughter. Happiness, in fact, seemed to echo throughout the wedding.

    Tears were shed, now of bliss.

~

    Almost exactly a year later, Harry sat with a tiny baby on his lap.

    She giggled as he tickled under her chin, eyes alight.

    “Lily Elizabeth,” he breathed, grinning.

    He stroked the tufts of reddish hair on top of her head. “You must get more than your name from your grandmother,” he whispered.

    She laughed, a sweet, babyish, cooing laugh, that made Harry think of happy things and good times. Lily turned her face to her father, eyes wide with delight.

    “Your eyes, though,” he said, looking at them closely. They were blue-grey, with a tiny ring of brown close to the pupil. “They sort of look like your grandpa’s eyes, you know.”

    She smiled at him, oblivious to his talking. “He had blue-hazel eyes. His name was James.”

    Lily had stopped laughing and playing, and just watching her father, listening.

    “He had a best friend. His name was…was Sirius.” He gulped, trying to clear his mind. “And they had another best friend, named Remus. Remus, you see, was a werewolf. But Sirius and James stuck to him anyway.” He sighed. “They loved each other,” he added of Sirius and Remus.

    “Well, hopefully you won’t meet James or Sirius for a long time,” he continued. “You see, they died, once, a long time ago. For each other, I guess. For me.”

    Tears stung at his eyes, but he blinked them away.

    “But one day you will meet them,” he said, now openly crying. “And you’ll see. They’re wonderful.”

    He looked down at her. She had already fallen asleep against his chest, beautiful eyes closed, smiling contentedly.

    Her caressed her fine locks, memories in his mind flying past.

    He looked at her again, her hair like copper shot with gold, and fell asleep.

~

    Hermione came into the room where they slept later that night and grinned. Lily Elizabeth was resting her head on her dad, red hair mingling with his own black. Harry’s glasses were slipping down his nose and her hand was curled around his finger.

    Hermione smiled, pulling a blanket over them as they slept on.