Legacy

Prologue

And now I'm all alone again, no where to turn, no one to go to,

Without a home, without a friend, without a face to say hello to,

But now the night is here,

And I can make believe he is here.

Sometimes I walk alone at night when everybody else is sleeping,

I think of him and then I'm happy with the company I'm keeping,

The city goes to bed,

And I can live inside my head.

On My Own, Les Miserables

************************************

June 2008

Harry Potter liked dark, exotic women.

I know, you'll remind me that he married the redhead, with the creamy skin and six freckles on her adorable button nose. I am painfully aware of that. Nevertheless, he was physically attracted to dark hair, dark eyes, and deep skin tones. Cho, Pavarti, myself - we were more his 'type', so to speak, despite who he ended up with.

You will not find my name in the official chronicles of the Boy Who Lived and his school adventures. I was not part of his inner circle, and did not count among his close friends. I did not take part in the Battle for Hogwarts, or in the ensuing final standoff against Voldemort and his legions of Death Eaters. But I was there.

I was in the same year as Harry, but in Ravenclaw. I knew Harry casually, through Luna, who spoke of him in hushed tones, revealing personal details that I could not be sure were true. You just never knew what to expect with Luna - one minute she was describing an adventure flying through the air over London on invisible winged horses that only she could see, and then the next minute she was off in search of Amazonian Skribbes with her father.

But when she talked about Harry, it felt like she was trying to express herself as clearly as possible, like she wanted people to know what he was really like. She described a lonely boy, a sad boy, weighed down by the burden of being alive. She told me he was fearful, untrusting, and after the events of his sixth year, he carried his wand in his hands at almost all times, even sleeping with it.

"He has nightmares," she whispered to me once, in her room, where we met at night to talk about our day, "where everyone he has ever loved is dead."

"How do you know this, Luna?" I asked her. "Does he tell you his nightmares?"

She smiled wistfully, cocked her head to one side and sighed, "I just know things, love."

But I never saw any of that sad boy that she described. When I was with Harry, he laughed. He laughed a lot. He was a giggler, did you know, and once he got started giggling, it was impossible to get him to stop; you just had to let him finish. Tears would run out his eyes, and he would beg me to stop saying whatever it was I was saying that was making him laugh.

I don't think I'm necessarily all that funny, really, but he thought so. He seemed amused enough by my bizarre observations that I could send him into a fit of laughter when I thought he needed some relief, from the immense burden of being Harry Potter.

It didn't last that long, four weeks, five, really, if you count the study sessions, where we really got to know each other.

In the spring of our seventh year, he was doing so badly in Divination, with Aeromancy, that Luna invited him to join our N.E.W.T's level study group. His friend, Ronald, came with him the first couple of times, but I don't think his girlfriend was keen on his being in the Ravenclaw common room without her, so after the first week it was just Harry. Several of us got together to study, but it always ended up just the two of us left, sitting on a sofa in our large common room, laughing our heads off over some joke about Trelawney, Quidditch, or house elves. I could do impressions, you see, and my Snape was very Snape-y. In my best Potion Master's voice, I routinely took hundreds of points from the Gryffindor for all sorts of imagined transgressions; from breathing too loudly, to personal grooming inadequacies, to being 'The Boy Who Farted.' Harry laughed hard, when he let himself.

Looking back now, I'm not sure he was able to relax like that in front of his friends, or his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Ginny. They had been though so much by his seventh year, and they all knew what kind of real dangers were ahead. I'm sure their time together was probably spent plotting, planning, worrying, and grieving.

But there was going to be no grief, no worrying around me. After that first week, I wanted to make sure that any time he spent around me was enjoyable. By the end of the second week, when we were meeting between classes just to see each other, I was in love.

We were intimate just three times. The first time, he found me coming out of the Great Hall after dinner, grabbed my hand and pulled me toward an empty hall. He was so pleased; he had been offered a spot playing for England in the Quidditch World Cup that summer, after he left school. He wasn't sure about taking it, he admitted, he really wanted to pursue Auror training, and there would not be much time to train, but he was delighted to have been considered good enough to play professionally. He was giddy, like a little boy who had seen his Christmas present a day early. I kissed him, and told him that he had time enough for whatever it was that he wanted to do. He whispered to me that he knew what he wanted right then, and it was to kiss me. I put my arms around him and leaned into his embrace.

I'm not sure he had intended for it to go as far as it did - I know I hadn't - but the excitement built up, and I was swept away by feelings I had never experienced. I think he was overwhelmed, as well. But it was magical.

We lay together for a little while, afterwards. He kissed my hands, ran his fingers through my hair. He nuzzled my neck, and whispered to me that he had never been with a girl before. I remember everything about that evening.

The second time, I knew he had taken some effort into planning a more romantic setting. There was a picnic basket, with strawberries and chocolate, and a blanket by a secluded pond. He brought me to his favourite 'getaway' spot, he said, because he wanted to share it with me. That gesture touched me deeply; I had never felt so special to anyone before.

Our final rendezvous was my turn to surprise him. Moved that he has shared his secret spot with me, I took him to the empty farmhouse that we Ravenclaws knew well. It was our hideaway, you see, enchanted to look like a grove of ash trees. But inside was a cosy room, with a bath and a bed. We lingered there for almost a whole day, making love, playing house. I made him lunch, and later he read the Daily Prophet to me while we lay on the couch, my head in his lap, his free hand in my hair. While I lay there I began to imagine what our future might bring: a small house, children, a fat dog in the yard.

Never once did I feel like 'the other woman'. I knew he was informally seeing Ginny Weasley, the 'It' girl of Gryffindor - brains, beauty and Harry Potter on a leash. They were going to be the Super Couple of Hogwarts.

I never asked him about her, and he never brought it up.

No, that's not entirely true.

The last afternoon we spent together was in the library, halfway through April, and we were discussing N.E.W.T. level hexes. He mentioned that Ginny was handy with a wand, and would probably hex him into tomorrow, if she knew how he felt about me. I could feel my heartbeat flutter. I wanted to ask more, but I let this comment go, squeezing his hand and smiling back up at him. Time enough later. The last thing I wanted to do was rush him. There were too many people who had their plans for Harry; I didn't want him to think of me as one of those harpies.

If I could turn back time, I'd go back to that moment and ask him what he meant.

Life is full of significant moments like that. Its only later you realize, too late, how important they were. At that moment, all I knew was that he felt something for me, and that was enough. I was leaving the next day, and had to go pack for Easter vacation, a holiday my close family always celebrated together. So when he walked me back to my dormitory, I was content with what we shared. I felt his love in his goodbye kiss. I was already anticipating our reunion, and knew that when I returned in a week's time, we might make our relationship public.

The most significant moment in my life took place when I wasn't even there.

Schoolchildren read about it now, in their history books.

How Voldemort and his cronies took advantage of the holidays to attack Hogwarts, knowing that the staff would be relaxed and off guard, that some of the students that might aid the teachers would be gone. The standoff inside the castle lasted three days, during which several students and dear Professor Sprout were killed.

Harry and his friends managed to keep the horde of Death Eaters at bay, separating them from their Dark Lord, giving Dumbledore the chance to drive Voldemort from the school grounds. They pursued him into the Scottish countryside, where the final bloody campaign took place.

It was brutal.

Dumbledore was badly hurt, incapacitated; Mad Eye Moody, who took his place at the head of the Alliance forces, was dead by the end of the second day. Ministry Aurors, blasting curses and hexes at Death Eaters, suffered almost as many casualties as they gave. Ronald Weasley single-handedly took down Bellatrix Lestrange. My own dear Luna, along with Ginny and Hermione Granger, were responsible for saving the lives of the citizens of Hogsmeade.

And Harry, dear Harry... well, he wasn't the Boy Who Lived for nothing. He battled past six Death Eaters, and killed Voldemort in one final duel. Those who witnessed it said he was fighting like a man who cared nothing for his own life anymore. I found out later from Luna that he had been mortally injured; assuming that he was going to die, he decided that he wasn't going alone. I wonder what was going on in his head as he thought he was going to die. I selfishly hope that maybe he wanted to see me one more time. To tell me that he missed me. To tell me that he loved me.

But we never had that conversation.

The story is almost legend now, too amazing to be believed. If I hadn't heard it from Luna, if she hadn't held my hands and whispered it to me, I might still not believe it all.

The already weakened Dumbledore got to Harry in time, found his dying body before his life force had completely left it. Surrounded by his friends, teachers, members of the mysterious 'Order of the Phoenix,' the Headmaster whispered incantations, and literally pulled Harry's spirit back into his body. He waged war with the other world for Harry Potter.

My Harry survived, barely, and was taken back to Hogwarts. During the battles, he has suffered through a series of hexes and curses that left dark imprints in his soul, as well as body. He spent a week in the school hospital, Madame Pomfrey using every bit of magic she could think of to heal him. The students at school were told that he was resting, but it was still very bad. To this day, exactly what happened to him is still a mystery.

The Wizarding community rejoiced at the defeat of Voldemort, and the defeat of the Death Eaters, although celebrations were tempered with grief for the loss of those who did not survive.

When I was finally allowed to return to school at the end of the following week, Harry had already been sent to Ron and Ginny Weasley's home to "finish convalescing, " as Professor McGonagall told me.

I cried every day. Luna held me as I cried.

Under the watchful eye of Mrs. Molly Weasley, Harry began to recover. She and Ginny took care of him, fighting the fever that consumed him, answering his questions, holding him as he mourned the lost, listening to him as he exploded in anger and grief. Finally, rejoicing in the end of Voldemort and his army of darkness.

Harry needed that time to restore him, make him right. He made peace with his actions. He made peace with being Harry Potter. He had his friends, his family... he had Ginny. And they had time. They had precious time together.

When they all returned to school about a week before exams, Harry and Ginny looked every bit like the picture perfect couple they were. They needed each other, that much was obvious. They were depending on each other, for support, for comfort, I don't know. I couldn't look at them without feeling sick at my stomach.

I stayed away from the crowds, in my Common Room, in my bed. I slept a lot. Hogwarts was celebrating my Harry, and I couldn't participate.

Harry stopped by to see me before school ended. He had insisted on taking his N.E.W.T.s. Isn't that just crazy? Why he bothered to take them, I don't know; he just finished saving the Wizarding World, he could have asked for a harem of Veela and his own castle in Scotland, and he would have gotten it. But that wasn't like Harry. Not my Harry.

"Hey you."

I turned around outside my common room door. Harry was standing there, half hidden in the darkness. His eyes were sad. I couldn't speak, so I nodded. He opened up his arms and I walked into his embrace. He kissed the top of my head.

"You all right?" he asked me quietly.

"I'm better now," I sighed. Then the tears began to flow, and I hated myself. Digging fingernails into my palm, I looked up at him.

"You look good, Harry." It had been over two months since I had seen him, and he had grown, in so many ways, during that time. I memorized his face, his hair curling over his ears, the new ridge on his nose from where it had been broken, the scar... it seemed like a lifetime ago, when I had sat on a couch and made up a limerick about a boy with a scar that made him laugh...

We talked for about ten minutes in that hall... I knew he didn't want to tell me what he can come down to say, that he was sorry for what happened, that he couldn't see me anymore. I knew I didn't want to hear it, so we passed the time with small talk until he steeled himself and quietly said, "I'm so sorry, love. For everything." He was pulling tendrils of hair out of my face, and staring at my shoulder.

I whispered, "I know." At least, I think I did. I was staring at the clasp of his robe, the top of his shoes, the people down the hall, anywhere but his face. He picked up my chin with his right hand, looked at me one more time and kissed my mouth softly, looking right at me. I kept my eyes open, staring back at him. Then I turned and left. I felt like I was always leaving.

Once I left Hogwarts, I tried to get away from all things magical. The Daily Prophet was full of stories I did not want to read, Harry Potter's triumphant exit from Hogwarts, followed shortly by Harry Potter's acceptance into Auror training program; Harry Potter's best man at Ronald Weasley's wedding to Hermione Granger; Harry Potter's engagement to Ginny... the Wizarding world was celebrating its own young royals, and once again, I could not find it in my heart to participate.

So I ran away, back home, then to my grandparent's place in Italy. I left England and tried to make a new life for myself.

I also had a son.

When people ask me who Renato's father is, I tell them he was lost in the war, which is not totally untrue. He was born December 20^th, 1998, and is the joy of my life. We lived simply and quietly, and as Ren grew, his magical powers developed phenomenally. As a toddler, he used to charm the butterflies into his open palm. When he got older, he would make me laugh by floating the cat across the room with my wand.

He's nine now, and always into trouble. He doesn't understand the word 'no' and thinks he can do anything. Since we've moved back to London permanently, he has made a good chum in Luna and Neville's own sweet boy, and they get into plenty of mischief.

He asks me about school, and I find myself telling him stories from my days at Hogwarts. He's so ready to leave me for his own adventures there; it makes me sad to think how fast the years are flying by. But then he looks at me with those shining green eyes, yes, gods help me, the same eyes... and he tells me that he'll never leave me, with the love that only a little boy and his mama share.

He is going to be a powerful wizard one day. I wonder what I'll tell him when he asks really important questions about his father. I could make something up, but that kind of falsehood leads to more danger. But I can't tell him, or anyone, the truth.

As long as his father lives, he will be in danger, and nothing would convince me that Harry Potter's son would be safe. Best he simply live as Renato de Cassini, son of Aurelia de Cassini.

Well, that's my tale- my brief footnote in the life of the great Harry Potter. I hope I left his life as rich as he left mine, but I'm sure I didn't. I'm probably just a discomforting memory, relegated to the area of the brain where you recall your first teacher's name, or the family pet of your youth.

So why do I write all this down? Well, I needed to talk to someone about what happened tonight, to purge myself... and so I write to you, dearest Luna, who I'm sure knows all of this already. There is very little that doesn't get by you.

Ren and I were at the theatre last night. It's one of our favourite pastimes, dressing up in Muggle finery and venturing out to see a play. It is a singularly rewarding experience; it's the closest Muggles get to magic. Really extraordinary storytelling. We went to see Les Miserables at the Royal Albert Hall, with Lea Salonga as Eponine. I never miss her performances when she comes to London. She's brilliant.

On my own, pretending he's beside me,
All alone, I walk with him till morning,
Without him, I feel his arms around me,
And when I lose my way,
I close my eyes and he has found me.

Perhaps I feel a familiarity with her character, as I sob quietly along with her, feeling a little sorry for myself. Okay, more than a little. Bitter, party of one...

Without me,
His world will go on turning,
A world that's full of happiness,
That I have never known.

Do I feel heroic, picturing myself sacrificing my life, my love, to the great alter of Harry Potter's happiness? Did any of them realize what I did for them? My wedding gift to them, abandoning my dreams, of keeping my mouth shut, of letting them live happily ever after?

Could anyone appreciate that but me?

I love him, but only on my own.

Then I look down at the face of my son, who is entranced by the lights and the singing, and I remember - I did get the better end of the bargain. I got the birthdays, the smiles and kisses, the little sing songs, and small flower bouquets, fresh picked from the field. I reached over and touched his hair, smiling at him. I would not trade this for anything.

That feeling of peacefulness, of being complete, even in my solitude, was what was in the forefront of my mind as we left the theatre. I was reconciled. I was content. It was enough. I can't say it was perfect happiness, but I did not want more that what I had.

That's when I saw them, as we were leaving.

The four of them, laughing, leaving the same theatre we just exited. Hermione Weasley was hailing a cab. They say that she'd be Minister of Magic before 40 if she would concentrate on work and stop having babies every other year. Her husband Ronald was mesmerized by one of the parking meters on the street and was calling out to someone, oh, yes, there he was... Harry, my Harry.

The pull I felt was a little unexpected. It's been 10 years and the git still has my heart. He looked wonderful, tall and strong, like I remember, but with the slight limp, even now. He was wearing a Muggle suit, looking completely natural. He was laughing, clapping his friend Ronald on the shoulder; their taxi was waiting for them...

Then I saw her... Ginny looking at me. She looked at me, and then slowly moved her eyes down to the boy next to me. Instinctively, I put my arm around him.

My heart stopped beating. She was looking at my son. Staring at him with those eyes like saucers. She must have thought she was looking at the past.

Young Harry Potter, with a deeper complexion, shorter hair. There is a resemblance, I know, but I have always tried not to think of it.

I think she stopped breathing. I know I did.

I knew that for whatever reason, there had been no children for the Potters. The legendary Weasley ability to procreate had not been passed on to Ginny. So when she looked back up at me, I felt the pain and desperation in her eyes.

For a second I was triumphant - 'See what I have given him - see this perfect child!' Then I panicked, not wanting Harry to see his son, yet desperately wanting Harry to see his son. I wanted to show him, 'Look what we made together, what you have given me.' I wanted to hurt her for taking him away from me when we were barely children ourselves. I wanted to hurt him for choosing someone else to spend his life with. I wanted Ren to see what he would look like when he was grown, a glimpse of his future.

Then once more, I turned and walked out of the picture. Ren and I found our way home.

And I started to write this to you, Luna, because I know that you'd understand. You always have. My first instinct is to run, to pack everything and start fresh somewhere new, where no one knows us. But I think I'm going to have to stick this one out. I'm not going to let my broken dreams interfere with my future anymore. It's not fair to Renato. So don't let me run away.

********************************

Aurelia looked at the sheets of parchment she had filled, writing without stopping, and reread it all, one time. She laughed at a couple of parts, became sad at others. It had been a long time since she has thought about some of those days. She really didn't dwell in the past as much as she used to. But when it was thrown in her face, when she couldn't get away from it, it felt like it all had just happened. Instantly she picked up her wand, and pointed it at the table.

"Incendio," she whispered.

The parchment ignited, and was gone in less than a second.

She walked upstairs, poked her head into Renato's room. The posters on the wall weren't moving, even pictures of Quidditch players needed sleep. Ren was breathing deeply, evenly. She closed the door.

Walking into her bedroom, she thought about why she wanted to leave. Danger? No, they weren't in any danger, not really, not anymore. That had been a good excuse for the first couple of years. Now it was a convenient reason to leave whenever things got awkward.

"Shit..." she muttered to herself. She was thinking of places they had not visited, places that might please Renato enough to forgive her for taking him away from his friends for months. Moscow? Cairo? Ren had loved Egypt...maybe somewhere tropical, with beaches and swimming...

She sat heavy on her bed and looked around her room.

"I don't want to leave," she told herself

She got into her pyjamas, and thought again about that night. It was surprising to her that it wasn't Harry Potter that she was thinking about. It was Ginny. Hmm, that was different. It was Ginny's reaction that was disturbing her thoughts. Her shock, her obvious pain... it was unsettling. If there was one thing that she was certain of, it was that there was no way Ginny would ever tell Harry about seeing them. That was just something that she knew.

Aurelia lay down, muttered the charms that would protect the house, and her family, whispered ancient magic to send good dreams to those she loved, and fell into uneasy sleep.