Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

Lessons and Carols

Have not all races had their first unity from a mythology that marries them to rock and hill?

- William Butler Yeats,

The Celtic Twilight: Introduction

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
*** But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drums begin to roll....

- Kipling,

'Tommy [Atkins]'

The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet.

- GKC,

'Elegy in a Country Churchyard'

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

- Edmund Burke,

Speech to the Electors of Bristol

I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can never count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest letter saying that fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even if they are true. She says that it is cruel to tell children fairy tales, because it frightens them. You might just as well say that it is cruel to give girls sentimental novels because it makes them cry. All this kind of talk is based on that complete forgetting of what a child is like which has been the firm foundation of so many educational schemes. I f you keep bogies and goblins away from children they would make them up for themselves. One small child in the dark can invent more hells than Swedenborg. One small child can imagine monsters too big and black to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly and cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic. The child, to begin with, commonly likes horrors, and he continues to indulge in them even when he does not like them. There is just as much difficulty in saying exactly where pure pain begins in his case, as there is in ours when we walk of our own free will into the torture-chamber of a great tragedy. The fear does not come from fairy tales; the fear comes from the universe of the soul.

The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it - because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St George to kill the dragon.

- GKC, 'The Red Angel', Tremendous Trifles

_________________________

i. Draco: Expectans Expectavi

If these were but dreams, reality was worthless.

_________________________

ii. Harry: People, Look East

Better to drown in dreams than wake to a world diminished.

_________________________

iii. Dumbledore: Awake Us, Lord, and Hasten

The choice was upon them. If they chose wrongly.... Yet he could not, simply dared not, upset the balance by trying to force the issue.

_________________________

iv. Benedicamus Domino

Once again, the dreams. Once again, as ever, framed by the scene of the two of them, wounded but alive, meditating the uses of victory amidst the groans of the wounded and the dying.

'Now we both have what we wanted. And we can do as we damned well please. That is what victory is, Harry. And that is what was worth fighting for.'

And Harry remembered the words of a seer from years before: neither may live while the other survives.... Perhaps, now, it would be possible to get on with life: to live, at last. Life springing new....

_______________________

v. Ubi Caritas

If these were dreams, they had by now become more real than the dim, brief, foggy moments of waking life....

'Cornelius.'

'Arthur.'

'Do sit down. Cornelius ... I hardly know where to begin.'

'The War is ended - Minister. Politically, you've no reason now not to throw me to the werewolves. I'm sorry, Lupin: the proverb simply popped out.'

'No offence taken, Fudge.'

'Right. Well. It's been a bad business all 'round, Arthur. But I've no real following left, and even had I one, in the peacetime situation ... well, there's no need for a sort of, ah, "national government". I quite realise that there is nothing left that shields me.'

'Are you volunteering to, er....'

'Become a martyr? Go to Azkaban? Not really. I'm simply acknowledging that the people will demand it, I have little defence to offer, and I can't imagine why any of you would stick your necks out for me - though I do wish to say, it was a very fine thing that you all of you did, each of you, on the floor of the Moot. I am very well aware I did not deserve even that much of mercy. Still, there it is. I don't, actually, know why we are here, after that.'

'Tea?' Albus was not answering the question, he was doing his usual twinkling-eyed eccentric's turn, conjuring a Crown Derby service ex nihilo.

'No, thank you, Albus. I don't want any tea. I do rather want not to be kept in suspense. The people are clamouring for my head. What do you wish of me?'

'They can clamour all they like,' Harry interjected. 'That's not what matters. Tell me, sir -'

'Please. Don't. Rightly or wrongly, it salts the wound. I'm not saying you don't mean it - you were always more polite than we deserved of you - but ... not that. Please.' Fudge was deflated, obviously fagged out, and much diminished. Oddly, it gave him back much of his long-lost dignity.

'How would you wish me to call you?' Harry's response was mild, and he seemed actually to wish to know.

'Christ, Mr Potter, at this point you could call me what you like, I've earned it.'

'Then d'you call me "Harry" and I will call you either "Mr Fudge" or "Cornelius", as you prefer.'

Fudge hung his head. 'Perhaps ... oh, as you will, then. Whatever you like.'

'Very well.' Harry's tone was slightly droll. 'Then, Cornelius, tell me, please. This post-War plan you tabled - did you seriously mean it?'

'Mr P- - Harry. I'm afraid you simply don't understand. It wasn't a matter of meaning it. It was a matter of what the people want, and how best to give it them without personal cost.'

'Not the actions of a statesman,' Draco said, neutrally enough.

'Damn it! I'm not a statesman, I'm a politician! I didn't intend even to be a politician, come to that! But that's the Ministry, you move up or you move aside, and out. I -'

'I didn't.'

Fudge looked at Arthur, with naked regret and naked honesty in his countenance. 'I know,' he said, simply. 'And I hated you for it. I'm sorry. I hated you because you shamed me.'

'Cornelius -'

'No, Arthur. Please. This wants saying. I was condemned to keep moving, and I did. By whatever means came to hand. And in the end, yes, I climbed to the top of the greasy pole.

'And that of course was when the Fates had their loudest laugh. There was nowhere further to go - save down, and out. I had to keep clinging, hoping that I could avoid the fall, knowing it was inevitable. I kept clinging, by whatever means I could. You know what that entailed, and how ugly it was.

'And that is why, after all, this is all - in a queer sort of way - a relief. A rum sort of ending, but - an end. I am free to fall now. The relaxation is ... inexpressible. Even if, falling, I land in Azkaban, or worse. Because at least I know now that soon, I will be able to leave off being frightened, every moment, of the fall to come. And there's no reason you shouldn't let me fall. In fact, I doubt you could stop me, know, with the mob scenting blood.'

'Balls,' Arthur said, mildly. 'The Moot has not been dissolved. No writ has been issued for a general election, nor will one be in the near future, not until we've straightened out the mess and hammered out a new set of Constitutional enactments.'

'But -. I don't understand, Arthur. What are you saying?'

'What we are saying, Cornelius, is this. You are not going to be prosecuted. We are going to do you a service, a courtesy - it's not a favour, because that suggests we're condescending to you, and we're not - we're going to do you a great service. Cornelius, we're going to do something that's not been done in centuries.'

'Expulsion? No, that can't be right, there've been expulsions more recently than that.'

'No, not expulsion. Impeachment.'

'You're. You are going to. You are going to impeach me.'

'Yes,' Draco said. 'Jammy you.'

'Indeed,' Albus cut in. 'Think about it, Cornelius. Non debet bis, and all that?'

Fudge gaped at them. 'I'll be expelled, of course. No one can ever again expect or ask me to hold any office of trust or honour, or the Sovereign's commission.'

'Yes.'

'I'll have to disgorge a goodish pile of Galleons.'

'Unquestionably.'

'But because of the impeachment, I can't then be prosecuted.'

'Precisely.'

'I'll be disgraced, but free, and I can live quietly ever after.'

'And will be properly protected.'

'My God.' He sank back in his chair. 'This is far more than I deserve or could repay.'

'You can repay it,' Hermione said, 'by helping - in a private sphere, and only as much as you like - in repairing the damage of these years the locust ate.'

'But. Why? I have hardly earned your mercy.'

'Mercy,' Draco said, firmly, 'isn't earned. I should damned well know.'

'Moreover,' Arthur said, 'you have held the seals of office as Minister for Magic. To that office, if not otherwise, we owe the consideration of preserving its dignity.'

'Besides,' Ron said. 'I mean. You might have been a decent sort of Minister in duller times, right? And, well. Who knows how we might have done in your straits, with your temptations? We mightn't have resisted, either, right?'

'Your father resisted them. You - all of you - would have done.'

'Perhaps,' Harry said. 'I'd as soon not go bail for myself on that.' He thought back, for a moment, to that moment that had seemed like an eternity, split-second though it was: the interminable instant in the Last Battle in which he knew that he was winning after all, that Tom Marvolo Riddle, the soi-disant Lord Voldemort, was losing, failing, about to explode in a burst of magic, and in which he was seized by the almost overwhelming temptation to reach out, take in all of Riddle's magic, knowledge, and power, and crown himself the new and indomitable Lord of Earth, an immortal, magical, unconquerable emperor of all mankind, autocrat of all creation, forever: the irresistible and omnipotent ruler of all realms, seen and unseen. 'The point is, Cornelius. We are who we are. Albus chose the name of the Order carefully, you know.'

'More than I can say for Tom Riddle,' Draco sniffed. 'Death is not something one eats; it eats us. Devouring all things. And it's certainly neither something that bears one up in flight, nor something from which, at the end of the day, one can successfully fly.'

'What Harry means,' Albus said, looking at Fudge with a positively grandfatherly affection, 'is that we were, are, the Order of the Phoenix.'

'Rebirth,' Harry said, 'redemption. Resurrection. We believe in second chances.'

'Well,' Fudge said. 'This is my first. I can't actually recall a time I've been offered a second chance. Of course I'll take it. You've not only spared me being gaoled, you've freed me from these cursed politics. You may say you don't feel it a favour, but I consider that I now owe each of you a Wizard's Debt.'

'Will Thursday week give you time enough to prepare for the initial accusation and motion? It would be the Monday after before the Moot could draw up articles if that motion were to be successfully put and you were arraigned before the bar of the Moot -'

'Arthur, tomorrow would be fine. D'you think I plan to contest it? The sooner the better, to my mind. Once it's over, I'll know that I'm free from further prosecution, yes, but - most of all, I shall be a damned sight more free than ever I've been since the first day I sat down at a Ministry desk!'

'If this is to be done, Cornelius, it will and must be done properly, not collusively, and not in some rushed, hole-and-corner fashion. Thursday week.'

'I accept. And again, I thank you.'

'Biscuit, Cornelius? Sherbet lemon?'

'No, Albus, thank you, but, no. If I may?'

'Of course.' Arthur rose, and the others after him, as Fudge, unaccountably beaming, shook them each by the hand, vigorously, in turn.

As the door swung slowly to, behind him, they could just see him, in the corridor, toss his lime-green bowler into the air, executing a rather deft slide-step and jig all the while, and hear his chortling, 'Free! No more bloody politics! Free!'

'I'm beginning to think,' Arthur mused, 'that Madam Bones wasn't jesting when she told me this would be my prison cell, as it has been for all Ministers before me.'

'That's a joke, right, Dad? Innit?'

'We shall see.'

'No,' Harry smiled, 'you shall see. You won't catch me ever sitting in that chair.'

'Nor shall I ever sit there,' Draco said, with a lordly wave of the hand.

The Fates laugh at rash pronouncements.

'Speaking of retirements,' Albus murmured.

'No!'

'What?'

'Albus -'

'Good Heavens, don't inflate my ego thus,' Albus said. 'I'm not going to go off and grow radishes, like Diocletian at Split.'

'I don't think it was radishes,' Draco muttered.

'There's much to do in re-opening Domdaniel after all these years, for one. It is, simply, that it's time I stepped down as Headmaster of Hogwarts. Minerva deserves her long-awaited innings, and it gives Severus time to get played in as Deputy Head, in preparation to succeed her.'

'But - Albus!'

'Arthur, my time is past. We won, after all. It's a new world and a new age. In my tenure, I sought to inculcate virtue and teach courage and strategy. I would have wished to be simply a schoolmaster, but in the end, you know, I ran several wars from there. Those qualities are no longer needed: I was "a daring pilot in extremity" -'

'Headmaster, if you think you're "for a calm unfit" -'

'Now, Draco, you of all people really ought to see the point. To paraphrase that awful Prussian fellow, we've entered the era of politics, which are a continuation of war. Minerva and Severus between them are the perfect Heads for that era.'

'Harry? Harry! Damn it, say something! Talk him out of it!'

Harry snorted. 'I can survive Killing Curses, defeat Dark Lords, save the world, and even partly tame Malfoy -'

'Oy!'

'- But if you think I can jaw Albus Dumbledore out of doing something he's resolved upon, you bloody well overestimate my abilities.'

'You see?' Albus smiled merrily. 'I did teach the boy something, after all!'

_________________________

It had begun as something of a wry jest, combined with a determination at all costs to protect Harry and Draco, and it had, naturally, begun with Blaise and Nev. Not Ron and Hermione, note, for all their worth, but Blaise and Neville: because, in the end, it was Blaise - even more than Theo - and Nev - even more than Ron - who were the respective shadow-brethren, alter egos, of Draco and of Harry respectively. They took to meeting down the pub for a jar and a jaw, and to this, soon dubbed the 'Seconds Club', there eventually adhered other members: Ron and the Twins, Theo, Greg, Vince, Dean, Seamus, Justin, Colin, Dennis, Tony Goldstein when he could manage (Ravenclaws, it turned out, tended to hold down jobs that took away time from having a pint with their mates: Corner, Boot, Carmichael, Ackerley...).

The Seconds Club. The jest was that Nev and Blaise, and the others to a lesser extent, were the shadows for the roles assigned to Harry and to Draco, rather in the sense that an opposition spokesman shadowed his Treasury Bench counterpart. Shadows, and understudies, to be called in if things went pear-shaped. Yet - with all due respect to Ronald Bilius Weasley, Order of Merlin (First Class), Member of the Magical Privy Council, Member of the Wizengamot, awarded the Godric Gryffindor Cross for conspicuous gallantry in the face of extreme danger - they were also seconds in another sense, a duellist's sense, for their principals.

From that nucleus had come the ad hoc group as a whole, dedicated to helping quietly manage and protect their friends - including protecting them from the management and protection of such well-meaning womenfolk as Aunt Andy, Narcissa, Molly, Tonks, Ginny, Luna, Minerva, and, most especially, Hermione Jane Granger-Weasley. (The difference, as far as the Seconds Club were concerned, was simple. The Witches - even Luna, even Ginny - tried to manage Harry and Draco into doing things; the Seconds Club felt that Draco and Harry had done quite enough, ta ever so, and tried to shield them from annoyance, intrusion, appeals, canvassing, and other forms of importunity.)

Not that the Seconds Club were solemn, po-faced, and wont to gather only in emergency. The club also served as a basis for a lad's night out, and their discussions were often inconsequential:

'You'll never credit it, who I met at Saturday's beano. Old Argus Filch.'

'Good Lord. Sour as ever, I suppose.'

'Actually, he's mellowed the least bit in his retirement. Being away from Hogwarts seems to have helped, and he's time now to indulge his hobbies.'

'What sort of conference were you attending, old boy? The AGM of the Fladge Society?'

'I'm not into whips and chains, you halfwit. It was a Jane Austen do. Well, where else did you think he got the name for that awful bloody mog of his?'

And then they would swap reminiscence and argue about the latest Quidditch match.

Today, however, having met by agreement at the Cross Wands, in Hook-a-Gate, near Shrewsbury, a choice equally inconvenient to them all (though Apparating and Flooing make mock of the statement) but worthy for its casks and cellars, they were concerned with more important matters.

'I saw Moody,' Ron said. 'And, Justin, you want to keep a close eye on Beans, there.'

'"Beans"? Are you referring to me, Bilious?'

'Well, mate, seemed we owed you one for "Flinch".'

'Aaah,' said Nev, chuckling. 'That'll cost thee next round, lad: mine's t'Lancaster Bomber, and no half-pints, sithee.'

When that bit of wrangling was settled, and Ronniekins had had a few choice words with Gred and Forge ('who d'y'think y'are, inspectors for CARBB? Bloody hell!' - CARBB, of course, being the CAmpaign for Real ButterBeer), and Ron had done what Draco had once described as his, 'What ho! Landlord!' act, they managed to wend their way back to the initial subject: Mad-Eye's investigation into the 'What the House-Elf Saw'-machine arcade scandal at Hambourne-On-Sea.

'And why is it, old boy, that I want to take a dekko at what Blaise gets up to, hmm?'

'Quoth the Moody, "c'est l'amour", is why, mate. Apparently, the new charms on the machines are geared to the - let's say, to the level - of the Wizard or Witch dropping the Sickle in: those of tender years aren't allowed to see anything naughty, adolescents get it a bit warm, as Rhys did, and superannuated sex-fiends - such as a Certain Slytherin here at this very table - get scorching hot porno -'

Blaise tossed a Rictusempra Ron's way, unsuccessfully: Ron was very good, these days, thanks to the War, with shielding spells. 'Sex-fiend I will admit, but I'm no more decrepit than you are, you ginger twat.'

'- So we're wondering if you're seeing to quite all Blaise's needs properly.'

In his capacity as arbiter, Nev pointed the finger at Justin, who was stammering incoherently, too astonished by the accusation to refute it. 'And we've next round on Justin.'

'Bugger,' Justin sighed.

'Now see here,' Blaise protested, 'you lumbering heterosexual, just because we're not popping out children doesn't mean we're sodding well deprived -'

'Sodding depravedly, but not sodding well deprived,' the Twins intoned, in unison, mock-solemnly.

Colin made a small and mouse-like noise of horror at the thought, and grabbed hurriedly for his pint.

'Better that than Harry and Draco,' Theo said. 'I've made sure that the real reason they don't spend much time in town is that the countryside grid has fewer demands on it. We had them to stay once, and, my God, Pansy shook me awake at midnight on the verge of hysterics.'

'Flashing lights? Sudden cold gales and mini-cyclones out of nothing? Guttering candles and a startling, mysterious fusing of the whole electrical plant?'

'All that and more. Shattered every drop of the damned chandelier over the fortepiano. And I know they'd put up the strongest wards this side of Hogwarts, at that, and the wild magic still seeped out. There's a reason Pansy's damned chary of accepting invitations to weekend with those two, you know.'

'Makes you wonder -'

'- If all the Muggle ghost stories -'

'- Cold spots -'

'- Strange flickers of light -'

'- Exploding lamps -'

'- Electrical surges -'

'- And the whole bag of tricks -'

'- Aren't really just evidence -'

'- Of two Wizards shagging their brains out in the next room.'

'I can see why Ginny learnt so many hexes, sharing a house with you lot,' Colin muttered.

The Twins grinned. 'We know.'

'Give over,' Ron sighed, 'they take that as credit. I should know, mate.'

'Which brings us,' Blaise said, quietly, intensely, 'to our agenda items.'

A stir and a quiver ran through them all as they became serious, with an answering intensity.

'We've dealt with Rhys-lad's matter,' Nev said, stretching his legs towards the Cross Wands's perfectly built fire, and pulling an old briar-pipe from a pocket. Patting himself as he searched for his tobacco-pouch, he went on, 'Lad's coom far from what he was, time they took lad in. Alastor can leave worriting now, wi' explanation.'

'And so we come to the Twosome and the forthcoming quads - Merlin help us all,' Blaise added. 'It seems as if it were but yesterday that the Twosome were in nappies.' He heaved a mock-sigh and pretended to wipe away a tear.

'It seems as if it was just last week Sirius decided he wanted to be called "Jim" instead.'

'It was last week. Right fit he pitched, at that. Especially after Lily walloped him over the head with a toy train.'

'Nothing to the fit Harry pitched. Love the man as we do, you must admit, he Still Has Issues.'

'It were Draco as were t'worst,' Nev said, having gotten his pipe drawing to perfection. 'Not on principle, it were when he found out why.'

Justin snorted. 'Yes, I don't imagine he was at all pleased to hear that "Jim" was a normal name, but the other little sprogs - Muggles all - in the village thought "Sirius" was odd, risible, and poncy. Oh, and "posh" and "toffish", I believe, to boot.'

'Someone say my name?'

'Terry! You managed to turn up after all. Your shout, then, for the next round.'

'We were discussing the upcoming additions to the Malfoy-Potter, Potter-Malfoy, why-in-buggery-they-don't-just-settle-on-Black, ménage.'

'God, four of 'em,' Terry said, catching the barmaid's eye. 'Well, let me get these, and we'll commiserate.'

'"Potfoy", d'you think?' Gred was being conspicuously 'helpful', which never boded well.

'Too near to "Pomfrey", brother mine. "Malter" would work. Sounds like a brewery wallah.'

Colin looked at Ron. 'They like living dangerously, don't they.'

'You've no bleeding idea.'

'I do, really, I married the result, your sister's been warped for life by spending her infancy in that household.'

'Right,' Ron said, 'you've just booked the next one as your shout, you boozing journalist, you should be used to that.'

'Room for a little 'un?'

'You're bringing us beer, Boot, we're not likely to say, No. Budge over, you lot.'

'Right, then, where were we?'

'The forthcoming foursome. Members of the Seconds Club, it is our bounden duty to protect those innocent children from the dangers that await them.'

'Andromeda.'

'Mum.'

'Your missus.'

'Your missus.'

'My missus.'

'Andromeda.'

'We've said her name already.'

'She's twice as dangerous.'

'Then we should spend the next hour repeating Hermione's name like a mantra.'

'Or a day repeating the name of someone truly dangerous.'

'Narcissa.'

'Oh, I thought you meant Tonks.'

'She's a threat only to furniture.'

'Minerva?'

'Well, yes. That's true enough....'

'Nevertheless -'

'- For sheer dangerousness -'

'- Quite often of the man-eating variety -'

'- And we hope, but don't presume, that that's only metaphorical -'

'- It's Narcissa by several lengths, and the field nowhere.'

'Come now, she can't be really a danger, Andromeda and Molly have vetted her.'

'And that'd've been sight to see. From safe distance, sithee.'

'Golly, though.' Colin's cheeks were pink, and he was becoming squeaky and excitable: had he been a Muggle journalist, instead of a Wizarding one, he should doubtless have been snapped up at an early age by the Guardian. 'D'you think, really, that she might be dangerous? I mean, Harry's still a bit trusting even now, and I suppose she could always get 'round Draco, being his Mum and all....'

'Ooo-err,' Dennis said, like the schoolboy he had been, going for the sure laugh. 'Calm down, Colin. I'm sure she's all right, really.'

Gred and Forge emitted, in unison, a notably hollow laugh.

'Fearless Dennis -'

'- Who has so far -'

'- To our knowledge -'

'- Evaded the predatory widow's attentions -'

'But then,' they said, in unison, 'our Den dates only Veelas, jammy sod.'

Dennis grinned and ducked his head. 'Amazing what a reputation for sheer fearlessness will do for a chap.'

'Sly dog.'

Greg guffawed. 'Wonder if Messrs Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, and Prongs sat in a pub - well, Black and Lupin, at least - 'fore Harry was born, having this same sort of convo. Stories I've heard, I wager they did do.'

'Indeed we did,' came a well-known, invariably mild voice from the vicinity of the hob.

'Well, well, look who's turned up.'

'"Darling, it's the man from the Floo!"'

'That's Arthur's line - and era,' Remus chid them, brushing himself down.

'Uncle Neville, he doesn't have a microchip, dog warden says he's a stray, can we keep him? I know he looks like a wolf, but I'm sure he's all right, really....'

'Rise, childer,' Nev grinned, 't'Honourary Member has coom t'join us. What's yours, Remus?'

'Oh, a pint of Boggart Mild.'

'Not Black Dog, if you want a mild?'

'Dark Side?'

'Old Tom?'

'Three Giants - no, that's Hagrid -'

'Pressed Rat - no, Scabbers -'

'Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?'

'I could easily hex you all, you know. I didn't teach you quite everything about Defence: a man needs to keep something in reserve.'

'Right, pint of Boggart Mild it is.'

'To what do we owe t'honour, Great Leader?'

'Honour,' Lupin chuckled. 'I'm very sure. It's quite simple. You're all lunatics, of course, but at least you're not bunged up in a madhouse. It's positive Bedlam back there, with Draco and Harry giving way to the nesting instinct, Sirius and Lily making themselves sick with excitement, and Tinker, Andy, Molly, and Narcissa on a rampage apiece. I only feel sorry Rhys can't slope off to a pub, he needs the relief as much as I do.'

'Christ, what those poor little buggers'll be in for.'

'Well-prepared.'

'Highly-educated.'

'Conventionally-educated, Tinker and Andy'll stuff 'em full of Latin, Greek, and Winnie-the-Pooh before they can walk.'

'Never too early for a Classical education,' Justin said, slightly affronted.

'Still. They could end up. Well. Pampered.'

'Fussed-over.'

'Kept on leading-strings.'

'Spoilt to the squishiest degree of rottenness.'

'No fear, Harry won't wear that for a moment.'

'He'll be the worst of the lot.'

'They did all right by Rhys.'

'Well, there is that. I just hope we don't all of us between us manage to stuff this up royally.'

'Impossible not to feel rather as if, well, they're rather by way of bein' ours, as well. As we did - do - with Sirius and Lily.'

'And so far we've not ballsed that up. Have we?'

'Don't think so.'

'Ah. Whose shout?'

'Mine, I think.'

'I hope the little beggars grow up to have something like this in their lives.'

'I hope they never know what - well, they never know childhoods like ours. Even the good ones involved battle, murder, and sudden death.'

'And war. Here's hoping they never know war.'

'That there's always a Wheeze to hand.'

'That they never get detention.'

'Right, that's past even wishing world peace for them.'

'That they never get caught?'

'Oh, it does them good to get caught. Hope they never get bullied, though.'

'Or bully anyone. Don't like to remember being that sort of shit.'

'Perhaps,' Remus said, carefully, 'we may hope that they learn from and are stronger for the mistakes they'll surely make?'

'I'll drink to that, as they say on the Muggle telly.'

'You watch American imports, don't you.'

'Not the Quodpot broadcasts. Here's hoping they make their House teams.'

'And avoid poisonous, silly rivalries.'

'And have better Defence masters than we did - bar you, of course, Remus.'

'Let's hope they've better even than that,' Remus said. 'Of course, the downside to that is, it would probably be one of their parents.'

'Christ. Imagine if Mum or Dad had been on staff in our day. Here's hoping they give that a miss.'

'May they never know nobbut love from t'ones who raise and teach and guard them.'

'Right-ho, old man. I say, Turk's-Head, you're damned silent.'

Nott nodded, and smiled. 'Thinking, really.' He had been: thinking about the day on which he and Harry Potter had exchanged a glance, just a glance, there beside the horseless carriages, each of them realising that the other could see what creatures truly propelled the conveyances. He had read Harry's face that day, and seen that the fire in the Gryffindor was not some fire come down from Heaven, but had been kindled in Potter's own character by something that Nott, as a Slytherin, could recognise and respect: flint and steel.

It had made a difference. Nott had realised, well before Draco had learnt the lesson, that ambition was not an end in itself, any more than were bravery, loyalty, or the thirst for knowledge; it was the ends to which these were directed: ambitious for what, curious about what, loyalty to what, brave in the service of what: that mattered. And Nott, the loner, the resolute non-joiner, had always been ambitious for freedom, autonomy, independence. For liberty.

It had made a difference. Nott had always been self-sufficient and self-contained, keeping his own counsel, standing aside from any professions of loyalty, never part of Malfoy's clique or of any others in Salazar's House. It had in fact served him well, his house-mates projecting upon the blank screen of his public persona such scenes as they imagined, and leaving him alone and safe, accordingly. Blaise had been something of the same sort, but had kept one politic foot in Draco's camp and the other carefully in the neutral zone that Theo Nott occupied so well. Thus, when the time had come for choosing, and Draco made what had been to some an unexpected choice, the balance of power in Slytherin had been for Nott to settle, Blaise notwithstanding, and it had been Nott's adherence to the Light that had tipped that balance and thrown almost all of Slytherin into the scales for Potter and his crusade.

'Just thinking back,' Theo said. 'I can feel sure that they'll never confront fathers who told them they were the princes of our world, then demanded that they become slaves. What I hope for them, since I don't fear the other for them, is that they will at least have left Hogwarts before they ever see a Thestral.'

Remus and Neville raised their glasses to him, and the others followed suit, in a profound silence.

'Failing that,' Theo said, to elevate the mood, 'we can at least hope they give Peeves unmitigated Hell, and never fall asleep in History of Magic.'

'Wouldn't dare,' Ron said, as they all relaxed into chuckles, 'Hermione'd have the hide off of them, now that it's her classroom.'

_________________________

vi. Little Lamb, Who Made Thee? ('The Lamb')

Remus had not been exaggerating in describing, to the Seconds Club, the mood at home. Although perfectly capable by now of reading for themselves, and having been thus capable for some time, the Terrible Twosome were being used as sounding boards for their elders, who were honing their skills in preparation for having a new intake of infants to spoil - that is, of course, to bring up.

And it had to be admitted that everyone involved had reverted very much to type.

Tinker, for example, who was reading to Sirius ('not "Jim", damn it, boy, you're not a butcher's boy'), regardless of Sirius's wishes in the matter: '"In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk"....'

Sirius, who was, on the whole, despite occasional fits of temperament, an equable child, suffered this with rather good grace. It wasn't as if even Remus hadn't taken suddenly to reading to him by way of practise, and Tinker at least was having fun with it. Remus had been as well, but Remus had the schoolmaster's weakness for the didactic: Alice again the night previous, of course, and Sirius rather suspected the chapter had been carefully, if subconsciously, chosen, in what he had learnt from his elders was the Best Dumbledore Tradition. ('"'Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. 'Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.' And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke."')

At least he had it easier than Lily did. Molly also was running to form - '... "'you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr McGregor's garden'"...' - and, somewhat unexpectedly, Grandmother Malfoy had turned out to have as didactic a streak as did Remus, along with a blinkered inability to see that members of a Certain Other Race of Magical Beings, ahem, might not approve of her choice of Curdie and the Goblins: '"The good, kind people did not reflect that the road to the next duty is the only straight one, or that, for their fancied good, we should never wish our children or friends to do what we would not do ourselves if we were in their position. We must accept righteous sacrifices as well as make them. "'

Oh, well, Sirius thought, as he let Tinker's enthused recitations of Kipling wash over him, it could well have been worse. Rhys, unluckily, had been told off by Aunt Andy to prep for Neo-natal Introduction to Classical Languages, in which Rhys would evidently be assisting; faintly, beneath Tinker's relish in the Just-So Stories, he could hear, from a few rooms away, Aunt Andy correcting Rhys's declamation of the Latin translation of Pooh: '"... ita inscripta: 'TRANSITUS VE'. Cum Christophorus Robinus Porcellum rogavit, quid hoc significaret"....'

Snape, of course, had quite sneakily gotten out of any such duties by the simple, if Slytherin, expedient of resolutely choosing stories guaranteed to induce night terrors in any reasonable child. Grimm. '"'Take me as godfather.' The man asked, 'Who art thou?' 'I am Death, and I make all equal.' Then said the man, 'Thou art the right one, thou takest the rich as well as the poor, without distinction; thou shalt be godfather.'"'

Molly had, to Snape's ill-concealed satisfaction, thrown him all but bodily out of the house after that one.

_________________________

As for Harry and Draco, all of this was at most a brief glimpse in their peripheral vision.

'Bunnies? Bunnies, Potter? I think not. I insist on my swatch.'

'Dragons? For a nursery wallpaper?'

'It's what I grew up with.'

'I rest my case.'

'Oh, and I suppose your nursery - bugger. I forgot. Cupboard.'

'What about ducks?'

'Harry, damn it, look at me. I'm sorry. I'd simply forgotten.'

'And that's fine, love. Better than you to be always remembering it and feeling, I dunno, pity or something.'

'Never that. Empathy? Rage on your behalf? But one thing you must admit, Potter - I never dared pity you.'

'No. That's why even the hurts and hatred helped get us here. So. Non-issue, right? Unlike your daft ideas about suitable furnishings for a nursery.' Harry put his tongue out at Draco, playfully.

Draco slung a pillow at him. 'You wanker. I'll have you know my ideas and tastes, are, as always, impeccable.'

'Ha!'

'I repeat, my tastes are impeccable. After all - married you, didn't I?'

'You have a point. Come here.'

'I see you also have a point.'

'Tosser.'

'Later. So. Ducks it is. What do we argue about next, hmm?'

'You just like the way we resolve arguments.'

'Do not.'

'Nice try. Now unhand my bits and let's figure out a good expansion spell for this whole damned wing.'

'Duck wing.'

'I knew I ought to've insisted on the bunnies.'

'As in, "Bunnies, shagging like, metaphor, for the use of"?'

'Draco! Rebuilding, now! Or you can go help Narcissa instead.'

'Gad. So: windows along here, d'you think?'

_________________________

In the end, after all their effort, the remodelled nursery wing was not so very different to that from which Sirius and Lily had so recently graduated. But it had kept Harry and Draco occupied, in hand and in mind alike, and given time for the air to clear.

That the air had wanted clearing had been evident. Narcissa had wisely limited her visits in Sirius's and Lily's earliest infancy, being then still unsure of her welcome even at the hands of her son. Harry and Draco had accepted, formally, Andromeda's and Albus's assurances of her bona fides, but beneath that formal acceptance, a certain distance, if not distrust, had remained. It had been largely the mere lapse of time and the growth of casual familiarity that had allowed Narcissa to insinuate herself into the household, despite her equivocal past. But with the announcement that there were to be four new 'alembic babies' in the household, born of Draco's and Harry's DNA(m), to be carried by Susan and Millicent and Lavender and Luna ('oh, God,' Draco had belatedly exclaimed, when it was past praying for, 'I suddenly realised that's all four Houses, what if the children somehow take after their surrogates and end up each in a different House?' 'Why, love, would that be a problem?' 'I might be the father of a Hufflepuff!') - well, the case, as the pub sign said, was assuredly altered.

It had fallen to Remus - or Remus had, perhaps, taken it upon himself - to have the matter out with Narcissa. Her row with Snape had been two days previous ('Family loyalty, Severus, because I never forgot who I am, and whose daughter, cousin, mother, and sister I am: I never once forgot that I am Narcissa Livia Electra Nigella Junilla Black, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. What was Lucius Deed-Poll Not-Quite Malfoy to that?'); her confrontation with Remus, the day after the outing to Hambourne-On-Sea.

It had played out in what some might call a drawing-room, but it had been no drawing-room comedy.

Aunt Andy had been there, steely-eyed and watchful. Harry and Draco had walked in just as the fireworks were about to begin. But it had been Remus who faced off with Narcissa, and the reason was not so very far to seek.

'I see,' Narcissa had said, coolly, 'that I am to be - vetted. Speaking of vets, Remus, you're looking a trifle seedy, have you seen yours recently?'

Harry, Draco, and Andromeda had kept silent, by dint of effort.

'That tactic hasn't worked upon me in some years,' Remus answered, a raised eyebrow his sole indication of mild annoyance. 'Is there a reason, bar mere habit, you would want to attempt it?'

'I can't say I'm surprised to find you impervious. People are quite foolishly sentimental where you're concerned, to their peril. Everyone's favourite uncle, Remus Lupin, mild and douce. And here we are, James dead, Sirius dead, that little rat-like creature who hung about you all worse off than were he dead, and it's careworn, kindly Remus Lupin who's the last Wizard standing. But then, you were always the lone wolf sort, weren't you?'

Remus merely yawned, ostentatiously, negligently twirling his wand in his fingers.

'Dear, honest Remus, so unemotional and so faultlessly sweet. Tell me, are you still maintaining that façade? I take it that you are, as I believe - Andy, darling, correct me if I am mistaken - I believe you've managed to get your claws into my niece? I wonder what Sirius would have thought.' She turned a level glance upon her sister, a non-nonsense glance. An old-fashioned glance. 'I am right in thinking we may soon have a Lupin in the family, am I not, 'Dromedary?'

'I really couldn't say, sister, you'd want to ask Nymphadora that.'

'Perhaps I shall. I must say, Remus, you do seem drawn to the Black-ness: Sirius and Nymphadora, by turns. At least, I trust it was by turns?'

'They've certain attractive qualities in common,' Remus said, evenly. 'Not least their rejection of certain of their family's traditions.'

'And you are cross-questioning me to make certain that I do not incarnate those traditions? I've already explained myself to my sister, and to Albus, when he was yet with us, I cannot imagine why I must do so again. And certainly not to you.'

'Harry and Draco want to hear it, with the prospect of seven children in the house. And I want to hear it, given the circumstances of Sirius's death, to which you yourself have adverted.'

'Really. Do you anticipate that I might have my own grandchildren strangled in their beds, then? You've been reading too much Robert Graves.'

'He has the right, Narcissa.' Harry's tone brooked no argument and damned little back-chat. 'And my remit.'

'Really, darling. Then I simply must comply, mustn't I?'

'The first person,' Draco murmured negligently, to no one in particular, 'who uses any phrase ending in "Who-Lived", will quite assuredly regret it.'

'There, there, dear, you mustn't get overwrought simply because you're expecting. And people wonder why the Side of Light and Virtue isn't universally welcomed with glad cries....

'Very well, then. Perhaps you were not listening when I told Severus that I kept a record of all of Lucius's misdeeds, compiled dossiers on his vulgar little friends, ensured that Draco would be useless as a spy for Lucius and a security risk to him as well - darling, you simply cannot hold your tongue, can you? - and never forgot my duty to the Noble and Most Ancient House, and to our blood. I admit, I unfortunately also made Draco rather useless as a spy for the Light, but I never dreamt that the Dark were so incredibly silly that they could have accepted him in their ranks to begin with, which, I confess, was rather overestimating their intelligence. Not that it mattered at the end of the day. On the whole, however, I think that works out to quite a creditable war record. Albus seemed to think so as well....'

'Yes, that's all very well. Most impressive. But you've yet to answer one question, Narcissa.'

'Have I, Lupin? And what is that, pray?'

'Kreacher. Kreacher, Narcissa. It was to you he went when Sirius rashly told him to bugger off, and it was his going to you that compromised Sirius and the Order, and led Sirius to his death at your sister's own hand. Would you care to explain that - if you can?'

'You've not had much to do with House-elves, have you, Remus? The little shits are quite remarkably passive-aggressive when they choose to be.' She turned her back rather pointedly on Remus, and addressed herself to Harry.

'You, Harry, on the other hand, have had much to do with them. I am better aware of that than most.'

'Are you, now.'

She laughed at him. 'Am I not? It was not primarily the Fidelius charm on Grimmauld Place that Kreacher wanted to work around, you know. House-elves "does what they is told", as I believe Winky is fond of observing. Yet Dobby - despite the consequences, and however less than artfully - managed to get away from Malfoy Manor, of all unlikely places, warn you of Lucius's plots, and help you foil them, before - note that, please: before - you freed him from Lucius.

'Now, darling, do think. I don't imagine Lucius was warning you against himself by the agency of a mad House-elf. I don't think Draco was yet at the stage of writing sonnets to you at that age and dashing off to spend inordinate amounts of time in the bog whenever your name was mentioned, that came later -'

'MOTHER!'

'- and in any event, Draco, at that age, with his father living, was not the, ah, "man of the house" such that he could order Dobby to disobey Lucius.'

'Y-. You sent Dobby to warn me against Lucius.'

'Darling! Who else could have done, hmm? And what happened next?'

'What do you mean?'

'Harry, my dear, you - unlike Remus - know by experience what transpires should one try to ignore a ... House-elf With A Mission. I am correctly informed, am I not, that Dobby forced you to pay attention by causing a complete military cock-up with your Muggle relations and attracting the attentions of those fools we had at the Ministry in those days?'

'Yes....'

'Then do you seriously believe that Kreacher didn't manage to force himself into my presence, clamouring, at precisely the worst possible times for Sirius and the Order? Of course the little beast made sure that Lucius and as many of his appalling chums heard everything he had to say. Had I not been a better actress, I should have been dead thrice over. I'm unutterably sorry that I was not able to find a way to warn Sirius in time. But I made sure Lucius and Kreacher paid in full, in the end: in full, and, it may be, a trifle over.'

'The dossiers at his trial.'

'Not quite "all my own work", as the pavement artists used to say when I was a girl and we went up to town. But much of it, yes. Is that sufficient, or shall we have it all through a second time, with Veritaserum in my tea?'

'Why in the name of Merlin did you not tell us all this earlier?' Draco had shot to his feet, and was quivering with indignation. 'Damn it, Mummy! The damned War's been done and dusted for years, why must you persist in presenting yourself as someone ... well, suspect? Why didn't you tell us all of this long since?'

'Darling, you are the last person to whom I'd thought this wanted explaining. For many years the price of my - and your - survival was my maintaining a flawless cover as Mrs Death-Nosh. You and I both would long since have been mouldering away in the family mausoleum had I not trained myself to make this second nature, so that I never betrayed myself and you by the slightest gesture. Ask Severus how difficult it is to throw that off after years of pretence with one's life hanging by a thread. Or did you never do the same yourself, even in merely hiding what Lucius would have found an unsuitable infatuation, hmm?

'And if I am disappointed in you, in your wanting this set out in simple steps - I had thought you were past the need for Cow-and-Gate solutions, but perhaps you're not so mature as I had thought - I am still more disappointed that you, of all people, require to be walked-through the emotional issue. Albus had sealed me with his approval. Andromeda had vouched for me. I am your mother. There comes a point at which one hopes that the prejudices that attach to a name or a family or a Hogwarts House or indeed a temperament, vide Severus, cease to operate, and that the Side of Light would give over its assumptions and bigotries. I should have thought that you, Draco, would realise that from your own experience. Yet the cross-examinations continue. I wonder just how many allies you lost in the years between the Wars in consequence of that attitude.'

'Given Pettigrew?' Harry's voice was mild, but his eyes belied that. 'Hell, given half the Ministry's being traitors? Christ, Narcissa, we didn't have the right to trust people.'

'Do you now?'

'Yes.'

'And - do you?'

'When given reason.'

'Then I trust we are done here, one way or another.' She stood, and turned to go.

'Narcissa?'

'Yes, Harry?'

'There's little point in your popping back and forth from the Manor every damned day. Would you prefer the Blue Room, or to share the Dower House with Molly?'

She carried it off handsomely, as if she had never doubted the verdict thus subtly pronounced, but Andromeda noted the slight relaxation of the muscles around Narcissa's eyes and mouth: relief. 'The Dower House would be lovely, dear, Molly and I can plot to spoil the grandchildren together.'

'I'll send the House-elves over tomorrow, then,' Draco said, having caught Harry's eye.

'And I'll lend a hand,' Remus said.

'Thank you,' Narcissa said, with a small smile. 'That will be lovely.'

'Shall I walk you out?' Remus had answered her smile with a grave nod.

'Will it cause my niece to hex me?'

'I think we can risk it,' Remus said. 'I am rather good at Defence, you know.'

Andromeda shared a look, then a grin, with Harry and Draco as the door closed behind the ill-assorted couple. The grin became a shared laugh as they heard Tonks's mock-plaintive cry from without: 'Mummy! Aunt Narcissa is poaching my fiancée!'

'Well,' Andy said, 'that puts paid to Narcissa's question about Remus's intentions.'

_________________________

vii. Lessons and Carols: In the Bleak Midwinter / the Sussex Carol / O Little One Sweet / Wither's Rocking Hymn / There Is No Rose / the Wessex Carol / the Wiltshire Carol

A year and a half had passed. The four new Wizardlings had arrived as per schedule, in April: Albus Remus Draco Justin, Neville Henry Ronald Blaise, Narcissa Ginevra Hermione Minerva, and Mary Rose Petunia Andromeda, to be coddled and cosseted, dandled by Rhys and cooed over by Sirius and Lily, and lulled to sleep in a nursery charmed - like the Great Hall at Hogwarts - to resemble a peaceful streamside, where meadow met coppice, made delightful with ducklings beneath an ever-placid sky.

Now it was time for their first Christmas. There was no question where it would be celebrated.

It would be unfair to say that Harry disliked going up to town: even to Diagon Alley and Wizarding London, even to Grimmauld Place. Harry did not dislike it. He hated it, loathed it, and despised it. Were it not for the necessity of attending board meetings at Gringotts - they owed the Goblins that courtesy and much more, since the War, and they knew what a compliment it was to them that the Goblins had allowed them a directorship each - he and Draco would hardly set foot in London twice a year, were it up to them.

In fact, the only person Harry knew who more dreaded going up to town was Draco - although Ron ran a close second, just edging Nev.

It might, of course, have made sense for them all to forgather at Grimmauld Place for all their feasts and celebrations, their beanfeasts, gaudies, and the like; but sense entered into it very lightly, if at all.

Instead, all through Advent, with Rhys joining them so soon as Hogwarts had broken up for the Christmas hols, they had gone on what inevitably resembled, whether Harry (at least) liked it or not, a Tudor royal progress.

They had been to Hogsmeade, where the winds without underscored the warmth of the fire and the welcomes within, and the snow had swirled magically about the Hogwarts ramparts.

They had been to Neville's red sandstone hall set in his overgrown acres of farmland, a hall half-crumbling and uninhabitable, the other half at best comfortably down at heel (the Longbottoms had never had any real money): Hurstholme Thorpe, at Long Bottom, where the air was cold and crisp and clean under an illimitable sky, between the forest and the fells. (Muggles passing by saw only a tumbledown ruin, scheduled Dangerous, there on the eaves of the green roof of England: which was precisely the point.)

They had been to Justin's Cambridgeshire, to ffinch Hall, Fletchley Abbas, near Burwell, bordered by fens dyked like a chessboard, where the clouds off the North Sea scudded past like the strings of horses exercising on Newmarket Heath, and the golden daffodils tossed in the endless winds off the cold, field-grey German Sea.

They had been to the Burrow, of course, as snug to the fresh Devon winds, striking inland from the Channel coasts, as it was ramshackle to the eye, joy and laughter spilling forth from it like the candle-light and fire-light from its windows in the purpling evenfall.

They had been to Killderg, between the River Derg and the Fairy Water, to Laghvaghan House of the Finnegans, hard by the Muggle border, long and low amidst its sere lawns dusted with snow, looking out over the millstream that ran into the Fairy Water, above the water-powered beetling mill where the best and finest of Wizarding linens and the sturdiest of Wizarding woollens were still manufactured by Seamus's family, as they had been since time out of mind, and, upstream, the ancient distillery of the Finnegans's immemorial neighbours, rivals, and in-laws, those Ascendancy Ogdens.

They had been to the Kentish farmstead to which Dean had removed his family from their council flat in Tower Hamlets: to Kent, fat and fruited garden of England even in Winter, where the Thomases now dwelt at Pluckley Chart Farm, in the mixed Wizarding-Muggle community that lies in the triangle formed by Maltman's Chart, Tuestead, and No Quarter, West-Northwest of a line from Ashford to Tenterden. Dean's mother and stepfather were content and snug, having taken naturally to the space and the stillness after long residence in the jostling, kaleidoscopic East End, an East End that was no longer that of their own youth, as newer immigrants had arrived to displace the Afro-Caribbean population and the East End Methodist Mission - Dean's family were firmly Chapel - had given way to mosques; his pin-sharp sisters, Angela and Rosie, were now at Cobham Hall School, and would surely go on to University. The Thomas's house was on the last slope of the dwindling Downs, sheltered like a lamb against his dam's flank, with the grazing land for the sheep whose wool the Finnegans bought, and the arable planted in Wizarding hops contracted for by Ogden's, spread out below. They fit in their new landscape as if born there, even under the immemorial Downs, where the oldest things in all Old England, Puck's People of the Hills, heath-people, hill-watchers, good people, and night-riders, still kept vigil; and Dean's siblings were more than half country-folk already, the London hardness and sharpness already abrading from them.

From thence, of course, they had perforce gone up to town, if for no better reason than to finish their buying Christmas gifts, and stayed at Grimmauld Place with Remus and Tonks, who were its tenants and holders now in all but name - and the date of whose nuptials was a recurrent dinner-table topic.

London, particularly Wizarding London, was at its best now, the trippers and tourists less noisy and less noisome, or perhaps merely less noticed amidst the excited anticipation, the bustle and building cheer that precedes Christmas. Occasional light sprinklings of snow, like sugar on a complicated bit of confectionary, helped mask its imperfections and its grime. Yet London, Muggle and Wizarding alike, might yet have been Canaletto's London, or Turner's, and still it had failed to charm the master of Malfoy Manor and the son of the Staines suburbs alike. The Thames, like a torpid snake, gleamed for them in vain with its winter hues of pewter, silver, and lead. The morning light surging up the river from the sea like a tidal bore, the evening light spilling over the Chilterns and Richmond Hill, floating down past Eton and Henley, the noontide light striking sparks from windowpane and brick and steel, did not kindle in them. And the liquid gold of dawn and of sunset on the stones of London town was but gilt and plaster, nothing worth, to the flame of light upon the Chilmark stones of home.

No, Christmas and Christmas cheer had a home, and that home, in the West. It was with relief that they turned their faces homewards, to their own country. To Salisbury, where the vaulting of cathedral and chapter-house was the first, merest adumbration of a theme, a whistled tune, that the tracery of high-crowned trees in the Close and the watermeadows and the Elizabeth Garden took up, in deep, symphonic harmony, especially in Winter when bough and branch were bare, and the Divine symmetry of their ancient forms stood out against a cold, incomprehensibly remote sky around the soaring spire. To Salisbury Plain and the chalk and the Winter sky infinitely clear and distant, faint blue-white at the horizon and a deep, cold, unimaginable pure blue at the zenith. To the Wylye Valley and the Great Ridge, and Grovely Wood's Gothic arches of bare limbs against the sky, and the Hall and its ancient stone that whispered of magics older still.

Home, for Christmas, for the first ever Christmas of the four new babies, and the first for Rhys and for the Twosome to marvel over and indulge the four newest of the family.

Home for the foursome's first Advent and first Christmas, the beginning of the year, when was remembered the gift of a Child.

It was Christmas Day, in the fading of the light as the afternoon dwindled, and the foursome, the blessed babes, were sound asleep. Outside, a fiery sky, as the sun, westering, stately as a gavotte, moved to kiss the horizon; inside, warmth and light and cheer.

They had all of them crowded into the ancient country church the night before, even Hagrid and Olympe, even Narcissa urbanely elegant and bored, even the Grangers and the chapel-going Thomases, the Quaker Longbottoms and the RC Finnegans and the Methodist Patils and Presbyterian Minerva, even Snape, caustic as his own potions, all well-behaved (even the Weasley Twins and their spiritual heirs, the Twosome of Sirius and Lily) under the firm hand of Molly Weasley, the observant eye of Arthur Weasley, and the faultless politeness of Master Rhys. Disillusionment charms in place - Arthur did not believe in the wholesale Obliviating of innocent Muggle parishioners - they had insisted on attending despite the deprecations of their hosts, because they knew how important this was to Harry and Draco, who were at their rightful places in the choir, with local vet and local farmer, garage-man and labourer, farm-wife and baronet's lady and solicitor's clerk and an undergraduate up at 'the House', Christ Church, Oxford (whose tell-tale tie Tinker had spotted from three hundred yards).

Tallis and Byrd and Darke, Rutter, Willcocks, and Gant, Lauridson, Edwards, Wood, and Duruflé, Poulenc and Hayden and Bach. Praetorius and Warlock, Tavener and Shaw. Rural parish church or not, they were on that night at least the best choir in England, and the Precentor in Sarum could not have asked for or gotten more or better from his singers and organist.

And now it was Christmas Day, and, after a late breakfast, the importunity of children, from Weasleys to Creeveys to the littlest Longbottom and the new foursome of Harry's and Draco's, had been long since yielded to, and gifts exchanged: even by Minerva, unbending to play at Christmas when - as everyone knew perfectly well - it was Hogmanay that mattered. Now the youngest of the younger set were asleep for a brief time of respite, House-elves at the ready should they wake or be in need, and it was time for the feast.

Goose - geese, a flock of them - and venison, and a saddle of mutton that was a gift from the Thomases, a wild boar personally skewered by one Rubeus Hagrid ('Cute little thing, 'e were' - all four hundred pounds of him - 'fer a Muggle beast, but, there, I figgered we wanted summat for th' table, so I made sure 'e et only mast fer a month, then speared 'im and hung 'im fer yeh'), Beacon Fell cheese and potted Morecambe Bay shrimps and hot-pot all brought by Nev's Gran, a Wensleydale cheese simply stuffing with berries courtesy of the tetchy and oft-discourteous Zacharias Smith, puddings and trifles and cakes swimming in golden syrup and treacle and jam....

Bradenham ham and Bath chap and a roast of beef that defied belief, Brown Windsor soup simply because Draco liked it and no damned Brussels sprouts because Harry had put his foot down, steak and kidney pud and pheasant and a cellar-full of root vegetables and another cellar-full of wines, ales, port, sherry, and Madeira, and talk and laughter and old jokes and new teasing that sounded, together, as if a bustard and a few owls had gotten into a particularly loud rookery.

Weasleys by the score and Longbottoms and Creeveys and Thomases and Finnegans and Padma's and Parvati's gorgeous younger brother Pankaj, Wizard though he was, going on about his obsessive love of Muggle cricket to a couple of interested Macmillan connexions, Severus and Minerva and the Grangers and Poppy laughing at one of Flitwick's more involved stories: yes, this was the reward of victory. Draco looked up from where he had been helping Arabella get Petunia settled (it was, blessedly, one of Petunia's vague days, such that she did not notice the alarming people gathered 'round about), and saw Harry chatting patiently with Boot and Nott and Smith.

Ron had heard his sudden intake of breath. 'A Potter and a Smith,' he said, with a smile. 'Makes us weasels and ferrets seem small, right, cousin?'

Draco nodded. He had been thinking just that. There before him stood a Smith, after all, whose magic was old in the land when Midacrites the Phocaean had first voyaged to the Cornish Stannaries, the Cassiterides of Greek geography, in search of tin; yet older still, without whom the Smith would never have arisen, was the Potter, the father of all magicians. As long as Wizardkind had been in Britain, the Potters had been a power in the land, their power drawn from the land's own magic, earth and water and air and fire. It amazed him sometimes that Harry, his Harry, was his at all.

Harry, feeling as he always did the merest touch of Draco's gaze upon him, looked up and smiled at him, his face open and suffused with love. In a few quick strides, Draco crossed to stand beside him, and felt the warmth of Harry's hand slipping into his own.

'Happy Christmas, love.'

'Happy Christmas, my love.'

Yes. This is what they had fought for.

_________________________

FAREWELL, rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.
And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbeys,
The Fairies' lost command!
They did but change Priests' babies,
But some have changed your land.
And all your children, sprung from thence,
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as Changelings ever since
For love of your demains.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth
These pretty ladies had;
When Tom came home from labour,
Or Cis to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late, Elizabeth,
And later, James came in,
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.

By which we note the Fairies
Were of the old Profession.
Their songs were 'Ave Marys',
Their dances were Procession.
But now, alas, they all are dead;
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for Religion fled;
Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure!
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punished, sure;
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue.
Oh how the commonwealth doth want
Such Justices as you!

_________________________

END

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NOTE: I may add that, whilst the Cross Wands public house is, of course, inaccessible to Muggles, everything the Seconds Club were drinking is available in our world, and all are scheduled by Camra - the Campaign for Real Ale - as generally available (as opposed to seasonal brews, for example).