“You’re angry”, Harry noticed. Lyra was actively fuming. Her emotions were always clear and easy to read, and now she looked like she wanted to strangle something.

“I’m not merely angry. I’m furious. That abominable umpire cheated us of two points, and I don’t even know what our Keeper was doing. I’m going to beat him into a pulp. We lost to Hufflepuff. Can you imagine that? Hufflepuff! When we lose to you, there’s at least some dignity in that. This is a humiliation”.

Putting it into words made her calm down somewhat. He took her sweaty hand in his and just held her. Her breathing gradually calmed.

“Thank you. For letting me be angry. I needed that. And thank you for being here for me and holding my hand. I feel better”.

“Sure. I might do the same next time we lose”, he smiled. “Even if we lose to you. Although, whining to you about losing to you might feel humiliating”.

“Oh, I will like that”, she snickered.

“I’m sure you will. But believe it or not, I might like it as well. It makes defeat hurt less when the scary girl you lost to lets you hold her hand”. He looked her at her silver eyes and watched her cheeks go pink. “But let me ask you something. Why do you play? Is it just winning? You don’t have to answer if it’s too private”.

“No, it’s ok. I like winning, of course. I like flying; especially fast, avoiding obstacles, navigating in space, where there’s danger of crashing into something and the stakes are high. I like the excitement, the adrenaline. I like spreading my focus wide, and still observing the details. I like the unpredictability of getting the snitch. It makes me feel like a predatory bird in the air, hunting a canary or a sparrow. I like feeling like a hawk or an eagle, parked in the air, seeing everything, hunting, ready to launch myself at the target”, she smiled widely, and her hand felt warmer as she was happy. “How about you?”

“It’s quite similar for me. I like the speed, the risk, the excitement, the adrenaline, the independence of playing my own game, making up my own strategy and rules, feeling in charge, hunting. I also like outsmarting the other seeker, seeing the snitch first, ending the game on my own terms. Also, my father played, and when I win, I like to think I’m making him proud. Losing sucks, though”, he shrugged.

“How do you feel when we play against each other? Losing to me. Beating me. I’d like to hear how it feels”, she looked into his eyes.

“It’s weird. I like competing with you, because you’re scary good at everything, and if I win, I have a feeling that at least I beat you at something, and you won’t think I’m a boring loser. But when you lose, I’m afraid you’re going to feel bad and I don’t want you to feel bad. I’m never letting you win on purpose, though. That would be disrespectful”, he smiled.

“Thank you. I don’t particularly like losing to you either. I like to win at least sometimes, because then I feel like I belong here with you, that we’re equals, that you won’t think I’m useless and weak and hold my hand out of pity. I want you to hold my hand because you’re proud of me, and nobody can be proud of a loser”, she winked.

“It’s strange to hear you say it, because it sounds so much like what I’m feeling. I feel like I have to prove myself in order to be here with you, that you won’t respect me if I’m not competent, sharp, successful”, he nodded in dismay. “I think we’re both insecure about each other, and I thought it was just me”.

“Of course we’re insecure. We’re both powerful, competent, dangerous, wealthy, famous and deadly, Harry. We’re not fluffy bunnies. We’re two eagles roaming the sky, predatory and dominant. We could kill each other. I’m not with you because you’re weak, or safe. You’re the only person who makes me feel insecure, makes me have to prove myself and earn my place. I hold your hand because I like the feeling of the most powerful, deadly boy I know holding my hand and being gentle. If it makes me feel like I have to earn the right to be here, I will earn it”, she smiled.

He kissed her hand slowly, respectfully. “You are really something, scary girl. I have never met anyone like you”.

She gasped and closed her eyes. “Next time you lose and vent, I’m kissing your hand.”

“Might be worth it. Having the scariest girl in the world kiss my hand would be quite something”, he grinned.

“Don’t lose just for the experience, though. It would be a shame”, she drew his hand towards her lips, closed her eyes and kissed it. He closed his eyes and shivered. “Wow”, he gasped.

“Tell me how it felt”, she whispered, eyes still closed.

He paused, collecting himself. “I’m not sure I have the words. It feels like we exchanged the deepest mutual respect I ever felt with another person, and I know Dumbledore. This was deeper. Lyra, if a war breaks out, we’ll be in the opposing camps. Fighting you would be like trying to kill my mother, were she alive, or Dumbledore. I feel like I’d rather let you kill me than fight you. We’re not doing a good job being enemies”, he smiled painfully.

“Wars come and go. People change allegiances. This stays”, she smiled. “And yes, if we ever get to fight in a war, I’ll let you kill me”.

…

Harry winced at the memory. A few years later, he would be holding her bleeding body on the bathroom floor and begging for her life. And why, because he was a fool and wanted to try something with some safe girl, who’s not a scary enemy. It gave him nothing, and cost him everything. Or almost. He needs to ask.

Harry thought about something Hermione told him a while ago – that Lyra is a serious person. When people hear something like that, especially when young people hear it, the idea they have in their mind is so incredibly contrary to her reality. By serious, they would mean boring, uptight, without a sense of humour, dry, and so many other things that make sense to them only because they define ‘serious’ as opposite of ‘fun’. However, ‘serious’ is also opposite of ‘superficial’, it’s the opposite of ‘casual’, of ‘temporary’, of ‘half-assed’, and many other things. People usually have a few serious moments in their lives, moments that matter – the important things they share with the person they love, like the first kiss, the first declaration of love, asking for your love’s hand in marriage, your wedding wows, first day at school, graduation, your parents being proud of you for your success, your children being born. First time you have sex with the person you love the most in the entire world. That’s the opposite of boring. That’s the essence of life condensed in a moment.

But that’s the way Lyra is serious. That’s why he thought of her as the scary girl. She’s the scary girl because every second of looking into her eyes is serious like the first kiss, your parent’s pride, your wife saying ‘yes’, your children being born, winning a war and saving your friend’s life. It’s that kind of serious, and it’s the whole aura around her. She doesn’t fuck around. She doesn’t play with words because she’s too cowardly to state her true feelings. If she thinks you have beautiful eyes, she will tell you, and it will feel like you graduated school with highest distinction, and your parents are proud of you. If she thinks you’re a mudblood subhuman, she will tell you, and it’s no wonder Hermione said that nothing ever hurt her like Lyra’s words. It feels like a perfect angel telling you that you’re worthless. He never experienced it from her, because she was always particularly careful and gentle with her words about him, but she did it to other people and it was incredibly hurtful.

She is serious the way Voldemort was serious, or the way Snape was serious. The way Dumbledore was serious when he talked about deeper, sublime laws of magic. Every word and nuance is frighteningly important. Except Lyra was nothing like Voldemort. When Lyra tells you something, it’s the highest truth she can formulate in her mind, and it really matters. If she tells you how she feels, you can feel her soul in the words. If she loves you, it’s with her entire heart and forever. If she hates you, you are as good as dead. And now, she’s in the Auror office taking her exams, because some people needed to die, and she wanted to make sure that happened.

He was exempt. They told him that hunting for Horcruxes, breaking into the Ministry and the Gringotts bank, and dismantling and killing Voldemort in front of everybody counts as passing the entrance exam with distinction, and he smiled and accepted the job. Lyra, however, had to do the formal part.

They also offered him, Hermione and Ron to skip the rest of the school, but Hermione was adamant – she wanted to do school properly because she would need it in her later work, and he agreed. Skipping school isn’t useful, especially if you’re an Auror. Ron was inclined to take the easy way as usual, but peer pressure dissuaded him. Lyra, of course, wanted to be where he is, so they attended the last year together, as a couple, and married after school.

Some things couldn’t wait, so they did the work for the Auror office during school, as consultants. Death Eaters were on the run and you need to strike that iron while it’s hot. He and Lyra already did political work on reconciliation of the society, but that doesn’t mean that the truly evil ones get to go deep undercover. Lyra had different ideas.

He thought again about the ‘serious’ thing. With her, it translated into things like her playing with his hand when they were 14 and talking about pureblood politics under a tree or in the hallways. It was a casual thing, but it was also a soul-level connection between them, something intimate and direct, like having your hand in a lie detector while you talk to her. If you would sweat, or tighten, or anything, she would feel it. He would feel her hand go slippery with sweat when he asked a hard question and her adrenaline spiked because answering it was hard in a deep way. It forced them to be honest, and it forced them to be gentle, because you don’t want to hurt the scary girl and feel her pain. Hurting her would feel terrible, because of how honest, straightforward and gentle she was. So, this physical intimacy forced them to maintain such an incredible standard of kindness and honesty with each other, that most people wouldn’t be able to emotionally bear it. Honesty without a filter. Often about their most personal, intimate feelings, like his vague memories of his mother and father, and her memories of her parents. They would talk about what their love for their parents felt like. She would talk about how her father would read to her when she was little. How her mother taught her. The magical, most private moments of childhood. He would talk about how he missed his parents, how he loved Sirius and Lupin, how he learned the hard spells. How he hoped his parents would be proud of him. It was that kind of serious – the opposite of ‘superficial’, ‘perfunctory’, ‘unimportant’. They talked about the most important stuff in their lives, stuff that mattered, stuff that decided fate, while they physically touched, to keep each other honest and gentle.

And when they stopped touching, when they stopped talking, within two years they went to Crucio and Sectumsempra. It’s so easy to hate and kill the enemy when you’re not touching her, looking into her eyes and feeling her hand tighten when you hurt her, and you instantly feel so bad about it you want to make it better. It’s so easy to hate the enemy when she’s not a person. Especially when you’re not acutely aware of how beautiful, pure and perfect that person is. If you’re not feeling her exact emotions in that exact moment, right now. He almost killed the scary girl before understanding that she’s everything to him. Nothing, nobody, was that important, and that serious.

Ah, they seem to be done. The examiners accompanying her back to him looked pale and shaken. “She received the highest grades in the history of the test”, the elderly gentleman stated in disbelief. “Her magical ability is… off the charts. Without precedent, and I’ve seen Dumbledore and Voldemort do magic. I don’t even know how she does it, and how it’s possible. She doesn’t even use spells, she accesses the magical tissue of the deeper world”, he gestured in dismay.

“I had to place wards and practice offensive and defensive magic every single day for three years while living in a Death Eater den that happened to be my ancestral home, your honour”, she smiled and bowed kindly. “People usually practice for their ego, because they want to be the best wizard, because they wanted power and acclaim. I did it because I didn’t want to have my liver eaten by Fenrir Greyback while still alive, trembling in mortal agony on the cold floor of my bathroom when I went to pee in the middle of the night, begging for death to come quickly. Let’s just say I was supremely motivated”.

They all shivered from the sheer horror of that statement, because, as always, she said it like it was. She said it in the way that made them feel what it was like, like it was them. That’s what ‘serious’ meant. She wielded reality itself with her very existence and every moment was sacred. She was an Auror now. Some people are going to learn what it’s like when the roles reverse, between hunters and prey. He smiled, feeling fierce pride in his heart that this serious, frightening, wonderful person was his wife. Also, that they are co-workers now.

“Hermione, I need your help.” Harry was deep in thought. “You figured it out so much earlier than me. You’re both smarter and more perceptive than me. Please, advise me. I don’t want to mess this up. I want to put it right. What am I not seeing? Tell me what to do”.

She finished her apple. “How do you feel about her? Be honest.”

“I always used to call her ‘the scary girl’ internally. That’s weird, because I find probably four people scary in the whole world. Voldemort. Snape. Bellatrix Lestrange. I can’t think who the fourth one might be. They are all the most dangerous monsters in the world.“

“I found her genuinely scary. I was thinking why, because it made no sense. She never harmed me. She never threatened me. She was always kind to me. I had the deepest conversations in my life with her and Dumbledore. She’s the most beautiful girl I ever saw, she’s more beautiful than anything I could possibly imagine. Her mind is crystal clear, powerful and pure. Her heart feels like the most amazing place in the world. What I actually think is that I’m scared of how important she is to me, and because the way she’s important is in contrast with the points of contention we had between us, that were too important to dismiss”, he mused.

“What were the points of contention, and are they still so now?” She looked straight into his eyes.

“Well, obviously, she’s a child of Death Eaters who worship Voldemort and she kept justifying both Voldemort and her parents, which I found terrifying. In hindsight, I was terrified of falling for her the way I should, while she has those attitudes and opinions”, he nodded, satisfied with his conclusion. “I don’t think she believes in any of the evil stuff any more. I think she’s just trying to survive and save her parents’ lives”.

“Harry, I need to know one thing. How serious are you with her? I’m asking you this because she’s a serious person. Don’t play with her heart. She’s not a school girlfriend. She’s the kind you say ‘yes’ to at the altar, and you mean it forever”, Hermione looked at him seriously.

“Hermione, she and I used to talk about what eye colour our children will have. I remembered it just before. I don’t know how or why I repressed it. I don’t know if she can forgive me for hurting her so much and abandoning her for two years. My behaviour towards her was horrible and I’m absolutely ashamed of myself”, Harry shivered slightly and rubbed his forehead.

“That’s the easy part. What I want to know is, do you want to ask her to marry you? Are you really, really serious? I have to repeat this – she’s a serious person. She chose you extremely long ago. She never wavered. You’re the one who broke you up. She’s not the kind of a person you can ever play with if you don’t mean it, and by ‘mean it’, it truly is what eye colour your children will have, and where you will live when you’re both old and grey. You need to treat her with the utmost respect and seriousness, because from what you told me, she’s in a desperate situation. You will either dedicate your life to dealing with this, or we shouldn’t even be having this conversation”, she emphasised her point.

Harry thought about it for a moment. “I was always serious. That’s why I found her terrifying. I was scared of either falling for her while she’s with the Death Eaters, or messing this up, because both options look terrifying. Yes, I want her as my wife. Forever. I want to bind my fate to hers. Whether we die together or have children and grandchildren, I don’t particularly care. How do I make this right after I messed it up so thoroughly?”

“Go to her as soon as you can, preferably at the funeral tomorrow, and confess. Tell her that you love her and that you want her. Ask if she will have you. Tell her the greatest truth you feel, directly. There should be no games, no nonsense or ambiguities of any kind. If I’m correct, the only thing she ever wanted to hear is that you love her, that you want her, and that you’re as committed to her as she is to you. Harry, you’re a very direct, loyal and committed person, but I’m afraid she is even more so. You can’t even imagine how serious she is. I saw her only in passing. She used to insult me with the stupid Death Eater nonsense. I will tell you, nothing ever hurt me as much as her insults, because of how seriously she meant them, and how much it hurt to be hated by such a great person. They no longer hurt because I think she changed her mind, but I would never, ever want to have that woman as an enemy. I would be thrilled to have her as a friend. She is incredibly focused, virtuous, moral, pure of heart and loyal. In that, she looks like your exact counterpart. I understand why you had reservations – when she’s wrong, it’s a terrible thing. She can do horrible evil when her will power combines with ignorance. But I suspect that to be loved by her would feel incredibly wonderful, the way it’s wonderful to be loved by you”, she finished with a smile.

“I do love you, you know”, Harry hugged her. “Thank you. You found me a way.”

“Say a good word for me when you get to truly talk to her, ok?”, Hermione smiled widely. “I never want to be on bad terms with that woman. She’s too wonderful not to have as a friend, and I wouldn’t want to miss it”.

…

“Hermione Granger” – a familiar voice sounded and Hermione froze in anticipation and uncertainty. “You killed Fenrir Greyback in battle. I swore vengeance against that vermin, but you did my work for me, and for this, I am in your debt. I am, however, already deeply in your debt for many years, for petty, pointless and untrue insults I directed at the good, pure woman who never did me any harm or wronged me in any way. Please, accept my deepest apologies”, Lyra bowed deeply before Hermione, whose lip started trembling and her eyes swam in tears. “And if you can find a way in your beautiful heart to forgive me, it would be my honour if you could consider me a friend”, she smiled shyly.

Hermione didn’t trust her voice and just embraced her. “Thank you, Lyra”, she whispered.

“No; thank you, Hermione, for being so patient with my terrible nonsense while I was learning. I cannot tell you how ashamed I was of the way I treated you while I was surrounded by that horrid vermin in my ancestral home, when I saw the ultimate end products of that ideology, and how terribly I wronged you. I yearned to apologise to you for years, but I had no opportunity to do so. But now, will you accept a gift from a friend?”, Lyra begged, and Hermione nodded.

Lyra waved her wand and two packages appeared. “This is a very ancient, rare tome from the Malfoy family library. I hear there are only three copies in existence, and this is one of them. I heard that you appreciate old books”, she winked. “The second gift is a box of very fine chocolates. We might share those over a cup of tea, if you will have me”, she smiled angelically. “And if you could be my maid of honour at our wedding, it would be my greatest honour and privilege”, she concluded mischievously.

Hermione just hugged her again and cried for real.

“I’m the dumbest ass in the history of dumbassery”, Harry said to himself. “Hermione deserves the right to tell me ‘I told you so’ until I die”.

“That’s a given, but why exactly?”, Hermione smilingly approached from behind and startled him.

“You were right about me and Lyra, and I was such a stupid idiot, you should charge me an idiot tax”, he smiled back ruefully. “You see, when I started looking at other girls after the Triwizard Tournament, I felt there’s something wrong. I ignored it, because there’s always something wrong. Then she saw me flirting and started avoiding me and looking at me like she wants to kill me. I concluded her dear Voldemort is back and she can no longer afford to have me as a friend, or even a frienemy. I missed our talks and I was angry at her for breaking us up. On the other hand, whenever I tried something with other girls, something was off, and something was missing. Everything was missing, actually, and I didn’t understand what. I thought Voldemort broke my brain by trying to break into it constantly, and I freaked out. Then I started hunting Lyra when I figured out she’s trying to kill Dumbledore, until I cornered her in the girls’ bathroom and hit her with that terrible thing, and when I held her bleeding body, I felt that thing that was missing coming back to me, and everything in my memory that resembled it lit up at the same time, and it was all her. It was like half of my brain coming back from deep coma. I stopped being angry and depressed all the time, and I understood that it was all because I missed her, and it’s not what I thought it was. I never had a name for what we are to each other. It’s not like anything I felt with other girls. It doesn’t feel romantic. She feels like a body part, honestly.”

“She’s your wife”, Hermione nodded.

“What?”, Harry fumbled in shock.

“You heard me. She’s not a girlfriend. It’s not a school romance. She’s not a friend. I’ve seen you together. I never saw anyone who isn’t married for at least ten years be like that. She seems to know, but you”, she sighed, “You should be hammering nails into hard wood with your head, because your head is harder than any rock”.

“Damn”, whispered Harry. “How did I manage to mess this up?”

“You were emotionally very invested into being oblivious”. She took an apple and left.

…

“Do you see the colour of my eyes?”, Lyra asked while they sat under a tree in the park.

“Of course I do”, Harry smiled.

“It’s in my family for untold centuries. It’s one of the genetic markers of a magical lineage. It was preserved because of our pure blood. You object to my arguments regarding pure blood. Do you like my eye colour?”, she asked, playing with his hand.

“I love your eye colour. It’s beautiful”, he answered honestly.

She slightly blushed. “I’m glad to hear it. However, since you argue for intermixing with the muggles, does that mean you would like my eye colour to vanish forever? Never to be seen in future generations?”

“That’s a hard question. I have to answer ‘no’, but that’s mostly because I’m very partial. I find you beautiful and I would not want any part of you gone. However, that’s hardly a political argument, and it’s also not fair”, he smiled. “But let me use another equally unfair argument. I have green eyes, and I inherited them from my mother. You object to intermixing with muggle-borns. Would you want my eye colour gone?”

“Harry Potter, that was a low blow and you know it”, she turned crimson.

“Par for the course, I guess”, he smiled at her silver eyes. “And if you and I married and had kids, and one of them had my eye colour, would you consider it a lamentable loss for the purity of your family line?”, he snickered, watching her embarrassment.

“Harry Potter, when we get to the point where we have children, their eye colour will be the least of our concerns”, she answered seriously.

“When?”, he noticed.

“When”, she confirmed.

…

“Hermione is right”, he thought, remembering. “I was truly emotionally invested into being oblivious, because nobody can be this stupid by accident.”

…

“You were right”, Harry smiled at his wife who nursed their third child, “I never cared about their eye colour”.

“It’s a win in either case”, she smiled back.

“How many muggles are there in the world today, in your opinion? I know you would know about those things”, she asked when they sat in the hallway. She looked him straight in the eyes, completely focused on the argument, while her body automatically did its thing. In this case, she held his right hand and doodled something on his palm with her index finger. Harry thought she didn’t even notice, and he realised that, for the most part, he didn’t either. For them, this level of casual physical contact was the baseline. He was never this physically intimate with anyone else, but Lyra was different. She was just Lyra. She would hammer his head into the wall when playing Quidditch, or fall into his embrace when afraid of something in the woods. They just didn’t find it strange, or awkward.

“Oh, almost seven billion, I guess”, he shrugged. The number was growing and he didn’t actually have the current count.

“So, how many of those seven billion are wizards?”, she proceeded, holding his one hand while resting her other hand on his knee.

“I’m the wrong person to ask; I think Ministry should know”, he shrugged.

“They do, in fact. My father got me the numbers. The number is around five hundred muggle born wizards per seven billion muggles”, she pressed. “This makes probability of a muggle-born wizard like your mom or Hermione a one in a fourteen million event.”

“Wow”, Harry scratched his scar. “This is really low odds”.

“Exactly”, she nodded, doodling unconsciously on his knee. “The probability of non-magical offspring from two magical parents is somewhat below one in a hundred. Now, please tell me what it means.”

“It means that introducing fully muggle genetics into the magical community would exponentially increase the probability of squibs, eventually diluting the magical genetics until the point of disappearance, or at least non-viability of the community because of low population numbers”, he conceded, squeezing her hand slightly. “It gives legitimacy to your argument, if that’s how that actually works. However, what if muggle-born magical children have concentrated magical genes already? In that case, dilution would not be an actual threat”, he countered.

“I hear you”, her palm got slightly sweaty as she stressed over the argument, lost in thought, her eyes moving as she thought about it in real time. “Your argument is that your mother, and your Granger friend, are both extraordinary witches. They are not just average. I heard only praise about your mother, from highest places. She was a generational talent. Granger is smarter than both of us together, I think. They look like highly concentrated magical essence, not like something that would dilute pure blood. However, is manifestation of genes an indication of actual genetics? What if they merely scored a combination of recessive genes manifesting a phenotype, and it would not carry through to the next generation?”, her eyes were calm now, boring holes through his, and she intertwined their fingers.

“That’s actually a good point, and I don’t know the answer”, Harry nodded. “However, I have some empirical data. My mother was muggle-born. My father was a pure-blood wizard from an ancient line. I turned out pretty well, if I may say so myself”, he smiled.

“You turned out perfect in every way”, she smiled back, as he blushed. “However, you might be merely a statistical anomaly, and it’s a single data point. You look like you won the genetic lottery, having the best of both and no apparent drawback other than the poor eyesight. However, are you a rule, or are you an exception?”, she pushed back, doodling on his knee.

“Well, do we have data about frequency of squib births in pureblood families, vs. mixed blood?”, he countered.

“Now, that’s a pickle. It seems to be a Poisson distribution issue. We don’t actually have a good data pool on either side, considering the low absolute population metrics”, she shrugged, drawing eights on his knee.

“So, you don’t really know if there’s an actual problem, or is it a storm in a teapot? And we’re actually having a war over this?”, he smiled, playing with her hand.

“Well, it’s potentially an extinction-level problem for the wizarding community, so it warrants extreme concern. However, your argument, that an internecine war is a more urgent extinction-level problem that we seem to be rushing into, and is actually worse, with certainties rather than probabilities, is valid”, she nodded and smiled.

Hermione was passing by in the hallway, looked at them, smiled, rolled her eyes and proceeded to her arithmancy class.

“What, Granger?”, Lyra growled.

“Ten points from both Gryffindor and Slytherin for the two of you not getting a room”, Hermione replied in a convincing imitation of Snape.

“Huh?”, Lyra shrugged, looking at Harry completely clueless, while he blushed.

“She’s just weird”, he shrugged. “Let’s go to class”.