LUCY:

"Have you fed Buckbeak yet, Sirius?" I asked, glancing between the twins and their coffee mugs. "They're both looking at me like they're plotting something, and I don't want to be around when the caffeine kicks in and they decide to follow through on whatever it is."

"I haven't fed him," Sirius replied, "and I do want to be around for that, so knock yourself out, kid."

Harry jumped to his feet and pulled me up with him. "If they're plotting, I'm in danger too. I'm going with you."

We hurried silently all the way up to Buckbeak's room and shut the door behind us.

I shot Harry a knowing look, since he looked like he was fit to burst. "Twenty questions?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "Are you feeling better?"

"Definitely." I sighed and reached for a feed bag, tossing Buckbeak a pellet that he snatched from the air with surprising agility. "Yesterday was a lot, and it just kept getting worse."

"That boggart was..."

"The last thing I needed?"

"Yeah. Definitely."

I held the bag out to him. "Do you want to toss Buckbeak a pellet?"

"Does that count as a question?"

"Well, well, well, my turn again," I said with a cheeky grin.

Harry sighed good-naturedly as he reached into the bag and launched a pellet Buckbeak's way. "I really need to work on that."

"Yes, yes you do. How are you feeling after seeing Lockhart again?"

"He's still a git. A bit more pitiful, maybe, but still a git. But how are you? I know we talked about it a little bit in the stairwell, but you were... ah..."

"A bit out of it," I finished with a smile. My smile faltered immediately. "I don't feel great about all of that."

"Can't imagine you would." Harry tossed Buckbeak another pellet. "We can pause the game if you want to talk about it."

I gnawed on my lip for a moment, considering it. I just wanted to forget it had happened at all, which was ironic considering the role forgetting had played in my life. Forgetting my family had sent my life in a wildly different trajectory, so there I was in London. Wearing one of Ginny's Holyhead Harpies jumpers because wearing a Montrose Magpies one would have reminded me too much of Cedric, half a world away or more from my true family who had no idea Quidditch even existed. Tossing food pellets to the hippogriff saved by time travel with my best friend, the Boy Who Lived of wizarding legend. I tried not to think about it, ever. There were too many questions I knew I couldn't answer. If I started thinking too long or too hard about any of it, I would spiral with no real way of fighting my way out of it.

"You know, when it all first happened, I had an odd feeling about everything," I said. "I thought it was just because I hit my head, but looking back, I think seeing the Memory Charm and the look on Lockhart's face started stirring something up, really deep in my subconscious."

"Oh, right, you didn't know until third year, with the dementors."

I nodded. "I guess now I'm just curious about how I, well, figured it all out, but there's no one to ask. Not that I'm incredibly curious anyway, but..." I tossed Buckbeak another pellet and swallowed hard. "My boggart changed last night."

"I was about to ask," Harry replied softly. Then he fell silent, waiting for me to answer the unspoken question in my own time.

Three pellets later, I swallowed hard again. "I wanted to stay and listen to what they were saying about stitches and any other Muggle remedies Mr. Weasley tried. For — For my dad, I mean. To see if there's a chance that..." Tears rose to my eyes. "The boggart was... more or less how I imagine it ended."

"How what ended?"

I sniffled, trying in vain to keep the tears at bay. I hadn't given Harry any details about how I was actually bitten before beyond the date, the reason for being in England, and the fact that it was an eclipse. "My dad was with me when... when..." I sniffled again. "He was holding me. Greyback snatched me away, and bit me, and I screamed, and... and my dad tackled him off of me. Tackled him off of me. It was a Muggle against a werewolf, though, so I... I know better than to let myself think he might be alive, but if stitches actually could work to seal werewolf wounds, I just thought maybe..." I tossed Buckbeak another pellet. "Since my dad was still fresh on my mind, the boggart was him, mauled by Greyback, and dying as he struggled to get across the hallway to me. Th-Then it switched to Cedric."

Harry was silent for a minute, reaching over to rub my shoulder with his thumb as I tossed Buckbeak a final couple of pellets. Once the bag was empty, I tossed it onto a pile in the corner and turned to Harry. He opened his arms, and I rushed over to hug him.

"I understand more about you now," he said, and I could hear the slight smile in his voice even as I buried my face against his shoulder. "Tackling a werewolf off of someone you love sounds like a very Lucy thing to do."

"Turns out it's an Everlin thing to do," I replied, laughing weakly. I pulled away and met his eyes. "I'll be alright, Harry, really. Yesterday was just a lot all at once."

He nodded. "That's fair, beyond fair. You know what the Cedric boggart said wasn't true, right?"

"I'll take your word for it," I whispered.

"Good, because what I'm saying is true. Do you have any more questions at the moment, or should we finish the game later?"

Before I could answer, there were two loud pops of apparition.

"Oh, for the love of Merlin," I spat. "What do you buffoons want?"

"We're with the Magical Mistletoe Prevention Squad," George said, crossing his arms and attempting to look like a professional prick.

Fred nodded. "Very official business, you see, we're up here to ensure there is no unsanctioned snogging by instantly killing the mood that would be established by the presence of magical mistletoe." He marched directly in between Harry and I, shoved us apart, and looked up at the ceiling. "Clear!"

"Oh, for the love of — " I ducked around Fred to go stand next to Harry again. "Nothing happened!"

"This time, anyway," George said as he waved his wand dramatically around the room. "No suspicious snogging energy detected."

"Who was it that charmed mistletoe to float over his head for the entire week before Christmas holidays a couple years ago?" I asked with a knowing look in Fred's direction.

"It was a brilliant idea, you ought to try it sometime," he replied as he tucked his wand away. "Worked like a charm. Anyway, breakfast is ready."

Sirius glanced at me as I landed in my typical seat next to Harry when we arrived in the dining room. "I thought you were a Magpies fan."

"I am," I replied, "don't worry. I just went shopping in Ginny's trunk this morning."

"And I went shopping in yours," Ginny said from behind me.

I turned around and groaned. She was wearing one of my pajama shirts, the one I had worn the first time I slept over at the Burrow with a bear and its two cubs. Fitting. It had been massive on me at the time, so it fit Ginny quite nicely a couple years later. I couldn't remember the last time I had worn the shirt, I had forgotten it existed.

Ginny beamed and twirled in a circle. "So, what do you think? Such a shame I couldn't find the matching pajama bottoms."

"Such a shame they don't exist," I replied with a roll of my eyes. "You look as ridiculous as I did."

"You wound me, Diggory. You look better in Harpies colors than Magpies colors, though, so feel free to steal that jumper any time you want," she said, sitting on my other side. "I'm glad you're seeing the light. The Holyhead Harpies are truly the best Quidditch team."

"Whatever you say, Weasley. How many League Cups do you have? Because we have 32, last I checked."

"We'll have far more than 32 by the time I retire, Diggory, mark my words."

"Consider your words marked. I'll hold you to that."

"You're both crazy," Sirius piped up. "The Cannons are clearly the best team in the world."

Ron, Ginny, and I all choked.

"You're my new favorite person," Ron said.

"You can't be serious!" Ginny burst out.

"Actually, I am," he replied with a grin, "in more ways than one."

Everyone in the room collectively groaned.

Bill, a radical Harpies fan like his sister, pointed his fork at Sirius. "Explain yourself."

"Ah, but what is there to explain? Do you ask the stars why they shine?"

"Maybe we should," I retorted, "if they're all Cannons fans."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "As if the Magpies are any better."

"What do you have against the Harpies?" Ginny asked, a challenge in her tone.

"Nothing, nothing!" he said, holding his hands in the air in surrender. "But James was a big enough Harpies fan for all of us, and the Cannons called to me. I look good in orange."

Harry froze next to me, the expression on his face indescribable. "My dad was a Harpies fan?"

"Was he ever," Remus remarked. "Merlin, if you really got him going, he could talk for hours."

Sirius nodded enthusiastically. "You should have heard him talking about Gwendolyn Morgan in particular. The way she knocked Rudolf Brand out after his proposal was something he never forgot. You would think he was there at the match witnessing it, the way he went on and on and on about it."

"It was a seven-day match," I explained to Harry, "between the Harpies and the Heidelberg Harriers. When the match finally ended, the Harriers captain was so impressed with her he proposed on the spot, and she concussed him with her Cleansweep Five."

"Those brooms are good for something," Fred remarked, grinning. "Pity George and I never got the chance to concuss Malfoy before the PVT locked those away."

Remus cocked his head. "The PVT?"

"Pink Venomus Tentacula," George said. "Umbridge. I was the one who thought it up, it's really caught on with the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. I had the epiphany after Herbology toward the beginning of the year. She's got all of these vines, right, and everything she touches is mercilessly annihilated!"

"And it was less obvious than calling her Toad-Face," Fred added.

"Oh, be nice," Mrs. Weasley huffed.

Sirius grinned and glanced at Remus, who quickly reached for his tea to hide his smirk. "Nicer than some names I've heard others call her."

"We should compile a list sometime, I'll add it to the bulletin board in the Room of Requirement," I said.

That sparked an enthusiastic discussion, and as soon as breakfast was cleared away, we passed a piece of parchment around the table, full of colorful suggestions. To my immense amusement, Remus had the most colorful suggestions of all.

🩵💛❤️💜

Harry, Ginny, and I were the last ones awake again that night, the same way we had been nearly every night since our crash-landing into 12 Grimmauld Place. We were the three people who showered at night, and Mrs. Weasley didn't want us going to bed with wet hair in the winter. None of us minded, and none of us reminded her of the existence of the hair-drying charms.

Ginny and I were using our Beater bats from the twins to knock a Bludger back and forth (with Cushioning Charms surrounding it so we didn't actually break anything or anyone) while Harry read one of the books Remus and Sirius had gotten him for Christmas about defensive magic. How he was able to tune out our banter, I have no idea.

"Close call, Weasley, almost got you there."

"If you don't stop running your mouth every time you actually manage to hit the Bludger in my direction, I'll knock your teeth out, Diggory."

"That would require you to actually hit the Bludger with a decent amount of force."

"Who needs to hit a Bludger when they know how to throw a punch?"

"That makes two of us."

"All due respect," Harry interrupted, glancing up from his book, "I think I'm the only one who's thrown a punch here, unless you've both forgotten the Ferret Incident that more or less put those bats in your hands."

"Shut up, Potter," Ginny and I snapped in unison.

Harry laughed. "Merlin help us all. You're twins in training."

"I call dibs on being Fred," Ginny replied as she smacked the Bludger my direction.

"Fine by me," I said. "George got punches in, too."

Ginny cocked her head. "Don't underestimate Fred."

"I'm not." I snorted. "Nobody underestimates Fred."

"Sure they do. He just doesn't let it bother him. He focuses on proving those people wrong instead of letting their oversight shape his opinion of himself the way George does."

I had nothing to say to that, so a brief silence fell. Since I wasn't preoccupied with bantering, I noticed the way Harry's knuckles whitened against the book out of the corner of my eye. I held up a finger, and Ginny caught the Bludger instead of hitting it again. We'd gotten good at nonverbal communication like that.

"Harry?" I asked. "What is it?"

"That spell you found back in October. The one that produces green sparks."

I hurried over next to him on the sofa. "Verdimillious. It also reveals things hidden by Dark magic. We said we'd bring it up again over holiday."

"Would you like a third opinion on the matter, or would you rather I head up to bed?" Ginny asked, flopping down beside me and letting her head drop into my lap. "Or I could fall asleep right here and you could wake me if you needed me."

"I'm sure my lap is very comfortable," I remarked sarcastically.

"Could be worse. So what'll it be, D.A. leaders?"

I glanced at Harry. "I'm still a yes."

"I'm still a no."

"So duke it out, here and now," Ginny said. "I'll play referee for now, judge if necessary. Argue your point, try to win the other person over. If it's still a stalemate, I can be tiebreaker. Sound good?"

I sighed. "Sounds good to me."

"Me too," Harry replied.

Ginny gave us a thumbs-up. "Awesome. Lucy can start, Harry can finish. One round each with a discussion period."

"Why are you being so organized and official about all of this?" I asked with a bit of a chuckle. "I promise we can figure this out civilly."

"I'm one of seven strong-willed, hot-headed Weasley children," she replied simply.

Harry and I both laughed. She had a point.

"Well, I don't see any reason not to learn this ourselves once we get back to school, then teach it to the D.A. If we're ever in conflict, the green sparks will spook our opponents and could buy us precious startled seconds to make a more substantial move. The application to Dark magic could be helpful, too, and I'm sure we could find more resources about what specifically it reveals and uncovers if we decide to go this route. I'll probably learn it myself even if no one else wants to learn it because it seems like a good spell to know, especially since we found it a second time in a book from Sirius and Remus, whose opinions I trust." I looked down at Ginny. "No foul play?"

"No foul play," she confirmed with a nod. "Harry, you're up."

Harry nodded. "I get all of that, really I do, but especially in regards to your first point, it will spook whoever we're fighting, but I think it would invite actual Killing Curses back at us. I want to learn it, too, for the Dark magic revealing part of it, but I think the risks of the green sparks would outweigh the potential benefits of a couple seconds you could buy with a Stunning Spell or Impediment Jinx."

I pressed my thumb to my mouth, deep in thought. After a couple of seconds, I nodded. "You're right. We shouldn't use pseudo Killing Curses unless we want our opponents to believe we're capable of the real deal, which I know none of us are. Except for maybe Archie, he's full of surprises."

"Once upon a time, I think I said that about you too," Harry remarked with a grin, "but you're right, I don't think we're capable of the real deal and I hope we never have to be."

"Settled, then?" Ginny asked.

"Settled," I confirmed. "We'll learn it, maybe teach it to you and a few others if you want to learn it for the revealing Dark magic purposes, but we should steer clear of it for now because we have less risky ways of buying a couple of seconds."

Ginny bounced to her feet, smiling. "Well, that was easy. You two make a good team. I'm off to bed now that this is settled, but come get me if you want another mediator, not that my services are likely to be necessary."

"I'll join you in a moment," I said. "I just, er, remembered another point I want to make. It's not going to change my mind, though, so you're free to go."

I could have sworn she winked at me as she left, but I elected to ignore it as I turned to Harry.

"Not all green is evil, Harry." I studied his face carefully as I spoke, looking for any indication that he agreed or disagreed so I could shape my point accordingly. I wanted him to hear me, I needed him to hear me. "I know the Killing Curse is green and so is Obliviate, and the Dark Mark is green and Slytherin is green and people turn green when they're about to be sick — "

A slight grin cracked his solemn expression.

" — but green can be good, too. The first patch of spring grass as the snow melts, the best flavor of Bertie Bott's, and, obviously, the color of your eyes."

"My mother's eyes, you mean," he said softly, looking away for a second.

"No, Harry James." He looked back up at me. "Your eyes."

"Same difference."

"No. First of all, that's an oxymoron, but second of all, no. Your eyes are your own."

There was so much more I wanted to say. Yours sparkle in a special way. Yours feel like home. But I couldn't bring myself to say any of that.

"I don't think anyone ever compared your mother's eyes to a fresh pickled toad," I said.

"I only returned to pick up my bat and you two are out here reminding me of one of the most embarrassing moments of my life!" Ginny complained as she stomped back into the room.

"It was hilarious and adorable," I protested. "Besides, it drove my point home, it was very helpful."

"Yeah, very helpful," Harry repeated with a laugh. "Thanks, Ginny, I needed that."

She flipped her bat and pointed it at his temple in such a swift motion he didn't have time to flinch before she spoke again.

"Mention this again in my presence and I will write you another poem that uses words that rhyme with 'brother-sucker' and 'plastered.' Understood?"

I laughed. "I would love to hear it. Should we pen it tonight and keep it on standby, for future use whenever we see fit?"

"Lovely idea, Diggory." Ginny hauled me to my feet and handed me my bat. "Let's go."

"Good night, Harry James," I said as she dragged me from the room.

"Good night, Lucy Goosey," he replied, an impish smile on his face. "Speaking of awful rhymes."

I flashed him a rather rude gesture — smiling regardless — as I closed the door behind us.

Lucy Goosey is almost worse than Lucy Dolores... almost.

🩵💛❤️💜

The rest of the week passed in a blur. I kept myself busy to prevent myself from thinking about Christmas in the past or the full moon in the future. On New Year's Eve, though, this proved to be impossible.

Remus informed me that morning that we were hiding a full week's worth of wolfsbane brewed for me by Professor Snape in Buckbeak's room, in a trunk protected with magic that would prevent anything from happening to it or any unwanted eyes from seeing its contents. Given the way I had overpowered the Room of Requirement, everyone seemed to think it best for me to take wolfsbane until a safer solution could be found.

As such, a few minutes before sunset, I slipped upstairs to take the potion. I grabbed a goblet from the trunk, careful to secure it again, and wedged myself into the window seat of an empty room down the hall.

Harry appeared thirty seconds later. "You really find a window seat everywhere you go, Lu."

"I love window seats," I replied. "What're you doing up here?"

"You didn't think I'd leave you to take that awful concoction alone, did you?"

I shrugged. "I didn't think much about it one way or the other. I don't care."

"Well, I care." The window seat was more than large enough to accommodate both of us, so he could comfortably fit across from me. "Besides, we never finished our game of twenty questions."

I glanced out the window at the setting sun, its outline only barely visible through the clouds. "I've been thinking about that a lot lately, if I'm lying awake at night."

"About how we didn't finish our game?" he asked.

"Well, not that specifically, no," I replied. I kept my eyes on the sun as I explained myself further. "I've just realized I have so many questions that I just... can't answer yet, for one reason or another."

Harry was silent for a moment, creating space for me to fill with my own thoughts. He was good at doing that, ever since I was right about Hagrid our second year and no one left space for me to try to defend that stance. Ginny had mediated our disagreement about Verdimillious well, but we didn't need that structure in order to work through matters of great importance. We could do it ourselves, in our own way. And that's exactly what I needed to say.

"I want to know more about my family, obviously. I want to know what happened to my dad, my mom, my sister. I want to know what my middle name is, where I lived until that fateful trip, how my parents take their coffee, what my sister's favorite color is. I want to know why all of that happened, too, but I know that's an impossibility now, because the ones who stole me away from all of that and tried to take me as their own are dead now. I want to know more about those parents of mine as well, I want to know why he decided to take me and wipe my memory, why she went along with it, if they were ever planning on telling me any of this. I want to know more about Cedric, I want to know him the way his friends did and his enemies did and I want to understand him as well as I possibly can so I can try to come to terms with the full scope of what we lost when we lost him. I want to know more about my magic, and why it works and doesn't work the way it does, and what I can do to try to turn it into something useful, maybe even something beautiful. I want to know more about the world around me, why it hates me so much, and I want to know why Rose did what she did then disappeared, and I want to know what comes next in the war and if there even will be a war and what my place in it is. There's so much I want to know, Harry, but..."

I looked down at the goblet and watched the faint blue smoke swirling above it. I looked back out the window and saw that it was time to drink the potion.

As I lifted it to my lips, I closed my eyes and held my breath as I tossed the potion down my throat. The taste was vile, it always had been, but I had never before pinpointed the reason why. It was bitter. It tasted like dirt and salt and bitter, bitter herbs. Still we chugged it, though, when we could. The bitterness was a small price to pay for a night of peace that would otherwise be characterized by violence. The bitterness was a small price to pay in the context of the bigger picture, but in those moments, those seven moments before the night of the full moon, it felt insurmountable. Having not taken the potion in so long, I resisted it more so than perhaps I ever had, but I continued on anyway.

It will be worth it. It will be worth it. It will be worth it. It will be worth it.

The wait would be worth it. The bitterness would be worth it. It would all be worth it.

Finally, the goblet was empty. I set it on the ground next to me and placed my head between my knees, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I forced away the nausea. Harry reached forward and brushed a couple of flyaway hairs back from my already-warm forehead. His presence was gentle, yet felt. Not needed, not necessarily, but desperately desired and incredibly important nonetheless.

"There's so much I want to know," I managed after a minute, "but I know finding answers to those questions won't mean anything if I don't know who I am first." I looked up and found those eyes, those emerald eyes of his. "I want to try to learn more about myself before I try to learn more about everything else, because I'll never find my place in the world if I don't know who I am or what I need or how to find it or why I need it in the first place. I — I want to try to listen to myself and try to trust myself and try to understand why everyone cares about me the way they do, because if I'm being completely honest, I don't understand. But you — you're here because you care about me, and — and there are a lot of people downstairs who care about me too and — and I want to know why, even if I can't understand."

Words failed me then. I had poured my heart out right there in the window seat, right there to Harry, and I waited in silence for whatever he would say in response.

Harry reached forward and intertwined all ten of his fingers with all ten of mine. "I'll be here to help however I can. I promise. I want to help you understand, Lucy, I do."

"You're sure?" I asked, doubt beginning to creep in even in the face of such authenticity. "You don't mind being here in the middle of the mess of it all?"

"Where else would I be?"

I managed a smile. "Right this second? Losing to Ron at wizard's chess, most likely."

"There will be plenty of time to do that at the party tonight," he replied with a grin. "I'm perfectly happy to be here with you right now, though obviously I wish you had no need to be up here at all. I don't know how you did that so... easily."

"Practice," I said airily as I grabbed the goblet and rose to my feet.

I returned the empty goblet to its place in the trunk, and we made our way downstairs together. I flashed a thumbs-up at my friends to signal that I had downed the wolfsbane without incident. I was about to make my way over to Sirius when I heard a voice I hadn't heard in altogether too long.

"Are you sure they will not mind me appearing without any notice, Bill? I would hate to be a bother — "

I looked toward the doorway just as Bill walked through with none other than Fleur Delacour behind him.

I squeaked and immediately wrapped her in a hug.

"Lucy, ma chère," she murmured, rocking us back and forth. "How glad I am to see you well after everything this year."

"'Well' is a somewhat relative term," I admitted as we pulled away, "but I'm still here, and I reckon that counts for something."

"Tout à fait, absolutely." Fleur looked me up and down. "My, how you've grown."

"I think you're far from a bother, Fleur," Bill said as he joined us, winking at me and mouthing Thanks.

I nodded enthusiastically. "It's so great to see you both! You're just in time, really, I was just about to have Sirius get a bit of music going."

I reached into my pocket and passed the Walkman to Sirius.

"Remus should be here any minute," he said in a low voice. "He gets his from the Haywood girl, Penny I think? Anyway, we trust Snape about as far we could throw him with an elephant chained to his ankle, but she's great. Anyway — " He tapped the device with his wand and set it in the middle of the kitchen table. " — let's get this party started!"

The Walkman had an hour of music on it, meaning it was played several times through between sunset and midnight. The party was filled with food and activities of all sorts. Pumpkin juice and snickerdoodles, butterbeer and peanut butter bars, firewhisky and chocolate chip cookies, hot chocolate and meringue cookies. Wizard's chess and Scrabble (Hermione's favorite Muggle game) and Exploding Snap and even a couple of Weasley twin product demonstrations (in a separate room from Mrs. Weasley, of course).

Though my conversation with Harry had been a relatively short one, I knew in my soul it was an important one. Our eyes kept finding each other, no matter where we were or what we were doing, and though I couldn't see any magic flowing between us, there was a warmth there that I knew wasn't stemming from the fever. He cared. He was willing to help. He loved me.

The music from the Walkman was the perfect soundtrack for the night. As one song flowed to the next, over and over and over and over again, the optimistic side of my imagination came alive, running wild and free for the first time in altogether too long. The songs seemed to weave a story, though the meaning of the story was somewhat hidden by the haze of spiked butterbeer.

As midnight neared, I found myself on Ron's shoulders, trying to wrench free one of the twins' fireworks that had managed to lodge itself between a cabinet and the ceiling, past the help of a Summoning Charm. It was bound to explode at any second, so I'd scrambled up on Ron's shoulders since he was the tallest person there and started reaching for it.

"Thirty seconds to midnight!" Sirius announced as soon as my fingers grazed the firework.

"I just touched it," I said to Ron, straining harder to try to wiggle it loose.

Ten fruitless seconds passed. Then, finally, I managed to get it free.

"It'll go off at midnight!" George shouted. "Just throw it over!"

Fred nodded. "Yeah, we can keep it up until it explodes!"

"Alright," I said, tossing it out over the kitchen table. Sure enough, the twins worked together to hold the firework aloft. "You can set me down, Ron."

"You'll get a better view from up there," he replied with a cheeky grin.

I shrugged and crossed my arms. "Can't argue with that."

My eyes found Harry's. As the countdown to midnight, to 1996, to a new year started, the haze fell away.

The story the Walkman told was our story. I could see it, clear as day. Past, present, and future.

I would not leave you in times of trouble / We never could have come this far / I took the good times, I'll take the bad times / I'll take you just the way you are

I'll take your part / When darkness comes / And pain is all around / Like a bridge over troubled water / I will lay me down

If you change your mind / I'm the first in line / Honey, I'm still free / Take a chance on me / If you need me, let me know / Gonna be around / If you've got no place to go / When you're feeling down

Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had / I've been with you such a long time / You're my sunshine and I want you to know / That my feelings are true / I really love you

You're so vain / I bet you think this song is about you / Don't you, don't you?

When I'm not with you / Think of you always / I miss you / When I'm not with you / Think of me always / Love you, love you

I can't stop this feeling / Deep inside of me / Girl, you just don't realize / What you do to me / When you hold me / In your arms so tight / You let me know / Everything's alright / I'm hooked on a feeling / I'm high on believing / That you're in love with me

Thanks for the joy you've given me / I want you to know I believe in your song / And rhythm, and rhyme, and harmony / You helped me along, you're making me strong

Suddenly she's crashing through my mind / Like waves upon the shore / And I nod my head / Oh yes love I'd welcome you again, if you knocked upon my door / If you didn't, I'd seek you out love / I'd track you down for sure / Like a thousand times before / Oh, yes love, I'd welcome you again / Like you know I did before

Do you remember, 21st night of September? / Love was changing the mind of pretenders / While chasing the clouds away / Our hearts were ringing / In the key that our souls were singing / As we danced in the night / Remember / How the stars stole the night away

Don't go breaking my heart / I couldn't if I tried / Honey, if I get restless / Baby, you're not that kind / Don't go breaking my heart / You take the weight off of me / Honey, when you knock on my door / Ooh, I gave you my key

I thought love was more or less a giving thing / Seems the more I gave the less I got / What's the use in trying? / All you get is pain / When I needed sunshine I got rain / Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer / Not a trace of doubt in my mind / I'm in love, I'm a believer / I couldn't leave her if I tried

Like a fool, I went and stayed too long / Now, I'm wondering if your love's still strong / Ooh baby, here I am / Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours

My, my / I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger / Oh, yeah / And now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight / And how could I ever refuse / I feel like I win when I lose / Waterloo / I was defeated, you won the war / Waterloo / Promise to love you for ever more / Waterloo / Couldn't escape if I wanted to / Waterloo / Knowing my fate is to be with you / Waterloo / Finally facing my Waterloo

All the young dudes / Carry the news / Boogaloo dudes / Carry the news

We should be together like the sand and the sea / Like the rocks in the sunshine / Go together with the grass on the summer ground, the leaves on the tree / Like the sheep and the meadow / Go together like the words and the music, the honey and the bee, like the work and the play / That'll be the day / And when those feelings I've hidden are no longer forbidden and our love is here to stay / Then we'll all shine on / That'll be the day

We may lose, and we may win / Though we will never be here again / So open up, I'm climbing in / So take it easy / Well, I'm running down the road / Trying to loosen my load / Got a world of trouble on my mind / Looking for a lover / Who won't blow my cover / She's so hard to find / Take it easy / Take it easy / Don't let the sound of your own wheels / Make you crazy / Come on, baby, don't say maybe / I gotta know if your sweet love / Is gonna save me / Oh, we got it easy / We oughta take it easy

In that moment, seconds before midnight, I knew. I loved the boy smiling directly at me with the sparkling green eyes, Harry James Potter, in a way that was unique to him. I had never loved anybody else that way, and I never would. Harry James was everything to me, and one day, I would be everything to him.

The new year arrived, the firework exploded, golden sparks showered around us, and Ron finally set me down.

I crossed the room to Harry James with the jittery giddiness of a girl who knew everything would change, one day if not that day. We embraced, and he spun me in a quick circle. Before he set me down, though, I tilted my face up to him, meeting those wonderful eyes again, those eyes that meant I was home.

"We will be alright," I said. "We have to be, so we will be."

We. A simple word, but a powerful one. I had no way of knowing all that 1995 would hold for us, but we were alright. I knew that we would be alright after 1996, too.

1996 was going to be our year. One day at a time, we would be alright.