The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|153| Happily Ever After

One shivering second of silence, the shock of the moment suspended: and then the tumult broke around Harry and me as the screams and the cheers and the roars of the watchers rent the air. The fierce new sun dazzled the windows as they thundered toward us, and the first to reach us were Ron and Hermione, and it was their arms that were wrapped around us, their incomprehensible shouts that deafened me. Then Ginny, Neville, and Luna were there, and then all the Weasleys and Hagrid, and Kingsley and McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout, and I could not hear a word that anyone was shouting, nor tell whose hands were seizing me, pulling us, trying to hug some part of us, hundreds of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the Twins Who Lived, the reason it was over at last —

The sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with life and light. I was an indispensable part of the mingled outpourings of jubilation and mourning, of grief and celebration. They wanted us there with them, their leader and symbol, their savior and their guide, and that I had not slept, that I craved the company of only a few of them, seemed to occur to no one. I must speak to the bereaved, clasp their hands, witness their tears, receive their thanks, hear the news now creeping in from every quarter as the morning drew on; that the Imperiused up and down the country had come back to themselves, that Death Eaters were fleeing or else being captured, that the innocent of Azkaban were being released at that very moment, and that Kingsley Shacklebolt had been named temporary Minister of Magic...

Voldemort's body was moved and laid in a chamber off the Hall, away from the bodies of Tonks, Lupin, Colin Creevey, and fifty others who had died fighting for us. McGonagall had replaced the House tables, but nobody was sitting according to House anymore: All of us were jumbled together, teachers and pupils, ghosts and parents, centaurs and house-elves, and Firenze lay recovering in a corner, and Grawp peered in through a smashed window, and people were throwing food into his laughing mouth. After a while, exhausted and drained, Harry and I snuck out of the room and sat onto a bench next to Luna.

"I'd want some peace and quiet, if it were me," she said.

"I'd love some," I replied.

"I'll distract them all," she said. "Use your Cloak."

And before I could say a word she had cried, "Oooh, look, a Blibbering Humdinger!" and pointed out of the window. Everyone who heard looked around, and Harry slid the Cloak up over us, and we got to our feet.

Now we could move through the Hall without interference. I spotted Ginny two tables away; she was sitting with her head on Fred's shoulder: There would be time to talk later, hours and days and maybe years in which to talk. I saw Neville, the sword of Gryffindor lying beside his plate as he ate, surrounded by a knot of fervent admirers. Along the aisle between the tables we walked, and I spotted the three Malfoys, huddled together as though unsure whether or not they were supposed to be there, but nobody was paying them any attention. Everywhere I looked I saw families reunited, and finally, I saw the two whose company we craved most.

"It's me," Harry muttered. "Will you come with us?"

They stood up at once, and together we, Ron, and Hermione left the Great Hall. Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and rubble and bloodstains occurred every few steps as we climbed.

Somewhere in the distance, we could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition:

We did it, we bashed them, the Potters' are one,

And Voldy's gone moldy, so now let's have fun!

"Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?" said Ron, pushing open a door to let Harry, Hermione, and me through.