Fate Set Right

Chapter 57

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June 29, 1997

She looked at the doorway after hearing a knock and gave Harry a small smile as he stood there.

"Can I come in?" he asked, and Aurora waved to the bed before turning back to continue unpacking. "Gotta say, kinda don't mind you being here. Means Draco and I get to share a room."

"How long before he transfigured one of the beds larger and conveniently made the other one disappear?" she asked with a smirk, making Harry chuckle.

"Er, probably about a minute of being in the bedroom. Two, maybe, if you consider the time it took to do the spellwork," he replied, and as Aurora closed the drawer she was tucking sweaters in, he cleared his throat. "Look, I wanted to say that I talked to Neville."

Aurora paused, remaining perfectly still as Harry let the silence linger.

"What did you say?" she asked eventually.

"What really happened," he replied. "That we'd known for a while what was going to happen. That the only thing we didn't know was who the student Death Eater was."

"Yeah," she said, unsure what else to say.

Harry shifted on the bed behind her, making the blankets rustle and the frame creak. "He said it doesn't change anything for him," he eventually confessed, and that relief-tinged heartbreak washed over her. "Rory, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she said, closing the drawer and turning to face Harry. He looked genuinely apologetic, which only made her laugh. "None of this is your fault."

"Sort of feels like it. Maybe if I hadn't chased after your dad...."

"Then the plan wouldn't have gone the way it had to," she replied. "Dad needed a spy, his best bet was Mum, Lupin, or Sirius, as any of them can disguise themselves with a spell. If you didn't tear through the corridors screaming about him being a murderer, then Mum or Lupin couldn't have faked their deaths, and it would have made it impossible for them to become spies."

"I know," Harry sighed. "But... if we had just told them all beforehand."

"No," she said, joining Harry on the end of her bed. "Luna understood because she's always seen the bigger picture. She's always been able to see Dad, no matter what sort of front he put on. But Neville...." She frowned. "If it hadn't been for me, for Draco, you probably would still believe the worst of my father, too. And that's okay, really. He isn't a kind man, but Neville knew the truth, just as you did. And he chose to believe what he sees. "

"Yeah, you have a point," Harry conceded. "But I still hoped that... well, when Gin said you two broke up and why, I hoped that if I talked to him about it, he'd come around. But his family really believed in Dumbledore, especially when he tried to keep Neville's parents safe when they didn't know who Riddle would choose. His family will always side with Dumbledore, no matter what any of the history or anything says."

"It's good to have someone you can put that much faith in," Aurora sighed.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "And I might have been right there with them if I hadn't learned firsthand how much he tried to control my life."

Aurora leaned her head against Harry's shoulder, and he put his arm around her. "I want to go back to the days of playing marbles on the playground and telling your cousin to shove his pig face in the mud."

Harry chuckled. "But then we wouldn't have the others."

"I'd still have Draco, and I wouldn't have had to deal with the prat phrase."