A week of this "going to work" passes, then a few more.

At the one month mark, Harry holds up a newspaper article. He's smiling like a loon and doesn't much care.

"Painting with one's toes is a superb technique," says Luna, munching on snap peas. "I really don't see the fuss."

"You've got a personal studio and everything! Congratulations."

Luna merely collects little bits of "future art projects" in the paint apron she wears everywhere. Harry is relieved now that she at least has a space to sleep.

Luna gathers twigs, branches, and birch bark. Luna strikes a match from one of her many smock pockets. The kindling blazes in what feels like an instant to Harry.

"What's this for?" he asks.

Luna takes out her battle clothes from a grocery bag. "Would you like to do the honour of my trousers?"

Harry stares, then places the clothes on their little pyre. She sits across from him. The fire dwindles between their bodies. Sweater threads shrivel into blackened veins. A blood stain turns to embers. The day darkens. They don't move until Luna's clothes and the wood are all gone.

Then it is cold. So they walk.

"Are you alright?" he softly asks.

"Not really," says Luna. Her lashes meet her skin, snowy spider's legs. "But the moon is beautiful tonight, isn't it?"

"Mmm," says Harry.

"I'm named after the moon, you know."

One of Luna's socks is falling down and if Harry squints, he can just make out music notes on one knee high and giraffes on the other.

"I did know that." Harry smiles. "It reflects the light of the sun."

"Mmm." Luna's eyes are dreamy and it's the most she has looked like herself since fifth year. "The moon reminds me of a breath mint sometimes."

Harry chokes on a bottle of water. It splutters up his nose and down his shirt front.

"Careful, Harry," Luna says, mild. "You must learn to swallow properly or Ginny will never make you lemonade. And then where will you be?"

Harry's off laughing. He can't help it. It echoes off the houses and streetlamps, unbridled and shout-like from his mouth. And he thinks he hasn't sounded this much like himself since fifth year. The hollow ache in his bones has moved to his static heart but he doesn't mind. Not with the laughter fizzing around inside him.

The signs are small, so innocuous at first.

Ginny lingering at a window display. Volunteering to babysit the neighbor's kids. The sudden appearance of home and family magazines.

Spring melts into summer before Harry sees the tiny white booties in his wife's jewelry box and understands. A thousand watt jolt to his drifting psyche.

Harry leaves in the dead of night.

The moon is blushing behind a lace fan of clouds. Harry runs. Runs and runs and runs and runsansrunsandrunsandruns.

A stick is in his hand and he stabs the ground. His thrashing becomes a circle. Circle upon circle upon circle. But circles are closed too. Just a box after all, a fancy cage. Harry hexes a nearby pebble for not realizing that either.

When that doesn't feel like anything, Harry hexes another rock. He's shaking.

He throws the stick at a tree. Then another one, because he can.

This makes sense, his Ginny wanting kids. The logical progression. He is "living" and doing nothing at all. The Dursleys certainly never gave any frame of reference.

Harry doubles over on his knees. He's run miles and is in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

"Harry?"

Harry closes his eyes. Opens them again. Still there—a shiny Luna, covered fingernail to neck in cobalt paint.

By the warm glow of a cottage behind her, Harry surmises he's stumbled upon his friend's studio home. And destroyed her lawn.

"I do my best painting at night," she says. "Care for some tea?"

Harry debates a tempting one eighty where he runs off into the night, never heard from again. Luna just stands there.

"You're not a coward, Harry Potter." Her voice floats to him on a chilly wind.

Harry, hands on his hips, won't meet her eye but he nods. She leads him inside.

"I figured something was afoot when two rocks bounced into my house singing Dvorak."

Harry colours. Luna's home is all birch wood and lantern light, plush sofas and ivy growing off the ceiling. A cot sits against one wall.

Luna sits Harry down at a table by the stove. The kettle steams.

Harry is suddenly exhausted. He rubs at his eyes and sips the honey tea. He can't make toast without the machine pop triggering a flashback of fire blasts. Who is he to raise a child?

"That's easy," says Luna, as if reading his mind. "It's just like a three-step."

Her long hair brushes Harry's shoulder on the way to her easel.

Harry follows her over. The portraits are all dark colours, stormy seas, black irises, and writhing shapes Harry can't make out. He doesn't want to.

Yet Luna's face is peaceful while she works away.

"Your paintings are so…macabre."

"That's the secret," says Luna. "I leave it on the canvas."

The stroke of her bare thumbs for tear streaks on her latest portrait's face is hypnotic. Harry finds himself leaning closer. Something twinges in his chest but he can't look away.

Harry sinks onto the cot and drinks in Luna's slowly morphing image until his eyelids droop. He dreams, but it is silent. The screams are far away.

When he wakes, it is light and Luna's fluttering touch is on his wrist.

"Everything's prepared," she murmurs.

Harry doesn't ask and she doesn't offer. To his surprise, Luna leads him towards home, then into the forest near his backyard.

Luna comes to a stop. She hands Harry a bag of seeds. It's a plastic baggy, no markers of any kind.

"What are they?" asks Harry.

Luna sighs. "Plant them and find out."

So they do.

The weeks fly by for Harry. They till up the mulch into a round flowerbed. One day Harry brings a stone bench and bird bath and the next Luna greets Harry with a potted calla lily under each arm. Together Luna and Harry coax the tender plants from their pot and into the ground.

"There," says Harry. "One for each of us."

Luna jerks a bit. "No, Harry. It's a lily. It's not for you."

Harry crouches, confused. Luna's hands are black with soil, a match to his. The earth thrums under his hands, especially when he strokes his lily. The leaves stretch and groan with pleasure. Sometimes he thinks they chatter to each other.

Harry smiles.

"You can thank Neville for these," Luna adds.

"Are they magical?"

Luna rocks back. "You tell me."

For the next month, that lily stops the crumbling in Harry's world. If he closes his eyes while gardening, he forgets cruciatus pain, the ropey marks along Luna's chest and forearms, the sleepless nights where the dead space in his chest throbs.

Luna hums now. Some days it's full songs, in Gaelic and other languages he doesn't know.

"Green things love music," she says one afternoon. "It helps them grow. Live."

Harry licks his lips, opens them. No sound comes out. Fixing his gaze on the lily, he tries out a warble. It's like a dying bird, all croaky and lost, but it makes his throat buzz.

So Harry sings.

Though Luna doesn't look up, her simple lullaby grows in volume. Harry's timid voice follows suit. He doesn't know the words but it's fine.

At night, for the first time, Harry dreams of fairies between tulips. The flowers perform a ballet, their petals a synchronized arabesque.

So each day Luna and Harry sing.

Their dance fumbles sometimes. Yet Luna's melodic breaths and her smell of eucalyptus and acrylic soothes Harry. Ginny now talks openly about children and so long as Harry keeps his shaking fingers buried in the dirt, all is well.

One morning, Harry comes early to examine the blossoms, pride in his chest.

His breath catches:

The lily is…the lily is…

"No!" Harry slides to his knees and cradles the broken stalk, its muddied petals. "No!"

His chest is heaving and he can't feel his legs and dry sobs assault his spinning vision. Suddenly an arm is there, kneeling beside him. It tugs him to a chest that smells of dandelions. Harry's body gives a mighty jerk and he distantly realizes his face is wet. He doesn't even have the strength to cling, just hangs limp in the arms.

He experiences the rarest and most painful sort of cry that exists:

The All of it Cry.

Harry doesn't know if he's crying for his mum or Sirius or Cedric or Tom Riddle's abuse or his own or Colin and his stupid camera or a white bearded man or a potion master's innocence lost or all of it, everything at once.

When the next sob wrenches Harry's gut, he feels he's crying for the beginning of the world up until his precious lily. The children without love, the injustice, the petals trampled underfoot. It feels like so much that it feels like nothing.

Harry realizes he hasn't cried since fifth year either.

"I killed it." The words are raw and jagged.

"No, Harry," rumbles the chest under his forehead. "A deer probably just came by and trotted over it."

Harry wails.

"Harry," Luna whispers. "They're not gone."

Harry worries she's about to sell some crap about people living on his heart, but she simply strokes his back and says, voice broken,

"We have daymares about them. Wearing shirts stained with their blood. Keeping them with us. They need to be gone. Let go, Harry."

Something in Harry cracks and he's crying again. And this pain is sharp, blistering. It's been almost four years but Harry is still there, kneeling amidst a wreath of dead.

At once, he and Luna feel like the only ones alive.

Luna rocks them back and forth. That suddenly feels real too. The motion is desperate and Harry finally wraps his leaden arms around Luna.

They rock and weep, surrounded by flowers. Over Luna's shoulder, Harry sees the paint stained tips of her hair and the sight calms him. They don't move for hours.

The first sensation to register is cold soil under Harry's knees. Then Luna's eyelashes on his cheek in wet brush strokes. She pulls away, never letting go of his hand.

With her free hand, she plucks the untouched calla lily and threads it through Harry's button hole. The sun is halfway setting before the pair find their feet and walk back, fingers still interlocked. Luna kisses Harry on the cheek goodbye. She disappears in a breath of wind.

Ginny stands in the open door of their patio, arms folded.

"Ginny!" Harry stops.

"The Auror's Office called," says his wife. "You're doing a wonderful job on that new security system!"

Harry splutters for a moment before seeing his wife's silent mirth.

"Harry," Ginny scolds, "do you really think I don't know you and Luna have been meeting in the woods for months?"

He clutches her hands. "It's not what you think…I would never…"

Ginny's eyes narrow, impossibly soft. "Do you know why I married you, Mr. Potter?"

Because I'm the Chosen One?

Ginny shakes her head. Apparently she can read minds too. "Because you're the most loyal man I know. Luna is a dear friend and you don't have to lie to me to spend time with her. I'm not jealous—I just wish you had told me."

"I promise," says Harry, "no more secrets."

He tucks the lily behind her ear.

"I…I'm sorry I've been so afraid of starting a family," says Harry. "I'm ready now."

"I hope so." Ginny's hand drifts to her stomach. "Because we're in bloom."

Harry blinks. He stands in place, walks over, and kisses his wife. And Harry thinks maybe he's gotten the hang of this dancing thing.

Harry takes his wife and children to the garden in the woods many times. Even muggles understand it is an enchanted place.

Every year on the anniversary of the war's end, Harry slips away early in the morning. He can be seen walking with a blond woman wearing no shoes and acorn earrings. Sometimes Neville, Luna, Ron, Hermione, and the old gang will share a meal under the stars, but always Harry and Luna spend a few hours alone.

"Auntie Lunes" becomes a favourite, particularly the year she gives Ginny pixies for Christmas. Harry three-steps all the way to sun spotted hands, sore knees, and grandkids. At his fifty-fifth birthday, he feels full, like he's eaten a banquet all by himself.

On the eve of his eightieth birthday, he realizes the private room in his heart is cluttered.

Cluttered. Full of acorns and first kisses and thestrals and the sound of toddler feet.

He is watching his son dance with his granddaughter by the fire when it happens. The music stops and something inside Harry pangs. Everything feels funny, unreal. His magic cries out and then snaps back.

Ginny approaches, eyes swimming. She kneels and grips his arm. "Harry, oh…"

Harry's gaze shutters. "What happened to her?"

"Stroke. She died an hour ago. Did you know she had a tumour on her brain?"

Harry shakes his head.

"Harry," Ginny whispers. "I'm so sorry."

Harry flies to Ireland the next day. Plenty come to shake his hand and say a few words about the woman who was married to her work. Then at the lowering of the casket, it is just him, Neville, and the pastor.

"She was extraordinary," says Neville.

Harry bows his head. "She never told anyone she was sick. I should've known, I should've…"

Neville turns to him then, one hand on his cane. He looks surprised. "Would you have told anyone, 'arry?"

Harry can't reply. The pastor says a prayer. Then the two old men are alone. Harry's throat is thick.

"I understand now," says Neville. "She told me to give you this to honour the 'waltz' you two shared."

Neville unfolds a piece of acrylic paper from his coat. Harry recognizes the portrait Luna had done with her thumbs, that night he ran to her studio. Except…

"It's me!"

Neville smiles. "People always asked who the portrait was and whether it was for sale. She said it was reserved for someone when her dance was done."

Harry takes his glasses off when they fog.

Luna's thumbprints are visible on painted tear streaks. Where the tears land, lilies grow out of loamy soil. For Harry it is a mirror. At the bottom is a Bible verse: 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.'

The tears fall now. Neville thumps Harry on the back.

"That's it, Harry. Let it out. She's alright now, though I'll miss her somethin' terrible."

Harry holds the portrait at arm's length so he won't get it wet.

"Me too, Neville. Me too."

Unspoken, yet understood, is the fact that Harry's health deteriorates several years later because when Luna died, she took a piece of Harry with her.

What is a surprise to everyone, however, is that Harry insists on his bed being moved to the garden in the woods. He makes provision for his children and grandchildren and a great grandchild on the way.

Surrounded by the throng of his family, Harry is grateful for peace. No menaces to fight, no violent ways to die. It is just him smiling, leaning back against the pillows. His family smiles back. He kisses Ginny's hand around a rattling breath.

Then a new face floats into view by the arbor at the end of Harry's bed.

Nobody else seems to see her, so Harry gets up and walks over.

"Come on, Harry!" says Luna. "You're late!"

Harry bites his lip. "I don't think I want to die."

"I'm so proud of you."

Harry glances back only to see himself, eyes closed, in the bed. His eyes widen.

"And death is easy," Luna finishes, taking Harry's hands. "It's just another three step!"

So they dance.

Written in 2016.