Chapter Text
FIVE YEARS LATER
“You know, that thing really is a safety hazard.”
Sybill sniffed. “But Regulus—consider the aesthetics of it all.”
Regulus peered down the open hatch where the ladder to the Divination classroom rested. “It’s an accessibility issue, and it’s a safety hazard,” he informed her. “I would know. I fell through it after your sister punched me in the face in Seventh Year.”
Sybill pulled a face. “Ugh, please spare me the details—”
A small, distinctly Weasley face appeared at the foot of the ladder. Percy Weasley peered up at them nervously. “Professor Trelawney!”
Sybill and Regulus answered in unison. “Yes?”
Percy Weasley, bless his heart, floundered but immediately attempted to recover. “Oh. Err. Professor Trelawney and Professor Trelawney? Someone’s duelling in the Seventh-Floor corridor again. Near the statute of Agrippa?”
Sybill sighed deeply and massaged her temples. “I’ll be down shortly,” she said. Percy Weasley scurried off.
Sybill shot Regulus a pointed look. “You owe me, Professor Trelawney. Seriously, you two couldn’t have gone for a hyphenated surname?”
Regulus patted his—admittedly luscious—head of curls. “Absolutely not. I’m not risking the wrath of an intergenerational hair loss curse.”
“But you’re risking my wrath,” Sybill muttered under her breath. There was no heat to it. After just over three years of working together, Regulus suspected Sybill quite enjoyed the dramatics of being one of two Professor Trelawneys in the castle.
Although Regulus didn’t put too much stock in the majority of the Divination techniques Sybill taught her students—he suspected that seeing the future was somewhat of an innate ability rather than a skill to be learned—he knew a significant number of students enjoyed her classes. Sybill rarely assigned traditional homework, preferring to ask her students to keep dream journals, or adopt a houseplant, or find a new favourite rock. Whenever someone questioned the educational pedagogy behind her methods, she’d merely sniff and remind them that she was the Seer, so wouldn’t she know how best to cultivate a student’s Inner Eye?
Her taste for the melodramatic had calmed over the years. She’d only slipped into overblown dramatics when her on again, off again relationship with Hess Jones had imploded rather disastrously, but the resulting spate of gruesome predictions only lasted a few weeks.
Sybill shoved a tin into Regulus’s hands, jerking him out of his reverie. “As promised, here are the biscuits Dad made for Dory. He says you two should come over for dinner this Saturday, assuming Dory’s not going to throw up from the Floo again.”
“You can’t really blame her,” Regulus said, tucking the tin alongside the papers and lesson plans under his arm. “The nausea—”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard all about it,” Sybill said, flapping her hands towards the exit. “Begone. I have students to give detentions to.”
“If you’re going to make them do trust falls, make sure you do it away from the hatch!”
~
The winter holidays were right around the corner, and Hogwarts was bustling with activity.
Strings of garland, fairy lights and boughs of holly decorated the halls. The smell of pine and cloves filled the air, joining the mouth-watering smell of the house-elves’ holiday cooking. Students caught up in the end-of-term excitement ran down the hallways, only slowing down once they spotted Regulus. He didn’t bother giving out detentions, not when so many of them greeted him with wide grins and cheerful “Happy holidays, Professor Trelawney!”
Regulus was going to miss this place.
He considered himself incredibly lucky to spend his working days at Hogwarts, a place he’d long considered home. It was slightly unorthodox to have someone in their early twenties teach History of Magic, but after Regulus had completed his Mastery and a crash course in educational pedagogy, Caradoc had insisted there was nobody better suited for the newly vacant position.
There had been a few hiccups when Regulus first began teaching, but he’d settled into the job as time went on. He liked to think he was a good teacher. He tried to be fair above all else, and firm when necessary. Even the younger students, many of whom showed up to their first classes looking rather intimidated by him, soon relaxed and opened up. He couldn’t do much to quell the slightly worshipful looks he received whenever they got to the unit on the War Against Voldemort, but Pandora often teased him that it was a losing game. He was considered a war hero, after all, even if he didn’t think the label suited him.
To break things up, Regulus often invited guest speakers to his classes. Dirk Cresswell, who’d gone to law school and made a career out of lobbying the Ministry on pro-Muggleborn issues, lectured on goblin history. Elyse, who’d also gone to law school but emerged an absolutely terrifying prosecutor, occasionally came by to assist Regulus in explaining the intricacies—and insanity—of magical feudalism.
By and far, though, his most frequent guest was Lily Potter.
Lily was writing a history of the war. She didn’t call it a history, because she said history was impossible to get your arms around. It was a series of interviews—oral testimonies taken in living rooms, coffee shops and smoky pubs. A chronicle of memories, lost friends, and a stark account of the toll the war had taken.
Pandora had sat down with her a few times. Regulus had taken longer to make up his mind, but after speaking with Lily about the war he left the Potters’ feeling a little lighter. It had helped, along with the weekly therapy sessions.
It was only appropriate that Lily was going to take over teaching History of Magic from Regulus. He’d be gone for a year at the very least, but at least he’d be leaving his students in excellent hands.
Regulus took the stairs to the Headmaster’s office, passing by Rubeus Hagrid dragging yet another massive evergreen towards the Great Hall. At this point it would look like a forest in there, but nobody wanted to dim the man’s holiday cheer.
“Professor Trelawney!”
He turned and caught a glimpse of Professor Flitwick—Filius, please, we’re colleagues now—emerging from his classroom.
Upon catching his eye, the Charms Professor winked. He seemed to take great joy in the fact that he’d inadvertently played matchmaker, all those years ago. “I was going to ask your lovely wife to give a guest lecture on spellcrafting, but I suspect I’ve missed my window of opportunity.”
Pandora Trelawney. His wife. Even three years after they’d gotten married, he still couldn’t help but grin at the thought. “She’s not feeling particularly mobile these days,” he admitted. “Her Healer doesn’t want her Apparating, and the Floo—”
“Say no more,” Filius said, nodding sagely. “Give Pandora my best.”
“I will,” Regulus promised, and they parted ways. Regulus had a meeting with the Headmaster soon to discuss his scheduled leave, and he hated being late.
It seemed like today wasn’t Regulus’s lucky day, because just as he began climbing the stairs to the Headmaster’s office, yet another voice called out his name.
“Reggie!”
Sirius tackled him from behind, laughing.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Regulus demanded, wriggling out of his brother’s grasp. Even if he secretly enjoyed being the recipient of Sirius’s enthusiastic affections, he had his professional image to maintain. “Who let you in?”
“As if they’d keep me out, you tosser,” Sirius said fondly. He gestured to the paper-wrapped package tucked under his arm. “I’m dropping off a parcel for Coz.”
Sirius and Remus owned a small but very successful business creating and fixing magical items, inspired by the Marauders’ Map. They were considering opening up a storefront in Diagon Alley, but they liked the flexibility of setting their own hours. The two often threatened to poach Pandora from her current research fellowship, but considering she was working under the tutelage of her childhood hero, he doubted Sirius would have much luck.
“Motorcycle parts?” Regulus guessed.
The motorbike was Sirius’s first prototype that he sold, inspired by his sheer hatred of flight via broomstick, and he’d kicked off quite the trend. Coz had been one of his first customers, and the two of them often discussed potential improvements to the motorcycle’s design.
“A new accelerator,” Sirius confirmed, grinning. “The idea came to me in the middle of breakfast, I swear it was a divine revelation—”
Regulus raised an eyebrow. “Why are you in this part of the castle, anyway? Coz’s office is back on the main floor.”
A few months ago, the Headmaster did what the Headmaster did best, which was ruffle feathers and upset the Board of Directors. This time it had been because he’d hired Coz as Hogwarts’ first guidance counsellor. The students adored Coz, and not just because he would often give piggyback rides in his Animagus form.
“Oh, I know,” Sirius said, gazing out at the hustle and bustle around them. “Thought I’d go for a walk around Hogwarts, for old times’ sake.”
His expression was nostalgic, if somewhat melancholy. It was easy to understand why.
What remained of the Marauders were close as ever, but they never referred to themselves as such. Peter’s betrayal was an ache that would never completely go away, although it had gotten easier to bear with time.
“You know what I realised the other day?” Sirius said suddenly.
“Is it another recipe for Dungbombs?”
“No, you twat. I realised that we’ve been brothers longer than we haven’t.”
Regulus rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t make any sense, Sirius.”
“I mean,” his brother said, “we were close before we left Hogwarts. That’s just under ten years. Then there was Hogwarts, which was eight years of distance, total. Now it’s been five more years since then. So that’s almost fifteen years of being proper brothers!”
Embarrassingly, Sirius’s heartfelt words summoned a familiar prickle of tears to Regulus’s eyes. He covered it up by punching his brother in the arm. Sirius pretended to be deeply wounded, but Regulus could see the fondness on his face, plain as day.
Sirius waved him off. “I better get going. Give Pan a foot rub from me, she deserves it!”
He couldn’t argue with that.
Regulus said his final goodbye to Sirius and ascended the winding staircase that led up to the Headmaster’s office.
The room had been redecorated since Dumbledore’s death. The clutter had been cleared, replaced by tidy bookshelves and a profusion of houseplants, courtesy of Professor Sprout. While Dumbledore’s old oak desk remained, the current Headmaster took most of his meetings in the circle of squat, comfortable armchairs he’d installed in the corner of the room.
To Regulus’s surprise, he wasn’t the only one in the office seeking an audience with the Headmaster. Juno Trelawney sat in one of the armchairs, sipping tea and wearing her cursebreaker’s coveralls.
“You’re late,” Headmaster Dearborn pronounced.
Regulus kissed Juno’s cheek and sank into the chair next to hers. “Fire me, then,” he told Caradoc, passing over the files he’d brought. The Headmaster had wanted to review Regulus and Lily’s proposed lesson plans. It seemed like common sense that the Headmaster should take an active role in the education of Hogwarts students, but it still managed to upset the Board of Directors. Not that they had much sway.
Caradoc snorted as he passed Regulus a cup of tea. “If I did, half the student body would riot,” he said, “and the other half would try and murder me in my bed.”
“Surely it would be tilted more in favour of the rioting,” Regulus commented. “I was under the impression that Dorcas had managed to stifle most of the Slytherins’ murderous tendencies.”
There had been quite the uproar when Cardoc installed Dorcas Meadowes, who hadn’t even attended Hogwarts, as the head of Slytherin House and the Potions Professor, but she’d done an incredible job.
“You’re underestimating the Hufflepuffs,” Juno said fondly. She reached over and plucked a wayward chunk of tinsel that had somehow attached itself to the collar of Regulus’s shirt.
Even a year ago, he would have squirmed under the attention. He’d always found it much easier to accept Dónall’s affections, rather than Juno’s. Perhaps it was because of his relationship to his blood parents, but he’d always felt flat-footed and uncertain around Juno.
Like with most things, therapy had helped immensely. That, and Juno’s boundless, unrelenting kindness. She never pushed, and she always welcomed whatever he felt capable of giving. In the past few months, he’d been rather reflective about mothers and parenthood in general. During one particularly difficult day, he found himself sitting in the Trelawneys’ kitchen, confiding all of his fears and anxieties to Juno. When he finished, she’d simply opened her arms and held him tight like he never realised he needed.
That’s when the truth really sank in: the Trelawneys were his family, in more ways than he could count.
He smiled at Juno. “What’re you doing here, mum?”
She smiled back, laugh lines crinkling. “We think we may have figured out how to unravel the curse on the Defence Against the Dark Arts position.”
“That’s brilliant!” The curse had been the bane of Caradoc’s existence—and five-year academic plan—ever since he’d become Headmaster.
“Emma figured it out,” Juno said. “She’s got an excellent sense for these things.”
As Juno slowly regained her health, she’d taken up some freelance cursebreaking. Emma had recently become her apprentice, and by the sound of it, the job was like a dream come true for Emma—second only to Elyse accepting her proposal last spring.
A flash of silver drew Regulus’s attention to the window.
A familiar Patronus glided into the Headmaster’s office, still looking as regal and lovely as it had the day he’d seen it for the first time.
The king cobra came to a stop at his side.
“Reg, sweetheart, are you almost done at Hogwarts?” Pandora asked, voice echoing through the magic of the Patronus charm. “I’m craving fish and chips like mad. With extra peas. Love you!”
Juno stifled a laugh. Regulus couldn’t even muster up any embarrassment. The sight of Pandora’s Patronus never ceased to make him giddy, even five years after the battle of Godric’s Hollow.
“Don’t you have better things to do? Shoo!” Caradoc said, barely concealing his fond smile. “Get out! Go fetch some takeaway for your pregnant wife!”
Regulus couldn’t argue with that.
~~
“Astronomy again?” Lily asked, bemused.
She moved a crumpled star chart off the settee and settled down. There were five Astronomy books piled on the coffee table in front of her, and two more jammed underneath the armchair.
Pandora had consulted more Astronomy books in the past month than she had during seven years at Hogwarts. If she had to read another star compendium, she’d scream into a throw pillow.
Pandora accepted Lily’s proffered glass of orange juice and tried not to whinge about the unfairness of it all.
Pandora hated being pregnant. Especially now, when she couldn’t fetch her own orange juice without expending a similar amount of energy as climbing Mount Everest. She really should invent a charm that would automatically close the fridge after you summoned something out of it. Maybe she could convince Ayomide to get a head start on it so she wouldn’t have to wait until after she came back to sink her teeth into it.
Regulus was at Hogwarts this morning wrapping things up before going on paternity leave, and Pandora was luxuriating in the peace and quiet. Regulus’s neuroticism and propensity for hovering had multiplied tenfold since she’d hit her third trimester. Most of the time, it was slightly irritating, but it did have its benefits.
On a whim, she’d sent off a Patronus earlier that day to ask him to bring back fish and chips for tea. The sight of the king cobra never ceased to brighten her day. Over the past few weeks, when Regulus was at Hogwarts wrapping up his lesson plans before going on paternity leave, and she was alone at home and feeling a little lonely, she’d summoned her Patronus to keep her company. Not that she’d ever admit it.
“Still haven’t found a name yet?” Lily asked.
Pandora eyed the Astronomy book and sensed an oncoming headache that was entirely Regulus’s fault. “It’s not about finding names. It’s about Reg’s complete lack of taste. I’ve just talked him down from Rigel. Rigel! What a bloody nightmare.”
“I mean, he has a horrible track record with naming things,” Lily helpfully reminded her. “Just be glad he isn’t naming your daughter Bread. Or Stew.”
Soup yowled spitefully from his velvet armchair. “No offence intended,” Lily said. This did not mollify him whatsoever.
“Honestly, it could be much worse,” Lily mused. “Regulus could want a planet name.”
Pandora threw a pillow at Lily. “I’ll divorce him before he names our child after a planet.”
“But Saturn Altair Trelawney has such … presence.”
Pandora stared at her best friend in horror. “I swear to all that’s holy, if you breathe a word of that to Reg, I’m making Elyse my daughter’s godmother.”
Neither she nor Regulus were Christian, but they both liked the idea of their child having godparents. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that Pandora being Harry’s godmother gave her an extra excuse to spoil the sprog rotten, not that he needed it.
Lily rolled her eyes, but her smile didn’t fade in the slightest. “You’re certain it’s a girl, then?”
“Billie insisted. And when it comes to babies she’s only right about half the time —“
“— about the same rate as guessing —"
“— but I just have a feeling.”
Lily smiled. “I knew Harry was going to be a boy. Witch’s intuition, I guess.”
Harry was an adorable child and an absolute terror. Nobody in his life seemed willing to say no to him, but he was still sweet and very gentle, especially with the other children in his play group. He, Neville, Ron, and Archie Thomas’s son Dean were thick as thieves. Dean was their most recent member—they’d tracked down Archie’s girlfriend Melanie a year ago and explained why her child was turning the walls of their flat different colours every night. Dean looked so much like Archie it was both painful and healing all at once.
Lily picked up the Astrology guide and flipped through it. “Your family has a name thing too, don’t they?”
Pandora groaned. “Mum and Sybill have been insufferable about it. I had no idea they cared so much.”
“Mythological figures, right?” Lily was squinting down at the page in front of her. She needed reading glasses but was too vain to admit it.
“What gave it away? Was it Pandora, Sybill, Juno, or Themis?”
Lily gave up and raised the book closer to her face. “What about … Mercury?”
“For a girl?”
“Why not make a statement? Gender norms and all that.”
“Thin ice, Lily. You’re walking on it.”
“Well, what about Lune? Like the moon. Or maybe … Luna?”
Pandora turned it over in her mind. “Luna,” she repeated. “A celestial body and a Roman goddess. Queen of the stars, isn’t she?”
Luna was much better than all the other shite names that had been tossed around. Including Vulpecula. Honestly, Regulus had a death wish. Even Andy agreed that one was awful, and she’d named her kid Nymphadora.
Luna, though. That felt … right. “Godmother privileges reinstated,” Pandora said.
“Please, as if you’d have it any other way,” Lily sniffed. “Someone needs to temper Sirius. He’s been gloating about being the Supreme Godfather ever since he found out you were pregnant.”
“Better than the Supreme Dogfather.”
Both women groaned.
“Maybe I should invite you out to tea with Remus and Ted next time,” Pandora mused. “Make you an honorary member of the club.”
“Of the ‘Willingly-Married-a-Member-of-the-Most-Noble-and-Ancient-House-of-Black’ support group?”
“Ted made jackets.”
“Of course he did. You lot need all the solidarity you can get.”
The afternoon passed in a haze of warm sunshine streaming through the windows, laughter, and frequent bathroom breaks. By the time Lily left for dinner, making sure Pan had sufficient orange juice and reading material, a soft warmth had settled into Pandora’s bones.
It wasn’t like old times. She and Lily had changed so much over the years, but they’d found new ways to fit together. They’d all found new ways—all of the tired and war-weary souls that made up their family.
Themis had recently completed her studies overseas and was working at a magical engineering firm in Munich. Dónall had begun teaching at the paramedic college two towns over from Little Gorslow, and Juno was thinking about retiring in a few years. Mary was gaining quite the reputation as an excellent Healer at St. Mungo’s, and while she and Dirk had broken up a few months after the end of the war, both were happier than ever.
By the time five o’clock rolled around, Pandora took advantage of the peace and quiet to take a small walk through her home.
After she and Regulus had gotten married, they’d purchased a modest house just outside of Little Gorslow. It was set a bit apart from its neighbours, which suited them just fine. They both appreciated the extra space—and the extra reinforcements to their wards and protective spells, not that they’d ever needed them.
Their home was exactly how she’d imagined it, and yet somehow completely different. The floorboards creaked and the windows were a bit draughty but they’d painted the rooms saffron yellow and terracotta red and sage green, and filled them with an eclectic mix of furniture, just because they could. Regulus had taken a liking to going to car boot and jumble sales in Muggle neighbourhoods, finding odds and ends that somehow fit perfectly with the rest of their cosy house. She suspected he enjoyed it because he never had a space of his own as a child, and also because he delighted in finding her the strangest gifts. “Payback,” he’d say as he presented her with a box of alpaca-print tea cozies, or a framed collage of Fry’s chocolate bar wrappers.
Pandora’s own magical gift had flared back to life after the battle of Godric’s Hollow. It had been a bit overwhelming at first, but it settled back in as if it had never left. She’d gotten far more adept at it than she was before. Now, whenever she got that familiar pins-and-needles sensation, she listened to it without feeling an urge to drop everything to follow it. Her gift was hers, and so was her life.
She paused at the doorway to the nursery and tried not to feel a little overwhelmed.
After they found out she was pregnant, Pandora and Regulus had converted Pandora’s home office slash workshop into a nursery, complete with a massive bassinet and walls decorated with murals of little woodland creatures dancing underneath starry skies. The nursery was already full to bursting with all of the presents their family had already managed to sneak in.
Pandora suspected Regulus, Coz and Sirius were converting the old shed in the back garden into a new workshop for her, but she probably would stick to going into the office to do her research. Her time using blood magic had taught her that dabbling in unknown forms of magic was best conducted in laboratory conditions.
Working with Ayomide and his group of spellcrafting researchers was like a dream come true. The grant-writing was hardly ideal, but the rest—creating, brainstorming, researching—was so exciting Pandora often got carried away and worked into the evenings. She probably wouldn’t be able to resist scribbling down a few ideas during her maternity leave, but she was probably going to have her hands busy for the most part. What with the baby and everything.
A baby. Merlin, they were going to have a baby. A little girl, with her own dreams and personality and desires.
At the start of her seventh year of Hogwarts, when Pandora imagined life five years out from graduation, she could never have pictured this. She could never have hoped for something like this: a beautiful house in the countryside, a job beyond her wildest dreams, friends and family all around the world, and a husband that she loved so much it shocked her sometimes.
The front door opened. “I brought dinner!” Regulus shouted. “Fish and chips, just like you wanted!”
He swept into the living room, hair looking ruffled from the wind. Even after being married for three years and living together for almost five, she still couldn’t get over the warmth that stole over her whenever she saw him.
He kissed her thoroughly and Pandora melted.
Who was she kidding? Reg was a menace, but he was her menace.
“Will this suffice?” he asked, presenting her with a paper bag containing three different takeaway boxes. “I wasn’t sure what you were in the mood for, so I popped down to the place in Diagon Alley, and that one shop in Swansea you liked, and Corky insisted on giving me some salmon, says you need Omega-3s, whatever those are—”
“Passable,” Pandora sniffed, even though her heart was fluttering madly.
Regulus leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. “Want me to pop these into the oven?”
Pandora eyed him. He looked particularly handsome today, and he was wearing that smile that never ceased to make her entire body heat up.
“Get Kreacher to do it,” she said. “Come ravish me.”
“It’s Kreacher’s night off,” Regulus reminded her. They’d tried freeing the house-elf ages ago, but he’d simply kept showing up to clean and mutter about the state of the floorboards. “And unless you want soggy fish …”
“So this is what absolute betrayal feels like,” she said, and lobbed her last pillow at him.
Regulus dodged and blew her a kiss on his way to the kitchen. Resigned, Pandora waddled over to join him.
When they’d first started looking at properties, Regulus had insisted on buying a house with a nice kitchen. Pandora had been torn between a few places, but as soon as Kreacher laid eyes on the massive range in this house, he put his tiny, imperious foot down.
Pandora settled onto a bar stool and ignored how it squeaked underneath her. She settled her elbows onto the island and eyed up the boxes of takeaway. “How was your day?”
Regulus snorted and started preparing a salad to counterbalance the fish and chips, because he insisted she consume things with nutritional value and health benefits during her pregnancy. “Nym—sorry, Tonks—is a right terror. Between them and Charlie Weasley, I’m going to develop an ulcer.”
Pandora claimed plausible deniability over how exactly her husband got his current position teaching History of Magic. While Reg insisted until he was blue in the face that Professor Binns simply had a change of heart and decided to spend the rest of his afterlife somewhere in Monaco, Dónall always looked a little shifty about it. He and Reg spent an awful lot of time last Yulemas discussing the finer points of Catholic exorcisms.
“Filius wants you to guest lecture sometime,” Regulus said. “For the second years, to get them excited about spellcrafting. The Wandsworth-Higgs indoctrination is starting early.”
Pandora snuck a chip. Absolute heaven. “Did Ayomide turn him down? He’s been doing those guest lectures for ages.”
“No, but you’re equally as qualified, and twice as charming.”
“You’re only saying that because you want to snog me in our old study room again.”
Regulus rolled his eyes but didn’t deny it. Instead, he came around the island and hugged her from behind. The scent of his cologne and the smell that clung to his jumper every time he came back from Hogwarts comforted her beyond words.
He put his hand very lightly on her stomach and kept it there. Pandora leaned into him, warm and solid. “You scared?” she asked.
“Of course I’m scared,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m bloody terrified.”
“You’ll be a great dad.”
“You think so?”
There was the slightest note of uncertainty in his voice. She’d long since learned how to detect it, just like he’d picked up on when she felt insecure or overextended. That, for her, was what love was all about. Knowing each other so profoundly that three words spoke volumes.
Pandora interlaced his fingers with hers. His wedding band glinted in the warm kitchen light, clicking against her ouroboros ring. Regulus’s ring was her late grandfather’s, and every time she saw their rings side by side she couldn’t help but smile. “Well, you’re a pretty great husband, so it stands to reason that you’ll be unfairly excellent at this too.”
It had surprised her, how excited Regulus had been about it all. But then again, he’d always wanted a family of his own, and he’d only realised over the past few years—with time and lots of therapy, for both of them—that he could actually have one.
Pandora hadn’t been sure about it, at first. She and Reg hadn’t exactly planned on having a kid in their early twenties. But the certainty grew until Pandora knew it in her bones that this was the right time. That this baby was meant to be.
The baby in question kicked, as if telling her to get a move on.
Pandora took a breath. “What do you think about the name Luna?”
She felt him grin against her hair.
“I love it,” Regulus said. “Best one yet.”
It felt right. Magical Britain was starting to feel safe again. Voldemort was gone for good. Life was moving on, slow and imperfect and full of love.
“Hello, Luna,” she said, and smiled.