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Ahead of the two Aurors, a desolate lighthouse looms. It’s a monolith, dead and grey; their base for the operation. Dreary night has fallen by the time Harry and Katie trudge into the abandoned keeper’s cottage.
With an exhausted flourish, Katie casts precautionary spells to check for signs of life, dark magic, traps and the like.
“All clear,” she says, setting her DMLE-issued valise on the dusty sofa.
When Harry returns to the decrepit one-room living space after deploying perimeter protection spells, Katie is tugging off her robes. She smiles apologetically. “I could change on the second floor? But I thought that could be your room. I'm on watch first, so figured I'd rest near the door."
“I don’t mind, Katie. We’ve been partners long enough. I’ve seen you half-naked.”
Katie chuckles. “No more girls-only changing rooms. Other than at HQ, of course. S’not like our Quidditch days at school.”
Harry idly splays case files across the worn-out table, ready to sink into monotony. It tends to tether the swelling sadness within him. A sigh threatens to heave past his lips, his chest cottoned with sopping grey melancholy.
Harry resents being reminded of Quidditch at Hogwarts. And yes, Katie’s muscular shoulders and curved hips remind him of Gin—he can’t keep using that endearment. Ginny, Ginevra? It’s been six months since their divorce.
Although Ginny is a pro player, thinking about Quidditch stung before Ginny ever mattered. Harry’s brightest memories of the sport were tangled with his first experience of tumbling into love. He can’t imagine flying without remembering that gaze from across the pitch—the boy who truly saw and cherished him without any preconceived assumptions or expectations.
Those first three years of Quidditch—and especially his third when Harry first noticed his feelings—are like cherished photos retrospectively stained with grief. For a fleeting moment, love had been his—until it wasn’t, as sudden as a candle snuffed out. A few short months, then Cedric was ripped away.
Katie spins, wincing. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up Quidditch, not with your—er… Let’s get to work? I haven’t read the briefing on that newly approved potion.”
Harry’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, but he welcomes the work to distract from the ache below his sternum.
Hours later, past midnight, Harry stares at the knotted ceiling boards of the second-floor bedroom. With the lighthouse defunct, the room is lit by starlight filtering through dust-smudged glass.
Harry is grateful he can’t see the stars clearly. Whenever he catches sight of a light-scattered night, a sentimental notion gnaws through him, leaving him on the verge of tears.
Cedric must be there. Beyond the sparkling veil, waiting for me… I never saw him with the Resurrection Stone, he’s got to be… just a breath away…
Through ten years of marriage and three children, Harry let the bustle and screaming block out the underlying grief. It stuns him, the intensity with which thoughts of Cedric have surfaced these past months, now that his marriage has finally disintegrated.
Chastising himself, words escape his throat in a hoarse murmur. “We were together for five months. Only kissed. Puppy love. Fifteen years ago.” It doesn’t convince his splintering heart.
If he must think of Cedric, he’ll cling to bright memories to keep himself from shattering: a smile dimpling Cedric’s cheeks, his handsome form cutting through a luminous sky on his Nimbus 1700, his fingers threading through Harry’s hair as he leant in for a chaste kiss.
Harry smears tears onto the pillow cover. No matter the progress the DMLE makes with each passing year, or how many insidious factions are subdued, none of it brings solace. Harry thought defeating Voldemort would free him, but it made little difference to his grief.
Harry slips into sleep while spiralling in a miasma of thoughts.
***
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
The whole murderous coven struck midday—intelligence hadn’t anticipated this. Maybe Harry and his partner alone on a stakeout were unresistable.
Rain lashes over the marsh, sludge shifting beneath Harry’s knees and reeds rattling as he crouches, poised to leap. Slashes of blue magic light the downpour in jagged bursts. Then—a scream.
Katie.
Harry’s Auror wristband flares yellow. She’s down. Unconscious.
Heart hammering, Harry whips around, his wand in a white-knuckled grip. Shapes dart through the storm, closing in. He’s outnumbered. Exposed.
Harry jerks out a vial from his breast pocket—
Potion of All Potential. Approved for in-field use from March 2010. Results unpredictable, unique to each user—handle with caution, for extreme circumstances only.
Super-speed, herculean strength, maxed-out magical capacity—anything is possible, Harry has never taken this draught.
It has to save them. He uncorks the vial as impressions of grey sky and dead stumps like monuments mix with his adrenaline, triggering echoes of that day. He must save—
“…the spare.”
Lightning blazes through Harry’s eyelids as he gulps the liquid down. The flare doesn’t wane.
Brightness and heat—is it from within Harry, or around him?
A vision sears like hot metal in his mind’s eye: vertical line, counter-clockwise circle, equilateral triangle…
The tingling, healing singe of phoenix fire licks his brow.
“Fawkes!” Harry tilts his face into sizzling rain, evaporating all around the soaring wings of Dumbledore’s long-lost familiar.
“Where are we?”
Another echo?
Phoenix fire flares into the clouds. Harry turns, brandishing his wand with vigilance as he does every mission.
Cedric kneels, staring at Harry with wide honey-brown eyes.
Peverell, Master of…
The whispered phrase tickles faintly as sound and movement surge back to Harry’s awareness.
Adrenaline pumping, he tosses his backup wand to Cedric.
“Cedric, fight! I won’t lose you again!” Disbelief, other-worldliness, and wild energy course through him. “Fawkes, the harpies! North-northeast!”
The rest plays out like a mad dash for the Snitch, except life or death rather than win or lose.
Fortunately, Harry is Death’s master.
***
Harry’s hurried footfalls match the thrashing of the storm outside. He bursts into the bedroom, his racing heart not assuaged when he sees Cedric seated on the bed; here, corporeal, wearing only a vest. His muddied Triwizard robes lie discarded in a corner.
Cedric’s eyes gleam up at Harry with concern. “Is Katie…?”
Harry flings himself across Cedric’s knees, clasping both of his hands in his and rambling, “She’s fine. Resting. I tried the Floo; it’s out. Then I cast a Patronus but—nothing magical is getting through the remnants of this harpy storm. It’s dampened everything, we’ll have to wait hours.”
The solid warmth of clutched hands isn’t enough. Harry cups Cedric’s face, voice a hushed tremble. “Cedric, please tell me you’re… real. Alive. Not…”
The long-lost feeling of fingers in his hair stirs a shiver that sings through Harry—a touch etched deep in somatic memory. He surges forward to taste Cedric’s lips, kissing with desperation, pleading that Cedric never disappear on him again.
Together they shrug off Harry’s half-scourgified robes and fumble their way under the quilt. Rain taps on the glass as tears burn salt tracks down their cheeks between brushes of lips.
Harry haltingly recounts the years they’ve lost. It’s like shaking off soot and cinders, life being breathed into them.
When Harry tapers off into silence, they lie on their sides with arms encircling bare shoulders, jewel green caught in amber brown. Their gazes glow, affectionate embers of the past promising rebirth.
Setting Harry’s glasses on the headboard, Cedric thumbs his jaw, gritty with five o'clock shadow. Still shaking away the pain of their time apart, Harry shudders. He repeats what he’s already said countless times tonight, but it beats like feathered wings to be set free. “I missed you.”
“I’m here now—so happy, and grateful. Harry. You got me back.”
Cedric’s gaze sweeps from Harry’s face to his bare chest nestled beneath the sheets. “You look so dashing, older like this.” He traces the curve of Harry’s collarbone. “Can I touch you more?”
Bursting with joy and nerves flickering with need, Harry confesses, “I don’t think I can believe you’re real without it.”
Cedric’s fingers trail through the dusting of hair on Harry’s chest, then trace his abs, gaze hooded and full of wonder.
“I almost… I was. You said I was dead.”
“We’re alive.” Harry punctuates it with an open-mouthed kiss.
When Harry pulls back, the desperation in his words wavers like a flame. “I can’t wait any more. Please, give me all that you can—anything you’re willing.”
Harry’s breathing is shallow, panting in a barely restrained tempo. He smooths his palm from Cedric’s neck, over the swell of his strong shoulder and bicep. “Had you—have you ever had sex?”
The bedside candlelight washes Cedric’s cheeks in mellow light but doesn’t hide his blush. “You were my first boyfriend.”
“You, too. You were my first boyfriend… my only.”
“You married Ginny Weasley. There was no one else?”
Harry nods. Frustration writhes against the ruins of fifteen years wasted.
“I’ve had years to sit with this realisation. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. All I need—please, say you’ll stay with me. Be with me, for the long haul this time.” Tears slide along his nose as Harry meets Cedric’s gentle eyes. “I need you, Cedric. I love you.”
Cedric crushes Harry into the pillow with surprising urgency, a ravishing kiss that has Harry clinging to Cedric’s shoulder blades. They press their bodies together from chests to thighs. Harry’s mind rushes with gratitude, awe, elation—he trembles with it. Shared warmth and shaky breaths stir their desire, sparking and lighting up their senses as they shift under the blankets.
When Harry is thoroughly kiss-bruised and thrumming with need, Cedric lifts himself up onto his elbows to nuzzle into Harry’s throat. “I love you, I love you too. I’m so sorry I left.” Wet saltiness cools on Harry’s shoulder as Cedric pulls back, his eyes gleaming, though his expression radiates pure joy.
Harry’s response flares physically; he shoves both hands into Cedric’s sandy hair and drags him down for another heated kiss. Harry hugs Cedric around the shoulders and breathes into his ear, “Cedric, take me—have me. It’s always been you, even when it was impossible. My heart’s for you, I’m all for you. Please.”
“Yes, Harry—you deserve our second chance,” Cedric is slow and reverent as he kisses his way down Harry’s chest. “And I can’t believe we get this.”
Back to grinning with ridiculous joy as Cedric begins shy explorations, Harry basks in the love rising within him, burning anew. “Have me any way you want, any day—all our days.”
***
Morning sunlight baths the room as Harry emerges from the blankets, his breath catching at the sight of Cedric, hair glowing gold as he gazes at the crashing waves.
“Morning, darling,” Harry croaks. He swoops in to hug Cedric from behind. Harry has just enough height to set his chin on Cedric's shoulder. They watch dawn swell brightly across the shore.
Little feet thump a staccato up the stairs. “Daddy!” Albus and Lily cling to the doorframe, round faces expectant. Harry groans.
Cedric twists in Harry’s arms and kisses him, lingering fondly to murmur, “For the long haul. It can’t always be dramatic salvation by phoenixes and resurrecting dead boys from their slumber.”
As Albus shows Harry some dirt-smudged pebbles, Harry says through a yawn, “If only Fawkes could resurface and save me from the reporters. It’s been over a year.”
“Need help with breakfast?”
“No, it’s all right. It's leftovers.”
Cedric squeezes Harry’s arse once playfully as Harry follows the kids out of the bedroom. With a heart-stopping smile, the love of Harry’s life promises, “Call if you need me. I'm just a breath away."