Draco was the first person I ran to.

"Y/n!" he cried, wrapping me in his arms and holding me tightly. "When the Dark Lord said you were dead, I-I. . . ." He started stumbling over his words, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

I kissed Draco softly. "I'm here, love," I whispered. "And I'm alive."

He smiled. "I love you."

"I love you too."

I stayed in his arms for a moment longer before Star came over to us. "I'm not trying to ruin a special moment," she said awkwardly, "but there's quite a lot to do. Also, Y/n, you might want to check the dead."

I nodded in affirmation and walked with Draco to the row of fallen fighters.

"Oh, no. . . ."

On the ground in front of me lay Lupin, and next to him lay Tonks, both dead. My mind moved to Teddy and the promise I had made to Tonks earlier.

Draco noticed the lost look on my face and squeezed my hand, just to remind me that I wasn't alone.

I closed my eyes, pretending for a moment that things were normal again. But what even was normal? Living in constant fear of Voldemort and having to fight just to survive one year?

Voldemort is dead now. We don't have to live like that anymore, I reminded myself. We have to create a new normal.

"Let's go help Star and the others," I said quietly, shaking away my thoughts.

Draco agreed and we walked to the side of the Great Hall, observing the damage. The wall we stood by was partially crumbled and the windows were shattered. The tall doors were wide open and cracked and students were sitting around them.

Harry approached me. "Y/n," he said, holding up two halves of a broken wand, "I found this by Bellatrix. It's your wand." Harry paused. "Do you have the Elder Wand?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I think we should put it in Dumbledore's office."

"That's a good idea," I said. "Shall we?"

Harry nodded.

"I'll stay and start helping Star," Draco said, letting go of my hand. "I'll see you in a bit."

Harry and I left the Great Hall. We walked up to his office calmly, quiet in the newfound silence since the battle was now over. The Death Eaters who hadn't been killed or arrested were now on the run, lacking someone to tell them where to go without Voldemort's orders.

We entered his office quietly.

"Give me the pieces of my wand, please," I said. Harry obliged, and I held the Elder Wand up to my broken one and said, "Reparo."

My wand repaired itself immediately, the two halves sown back together so well I wouldn't have known they were broken just a moment ago.

I handed the Elder Wand to Harry, who placed it behind a moving portrait of Dumbledore.

"After we're done cleaning up here, I'm going to stop by Tonks' father's house."

"Why?" Harry asked, following me out of Dumbledore's office.

"I promised Tonks I would take care of Teddy."

Harry was quiet for a moment as we walked through the halls. "I can't believe they're dead. They were both so strong."

"Lupin and Tonks . . . they died so that the rest of us could live," I said quietly. "They're heroes."

Harry nodded in agreement and we made our way back to the Great Hall.

~~~

Four hours of hard work later, the school was somewhat put back together. The stone was still cracked and the windows were still shattered, but at least it wasn't crumbling.

I grabbed Draco's hand and led him over to Harry, who was sitting by Star, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.

"I'm absolutely beat," Harry whined, leaning against the wall. "How long have we been awake, Y/n?"

I counted the hours in my head. "Um, I'd say about thirty, maybe?"

"Thirty hours?" Star exclaimed. "Why?"

"Long story," I said. "Harry and I both had trouble sleeping the night before yesterday. We were up early, too, because we had to make sure everything was ready for us to break into Gringotts—"

"You broke into Gringotts?" Ginny cried. "Isn't the security on that place, like, deadly?"

"Yep," Ron answered. "We escaped on a dragon—"

"You flew on the Gringotts dragon?"

"It was my idea," Hermione stated proudly.

"It was," I added. "Well, we flew for hours until we reached a lake a while away and Apparated into Hogsmeade—"

"What about the alarms?" Draco asked.

Rom spoke. "They went off—"

"—Aberforth Dumbledore took us to the Hog's Head—"

"—Where they found me!" Star said.

"Wow."

"What happened next?" Ginny asked eagerly.

"We came to Hogwarts and destroyed the Horcruxes!"

"Hermione and I went to the Chamber of Secrets and used one of the basilisk's teeth to destroy Hufflepuff's cup," Ron said.

"Don't you need to be a Parselmouth to get in, though?" Harry asked.

"He was marvellous!" Hermione added. "Ron managed to repeat something he had heard you say, Harry, and it opened!"

"Then we went into the Room of Requirement, where we met up with Draco," I said, "and destroyed Ravenclaw's diadem. The fight started and Harry and I had to die."

"What?" Draco shouted.

I laughed. "Not literally. Well, maybe literally. We went to Voldemort and he killed us, but since we were Horcruxes he actually destroyed the Horcruxes inside of us!" I paused. "And if it weren't for your mother, Draco, we would actually be dead. She lied to Voldemort to protect us."

"Neville killed the snake," Ron said.

"So we were able to kill Voldemort! And we did, thank Merlin."

Draco, Ginny, and Star stared at us in shock. "Wow."

Draco put his hand on my shoulder. "I'm so lucky to have someone as strong as you."

"Aw, love."

"Are you two, um, a thing, or something, now?" Ron asked awkwardly.

I looked at Draco. "Um—"

"I mean, do you want to be?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"Yes, love."

"Then the answer is yes," Draco quietly said to Ron.

"Well." Hermione cleared her throat. "Where do we go now?"

"Before we figure that out," Harry said, "let's get something to eat! I'm starved."

We all laughed, but our growling stomachs agreed. In the chaotic hours that had just passed, we hadn't had any time to eat.

"That sounds like a lovely idea," Ginny said.

With that, we Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, where we were served a feast fit for a king—every witch and wizard there decided that we deserved it, thanks to our hard work during the battle.

"I can't thank you enough," the barman said, bringing us a fourth plate of Shepard's pie even though we hadn't ordered it. "You-Know-Who was driving business down so far we almost went out of business. Thank you!"

"Happy to help," I said kindly, "but you really don't have to thank us so much, and you don't have to bring us more plates!"

"Speak for yourself," Harry said, making us all laugh.

After the chaos we had gone through at the battle, this calm felling was nice. I couldn't help but smile at every joke and enjoy myself as I sat next to Draco, our hands intertwined under the table. I couldn't ask for anything more in life—this was all I needed to be happy.