(Gilderoy Lockhart)
By the time the last of Fred and George's second set of fireworks had stopped trying to outshine the stars themselves, the Great Hall was steeped in that strange, glowing sort of exhaustion that follows a truly successful spectacle. Smoke tinged gold and violet drifted lazily beneath the enchanted ceiling. The long House tables were in a state of magnificent ruin, with abandoned goblets, melting candle wax, crumbs of cake, and enough excited chatter to power half the castle.
In other words, it had been a triumph.
I accepted this fact with all the grace and humility for which I am so widely admired.
Aurora, meanwhile, stood at the center of it all looking as though she would have preferred, under ordinary circumstances, to be swallowed whole by the flagstones. Which was unfortunate, because she had never looked lovelier.
The candlelight softened the severe elegance of her face, and there was still the faintest trace of astonishment in her expression, though she was clearly trying to smother it beneath dignity. Students continued to wish her a happy birthday as they passed, some of them bold enough to grin at her, others far too delighted by the sight of Professor Sinistra being publicly celebrated to behave with any decency at all.
She accepted it all with stiff politeness, though I noticed, because I notice many things, that she had not once removed the tiny silver ribbon Rosmerta had tied around her wrist during the cutting of the cake.
Rosmerta noticed me noticing.
"Oh, don't mind him," she said to Aurora, loud enough for me to hear perfectly. "He's reached that dreadful stage of the evening where he believes himself subtle."
"I am subtle," I said at once.
Rosmerta laughed into her wine.
Aurora turned her head and gave me a look of such dry disbelief that I nearly placed a hand over my heart on the spot. "You had the Weasley twins set off fireworks in the shape of my initials."
"A refined tribute," I corrected. "Elegant, memorable, and tastefully explosive."
"Mm." Rosmerta sipped again. "And the stars writing out Happy Birthday, Aurora for the entire Hall to see was what, then? Restrained?"
"That," I said, "was atmosphere."
Aurora's mouth twitched.
It was only the smallest movement. Barely there. But after the last several days of sharp words, colder silences, and the very real possibility that I had ruined everything beyond repair, that faint almost-smile struck me with more force than the fireworks had.
Rosmerta saw it too, because of course she did.
"Oh, that's it," she said, sounding delighted. "He'll be unbearable for weeks now."
"I already am," I reminded her.
"Yes," Aurora said coolly, "but now you'll feel justified in it."
I should have had something devastatingly clever to say to that. Under normal conditions, I always do. Yet the sight of her standing there beneath the bewitched starlight, one hand still curled lightly around the ribbon on her wrist, left me at a very unusual disadvantage.
For perhaps the first time in my adult life, I found myself thinking not of what would sound best, but of what needed to happen next.
The Hall had begun to empty in earnest now. Professors drifted out in twos and threes, students were being herded along by prefects and common sense, and the enchanted ceiling had settled into its ordinary autumn brilliance overhead. The stars looked almost innocent, as though they had not just taken part in my masterpiece.
Rosmerta set down her empty glass and looked between us.
"Well," she said, smoothing down her skirts, "I imagine I ought to leave you two before I am forced to witness whatever comes after this. And I know for a fact," she added, turning to me with wicked satisfaction, "that there is a whatever."
Aurora's brows rose. Slowly, she looked at me.
I straightened at once. "I have no earthly idea what she means."
Rosmerta barked a laugh. "Gilderoy, you spent most of yesterday alternately preening and panicking. Don't insult me."
"I do not panic."
"You alphabetised three different gift ideas."
"That was discernment."
Aurora folded her arms, though there was warmth in her eyes now, unmistakable and dangerous. "You planned something else?"
I gave a light shrug that I hoped suggested effortless spontaneity and not the fact that my pulse had begun to hammer most inconveniently. "A modest continuation of the evening."
Rosmerta made a sound that was very nearly a cackle. "There. He said modest. That is how you know it's serious."
"I hate that the two of you have formed an alliance," I muttered.
"Oh, I don't." She leaned up, kissed Aurora's cheek, then patted my arm as if I were a decorative but unreliable feature of the castle. "Don't keep her out all night, darling. Or do. I'm not her mother."
"Rosmerta," Aurora said, and there was a warning in it, though colored through with laughter.
Rosmerta only smiled, thoroughly pleased with herself, and swept off toward the doors with the sort of confidence possessed only by women who know they have left chaos behind them intentionally.
Aurora waited until she was gone before turning fully to me.
"Well?" she asked.
There are moments in a man's life when he understands, with complete and dazzling clarity, that he is standing on the edge of either triumph or catastrophe.
This was one of them.
I offered her my arm.
She looked at it for a moment, then at me. "Should I be concerned?"
"Deeply," I said. "But not, I assure you, for any reason that reflects badly on me."
"That narrows it down so very little."
Even so, after a heartbeat's hesitation, she slipped her hand through my arm.
The simple contact sent a ridiculous rush of relief through me.
I led her from the Great Hall and into the quieter corridors beyond, where the sounds of the celebration faded behind us bit by bit, swallowed by stone and distance. Hogwarts at night always possesses a different sort of magic than it does by day. The staircases seemed to move more softly, portraits murmured sleepily in their frames, and candlelight burned in long golden pools along the walls, leaving the spaces between them dim and secretive.
Aurora walked beside me in thoughtful silence for a time.
At last she said, "You truly did all that for me."
It was not a question.
I glanced at her. "I have occasionally been known to dedicate myself wholeheartedly to a cause."
"You persuaded half the school to participate."
"I inspired them."
"You bribed the twins."
I drew myself up. "The word bribed is so ugly. I prefer artistically commissioned."
This time she laughed properly.
The sound caught me so unexpectedly that I nearly forgot where I was walking. Her laugh was warm and brief and unguarded, and for a second I wanted nothing more than to keep hearing it until sunrise.
Instead I said, because I am not entirely a fool, "There it is. I was beginning to think I'd imagined you could do that."
She shook her head, though I saw the color rise faintly in her cheeks. "Don't press your luck."
"Never," I lied.
We climbed the last staircase to the Astronomy Tower with the wind beginning to meet us before we had even reached the top. By the time I pushed open the door, the night had opened around us in full.
The air was cold and clear. The grounds stretched below in dark silver and ink, the lake catching scraps of moonlight in its still surface. And above us, the sky was vast, scattered thick with stars.
Aurora stepped out onto the tower and stopped.
For a moment, she said nothing at all.
And that, from Aurora Sinistra, was praise of the highest order.
"I know I see it almost every night, but the view from here is beautiful," she said at last, her voice quieter now.
I watched her rather than the view. "I thought it might be perfect, considering this is where we had our first date."
The wind lifted a few loose strands of her hair. She tucked them back absently, her eyes still on the sky. In the silver-blue light, her expression had softened in a way very few people ever got to see. Most of the world knew Aurora Sinistra as composed, sharp, difficult to fluster, and impossible to sway once she had made up her mind.
They did not know this version of her.
The one who looked at the stars as though they were old companions. The one who grew still in their presence, not from distance, but from recognition.
I took a slow breath.
Now or never.
"I hope," I said, with deliberate casualness, "that you will permit one final indulgence."
She turned to me, suspicious on instinct. "That depends entirely on how catastrophic it is."
"Madam," I said, offended, "have I not conducted myself with admirable restraint all evening?"
She looked back toward the grounds. "No."
"That's so cruel." I held my chest in mock pain.
"No, it isn't, that's just being honest."
I smiled despite myself, then drew my wand.
At once, her eyes narrowed.
"Gilderoy."
"Trust me."
She continued to look doubtful, which was fair, given our history. Even so, she did not stop me.
I stepped a little closer to the edge of the tower and lifted my wand toward the sky.
Magic answered at once, bright and silvery at the tip, running through my arm in a steady current. I traced a slow arc through the air, then another, feeling the illusion take shape above us. One by one, a cluster of stars near the western edge of the sky seemed to stir.
Aurora inhaled softly.
The stars shifted.
Not truly, of course. I was not arrogant enough to attempt rearranging the heavens themselves. I merely bent light, distance, and perception, weaving illusion over reality so smoothly that the sky appeared to open in answer to my hand. A new constellation bloomed into being, delicate at first, then brighter, clearer, each point of false starlight shimmering into place.
Aurora stepped nearer without seeming to realize she had done it.
The shape completed itself overhead.
A ring.
Simple, elegant, and luminous against the dark.
For once, I did not look at her immediately. I found that I could not. Not yet. There are performances, and then there are moments in which a man lays his heart bare and calls it magic because that sounds less alarming.
So I kept my eyes on the illusion and said, more softly than I had intended, "I thought the sky was missing something."
When I did glance at her, the expression of wonder on her face stole the breath from me.
That alone would have been enough to make the entire mad enterprise worthwhile.
But I had not come this far for enough.
With a flick of my wand and a touch more theatrical timing than was strictly necessary, though absolutely appropriate, I reached upward as though plucking the false constellation from the heavens themselves.
The ring of light trembled.
Then, slowly, impossibly, it descended.
Silver starlight streamed down around my hand in thin luminous threads. The illusion collapsed inward, brightening, condensing, until the cluster of false stars no longer looked like stars at all, but something much smaller and real.
When at last it settled into my palm, the light faded.
Resting there was a ring.
Not ostentatious or gaudy. Merlin knew I was capable of both, but this was not the moment for either. It was elegant, pale gold set with a stone that caught what little moonlight there was and held it in a steady, celestial gleam.
Aurora stared at it.
Then at me.
I could have made a joke. Under almost any other circumstances, I would have. A brilliant one, too. Something charming and perfectly judged to ease the tension.
Instead, I heard myself say, very clearly, "I know we've been treating each other as fiancées, but allow me to make it proper."
And before fear, pride, or common sense could interfere, I went down on one knee.
The stones of the tower were cold beneath me. The wind moved sharply through my robes. Somewhere very far below, the lake lapped faintly at the shore.
But all I could see was Aurora, who had gone utterly still.
I held up the ring.
"Aurora Sinistra," I said, and for perhaps the first time in my life there was not a trace of performance left in me, only truth, raw and bright and terrifying, "would you do me the honour of being my wife?"
The words hung between us.
No applause followed. No laughter. No fireworks. Only the night wind and the stars and the look on Aurora's face as if the world had shifted beneath her feet.
For one dreadful heartbeat, she did not speak.
I discovered in that moment that there are silences even I cannot charm into submission.
Then she lifted one hand to her mouth, not in theatricality, but as though she genuinely needed something to steady herself. Her eyes shone in the moonlight, wide and searching and far too full for my own comfort.
When she finally found her voice, it came out unsteady.
"You absurd, impossible man."
Under the circumstances, I thought that was a very promising start.
I let out a breath I had not known I was holding. "I choose to hear that fondly."
A sound escaped her then, somewhere between a laugh and something much more fragile. She shook her head once, as though trying and failing to regain her usual composure.
"You make everything into a spectacle," she murmured.
"Not everything."
"No?" Her gaze dropped to the ring, then rose to me again. "This is your idea of restraint?"
"It's a marked improvement for me, actually."
That did it. A tear slipped free before she could stop it, and Aurora, who would sooner stare down a storm than cry in front of anyone, gave a short, breathless laugh of apparent betrayal at her own face.
I rose at once, ring still in hand, every instinct in me suddenly torn between triumph and the nearly overwhelming urge to gather her close.
"Aurora," I said, softer now.
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then, with all the gravity of a woman pronouncing a sacred truth, she said, "Yes."
The world narrowed to that single word.
"Yes?" I repeated, because brilliance does occasionally desert even me.
Her mouth curved, trembling at the edges. "Yes, Gilderoy. I will marry you."
I think I said her name. I cannot be certain. I only know that the next instant I was taking her hand, slipping the ring onto her finger with rather less dignity than I would have preferred, because my own hands were not altogether steady, and then she was laughing softly again and I was kissing her before either of us could think too much about it.
When we parted, only barely, I rested my forehead against hers and let out a disbelieving laugh.
"Well," I murmured, "that went considerably better than some of my earlier drafts."
Aurora made a soft sound of amusement. "You drafted your proposal?"
"I revised it mentally."
"How many times?"
"That is not information to which you are entitled."
Her fingers tightened around mine. When I glanced down, the ring gleamed softly against her skin, the stone flashing like captured starlight.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
We stood together at the top of the tower, the castle sleeping below, the sky spread wide above, and for once I felt no need to fill the silence. It was enough to have her there. Enough to know she had said yes. Enough to feel the weight of that answer settling into the bones of the night, making everything that came before it seem like a prelude.
After a long while, Aurora said quietly, "The stars were a lovely touch."
I smiled against her hair. "I thought you might appreciate them."
Her eyes lifted to mine.
And there it was again, that terrible and wonderful openness, the one she showed so rarely. "Thank you," she said, with a sincerity that struck far deeper than praise ever could. "Not only for this. For all of it."
I brushed my thumb lightly over her knuckles. "You were worth the trouble."
One brow rose. "Trouble?"
I considered. "The better word is effort. Tremendous, heroic, breathtaking effort."
That earned me another laugh, and then she leaned into me.
Below us, Hogwarts slept on.
Above us, the stars shone with their usual ancient indifference.
And on Aurora's hand, one small circle of light gleamed more brightly than either of us had any right to deserve.
…