until Bill and Fleur’s backs are turned to jerk a thumb at Bill and mouth, He’s loooooosing. Then she does a little pantomime of an explosion, which almost gets her caught because Harry laughs at it, but she’s got a sweet smile fixed firmly in place by the time Bill and Fleur whip around.

They all descend in a madcap rush on the tables and chairs—which Harry thinks were probably set up the way they were set up for a reason, but who is he to say—and, in true Weasley fashion, emerge having pushed several of them together to make one large place to congregate. Harry sits, and wonders just what the hell is going on.

Ron and Hermionee back to the table then, each of them carrying a drink tray. “First round’s on us,” Ron says, to cheers from the group, and doles out shots of Firewhiskey. “Don’t drink them now, we’ll have a proper toast in a minute—I mean it, Ge!”

“Oh, fine,” Ge says sulkily. His mood flips in an instant, though, and he grins, says, “What is it, then? Don’t think we haven’t noticed you’ve gathered the troops.”

Ron looks at Hermione, and she beams back at him, and Harry knows what’s going to happen a second before it does—the second he realizes Hermione doesn’t have a drink in her hand.

“I’m pregnant,” she says. The table descends into chaos.

Harry remembers this from the first time Hermione was pregnant, and from when Ron and Hermione got engaged, and from when Ge and Angelina got engaged, and—well, from a lot of times, in fact. The Weasleys take their good news with more enthusiasm than any other group of people Harry’s ever encountered, cheering and yelling and elbowing each other in trying to be the first to get in for a backslap or a hug.

Dean and Seamus both look a little frightened. Harry gives them a reassuring look.

His own strategy, developed over years of exposure, is to wait out the rush and slide in right at the end of the pack. “Congratulations,” he says, grinning, his hands in his pockets, and Hermione laughs and drags him in for a hug. Ron throws his arms around them both and for a second it’s—Harry’s so happy for them he can hardly think, and he can’t wait to meet the new little person they’re making, to see what parts of them are like their parents, like Rose.

Then Ron lets go and Hermione lets go and Harry shuffles back to his chair and sits down, and it’s like some of his happiness just…doesn’te with him, somehow. He’s still thrilled for them, still excited, but there’s a cold, numb sort of sensation spreading out from the center of his awareness, deadening some of his joy.

“How far along?” someone calls—Harry doesn’t quite track on who—just as another voice says, “When’re you due?

“Late October, maybe early November,” Hermione says. “I’m about six weeks along; we only found out Friday before last.”

“Six weeks,” Ginny says slowly. “Does that mean—”

“That I subjected my unborn child to our last pub night?” Hermione says, and grimaces. “Unfortunately, yes. But my Healer assures me everything will be just fine, and otherwise the timing couldn’t be better if we’d planned it. The Wizengamot isn’t in session from Halloween to New Year’s anyway, so except for the asional special hearing I won’t be missing important time on the bench, and with Ron’s promotion…” She leans into the circle of his arms; he kisses the top of her head. “It’s just all really good.”

“Well!” Bill says, and raises his glass. “To Ron, Hermione, and the newest Weasley! May the heart be true and the love be long.”

“Zee labor swift and ze potions strong,” Fleur says, sounding like she means it.

“The spirit rich with magic and song!” Ge finishes, and they all cheer and throw back their shots. Harry never does know any of these Wizarding toasts.

It all devolves after that, everyone scraping back their chairs to talk, to get more drinks, to hug Ron and Hermione again. Harry chats with Neville for a few minutes while Ginny’s at the bar, and then, when he goes to get a drink himself, gets stuck with Percy. It’s twenty minutes and most of a glass Firewhiskey before Penelope shows up and saves Harry from further discussion of the minutiae of Wizarding tax law reform, and on his way back to the tables with a fresh top-off he gets roped into judging an arm-wrestling contest between Ge and Angelina. By the time he, at last, makes it back, more people are starting to pour in, and a new round of cheering starts with every addition to their group, the enthusiasm almost as overwhelming as the noise. Harry’s usual booth, at least, is thankfully empty, and he slides over into the corner, takes a long sip of Firewhiskey, and sighs.

They’ve known for two weeks, and they didn’t tell him.

That’s not—Harry knows it’s not fair, that they’re not obligated. He found about Rose more or less exactly when they did, but that was only because he happened to be on a Firecall with Ron while Hermione was doing the charm to check in the bathroom. She burst out shrieking her delight and Ron and Harry, once they figured out what was going on, shrieked too—well, yelled, at least—before Ron and Hermione threw their arms around one another in a passionate embrace and Harry hastily retreated back into his own fire. It was an incredible thing, even if it did end in a brutal assault on Harry’s eyeballs. It’s one of the moments he always reaches for when he casts a Patronus.

And that should be enough. Harry shouldn’t and doesn’t expect any more from them; he takes too much of their time and energy already, and to need this from them, too…it wouldn’t be fair. He knows that it’s not. It’s just…for so many years it was the three of them against the world, and even after they paired off—hell, even after they had Rose—Harry could convince himself, sometimes, that it was still like that in all the ways that mattered. That Ron and Hermione and Harry were a team, and what Ron and Hermione got up to in their down time wouldn’t change that, no matter what.

But now Harry can see what he’s known somewhere deep for years, what’s left him feeling guilty a thousand nights at Ron and Hermione’s table: they’re the team, the two of them. Harry’s what they get up to in their down time.

Harry’s chest hurts, and he orders another drink. The bar is loud, music thumping, and Ron’s been promoted—he’ll slip away slow, and right in front of Harry’s eyes. They’ll talk when they see each other at the office, which is already less and less, and then Ron won’t want to hang around after work; he’ll have his kids, his two kids, and his wife to get home to. Hermione will make plans with Harry that she’ll break, because she’ll be overworked and exhausted and presiding over six cases in between navigating breastfeeding and the terrible twos, and Harry will understand. Harry will have no choice but to understand, because he would never begrudge either of them a moment of happiness, nor their children—any children, but especially theirs—the loving attentions of wonderful parents. He’ll still see them, go 'round for dinner maybe once a month or so, catch them at the Burrow or babysit when they need a hand, but it’ll never be the same. They’ll be wrapped up in the warmth of their family, where they should be, and Harry’ll be where he always is: standing just on the outside, without one.

His stupid fucking glass is empty. He glares at it, as though this will cause it to refill itself; Harry knows it won’t, but he doesn’t stop. He’s a bit drunk, the sort that requires continued imbibing to really solidify into a proper evening’s buzz, and when he looks away from his glass he’s going to have to confront the enormity of the task it will be to either flag down a waitress or get to the bar.

Maybe, Harry thinks, if he stares at the glass long enough, it will simulate the sensation of further drinking, and he won’t have to get up at all.

“Well,” drawls a familiar voice, “isn’t this exactly as sad as Blaise said it would be.”

Harry wrenches his head around to the left, unable to believe it without seeing it, but sure enough: there’s Draco, standing at the end of Harry’s booth with his arms crossed and Blaise Zabini at his shoulder. He’s got his hair pulled back tonight over a black jacket and a slate grey sweater, a pair of jeans in dark blue denim, and the expression of a man who has been tried beyond all limits of patience—though, admittedly, that is his expression at least a third of the time.

“Dra—Malfoy?” Harry says, catching himself just in time.

Draco rolls his eyes. Then, to Harry’s amazement, he slides into the other side of Harry’s booth and demands, “What are you drinking, Potter?”

“Er,” says Harry, blinking at him, “Firewhiskey?”

“Lovely,” Draco says, and turns a dazzling smile on Blaise. “Would you look at that? Potter and I are already sitting down and you seem to still be up. You should probably go get drinks; it would be the polite thing to do.”

“You understand that no one finds this little act as amusing as you do,” Blaise says, sounding amused. Harry’s not actually looking at him; he’s still too busy staring at Malfoy, trying to determine whether or not he’s some kind of hallucination, if maybe Harry needs to go to St. Mungo’s and demand a drugs kit.

“As luck would have it, I find it amusing enough for all of us,” Draco says. “One Firewhiskey for Potter—he takes it on the rocks, I believe—and another, neat, for me.”

“You can take the boy out of the Manor,” Blaise says, but then he laughs, adds, “Oh, fine, but you’re paying. Hi, Harry, by the way.”

It takes Harry a second to realize that Blaise has addressed him, and he turns to look, having somehow—despite sitting here listening to his and Malfoy’s exchange—almost otten he was there. “Oh. Er. Hi, Blaise.”

“I want you to know,” Blaise says, sounding like he’s holding back laughter, “it is genuinely always just such a pleasure,” and then he walks off into the crowd, smiling to himself about god knows what.

He’s not been gone five seconds when Draco pulls a flask out of his breast pocket. “He’ll be forty min

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