When Malfoy's sentence is announced- house arrest- he turns and makes eye contact with Harry, offering a faint smile and subtle nod. Harry fancies it a thank-you of sorts, and with that, he considers his work done. This is the last of the Voldemort trials he plans to attend, and he wants nothing more now than to return to the Burrow, where he and Hermione and the Weasleys have convened since the war, and take a nap in the old twin bed that they'd jammed into Ron's room for him so long ago. But when he turns, intent upon leaving, a man stops him. Not someone he recognizes, and certainly not the man who'd been sitting beside him before- but oddly enough, when he looks into peridot eyes just a few shades brighter than his own, there's a tug of recognition in his gut.
"Excuse me," he says politely, tone at odds with the impatient way he tries to elbow past. "I'm in a bit of a rush."
"I don't believe that's entirely true," the man says, and raises one enormous, bushy eyebrow.
"It most certainly is," replies Harry, nettled. "Do excuse me." He jostles the man rather roughly, pushing past him and making his way to the Floo.
When he tumbles out of the Burrow's fireplace, he's thankful that Bill and Fleur are the only ones around. The others have gone to Diagon Alley, apparently, to enjoy the early evening sun, and Harry thinks for a moment about joining them- but he's exhausted, and there will be plenty of opportunities to do so in the future, so he bids the couple adieu and heads upstairs to bed.
To his surprise, there's someone sitting on Ron's bed. He spots long legs first, face hidden in shadow. It's not Ron, he's certain- he'd recognize his friend anywhere. "Percy?" he asks, taking his best guess. "Is that you?"
"No," says the figure, moving into the light, and Harry draws his wand in the next breath. Peridot eyes, bushy eyebrows, stiff straw-blonde hair- it's the man from the trials, and Harry hasn't the faintest idea how he entered. The Burrow is warded to the gills and Unplottable, only accessible to Order members and Weasleys.
"Who are you?"
The man watches Harry's wand without any apparent fear. "My name is Arthur Kirkland. It's nice to meet you, Mr. Potter."
"How did you get in?"
"Nowhere in England is Unplottable to me," he says. "After all, I am England."
This man is insane. "Stupefy!" calls Harry, and the man reaches out and plucks the spell from the air, turning Harry's magic over and over between his palms.
"You're powerful," he says, almost conversationally. "Let me prove to you that I am England, Mr. Potter. I know everything that happens in this country- and I know, for example, that you stored food beneath a loose floorboard at the Dursley house on Privet Drive."
Nobody's privy to that information but Ron and Hermione, and he's certain they wouldn't have told anyone, and he hasn't felt the telltale brush of Legilimency, but he looks away just in case. "Stop."
"You stole Dudley's toy soldiers," Arthur says softly. "When you were ten. Nobody ever found out. You used them to reenact the Hundred Years' War, once you learned about it in school, and named the shiniest one Joan of Arc."
"What?" Harry whispers. "How do you know that? Who are you?"
"England," Arthur insists. "I'm England, all right? I don't want to hurt you, you're bloody well part of me- can't you feel it? Even Muggles can, and you have magic, after all."
"I think I saw you once," Harry mutters, a faint memory returning to him. "In Dumbledore's memory, of- of Tom Riddle, at Hogwarts, you were there!"
"I'm sorry. I wish I could have done something, and Albus asked, but... I'm England, and even Tom Riddle was English. I couldn't hurt him any more than I can hurt you."
Harry frowns, still unsure, but Arthur- England- does strike something in him, something deep and familiar and old. He sheathes his wand. "Well," he says.
"Tea?" says England.
They avoid Diagon, as Harry doesn't want to run into his friends, not when he's with- he glances at the man again- England. So they apparate to Hogsmeade instead, England somehow without a wand. "How about the Three Broomsticks?" Harry suggests.
England frowns. "Too public. Come on-" and he drags Harry into Madam Puddifoot's, of all places, to an isolated booth in the back corner. "Earl grey and finger sandwiches, and treacle tart if you have it, please."
"I'm not hungry," protests Harry.
"Yes, you are."
And sure enough, when the tea stand arrives, Harry's stomach grumbles. He glares at England, who laughs. "You're English," he says. "To the bone. You can't hide from me."
"England," Harry echoes. "So you're over a thousand years old..."
"Quite. The only humans who've even come close are Nicholas and Penelope Flamel. I miss them terribly."
"So, what do you need from me?"
"Need? Nothing. I have an offer to make. You're free to refuse."
"An offer?"
"I'll explain." England sips at his tea and leans back in his chair, smiling slightly. "I am England in every sense. I was Albion, Britannia, the British Empire, et cetera... but I am also English. More specifically, English martyrs; and most recently, Violette Szabo, neé Bushell, a martyr of the second world war."
"You're Violette?"
"Yes," he says. "I am. I am Violette with England's memories, or perhaps England with Violette's memories. Before that, Noel Chavasse, and before him, Sir Francis Drake... not to mention countless others. I'm not sure what exactly draws me to these folk, but it seems martyrs who die for England in suitably dramatic fashion fit the bill."
"I'm not dead," says Harry.
"You were," reminds England. "Evidently, that's close enough."
"So, the offer?"
"The offer. I usually make this to dead souls, but you are a special case- you can, if you choose, be me. And I would be you."
"I'd be England."
A nod. "You'd be England." He looks at Harry, then, with those green, green eyes- and Harry can feel himself shifting, filled with emotions and memories that aren't his, not Harry's own, but aren't foreign either. Watching a nuclear bomb test hit New Mexico with America, being crushed beneath Spain's boot on the deck of a ship, running up to a young Gaul with an armful of roses. He picks up the spoon to stir his tea and looks at his reflection in it. He's still himself, but his wild hair is now stiff with ocean spray, and his eyes have lightened from bottle-green to that same peridot shade.
"I would be England," he echoes.
"And you would be able to keep England safe, magical and muggle alike, but only from outside forces. Even you- I- cannot save us English from ourselves."
"Tom would have killed for this," he says softly. "Did kill for this. True immortality."
"It's not immortality," says England gently. "Sumeria is dead. Rome is dead. Nations are not guaranteed to last forever- but this is as close as it gets."
"Why did the others accept? The others in you, I mean."
England shuts his eyes, and opens them again. "Violette to keep England free. Noel to keep England safe. And as for Sir Francis, he simply could not bear to never see England again."
"What happens if I don't accept?"
"Nothing. I do not need martyrs to survive. The world will continue to turn, and eventually, you will leave England when you pass away."
"You're asking for a sacrifice. After everything I've already done for this country-"
"I'm offering a sacrifice," comes the reply. "You are under no obligation to accept, and those who choose to generally consider it a reward."
Harry thinks. It's tempting, without a doubt. After everyone he's lost already, there is a certain appeal to the quasi-immortality England is offering- and though he'd lose Ron and Hermione and the Weasleys eventually, he can see in England's memories that there are nations England loves, who would live for millennia right along with him. A built-in family: America, Canada, and as little as England wants to admit it to himself, France. And he'd have England's memories, too, memories that would make Voldemort himself seem like nothing, and he'd escape the nightmares that plague him- for he can see that England sleeps well, that he's had centuries' worth of experience handling bad memories, that very little can shake him any more. And of course, he could protect the English, wizard and muggle, the very English he died for- but in protecting them, he'd leave them behind, an immortal and ageless being himself, no longer just a part of England's fabric.
"What did Dumbledore say?" Harry asks. "When you made the offer to him?"
England looks at him askance. "I never made it," he says. "Albus didn't die for me. Of course he liked to plan and plot, and he loved England, but Harry... at the end, he sacrificed himself for you."
He grips his cup harder, shoulders tightening with sorrow. "For me," he echoes, voice rough.
"Albus was surprisingly Slytherin," says England. "He never could sacrifice himself for abstract ideals. But you- regardless of what the Sorting Hat said, at the end, you were Gryffindor to the bone. You were sacrificing yourself for Draco Malfoy as much as for Ron Weasley."
"I couldn't bear the thought of Diagon Alley remaining empty and cold," Harry admits. "Of it not being- unique, and full of life, and bubbling over with magic and gold and banter. It was the first place in my life that ever enchanted me. I couldn't walk away from the war, not after that."
England reaches out and squeezes his hand. "Thank you, Harry," he says. "For protecting me from myself."
It's a bizarre position to be in, ensconced in this pink-and-white booth, made still more surreal by the enchanted heart lights hovering by the ceiling. "I- anytime," he says, and then rather more awkwardly: "I love you. England, I mean."
They both laugh, and then England withdraws his hand and replies. "I will take that in the spirit in which it was intended. Thank you."
Harry wonders idly if he'll see it in the Prophet tomorrow- Savior Gay? complete with pictures of the two of them- but then decides it doesn't matter. Ginny and his friends will understand, and he doesn't owe anyone else an explanation.
"Well, then," says his companion, taking stock of their now-empty plates. "Look at me."
So Harry does, and remembers dragging France from the mud at the Somme, and Cromwell locking him up in a dungeon, and India smiling with satisfaction as he writhes in pain, victim of a rare poison. And he remembers other things too, Canada fighting for his sake, peaceful mornings on the open ocean, a tiny America running up to him with a smile.
England's half-faded, now, transparent as a ghost, and his color is leaching into Harry, skin going pale and hair growing out. "So you want it?" he asks, and Harry starts. He'd died for England, but he'd returned. And he'd returned not for England, but for Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Neville and Luna and Hagrid and Teddy, for those he couldn't bear to let go of.
England knows what he's thinking. "It's a rare thing," he says, "to come to the same crossroads twice, and rarer still to choose the same path both times. Are you absolutely certain? The opportunity will not come again."
"I'm sure," says Harry, weakly, and then again with more conviction. "I'm sure."
And England's coloring fades from his skin, and returns to its owner- and when Harry looks at himself again in the teaspoon, his eyes are his mother's again, a clear bottle-green. "The first sacrifice," he continues, "was enough for me."
England smiles. It's hopeful and sincere. "I'm glad," he says. "You've done the Gryffindor bit- so live like a Slytherin, now." He stands. "I'll walk you to the Floo."
Apparition would be faster, but Harry knows he won't see England again, so he lets himself walk alongside the nation through Hogsmeade, through the throngs of people celebrating the end of the war, lets himself bask in the wonder of being alive and mortal. England's lived through and fought in countless wars. Harry hopes that for him, this will be the only one.
England holds his hand out when they get to the Floo, and Harry shakes it. "Goodbye," he says.
"Goodbye," says England. "Be well."
Harry nods and takes a handful of Floo powder. "The Burrow!" he shouts- and the last he sees of England are those peridot eyes, the burden of millennia that Harry's rejected. And when he tumbles out of the fireplace and finds his friends gathered in the kitchen, bickering and brewing tea, he finds he doesn't regret it.