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On the first day of September, 2002, professor Harry James Potter set down his trunk in the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor’s Office at Hogwarts.
This was never part of his plan. Becoming an Auror had been his calling, and the three years of training were perfectly manageable. His daily life consisted of two things with which he was rather familiar after Hogwarts and the War- learning and fighting. Day after day, year after year.
When the learning tapered off and he was left fighting full time, it sent him reeling. Only then did he understand that what was familiar was not necessarily good for someone who had lived a life as strange and painful as his.
He still felt the exhilaration of the fast pace and the adrenaline rush that each new case brought him. But above all, he was tired.
He was tired of trying to be a hero.
So, he quit. He was prepared for the disappointment of his peers, but it must have been clear that his heart wasn’t fully in their work. There were few questions asked.
Ron, of course, understood quickly and easily. Hermione couldn’t imagine giving up on a dream, deep in the thick of her work at the Ministry, but she accepted Harry’s reasons. Ginny’s reaction was a bit of both. She had enough ambition for herself and Harry combined, anyways. They held a quiet celebration in their flat on his final day.
Headmistress McGonagall- Minerva, as he was now supposed to call her- took little convincing in hiring him. His early days leading and teaching for the D.A. were clearly not forgotten. All things considered, it had been a short journey from Auror training to arriving in this office.
The everchanging castle could easily have offered him a new office. Minerva thought he might prefer one, considering all the memories that this room held, but he was determined. Plenty of others had made use of it in the course of what was nearly a decade, but this office had also belonged to one Professor Remus Lupin. A small gesture, but Harry wanted his memory to carry on.
At only 22, the wound of losing one of his few remaining father figures lingered fresh in his heart. He would eventually unpack the pictures he had scavenged in the aftermath of the war, wordless stories of his mother and father and friends that he may never completely know, but his first concern was the plain piece of parchment that sat at the top of his bag.
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” he mumbled, and the tap of his wand brought the artifact back to life.
It had been almost an afterthought to ask George Weasley for help removing that traitorous name from the map. He was now greeted only by “Messrs Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs.” There was a gap, of course; but there was a gap in every part of his life, nowadays. His gaze lingered on the names of his professor (and perhaps uncle, in another life), his godfather, and his father, all of them brave and defiant from beginning to end. He thought to add his mother’s name, but the nicknames on the Marauder’s Map were sacred. He would need time to come up with hers.
He combed through the map, forever trained to watch for dangerous irregularities, but nothing appeared to be out of order. It was time to go.
It was a quiet walk to the front of the castle, most of his now-colleagues having left already to perform their various duties. Having none of his own, he was free to watch from the castle as a black parade of Thestrals pulled carriages full of students nearer and nearer.
He wondered how many of those students, following the horrors of the War, could now see the phantoms that led them from the summer into what was home for many of them, as it had been (and still was) for Harry himself. He was determined to be for them what Remus had been for him- not a savior, fixing the broken, but a man who taught them to save themselves.
Most of all, he thought of little Teddy Lupin, who would grow up and arrive here one day, mercifully unable to see the creatures for himself. Harry hoped that this would never change. Teddy had more than enough people watching over him already.
And though you’re dead and gone, believe me.
Your memory will carry on.