Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry woke with the distinct feeling that he was still dreaming. For one, he had awoken standing, fully dressed, in what appeared to be a temple made of some dark stone. The air was cold around him, but the sensation felt oddly muted, as did the light of the twin torches that glimmered on either side of a seated woman. If it hadn’t been for the way that her head tilted slowly as she examined him, Harry would have thought her a statue. She had the face for it – still, smooth, and timeless – and her flowing black robes could have been carved from marble for all their movement. She didn’t appear to be breathing.

“Harry Potter.” She said, her voice low but clear, and hinting at an accent he couldn’t place. Her green eyes – bright enough to be visible over the distance between them – fixed onto his own with an almost palpable intensity. “You’ve placed us in a bit of a conundrum.”

Harry had the absurd urge to apologise, but all that came out of his mouth was “Us?”.

Something rippled in the corner of his eye, and Harry turned to see a tall, winged man step out of the darkness. The man didn’t acknowledge him, expression cool and distant, as he strode towards the seated woman. His wings trailed behind him, feathers brushing the ground without making a sound, and flashed shades of blue and purple like an oil spill. He was, Harry thought as cold honey eyes turned back to regard him, the most beautiful man Harry had ever seen.

The woman hummed vaguely. “Us.” Which, of course, didn’t explain anything. She must have seen something in his face because she tsked, sitting up a little straighter. “What are they teaching you all these days? No matter.” Her lips, painted a glittering purple, turned down, as it evidently did matter to her, “I am Hecate, goddess of magic, the Mist, and necromancy. And this is Thanatos, Reaper of Souls. We’ve brought you here to discuss yours.”

Another time, Harry might have argued the existence of deities, or at least questioned it, but the waves of power coming off them both put an end to all arguments. Hecate’s magic hung in the air just beyond sight, hearing, and feeling, but so undeniably present that it left a taste like iron in his mouth. Thanatos, he couldn’t even begin to comprehend. “What about my soul?” He asked in the end. His voice was muffled, sounding thin and insubstantial to his own ears.

“You returned from death.” Thanatos replied. His voice was low, smooth, and rich, like dark chocolate. It drew Harry in, made him want to freeze and listen to anything this man – this god – said. A small part of Harry’s brain was wailing alarms at the barely veiled contempt in his tone, but the larger part of him just listened. “Something no mortal is allowed to do.” The alarmed part of Harry’s mind whirled faster, but he was still pinned under the dark-skinned man’s gaze. Something softened fractionally in those golden eyes, not enough to be considered warm but certainly less icy. “Of course, there were extenuating circumstances, and we certainly appreciate your aid in returning the soul pieces of one Tom Riddle.”

“Mm.” Hecate sat back, brushing her black hair over a shoulder, and crossed her legs. Almost invisible silver runes flashed in her robes as she did. “Terrifically rude of him. Foul magic, as well, but that can be forgiven, but to split his very soul in an effort to run from death? Ugh.” Her disgust was mirrored on Thanatos’ face. They shared a dark look.

“Which gives us a small problem.” Thanatos continued, stepping closer to Harry. The god was a lot taller than him, and Harry’s eyes only came up to one muscled shoulder. “Even if mortals were allowed to return from death, they shouldn’t, for death always leaves a mark.”

Harry’s eyes snapped up to his in alarm. “And what does this mean for me?” He asked, trying, and mostly failing, to keep his voice level.

“That’s what we have yet to decide.” Thanatos’ voice was almost quiet. He seemed to look through Harry. “Your return from death would have touched your soul anyway, but your proximity to soul magic – the upstart dark lord’s, your mother’s, and even your own – carved their tracks. Not to mention, your ownership of the Deathly Hallows. It’s a miracle that you even have a soul left.” His tone didn’t change, remaining impartial as if this wasn’t horrifying information that he was imparting.

“But you do still have a soul.” Hecate continued, before Harry could pull his thoughts together. “Changed as it is. And it sat wrong with us to drag you back into death when your initial visit to the underworld was clearly part of a heroic quest, and successful heroes are allowed to leave the underworld afterwards.” Harry’s heart pounded loudly in his ears at the revelation that they had casually discussed killing him. “But your soul is too changed to release you back as a mortal. So, we brought you here to get a closer look at your soul and magic, and to see if you were suitable for the other option.” She exchanged a look with Thanatos who nodded, face unreadable.

“The other option?” Harry asked, tongue feeling thick in his dry mouth.

Hecate placed her chin in her palm, leaning on the arm of her chair. On second thoughts, it was more like a carved wooden throne. “When our demigod heroes complete quests of a certain difficulty or influence, we offer them immortality, to become one of us. We tell them it’s a reward, and perhaps it is, but truthfully it is because their divinity has begun to outshine their humanity, and their mortal forms won’t hold forever. The same holds true for you.” Harry opened his mouth to interrupt but she shushed him with an artless wave of a hand. “You may not be a demigod, though I do believe you might be one of my legacies, but the concept stands – at some point during the soul magic, necromancy, and death, you were left with more pure magical energy than human soul. Even without any interference, you stand closer to a minor spirit than a mortal.”

Harry let that sink in for a moment, head spinning. He didn’t know what to say, what to think. How could he not be mortal? He felt the same as always. Sure, he’d spent the last few days after the Battle of Hogwarts feeling empty and unsatisfied, but that was just the grief, surely?

Thanatos peered at him without the level of distaste he’d had earlier. “I find this the most satisfying solution.” He stated. “Mortals cannot return from death, but new immortals can. Your soul is already on the verge of flipping over, it needs no more than a nudge in the right direction.”

“Then we’re agreed?” Hecate asked, shifting her green gaze to Thanatos. “We take him to Lord Hades?” The god nodded, placing a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

Harry backed away quickly, fighting the magnetic pull to go wherever the god wished him to go. “Do I not get a say?” He asked, anger mixing with helplessness in his chest to form a heavy, bubbling weight.

Hecate regarded him with what might have been something close to sympathy. “No, Harry Potter. You were not brought here to plead your case, but to be judged. That is the way with mortals. We have judged you and found that the most pleasing solution is to continue your transition to an immortal. So we have said it, so it will be. Thus, we will take you to our Lord Hades.”

Thanatos clamped a warm but incredibly firm hand around his arm, and Harry was falling into a whirl of whispering darkness.  

After a moment that could have been a second or five minutes, the roaring darkness coalesced into what appeared to be a cave of impossible proportions. Far above their heads, massive stalactites hung from the roof, but there was no sign of cave walls, just a dimly lit space as far as the eye could see. To one side, there seemed to be a mass of people in the distance, huddling around something large. A river full of rubbish flowed past them and a little closer to where Harry stood on a gravel path of small, sharp rocks, before veering away again. The path, once Harry focussed on it, led through what appeared to be a garden made primarily of stones and jewels, up to a massive palace, hewn of dark stone. Small shapes, indistinct at this distance, stood outside it.

“I will inform Lord Hades of the situation.” Thanatos murmured, not waiting for a response from Hecate, but launching himself up on powerful wings towards the dark palace. Although the underworld was dim, his feathers glittered in a mesmerising way.

“Always a sight to watch him fly.” Hecate’s voice was mild but a little amused as she took Harry’s elbow to steer him forwards. “Once you’re no longer mortal, his freezing effect should wear off. It’s probably his most effective method of keeping souls from escaping when he collects them.” She explained. It helped to know why he couldn’t seem to think straight under Thanatos’ attention, though Harry blushed to have been caught staring. 

“So, we’re going to, um, Lord Hades?” Harry asked, still feeling off balance.

Hecate nodded, shoulder-length hair falling around her face as she did. “Yes, Lord Hades, god and king of the Underworld, our sovereign. Thanatos and I may have made the decision on your mortality, but Lord Hades is the only one down here with the authority to see it through. Immortality isn’t given lightly, you know.” There was a note of censure in her voice, likely at Harry’s obvious discomfort with the idea.

“Are you sure this is the best option? I couldn’t just return to death?”

She fixed him with those glowing green eyes. “Are you so keen to die, Harry Potter?”

“No! No.” He exclaimed hurriedly. “It’s just…” He struggled for words. “I’ve never wanted to live forever. I don’t fear death. I welcomed it when I walked into that forest to die. To see my family again… My friends, eventually.”

Hecate stopped and regarded him calmly. “Even if I wished to offer you comfort,” her tone was neutral, “I couldn’t. We’ve already told you, your soul has changed. There’s no saying that even if you died again, you would find your way into the mortal underworld. Certainly not a good enough chance to make it a better option for you. Gods and spirits, when we die, we simply disappear. It would be no reward for your aid with the soul of Tom Riddle to do that to you.”

Harry nodded, not trusting himself to say anything. He wanted to scream about how unfair it was, but he was increasingly understanding that nothing about death or the gods was fair, it simply was. He followed Hecate up the path, barely taking in the sights and smells of the pomegranate grove around him.

“Besides,” the goddess gave him a quick squeeze on the elbow before removing her hand. “It’s not like immortality means that you can never see your mortal loved ones again, simply that you cannot belong with them again.”

Harry’s head shot towards her. “I could still go home? As an immortal?”

She hummed noncommittally. “It’s not as simple as that. Immortals have duties to oversee and, regardless of your personal attachments, you simply won’t fit in in the mortal world any longer, but yes, there’s no reason why you couldn’t visit on occasion. Regardless,” she said, as they left the grove of delicious-smelling pomegranates, “immortality isn’t an immediate thing, not without the aid of, say, Lord Zeus. You’ll have some time.”

Harry let out a shaky breath. It helped to hear he had some time. He couldn’t even begin to process this all now.

“Cheer up. Immortality isn’t all bad.” The goddess said, as they approached the palace. The specks outside had resolved into armoured skeletons. Hecate acted as if this were completely normal. Maybe it was, down in the underworld. “I won’t have any legacy of mine greet the lord of my domain looking like someone shat in his cereal.”

Harry blinked at the turn of phrase from a goddess then frowned. “Legacy? What does that mean?”

“It means that you aren’t a demigod yourself.” She replied absently, guiding him through the ranks of skeleton warriors, which parted for her. “But that you are descended from one. A parent or grandparent perhaps, was one of my mortal children.”

“Yours?” Harry asked. He felt dizzy, unable to comprehend the idea of this goddess as vague family. Still, something warm banked in his chest. “How do you know?”

She smiled at him, soft and sharp. “Why, Harry, you have my eyes, of course.” And then she knocked on the huge bronze doors like she hadn’t just shattered his whole worldview.

A heavily armed skeleton pulled the bronze door open on silent hinges and they entered the palace. Everything was done in black stone and bronze, flickering in the lights of muted torches. Despite the darkness, it was quite beautiful. Harry followed Hecate tentatively over polished stone floors, his footsteps the only sound as the goddess glided silently.

They soon reached another bronze door, carved elaborately and embedded with the largest jewels Harry had ever seen outside of Gringotts. Hecate knocked again, and almost immediately the doors swung open. There, sitting on a throne of skulls, was a towering god. He looked impossibly tall, at least 10ft, and the energy radiating off him made Harry want to fall on his knees and beg the mercy of this divine being. His skin was pale, as if he rarely saw the sun, emphasised by the darkness of his robes. As Harry watched, screaming faces appeared and retreated in the fabric. He wore a crown of blackened bones, which held back his long black hair, and he watched Harry with dark eyes that glimmered with an almost frightening intensity. There was no question about it, this was Lord Hades, god of the dead and king of this underworld domain.

“A mortal and yet…not.” His voice was oily in that it evoked the image of endless pits of thick, dark, priceless oil trapped beneath the surface of the earth. “I see why you have brought him, Hecate.”

“My lord.” She dipped her head regally. “Has Thanatos told you of our proposal?” She steered Harry further into the room, closer to the throne and the intimidating god. Hades never took his eyes off Harry, though his face showed no expression.

“He has.” The lord of the dead replied, finally glancing at Hecate. “I find it sound, though I would like to know more of the mortal who may enter the ranks of my subjects.” He turned his fervid gaze back to Harry. “Approach me, Harry Potter, so that I might judge you.”

The last time Harry had seen such a fanatical gleam in someone’s eyes, it was in the face of Voldemort. But unlike with that dark lord, he felt Hades’ charisma like a physical weight, a tugging in his mind to acknowledge this god as his lord and master. If he hadn’t had the willpower to fight off the imperius, Harry thought he might have collapsed then and there, but as it was, he started towards Hades’ throne on shaky legs, hands clenched at his side to keep them still. He focussed on the flowery throne next to Hades as he walked, wracking his admittedly terrible knowledge of mythology to remember whose it was. He had a lot of research to do after this.

A metre away, he met Hades’ eyes and froze as they jumped with purple fire. Those black eyes, darker than humanly possible, like small voids contained within a man’s face, searched him with soul-searing intensity. Harry was incapable of doing anything but stare back, barely breathing.

Finally, Hades blinked, and the connection dropped, the weight of his presence falling away to a manageable degree. Harry was still almost relieved when he looked away to the other deities. “Hm, destined for Elysium, a true hero. Exposed to the darkest of soul magics, but also the purest of soul protections, an interesting mix. Unafraid of death but not disrespectful of it either. You were right to bring him to me, Hecate, Thanatos, he belongs in my court far more than the mortal world. Far too early to tell, of course what kind of god or spirit he may end up being, but certainly a Chthonic one.” He looked back at Harry with a half-smile. It sat strangely on his face, as if it wasn’t used to being there. “Once your immortality is complete, I look forward to welcoming you into my court, Harry Potter.”

“Thank you?” Harry replied. He thought that was a compliment, at least.

Hades snorted. “Indeed.” Turning back to Thanatos, he asked. “Can you place an order for a golden apple with Hermes? I’ve run out of order forms.” It was very obviously an order rather than a question.

Nothing in Thanatos’ expression visibly changed, but he somehow managed to give off an aura of being particularly unimpressed. “My lord.” He nodded, then took wing and flew out with one powerful stroke.

The moment of silence after his exit lingered heavily and awkwardly. Harry looked between Hades and Hecate, who were both staring off in different directions, faces placid. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but he wasn’t quite confident enough in this underworld court to break the silence. Instead, he took the time to look around the throne room.

Where it had initially appeared quite plain, on closer inspection, every glossy black stone surface was carved in tiny and exquisite detail. The pillars were carved with draping vines, tiny highlights on the leaves picked out in bronze, and where they reached the ceiling, the vines bloomed into flowers. The petals were so thin, translucent, that magic was the only possible way they could have been made. The ceiling itself was a work of art, constellations that Harry only half recognised formed of tiny mosaic pieces. Even the floor was decorated, barely visible geometric patterns winding their way around the room. As it approached the throne, the glowing bronze lost its lustre, creating a circle of shadow around Hades’ throne. The intensity of it was so great that Harry could barely make out more than the vague outline of a smaller throne next to his. Harry accidentally caught the king’s eye as he peered closer at the second throne and looked away embarrassed at his raised eyebrow. Harry’s ratty trainers, a far safer place to look, seemed very out of place on the smooth black floor, blue laces too bright in the underworld gloom.

After another few long moments, in which the two gods resembled statues and Harry tried his best not to fidget badly enough to call undue attention, the bronze doors hissed open. They’d barely made it to halfway before a blur passed by, sending an unlikely wind through the syrupy stillness of the underworld air. The blur coalesced into a man standing a respectful distance from Hades’ throne.

“Lord and uncle,” he greeted, head of dark hair bobbing, “I heard the most interesting thing from Thanatos just now and had to come and see for myself.” His clothing seemed to flicker between a toga and a business suit, but the wings on his shoes, keeping him hovering just off the floor, stayed the same.

“Hermes.” The god of the underworld replied languidly. He didn’t seem inclined to say anything else and Hermes, the messenger god if Harry remembered anything of Greek mythology – was it mythology if you were witnessing it in action? -  seemed to vibrate on the spot in an anticipation.

“He said you needed a golden apple from the garden of Hesperides.” Hermes prompted after a few seconds had gone by.

“He did.” Hades confirmed, tracing a finger idly over the smooth bone of his throne.

The messenger god looked fit to burst with questions but seemed to know better than to ask any of them. He looked around the room and his blue eyes caught on Harry, previously overlooked in his rush. “Oooh.” His eyes lit up with unholy glee, a prankster’s grin splitting his face. “You’re not dead.”

Harry looked at the other two gods for help, but they gave no response. “…not currently, no.” He said eventually. Hecate snorted in the background.

“Curiouser and curiouser.” The god seemed unreasonably delighted, increasing Harry’s unease.

“Are you going to stand around all day making inane statements or are you going to fetch the item requested?” Hades asked. His voice sounded bored, but the danger in it made both Harry’s and Hermes’ attention snap back to him.

Hermes sketched a half-hearted bow to the enthroned god, “Sorry.” He didn’t sound it. “It’s just not every day that you hear of the possibility of a new underworld immortal. It would be quite the story on Olympus.”

“Hm.” Hades stopped pretending to be bored and made direct eye contact with Hermes for the first time, those purple flames writhing in his eyes and shadows creeping out from around his throne like an oil spill, pushing the stone from black to abyssal. “Which is why, I trust, that we can keep this an underworld affair for the time being, not a rumour running free on Olympus.”

“Of course.” Hermes said with a dip of his head. His voice was steady, which Harry wasn’t sure could have been said of him in the same place. The sheer aura of fear coming off the underworld king was enough to have him locking his muscles to prevent an unfortunate fight or flight response. Could a god even be affected by wizarding magic? Regardless, he was sure that this wasn’t the time or place to find out. The messenger god beat a hasty retreat, vanishing in a blur between one breath of freezing air and the next.

“He’ll be but a moment.” Hecate murmured, presumably for Harry’s benefit. In Hermes’ wake, the air hung still again, and her words seemed suspended in it, voice amplified and with the faintest suggestion of an echo. Sure enough, it couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds before an apple seemingly popped into existence on the floor in front of Hades’ feet.

“Coward.” Hades commented, as he leant down and picked it up. He seemed more amused than anything. He inspected the apple, brushing over its surface with long, bony fingers. Even the golden glimmer of the clearly magical apple seemed to dim under his touch, gaining more of a bronze sheen. “Immensely powerful, these apples.” He mused, glancing up at Harry. “They can produce any number of effects, immortality being just one. The important thing,” he paused here, as if to make sure Harry was listening, like there was any way that Harry wasn’t already trapped and bound by the riptide of the god’s attention. “is how you get the apple. Hermes retrieved the apple from the garden for me. You are receiving this apple from me. Do you understand?”

Harry wasn’t entirely sure he did, but intent had always been important to magic, and if there was one thing that this apple clearly was, it was magic, so he nodded.

“A verbal agreement.” Hades reprimanded.

“Yes. I understand.” Harry replied quickly, belatedly adding “My lord?” at Hecate’s unsubtle prompting.

Hades’ lips twitched, but he didn’t comment. “Good.” He turned the apple over once more in his thin hands. “Then come and get it and begin your transition into one of my gods.”

Harry had never stepped back from when he’d first approached Hades, so the god was only a metre or so away. Regardless, he made no attempt to reach forwards as Harry drew closer to him, just waited patiently until Harry’s feet brushed the ends of his pooled robes in front of the throne. At the god’s size, Harry still had to look up to meet his eyes. Harry tentatively reached out a hand towards the apple and the god mirrored him, slowly extending the hand with apple towards him until Harry’s palm met with the firm and surprisingly cold flesh of the fruit.

He made to draw back with it, but Hades’ hand remained around it, immoveable. “What do you say?” the god asked, faintly singsong.

“Thank you.” Harry was honestly relieved that he managed to get out more than a whisper. The god gave a pleased hum and finally retracted his hand, cold fingers brushing briefly against Harry’s own fingertips as he did. Harry hurriedly took a few steps back, realising how fast his heart had been beating as the waves of terror the god inspired diminished with a little distance.

Hades’ eyes stayed fixed on the gold-bronze apple, as did Hecate’s, Harry saw with a quick glance. The two gods seemed mesmerised by it and, as he finally got a good look at it, so was Harry. It wasn’t gold like metal or like a spray-painted object, but gold like magic. While at first glance it had simply seemed like a strangely coloured apple, on closer inspection, it barely resembled a fruit at all. It was a swirling, roiling mass of light, blending gold and bronze together in a molten sea barely contained within its shape. It didn’t feel like a fruit either, more like glass, but only if that glass was hair-thin and heated by the light of a cold sun. Occasional sunbursts seemed to arc out of it, fizzing like electricity against his skin. Even in the presence of gods - the lord of this domain, the electrifying presence of death, and the goddess of magic herself – Harry had never felt something so magical before.

“Eat. It.” Hades bit out, and the small part of Harry’s mind that wasn’t consumed by the dizzying light of the apple noted that he seemed noticeably less composed than before. Harry obeyed, using the order to snap himself out of his frozen state, and bit down into the apple before a thought to question it could even begin to form. Any thought was then wiped out. There was no precise flavour that he could ever have described, no texture. Just the confusing and deliriously beautiful sensation of sweet, sticky fire freezing his lips and dripping weightless down his throat. There could have been no lingering over it, Harry didn’t have the capacity to do such a thing, and it was over far too soon, the taste fading, and the sensation dulled to low embers inside of him.

As rational thought came back, Harry looked up, embarrassed, but neither of the gods looked like anything unusual had occurred. Hecate’s face was mostly blank, faintly interested, and Hades looked on in clear satisfaction.

“I’d make a joke,” the god smirked, eyes cutting to meet Hecate’s, “about being so eager to eat underworld fruit, but my Lady wife would never let me hear the end of it.”

Hecate barked out a surprised laugh and shook her head, smiling, “No, best not.” Harry stood awkwardly, feeling there was some in joke he wasn’t getting. “And look at you,” she cooed at him, not entirely kindly, “completely oblivious.”

Hades scoffed lightly, leaning back in his throne, his long hair draping like a pitch curtain over one shoulder. He seemed more relaxed now somehow. “He’ll need to be taught. I trust you can see to that.”   

“Of course, my lord.” Hecate bowed a little. She hesitated for a moment and added. “I’d never leave a legacy uneducated in the ways of magic.”

Hades’ eyes were back on Harry, assessing. He flicked a look over to Hecate, back, and to the goddess again. “There is a resemblance. Not a close one, though.” He paused, a hand coming up to tap his chin as he gazed off into the middle distance. Whenever one of the gods stopped actively moving, they were eerie, like hyper realistic statues – normal at first glance, but too perfect, too smooth, too still to simulate real life for longer than that. “Perhaps it would be best…” He trailed off, but Hecate nodded.

“It was what I was thinking.” She said. “It would make his position here simpler and less…vulnerable to outside influences.”

Hades nodded his agreement. Harry glanced between the two baffled.

Hecate stepped towards him, and, from the corner of his eye, he could see the edge of something glowing above his head. The green light reflected and refracted in the black stone of the floor. Looking up, he found the symbol of a torch. “I may not actually be your mother, but we share blood, power, magic. Hail, Harry Potter, son of Hecate.”

Hades witnessed this declaration with the solemnity of a judge but the satisfaction of a king overseeing his subjects. Harry just stared at Hecate wide-eyed as he felt the torch symbol dissolve into a shower of her magic above him, falling over him, though him, into him.

“Oh, buck up.” She said, leading him mostly unresponsive from the throne room with a last nod towards her king. “If you’re reduced to silence every time something godly happens unexpectedly, you’re going to be very boring very quickly. Besides,” she grinned as the bronze door shut behind them. “I have so much to teach you.”

Harry wasn’t entirely sure why that sounded like a threat. 

Chapter Text

Harry’s head whirled. He didn’t even want to address the madness that was Hecate’s apparent adoption of him. He allowed her to lead him back down the path they had come from without asking where they were going. Once more, the rich scent of pomegranate filled the air as they walked through the grotto. At the base of the trees, small flowers with gems instead of petals and precious metals for stems grew thick around the sprawling roots. Real flowers grew dotted among these, alive, but clearly not thriving. Their colours appeared washed out next to jewel tones or too vibrant, fake and gaudy like cheap plastic.

“How long will it take?” He asked eventually, as they left the garden, and he could no longer be distracted. “Until the immortality takes hold.”

Hecate probably didn’t need the clarification. “Three years, perhaps. Give or take a little. Powerful magics will burn through your mortality faster, but it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.”

Harry let out a breath a little too hard. “Three years?” It wasn’t really a question and Hecate didn’t dignify it with an answer. It was less than he wanted but more than he could realistically have hoped for.

“During that period,” she said, as she directed him towards an outcropping of cliffs, looming almost invisible in the Underworld darkness, “I will teach you what you need to know. This is both a kindness to you, and a preventative measure for me against all the kinds of nonsense that you could get into if left unaware of your power and the world you are now living in.”

Harry wanted to be offended, but he couldn’t deny that he had very little idea what he was getting himself into. “Is that likely?” He asked instead. “That I’d manage to get into trouble?”

The goddess snorted. “You have no idea. They’d eat you alive.”

They approached a cave in the cliff walls and Hecate entered, entirely confident in spite of the utter darkness beyond the entrance. Harry paused for a moment, but, hoping that it was like the entrance to platform 9 ¾, threw himself through the entrance. Nothing happened, except that Hecate, lit by light of her own magic, turned back, and gave his stumbling figure an amused look. She started forward again, and Harry hurried after her. Luckily, the stone floor was smooth and polished, looking like it belonged in a ballroom instead of a cave, so Harry only had to worry about tripping over his own feet in the dim light.

The path Hecate led him along wound in seemingly random directions, becoming ever deeper and the tunnel ever wider, until the pale green light that Hecate threw off failed to illuminate the walls and ceiling. No matter how far they walked, and it seemed like they’d been walking for a long time, Harry’s legs never grew tired, his breath never picked up, and his heart rate didn’t respond to the activity. He supposed there was no real reason for them to do so in the Underworld.

Eventually, the tunnel opened out into a massive cavern, lit by thousands of flickering torches. A temple sat at the bottom of the pit, hewn out of the same glossy black rock as Hades’ palace, but with shots of glittering magic suspended within them. Each speck seemed to change colours with dancing light of the torches, ephemeral flashes of gold, blues, purples, and greens.  

“My temple.” Hecate’s voice was proud. “My Lady Persephone had it built for me when I first came to the Underworld.”

“So, you didn’t always live here?” Harry didn’t know if it was a stupid question, but he’d sort of assumed that the Underworld gods had always been Underworld gods.

She smirked at him, as good as confirming that it was indeed a stupid question. “No, none of us did, not even Lord Hades.” Harry took a moment to wrap his mind around that. “I came here after the Lord took Lady Persephone from the Overworld. I helped her mother search for her and, as a reward, was appointed a position as her handmaiden and a place in the Underworld. Much better for my magic, anyway.”

There was so much Harry didn’t understand. “He took her?” He asked, startled. “And wait, then where is she and why aren’t you with her?”

Hecate hummed thoughtfully as they descended the last of the steps down into the pit. Her temple loomed tall above them, decorated with dark statues as pillars. A river of fiery water ran through the temple, branched into three channels. “Yes, rather a scandal back in the day. Lord Hades saw Lady Persephone, or Kore as she was then, in the fields. Her mother is Demeter, goddess of harvest and fertility, and Lady Persephone herself is of springtime. Not the kind of thing you see around here.” She indicated the cavern around them with the tilt of her head. “They say that Lord Hades saw her and fell in love instantly. He approached her father, Zeus, king of the Overworld gods, and asked for permission to marry her. He granted it. Lord Hades then rode up from the Underworld in his chariot and snatched her from the fields and brought her down here.”

She led Harry through the temple, past elaborate tapestries and murals, and into a backroom the size of the great hall at Hogwarts. It was a library, packed floor to ceiling with a mixture of scrolls, books, and stone tablets. “Of course,” Hecate said with a sardonic lilt, “no one consulted Demeter, or even the Lady Persephone herself, on the matter. While Lord Hades tried to persuade Lady Persephone to love him down here, her mother walked all over the earth, searching for her missing daughter. As she looked, and raged, and cried, nothing grew and all life suffered. I’d been nearby at the time though hadn’t seen what had occurred, and when Demeter came past, I understood what had happened. I gave her some torches to light her search through the night and tried some of my own magic to find her, though I was unsuccessful.”

“Eventually,” she said, as she selected a few books from various shelves, not even looking at the titles as she did so. “There came to be an agreement. Lady Persephone would marry Lord Hades and stay down here for six months of the year and would return to her mother in the Overworld for the other six. For my help, Lady Persephone appointed me as an attendant for those months that she is here Below with us. For the rest, well, I prefer it here anyway.”

“But why does she have to stay?” Harry asked. “Once she was found, why couldn’t her mother just take her back?”

Hecate gave him a half-smile that lacked any real humour. “Partially, it’s because she had come to love him. He’s an absolutely ridiculous man and went about it decidedly wrong, but no one can ever doubt that Lord Hades is anything but completely devoted to his wife. But mostly, at least then, was because of the ancient laws. You see,” she looked hard into Harry’s eyes, “when Persephone was first here, she ate six pomegranate seeds, and anyone who eats Underworld food must stay here.”

Harry’s eyes widened and Hecate grinned almost ferally at the panic in them.

“Ah, you’re finally seeing the mess you could have gotten yourself in.” She let him suffer for a moment. “Fortunately for you, that apple was from the Overworld, from the garden of Hesperides, and even a little of Lord Hades’ magic put into it would never be enough to override that. Besides,” she laughed a little. “He’s already got a wife; you’d probably have gotten away with eating whatever you liked.”

 Harry was slowly starting to see what Hecate meant about him getting into all kinds of nonsense.

“And that’s why you will be studying up on all of this before you ever set a foot in the Underworld again.” She said, putting her growing pile of books down on a table in front of him with an emphatic slam.

“Yes. Yep, that sounds like a good idea.” Harry managed to get out, eyes still wide. He’d never been a huge fan of reading, perhaps something to do with the fact that in all his years at Hogwarts, he’d never quite gotten around to getting his glasses’ prescription checked, but he’d gladly make his way through that pile if it meant he’d know about that kind of thing. “Is the, uh…Overworld? Is the Overworld like that too?”

Hecate tilted her head, black hair catching the light like the stone around them. “Yes and no – different worlds, different rules, but some things stay the same.”

Harry just blinked at her. That was a supremely unhelpful answer.

She acknowledged that with a nod. “Very little that you need to be worried about right now. Above, it’s best that you avoid drawing any godly attention at all – until your ascension to immortality finishes, you are still quite mortal, so it would be best if none of the Overworld gods caught wind of you before then. They can be overly suspicious of Chthonic deities and spirits, especially Zeus. However, you are still too mortal to stay here for more than a month or so at a time. Just be sensible.” She said, as she saw the trepidation begin to grow on his face. “Don’t do anything to draw their attention. Don’t pray, don’t sacrifice, in fact, avoid saying their names altogether, that’s a sure-fire way to get their attention eventually.”

“Like a Taboo.” Harry said, feeling horribly uncomfortable with it. Living under Voldemort’s Taboo had felt like a constant oppressive weight of fear, constantly on the back of his mind to keep from making a single mistake and being caught. The way they almost had been.

Hecate hummed. “Somewhat. Not as powerful as a Taboo, but the idea is there, yes.”

“Right. And what happens if they do find out?”

She shrugged. “Who knows. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps they risk Lord Hades’ wrath and kill you before you can add to his court. Most likely, they just gossip and speculate about you constantly for the next decade.” She shuddered. “No gossip is worse than immortal gossip.”

Harry winced. Wizarding gossip was bad enough, and he had plenty of that after the Battle of Hogwarts, as it was coming to be called, and Voldemort’s defeat.

“You should be okay.” Hecate’s voice was a little softer, though it still could not be entirely described as comforting by any stretch of the imagination. “The gods’ eyes have not been cast on Britain for some time now, and only I really care about your little magical community. There shouldn’t be any reason for the Overworld gods to notice you. Nor the Overworld monsters.”

“Monsters?” Harry asked. His first thought was that he should be horrified, but mostly he was resigned.

“Magical creatures.” She explained. “But often malicious, at least to humans and our half-blood children. They should leave you alone, for the most part. They don’t mess with spirits, and you’d smell very little like human or demigod to their senses. Besides, they’re mostly in the USA.”

As any good Brit did, Harry had a deep-seated idea of Americans as ridiculous, loud people, who made tea wrong, but he didn’t see why bad beverage preparation skills would make them particularly tasty to monsters. “Why?”

“Oh. Well, that’s where Olympus is now.”

“The mountain? Mountains can move?” Harry was horrified at the mere concept. He couldn’t help but picture mountains with little chicken legs getting up and stomping around at the gods’ command.

Hecate looked put upon. “Not the literal mountain, Harry. We gods may be great, but we don’t go moving around mountains simply because we feel like it. Or, at least, not anymore. I meant the home of the Overworld gods and the area of their greatest influence. It’s currently above New York.”

Magical, invisible floating cities was a much more comfortable idea for Harry than mountains that got up and wandered. He nodded along at her vague explanation of how the influence of the gods changed over time, and their home with it. It didn’t really make sense to him, but he wasn’t going to interrupt her when she was being oddly helpful and answering all his question.

“In fact,” Hecate said ponderingly. “Don’t be surprised if you start feeling a pull towards North America as you come into your power.”

“And the books will explain all this?” Harry asked dubiously, knowing that he was going to forget most of this as soon as Hecate stopped talking, perhaps even sooner.

“And more.” She grinned. “Magical self-updating books about magic. Keep a good eye on them while you’re at Hogwarts. They like to slip off to interesting places whenever you look away.” She nudged the book pile back onto the centre of the table, from where it had been slowly and inexplicably creeping its way to the edge.

“Hogwarts? I, um, hadn’t decided if I was going back. There was an offer for the Aurors and I thought…” Harry trailed off under the sternness of her glare. There was something about her distinctly flinty look that vividly reminded him of Professor McGonagall.

“Harry.” She took a breath. “Did you really think that I, the goddess of magic, would allow you, my newly adopted child, to drop out of magic school?”

“Well, I-“ Harry wanted to protest that he was in fact an adult by wizarding standards, and he certainly hadn’t asked Hecate to adopt him, but her expression warned him against finishing that sentence.

“No.” She said firmly. “There’s magic to be learned. Besides, what kind of magic spirit are you going to be if you haven’t even graduated high school?”

“You’d like my friend Hermione.” Harry blurted before he could stop himself.

“Oh, I do.” The goddess replied. “I keep an eye on my blessed ones, the muggleborns, I think you call them. She has no real power, but such a knack for using it well, wonderful magic. That’s the best way to honour me, you know?” The dreamy expression looked strange on Hecate’s face. “Everyone likes burnt offerings, but there’s something about someone using your domain respectfully and well that always gets us.”

Harry almost asked what her intentions were with one of his best friends but managed to clamp his jaw shut at the last moment.

“Regardless,” Hecate continued. “You need to go back to school. It doesn’t have to be Hogwarts if you don’t want to, but you’ll not disrespect your magic or my own by refusing to learn how to use it to the best of your abilities. You’ve got through this far on power and luck alone.”

Harry felt like she’d slapped him. He’d never considered it disrespectful that he’d put little effort into his learning. Foolish, perhaps, but not disrespectful. He’d been in the magical world for seven years, and it had barely taken any time at all before magic was just homework, and then it was a weapon. Somewhere along the line, it had been all too easy to forget that magic was magic.

“There you go.” Hecate smiled at him. “That feeling, that’s magic, that’s the core of you. Hold onto it.” She seemed radiant in that moment, so completely in love with magic that it almost hurt to look at her.

“I will.” Harry promised, and he meant it.

“Good. Then you’ll go back to Hogwarts and learn to love magic again. You’re a child of Hecate, becoming an immortal in your own right, it’s part of you.”

“You’re saying that I need to learn to love myself?” Harry asked dubiously. This was sounding suspiciously like the therapy materials some of his friends had taken to ‘subtly’ slipping in among his things.

Hecate scrunched her nose. “Ugh, no, deal with your emotions in your own time.” She shuddered, as if shaking off the mere thought of dealing with emotions. “I mean, yes, obviously, go and get therapy. Everyone should. But ugh.”

Harry cast around for any topic that wasn’t this one. “So, is this a secret? The whole becoming an immortal thing, that is. Can I tell my friends?” He fully intended to tell Ron and Hermione, no matter her answer, but he wanted to know if he needed to start making up a story for everyone else.

“Why would it be a secret?” The goddess replied. “The gods don’t care who you tell. It’s not like your secret magical society. The gods are out there, and we’ve never pretended otherwise, it’s just the mortals who are happy to wilfully ignore us.” She rolled her eyes as if responding to a rebuttal that he absolutely hadn’t even thought of making. “And yes, yes, I know, my Mist obscures the divine from mortals, but they can see through it if they really believe.”

Harry wanted to ask what the Mist was, but could guess well enough from context, and honestly, he was getting tired. Hecate was clearly happy to answer whatever question he had, but he wasn’t sure if he had the capacity to ask them anymore. “Can I go home, then?

“I suppose you’d better. For now, at least.” With that ominous statement, Hecate clapped her hands together and dark grey mists crept from her sealed hands, lighting with green flashes. They surrounded him, wrapping around his knees like large but affectionate animals. The mist was colder even than the frigid Underworld air. “I’ll pick you up at the end of term!” She shouted, a little unnecessarily since the mists had only reached his waist so far and didn’t yet appear to be doing anything.

“What?” He shouted back.

“Well, you’re supposed to visit your family in holidays, right? And I’ve got to give you godly magic homework!” The mists wisped around his shoulders, starting to curl around his ears. “I’ll send a hellhound to get you!”

“WHAT?!”

But then the mist had covered him completely, and Harry was falling again into that deep, endless darkness that Thanatos had first transported him in. The wind whipped at his face like a thousand icy knives trying to rip the flesh from his bones and his eyes watered horridly. Just as suddenly, he was out in brilliant day, and the kitchen of Grimmauld Place resolved around him as his eyes slowly adjusted to Overworld light again.

Hermione, standing there with her mouth open, dropped her mug of tea. Both of them stared at it as it spilled out across the tiles.

“Well.” She said, dragging her eyes up from the mess on the floor. “You always have known how to make a dramatic entrance.” Her voice was oddly light, and Harry inched away as he recognised the danger he was in. “Now, Harry Potter, where have you been?”

Chapter Text

Harry had begged Hermione to let him sit down and have a cup of tea before he tried to explain what happened. He must have looked pathetic enough, because she subsided with only a few suspicious looks, and set the kettle boiling with a quick flick of her wand. A second cleaned up the mess on the floor. They’d done a good job of cleaning up Grimmauld Place in the days since the Battle of Hogwarts. Although it had been trashed, there was nothing a few spells couldn’t fix, especially since Kreacher, who had hidden at the first sight of unwanted company, had been helping them. Much of the furniture was broken beyond repair, cursed, but the house was liveable if empty. The whole experience had made Harry slightly nostalgic for cleaning Grimmauld Place with the Weasleys, but mostly annoyed now that he knew how simple it all would have been for a magic-using adult to have dealt with. 

Hermione placed a mug of tea in front of him, the right amount of milk and sugar already added, and fixed him with one of her penetrating looks. She looked stressed and tired, her hair in disarray and face thin and drawn. They hadn’t yet started to gain weight back.

“So, first of all it wasn’t my fault.”

Hermione’s face did not change a fraction. “…Go on.”

Harry winced. “But apparently the Greek Gods exist? And don’t like people coming back from the dead.”

She sat up straight, alarmed. “What?”

“Yep, so, funny story…” Recounting it all out to Hermione made it sink in what an utterly insane tale it was. But bless Hermione for being a wonderful friend, she only looked faintly sceptical and didn’t interrupt his narration.

“So, to be clear,” Hermione started, evidently trying to hold off judgement. “The goddess of magic and the god of death kidnapped you in your sleep and brought you to the Underworld, sentenced you to immortality for your resurrection from the dead, brought you to the king of the Underworld for him to approve and so give you a magic apple to make you immortal, the goddess adopted you, and then deposited you back here after dumping some basic info on you?”

Harry dropped his head down on the table. “Yep. Sounds about right.”

“Okay.” She sat back in her seat, cradling her tea like it might protect her from the insanity that was Harry’s life. Hermione seemed to gather herself, drawing in a deep breath. “Okay, well, what do you want to do about it? Obviously, we’re here for you, however long you’re able to be around, but are you happy to go along with this? Do you want to try and fight it?”

Harry’s head snapped up. “You believe me?” His voice came out a little raw. He stared at her with wide eyes.

“Oh, Harry.” She said, brown eyes soft and a half-smile on her full lips. “Of course, I do.” She huffed out a little laugh. “Anyone else, I would take to St. Mungo’s and get them to check for some kind of befuddlement charm immediately, but this sounds about right for your luck.” Her eyes lit up. “I’ve always loved Greek mythology – it’s how my parents named me, you know? Helen of Troy and Menelaus’ daughter – now I have to go through all my books again! I wonder if they’re still…” She trailed off.

Harry grimaced. He knew what she was thinking about. For a moment, Hermione had forgotten that she’d wiped her parents’ memories and sent them off to Australia. They were still there. Although she’d restored their memories the moment she was free from the aftermath of the battle, Hermione’s parents didn’t know how to cope with a full set of memories restored to them in one go by a daughter who had taken them all away. Currently, relations were frosty between them. And Hermione’s things, belonging to a daughter they hadn’t known existed, were either with them or given away. Her beaded bag had contained everything she could carry, but many of her personal items had been lost.

He reached out and took her hand from where it had fallen on the tabletop. He interlaced his fingers with hers gently, knuckles brushing against her wand calluses. He didn’t say anything, knowing she wasn’t yet ready to talk about it, but squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

“Hecate gave me some self-updating books?” He ventured eventually.

She fixed him with a piercing look and for a moment Harry was sure he had mis-stepped. Her face cracked into a wide grin. “And you didn’t start with that? Harry Potter! It’s like you don’t know me at all.” She made little grasping gestures with her hands, and Harry pushed over the pile of books he’d set to one side for the story. She examined them, turning the top one about with thin fingers, and opened the old leather cover to find the title within. “The Principles of Divine Magic: A Guide Every Deity Should Read But None Ever Do by Lady Hecate” she seemed about to burst, running her hand over the cover like she could hardly bear to put it down and not immediately closet herself away with it.

“Oh, Harry.” she said, suddenly blinking away tears as she looked at the swirling golden text, sometimes in English and sometimes in what Harry could only guess to be ancient Greek.

“What?” He asked, vaguely alarmed at her rapid change in mood.

“Your ridiculous luck.” She said, shaking her head. She traced a finger over the word deity, “I’d thought, I’d hoped, that after this was all over, you could finally just…settle down, do something normal. No more Boy Who Lived Chosen One nonsense.”

“Yeah. You and me both.”

“And, I know it’s not what you wanted, but…” she grimaced a little. “Maybe it is a reward? In a way?”

“To leave everyone I love behind?”

She glared at him. “To have the power to protect everyone you love without worrying about dying yourself along the way. And to get out of this ridiculous wizarding world.” Her disdain was palpable at the end. Harry knew exactly what she meant. The war was over, but nothing was changing. Already, there were floods of wealthy witches and wizards going to the corrupt government and claiming to have been under the imperius curse, coming out of their trials a sentence and some galleons lighter. The government had barely changed at all, workers claiming to have been just following orders, and protecting their own wellbeing under Voldemort’s regime.

“You’re not completely wrong there.” Though he wouldn’t admit that she was right either. “But I wanted it to be with you all.”

“Harry,” she looked at him like he was an idiot. “God, spirit, wizard, whatever, I’m with you wherever you go.”

Harry loved her so much in that moment that he felt like he might burst with it. Not romantically, it had never been like that between them, but in a friendship so profound that it felt uncategorisable. He didn’t have the words, so just squeezed her hand again. Hermione would understand.

“I’ll find a way.” She declared, knitting her eyebrows together. “Whatever it takes, I’ll find a way to stay with you.”

Harry felt it like a punch in his gut, a tugging almost like a portkey, and knew that she had sworn a binding oath.

She looked back unrepentant. “Whatever it takes.” Hermione repeated, lifting their joined hands up to kiss the back of his fingers. Her eyes were fierce, and he pitied whatever forces, mortal or divine, attempted to separate them.

He nodded, repeating her action to kiss her fingers lightly. They were cool against his lips. “Whatever it takes.”

 “And Kreacher!” His squeaky yet raspy voice made them jump, hands reaching automatically for wands. Kreacher gave no indication that he knew that he’d interrupted an emotional moment, but Harry wouldn’t put it past the sneaky elf – it was just his sort of humour. “Kreacher would be honoured to continue to serve Master Harry Potter even if he is not dying and stops eating and sleeping.”

Harry decided to put the eating and sleeping thing to the side for a moment. “Kreacher, you heard all of that?”

“Not all! Kreacher wouldn’t eavesdrop on Master Harry!”

Harry shot him an unimpressed look.

“Kreacher would only eavesdrop on Master Harry a little bit.” The elf amended, absolutely unapologetic smirk on his wrinkly face. “But Kreacher already knew! Kreacher felt the moment that Master Harry was taken into the Underworld and when he eats-ed the golden apple.”

“You…know about all of this?” Harry asked.

Kreacher sniffed. “Wizardses may forget, but Kreacher is a good elf! A good elf of the Ancient and Noble House of Black! And Black elveses don’t forget the goddess.”

“Huh.” Harry had no other response to that, mind blown by the idea that Kreacher, and presumably other old house-elves, had known about the existence of the gods this whole time.

“I’m sure Harry would be honoured to accept your loyal companionship.” Hermione said pointedly, digging her nails in slightly to the back of his hand.

“Of course.” Harry smiled at the elf. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Kreacher.”

The elf nodded as if this was the expected answer. “Master Harry would forget to feed himself and try to live on tea alone. Which godses can do, but Master Harry is not a gods yet.”

“Yes, well…” Harry had no good reply to that, as anything he said to defend himself would be blatantly untrue.

“And Miss Hermione!” Although Kreacher would never accept her as his Mistress, and she’d never want him to, the elf had warmed up to her, especially as she’d brought Harry back alive from the war. “Yous are too skinny too! Kreacher will make a pie, yes he will.”

The old elf toddled off, without waiting for a reply. Kreacher knew perfectly well that if he left before they could contradict him, he could get away with anything he liked. Not that they particularly wanted to deny him anything. It had been a slightly tearful greeting when they’d arrived back at Grimmauld Place after the Battle and the immediate aftermath to find Kreacher completely unharmed.

“Thank you, Kreacher!” Hermione called after him. She lowered their hands, still clasped, to the tabletop. It was nice, warm and comforting, and neither of them wanted to break away. They might have once, before the war, but afterwards, neither could find it in themselves to feel ashamed of seeking comfort from a friend.

Hermione took her wand in her free left hand and flicked a tempus charm. It was coming up to three. “Ron should be back soon.” She commented. She tried for casual but couldn’t quite hide the silly smile that dropped onto her face. “I, um,” The smile slipped off, “I didn’t tell him that you were missing this morning.” Her words tumbled out faster and faster. “I didn’t want to worry him and you know he had that meeting with Kingsley about the Aurors this morning, and I was going to tell him if you were still gone when he got back!”

“It’s okay.” He soothed her. “I’m fine with it. I understand. Ron might be a little miffed when he finds out, but no harm done, and we both know how excited he was about this.”

Ron had been talking about almost nothing else since Kingsley had suggested, a couple of days after the Battle, that Harry and Ron join with the struggling Auror Corps to help round up the straggling groups of runaway Death Eaters, before joining permanently after that. Harry hadn’t been as sure, but Ron’s enthusiasm had been infectious.

“I can’t join with him.” Harry blurted suddenly. The reality of the situation was just starting to sink in. “I’ve got to go back to Hogwarts. I…” he paused for a moment, saying it out loud for the first time. “I want to go back to Hogwarts.” It felt like a guilty confession. “And I can’t stay with the Auror Corps for long.” He said, as if to excuse it.

Hermione beamed at him. “Oh, Harry, I’m so happy. I was so hoping not to be alone this year.”

Instantly, Harry felt guilty. They’d known that Hermione was planning to go back to Hogwarts when it reopened and finish her education, but neither of them had really considered that as a factor when thinking about their Auror careers.

“And,” she continued, a little hesitantly. “I wasn’t really sure if you actually wanted to be an Auror, or if you were just going along with what Ron wanted. Or, for that matter, whether it would have been right for you.”

“What do you mean?” Everyone agreed that being an Auror was the right choice for him.

“Well, did you want to be an Auror because you thought you’d enjoy the job, or did you want to be an Auror because everyone else thinks it’s your job to protect them and Umbridge said you couldn’t?”

Well, Hermione certainly wasn’t holding back anymore. She looked faintly apologetic, but her chin jutted forward a little, refusing to take it back.

“I don’t know.” Harry said eventually, and the confession was damning. “I suppose I didn’t actually think properly about anything beyond Hogwarts. So, I guess I just picked a goal and aimed for it, because you’re supposed to have something to aim for. I never really believed I would get there, that I would actually live beyond Voldemort. But now I did, and I don’t know what to do. Or what I want.”

“Harry.” Hermione’s eyes were soft and sad. She squeezed his hand lightly. She didn’t say anything further, though the look on her face said that she’d dearly like to, and they sat in comfortable silence for a while longer.

They both looked up at the rushing sound of the Floo grate activating. Ron stepped out of the fireplace with an ease that Harry was very jealous of, shaking ash off his knitted jumper. He looked good, alert in a way he hadn’t been since the Battle. Since Fred. “Mione! Harry.” He clapped a hand on Harry’s shoulder as he passed before dropping a kiss on Hermione’s head – making her flush darkly with an embarrassed but pleased smile – and turning to the counter to pour himself a mug of leftover tea.

“Hey.” Harry greeted him. It was hard to muster up the right amount of enthusiasm when he knew they were going to have a hard conversation, but any lack of energy could probably be blamed on the war. He knew he’d been a bit of a mess ever since the Battle.

Ron took a seat next to Hermione, mug in hand. “So, I had that meeting with Kingsley, and he’s more or less got it worked out to be official. We were thinking…” He trailed off, taking in their stillness and clasped hands. He deflated all at once, looking abruptly tired, and Harry’s stomach churned with guilt for draining Ron of the little enthusiasm for life that he had so recently managed to scrounge up. “What now?”

They didn’t do him the disservice of pretending nothing was wrong. Harry ran his free hand through his hair. It snarled around his fingers, wild and too long. “You know how my luck is the absolute worst?”

“Yep. Very familiar with it, actually. What is it this time?”

As Harry explained, Ron’s eyebrow’s shot up and his expression grew darker. “Why is it always you?” He asked, when Harry had trailed off. “I mean, I’d heard all the old stories, never really thought much of them to be honest, but there are loads of them out there about people getting all mixed up with the old gods. Usually, either pregnant or cursed. But, well, no one’s really heard anything like that for hundreds of years. They’re just…stories.” He snorted. “But I guess if it was going to be anyone…”

“You knew about this?” Hermione asked. Her whole body was tilted towards him, intrigued.

“Hey, I know things sometimes!” Ron interjected, mock offended. “I mean, not really.” He said quieter. “As I said, they’re just stories. You get some stuffy, old wizards sometimes harping on about how we don’t respect the Lady enough, occasionally one of the Pureblood families wants to bring back sacrifices and all, but I don’t think anyone else takes them seriously. I didn’t. They were fun bedtime stories, like Babbity Rabbity or The… The Three Brothers.” He stopped suddenly there, looking a little like his world was imploding, and Harry knew why. It seemed like Ron was going to have to come to terms with the fact that all his childhood stories had an element of truth in them. They’d come across all three Deathly Hallows after all.

“You’re okay with this, though?” Harry asked slightly tentatively. Ron’s responses could be unpredictable sometimes, and he’d been especially on edge since the Battle. Understandably so.

The redhead huffed. “I’m certainly not happy about it. Probably gonna need more time to wrap my head around it to be honest. But it’s not like you asked for this, just other people doing weird shit as usual. We’ll work something out. This can’t be the strangest situation we’ve been in, right?”

Harry and Hermione hummed noncommittally, thinking back through the weirdness that had been their school years.

Ron rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. Shit happens, it’s weird, it’s centred around Harry, Harry does something even weirder, and everything is okay at the end.”

Harry considered this. “Maybe what’s weirder is that no one’s trying to kill me yet.”

“Harry!” the two exclaimed.

“What?”

“You jinxed it.” Ron muttered, his face in his hand. “You can’t go round saying things like that. Now everyone’s going to be trying to kill you. Well, more than usual.”

The jovial mood trailed off, as it often did these days. It was true. The Death Eaters and dark sympathisers were after Harry’s head. Most of them had accepted Voldemort’s death, with his body laid in plain sight in the Great Hall until a mixed group of Unspeakables and Aurors had arrived to dispose of it, but some were convinced that the key to his resurrection lay with Harry. Others simply wanted revenge. The aurors were working to round them up, but they were understaffed, still in confusion from the rapid regime change, and hampered by the rampant corruption in their own department and others.

There was a third category too that wanted him dead, much more complicated and that made Harry’s stomach twist every time he thought of them – those who blamed him for taking too long to kill Voldemort. These were the ones who had suffered in the war, lost loved ones, their homes, everything, and were now asking why it had taken Harry a year to face Voldemort. He couldn’t answer them, didn’t want to tell them about the horcruxes, so had only been able to field screamed questions with vague responses and hiding away.

Hermione squeezed his hand, pulling him away from his thoughts. Her own eyes were shadowed. “Ron’s right – we’ll get through this. We always have. Together, the three of us.” She attempted a smile, which didn’t quite seem to convince herself either.

Harry smiled back at her, slightly more genuinely. “So, are we still on for lunch at the Burrow tomorrow?” He asked. “Maybe someone else will have some answers.”

Ron nodded and the conversation picked back up. Still strained and halting, with the weight of Harry’s impending immortality and all of their problems after the war, but warm. Harry loved his friends so much.

Chapter Text

The rest of the Weasleys had taken it well, or at least as well as could be expected. Harry had told them before dinner and, like his friends, they had taken this new turn in his ridiculous life in stride. Part of that, he knew, was a wilful determination to keep going because if they ever stopped, they weren’t sure they could start again. The signs of their grief were clear – Molly’s forceful mothering had gained a slightly manic edge, George was quiet, and the extra plate at the table was never removed – but Arthur had clapped Harry on the back and told him that he was always welcome and always one of them, no matter what. The sentiment echoed around the table, and it was such a relief that Harry was surprised to find himself near tears.

It was George who had surprised him, pulling Harry aside later in the evening and asking if there was anything they could do for Fred. For a moment, Harry’s heart had sunk until George clarified that he didn’t mean bringing Fred back – every wizard worth their salt knew to let the dead rest – but to ease his rest. He hadn’t known really, he’d been in the Underworld for a couple of hours at most and didn’t exactly know much, but he had a collection of books about Underworld magic, courtesy of Hecate, and promised to find out. George latched on to the project with the desperation of a drowning man. When they tentatively brought their plan to Molly, who had been planning Fred’s funeral tucked away in her room where she thought no one could hear her crying, she had sobbed but wrapped them in a bone-crushing hug. “My good boys.”

So, Harry stood by Fred’s grave. His coffin, hewn of solid stone in the wizarding style, still lay above the earth, waiting to be lowered in. The Burrow, visible from their field, seemed a lifetime away. The rest of the funeral had passed by in a blink but had also dragged horribly, in the way that funerals do, and only the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione were left. They’d all cried. Molly’s hair was in disarray from frantic clutching with her hands that she couldn’t quite control, and Arthur’s face was grey. Ginny was still, boundless energy lost in the face of her brother’s funeral, Percy was visibly distraught, Bill and Fleur were sombre, supporting a dismal-looking Charlie, and Ron was curled around Hermione, face buried in her hair. George simply looked lost. But they all stepped forward with a stalwart determination born of fierce love to conclude the burial rites.

Each of them cut a lock of hair with a whispered spell and Arthur slid the lid of the coffin off to place them with Fred. It was hard to look at him. A preservation charm had kept him from decomposing before he was in the ground, so he barely looked dead. It was as if he might leap up at any moment and announce that it was all a horrible joke. But, of course, Fred lay still, as he always would. Someone muffled a sob while Harry placed his own lock in, black hair standing out amid clumps of ginger. He hadn’t planned to be involved in this stage, but the Weasleys had protested furiously. George, the last to approach, curled a hand into Fred’s stiff one and held it for a moment, before leaving a galleon in it as passage to the Underworld. “Give them hell for me, Freddie.” He then placed an engraved sliver of gold onto Fred’s mouth, on which Harry had directed a note to Hades and Persephone, his new Lord and Lady, that this was a good man, who died fighting for people’s freedom, greatly loved and missed. The slab scraped as it was sealed again, shutting Fred away for the last time.

Arthur tried to cast but failed, and Molly took over with the same iron will that had killed Bellatrix Lestrange, lowering her son’s body into the ground. Silently, Bill brought over the stone grave marker. Fred Weasley, 01/04/1978 – 02/05/1998, Mischief Managed. He nodded at Molly, and she began to dig around in her bag for the basket of food that was much too big to possibly have fit. “Well, Freddie,” George said, plopping himself down and digging a small trench in the churned-up soil, “Mum made all your favourites. Let me catch you up on everything you’ve missed.”

-

The wake was back at the Burrow and promised to be an evening of good food, friends, and family. The Weasleys had collectively decided that the only way that Fred would ever have wanted to be honoured was through laughter, and though none of them were there yet, Harry could see they’d all made an effort to dry their eyes.

The Burrow was almost full to bursting with people, though not as many came as had been invited. Fred had been very well-liked, but people had to prioritise – there were so many funerals after all. Angelina Jordan stood with Alicia Spinnet, but Katie Bell was at the vigil for Lavender Brown. Harry hadn’t known they were close. McGonagall and Flitwick sipped glasses of wine at the side of the room with some older wixen Harry didn’t know, while various Hogwarts graduates from the twins’ year milled around. Family friends greeted each other with warmth born from familiarity over the years, and neighbours nodded to them.

Harry almost felt out of place amidst the crowd but the magic that washed over him – full of love and loss – felt like home, as had the waves of funerary magic that had settled around him during the burial rites. He caught a glimpse of pale blonde hair and found Luna in the crowd, smiling serenely. She was dressed in acid green, in contrast to the subdued robes all around, and Harry reckoned that Fred would have liked her outfit best of all.

A hand caught his elbow, and he was yanked out of his reverie and back to the present. Harry spun and was met by the heart-stopping sight of Andromeda Tonks. Harry wasn’t sure there would ever be a day when she didn’t remind him of her sister. He wondered if she saw her sister in the mirror the same way George did. She smiled at him thinly. “Ah. Mr. Potter, sorry to catch you at such a time but there is something we need to discuss.” She nodded her head to the baby in her arms, who looked up at Harry with bright golden eyes that flicked to his own bright green as he watched. Edward Remus Lupin, his godson.

“O-of course.” He stuttered. “Um. Is the garden okay?”

She inclined her head regally like the pureblood witch she was. “It’ll do.” And left without a backward glance to see if he was following.

Outside, evening was descending, and the birds had quieted; the air was losing its warmth quickly. Andromeda faced him with an unreadable expression. “I won’t beat around the bush. As I’m sure you’re aware, Remus and N-“ she stopped, her throat catching briefly before she soldiered on, “Nymphadora declared you godfather for young Teddy.” She waited until Harry nodded. “Traditionally, if the parents die, the child is raised by a godparent.” Harry couldn’t even begin to understand what he felt about this and seeing that he wasn’t going to say anything, Andromeda continued. “Be that as it may, you’re seventeen. Eighteen?”

“Seventeen.” Harry confirmed absently.

“A child yourself.” She nodded. “And I believe it is best for Teddy to be raised by me, with whom his parents left him before the Battle and where he has been since.” She gave him a challenging look but also time to respond.

Harry’s head was reeling, and he was scrabbling to get his feet under him again. Instinctively, he wanted to argue and say that he would do the duty that Remus and Tonks had honoured him with, but he was seventeen, becoming an immortal death spirit, going back to Hogwarts, and really, what did he know about babies anyway. “I want to see him.” He said abruptly. He coughed. “That is, I want to be able to see him, and spend time with him, and be his godfather, even though you’re raising him.”

Andromeda softened noticeably, tension fading out of her. “Of course, Harry. I never meant to cut you out of Teddy’s life. But you agree that it is best that I raise him instead?”

Harry nodded. “I don’t know anything about babies.” He said. Well, he knew that they were noisy and often smelly, but the thought of being entirely responsible for one was terrifying and he wouldn’t even know where to start. “And I need to go back to Hogwarts. I still want to be a part of his life but, well, you raised Tonks, and she was amazing, so I know that he’ll be safe with you.” He was surer of his decision with every word he spoke.

Tears glimmered in her eyes and Andromeda turned her head away to blink for a moment. She smiled at Harry with a proud, warm smile. “That she was. My brave girl.” She sniffed and visibly pulled herself together. “Come, walk with me back inside. We’ll arrange a time for you to come over and make things a little more official, and until then, you can have your first lesson in babies. It’s high time you held your godson.”

-

Later, Harry found himself in a clump of students listening to Professor McGonagall talk about the upcoming efforts to rebuild Hogwarts. From what he had gathered, though no one had said it outright, they had decided on not waiting for the nation to finish mourning before rebuilding because of the fear that the longer they left it, the easier it would be to keep putting it off and never reopen the castle again. “We’ve got builders and architects flooing in from all over the world.” She was saying. “Between them, the castle will be back in shape in no time at all.” Left unsaid was that the student group wouldn’t be fixed so easily.

“Will you three be returning to us?” McGonagall asked them. “I hope you know that Gryffindor tower is open to you.”

Hermione shot a panicked looked at him and Harry realised that he’d never actually ended up telling Ron that he planned to go back. Harry decided to bite the bullet. “I think…yes.” He said, casting Ron an apologetic look. “For me, at least. I want to finish up my final year, do it properly.”

McGonagall nodded with a pleased look. Ron’s face was doing something funny beside her. “And I imagine you’ll be back too, Miss Granger?”

Hermione nodded, still sneaking worried glances over at Ron.

“And you, Mr Weasley?”

Ron sighed deeply, apparently coming to some kind of decision. “As Harry said, let’s do this properly. Together.” He nodded over at Harry and Hermione, who beamed at him.

McGonagall looked similarly pleased. “Very well. I’ll be in touch with more information shortly, if all goes to plan with the reconstruction.”

“We could help?” Harry offered.

“Do you happen to know any building-specific repair and construction charms, Mr Potter?” McGonagall asked, eyebrow raised but a lip twitching upwards. “No? Then best leave it for the professionals. I’m sure you’ll be busy enough.”

She had no idea.

-

He met up with Luna and Neville later on. Someone had started a bonfire outside, and they were standing near it, faces washed with orange light. It was dark now, a clear night, and the stars were bright above him. Harry took a moment to search for Sirius and greeted the star with a smile. “Hey.” He said to the two. Neville jumped, but Luna smiled calmly, as if she’d known he was there all along. She probably had.

“Harry.” She said voice airy. “You have fewer wrackspurts now. They don’t tend to like ghosts.”

“What do you- never mind.” Sometimes, it was best not to question Luna, he’d found.

“Hi, Harry.” Neville said, also not reacting. “How’s it going?” He winced, looking around him at the funeral wake, “I mean-“

“It’s okay.” Harry said, cutting him off. “It’s going okay. Just talked to McGonagall about Hogwarts. Are either of you planning on going back?”

Luna nodded happily, long earrings of unrecognisable objects clinking as she did. “Oh, yes. I’m very excited to be back again. I never made it back to school after the winter holidays, so I don’t think I did very well on my exams at all.” Well, that was one way of saying that she’d been kidnapped and held in the dungeons at Malfoy Manor.

“I don’t think anyone ended up taking their NEWTs.” Said Neville thoughtfully. “They were supposed to be in June. I suppose some people might be ready, but we were all in the Room of Requirement rather than classes near the end, so none of us would be ready. My Gran insists I get my NEWTs.”

“Just your Gran?” Harry asked. Neville’s grandmother could be somewhat overbearing, but he’d gotten the impression that she’d lightened up on him since the Battle in the snatches of them that he’d seen during the various funerals that they’d both attended.

“No, I want to go back too.” Neville said, face set. “I won’t lie, I thought long and hard about it, but it seemed like…like a waste, you know, to not go back when we fought so hard for it.”

Harry nodded and saw Luna reach over and take Neville’s hand. “How many do you think won’t?”

The other Gryffindor let out a huff of air. “I don’t know.” He said seriously. “Hogwarts this year…last year, was bad. I know you were off doing your thing, and that was definitely bad for you – I saw you when you arrived at Hogwarts, but I don’t know if I can explain how bad Hogwarts was for all of us. The Carrows… Hogwarts was supposed to be safe!” His voice rose, tremoring a little. He took a deep breath and calmed a little. “Hogwarts was supposed to be safe, and the Death Eaters ruined it, and hurt us, and tried to make us hurt each other, and turned the school into a prison we didn’t know if we’d survive. And it’s not your fault, but we had no news from outside, no idea whether this was ever going to end. And then we had the Battle, and that was awful, but I don’t know if it was as awful as the months beforehand because at least it was finally over.”

“I’m sorry, Nev.” Harry laid a hand on Neville’s arm. “I’m so sorry. I wish we could have done something more…faster.”

Neville fixed him with a stern look. “It’s not your fault. And don’t try and make it your fault. Everything that happened that year is between us and V-Voldemort’s Death Eaters. And I’m proud of what I did, and that’s on me. And the Carrows and Voldemort hurt us, and that’s on them.”

“For what it’s worth,” Harry said, “I’m proud of you too.”

“Me too.” Said Luna. “And I’m proud of me.”

“Yeah.” Suddenly, hints of the shy and embarrassed boy Neville had once been were back and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks, guys. But yeah, point is, I don’t know how many will be back.”

“That’s fair.” Harry tipped his head back to look at the stars again. Hermione and Ron would always be his best friends, but he was very glad to know Neville and Luna. They were two of the best people Harry had ever met. He came to an abrupt decision but immediately knew it was the right one. “Are you two up for more news? It’s not life-threatening, so it can wait, but it’s my kind of luck striking again.”

Neville eyed him warily and Luna… he still couldn’t tell how much Luna already knew. “What can it possibly be this time?” Neville asked.

“Well…” and Harry explained again.

Chapter Text

May drew to an end and June began, tepid showers giving way to slightly warmer summer storms. With their dead buried and their injured healing, most of the wizarding world had turned to rebuilding what they could of their society. The Ministry was still in shambles, but they’d pulled together enough of a working force to start getting things in order for trials. Although there would be many, Kingsley Shacklebolt and his team seemed determined to do things right and not repeat the mistakes committed after the previous war. Those who’d already slipped through the cracks couldn’t be helped, but better some of the Death Eaters face fair trials than none at all. It was a slow process, but it was giving Harry at least a small bit of hope that things in the wizarding world might be changing.

Harry had mostly stayed home for the few weeks after Fred’s funeral, only visiting the Burrow and attending the remaining funerals. He’d had an owl from Andromeda about meeting for tea and had happily responded, but was secretly pleased that it wasn’t for another week or so. Everything had been so hectic that he hadn’t realised how much he needed time alone until he’d had a couple of quiet days in his house. It had been like a breath of fresh air, a knot he hadn’t known he’d had unwinding from his shoulders, and slowly he’d been able to start making plans and deciding what he wanted to do, instead of simply reacting in the way he’d carried himself through the war.

The first thing was to realise that tidying up the broken furniture and making the facilities actually habitable wasn’t enough to make a house a home, and Harry was shaken by the realisation of how desperately he wanted a real home. It was probably much more of a surprise that it should have been, but he’d never been the most in touch with his emotions. Still, it turned into a nice project for him. Aside from dealing with all the cursed items - of which there were many, despite the Order’s purge a few years ago - Harry found that his knowledge of household spells was somewhat lacking. Despite seeing Molly Weasley use such spells casually, it had never really occurred to him that there might be different kinds of cleaning spells or magic that could make the whole process much easier. After the first time he’d accidentally stripped the paint off the walls with a scourgify, Kreacher had wordlessly pointed Harry in the direction of the library and stood with a disappointed face in the doorway until Harry had found a promising book and started reading it.

There was so much of it. Spells for cleaning, varnishing, dusting, circulating the air, pleasant smells, waterproofing, protection from pests and other damages… There were spells for every tiny need and minor inconvenience and Harry felt as if a small world had opened up to him. He’d practised as many as he could and watched Grimmauld Place brighten, pest-free, with fresh paint, gleaming tapestries, polished furnishings, and magic humming in the walls. The more spells he did, the lighter the house felt, as if it were breathing again. The wards, solid still even after years of neglect, felt less oppressive, and he tuned into them more easily. Harry felt better for using his magic so much too. He hadn’t ever heard anything about it, but he had a gut feeling, when he thought about it, that it was bad for wixen to not use magic. He always felt happier and more energetic at Hogwarts, but that was normal since he was away from the Dursleys and eating as much as he’d like, but now he had to reconsider if at least some of it was because of the magic. It flowed through him like a golden river every time he cast a spell, bubbling and sparking, and every day felt just a little stronger and more stable. And the more stable his magic felt, the more Harry found himself relaxing just a little, more centred and certain of himself. It soothed something he hadn’t known had been hurting.

Once he began looking, there were spells for everything. The Blacks had believed in comporting themselves with the grace of an old, rich, Pureblood family, so there were compilations of spells on keeping oneself respectable for polite society, and for daily, useful magic. Many of them were clearly geared at young children, just starting at Hogwarts, who needed to learn how to stay presentable in company without their parents’ help. Some of them seemed ridiculous – who invented an entire spell to keep your tie straight? – but it did explain why so many of Harry’s schoolmates were perfectly turned out at all times. He read through them all, fascinated. Harry had always done better with an immediate aim and obvious goal, so magic that he could and would use on a daily basis for a practical purpose was much easier for him to grasp than academic transfiguration theorems. Some of the little ones, like spells for sharpening quills and stopping them from dripping ink, almost made him want to tear his hair out from how much Harry wished he’d known them earlier. Of course, he could have known them earlier if he’d ever set foot in the library without some emergency going on, but he’d learned his mistake now and wouldn’t make it again. Though, in his defence, Harry had had a lot going on in his school years.

Harry never quite finished reading about those daily and household spells, picking a new book up now and again when he had time, but he rapidly moved onto working further on the house. Hermione had seen what he was doing and was full of suggestions – why not take down Walburga Black’s painting, and the rows of house elf heads, what about changing the paint, brighter lights… He’d shown her the books he’d read and soon her room had cheerful teal walls, overlaid with a shimmery enchantment that moved like gentle waves. She’d also experimented with wizarding space conservation methods, which were generally easier when you could shrink items not currently in use and move heavy objects easily, and had formed some kind of revolving bookcase in the wall which absolutely baffled him. Her bed was slung with a string of floating lights, like fairy lights, which let out curling wisps of silver. Each time a wisp got too far away from the source, it made a tiny pop and released the smell of jasmine. She’d deepened the window ledge and made a cosy window seat, surrounded by plump cushions and small balls of light. It was a lot more whimsical than Harry had really expected from Hermione, but it suited her in a way to be so much freer with her magic.

Harry himself had been inspired by her room and had made a nook of soft things in one wall. It was small and warm and safe, hidden behind a tapestry which he left open most of the time. He’d had complicated feelings initially, when he realised what he wanted, as it reminded him of his cupboard under the stairs, but that cupboard was the only place he’d felt safe in the Dursley household. Eventually, after some stewing on the topic, Harry decided that it didn’t matter why he wanted the nook, it was enough that he wanted it, and he didn’t have to think about the Dursleys anymore if he didn’t want to. So, in typical Harry style, he shoved the feelings away and ignored them. He’d grown to love the nook. It had a small shelf inside for snacks and things he brought with him, and he set lights flickering above him so he could read.

Outside his nook, his bedroom was done mostly in a dark blue, with wooden furnishings in different but still dark shades. It made the room feel smaller, but smaller felt safer and less overwhelming. He had tried the sparkling wave patterns like Hermione’s room, but the movement in the corners of his eyes had kept him on edge, so he’d dispelled them. He had, though, copied the fairy lights, though Harry’s were gold and he kept changing what they smelled like. While Hermione had her rotating bookshelf and space saving strategies, Harry had tried using all the available room. Magic meant that there was no real reason that everything had to be, or stay, on the floor, so long as you were sure your charms would hold. He had shelves all up his walls and concealed storage on the ceilings. Not that he really had that many things to put on all those shelves, but maybe, with an actual home, he’d come to have more than the bare minimum of possessions. He was studiously not thinking about what might happen in a few years’ time.

Ron hadn’t done much with his room. For obvious reasons, he was less generally impressed with the household magic than Harry or Hermione were, but he had enjoyed turning everything an eye-searing orange. He had also turned one wall into a display of his chocolate frog cards, all protected against dust and damage.

Harry had thought for a moment before setting aside a few of the other rooms – and it still amazed him that he had so many rooms, Grimmauld Place was much bigger when fully explored than he’d thought it was. Two rooms, he’d left mostly alone after filling them with functional furniture. Those two were for Neville and Luna, should they ever want to visit. Another was for guests. The fourth, which was his project for a good week, was for Teddy Lupin. Immortal or no, Harry was determined that his house would always have a space for his godson. This one, he’d needed to consult many books on because, as he’d told Andromeda, he knew nothing about babies. Luckily, thousands of years of wixen parents did know about babies, so there were plenty of notes on baby care, and he set up the room full of alarms and safety measures, before moving onto the decoration. One of the spells, which worked something like a baby monitor and linked into his room, seemed like it could be used much too easily as a spying charm, and honestly Harry wasn’t sure why it wasn’t. Perhaps it was. He shuddered and resolved to read up on spying charms and how to detect and remove them.

The decoration was fun. He’d wanted to do something similar to the Great Hall ceiling, but no one knew exactly what spells had been used for that and he wasn’t willing (right now) to put in the weeks or months of effort to find out or create his own alternative. Instead, he’d done a much simpler version, with dark paint and small twinkly lights which, with a flick of a wand, could change into the colours of a soft pastel sunrise. The walls were a soft yellow for now, but he had vague plans of asking others, his friends and the Weasleys, to come round and help him paint a mural. His own artistic talent was somewhat…lacking, but perhaps between them, they could do something nice. Otherwise, he’d found old baby furniture and a few toys in the partially decrepit attic, and had set about cleaning, fixing, and sometimes recolouring them. A delicate cream crib, painted from its original black, sat in the centre of the room now, under a floating mobile of charging unicorns and hippogriffs. The metal of the mobile chimed lightly as the hippogriffs reared and the unicorns shook their manes as they galloped. In one corner, there was a rocking chair, which was possibly the comfiest chair Harry had ever sat in. He still knew nothing about babies really, but at least Andromeda was willing to let him try, and he was determined to be the best almost-immortal godfather that a little boy could have.

Harry was aware, to an extent, that he was using the house renovations to avoid the outside world, but it did genuinely make him happy too. And he had Hermione, who always lived there, and Ron, who had mostly moved back to the Burrow but still visited every day. Still, eventually there came the day where he had to set aside his projects – ignoring the tempting prospect of trying to tackle the garden (and who even knew that Grimmauld Place had a garden anyway?) – and consider the books that he had brought back from the Underworld. He’d already had a look at funeral customs and honouring the dead for Fred but hadn’t touched them since. Hermione had, he knew, but she hadn’t mentioned the contents to him, aside for asking to borrow them. Something about his processing time, he hadn’t really been listening.

Reluctantly, he collected them from the library table Hermione had placed them on, pinned down by a small cauldron and a few ropes, and started flipping through the titles. There was the one he’d seen before, on divine magic, another on the structure and function of the Underworld, a guide to Chthonic deities, an overview on the Overworld gods, a separate book on non-godly immortals and demi-gods, a bestiary of Greek monsters and a shorter treatise on magical plants. There were also a few pamphlets from various services, offering him his choice of garden statue, magic items, or express delivery mail. Lastly, there was a thick book, which could only really be described as a tome, on chthonic magic, compiled by Hecate. It called to him. His fingers brushed the leather cover softly, feeling Hecate’s magic as surely as he could see its bright lights ripple across the black surface like the rock of her temple. The book zapped him gently and shuffled itself to the bottom of the pile.

Harry huffed out a laugh. Message received. “Alright then,” he said to the scattered books, knowing he looked like an idiot. “Which order do you think I should read you in then?” The books, despite not having eyes or really any other identifiable features to make expressions, gave the distinct impression of eyeing each other calculatingly. There was a scramble, a few flying shreds of paper, and one large huff of dust before they settled into a more or less orderly pile. At the top, the Underworld book was still trying to dislodge the Overworld gods book from its position, but the latter clung on stubbornly. “Enough.” Harry said, somewhat surprised when they actually seemed to listen to him and settle. “I get that you’re both very important and relevant and will try to read you both as soon as possible.” If books could preen, these certainly were. “But I understand this order because I am in the Overworld right now, even if I will be part of the Underworld, so I’m more likely to get in trouble here for now.” The Underworld book deflated, and he gave it a consoling pat. Immediately afterwards, he had to put his head in his hands – honestly, what had his life come to? Sighing, he picked up the book on Overworld gods. “The rest of you, behave. The sooner I read this one, the sooner I can read you.” The bestiary, which had been sneakily edging towards the shelves behind the table, seemed particularly aggrieved, but grudgingly slunk back to the rest of the pile. Somehow, Harry felt that this was the sort of madness that he would have to come to expect from the world he was entering.

He brought “The Self-Updating Guide to Overworld Deities for the New or Truly Oblivious” up to his room on the third floor and, after a moment’s thought, kicked off his slippers and climbed into the reading nook, though he left the tapestry pulled back. With a practiced flick of his wand, soft golden lights spiralled over his head and the book floated in front of him. Kreacher, who had the unnerving capacity to sneak up on Harry despite being old, slow, and grumbling under his breath, floated a tray with tea and biscuits to him. “Thanks, Kreacher!” The old elf grumbled but nodded. The biscuits, he put onto the shelf in easy reach and the teacup floated next to him, occasionally nudging his hand to remind him of its presence. It would stay warm, the cup’s enchantments made sure of that, but tea that was kept heated for too long always gained a funny taste.

Sinking into the rich, burgundy cushions and pulling a fleece blanket over his knees, Harry took a moment to feel warm and at ease, surrounded by the glow of his own magic and the house’s. He was trying to do what Hecate had said and learn to love magic again. It was slow going when he’d seen, and felt, it do so much harm, but moments like these were helping. He flipped the book open with a touch of magic and began to read.

It started out like a story. In the beginning, there was only Chaos. From Chaos, came Night, Light, and Darkness. From Night came Day, and from Day came the Earth, the Skies, and the Sea. The Earth and the Skies created the Titans and monsters. The Skies loved the Titans but not his monstrous children, and he cast them into the depths of the Underworld. The Earth, furious, sent her Titan son, Kronos to attack his father. As the Skies bled into the Sea, they created the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Kronos married his sister, Rhea, and together they had six children, who were the gods. Kronos was fearful, having received a prophecy that his son would destroy him in the same way he’d attacked his own father, so swallowed his children whole as they were born. Rhea couldn’t bear for the youngest, Zeus, to meet the same fate, so wrapped a rock instead, which Kronos swallowed. Zeus was then raised by Amaltheia, the goat-nymph, until he was ready to face his father. Zeus then tricked his father into vomiting up his siblings with the help of a wine-mustard mixture, and together the gods waged war against Kronos. Eventually, with the help of the Earth’s monstrous children, the gods won against the Titans, and Kronos was dismembered and cast into Tartarus, where his monstrous siblings had previously been. The Earth was displeased. The three sons of Kronos, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, cast lots for the three main domains, and were awarded the Heavens, the Seas, and the Underworld respectively, becoming the most powerful of the gods. Zeus became King of the gods. Hera married Zeus and became Queen. Hestia and Demeter chose not to marry one of their siblings and gained powerful, but more subtle, domains of the home and agriculture.

Then, the narrative paused to give brief profiles on all these figures. The Titans were mostly swept over, with the note that none of them were dead, since they were immortal, and actually few were imprisoned or incapacitated – primarily Kronos in Tartarus and Atlas holding up the sky. The rest were either performing their roles under the regime of the gods, or off sulking somewhere about the good old days. There was a list of them and their domains, which Harry wasn’t sure he would ever remember, but he was surprised to find his new adoptive mother, Hecate, on that list.

Other tables listed the children of the other primordial gods and Harry tracked through them to find that most of the Underworld gods came from Erebus, the Darkness. It was an enormous array of names with a dizzying number of connections. Harry was slightly queasy to see the number of gods sleeping with their relatives but, as the book attempted to argue in glittery black ink, concepts and personifications had no DNA. Still, it was something that his human side protested vigorously. Each of the listed name could be pressed and the book would flip to the page on them, but for now, Harry decided to focus on the main gods – there were a truly ridiculous number altogether.

He learned that Zeus, the king and Lord of the Skies, ruled from Olympus, and had a bad habit of sleeping willingly or unwillingly with just about anyone who took his fancy, much to the fury of his wife, the goddess of marriage. Hera also had a bad habit, hers of punishing the women her husband slept with, rather than the god himself. Both were, if he believed Hecate’s rather irreverent style of writing, rather enamoured with their own grandiosity, and would take offence at any perceived slight. This was, the book admitted, a fault of most of the gods, but Zeus was particularly bad. Part of this, it explained, was Zeus’ paranoia of being overthrown, which was due to a prophecy, like his father’s, that one day Zeus would be overthrown in the same way. As such, Zeus took any hint of insubordination as a personal threat. Harry, reading this, was a little relieved that he would be part of the Underworld instead – he’d never played well with authority and just knew that he would somehow get himself into trouble. Zeus’ symbol was the lightning bolt, an immensely powerful weapon fashioned by the cyclopes.

Poseidon, the Lord of the Seas, was in contrast, a more relaxed figure. He ruled his domain from his capital in Atlantis with his wife Amphitrite and heir, Triton. Of his character, the book warned that he was generally easy-going in recent times, but his nature was like the sea – changing in a moment, unrestrainable, capable of tranquil calm and furious rage. Although Poseidon likely had the power to overthrow Zeus, he had no real wish to, and had only raised a rebellion with the goal of forcing Zeus to be a better ruler. Still, this had cemented Zeus’ mistrust of his brother. Poseidon’s symbol was the trident.

Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, was the entry that Harry was most interested in. How was his king – soon to be king? – described? Apparently, generally dour and not quite part of the family, seemed to be the response. Hades generally stayed in the Underworld, performing his role, and only visited Olympus for the winter solstice meeting of the gods. He was noted to be gloomy and prideful, but generally fair. He had shocked everyone when he asked Zeus for Persephone’s hand in marriage, received his affirmative, and abducted the goddess of Spring to be his wife. He was relieved to see the note, in Hecate’s distinctive tone, that despite Demeter’s claims, the two were in fact deeply in love. His symbol was the Helm of Darkness, which granted him invisibility.

They were called the Big Three, which seemed a bit of a silly name to Harry, but who was he to judge with all the hyphenated nonsense the wizarding world kept throwing at him? As well as a brief description of their main powers, the book noted their famous immortal, monstrous, and demigod children, along with their most notable deeds. Harry knew he was likely to forget them immediately, but with the sheer scale of the information, it was finally starting to hit him that he was going to become part of a world with thousands of years of history all centred around the same main cast. He flipped past the other major gods, overwhelmed, only noting the names of the 12 Olympians. Oddly, Hades wasn’t listed, and Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about his future (current?) sovereign not being included. The impression he got from the text was that the 12 were considered the most powerful, influential, and respected of the gods, so why was Hades, one of the Big Three and king of the Underworld, not included? He worried his lip thinking about it. Did they not like Underworld gods? Hecate had mentioned something of the sort. Harry felt a cold mix of dread and resignation settle in his stomach at the thought that he might once again be entering a new and unknown world where people hated him for something he couldn’t control.

He continued on anyway, learning that there were a number of major gods but hundreds of minor gods. As well as gods, there were nymphs and various types of spirits. In theory - though the book mentioned that in practice, it was a lot more complicated than that, and the explanation required a level of divine magic theory - every tree, stream, or breeze might be a nymph. Which felt…odd. Had they been there the whole time and Harry simply hadn’t seen them? Or were they in the US? Harry read through the lists, discomforted. He skimmed the rest after noting that there really was a god for more or less everything, and decided to read them in more detail later, when they’d actually be useful to him, and he wasn’t avoiding them.

He should be in luck though. From what he read, as long as he avoided drawing particular notice to them by saying their names, swearing an oath under their domain, sacrificing or praying directly to them, or practising their domain to a great extent, none of them should be particularly interested in him. Even if he did do any of the above, apparently, they mostly ignored that too, unless you were particularly attractive. Harry snorted at that comment, eyeing his scarred and skinny hands – he should be just fine.

After a while, he put the book down and leant his head back against the cushioned wall. It was good to learn about some of the main figures that he would one day have to get used to, but at the same time, he was still struggling to accept the situation as real. It would have been harder if he couldn’t feel the truth of it in the thrum of his magic, but even so, sometimes Harry found himself treating the book like a collection of stories rather than rules and profiles. Speaking of rules, the next chapter had a section on hierarchy, terms of address, and guidelines for Overworld gods and Harry’s instinctive rebellion had him curling his lip at it. He knew he had to read it – he just knew he would end up putting his foot in his mouth one day if he didn’t – but he’d reached the end of his tolerance for today. It was bad enough that he theoretically had a king and queen to answer to. Of course, that had always technically been the case, but it’s not like he was ever going to meet the Queen of England and answer to her directly. He paused. Did he still count as a British citizen? He huffed a laugh at the thought of handing over a passport with “Citizenship: Underworld” to a very confused border official. Ah well, questions for later. He ate a biscuit.

He passed a few days like this, skimming through the book to get a general picture of the Overworld deities and then going back more thoroughly. What emerged was a complex web of connections that spanned millennia, but that was strangely stagnant. Harry couldn’t help but notice that nothing about the gods ever seemed to change. Sure, they apparently changed clothes, and styles, and mortal lovers, but their personalities and actions were always the same. Aphrodite carried on her affair with Ares, Hephaestus always tried to catch and humiliate them, the other gods always laughed at them and then ignored the affair continuing – the same cycle repeated again and again. He wondered if it was part of being an immortal and tried to ignore the voice whispering in the back of his mind, asking 'would he end up like this too?'. He threw himself back into housework to ignore it.

Chapter Text

When the date for tea with Andromeda arrived, it was actually something of a relief. Harry had cycled between dutifully trying to learn as much as he could about the world of the Greek gods and trying desperately not to think of the implications for himself. As a result, he’d been a little manic about the house, and he knew that Ron and Hermione were secretly pleased to be kicking him out for the afternoon.

He'd been to Andromeda Tonks' house once before, on his way from Privet Drive for his seventeenth birthday. It had been dark then and he had just come out from a battle in the air, so he hadn’t paid it much notice. Walking up her gravel path, Harry felt a pang as he thought of that flight. He would never admit to anyone that, more than Moody’s death or George’s ear, what pained him most was Hedwig’s death. He still hadn’t gotten another owl, despite it making it difficult for him to send letters. It just didn’t feel right.

Andromeda met him at the door before he had a chance to knock. She must have felt him pass through the wards. She cast a sharp look over him, taking in the clean, mended clothes and the lack of wrinkles from a handy anti-wrinkle charm, and gave an approving nod. “Harry.” She said. “You’re looking well. Come on in.” 

The inside had a cosy feel, despite being bright and rather spacious. Bare wood beams and warmly coloured furniture softened the space, and there was the smell of something baking. It was nothing like the Burrow, chaotic, cramped, and colourful, but it had that indefinable quality that made it a family home. “Teddy’s asleep right now.” Andromeda said, steering him towards a sitting room, “I hope you don’t mind if I leave him that way for now.”

“Uh, no. I mean, of course. That’s fine.” Internally, Harry was screaming. He didn’t really know what he was here for, other than a vague purpose of ‘spend time with Teddy’ and he had no idea how to talk to Andromeda.

She seemed to take pity on him and directed him to sit on the sofa while she took the armchair across from him. “Tea?” She asked.

“Yes please.” His relief was slightly too obvious in his voice, and her eyebrow quirked, but Harry only cringed inside a little – tea made everything better. Andromeda floated over a tea set and set the water boiling in a moment. There was silence while they waited for the tea to brew and then as they passed the milk and sugar back and forth through the air, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Andromeda summoned over a packet of bourbon biscuits.

“These were Dora’s favourites.” She said, taking a couple and passing them over to Harry. “Ted could never stand them, so Dora went out of her way to get them so she could eat them all.”

Harry smiled politely but he didn’t know what to do with this information. Did he even know Remus’ favourite biscuits? He certainly didn’t know Sirius’. The thought made him feel cold and somehow empty. “Thank you. My favourites used to be custard creams, but then Fred and George started swapping them out all the time for canary creams. Bit hard to eat them when you’re a bird half the time.”

Andromeda’s eyes crinkled. “Yes, I’d heard about those ones from Molly. She told me she accidentally ate one in the middle of the night once and got feathers everywhere. Arthur couldn’t stop laughing and, in the end, they decided the greatest punishment for the twins was to never know their prank had worked.”

Harry laughed, startled, even though his heart hurt a little. “That’s amazing.” He relaxed a little into the sofa, less tense than before, which was probably Andromeda’s goal. She seemed like the kind of person who could lead a tea party effortlessly in whatever direction she wished. She had been a daughter of the Black family, after all. He charmed away the biscuit crumbs with a half circle and flick and Andromeda’s grey eyes sharpened on the movement.

“That’s the Black family variant, isn’t it?” It wasn’t really a question. “The flick is distinctive.”

“Um, yes. I’ve been trying out some personal and household charms, the things I never really learned at Hogwarts.” Now that he’d said it out loud, he worried that it was a bit pathetic. These were the things that people from magical households just knew about as part of their heritage, and he wondered if it seemed strange to her that he’d had to go searching out books about it as an adult.

“Mm, I showed my Ted many of the same when we first got married. He was fascinated.” She looked briefly wistful. She smiled at him, and it seemed somehow a little more sincere than before, even if nothing in her expression had visibly changed. “It’s good you’re taking an interest. They’ll be very useful to you.”

“They already have been.” Harry replied, taking the lifeline of a conversation topic. “I’ve been repairing the house and redecorating it. I, um,” he lost confidence a little, but powered on, “I know it’s early days, but I’ve set aside a room for Teddy, if he were to maybe visit one day. I mean, not immediately of course, there’s no pressure, but-“

“Harry.” Andromeda interrupted kindly. “That’s absolutely fine. Good, even. Of course, Teddy can visit with you some day, and it’s nice to see you being enthusiastic and proactive about being involved with him.”

Harry sagged a little with relief.

“This isn’t a job interview, Harry.” She said. “You don’t have to be so nervous. You’re Teddy’s godfather and I’m not going to cut you out of his life. This is just us getting to know each other because we’re both going to be involved in looking after the same little boy for many years to come.”

Harry nodded but wasn’t wholly reassured. Andromeda’s comment had reminded him that actually, he didn’t have all that many years before things would change for him dramatically. He wondered if it was too early in their acquaintance for him to tell her that. Still, he’d never been the most cautious of people and it was going to come up eventually. “Um, about that. I-“ He cut off, no real idea how to say this to an almost stranger. Ron and Hermione had accepted it, but that’s because they knew him. To anyone else this must sound like madness. “Some things happened. And, um, I don’t know how it’s going to affect me once my three years are up?”

Andromeda’s eyebrow steadily rose higher, but she gave him time to continue and actually explain what was going on.

“That is, I really did die during the battle.” His throat was tight. “I know people talk about it as something I faked or a figurative death or something, but I was actually dead. And the, uh, the Underworld deities didn’t like it when I came back.”

Her eyes widened and she lowered her cup of tea back onto the hovering saucer. “Which means?” she asked, after he didn’t speak for a moment.

“They decided that they could either kill me themselves or give me immortality.” He grimaced at her unreadable expression. He had no idea if she was believing a word he said. “In the end, they said that it was better for me to become a spirit. That I was almost there anyway, only needed a nudge to be tipped over the edge. Anyway, so, I have three years before that finishes and I’m supposed to be uh, one of them, I guess. And I don’t really know what’s going to happen then.” He trailed off and waited for her response.

There was none forthcoming for a long moment, and Harry’s shoulders slowly rose towards his ears as he waited for her to explode at him. Of course, Andromeda must think that he was lying, it was a ridiculous story. Maybe she even thought that he’d decided that being involved with Teddy was too much of a responsibility and was making something up to get out of it.

“That,” Andromeda finally stated, “is not what I was expecting you to say, but it is, from what I’ve heard of you, oddly in character.” She continued on before he could stutter out a response to that. “Of course, the old families remember the stories of the gods, even if we pay them little attention nowadays, and there were some questioning why there was no sign of them during such a war. It does make sense that, were anyone to draw their attention, it would be you or the late dark lord.”

“They definitely noticed him.” Harry said wryly. “They hated what he did to his soul.”

“His soul?” Andromeda queried loudly, composure momentarily forgotten. Harry belatedly remembered that no one outside a very small group knew anything about the horcruxes, and that’s how they’d intended to keep it.

“Can you, er, can you possibly forget I said that?” Harry tried not to let too much pleading slip into his tone, but thought he probably failed.

“Yes, yes, I suppose I better.” Andromeda said faintly, sinking back into her chair. She shook her head to dispel whatever thoughts clouded her mind, sending grey-streaked curls into her face. “So, to be clear, you died during the battle but somehow came back to life, to which the Underworld gods decided you needed to become one of them, and this process should be complete within three years, at which point you will be, what, a god?”

“Yeah, or a spirit. They’re not sure yet.”

“What’s the difference?” She seemed genuinely curious.

He shrugged, glad to have done at least a little reading already. “Power, mainly, I think. Spirits mainly exist inside their domain and have limited powers outside it, while gods have more power inside their domain but have general divine magic outside. I’m not really sure how it works with becoming one. And there’s something about followers, as well.”

Andromeda hummed. “What do you intend to do? Are you planning to stay in contact afterwards?”

“Yes, of course. If I can. I just don’t know for sure…”

“If you can. Yes, I see.” She looked thoughtful. “Well, it doesn’t sound like you were given much of a choice about this.” She paused and he shook his head. “Yes, so, it isn’t your fault even if the worst comes and you can no longer return. All we can do is use the time you have.”

It was a relief and a bitter feeling at the same time. On the one hand, he couldn’t believe how easily Andromeda had accepted his story, but on the other, it felt like knowing he had to die all over again, making arrangements before walking to his death. He clung onto the hope that maybe, even once he lost his mortality, somehow he’d be able to keep the life he had now. It didn’t feel likely.

“Not to be dismissive, but it appears that there is nothing that you can do about the situation, and it will not be an issue for a few years yet, so, for now, we might do well not to linger over it.” Andromeda was certainly pragmatic, and Harry could see how she could come off as cold to others, but he was used enough to Hermione’s particular brand of practicality to understand that that was not the case.

He nodded. “If I get more answers or anything changes, I’ll let you know?” He hadn’t intended for it to come out so much of a question.

She hummed. “Yes, but don’t feel obliged to tell me anything you do not wish to. I do wish for us to become closer, but I’m aware that this is your personal information, and we do not yet know each other well.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Andromeda took up her tea again and sipped it. “You mentioned you were planning to go back to Hogwarts, yes?”

“Er, yes. We missed our final year, for obvious reasons, and we had offers from the Aurors, but we, uh, wanted to do it properly.”

Andromeda nodded approvingly. “A wise choice. Your final year teaches many of the more interesting and relevant details that will benefit you in whatever career you take. Or would take.” She stumbled over the words a little. “Regardless, you should finish your education.”

Harry wondered if this is what speaking to a slightly strict aunt might be like. He had Aunt Petunia of course, but she… No, he didn’t have to think about the Dursleys anymore.

“It might be fun,” he ended up joking, “going through a year without someone in the school trying to kill me.”

Andromeda was less amused. “Explain.” She said shortly.

And so, he did. “Right, so, in my first year, Dumbledore had hidden the Philosopher’s Stone in Hogwarts and so Voldemort possessed Professor Quirrell – like, his face was on the back of Quirrell’s head, it was really gross – and so Professor Quirrell was trying to steal the Stone, but also tried to kill me a few times, by cursing my broom during Quidditch, I think he pushed me off the stairs once, and then directly when he was trying to get the Stone from me. I, um, I had my mum’s protection, her love, in my blood, and it burned him to death.” Andromeda, stony faced, made no visible reaction to his confession of murder at age 11. He charged on quickly, before he lost his nerve.

“Second year, the Chamber of Secrets was opened.” Andromeda’s eye twitched. “Everyone thought I was the heir of Slytherin because I’m a parselmouth,” her eye twitched again. “but it turned out that Gi-, uh, one of the younger students was being possessed by a cursed diary with young Voldemort’s, uh, memories. So, he was letting out Slytherin’s monster, the basilisk,” she closed her eyes for a brief moment, “to try and kill all the muggleborns, while he drained Gi-, the student, until he could come back to life. Anyway, Dumbledore was kicked out by the Board, Hagrid was arrested with no proof, and we had to go to the Acromantula colony in the Forbidden Forest for answers, and they tried to eat us, but Ron’s dad’s maybe-sentient car saved us. Then, the possessed student was taken to the Chamber, and Tom, young Voldemort, set the basilisk on me, so I stabbed the basilisk and then the book, and it was fine.” ‘Fine’ was maybe pushing it, but no one had died, except for the diary horcrux.

“Third year was a mess because that’s when Sirius broke out.” It still hurt to say his name. “And obviously he wasn’t trying to kill me, but the dementors around the castle kept getting out of hand, and after Sirius and Remus confronted Pettigrew in the Shrieking Shack, the dementors came down at us, at least a hundred of them. But it was okay, because we used Hermione’s timeturner to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak the hippogriff, and then I defended past-us with a patronus.”

“Fourth year was the Triwizard Tournament, and obviously, I didn’t enter myself, that was Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Professor Moody. I don’t really know why? I thought someone was trying to kill me using the tournament, but they needed me for the ritual afterwards and surely there were other ways to get me outside the grounds. I don’t know. Anyway, I got the cup, and it sent me to the graveyard where Wormtail killed Cedric Diggory and took my blood to resurrect Voldemort. He wanted to duel to kill me, but our wands connected, and I managed to get away.”

“Fifth year, someone tried to kill me – or get me expelled, I’m not entirely sure which – before school even started and sent dementors to my muggle relatives’ house. Turned out it was Delores Umbridge, who was our Defence professor that year and wanted me to admit I was lying about Voldemort being back. It wasn’t a good year. Anyway, I’d been having visions about Voldemort, his snake Nagini, strong emotions, that kind of thing. And he tricked me into thinking S-Sirius was being tortured in the prophecy room in the Department of Mysteries. And that…that all went horribly wrong.” His voice cracked.

“Honestly, no one was trying very hard to kill me for most of the year, after that. Draco Malfoy was trying to kill Dumbledore, but he didn’t really want to do it and was really, really bad at it. Ron nearly died instead. And Katie Bell. And then I nearly accidentally killed him. Dumbledore was teaching me about Voldemort’s past, and we went on a mission, and he ended up poisoned and hallucinating in a lake of inferi where, uh, where Regulus Black died when he betrayed Voldemort.” Andromeda looked startled but didn’t interrupt. “And then when we were back, there were Death Eaters in the castle and Snape killed Dumbledore and everything really kicked off. After that, basically the whole dark side were trying to kill me until I found out I needed to die for Voldemort to stay dead and went to the Forest to let him kill me. And he did. And then I killed him. Sort of. I think technically, he sort of killed himself. And now the remaining Death Eaters hate me and some other people hate me for not killing Voldemort fast enough, but,” he shrugged, “I think it’s probably going to be safer at Hogwarts than before.”

Andromeda visibly took a few moments to collect herself. “There is so much to question about that that I don’t really know where to start. And these were all happening at Hogwarts? Why are these not more common knowledge? And what did your guardians do? If Nymphadora had told me half of what happened in your first year, I would have pulled her from Hogwarts in a heartbeat. Harry, these are the most ludicrous stories I’ve ever heard.” His heart skipped a beat, growing cold in his chest. “Don’t be silly, I believe you, you’ve never seemed much of a liar and-“ she cut off suddenly, a conflicted expression finding its way onto her face, allowing him a moment to admire the sheer irony of her statement. He flexed his left hand where ‘I must not tell lies’ was still etched deep into the tissue. “Well, you’ve been very open with me, so I might as well tell you – do you know of the art of legilimency?”

His eyes widened and he quickly looked away from her eyes.

She laughed wryly. “I see the answer is yes. Not to worry, I haven’t been using it on you, that would be unconscionably rude of me. But I am skilled enough in the mind arts to detect lies in my presence, even when I am not actively using it. A useful skill, I’m sure you understand.”

It did sound useful. Slightly terrifying, but useful. Harry almost wished he could do the same, but any mention of the mind arts made him think of standing in the dingy dungeons while Snape rifled painfully through his memories, and of Voldemort’s thoughts and emotions searing through his scar. Still, he was comforted. It made sense, especially given that he had not maintained eye contact with her throughout and had felt no pressure on his own mind. “Okay, yes. That’s…a bit of a relief, actually. Everyone always thinks I’m lying.”

Andromeda’s lips pursed. “But what of my questions?”

Harry had to think back a moment to remember them. “Yes, they happened at Hogwarts. Well, aside from last year, I was only really at Hogwarts for the Battle. Um, I don’t really know why no one knows them? I mean, everyone knew that a troll had gotten into the dungeons because Quirrell announced it during the Halloween feast and fainted. Dumbledore said that everyone knew what happened with the Stone and Professor Quirrell, but I guess maybe not, since they wouldn’t have been so surprised when Voldemort returned if they knew he’d been possessing Quirrell.” he hadn’t actually ever considered it before, but that would make sense. “As for the Chamber, everyone at Hogwarts knew it was open and something was petrifying people, and the Ministry certainly knew because they arrested Hagrid for it, even though that was ridiculous. And everyone knew someone was taken, but I guess only the teachers, the student’s family, and Lucius Malfoy knew that I got her out and that it was Voldemort’s diary that did it.”

“Lucius Malfoy?” Andromeda interrupted, querying.

“Yeah, he was there as a governor. But he’s also the one who slipped the diary into Gi- the student’s things. He was supposed to be protecting it.”

Andromeda looked thoughtful, but there was also a dark look in her eyes. “Do go on.”

“Well, of course everyone knew about the dementors at Hogwarts, but the Ministry ordered them there, so I don’t know if there’s a lot that anyone could have done. And they came onto the quidditch pitch in the middle of a game, so they were clearly out of control. With Sirius… no one really knew everything that happened, but Fudge was there and we told him, but Snape was a git and trying to get Sirius arrested and told Fudge we’d been confounded. Dumbledore definitely knew.” A lot of the good will that Harry had held for his former potions professor was extinguished as he reminded himself of that whole situation. “The tournament was also very public and I told everyone that I hadn’t entered and I thought someone was trying to kill me, but no one believed me, except for Hermione, and Rita Skeeter kept writing stupid, made-up articles. And then, I told everyone what happened at the graveyard, but the ministry didn’t want to believe me, and no one else did either, and then Fudge had Barty Crouch Jr Kissed instead of questioning him, so there was no witness anymore. And then, I told them, in my trial, that I cast the patronus because of the dementors-“

“Trial?”

“Yeah, I had a trial for underage sorcery, because of the patronus I cast. They wanted to expel me, but I was voted not guilty.”

“You shouldn’t have had a trial for-“ She cut herself off with a rough breath. “Never mind. Go on.”

Harry shifted in his seat, faintly uncomfortable. It was actually a little bit fun to tell someone everything, made him feel a little lighter somehow, but Andromeda’s reactions were making him think that maybe something was wrong. “Yeah, so, I told them about the dementors but they turned it into a whole thing about me lying for attention, but my neighbour was a squib and had seen them, so I got off in the end. I actually spent all year getting into trouble because Umbridge hated me and kept trying to get me to confess that I was lying, but obviously I wasn’t, so I couldn’t do that. But loads of people didn’t believe me, and seemed to think that I’d killed Cedric Diggory or something. My friends and Dumbledore knew about the visions, and Dumbledore tried to get Snape to teach me occlumency, but he never really taught me!” Harry found his voice rising and pulled himself back in, taking a shaky breath. He’d noticed that it was a lot easier to calm himself now, after Voldemort had destroyed his own horcrux and the link between them was gone. “He didn’t tell me what to do, just to ‘clear my mind’ and then fired the spell at me.”

Andromeda scowled darkly but didn’t say anything this time.

“Anyway, I had the fake vision and tried to get to the Ministry, but Umbridge caught us and thought we were trying to contact Dumbledore and was going to try and torture his location out of me, but then Snape arrived.”

“Torture?!”

“Yeah, she started to cast the cruciatus, in front of some other students, as well.”

“And she wasn’t sent to Azkaban afterwards?”

“Well,” Harry couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his tone, “she’d been torturing students all year, after all, and nothing happened then.”

Andromeda took a deep breath. “What do you mean? What was she doing?”

“Well, she had these blood quills.” Harry tried to ignore the sharp breath that Andromeda took and then slowly released. “And she’d make us write lines with them during detentions.”

“I-“ Andromeda cut herself off. “No, okay, we’re coming back to this later, but finish your story first.”

“Right.” Harry flexed his hand again unconsciously. The skin on the back was still stiff sometimes. “I guess everyone knew Voldemort was back after the Ministry, but probably only we and the Death Eaters knew it was because of the prophecy. Didn’t stop the whole Chosen One nonsense from sneaking out though. As for the next year, I think only my friends, Snape, and Dumbledore knew about Malfoy, because we saw him going into Borgin and Burkes, and then he was acting shifty all year, Snape had sworn an Unbreakable Vow to his mum to help Malfoy,” Malfoy’s mother, who he had belatedly remembered was Andromeda’s sister, which might explain the strange look in her eyes. “and Dumbledore, because Snape told him. The mission to the inferi lake was secret, so only Dumbledore and I knew, and I only found out about Regulus Black later, because he’d left a note to Voldemort kind of gloating about betraying him. And then, I was there, invisible but petrified by Dumbledore, when Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore and Snape killed him, so only we and the Death Eaters knew that, but even then I only found out later that Snape killed him because Dumbledore was already dying and had asked him to. And then most of this year was public, I guess, but no one else was there when Voldemort had Nagini kill Snape to try and get power over a wand he thought belonged to him, so Snape gave me his memories when he was dying, which is when I found out he was a spy and that I needed to die. And loads of people were there when Voldemort said I was dead, but I guess I never really explained that I hadn’t just faked it entirely? But it worked. After, when I came back, the Death Eaters couldn’t hurt the students and Order anymore, because I’d died like my mum died for me, and the protection worked. It might still actually, I don’t know.”

Andromeda sat back in her chair, staring at her hands. She twisted her thin fingers around her cup, nails tapping gently on the delicate porcelain. “I see. A mixture of secrets and things that were either supressed by the Ministry or by Hogwarts.”

He looked up at her in surprise.

She lifted one shoulder in the most elegant shrug he’d ever seen. “It’s the only explanation that I can see. So many of the events that you have mentioned should have been common knowledge, with the number of students who should have told their parents, and most would have caused outrage. A troll in Hogwarts? A basilisk? Those alone would have had the parents rioting. No one would send their children back to a school with a basilisk in.”

Harry supposed that actually made sense. He hadn’t thought much about it, given that he would personally only go back to the Dursleys if made to and they would certainly never care enough about his welfare to want him home, but the other families…why had they never had a problem with everything that went on at Hogwarts?

“That’s… actually really weird if I think about it.” He replied, and Andromeda nodded.

“Yes. A lot of what you’ve said is deeply, deeply concerning, Harry. And something tells me I don’t know all of it.” She wasn’t wrong. “But, Harry,” her voice was soft and something about it grated on the feelings he kept locked inside him, so that he could keep functioning. “Where were your family in all this?”

He shrugged awkwardly, unsure of how casual to be about this. “They wouldn’t care even if I told them – I think they’d be disappointed I made it back.”

Andromeda sat up, back pin straight. “What?” Her voice was hard.

Harry shrugged again helplessly, a rising hot panic inside him. His head spun a little with it. No one else had reacted like this, why was Andromeda taking it so badly? “They didn’t like me very much. Well, they didn’t like magic. But, same thing, really.”

“Your relatives are… muggles?” Andromeda seemed honestly surprised by this.

“Yes?” For some reason, Harry thought that this was reasonably common knowledge. After all, he had no other family.

“You were left with muggles who don’t like magic.” Andromeda seemed aghast, and Harry wasn’t entirely sure why. Sure, it hadn’t been nice, and he was very pleased to be free of the Dursleys now, but he’d had somewhere to sleep, Dudley’s old clothes, he went to school, and he got food as long as he did all his chores and didn’t get into trouble.

“It wasn’t that bad. Once Hagrid brought my Hogwarts letter, I knew about magic, and that made it better.”

For some reason, Andromeda didn’t seem reassured. “You didn’t know about magic?” Actually, she seemed even more upset.

“No.” Harry replied. He wasn’t sure he wanted to keep talking, but he’d already opened up this far. “I mean, I knew something freaky was happening and that the Dursleys blamed me for it, but they always said that magic didn’t exist.”

Andromeda fluttered a hand agitatedly. “Why would they say that?” Her voice had risen a little. “They must have known you’d find out eventually.”

Harry shrugged again and then mentally scolded himself for it, but he didn’t know how else to react. “They thought they could stamp the magic out of me.” Despite his best efforts, some of Uncle Vernon’s inflection crept into his tone, and from the look on her face, Andromeda had noticed.

She leant her face into her palm, letting out a strangled noise. He eyed her uncertainly while she took a deep breath. “Apologies, Harry.” She said, pulling herself back upright. “That’s a… deeply distressing thing to hear for most wixen families. Repressing magic, punishing it, denying it… those can do horrible things to magical children. It’s- it’s an honest miracle that you didn’t develop an obscurial.”

“A what?”

And Andromeda explained. Harry listened with mixed horror and relief as she described repressed magic becoming dark, twisted, and parasitical, until it lashed out explosively, eventually killing the host.

“Is that why I feel better? Now that I’m using my magic more, I mean.”

The witch looked genuinely heartbroken. “Yes, Harry, I imagine so. If you didn’t then, then I’d guess there’s little chance of anything worse developing for you at this stage, but if you’d take my advice, I’d suggest making some inquiries into seeing a healer.

Harry nodded, a little numbly. He really hadn’t expected for their tea to take this kind of turn.

“Do you know how to do that?” She asked.

“Huh?”

“Do you know how to make an appointment with a healer?”

Harry was embarrassed to realise that he didn’t and felt his face heating. He looked away from her, unable to answer.

“That’s fine.” Andromeda said, voice soothing, like he was one of Hagrid’s nervous creatures. “I can walk you through it. And any other questions you have about the wizarding world, well, I’ve been through it all before with Ted, just let me know and I can help.”

“Really? I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s no bother, Harry.” She replied, smiling but it didn’t reach her eyes. “We’re essentially extended family now, with Teddy, and through your own godfather. And,” she paused, collecting her words. “I think it would be fair to say that you haven’t been treated well by this world, and clearly not the other. You’ve been lacking people in your corner. I’d like to help, if you’d let me.”

Harry stared at her for a long moment, hope warring with the hurt, angry part of him that told him it was safer for him to do things on his own. But that part of him had been quieter since the horcrux was…removed, for lack of a better word, and now he could look at her and see that Andromeda seemed genuine. She actually seemed upset on his behalf and was offering to do something. Unexpectedly, he found himself agreeing to her help.

After that rather too emotional conversation, Andromeda had thankfully steered the discussion back to safer ground. She asked after his NEWTs and shared some of her own Hogwarts anecdotes, as well as some stories about Tonks. Those seemed hardest for her, but she never gave any indication that she wanted to stop speaking. Eventually, a wailing cry interrupted them, and Andromeda left to retrieve a softly squirming bundle. A tuft of downy, pink hair was visible over her arm.

“Newborns aren’t very interesting,” she said conversationally, while feeding Teddy with a swiftly summoned bottle. “They mainly eat, sleep, and cry at this age. The real trouble comes when they grow up a bit.”

Harry watched quietly while Teddy continued to suck at the bottle, waving his tiny, chubby hands around slightly while he did. Every time he saw Teddy, he was awed. This was a whole, tiny person.

After a while, Teddy was finished, and Andromeda burped him with a practised hand. Her robes, he soon found out, had a repelling charm on them, and the baby sick-up was promptly vanished with no stain or smell. Andromeda rocked him very gently, smiling at the baby. Teddy blinked blearily up at her with wide blue eyes. “You can come closer.” She said to Harry, startling him out of his thoughts. “Would you like to hold him for a bit?”

Harry nodded and crossed over to her.

He flailed his arms slightly, unsure what to do with them, as she passed the baby over, but she corrected him gently with a few nudges. “Just support the head, that’s right, and then…like this, perfect.” And all of a sudden, he was holding his godson.

Teddy looked up at him curiously, squishy baby face clearly confused and conflicted about this change of person. Harry held so still he almost wasn’t breathing, terrified of somehow dropping him.

“Relax, Harry.” Andromeda laughed.

He tried to untense his shoulders and managed to work his fingers free to gently trail over Teddy’s cheek. His skin was soft and warm with sleep. “Hi there, Teddy.” His voice came out half-whispered. “I’m your godfather, Harry.” Teddy blinked at him, but didn’t cry, apparently content enough with where he was. Harry watched him softly. He already knew that there was very little that he wouldn’t do for this tiny person.

He looked up and found Andromeda watching them with a small smile on her face. “Come, let’s sit again. You can keep hold of Teddy, if you like.” And so, they did.

Their conversation remained mostly light from then on, though Andromeda did mention one thing that left him reeling a little – coming up soon would be the trial of the Malfoys. “My sister and I have been out of contact for many years, of course,” said Andromeda, face not giving away precisely how she felt about that, “but I’ve always liked to stay up to date on what she’s been doing. I’ve heard that they decided to try them individually, rather than as a unit.”

“Yeah, that seems better.” Harry replied. “Malfoy senior did an awful lot more wrong than Malfoy, er, Draco Malfoy, or Mrs Malfoy.”

“Yes, I agree. But sometimes the Ministry has been known to rush these things and judge in groups. And they all did support the Dark Lord during the war together.”

Harry hummed, thinking about it. He hesitated for a moment before saying, “She sort of saved my life, you know? During the battle, that is.” Andromeda looked startled, so he continued. “When Voldemort killed me, and I came back, she lied to him and told him I was dead.”

Andromeda looked a little lost, like she had no idea what to do with this information.

“Draco Malfoy, too, when we were taken by Snatchers to the manor. He lied and said he couldn’t tell if it was me – Hermione had used a swelling curse on my face – even though he definitely recognised me.”

“Is that so?” Her voice was a little faint.

“Yeah. I’m not sure if either of them really wanted to support Voldemort. I mean, I know Malfoy did when we were younger but then he looked increasingly ill during our sixth year when he actually was, and then couldn’t kill Dumbledore. So, I guess he probably learned better.”

“If…” Andromeda trailed off for a moment. “If you genuinely think that is the case, then yours would be a valuable testimony at their trial. My sister is proud. She will willingly go down with her husband and son before she asks for help on her own behalf, but she would welcome anything that might grant her son any measure of leniency.”

Harry considered this for a long moment. He hadn’t been intending to be involved with the trials beyond the minimum that the Ministry asked of him, but Andromeda might be right. “I wouldn’t speak for Lucius Malfoy, though.” He said strongly.

Andromeda snorted. “I should certainly hope not. Odious man.”

Harry sagged in relief a little that she wouldn’t expect that of him. “Then…maybe, yes. They did help me. They also supported Voldemort and they may have done other things in the war that I’m certainly not going to argue against, but they did help me. So, I owe them that.”

Andromeda nodded, and Harry thought she looked a little pleased. “If you still wish to later, try writing to Shacklebolt. I’m not sure who else is running these things nowadays, but he should at least be able to point you in the right direction.”

They finished their tea both emotionally wrung out, but with a promise to meet at the same time next week. Andromeda had clasped his hand on the way out and made him promise, with a stern look in her eyes, that he would contact her if he needed anything. Harry had agreed and, to his own surprise, found himself actually meaning it.

Chapter Text

The meeting with Andromeda, although it had drained him, had also left Harry feeling somewhat reinvigorated. Talking to Andromeda had reminded him that, even though the war was over, his prophesied purpose was fulfilled, and his whole world had undergone yet another change, there were still things he could do to improve his life and that of others. So, after a rather harrowing letter exchange with Gringotts - who had initially tried to seize his vaults as collateral for the damage done during their break in but were soundly argued down by Hermione to simply keeping them under close guard during their visits (Harry didn’t know quite how she did it, but gods knew Hermione could be terrifying when she wanted to be) - Harry visited Diagon Alley.

He'd debated using some form of disguise or his invisibility cloak, but Ron had pointed out that maybe it would be better for people to see him out and about. Apparently, Wizarding Britain had noticed his absence for the past weeks, and various rumours had been spreading. They ranged from the normal – that he was grieving and wanted his privacy – to the rather more absurd – he’d been cursed in the battle and could no longer show his face, because it was so hideous that it drove the viewer insane. Harry had had a good laugh about that one. Still, he swallowed down his discomfort and apparated to the Alley. Hermione and Ron would be joining him later for tea, but he wanted to do the first bit on his own, if only to prove to himself that he could.

A hush fell as he was recognised almost instantly. Diagon Alley was no longer the bright, cheerful place that Harry remembered from his first visit, but it wasn’t as gloomy as when he’d last been there either. A number of the shops were still boarded up, Fortescue’s ice cream shop noticeably missing, but others had reopened, and customers were milling around, rather than scurrying quickly to their destination. “It’s Harry Potter!” Someone shouted, and like that, the quiet broke, and crowd became one of insistent clamouring. Some were simply shouting hello, a few asking for autographs, others wanted reassurance that Voldemort really was dead, some wanted to know where he’d been, while others, just a few, screamed accusations. Those few, who wanted to know why he hadn’t acted sooner, where he had been in the year preceding the final battle, were mostly hushed by the others, but their words hung heaviest in the air.

Harry had been somewhat prepared for this. He knew it was going to be different coming out now and he’d experienced it to a small extent when out for the funerals and Ministry obligations, but now he didn’t have his friends as a buffer. Still, he’d decided he should say something, even just once, before people started making up their own stories. “Um, hello, everyone.” He said, and most people hushed, seeming surprised that he’d responded. Harry supposed that actually, he probably had a very bad reputation for responding to the public, so perhaps their shock was fair. “Thank you to everyone who has been wishing me and my friends well. We’re okay, just… healing and rebuilding as best we can after the war, as I know lots of others are. There have been great losses, on both sides, and I know it’s going to be difficult for a very long time. Um,” he considered their questions, having entirely forgotten the statement he and Hermione had prepared for his public appearance the moment he’d opened his mouth. “Voldemort really is dead.”

Murmurings broke out in the crowd, but they seemed content – eager even – to hear what Harry had to say now that he was finally speaking. “He can’t come back. That’s, um, that’s what we were doing the whole time before the battle – making sure that he couldn’t come back.” The whispering rose to a fever pitch. “I can’t say any more about that. But yeah, he’s properly dead this time. This is a really confusing time for everyone,” he said, remembering the phrase from his notes, “but I’m glad to see people out and about, shops reopening…because, because it means they didn’t beat us.” Harry’s voice firmed a little with conviction, even as the crowd reacted in too many ways for him to know how he was being received. “Defeating Voldemort and his Death Eaters was the first step, but the next is to live our lives in defiance of their violence and their ideas. They hurt us, they hurt us so much, but now we’re free and we can rebuild and do better. It doesn’t make up for all the lives lost,” he admitted, and some hostility faded from a few faces, “nothing can. But we can only try to move forwards. So, yeah,” Harry wished he had the gift of eloquence, but all his best speeches were made on the fly, before a battle, “that’s what I’m going to be doing. I’m going to go back to Hogwarts and get my NEWTs, and then who knows? But the future is open now. Thank you for listening. Don’t, um, don’t let me interrupt your shopping.”

Harry turned and started to walk away, ignoring the clamouring calls as best he could, but keeping a wary feel out for any magic coming his way. He’d noticed some aurors – some in their distinctive red robes and others in plain clothes but noticeable by their duelling posture – slipping among the mass during his impromptu speech, so he wasn’t too worried about a disturbance breaking out. But still, it was difficult to quell the paranoia of turning his back on a mob. They continued to call after Harry as he went, but thankfully, he remained un-accosted. He passed a few people he recognised from school on his way to Gringotts, who watched him with wide eyes as he nodded to them briefly.

It was actually a relief to enter the great doors of the crooked bank. The floor inside had been repaired, as well as the ceiling, and there was little sign that a dragon had forced its way out of the vaults or that Voldemort had rampaged here upon learning of his missing horcrux. Harry eyed the poem in the entry with hidden amusement, finding a slightly hysterical pleasure in knowing that he was one of very few who had successfully stolen from Gringotts. The goblins at the door eyed him suspiciously, clearly recognising him on sight, and he sighed internally. This was going to be rather awkward.

“Hello.” He said, when they didn’t stand aside to let him enter the inner door. “I’m here to make a withdrawal from my vault.”

One of them sniffed at him. “Your escort shall arrive shortly, Mr. Potter.”

Harry nodded, trying to keep his expression mild. It was clearly a powerplay, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they kept him waiting for a while just to show they could, but he honestly didn’t care all that much. He had no place to be urgently and was happy enough to avoid the milling wixen outside. Besides, even the slight flares of anger that he felt nowadays were nothing on the all-consuming rage that used to envelop him, so keeping his temper was rather easier than it used to be.

The minutes dragged on. Harry found himself admiring the elaborate carvings in the stone of the atrium and wondered how many wixen ever noticed them at all, let alone spent time looking at them. Some were complex geometric patterns while others depicted scenes with an exquisitely delicate level of detail that could only be produced using magic. In some places, the marble was so thin as to appear translucent.

“What are you doing?” The same goblin as before asked as Harry drew closer to look at one scene in particular. His dark eyes were fixed on Harry and his hand was tight around his halberd as if he thought Harry were about to make some kind of attack.

 “Just looking.” Harry said, keeping his hands deliberately away from the wall. “These are great.”

The goblin sniffed again, not deigning to reply, but the other looked a little more engaged.

Harry trailed along the scenes, finding some kind of narrative there that he couldn’t quite parse. He followed it back to the beginning and found what looked like some kind of dedication. He couldn’t read the inscription, but there was an illustration of the scene below the text. A figure towered over the surrounding goblins, laying magic over them as they offered up riches in response. He wasn’t sure how he recognised him, given the stylisation and a rather different appearance, but Harry knew in his soul that this was Hades.

He hadn’t realised he’d said as much out loud until the first goblin stiffened. “You fool of a wizard!” He hissed, “We do not say the name of the Unseen One! Do you want his attention?”

Harry had to laugh at the irony, quietly enjoying the way it made the guard look at him as if he were utterly unhinged. “A little late for that.”

The guard reeled back, nostrils blowing wide with something between fear and fury. The other guard tilted their head a little, still observing Harry quietly.

“It’s not a joke, wizard!” The first goblin exclaimed. “You wizards may disrespect your Lady, but we know better!”

Harry seemed to have actually offended him. It was certainly the most emotion he’d ever seen a goblin give, except for the quiet disdain with which they treated all wizards. “I wasn’t joking.”

The first goblin seemed ready to attack, whether verbally or physically Harry didn’t know, but the second let out a considering hum. “You smell like death.” They offered conversationally, which wasn’t the worst thing anyone had ever said about him by a large margin but was still rather disturbing. Harry wondered if this was a goblin thing, to be able to smell it, because no one else had remarked on an odd smell around him. “It’s in your magic.” They continued, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen since their last statement.

Goblins could smell magic? Or maybe, Harry thought, as the first goblin actually stopped looking at Harry to turn to the other, this goblin could. The second goblin remained utterly impassive, looking straight ahead as if they hadn’t said anything strange.

“Yes, well,” Harry mused, considering it, “I suppose I would.” Hecate had mentioned that he might smell almost like a spirit to magical or mythical creatures, he supposed it wasn’t all that farfetched to think that they might be able to smell that he belonged – or at least would belong – to the Underworld as well.

The first goblin looked disconcerted, his eyes wide and grey skin a little blotchy. “What is the meaning of this, wizard?” He spat, though his voice tremored a little and had lost a good deal of its strength. “Do you mean to bring death magic into our bank?”

“None but myself.” Harry said sardonically. “But if death magic in the bank is that much of an issue, then perhaps we might need to reconsider my disagreement with Gringotts, because I broke in to get some death magic out.”

The doors behind the two guards banged open and a number of goblins in elaborate armour streamed in behind them. “A fascinating conversation, Mr. Potter.” The goblin with the most embellished clothing said, not even trying to pretend that they hadn’t all been listening in. “It appears we might have much to discuss. I’m Gleanrock, and I will be handling your affairs with Gringotts Bank. Please, follow me.” It wasn’t a suggestion. He turned, surrounded by his entourage of guards, and set off into the bank without checking to see if Harry was following. Intrigued, Harry did.

Instead of leading him towards the tellers’ desks, where he had always gone before being taken down to the vaults, the small procession of goblins led him through a side door that he’d never noticed and then into a network of corridors. It made him uneasy, the further they walked into the labyrinth of tunnels, but Harry was already lost, no point complaining now. The layout was dizzying and faintly off, corridors appearing to loop but at different angles, as if he were suddenly walking on the ceilings or walls but without ever having stepped off from the floor. Finally, they came to a carved stone door that looked just like the others and Gleanrock trailed a spindly finger down the surface. A number of well-oiled clicks sounded, and the door swung open just a crack, revealing what appeared to be an office beyond. Again, Harry was nervous about entering a room which required a goblin to unlock it, but he would have to do the same for his vault eventually. Besides, he was at least 40% sure that Hecate might be persuaded to rescue him if he prayed loudly enough. He went in.

Gleanrock had raised his bushy grey eyebrows at Harry’s hesitation and now hummed consideringly as Harry followed him into the office. Harry was sure he’d been tested, but had no hint of whether he’d passed or failed. “Take a seat, Mr. Potter.” He said mildly, taking his own behind a stone desk, delicately carved and embedded with metals. Harry sat. Once he had, the majority of the goblin escort left the room, leaving only two at the doors. Harry eyed them a little warily but chose not to comment, turning back to Gleanrock expectantly.

“Firstly, congratulations on your successful theft from Gringotts Bank.” The goblin said suddenly. Harry blinked at him in surprise. “Obviously, we did not appreciate it, but we respect the skills and dedication of anyone foolish enough to make a good attempt, let alone succeed.”

Probably wisely, Harry chose not to answer and let the bejewelled goblin continue.

“In accordance with the agreement we reached with Ms. Granger,” Gleanrock made a curious kind of snarl at her name, which could easily have been disgust, approval, or neither, “your vaults have remained untouched, but your access will be strictly monitored to prevent any further illegal activities. Should any such activities take place, your access will be immediately revoked, and your assets seized. This, we have already agreed upon.”

He looked up, piercing Harry with his pure black eyes until Harry nodded in confirmation.

“Good.” Gleanrock continued. “However, I wish to draw your attention to a couple of our other policies which your earlier conversation with the guards indicates we may need to discuss.” He paused to ensure that Harry was listening. “We at Gringotts take the patronage of the Unseen One very seriously. As such, we do not mention him lightly, consort with those who have displeased him, or allow corrupt death magics into our establishment. If you have violated either of the latter two rules, tell me immediately and we can come to a peaceable arrangement.” His voice was stern.

Harry blinked, trying to draw his thoughts together into something coherent. “Uh, I don’t think I displeased him? He didn’t seem particularly mad or anything.”

The room was very quiet and very still for a long moment. “Mr. Potter,” Gleanrock said steadily, splaying his long, many-jointed fingers over his side of the desk, “are you claiming to have met our patron?”

“Yes, well,” Harry rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. Was it really that unusual to have met a god, especially the one you were supposed to serve? He should probably check that out in the book later. “as I said, a bit late not to draw his attention. Well, mostly, I got Tha-, uh, the god of death’s attention, but he and the Lady of Magic sent me to Lord H-, um, your patron.” Harry had never been particularly good at not using people’s names – see: Voldemort.

Gleanrock’s eyebrow had gradually crept higher until it was almost merging with the thick grey of his hair. Did goblins not get receding hairlines? Never mind, Harry was getting distracted again. “Interesting. We shall see in a few moments.” He didn’t expand on that vaguely ominous statement but moved on immediately. “And as for the other part? Do you have any death magics on your person.”

“Uh, I don’t think so.” Harry said, suddenly gripped by the irrational fear that he had somehow, accidentally, snuck some kind of nasty artefact in his pockets. Wait, his pockets! “Oh, wait, I do have something.” Harry exclaimed, rooting around in his expanded robe pockets. Gleanrock recoiled with a snarl and the goblin guards took a threatening step forward. “I don’t think it’s corrupted or whatever it was you said, but I think it might well be death magic.” His fingers met with silky fabric and Harry pulled out his invisibility cloak. If they were right about its origins, and it really was one of the Deathly Hallows of legend, then it was death magic in its truest form.

Harry set the cloak on the desk, where it spilled like inky liquid, lit by the faintest of patterned shimmers. Now that he had stood in Thanatos’ presence, and felt his overwhelming aura, Harry thought he could recognise some of it in the feel of the cloak. As he laid it down, something clattered onto the floor from inside it. Gleanrock threw up a shield and the two guards had their weapons pointed at Harry immediately. “Huh.” Harry said, looking down at what had fallen onto the floor, “Those definitely weren’t supposed to be there.” A crudely carved rock and a pale wand made of elder stared back at him.

“Explain yourself!” Gleanrock thundered. “What are these items that reek of death magic?”

“Well, if I’m not wrong, and I really don’t think I am,” Harry said, bending slowly and broadcasting his movements to pick the items up, “these are the Deathly Hallows.”

The room ground to a halt once more. “What?” The older goblin spat, furious in his disbelief. “Impossible, let me see.” He made a snatch for the stone and elder wand, but Harry pulled them away automatically. Something in him was ringing little, magical alarms and telling him not to let himself be disarmed. They were known to drive people mad in their search for them, after all.

“Check from there.” Harry said firmly, ignoring the halberds now pressing into his spine. “After all, if it is corrupt death magic, surely you don’t want to be touching it.”

This drew Gleanrock up short, and he seemed almost confused with his own actions. He huffed, but ran a hand slowly above the cloak, making odd twists and turns that Harry didn’t understand, but seemed to be doing something for the goblin. “It certainly has Death’s allure.” He said grimly, raising one corner of the cloak with a tug of magic for a closer inspection. “And it’s woven of pure magic, non-human, definitely. Possibly immortal, but hard to tell.” He lowered the raised edge again. “Put it on.” He instructed Harry with a tight voice. “Not all the way, leave some of yourself visible.” He quickly amended.

Harry did as instructed, though a certain anger was settling into his stomach. The Deathly Hallows were his, even if he hadn’t wanted two of them. They were clearly Underworld artefacts, resonating with his changing magic, and they had come back to him even though one had been abandoned in the woods and the other had been snapped and buried. For whatever reason, they, or one of the deities, had decided that Harry should have them, and he would allow others to take them over his dead body. Harry was also getting a little tired of the goblins’ powerplays – they’d already made their agreement, that was the whole point of the tedious letter train, anything further was just to remind him of the threat they were holding over him and his friends.

As soon as he draped the cloak around his shoulders, his body vanished from view, with only his head and neck still visible. Gleanrock hissed. “It’s perfect.” He said. “True invisibility, not camouflage. No wear, no distortion. And stinking of death.”

“Not corrupted, though.” Harry said, and knew he was right. On, the cloak felt like the brush of Thanatos’ feathers against the Underworld floor. The magic was heavy, catching the back of his throat like a thin coating of iridescent oil, but pure in a way that he couldn’t describe with mere words.

“Not corrupted.” Gleanrock agreed, sounding almost disappointed. The guards were definitely disappointed not to get a fight and took a good few extra moments before lowering their weapons.

“Well, then,” Harry said, scrambling to get any control of the meeting back, “since I’m not breaking any of your rules, perhaps we could get on with this.” He slipped the cloak off his shoulders and bundled it into his pocket, along with the wand and ring. He’d deal with their strange return later.

Gleanrock huffed. “Now, see here, you can’t just be bringing death magics in! Where did you even get them? Who said you could have them? What right does a wizard have to Underground magics?”

Harry supposed that Underground might be their way of referring to the Underworld, perhaps including the goblin realm. The claim Gleanrock was trying to make incensed him. “The Deathly Hallows belong to me.” He replied in a steely voice. “Gringotts Bank” he emphasized, “has no right to make demands of me about anything not to do with your rules or my money. Their magic is not corrupted, so doesn’t break your rules, so they are none of your business.” He’d played nice so far with them, but it didn’t seem to have got him very far. “If you want to complain about their current custody, feel free to contact Thanatos yourself. Go on, do it.”

Gleanrock fumed. “Fine. Fine! We needed to test your status with our Patron anyway. We can do that together. Coilsnipe!” He addressed one of the guards at the door. “Retrieve the assessing stone!”

For a moment, neither of the guards moved, until one tipped her head cautiously. “Are you sure, Gleanrock?” For the first time, it occurred to Harry that Gleanrock might be acting unreasonably by goblin standards as well as his own.

“Go!” Gleanrock spluttered. He was clearly the type who didn’t like his orders to be questioned. They sat in silence while they waited for Coilsnipe to return with whatever the assessing stone was while Gleanrock visibly attempted to regain his composure. He wasn’t doing very well at it. Clearly, the idea of death magic had rattled him badly, and the appearance of the Deathly Hallows even more so. Harry wondered if they feared the loss of Hades’ patronage – whatever form that might take – that badly, or whether it was his potential retribution that was the problem. Or maybe it was an Underground magic thing, whatever that was. Still, Gleanrock’s disbelieving fury seemed excessive.

After a few minutes, Coilsnipe entered again, accompanied by a pair of elderly goblins in richly decorated robes and a younger one holding a thick cushion on which rested a wooden box. The box stuck out obviously in its plain form from the intense decoration of everything goblin-made around it.

“The assessing stone, as requested.” One of the elderly goblins spoke. “For Mr. Potter, I presume.” Harry was no longer surprised that he seemed to be recognisable on sight to apparently any and all goblins at the bank – their heist appeared to have garnered a level of infamy for all of them, his other, wizarding fame notwithstanding. She motioned the goblin carrying the cushion over towards the desk, but something in her expression spoke strongly of disapproval. “I hope you have considered this thoroughly, Gleanrock.”

Gleanrock looked once again ruffled, when he had only just started to calm down. “He brought death magic into the bank and spoke the Unseen One’s name!” He exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Harry.

“Not corrupted though.” Harry said, because he’d found his argument, and he was going to stick with it.

She raised an eyebrow as the cushion was gently set down on the desk. “I see.” Harry fought the urge to squirm in her presence like a misbehaving schoolboy sent to a teacher’s office. She reminded him a little of Professor McGonagall.

The other elderly goblin didn’t say anything, but arranged themself behind Gleanrock’s chair, with a good view of the box. With no prompting that Harry could see, the younger goblin gently unlatched the lid of the box and drew out what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary pebble. With soft movements, he set the pebble on the cushion, sliding the box itself to the side to make more room.

“This is easily done, Mr. Potter.” The older woman said. “And will clear up, indisputably, this particular matter.” That particular statement seemed pointed, but Harry wasn’t sure at who. “All you need to do is put a drop of blood and a little of your magic onto the stone and it will be evaluated by our patron.”

Harry tensed up at the mention of blood – he didn’t want to give anyone his blood, especially a partially hostile people who were planning to use it with an unknown artefact.

The goblin woman sighed, but Harry thought he saw something a little approving in her eyes. “I swear on our patron that that is all your blood and magic will be used for by this artefact and that we will not retain it afterwards.”

Harry felt the vow snap into place, accepted, like a cold wind. He found himself nodding. If she was willing to swear on the patron that they were so keen not to anger, then she meant it. “Okay. I just do it?”

“Yes. We have a clean knife if that will be necessary.”

“No, I’m good, thanks.” The goblins all watched with almost unnerving focus as Harry pricked the tip of his left index finger with a sharp spike of magic and let a single drop fall onto the flat surface of the pebble. It sizzled slightly, despite there being no indication of the pebble giving off heat but did not disappear. He then allowed his magic to brush the bloodied stone and it became visible momentarily in a warm rush of gold as it burst into white flames. As quickly as the flames appeared, they died out, and no trace of Harry’s blood or magic was left behind on the rock.

“And now we wait a moment.” The same goblin spoke, voice calm but eyes fixed on the stone. Beside her, the younger goblin was doing less well with restraining his curiosity and was leaning forward far enough that the older goblin who hadn’t said anything reached over and pulled him back by his sleeve.

After a long few moments, the pebble started to vibrate a little and whisps of shadow began to be emitted from it, spiralling in an unseen wind. The goblins murmured quietly among themselves in a language Harry didn’t recognise, flicking quick glances at him. He got the reaction that this wasn’t the response they’d been expecting. The pebble rattled harder, almost falling off the edge of the cushion, until eventually a slip of paper emerged from the coiling shadows, and the darkness disappeared between one moment and the next.

The paper settled itself on top of the rock, no bigger than a business card. The goblins eyed it for a moment with very wide eyes. “Hanggloss,” rasped the elderly goblin who hadn’t spoken, “pick it up and read it out.”

The younger goblin, who had carried the cushion and was presumably named Hanggloss, hesitated only for a moment before taking the paper. It looked almost comically small pinched carefully between his elongated fingers. He read it for a moment with wide, wide eyes, before coughing. “Harry Potter belongs to my Underworld.” He read out. “Let him do his business.” He coughed again awkwardly. “There’s, um, there’s a second part: Little wizard – read your mother’s books and stop getting into trouble.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment. The goblins seemed to be in some kind of shock while Harry was feeling somewhat chastised by his future (?) sovereign having to bail him out with a note for a situation he seemed to think was avoidable.

“There’s no way, it can’t be. Impossible.” Gleanrock broke the silence, looking thoroughly flustered. “It can’t be a direct message from him!”

The older goblin behind him reached over and clipped the back of Gleanrock’s head. “Control yourself. Do not dare deny our patron’s will.”

“Was it… not supposed to do that?” Harry asked. After all, they’d said the rock would evaluate his magic with their patron, and their patron had indeed responded.

“No, Mr Potter.” The goblin woman replied, with enviable equanimity, despite the remnants of shock still draining from her expression. “Usually, the stone glows in one of two colours, to indicate immediate disapproval or not. We certainly do not get a personal note from a god.” Her tone implied that this should be obvious, and Harry had to wonder if once again, his own experiences were an unreliable measure of the normal amount of weirdness that the average person experienced.

“Ah.” He replied intelligently. “Um, I suppose this means I can access my vault, then?” He asked.

The goblins looked at him like he was the strangest thing they’d ever seen, but no one contradicted him, not even Gleanrock, who appeared to be having a bit of a crisis. The female goblin aimed an armoured elbow at the side gap in Hanggloss’ chest plate. “Ahh.” He exclaimed, and then straightened. “Right, um, yes, Mr. Potter. If you would follow me, I can take you to your vault.” His aura of professionalism was slightly marred by the wild look clinging to his beetle-black eyes, but otherwise he was doing pretty well.

Harry glanced quickly around the room of assembled goblins but saw no reason to linger. He nodded in parting and began to follow Hanggloss to the door, trying not to show his haste to leave. Just as he passed the threshold, Gleanrock cried out “Mr Potter, wait! Just a moment.”

Harry turned back to him, curious. “Yes?”

“You never said – what was that about the former Dark Lord and death magic in Gringotts?”

Harry wanted to point out that Gleanrock had never actually asked him, too busy trying to accuse Harry, but thought that probably wouldn’t be helpful at this stage. “Voldemort had Bellatrix Lestrange hide part of his soul in her vault, to try and escape death. That’s what we stole.” The goblins blanched, grey skin mottled, and looked about to try and draw him further in conversation, but Harry didn’t want to talk to them about the horcruxes any further, so he turned back and walked towards a visibly nervous Hanggloss in the corridor. He'd probably already said much more than he should, but the goblins were hardly likely to go around telling budding dark wizards how to escape from death. “Please, lead on.” He said, with all the authority he could summon. 

Hanggloss glanced back once towards the goblins in the room and then again to Harry before letting out a muffled squeak and starting on down the corridor at a rapid pace. Harry followed him, sort of wishing he had robes on to billow dramatically behind him, and tried to pretend that he wasn’t also freaked out by what had just happened.

The journey back to the main hall was much faster than the way in, and Harry’s suspicions that he’d been taken in a circuitous route to get him lost were confirmed. What he hadn’t been expecting was that they came out on the ceiling. “This way, Mr Potter.” Hanggloss said, steering them through a web of paths that would look like ceiling vaults from below. Harry looked up (down?) and saw the tellers’ desks in neat lines and wizarding patrons scattered around in the space below.

“This is our more private entrance. Humans never tend to look up.” Hanggloss explained, not quite meeting Harry’s eyes still but eager to talk. Harry wondered how old he was in goblin terms – he had a level of enthusiasm that none of the others he’d met had. “Generally, only the bank staff use it, but sometimes we bring our important clients too. Which is, ah, you, now.”

“Because I stole from here or because of your patron?” Harry asked, curious. They passed a huge, glittering chandelier that rose up above them like a crystal tree.

“Is he not also your patron?” Hanggloss asked boldly, eyes darting to try and catch Harry’s expression before looking away again just as quickly.

Harry hummed noncommittally. “Not exactly.”

“Oh.” The young goblin was clearly burning with curiosity, but unable to ask his questions politely.

They crossed to the large doors which led to the vaults and took a series of impossible stairs from an entrance to the side of them. Despite never tilting, the spiral stairs put them out on the ground once more, in the corridor he had been down before, leading to the carts. Hanggloss led him immediately to a free cart, bypassing another group. There must have been some indication of seniority because the other goblin leading the pair of wixen didn’t argue, though the wixen muttered.

“Which of your vaults do you wish to visit?” Hanggloss asked as Harry clambered over the raised edge of the cart. There really was no dignified way of stepping into them and finding space for his knees was a lot harder than when he was younger.

“Remind me, what are my options?” Harry asked. As far as he was aware, it was just the one from his parents. Though, now he thought about it, he supposed that he had inherited from Sirius, though no one had ever said anything about a vault before.

Hanggloss side-eyed him but otherwise refrained from commenting on what must be considered very, very basic information for him to know. “There is the Potter vault, which I believe you have visited in the past, and the Black vault, which I believe you haven’t.”

It seemed he was right and there was a vault from Sirius. It felt very strange to think about and Harry quickly decided that now wasn’t the time to deal with it. Enough had happened today and all he’d done was walk into the bank. “Ah, the Potter vault, please.”

“As you wish.” The cart rolled forwards and, with a sudden lurch, plunged into the dim caverns.

Retrieving his money was somewhat anticlimactic after that. Hanggloss took him to his vault and Harry loaded up a bag with galleons and a few of the smaller sickles and knuts. The vault was still full of small towers of galleons and, although Harry still wasn’t sure that he quite understood the currency conversion to pounds, he was fairly sure that he had enough to be comfortably living off until he graduated and found a source of income. How did that work for gods and spirits anyway? He couldn’t imagine any of them paying rent. They did have money, he knew, from a mention in the Overworld book.

“Oh, hey,” he addressed Hanggloss, who had been waiting patiently at the door while Harry shovelled coins into his bag, “does Gringotts do currency conversions?”

Hanggloss looked almost relieved to have been given a normal question. “Yes. We convert into most magical and muggle currencies, though there is a greater conversion fee on soft or particularly rare currencies. That can all be handled at a teller’s desk upstairs.”

Harry nodded. “Cool.” Sometimes, he forgot this place was a bank and not just very secure storage with carts and dragons. “Do you exchange for drachma?” He was fairly sure that was the name.

Hanggloss let out a sound that was suspiciously like a choke, lightly hitting himself on the chest. “Yes?” He didn’t sound sure. “I would need to check with my supervisor.”

Harry tied the strings of his bag together and slotted it neatly into his expanded pockets. The cloth didn’t bulge from the outside and there was no clinking when he walked – he was quietly pleased that his charm work had held. “Okay, great.” He said, stepping back out of the vault. He felt a sting of relief when he did. He’d known the memories of last time he was this deep in Gringotts would bother him, but he hadn’t expected quite how strongly he would feel it. Stepping out felt like a rush of cool, clean air. “I’d like to do that on my way out.”

Upstairs, Harry and Hanggloss approached a teller near the doors to the vaults, further over than the wixen crowd reached.

“Ah, Hanggloss.” The teller greeted before either could say anything. They were an exceptionally old goblin, with skin that looked like it would crumble at any moment and hair that, while thick, had faded to an ashy grey. “And our special guest, Mr Potter.” They still had yet to look up from their desk. They moved their quill smoothly but slowly over the parchment, dipping it occasionally in a glossy navy ink, for another few moments before putting it down with a sigh. “What can I help you with?”

“Baskhilt, Mr Potter would like to convert some galleons into golden drachmae.” Hanggloss said promptly, though with a little uncertainty.

The teller, Baskhilt, looked at Harry with sharp eyes. “A more common request than you might think. Standard conversion is 3 galleons and 4 sickles per drachma.” It was a lot, considering how much a galleon was worth, but they did call them golden drachmae.

It was at this moment that Harry realised that he had once again begun something without making any set plans beforehand. He had no clue how much a drachma was worth in Overworld society, nor where he’d spend it, considering he was meant to be avoiding all of them until his immortality was settled. “Uh, okay. I’d like to convert for…15? Yeah, 15 drachmae.”

Baskhilt nodded, gave him the fee, and everything was carried out very professionally. It set Harry on edge – nothing ever just went right and normally – but within a few minutes, he was the owner of 15 golden drachmae. They were large, much larger than he’d anticipated, and appeared to be made of pure gold. When he touched them, he recognised a hint of the magic he was beginning to associate with divine. On one side, there were stamped portraits of a god – which one varied between coins – and on the other was what he believed to be the Empire State Building. He’d seen a picture once, in primary school. He didn’t know why the Empire State Building would be on the drachmae, but hopefully something in the books should explain.

“Thanks.” He said, realising he’d frozen for a bit. He put the coins into the same bag as the galleons.

Baskhilt nodded and turned back to his parchments.

“Is there anything else, Mr Potter?” Hanggloss asked.

Harry shook his head, and Hanggloss began leading him back towards the entrance. As they went, the gathered groups of wixen grew thicker, and Harry heard murmurs of his name. Thankfully, due perhaps to Hanggloss’ presence or the fact that they were in the bank, no one approached, though they watched him unabashedly.

As Harry reached the doors, Hanggloss drew to a stop. “Thank you for your continued custom with Gringotts Bank, Mr Potter.” He said, sending forth an almost palpable air of professionalism again. It seemed a little like he was clinging to it for dear life. “Ah, regarding earlier affairs, someone will likely be in touch shortly.”

Harry was faintly bewildered, still not entirely sure of where he stood with the goblins. From the sounds of it, neither were they. “Right. Okay. Until then. Thanks, Hanggloss.” And after a moment’s awkward pause, he turned to leave.

Leaving the bank felt like emerging into another world. The sun hit him instantly, as did the sounds and smells of Diagon Alley. He hadn’t realised how quiet and still Gringotts was until he was back out. The very air felt different, and Harry realised that being inside Gringotts felt a little like the Underworld, with its heavy air and muted lights, though Gringotts’ was much less powerful. Maybe it was the Underground that Gleanrock had mentioned – something else to look into.  

Chapter Text

Outside, the Alley was much busier than when Harry had first arrived. It could be due to the later hour but, he thought, as he paused on the steps, there were a number of people who looked like they were looking for something. Or rather, someone. Clearly, word had spread.

“Harry!”

He jumped violently as his vision was engulfed suddenly in a cloud of brown hair and arms were thrown around his neck. Luckily, he knew these ones. He hugged back. “Hermione.” He replied, with a note of wryness.

“You’re going to suffocate the poor man one day.” Came a voice from behind Hermione, and Ron came roughly into view as a blot of orange. “Killed Voldemort only to be done in by one of his best friends. The public would never let it go.”

“Oh hush, you.” Hermione said, though she detangled her limbs from Harry’s and turned to swat at Ron’s arm.

“Hey, guys.” Harry beamed at them. “You would not believe the morning I’ve just had.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, mate. What now?” Ron asked, crossing his arms. He was growing into his Keeper’s build, shoulders broadening and becoming solid, rather than just lanky.

“Was it the goblins?” Hermione asked with concern. “I thought I’d sorted it all out with them. We had an agreement. They better have…” She trailed off with increasingly dark murmurs and Harry caught her elbow, beginning to steer her down the steps and away from the bank.

“Mm. Let’s go. I’ll tell you over tea.”

Inside the teashop, with a muffliato thrown over their table to stop them being overheard, Harry relayed everything that had happened.

“This is the last time you go anywhere without one of us.” Ron sounded exasperated. “How do you get into enough trouble in a bank that they have to contact a god?”

“Pure talent.” Harry replied with a faux-innocent smile, making Ron snort at him.

“Fascinating, about their patron.” Hermione said. “I’d never considered… Well, it seems I have a lot to learn.” She seemed thrilled by the prospect.

“Yeah. But the good news is,” Harry said, pouring himself some tea from where it had just arrived on the table, “I was able to go to my vault and I don’t think they’re going to be too much of a problem for us. Hopefully. They seemed majorly spooked.”

“Hm, yes.” Hermione agreed. “That’s one concern less. We can see what they say later. For now, did you have any plans for your shopping?”

Harry didn’t really, aside from a vague idea that he needed to get things for the Hogwarts year ahead and perhaps also for the house. Actually, he wasn’t entirely sure where his old Hogwarts things had ended up. He’d had to leave them behind at the Burrow when they’d escaped during Bill and Fleur’s wedding, and over the year that had followed, his things had become somewhat scattered. His trunk had been found in a corner of the attic, but it was an ordinary trunk, with no charms, and everything had become somewhat damaged over a year of neglect. The things which had been outside the trunk had migrated around the Burrow to many and unlikely places. So, now Harry had a few robes he didn’t think would fit, his cauldron and gloves, some mouldy potion ingredients, an assortment of only slightly damaged stationery, and whatever random objects had also survived. He had no idea where his school bag was. He said as much.

Hermione hummed thoughtfully. “The booklist isn’t out yet, so no point looking for those, unless there’s anything in particular that you’d like to stop by the bookshop for.” There wasn’t really – Grimmauld’s library was more than enough for now, and by her lack of enthusiasm, Hermione agreed. “Anything else, you might as well do now. Well, perhaps not potion ingredients. They’d keep, but they’re always better fresh. Ron, what do you need?”

“Robes.” He grimaced, plucking at the sleeve of the ones he was currently wearing. They were looking a little worse for wear and stopped an inch or so before his wrists. “Normal ones and school ones. None of the others fit me after my growth spurt.” Ron had shot up again in the last month or so, now the tallest of his siblings and towering over Harry to a degree that was almost comical. Hermione was also taller than Harry, but at least not by a lot.

“Hm, robes, then.” Hermione agreed. “Perhaps, Harry, you might also want some everyday robes. You might as well have some, even if you don’t choose to wear them all the time.”

That brought Harry up short. In all the time he’d been in the wizarding world, he’d never actually considered buying clothing outside of his school uniform. He looked down at his old, cast-off clothing, though now notably neater and better fitting with the help of a few tailoring charms. “Maybe I could.” He said faintly. He thought Hermione looked pleased by that.

“I might also get a few things. My old school robes fit still, but it might be nice to have the option of a few casual robes.” She spun her teacup between her hands thoughtfully, “Actually, we’d all best have something reasonably smart in case they call us as witnesses in the trials coming up. I haven’t heard anything official – Kingsley said he’s trying to keep us out of it as much as possible, or we’d never leave – but I’ve heard rumours that, at the very least, we’ll be called to give an official account of what we personally witnessed.”

Harry hadn’t thought much about what their public appearances would involve, so he was glad Hermione had mentioned smart robes, because he knew he would have only realised the night before and then had to scrounge something together at the last minute. He had yet to hear back from Kingsley Shacklebolt, but he had written to him about the Malfoys’ trial after the tea with Andromeda, so there was almost certainly one trial which he would be giving evidence at. “Ah, good point. I’m, uh, I’m planning to give evidence at a couple of them, so I’ll definitely need a few smart robes, I think.”

They cast him curious looks but thankfully didn’t ask which trials. Harry would’ve told them, if they’d asked, but hadn’t brought it up yet himself. He wasn’t quite sure why.

“Alright, then.” Said Ron, taking a large bite out of a ginger biscuit. “I’ll only get the one good one though. New robes are always expensive. After that, it’s colour changing charms if they need me again. You’ll help me with that, right, Hermione?” Ron was less self-conscious about his family’s lack of funds these days – civil war put a lot of things in perspective.

“Of course.” She agreed. “Or Harry can. He’s getting quite good with them now.”

Harry grinned at her.

They drifted to Madam Malkins’ shop not long afterwards, tea still pleasantly warming them. There, despite his best intentions, Harry was utterly lost. As far as he could tell, the only difference between them was the colour, but Ron quickly started looking for specific styles and fits, leaving Harry and Hermione lost behind him.

“I’ve never quite got fashion.” Hermione said lightly, though Harry knew it was a bit of a sore spot for her. “Muggle or magical. I wear comfortable things and hope they look alright. And someone is always sure to tell me if they don’t.”

“I’ve never chosen my own clothes.” Harry said, keeping his voice just as light even though it made his throat catch to admit it. “I’ve always worn Dudley’s old things. My Hogwarts clothes were the only ones I bought.”

She reached out and squeezed his hand, as they both watched Ron flit between racks. He came back. “Okay, I’ve decided not to get my Hogwarts robes today in case I grow again between now and September, but I’ll get the others. Harry, what do you think about this blue one?” Ron held out a dark blue robe with black and silver-blue embroidery on the cuffs and down the front.

“Er, it’s nice?” Harry said. It was unconvincing even to his own ears.

“Do you not like it?” Ron frowned at the robes again, lifting the fabric to inspect it closer. “I know split-sleeve isn’t for everyone, but I thought the colour was nice.”

Harry had no idea what he was talking about and decided to just say as much.

“Ugh, you’re useless. Hermione! What do you think?” Ron cried and brandished the robe at Hermione.

She blinked at it. “Honestly, Ronald, I don’t know why you’d think I’d know any better than Harry.”

“But you know everything!” Ron exclaimed, pulling the robe back to himself with a put-upon expression. He looked between Harry and Hermione like an answer might magically emerge then huffed. “Fine! I’ll go ask one of the shop assistants.”

Harry and Hermione watched with amusement as he did just that and quickly devolved into a spirited conversation with the young man. Ron was gesturing wildly, something about the hem from what they could tell, and the assistant seemed to be trying to persuade him of something. “Any idea what they’re talking about?” He asked Hermione quietly, dipping towards her.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her smile. “None. I had no idea he felt so strongly about robe cuts.”

He huffed a laugh in response.

“Can I help you with anything?” Madam Malkin herself had approached them from the side while they’d been watching Ron.

“Hello.” Said Hermione, before apparently deciding to bite the bullet and get it over with. “I’m afraid we’re a little lost. We need some casual robes and some smart but, well, we don’t really know anything about robes."

Madam Malkin’s eyes scanned across their frames, taking in the muggle attire. “Well, no better time or place to start.” She said, smiling at them. “Come with me, I’ll give you both a basic rundown on wizarding fashion and clothing, before we look for anything in particular.” She led them further into the shop, towards a row of moving mannequins. “We get lots of muggleborns who come asking.” She said conversationally. “And it’s always a pleasure to answer. Shows interest in our world, you know. And it’s good to see you all dressing properly afterwards.”

Harry and Hermione eyed each other but didn’t comment. From her words, Harry guessed that she hadn’t recognised him, which was surprising nowadays, especially since he’d been here before.

“Now.” She said, pointing a plump hand at the first mannequin, which had on a solid robe in shimmering lilac with shining embroidery along the hem and cuffs. “We’ll start from top down. Over-robes are your top layer. They are traditionally full-length, but some styles have a shorter, three-quarter length fit. They can be worn on their own, in which case, they must be full length, or over an under-robe in they’re shorter. On their own, they will be a heavier fabric, like this.” She pulled a robe from the rack for them to feel. The burgundy fabric was soft but sturdy, like their Hogwarts robes. “They usually have long sleeves, but with an under-robe, may have any length of sleeve, including none at all. Traditionally, the sleeves are loose, except for styles to suit vocational work, like potion making or animal handling. As a compromise, most wixen have fabric wraps or ribbons to tie the lower sleeve close to the arm when using their hands.” She demonstrated this on another mannequin, making the ribbon curl up the arm of the mannequin and pull the sleeve in tightly. In retrospect, Harry had definitely seen those on other people, but never really thought about it.

“Your outer robe is usually the decorated one.” Madam Malkin continued. “And some embellishment is normal, though the degree of it is, of course, personal preference. But none would look a little odd. As for colour, we don’t tend towards patterns, though there’s always the odd outlier, but the embellishment often makes up for that.”

“Now, I’ll show you the under layers and optional extras before I go through what’s fashionable.” She left them a pause to disagree or ask questions, but they just nodded. “Alright. So, your under-robe.” She pointed to the second mannequin, which had a very plain, ankle-length tunic-style robe displayed in dark blue. The neckline was high, at about the collarbone, and the sleeves were tight all the way down. “You don’t need to wear it if your over-robe is full length, but many prefer to. It’s usually in a different, but complimentary, shade to your over-robe. It’s only ever supposed to show through at the bottom, down the front, or on the lower sleeves, so that’s where you’ll find any decoration, but most people reserve that for the over-robe. You’d hardly be indecent wearing only an under-robe,” Madam Malkin said, eyeing their muggle fashions with tight clothing and exposed arms, “but it would look odd to us. On that note, wixen fashion is generally rather conservative, but actually very tolerant of different people’s mode of dress. You can mix and match as you like with wearing a cloak or over-robe over your muggle clothing, if you’d like.”

She brought them over to a third mannequin, which had the same style of under-robe but this time with a sleeveless, three-quarter length over-robe, which joined only with a single button in the middle. It was a gauzy, floaty fabric, silver-grey and translucent. “An over-robe can be as insubstantial as this.” Madam Malkin explained. “With an under-robe, it’s primarily for decoration. In general, clothing and accessories are an important part of expressing our personalities. Wixen tend towards bright colours, though of course that has been less common in recent years,” she trailed off looking troubled for a moment before fixing a bright smile back on her face, “but don’t worry about dressing too brightly. Unless it’s truly gaudy, you’ll fit right in. Muggleborns often look quite dour in their clothing to our sensibilities.” She said.

Harry, who had only been considering getting robes in black and a few dark shades, thought of what he’d seen people wearing. With the exception of Snape, who never wore anything but black, he supposed it was true that most people wore colourful robes, generally in block colours. He supposed it made sense if they could use magic to dye the clothes and could keep them clean more easily.

“Now, some basic accessories.” Madam Malkin went on, looking pleased to still have a captive audience. “Most of the time, robes are tailored to your waist or hips, depending on the cut, so belts aren’t a strictly necessary item, but are frequently fashionable and generally rather useful as a place to put a wand holster. Cloaks, of course, are excellent for winter. They keep in a warming charm much better than robes do. They come in full-length, three-quarter, and half-length. A good cloak adds to your outfit, as well as keeping you warm and dry. They may be light for the summer or heavy for the winter. Many of the heavier ones have pockets on the inside, which are very useful.” She flipped a cloak over, showing an array of pockets on the inside edge.

“Hm, what else? Otherwise, most clothing stores will sell your basics like hats and gloves and such. What you might need are a few good cloak pins and buckles. Well, and underwear.”

Harry shot an alarmed look at Hermione, who was also blushing red. Madam Malkin smirked at them. “Teenagers.” She laughed. “Always so embarrassed.” Mercifully, she said no more and continued. “Wixen often don’t wear much in the way of underwear.” Harry’s face heated more. “Traditionally, you might wear a shift.” She indicated a thin, knee-length slip on a mannequin further over. It was sleeveless and the fabric looked very light and soft. “There are longer versions to sleep in. However, many people wear a pair of light trousers underneath their robes, for obvious reasons, I think. These can be tight to the leg or loose and gathered at the ankle, depending on the fit of the robes.” Harry was relieved to hear about the trousers – he was willing to try robes, but he’d be much more comfortable with something substantial on underneath. “It is still usually paired with the shift, like so.” The next mannequin had a shift in pale copper paired with loose trousers the same colour. The shift was a little shorter and had slits a couple of inches up the sides to accommodate the trousers. “As for colour, it doesn’t much matter as you’d generally hope that no one sees them, except maybe the bottom of your trouser leg. If in doubt, something plain and simple.”

She turned to look at them with an assessing gaze. “Are you following me this far?” Harry nodded and saw Hermione doing the same. She had a bright glint of determination in her eyes, like she was being given a tricky arithmancy problem.

“Excellent.” Madam Malkin said. “Now, if you’re just building your wardrobe, it’ll be easiest if you find things that will work together and allow you to mix and match for greater variety. You said you needed some smart robes? Splendid. For those, I’d suggest a more traditional solid robe, rather than over and under pair. You can always mix it up with colour changing charms. Those won’t hold for more than a day, so keep an eye on that, but it’ll give you some variety. And you can switch out belts and jewellery for a more distinct look. Otherwise, wixen your age tend to prefer over-under pairs. Completely open over-robes are very much in fashion at the moment.”

She paused for a moment, giving them a moment to take in her words. “Now, that’s probably enough for you to get going. So, I can let you loose on the store to see what you can find,” Harry felt a flash of panic, “or I can find a selection of things that might suit you for you both to try on.”

“Um, the second for me, please.” Said Harry and hoped he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt.

“And for me.” Hermione sounded a lot calmer than him. “Thank you, I understand a lot better now, but I’m still not sure what would suit me.”

“Yeah, thank you.” Harry chimed in quickly.

Madam Malkin looked pleased. “Of course. If you’ll head over to the changing rooms at the back and wait for me there. Do you want to do this independently or show each other?” She asked.

“Together?” Harry suggested, glancing at Hermione. She nodded.

“Excellent. I’ll be back in a few.” The witch headed out into the store with great energy. Harry suspected she was delighted to have customers who had not only listened to her whole explanation but given her essentially free rein in their selections. They walked over to the curtained areas at the back, where Madam Malkin had pointed. Hermione was quiet, contemplative.

“What are you thinking about?” Harry asked after a few moments.

“Hm? Oh.” She replied, biting her lip. “Just thinking about what Madam Malkin said at the start, about asking showing an interest. I was wondering if it was wrong that I hadn’t before.”

Harry knew he wasn’t the best person to ask. He shrugged, twisting his lips. “I don’t know. But, I mean, you are now? A lot of people wear a mix anyway.” It didn’t sound like a very satisfactory answer, but it was the best he had. They were both quiet for a moment thinking about it. “And,” he tried tentatively, “it’s okay to be proud of where you come from.” Hermione smoothed a hand self-consciously over her left arm where Bellatrix Lestrange had carved a slur into her. The knife, they’d later found, had been cursed so it scarred nastily and wouldn’t fade. He knew it reminded her every day of the torture Bellatrix had put her through.

“Yes.” Hermione agreed, voice stronger. “But I think I’d like to try this too.”

After about five minutes, Madam Malkin arrived with an array of fabrics thrown over her arm. She separated the bundles into two piles, giving one to Harry and the other to Hermione. There were three robes in each pile. “Alright, try these on for size. I made a guess what would best fit you. Best to take trousers off for fit” She advised.

Exchanging a quick look with Hermione, Harry took his pile into one curtained side room.

“See you in a minute!” Hermione called from her own room.

He placed them down on a provided bench and looked through them. Madam Malkin seemed to be playing it safe to start off with, because none of them were particularly bright or ornate. There was one robe in a dark blue-green, one in burgundy, and one he was less sure of in a soft lilac. He started with the burgundy.

It took him a few minutes to put on, most of which was spent figuring out how the buttons worked. Once he’d realised that the front wrapped around and buttoned on the side, everything went a lot quicker. The neck was high, with a small, standing collar, and the sleeves were long and draped just over the back of his hands and further on the inside edge. It hung a little awkwardly around his waist before flaring out a little past his hips. The skirt – he couldn’t think of another word for it – of the robe was full, in loose pleats, and weighted down by heavy embroidery at the bottom edge. A couple of inches of black lace circled the hem, as well as the collar, down the buttons, and along the cuffs. In amongst the lace, tiny glass beads had been sewn in in various shades of yellow, orange, and occasionally blue, to catch the light like tiny dancing flames. He wasn’t sure what to think yet, not used to wearing robes outside his loose uniform ones, and certainly nothing like this, so he decided to defer judgement and wait until he heard what Madam Malkin and Hermione had to say.

He pulled back the curtain and walked back out into the room. The fabric felt odd against his bare legs but not bad. It was cool and soft. Only the tips of his feet poked out as he moved. Outside, Hermione was waiting in a pale blue robe which reminded him a little of the blue dress-robes she’d worn to the Yule Ball. They looked lighter than his own but more structured around the bust and waist, with a slightly fuller skirt. It had an odd ripple effect like the surface of water when she moved and wildflowers were painted onto the skirt, climbing up towards the top.

Madam Malkin looked them over with a pleased hum. “Yes, good colours for the both of you.” She eyed Hermione critically, who was fussing over her sleeves. “If you think they’d bother you, you can get the tight sleeves. For now…” The witch summoned two ribbons in a darker blue and set them to wrap up to Hermione’s elbow. “How does that look to you?”

Hermione looked to be considering it seriously. “It’s much more practical.” She said. “I get quite wrapped up in my head when I’m working and I think I’d end up dragging the sleeves through everything.” She twisted in the mirror to look at herself. “Otherwise… are there robes that button in the back? I’m not sure about the front.”

Madam Malkin nodded. “Of course. Less common, but certainly there are some. I think that pink one I handed you buttons at the back if you’d like to try that next. Other than that, any thoughts?”

Hermione looked thoughtful. “How smart would you say this is?” She asked after a moment. “I’m finding it hard to judge.”

The older witch, to her credit, didn’t look like she was judging her for the question at all. “It’s a nice robe. You could probably wear it as a day robe or to a semi-formal event, but anything painted with a picture, like those flowers, isn’t really suitable for something formal. Nice for an afternoon tea, but not for a job interview or court date.” She added.

Hermione nodded. “Right, thank you.”

Madam Malkin then turned to Harry, giving his body an assessing look. It would have been intimidating if it weren’t blatantly obvious that she only cared about the clothes. “Hm, not quite fitting right around your middle. You’re very thin, so I’d be wary about taking the actual fabric in too much, in case you gain some weight later, but a belt would help in the meantime.” She summoned one over, in a thick, black leather. With a practised hand, she looped it around his waist. Normally, when he wore a belt, it sat on his hips, so it was weird to feel it so high up. She tightened it gently but firmly, cinching in the fabric. “Hm, very thin.” She muttered to herself. He looked away, embarrassed. “Sorry, dear.” She said, patting his arm lightly. “I shouldn’t have said, but, ah, it’s something to be aware of when choosing your fit.”

Harry looked over towards the mirrors. He could see what she meant. With the belt pulling in the loose fabric around his waist, Harry’s shape was very narrow. The long skirts somehow made him look taller, while the tighter torso showed his thin chest and not particularly broad shoulders. The robes themselves looked nice, draping tidily and somehow making Harry – the scruffiest person he knew – look elegant. He grimaced and decided he didn’t want to talk about it, so he simply wouldn’t. “It looks better with the belt.” He said, simply. “But I’m also not sure about the sleeves.”

Madam Malkin appeared to consider it for a moment. “I really wouldn’t advise tight sleeves for your build.” She said frankly. “It would do you no favours. Your friend is also thin, but she has enough natural curve to make it look fashionable, see?” Hermione flushed. “Of course, you are welcome to purchase whatever you like, but as a compromise…” She summoned over too short lengths of black fabric that looked like tubes. “Faux sleeves.” She explained, then folded back the draping fabric of Harry’s sleeves and slid them up his forearms. The tubes of fabric sat just past his elbows and came down to his wrists. She then readjusted the actual sleeves of the robe, pinning them in place with a few taps of her wand, so that the long cuffs hung down from his elbows instead of his wrists. “See what you think of that.”

Harry looked at his arms and then swished them around experimentally, feeling a little silly. It already felt better not to have to fabric brushing against the backs of his hands and getting in the way of his fingers. And, he had to admit, when he pulled the upper sleeve tighter around his upper arm, they looked like sticks when he did. The loose drape of the upper sleeves did a fair job of hiding it, which was something he was now much more aware of than he’d ever been. “Yes, that’s better.” He said.

He looked up for Hermione’s opinion and found her nodding, though she looked sad.

“Would it need the fake sleeves?” Harry queried. “Or could I just wear half sleeves?”

“You could.” Madam Malkin replied with a shrug. “But long sleeves to be smart. It might even be better to wear an under-robe with a half-sleeve. Pad out your frame a little, more depth to the skirt, and if it were slightly longer than the over-robe, have an interesting hem contrast.”

He nodded, still feeling a little lost. Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about all the lace but he had to admit, now he thought about it, he’d seen plenty of adult wizards in similar.

“Why not try on the others and show each other while I find some different ones for you and your friend?”

Harry found himself agreeing and, with a shrug to Hermione, went to get changed. He tried on the green next. It had tight sleeves and buttoned straight down the front, all the way to the bottom. Luckily, he knew the buttoning spell. It sat awkwardly once more, so he used the belt again. He had to admit that Madam Malkin was right, and the tight sleeves weren’t flattering, but he found he preferred the buttons at the front to the side. The lilac robes, when he quickly checked them, appeared to button at the back. He left the changing room to show Hermione.

She was wearing pink robes and looking rather uncomfortable with it. The colour suited her, picking up the warmth of her skin, but she hunched her shoulders like she would rather be doing anything else. “I do prefer the buttons at the back.” She said to him, turning to look at him. “But not this colour. Not that there’s anything wrong with pink! It’s just not…me. And I know some of that is internalised misogyny and I’m working on it-“

“Hermione.” Harry interrupted her as she began to speed up and spill out words. “It’s okay. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it.”

She sagged a little before looking him over more appraisingly. “I didn’t like what she said, you know, about- but I think she might be right about the sleeves.” Hermione looked at him a little guiltily.

“Yeah, no, I agree.” He replied, and she looked relieved once more. “I think I like the buttons on the front but not all the way down. And the embroidery is…better.” These robes had thick embroidery in swirling patterns around the cuffs, hems, and down the front. “I’m still not sure, I mean, lace.” He ended his sentence weakly.

“I know what you mean. It does feel very odd. But it looked nice.” She said sincerely. “And it wasn’t too, I don’t know, girly. I mean, I don’t think wixen differentiate very much with clothes when it comes to gender, everyone wears robes after all, but just in case you were worrying, you…well, it wasn’t a dress?” Hermione was rambling a little again, but Harry got what she was trying to say, and it did settle him a little.

He had felt a little uncomfortable, thinking of the robes like dresses and skirts, especially with the bright colours and embellishments. But it was true, wixen didn’t really divide clothes by colours or patterns, so it was just his muggle sensibilities rearing their head. Growing up, he’d been inundated with criticisms of what was and wasn’t normal, courtesy of his aunt and uncle, and even now he was cautious about straying too far from what was considered normal, from some fear that he’d be locked out as an outsider again. The weird, little orphan with raggedy clothes and bruises. But, Harry thought wryly, he’d never been very good at doing things normally, and he certainly wasn’t very good at fitting in. Besides, the Dursleys disapproving of something was practically a glowing endorsement in his books.

So, Harry tried to look at his robes with new eyes, as someone who was allowed to like them and supposed to feel comfortable in them. “I like the heavier fabric.” He said, at last, rubbing his fingers on one of the sleeves. “It feels more…secure, somehow. But I liked the way the other one looked and felt when I moved, with the bigger skirt.”

Hermione looked at him curiously but smiled. “Maybe we are getting the hang of this.”

They both went back to try the final one. In Harry’s case, it was the lilac one. He touched the fabric lightly, skimming his fingers over the surface. When he really thought about it, why shouldn’t he like purple? What made a colour girly? And, when he thought about that a little more, what was wrong with that? He put the robes on, grateful for the buttoning spell since he’d have no hope of doing it up without it and considered them. The colour worked well for him, picking out the pink in his cheeks and making him look healthier. The pale tone didn’t wash him out but complemented him. The fabric was lighter than the other robes, silky. Maybe it was silk, he didn’t know fabrics well enough to guess. The skirt floated very gently around his legs as he walked out, almost hanging in the air.

Hermione was wearing a darker purple robe with blue embroidery. It was heavier than the others she’d worn, with sleeves that she’d bound up in ribbons. The robe, unusually, had slits up the sides, to the tops of her thighs, and a thick ribbon sat around her waist like a decorative belt. “I like this.” She declared. “You were right about the heavy fabric feeling secure. More difficult to move in though, but I feel less like I’m about to float away. And the slits here are great for movement.” She demonstrated with a few quick steps.

“The colour suits you as well.” Harry said.

“Mm, yours too.” Hermione said, and something in her look was speculative. “I would never have considered something like that for you, but it looks nice.”

Harry hummed noncommittally. “I prefer the buttons on the front, I think.” He didn’t comment on the colour or fit. “And maybe generally heavier fabric, but I could see something like this being nice occasionally.”

When Madam Malkin returned, it was with more armfuls of garments. She must have been listening to some of what they’d been saying, because the fabrics she brought back were sturdier and buttoned at the front for Harry and at the back for Hermione, with a few exceptions. She’d also brought some wizarding underwear, which felt very odd when Harry tried them on. He had to admit, the loose, billowing trousers were very comfortable, but the tunic-vest was a little harder to adjust to.

He ended up in a purple under-robe with a dark teal over-robe on top. The over-robe didn’t button at all, completely open at the front, and had swirling patterns of blue-green embroidery of various shades all down the front, spilling across the hems and shoulders. He fastened the belt around both layers. It was certainly brighter than anything Harry usually wore, but he found himself liking it. It had a few slits up the sides to about the knees and Harry found he liked this style the best. When he moved, the over-robe caught the air and showed strips of purple. The purple robe was soft and plain, high-necked, with tight sleeves, and only decorated with a faint pattern around the hem.

“I like this style.” He said as he came out.

“It suits you.” Madam Malkin said approvingly. “A nice, youthful style. Why don’t we sift through colours and embroidery patterns while we wait for your friend? She nixed a couple already, so she might be a few moments more.”

Together, they went through some colours, fabrics, and patterns. In general, Harry wasn’t sure about pastels, though could be convinced about a pale blue, green, and the lilac from earlier. Dark shades of most colours were nice, though he wasn’t convinced by the dark pink. Orange and yellow were a bit much, though he found a rusty colour that was surprisingly nice.

“Hm,” Malkin considered the fabric swatches. “We can build your wardrobe around blues, greens, and purples, if you’d like. Those are the ones you seem most drawn to. But of course, any other colour you like can be added.”

Harry, who had previously considered focussing on black and Gryffindor colours, was surprised to realise that she was right about his colour choices. In particular, he kept drifting to what she called ‘jewel tones’. “Some of these fabrics are really nice.” He said, fingering a dark green one that sent bolts of brighter green through it as it caught the light. “And you’re sure they’re not too, I don’t know, showy?”

She huffed a laugh. “Showy is a whole animated scene, brightly clashing colours, or seven layers of different over-robes. Pretty fabrics, strong colours… those are normal. You’re allowed to take pride in your appearance, supposed to, even.”

Harry smiled at her, choosing not to inspect his feelings about that. “Okay, I trust your judgement on this. I certainly don’t know.” He decided to trust her a little more. “So, if you were to pick out a wardrobe for me, assuming I had nothing, which I basically don’t, what would I need?”

Her eyes lit up with an unholy glee, but Harry trusted his gut feeling – this might end up being expensive, she was a saleswitch after all, but he believed that she would genuinely try to put together a comprehensive wardrobe of things he’d like and need. Better, this would both save him from having to pick them all out himself. Besides, there were bound to be things that Harry forgot about or didn’t know were basic necessities, and, although she’d tried to explain to him, he didn’t know anything about colour or pattern matching.

“This may take a little time.” She warned, “If you’re serious, that is.”

Harry confirmed that he was. “I’ve never really shopped for myself before.” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know where to start.”

Madam Malkin nodded at that, eyes already flicking around the store. “In that case, I’d like to take your measurements first, and then see you back here in an hour or so.” She paused. “Do you think your friend will do the same?”

Harry then realised that he and Madam Malkin had been chatting for a while with no sign of Hermione. “I don’t know.” He said.

She hummed in understanding. “Alright, change out of those and I’ll do your measurements.”

Harry did so. Pulling on his old jeans and jumper felt odd afterwards, and he was more aware than ever of how scruffy they made him look. They were faded, oversized, and generally unflattering. He hadn’t cared before, but the new awareness that he could wear nice clothes made something in him feel unsettled.

As he came out, so did Hermione. She was in a navy under-robe that showed through a white robe made entirely of lace. It buttoned only to the waist then flared, the ends floating as she walked.

“It’s lovely.” Harry said.

Hermione smiled radiantly. “I didn’t know they could be like this.” She said. “I didn’t know I’d like them.”

Harry grinned back at her. “Me either. I’m asking Madam Malkin to put a wardrobe together for me. I think I want to try this properly. I,” he paused to find the words, “I thought I’d feel silly in them, but it makes me feel like a real wizard. And I’m trying to remember that that’s a good thing.”

She leaned over and squeezed his hand. If anyone would understand, it was Hermione. Sometimes, he’d wondered if she’d thought about returning to the muggle world and giving up on magic too. “I’m very happy to hear it. I think I’ll just buy a few things for now, but maybe in the future I’ll do the same.”

Harry nodded. “Oh, I’ve got to go. Madam Malkin’s going to take my measurements.” He ran off towards the front of the store, where the raised pedestals for measuring and tailoring were. There, Ron was standing with a bag and crossed arms.

“Honestly,” Ron said, “what were you even doing back there? Where’s Hermione?”

“We were trying things on.” Harry replied. “We know absolutely nothing about robes, so Madam Malkin took pity on us.”

“You could have asked me!”

“And interrupt your fascinating conversation about…sleeves, I think?” Harry grinned at him teasingly.

Ron huffed but was grinning back. “I’ll have you know that it was a fascinating conversation.”

“Ah, there you are.” Madam Malkin bustled over. “Hop up on the stool now, dear.”

He did and she immediately began brandishing a tape measure. It fluttered around him, taking all sorts of readings that were noted down automatically by a hovering quill and parchment while Madam Malkin supervised. It was all over surprisingly quickly.

“Excellent.” She said, drying the ink and rolling up the parchment. “Come back in an hour or so to review the selection before you purchase.”

“Great, thanks!” Harry took the dismissal and wandered back to his friends. 

Chapter Text

After a little prompting, Harry left Ron to wait for Hermione as she chose some robes and accessories and got them tailored to her. The rest of his shopping trip was fairly unexciting, though he did end up buying far too much stationery. There were just so many colours of ink! He picked up a new satchel for his school things, as well as some basic potions ingredients, and, remembering something Madam Malkin had said, found some wand holsters for him and his friends in an odds and ends shop.

His footsteps stuttered outside the pet shop. He really should have an owl. Not having one made sending letters very difficult, but his chest squeezed at the thought. He’d got by using Pig. Somehow, Harry found himself inside the shop. There was the instant smell of animal, pungent and slightly unpleasant, but familiar all the same. Owls eyed him with bobbing heads from perches up the walls, crups and kneazles skittered around in sealed off play pens, while non-magical cats and dogs were kept separate. There were rabbits, magical rats, puffskeins, and a small array of reptiles. It was a lot bigger inside than he’d remembered.

As he passed the reptile tanks, Harry heard hissing and froze as the hisses morphed into words. “Warm rock, nice rock.” A small python was saying, as she gleefully bathed on a rock in charmed sunlight. “Favourite rock”

Harry’s breath caught for a moment. Wasn’t the parseltongue from the horcrux? Why could he still speak it? Was the horcrux not gone properly? He took a deep breath, trying to control the waves of fear that were battering through him, and made an effort to think about it logically. He knew the horcrux was gone properly. His magic, his temperament felt so much better. And, if nothing else, Hecate and the other Underworld gods would surely have said something if he were still wandering around with part of a soul they were after. He knew this logically.

Deciding not to think about this right now, in public, Harry moved away unseeingly, and found himself staring at a group of kneazle hybrids. They were more elegant than the pure kneazles, which were distinctly leonine, but also, as the information sign next to them pointed out, less clever. They were longer lived than ordinary cats.

“You can pet them if you’d like.” One of the assistants had approached from the counter while he’d been distracted, and Harry tried not to jump too badly.

He didn’t know how to say ‘I was staring into space because I just found out I still have a magical ability from Voldemort and it’s really freaking me out’ so instead came out with, “Um, okay. How do I…?” Harry had been around cats before but hadn’t made any real attempts to get to know them. Mrs Figg’s cats had always put him off.

“Put your hand over the line.” The assistant advised, dropping into a crouch next to him. Harry copied what she did and tentatively stuck a hand over. “Let them have a good old sniff. They’re curious creatures, even if they pretend that they’re not interested, so they’ll come over soon enough.”

Sure enough, after a moment, a fluffy tabby cat broke away from the rest and came over. Its nose brushed Harry’s fingers, tail twitching, before giving him an unreadable stare and wandering back to the rest. As it did, a couple more came over, a grey and another tabby. They sniffed his fingers like the first and meowed.

“Hm, that’s Tabitha.” The assistant said, indicating the second tabby. “She’s usually up for strokes and cuddles from anyone.” As if to prove her words, Tabitha padded over to her and began butting her head into her hand. The assistant happily began scratching behind her ears and under her chin. The grey cat also wandered over to the assistant.

More cats began crowding them, in the distinctly aloof way that cats do, where they pretend it is entirely coincidental that they happen to be within your petting zone, but if you do insist in being there, you must pay your dues and pet them well. Each of them smelled Harry’s hand then gave him an unreadable look with their lamp-like eyes before wandering off again. They didn’t seem to find his scent offensive, but none of them were comfortable within arm’s reach once they’d smelled him.

The assistant watched this all, bemused. “Maybe you touched something funny earlier. They’re definitely smelling something weird.” Harry wondered if it was his magic they were smelling.

Finally, a black cat with bright green eyes sauntered over. “Oh!” The assistant said, “That one usually stays away from visitors. She’s fairly new, we haven’t even agreed on a name for her yet. We don’t even know for sure that she’s a cat-kneazle hybrid. She’s a cat hybrid of some kind, definitely, but we’re just guessing about the kneazle. Maybe even part cat-sith.”

The black cat smelled his hand and fixed her eyes on his, but unlike the others, she seemed to approve of what she found. She butted his hand with a ‘mmrph’ until he stroked her. Her fur was soft and thick, warmer and less course than he was expecting. “Hi.” He said softly, trailing gentle fingers down her back.

The cat meowed back as if in answer, brushing herself against his legs where they crossed the ward line, before suddenly jumping up into his lap.

“Erm,” Harry said startled, scrambling to get himself into a more stable position with a cat in his lap, “did she just go through the wards?”

“So she did!” Exclaimed the assistant. She didn’t seem particularly upset about it, but instead looked a little fascinated. “Some cats are just like that.” She said. “All cats have a tendency to end up getting into places they shouldn’t, but magical cats especially go where they want.”

The cat in his lap meowed at him imperiously until he began stroking her again.

The assistant – whose name he should really have asked by now – laughed. “You’ve been chosen.” She reached out a hand towards the cat on Harry’s lap, but the cat eyed it disdainfully for a moment, before turning back to getting pets from Harry. “Ah, I see how it is, little empress.”

Digging surprisingly heavy little paws into his lap, the cat circled around for a moment before clearly deciding that he made an adequate pillow and collapsing into a ball. She butted his leg once more until he stroked her again. Her fur was so dark that she seemed to be a self-contained void with bright green eyes floating in it.

Harry looked up at the assistant for help, but she just laughed at him. “You have a cat on your lap, you’re not allowed to move now. Isn’t that right, little empress?” She cooed gently at the cat. That cat purred, kneading his thigh. It scratched a little but was too cute for him to stop. 

“Does she understand us?” Harry asked, continuing to stroke her.

“To an extent.” The assistant replied, sitting down properly next to him. “Kneazles do, hybrids vary. Cats even are smart, recognise words and actions, though that doesn’t mean they’ll actually respond to them. From the looks of it, this one does.”

The cat gave him a particularly superior look like he was stupid not to have seen that from the beginning. He grinned at her. “Ah, sorry to question you, your majesty.” She purred louder in a way that was distinctly smug.

The assistant giggled. “Are you thinking about taking her home? You seem a very good match. You even look the same!” Which was true – their eyes were even similar shades of green.

Some of his good mood vanished. “I actually came in here for a post owl.” He said, regretfully. “My last one… but it’s getting difficult to send letters.”

The assistant nodded solemnly, seeming to catch the meaning even with the words unspoken. “It’s never easy to lose a friend like that.” She said, and Harry could have cried that one person at least understood that Hedwig had been more than a beloved pet. “Your owl – Hedwig, right? – was very beautiful. I remember seeing her at the table at breakfast.”

Harry was slightly embarrassed to realise that the shop assistant had known who he was the whole time, but grateful that she hadn’t commented on it. “Yeah, she was.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Harry was wracking his memories to see if he could remember her, but he’d never paid an awful lot of attention to people outside his immediate circle.

“I’m Hannah Abbott, Hufflepuff.” She said, taking pity on him. She didn’t sound angry at all that he didn’t recognise her. “We shared some classes, but I don’t think we ever actually spoke.”

Now she introduced herself, Harry did remember seeing her around. Actually, he really should have recognised her. She’d been part of the DA, even though she had mostly kept within her group of friends, almost always next to Susan Bones. “You changed your hair.” He said stupidly. He vaguely remembered her blonde hair being long, rather than the short style she had it in now.

She laughed. “Yeah, the ends got burnt in the Battle, and I fancied a change anyway.”

Harry smiled tightly at the mention of the Battle, and she gave him a knowing look in response. Neither mentioned it. “So, are you going back to Hogwarts?” He asked after a moment’s pause.

“Yeah, planning to.” She looked away to stroke some of the cats that were still milling around on the other side of the ward line. “My parents want me to get my NEWTs, even if I don’t plan to do much with them. You?”

“Yeah, I’m going back.” He said, “Might as well do it all properly, you know?”

She nodded. “How do you reckon they’re going to do it? I mean, do you think there’ll be eight years or they’ll smush the years together somehow into seven.”

Harry considered it. “No clue. I guess everyone has to decide whether to repeat the year or move up one. Be weird to be mixed in with the year below, though.” Actually, he could see it being fun to be in the same year as Luna. And maybe Ginny, too, depending. They hadn’t really spoken about their mutual feelings before the War, and the silence seemed comfortable enough, but they should probably talk about it before they were back at Hogwarts. He knew that he didn’t feel the same. He still liked her, but he realised it was as a friend now. Perhaps it wasn’t all that surprising that his feelings had changed along the way – he himself had been changed on a soul deep level, after all.

Hannah laughed again. She seemed to be a very cheerful person, which Harry felt oddly jarring, but not necessarily in a bad way. Sometimes, recently, he needed to be reminded that he could laugh. “I wouldn’t mind too much.” She replied. “The year below are alright. But it would be odd, yeah.”

The cat in his lap evidently grew tired of being ignored and delivered a playful bite to his hand and meowed her displeasure loudly.

“My deepest apologies, your majesty.” Harry told her, stroking her fluffy head. The cat, in return, gave him a grumpy look.

Hannah snorted. “She’s a bossy one, alright.”

The cat in question opened one eye to glare at Hannah but shut it again as Harry rubbed over the top of her head.

“You can bring cats to Hogwarts, you know.” Hannah pointed out. “She clearly likes you.” She paused. “And only you, at that.”

Harry frowned. He had intended to get an animal, but only an owl, and only for his post. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a cat. And I wasn’t really planning to get one either.” Besides, he thought gloomily, why get a cat now when he’d have to leave her behind within three years? It wasn’t fair to the cat, even if he already loved her warm weight and huffy meows.

Hannah made a thoughtful noise, evidently seeing something in his face that stopped her from pushing. “It’s not like you have to decide today.” She said. “The little empress hasn’t even tried to approach anyone else, so I doubt she’s going to get adopted out soon. Why not think it over for a while?”

Harry didn’t think his answer would change – there was no changing the fact that he was going to end up in the Underworld after all – but he was grateful for the time. “Yeah, ok.” He stroked over the cat’s head for another moment before trying to gently shoo her from his lap so he could stand. She gave him a horribly betrayed look and clung on firmly. Sighing, he stood up slowly, until she had to scramble down to keep her balance. She yowled at him, sitting at his feet. “I’m sorry.” He said over the yowls. “I can’t bring you with me.”

She just yowled louder, tail puffed out angrily. She moved closer, standing on his foot with her back paws and dug her claws into the fabric of his jeans, only digging them in harder when he tried to pry her off.

“Help?” He begged Hannah.

Hannah looked like she didn’t know whether to find this funny or sad. “Hey, little lady.” She said, bending down and tapping the offending paws carefully. “You’ve got to let him go.”

She stubbornly resisted, holding on and yowling.

Hannah sighed and cast something which detached the cat and left her floating in an angry, hissing bubble in the air. “Please think about it. She really wants you.”

Harry felt terrible. He approached the bubble of feline rage and met the cat’s eyes. The look of betrayal was clear. “I’m sorry.” He whispered to her. “But, if you can… if I’m not being really stupid and you actually can smell it on me, you know where I’m going. And I can’t take a cat with me there. And I wouldn’t just leave you behind.”

She stopped spitting at him but kept clawing at the boundaries of the containment spell frantically.

He left the shop without an owl or the good mood he’d gone in with. 

He made his way back to Madam Malkin’s, where she had gathered an assortment of robes and accessories. He tried to pay attention but knew he wasn’t as enthusiastic as before. Still, she’d done a great job selecting things that he liked but maybe wouldn’t have chosen for himself. Alongside the variety of robes were a few buckles, hats, boots, belts, and faux sleeves. Madam Malkin had also recommended to him that he find some jewellery to match, but that seemed like a task for another day. His energy was rapidly draining.

In the end, Harry paid her a significant amount, both for the robes and the time, but considered it money well spent – he couldn’t imagine having to actually pick all of those out himself. As he was leaving, Madam Malkin called out to him. “Your friends said they’d meet you at home!”

Harry called back his thanks and was rather glad not to be staying longer in the Alley. He left the shop, heading towards the Leaky Cauldron, intending to use their Floo, when something soft and loud collided with his leg. He looked down, startled. It was the black cat. She wasted no time clawing her way up his leg this time, until he had to rush to catch her in his arms before she shredded his t-shirt. “What on earth are you doing out here?” He asked her. She looked back smugly.

The cat was soon followed by Hannah, panting after her run from the shop. “Oh, Merlin, that cat is fast.”

“How did she get out?” Harry asked.

“She absolutely shredded the wards.” Hannah replied, still breathless. “I kept her in the containment bubble while I set up ones that I didn’t think she’d be able to just walk through, but I guess that just made her mad because she walked through those ones and then ripped up the main shop wards. My boss is not going to be happy.”

Harry eyed the cat in his arms who appeared to be preening. “Er, should we take her back? How are you going to keep her in?” The cat hissed and sunk her claws into his arm in reprimand. He winced.

“Oh, no no no no no no.” Said Hannah with a loud, possibly hysterical, laugh, brushing her fringe off her face. “There’s no keeping that cat anywhere she doesn’t want to be. And she’s clearly decided she wants to be with you. I’m not wrecking another set of wards to try and keep her.”

Harry looked down at the ball of black fluff he was carrying. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you going to rip through Hannah’s wards again if I take you back?” The cat eyed him with a superior look and gave one short, deliberate nod. Harry didn’t know cats could nod.

“Congratulations, Harry.” Hannah said, with only a little bit of sarcasm. “You’ve been adopted by a cat. You belong to her now.” The cat in question prrped her approval. “I think you’d better come back with me to the shop to talk about things for her. And maybe start thinking about a name.”

Still somewhat in shock, Harry did.

Chapter Text

The cat fitted in surprisingly well at Grimmauld Place. Hermione was very glad to have company for Crookshanks, who still hadn’t entirely forgiven her for leaving him at the Burrow during the war, and Harry’s cat seemed to enjoy terrorising him. Upon arrival, Crookshanks had taken one tentative sniff of Harry’s cat and bolted up the stairs. This set the tone for their following interactions, though Crookshanks was slowly becoming less cautious. Harry’s cat mostly looked smug. If nothing else, it confirmed their suspicions that whatever cat hybrid she was, it wasn’t kneazle.

He still hadn’t thought of a name for her, aside from calling her your majesty or little empress, which she accepted as her due. It was during one of those times, when he was asking her if she would kindly consider vacating his parchment so he could write on it, that they found something odd. “What did you just call her?” Hermione asked, interrupting his one-sided argument with the cat.

“Empress?” Harry was fairly sure that’s what he said.

“Say it again, to her.”

He wasn’t entirely sure why Hermione was asking, but he did.

“Hm.” The witch responded, tilting her head. “That definitely wasn’t parseltongue, but it wasn’t English either.”

“What? What did I say?”

“Basilissa, it sounded like.” Hermione replied. When she spoke, Harry heard the word as it was but also heard ‘empress/queen’, like an automatic translation in his head.

“Greek.” He realised slowly, the answer coming to him without deliberate thought.

“Oh!” Hermione exclaimed. “I suppose I should have guessed. How interesting! I wouldn’t have imagined that you’d pick it up automatically, but it makes sense.”

Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about this. It was the first obvious sign that the immortal magic was changing him into one of the Greek pantheon; a language he’d never heard or seen before coming from his mouth with him completely unaware. In his day-to-day life, he was mostly able to forget about all of it. He didn’t want to think about it yet. “Well, it sounds like a name.” He said eventually.

Hermione nodded enthusiastically. “Plenty of people call their pets ‘Princess’ and such. And it does suit her.”

The newly dubbed Basilissa preened and continued to sprawl over Harry’s letter.

--

The trials were coming up soon and Harry was nervous about attending. It would be his biggest public appearance since the War, and the only official one. His impromptu speech in Diagon Alley had gone down with mixed reviews, though the others assured him that some people would always just want someone to be angry at, but at least the rumours of his (second) death and disfiguration had been put to rest.

He'd finally come out and told Ron and Hermione, over dinner one evening, that he was planning to provide a statement for the Malfoys. They had both been very quiet for a moment, and he waited for them to speak with sweat dripping down his spine, but eventually Ron had spoken up. “Okay, if that’s what you feel like you have to do.” Ron went on to say that he still didn’t like the slimy bugger, but that didn’t necessarily mean he thought he was as bad as his father. Ron had grown up a lot during and since the war. Hermione had been very quiet, and Harry had worried because he knew that she was carrying trauma from Malfoy Manor – she still hadn’t told them exactly what Bellatrix had done – but eventually she said that she approved, even if she wouldn’t be going herself. “They helped you.” She said, in the end, “It’s up to the court to decide how that weighs up with everything else.”

The night beforehand, Harry spent ages staring at his new, expanded wardrobe. He would wear a solid, traditional robe, like Madam Malkin advised, but he was in the rather new position of having too much choice about which one to wear. “Ugh, what do you think, Basilissa?” He asked the feline, who had been lounging on his bed, watching him pace with growing amusement. She had her own bed but much preferred Harry’s.

She sauntered over, picking her way delicately between the random items of clothing he’d thrown on the bed, before batting at a purple one. Harry picked it up and inspected it. It was a dark purple with silver embroidery and the occasional blue glass bead. It would go nicely with his black and silver belt and new black boots. He shrugged. Might as well take the cat’s advice – even if he was wrong and she had no idea what he was asking, a pick at random was probably still better than his own fashion sense. “Thanks.” He told her. She brushed against his side, curling her soft tail around his wrist.

The next day, Harry entered the Ministry of Magic with his purple robes swishing around him. The fabric was lighter than expected and the sleeves much longer, so he’d decided on an under-robe in a nice blue. He enjoyed the way the fuller skirt moved around him, which was still a little odd to think about.

“Ah, Harry, right on time. And looking smart!” He’d arranged to meet Arthur Weasley beforehand. Mr Weasley had very little to do with the trials and was mostly helping liaise with the muggle world on clean-up, but he knew his way around the Ministry and had offered his company when he’d found out Harry was going.

“Hi!” Harry said, slightly jittery. He looked around the atrium. All around were wixen, most of them in long robes like his, though the odd person was entirely in muggle dress. It was reassuring to see, like non-uniform day at primary school, when you always feared you’d got the wrong day.

“You doing alright there?” Mr Weasley asked, frowning at him concernedly.

Harry nodded and took a breath. “Just nerves, I guess. Stupid, but…”

Mr Weasley nodded and patted his shoulder. “Not to worry. You know what you’re doing. You’ve already sent your statement ahead and it’s been approved, you don’t even have to deliver it in person if you really don’t want to. And don’t forget, you’re not the one on trial here.”

Harry let out a breath. He’d needed to hear that more than he’d realised. “Yep. Yeah. But I want to say this.” For his own conscience, he needed to do this.

Mr Weasley led him towards the courtroom, where they were met by Madam MacDougal, the stern witch in charge of the proceedings. She was dressed in the red robes that marked her as a member of the DMLE. “Ah, Mr. Potter, Arthur.” She greeted, nodding to Mr Weasley, who excused himself with a squeeze to Harry’s shoulder. “Thank you for arriving early. As per our letters, you’ll be seated in the witness section. When it is time for your statement, you will be called. Please do not attempt to speak before then. When you are called, you will give your statement and then the lawyers and DMLE representatives may have further questions for you. You may answer what you wish or refuse to answer – it is not an interrogation of you, and should any questions become inappropriate in some way, I, or one of my colleagues, will interfere. However, refusing to answer legitimate questions may harm your testimony. You will be asked to swear to Lady Magic to tell the truth, but it will not be magically binding. Should witnesses deliver conflicting evidence, and only then, truth vows may be called upon. Are we understood?”

Her tone was no-nonsense, and Harry agreed without delay. They’d discussed all this in their letters, but Harry understood that she had to say it again. “Excellent.” She nodded briskly. “Thank you for volunteering your time and testimony. And, to confirm, you wish to actively give statements for Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, but not for Lucius Malfoy, though you will be available for questioning during his trial?”

“Yes.”

“Splendid.” She ticked something off on her parchment. “Both lawyers have received your written statement already in time to use it or not in their defence. All is signed off on and above board. If you are ready, I will lead you to your seat.”

“I’m ready.” Said Harry, gripping the fabric of his robes, hidden by his long, drooping sleeves. Everything was feeling very real now.

Madam MacDougal took his word for it and began leading him down the corridor from the main entrance to the courtroom. “This is the witnesses’ entrance.” She said, as she opened a door with the wave of a hand. The door led to a row of seats with a solid barrier in front and behind them. Behind the barrier, rising up at the back, were the rest of the stands where the full court had sat during Harry’s trial, and there were further seats beyond and around the top like a concert hall. “This area of the stands is sealed off from the court and the floor, to minimise interference. When it is time, you walk through there,” she indicated a gate in front of the row of chairs, “which leads down into the court, where you will approach the podium and swear to the Lady. You will then be given further instructions, should you need them.” She continued walking and he followed her until she stopped at a seemingly random seat. “This is your chair.” She said. “For privacy and safety reasons, witnesses are unable to see or hear each other, unless on the courtroom floor, so please remember your seat and do not attempt to approach any of the other chairs. There are barriers.”

Harry eyed his chair. There was nothing to visibly mark it out as his, so he rummaged in his pocket for a moment and pulled out one of his black sleeve ribbons and tied it quickly around the armrest.

Madam MacDougal nodded her approval when he looked back to her. “That’ll work nicely. Now, we ask that you refrain from using magic in the courtroom unless invited to as part of your testimony. You are technically allowed to use it while here in the stands, but we ask that you don’t do so during the trial. If you do, we will have to go through anti-tampering protocols, which I assure you, is a lot of fuss and bother. So, any cushioning charms or whatnot that you might like to do, please do them before the trial commences.” She sighed briefly. “You would not believe how many trials I have had to interrupt this week alone for someone conjuring a handkerchief or such.”

“Are the protocols new?” Harry asked, surprised. He didn’t think he’d seen anything like that at his trial, nor from what he remembered from the pensieve memories of Barty Crouch Jr and the Lestranges’.

“In part.” The witch answered shortly, “The Ministry are doing our utmost to ensure that all trials are carried out impartially and with no interference.”

“Good to hear it.” Harry said, a little impressed.

“Mm.” She didn’t say anything else, but Harry thought she seemed pleased. She flicked the long, dangling sleeves of her robes as she placed her hands properly behind her back. “Now, the trials of Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco Malfoy are technically separate, and they will be judged individually, but given the amount of combined testimony and accusations, they will be done in one sitting. For this reason, a few refreshments will be provided.” She clapped her hands and a stool appeared in front on the chair, laden with a tray containing a jug of something and some finger food. “All refreshments are prepared by Ministry elves and are checked to be free from any kind of tampering. Please help yourself. And, should you need them during the course of the session, there are bathroom facilities immediately opposite the door we entered by. You will not be visible to other witnesses while walking. Here is an alert.” She handed him a small piece of slate. “Should you be out of the room when you are called to testify, or otherwise fail to hear your name, the slate will heat and light up, so please bring it with you if you leave.”

Harry nodded and turned it over in his hand before placing it onto the tray.

“You are allowed to leave the courtroom during the trial, but you may not discuss it with anyone outside the courtroom while it is ongoing. If you decide to leave and not return, please notify a member of staff. If you say you are leaving, you will not be allowed to return. If you need to leave before your testimony has been given, your written statement will be used. You cannot withdraw your testimony at this time, though you can, of course, refuse to speak. Are these all acceptable to you?”

Harry agreed. These had all been in the terms Madam MacDougal had sent to him, but he was glad for the reminder anyway. It would be stupid to mess up his testimony by breaking one of the rules accidentally.

“Excellent. Should you require any assistance, I will be at the main door throughout the trials. I will be able to direct you to whoever can help.”

Harry thanked her.

“Very well, thank you for your attention, Mr Potter. The trial of Narcissa Malfoy will be first, then Draco Malfoy, and then Lucius Malfoy. We are aiming for a ten o’clock start, in,” she pulled a pocket watch out of her robes, its surface covered in multiple spinning dials and astronomical symbols, “roughly 25 minutes. Please make yourself comfortable. I must be heading back to my post.”

“Right. Thanks.” Harry said, head spinning with the growing realisation this was actually happening.

She nodded to him then backed away, before stopping, looking conflicted. “Thank you, Mr Potter, for everything. I, we all, owe you a lot for ending the dark lord.” It was the first time Harry had seen her break her professional mask, and without her vaguely intimidating aura of competence, he could see that she looked tired. Tired, but proud. He didn’t know what to say but must have successfully stammered something out, because she nodded again and left with a swish of her sturdy law enforcement robes.

Without her, Harry suddenly felt very alone. Now that she’d mentioned it, he could see that the seats, though the same, blue-cushioned ones as the rest of the hall, were set rather far apart. He had no idea if there was anyone sitting in the surrounding seats, and they wouldn’t know he was there. It was an odd thought. Without anything else to do, he sat down and looked over the tray.

The jug appeared to contain pumpkin juice. It was chilled, with condensation running down the outside of the copper jug. There were a couple of plates, with sandwiches, biscuits, and pieces of fruit. Harry was tempted to snack on a biscuit, but he didn’t really know how long trials ran on, and there would be three of them. That was probably something he should have asked, but not worth seeking someone out to ask them now.

Taking Madam MacDougal’s advice, Harry thought about if there was anything he needed to do before the trial began. He hadn’t even considered casting cushioning charms before, but now he thought about it, it might be a good idea. He also recast the anti-wrinkle charms on his robes and cleaned his glasses. As usual, there was nothing that could be done for his hair. He was pretty sure, at this point, that it was actually cursed at some point in the Potter family history. He’d wondered if growing it out might help but hadn’t decided to commit to anything.

Otherwise settled, Harry sat back to look around the room. With about twenty minutes still to go, the courtroom was filling up rapidly. The jury were entering, wearing the same magenta robes they’d worn for his hearing – and he was vaguely offended to see that his hearing, for underage magic, really had been treated in the same way as a full criminal trial for, among other things, terrorist activity and murder. They filled out most of the seats in the middle section, where ordinary people clearly couldn’t enter. Above them were other people, a mass of colours against the united magenta block. Some of the ones near the front held parchments and cameras ready – Press. Beyond them, were more people, who Harry could only presume were ordinary onlookers. Most of the trials were open, he’d been told, except for underage wixen. The chattering was growing larger as more people joined.

There was no one yet on the floor, or in the official seats provided for the lead judge and questioners. The lawyers hadn’t appeared yet either. Of course, none of the Malfoys were there either, presumably under some kind of auror watch. Now he looked, he could see a few aurors scattered around the crowd and standing at the doors. He wasn’t sure whether they were there more to prevent the accused from trying anything or the audience.

A door opened at the front and a couple of wizards walked through. They arranged themselves unobtrusively at the front. They weren’t wearing either the colours of the DMLE or court but appeared to be some kind of ministry officials. They arranged parchments and quills on desks which tilted up to meet them. A few more entered moments afterwards, filling up the seats surrounding the accused’s chair. Harry wasn’t sure how trials worked in the muggle world, never having seen one himself, but he didn’t think they had the person on trial sit in a big chair covered in chains.

Murmuring in the hall grew as the last of the magenta-clad jury filed in at the same time as the other court officials down on the floor. One wizard, accompanied by a rather harried looking assistant, made his way to one of the two desks at floor level. He put an armload of parchments down and arranged them on the desk, before setting out some stationery and a glass of water. Harry guessed this was one of the lawyers.

In more elaborate magenta robes than all the others, a witch Harry didn’t know swept into the courtroom and up to the most decorated seat among the jury. She must be the head questioner, as Fudge had been at his hearing. He wasn’t entirely surprised to see that it wasn’t Kingsley – he had a lot more things, as acting Minister, to be getting on with than presiding over each and every trial. In retrospect, it was profoundly weird that Fudge had led Harry’s hearing, and he wondered if it had been obvious to all the assembled members of the Wizengamot then that Fudge was attempting to politically supress a teenager through the wizarding courts.

She banged on her desk with a gavel which must have been magically amplified, because the sound resonated around the chamber with an echoing boom. “Please be silent and seated for this meeting of the Wizengamot. On this day, the 2nd of July, we are assembled for the hearing of one Narcissa Malfoy. Please bring in the defendant.”

Chapter Text

Aurors led Narcissa Malfoy in, accompanied by a wizard who made a show of taking his seat at the remaining desk. He shuffled his things about officiously, as if there were a great deal to be sorted out, regardless of the fact that an assistant had already laid the things out beforehand. Harry supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that the Malfoys had managed to find a lawyer who was as dramatic as they were. Perhaps it was even part of the hiring process.

Narcissa Malfoy herself looked rather as when Harry had seen her just before and during the war. She was elegant as always, with well-made and presented robes in a pale blue, and her blonde hair was pinned up in a neat updo. Her jewellery was just visible enough to catch the light without being gaudy. Unlike her husband, and sometimes son, Narcissa Malfoy had always been known for her good taste. Except, perhaps, in husbands. She glided gracefully over to the metal chair, barely pausing before sitting herself down on it primly. Her face was cold, expressionless, but without the look he’d seen her sometimes have as if she’d just smelled something rotten. In fact, despite her usual aloof disregard, she looked drawn and tired, paler than usual and with bags under her eyes that weren’t quite covered by skilful application of makeup.

Muttering started up again amongst the onlookers, though Narcissa Malfoy paid them no heed. She looked steadily at the head questioner, who quieted the room with another rap. They went through the introductory statements for the record before the questioner, whose name Harry had missed, spoke, “Narcissa Malfoy, you have been accused of participating in a terrorist group, sheltering a wanted terrorist – known to the public as Lord Voldemort, and being an accomplice to murder, torture, acts of terrorism, and treason against the Ministry. How do you plead?”

“Guilty to some, not guilty to others.”

The volume shot up in the chamber as people reacted. Harry himself sucked in a sharp breath. He hadn’t been aware that was a response you could give. Was that a valid response? The questioner seemed to think so, because no remark was made except for a note made on a piece of parchment. Then again, perhaps this had all been discussed beforehand, like how he’d given his statement in advance. He really wasn’t sure how magical courts worked. Or muggle courts, for that matter.

“If the gallery cannot keep themselves silent, silencing wards will be raised.” The questioner said after a long moment in which the muttering refused to die. It was quickly quiet again. “Very well. If the prosecution would like to begin.”

The first lawyer, still with his rather harried assistant, stepped up to a plate and began to present his case. It wasn’t a difficult one. Narcissa Malfoy had sheltered the Dark Lord Voldemort in her house, Malfoy Manor, knowing that he was an enemy of the government, and had sheltered other Death Eaters and allowed them to conduct their meetings, involving murder and torture. She wasn’t a branded Death Eater herself, but had supported their actions, and participated in their regime and on their side in the final battle.

The second lawyer, the pompous one, turned out to be reasonable at his job. When you had money like the Malfoys, Harry supposed you could hire for dramatics and efficacy both. He presented Narcissa Malfoy as a loving mother and wife, who couldn’t risk her family’s safety to act out against the obviously insane and volatile Dark Lord. He played up the fact that although her associates had committed horrible crimes, those who had already been accused at least, Narcissa Malfoy had done none of them herself, and primarily ran the Malfoy family’s estate and business assets at that time. She wasn’t a marked Death Eater, and wasn’t given a Death Eater’s missions, and most of the accusations were based solely on association. Moreover, while she had been present at the battle, she was not an active participant, and had mainly been looking for her son.

Harry, although he had thought about it a lot in the days preceding the trial, still wasn’t sure where he stood on the topic of Narcissa Malfoy’s guilt. True, she’d done very little, but she’d also done very little in the face of a mass-murdering terrorist who was trying to commit genocide against muggleborns and muggles. She had actively supported the regime, supported their ideals, even if she hadn’t got her hands dirty herself. But, as her lawyer spoke, he could also understand to a certain extent the argument that he made – lots of people had felt afraid and powerless against Voldemort, had continued to live their daily lives through his regime for fear that they or their families would be hurt if they resisted him. Were all of them, the non-combatants who also hadn’t objected to Voldemort’s actions, also to be held accused of aiding and abetting? Truthfully, he still didn’t know what to think. He wasn’t speaking for her in the hopes that she was proven not guilty, but because his testimony offered another, relevant piece of the story that made up Narcissa Malfoy, and he owed her that much. It was up to the court to decide the rest.

Reminding himself of this conclusion that he’d previously come to helped settle Harry a bit. It felt callous to say that he didn’t really care about the outcome of the trial, and wasn’t quite true, but it was a weight off his shoulders to know that it wasn’t his decision, and he couldn’t directly impact the final vote. Seeing the faces in the gallery and hearing the whispers, he thought that maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling a little conflicted.

“Silence.” The questioner said, voice ringing out firmly.

Still, it didn’t quite quash the noise in the room, and, with an audible sigh, she waved a hand and raised the silence wards. There must have been a built-in function to that effect waiting for her signal because she didn’t appear to have cast a spell. But still, it was an impressive effect. Immediately, the noise from the gallery was cut off. Harry could still see people talking, but none of it was reaching the lower levels.

“Now that the statements have been given, we will proceed to the witnesses.” The questioner spoke, and Harry felt his hands start to sweat.

He wasn’t called immediately, actually not for a while, and he found himself untensing slowly over time. Most of the witnesses were people who made very obvious statements like “I saw her with Bellatrix Lestrange” and otherwise proved association with known Death Eaters, though they only had proof from the statements of other convicted Death Eaters that she had sheltered them before the war, after the Azkaban breakout. Their, generally bland, statements all indicated the same things – no one had ever seen Narcissa Malfoy actively hurt someone or plot against the Ministry, but she knew of plots and didn’t report them, didn’t prevent or report crimes committed in her vicinity, quietly supported Voldemort’s regime, and even benefited from it.

It was actually a bit of a shock when his name was called. Harry couldn’t hear the gallery still, but from people’s faces and gestures, they were shocked too. He stood a little too quickly and then took a moment to brush himself down (needless, since he’d already charmed his robes beforehand) and flatten his hair (useless, given the general state of it) to calm himself, and then went through the gate Madam MacDougal had indicated earlier. It led to a set of stairs, covered like a tunnel, in the same dark wood as the floor and seating. It was lit generously by candles in sconces on the walls but emerging out onto the courtroom floor still felt blinding.

Out on the floor, Harry felt the weight of everyone’s attention. He steeled himself, trying to keep his face blank, and approached the questioner to be sworn in. They did so with minimal fuss, Harry swearing an oath to Lady Magic that he would tell the truth. An errant thought crossed his mind and he wondered if Hecate had received it – they’d warned him about swearing oaths on gods after all. An aide stood with him the whole time. “Questioner Willis will ask you to present your statement first and then the lawyers will ask you follow up questions.” She hissed quietly. Harry was fairly sure he could have found his way to the podium without her directions, but it was somewhat reassuring to know that he wouldn’t be left on his own at all during this.

“Mr. Potter, would you please present your statement to the court.”

So, he did. It wasn’t a particularly long one. “During the battle, I went to meet Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest so that he could kill me in return for the remaining people being spared. After he cast the killing curse, both he and I were briefly knocked out, and he sent Narcissa Malfoy to check if I was dead. She saw that I was alive but didn’t report this, and instead asked me if her son, Draco Malfoy was in the castle. I had seen him there, alive, so I said yes. Narcissa Malfoy announced that I was dead, allowing me to later escape when Voldemort was distracted and fight again.”

The gallery above was still silenced but Harry could see movement out of the corner of his eye, like hundreds of people turning to whisper to their neighbour. The Wizengamot jury were not an awful lot better, whispering emerging from their section too. Questioner Willis tapped the table in reprimand. “Mr Rees, if you will begin.”

The DMLE’s lawyer, presumably Mr Rees, stepped up first. “So, you saw Narcissa Malfoy as a member of the Dark Lord’s side during the battle?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t anything that hadn’t been confirmed before, but Harry supposed the more people who said so, the better.

“And she was personally given this order?”

Harry had to think about it for a moment. To be honest, his memories were all a little hazy surrounding the battle. It had been a very long day. “I can’t remember if she was given the order personally or if Voldemort told someone to generally and she’s the one who responded. I think, maybe, someone generally.”

The lawyer hummed but didn’t comment. He moved on. “Do you believe that Narcissa Malfoy lied in order to help you?”

“Yes.” Harry responded. “If Voldemort knew I was alive, he would have tried to kill me again.”

“And, just trying to understand the situation here, would that have worked? After all, you say that you survived the killing curse a second time, so was this a genuine threat to your life?” Several people gained curious looks.

 Harry wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to say anything that might point in the direction of the horcruxes. And also, technically, he hadn’t survived it, but that didn’t seem like the kind of thing he should be bringing up in court. “Er, yes, it was a genuine threat. The, um, circumstances were not the same, and I could not have survived it again.” Probably. He didn’t think his protective magic worked on himself, at any rate.

“No further questions on this topic.” Questioner Willis interrupted, and Harry was absurdly grateful.

Mr Rees nodded graciously and powered on. “You say that Narcissa Malfoy asked you if her son was in the castle, and you replied yes. Do you think she would still have lied about your death if you had said no?”

Again, Harry wasn’t sure how to answer. It was just speculation. “I don’t know.” He said finally, when no objections to the question came. “I don’t know her as a person well enough to guess.”

Mr Rees raised an eyebrow. “But well enough to speak at her trial?”

“Objection!” The other lawyer was on his feet immediately.

“Sustained.” Questioner Willis was notably calmer. She fixed Mr Rees with a stern look. “This is a witness statement, not a character witness.”

Chastised, the lawyer turned from Harry. “No further questions.”

His face was pinched as he departed, in such a way that made Harry think that he hadn’t got the responses he was looking for.

“Now Mr Finchley.” Questioner Willis stated, and the other lawyer took his cue to step forward.

He flicked the long sleeves of his severe black robes to lie neatly as he folded his hands behind his back. He was a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed goatee and long, pulled back hair which wasn’t quite hiding a growing bald patch. “To confirm, Mr Potter, you believe that Narcissa Malfoy lying for you at this time likely saved your life?” His voice was a lot smoother than Harry had expected.

“Yes, most likely.” Harry replied.

“She did this in the middle of the battle, as a member of the opposing side, in the full knowledge that you were not only the principal figure of your side, but also the one that the Dark Lord very publicly wanted dead.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but Harry agreed anyway.

“And do you believe that this was at great personal risk to Narcissa Malfoy?”

Harry considered the question and answered slowly. “It’s likely that if he’d discovered the lie and been able to kill me before I killed him, he would have punished her. Maybe even killed her, though I don’t know, I think it’s unlikely if she managed to say she’d been tricked. Especially since he was genuinely fond, as much as he could be I guess, of her sister, Bellatrix Lestrange. But if I got away, he wouldn’t have wasted much time on punishment until after the battle, which basically did happen when I did reveal I was alive. Narcissa Malfoy was fairly inconsequential to him.”

The questioner interrupted this exchange. “You spoke of not knowing Narcissa Malfoy’s character well enough to comment – are you confident enough in your assessment of the likely actions of the dark wizard known as Lord Voldemort to comment on those?”

“Yes.” Said Harry, without hesitation. He’d shared a soul with him, a prophesised destiny, bled-through emotions and raging thoughts, memories, a wand core, dreams, even his own blood. Questioner Willis seemed to be waiting for more, but Harry didn’t know how to describe the soul-deep knowing of Voldemort that he was fairly sure he’d never again experience with another person. “Under oath, yes.”

Questioner Willis hummed but nodded to Mr Finchley. “Continue.”

The lawyer’s dark eyes were bright with curiosity, but he visibly restrained himself. “But she was risking punishment, possibly including death, from lying on your behalf?”

“Yes.”

He looked satisfied with Harry’s answers. “No further questions.”

“Very well.” Questioner Willis said, flicking over her sheet of parchment. “Onto our next witness then.”

Harry took his cue to leave the podium, pointed in the direction of the discreet door he’d come through by the ever-attentive assistant. As he approached the door, he looked back at Narcissa Malfoy, the first look he’d brought himself to give since he’d arrived on the courtroom floor. She was watching him back and met his eyes. Her face was unreadable, as icy and regal as ever, and even her eyes gave nothing of her feelings away. He paused only for a moment before continuing back through the wooden tunnel to his ribbon-marked chair.

There must have been some alert on the chairs because it was only after Harry sat down that the next witness was called. He sat back in the chair, feeling his limbs slowly relax in increments. He hadn’t been aware how tense he was until he was back in the privacy of the witness seats, feeling the tension leak out of his tightened muscles and the sweat drying slightly unpleasantly on his skin. He scrubbed a hand roughly over his face, catching the arm of his glasses accidentally and tsking at the pain. It was over at least, for this trial. He didn’t hear any of what was being said in this section, still too flustered, rushing noises in his ears. With hands that weren’t shaking but felt as if they should be, Harry poured himself a glass of the still-cool pumpkin juice. It was sweet, refreshing, and familiar – exactly what he needed.

Slowly, Harry felt settled enough to look around him again. Of course, there was nothing to see in his section, but he could see around the stands that people were still gossiping excitedly, not paying much attention to the witch who was being questioned on the floor. He grimaced. He’d known that people were going to talk about his actions here, and many of them wouldn’t be happy, but that was something he’d known going in and was a price he was willing to pay. But still, to see it in action, knowing that he was going to face the consequences later, was unpleasant.

He picked up an apple slice and munched on it, more for something to do with his hands than anything else and tried to pay attention to the rest of the trial. It didn’t work exactly. With the adrenaline fading, he was growing tired already, even with two more trials to sit through. Restless, Harry decided to get some air and go to the bathroom.

Stepping through the door into the hall already felt better. The air, although not noticeably cooler, as all rooms in the Ministry building were temperature controlled, had more movement, and the breeze felt good against his overheated face. He found his way to the bathrooms, which were directly across from the entrance, as Madam MacDougal had said, and made his way to the stall. He did his business, more from habit of being in the bathroom than any real need, and washed his hands before finding himself staring blankly into the mirror in front of him. His face was faintly flushed, a touch of red still in his cheeks, and his eyes were slightly too wide. His hair, was of course, a mess, looking like he’d just got in out of a particularly violent storm. His robes looked good though, neat and vibrant, and masking the thinness of his body, even if they could do nothing for the slight hollows of his cheeks.

Staring at himself, Harry tried to make peace with the fact that he was here, testifying in court, in a building and government that had plastered his face up as Undesirable No. 1 only three months earlier. So much had changed since the battle, and yet it felt like almost nothing at all. He was different, his mind and soul altered since his death, then body and magic too with the golden apple. The Ministry had changed in which people were in charge and which side they supported, but ultimately, they’d changed very little. The same roster of workers in mostly the same processes. The muggleborn registration committee had been disbanded and the Death Eater containment committee had taken its place. The laws on muggleborns holding wands had been scrapped but the old laws, which still discriminated against them, remained in place.

Harry sighed, pulling off his glasses to splash his face with water. The cold hit him like a slap in the face but woke him up. He dried off with a hand towel. He didn’t know what to do in this new world without Voldemort. He’d always known his place, his purpose, in the magical world - one that centred around his nemesis. Without him, Harry felt lost, a stupid schoolboy playing dress up and pretending to know what he was doing, speaking at trials like he had the right to. But he was trying to make things better the only way he knew how. By living well, trying to encourage others, and trying to be fair. He’d spoken to be fair and to pay his debt. His debt was paid now.

As he thought that, Harry felt it settle in his magic. Previously, being less sensitive to magic than before this summer, when he’d used it so much more, he wouldn’t have noticed. Now, though, it was like a small knot being undone in his centre, smoothing out once more and relaxing a strain he hadn’t known he’d been carrying. His magic agreed – his debt to Narcissa Malfoy was paid. His part in this was done and he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, involve himself further. With that, he felt calm and prepared enough to return to the trial.

By the time he’d returned, though he hadn’t been gone all that long, the lawyers had finished speaking to the witnesses and were focussing on Narcissa Malfoy herself. Harry wondered why they hadn’t talked to her first, but supposed it was because her own statement, when she spoke, was more or less her lawyer’s statement in first person. They questioned her for a long time, about her involvement in this plot and that one, in Death Eater assemblies and raids, in supporting her sister and other notable Death Eaters, and also in her involvement with him.

A lot of information about her that he hadn’t known came out. She hadn’t been involved with the Death Eaters during the first war, as a young woman of high society and then as a new mother. She had known that her husband and father-in-law were Death Eaters but hadn’t reported them due to loyalty to her husband and new Head of House. Clearly, that meant something more than Harry was understanding, because the gathered crowd reacted with nods and didn’t find it strange at all. After the first war, she hadn’t believed that Voldemort was dead – due to her husband’s Dark Mark – but had believed that Voldemort was vanquished and powerless. She’d put in no effort to find Voldemort and reinstate his power, hadn’t wanted to, and had been rather upset when her husband had, though mainly due the possible consequences of him being caught rather than any moral trifles.

For the second war, Malfoy Manor had been offered by her husband as a sanctuary for Voldemort and the escaped Death Eaters without her knowledge, but she did not contest it, and felt that she could not contest it, even though she vehemently did not want the Dark Lord in her house. Which was understandable, because really, Harry wouldn’t want Voldemort in his house either. Aside from throwing out the cruciatus whenever he felt like it, the rotting snake smell that always surrounded him must have sunk into every piece of fabric in the building. It was common sense for her that acting out against the Dark Lord would have her family harmed or killed, so of course she wouldn’t his presence to the Ministry, especially as her husband’s voluntary Lord. She didn’t attend meetings generally, except as hostess, and otherwise tried to ignore the nastiness of all that uprising business that was dirtying her otherwise tidy life. In general, she’d never gone out of her way to hurt others, but she’d also never thought to help them. Her driving factor was protecting her family, and the only times she’d actively disobeyed Voldemort were to help her son, who was clearly in over his head and being punished for his father’s ineptitude. Of course, this was all coached in nicer language, presenting a more sympathetic view of the witch, but the core of it was clear.

Harry’s attention was caught anew as they began to ask her about him. She said that she’d seen him twice during the war – once when they’d been caught by Snatchers and taken to Malfoy Manor then escaped, and then in the clearing in the Forbidden Forest. She’d taken advantage of the second meeting because she cared much more about her son’s survival than Voldemort’s agenda and, she admitted, had come to the conclusion that Draco’s survival was more likely in a world without Voldemort, who cursed on a whim, already had a grudge against the family for Lucius’ failures, and might slaughter her son for any mistake he made in the future. This was the interesting part where, according to her testimony, she’d made the active decision that a world without Voldemort was better than one with him in it, so had quietly given Harry another chance.

Her case was still difficult to Harry. She’d finally realised that Voldemort was a maniac and worried for her family under his reign, but had no real problems with his ideals, and supported the promotion of purebloods over all others in society. She’d helped him for only really her own benefit, but she had helped. But did that make up for all the other people killed or their lives ruined that didn’t impact her and that she didn’t care about? No, not really. But the help she had given had been instrumental in the final result of the war. Harry had no idea what he would have done if Voldemort had discovered that he was still alive back in the clearing. He tried to zone back into the trial but found that the silencing wards had been raised on the jury sectioned while he’d been thinking. Clearly, they were discussing. He’d missed any announcement of how long that might take.

He guessed that it had been around an hour and a half since the trial had started. He couldn’t see a clock in the room and reminded himself that he had a pocket watch from the Weasleys, his 17^th birthday present from them, that he needed to dig out of his trunk and get used to wearing. He was starting to get hungry now, so he took a couple of the small sandwiches. They were cucumber, because of course they were. Aunt Petunia had often made cucumber sandwiches for tea parties with her equally snotty friends, but Harry had never got to try one then and never bothered while he was in Hogwarts. He bit into one cautiously. It didn’t taste of much, but it was nice with the butter and the crunch was excellent. He happily ate another. If only the Dursleys could see him now, in his fancy clothes at court eating cucumber sandwiches… No, they’d hate him just the same, because it was all magic. Still, Harry thought their faces might be funny trying to reconcile the strangeness of people’s dress and manners with some of those people’s obvious wealth. Actually, seeing Harry in what essentially amounted to a fancy, double-layered dress might be enough to give Uncle Vernon the heart attack he’d been courting all these years. The thought made him a little meanly amused.

Harry stared around the room as he ate a few more little sandwiches. These seats made for excellent people watching, hidden as they were and with a reasonable view of both the jury and spectator seats. Some of the spectators had left, clearly taking this as a break to run any errands they had to do, or simply bored, but many were still settled in their seats or chatting with others. It felt odd to see others using the trial as a social event of some kind, and Harry looked away.

He was immediately struck by boredom. Harry used to be quite good at sitting and doing nothing after years of being locked in his cupboard for hours or days at a time, but even then, he’d had the privacy to play with whatever castoffs he’d managed to scrounge from Dudley. Regardless, he’d grown used to doing things, and, moreover, being prepared for being in danger, so he had a lot of restless energy. With a start, Harry tried to remember if he’d transferred all of his belongings that had been in his pocket yesterday into today’s robes or just the ones that he thought he’d need.

He really needed to get an expanded bag like Hermione’s, he thought as he rummaged elbow deep into his right pocket. The undetectable expansion charm was a lot easier on pockets than on bags, for some reason that he hadn’t quite understood, so he hadn’t made his own expanded bag yet. But the bags had a much better carrying capacity, and more to the point, were less awkward to rummage through when you couldn’t use accio and summon whatever you needed out of your pockets. It wasn’t the most subtle use of the undetectable extension charm, which was a little bit of a problem considering the Ministry monitored it quite heavily and didn’t like people applying it without a license. Unfortunately, Harry had seen how useful it had been during the war, with Hermione’s beaded bag, had lived using its contents, and so wasn’t willing to let the Ministry take away that layer of security from him – he’d charmed every pocket of his new robes the very next day. The pockets were more discreet than the bag for small items though, leaving nothing visibly on your person. Ideally, you should be able to put a charmed bag into a charmed pocket, but the laws of physics tended to get even more upset than usual at that point, and it was generally considered a very bad idea.

Finally, his hand collided with the thing he’d been searching for, and Harry latched on to a hard corner to pull out a book. It was one of the ones that Hecate had given him to read. If he had one in here, he had all of them, as he’d bundled them up together when he’d found the Principles of Divine Magic sulking in the hallway one night and had to do a frantic search to find and retrieve the other books from where they’d wandered off to. He wasn’t a fast reader, nor the most dedicated, and had apparently used up the books’ limited patience. He opened the blank cover, tracing over its smooth leather, and found that he’d pulled out the Guide to the Underworld. It hadn’t been the one he’d been intending to read, still working through the one on Overworld gods, but he wasn’t going to spend more time awkwardly slumped with his hand down his pocket.

The black leather of the cover seemed to absorb all the light around it and even the pages were dim and washed out in the lumos light. It took Harry a moment to notice that there were very dark accents of colour in the decorations of the title page, almost blending into the black ink as they were. He remembered how bright and gaudy his blue shoelaces had looked in the Underworld lighting and was curious how different this book would look there. There was no list of chapters at the start, which was always a pity, but he started reading anyway.

The Underworld, he discovered, was split into a number of parts. The Underworld in its entirety was often referred to as Hades, after its patron, but contained distinct districts. Its deepest part was Tartarus, a being in his own right, known for his cruelty, who teetered over the void of Chaos. Tartarus was what people might imagine as Hell, but not for humans. Instead, it contained the prisoners of the gods, including a number of titans, and monsters, who reformed there before venturing out into the world again to further torment demigods. The exact mechanics of the monster reforming, including calculations on average return rate, were referenced to a much later page, but all Harry gathered at this point was that they didn’t have souls in the same way as people did, which was a solely mortal thing, but had some kind of essence which meant that they always reformed the same and kept their memories. The book warned that unless you were one of the gods who made a home in Tartarus, it was best to stay away at all costs – the inhabitants were generally an unhappy bunch with a bone to pick.

The mortal part of the Underworld began with Charon’s crossing. The entrance to the Underworld was currently in Los Angeles, for reasons Harry didn’t quite understand but Hecate seemed to feel were self-explanatory. Souls needed to pay the ferryman, Charon, before he would allow them to cross, which was kind of terrible for the many, many souls who died without payment being left with their bodies. Charon would ferry them across the river Styx to the Underworld proper. There were four options for where these souls ended up. The mediocre would go to the Fields of Asphodel, endless meadows of nothingness. The truly bad would go to the Fields of Punishment, where a suitable punishment would be devised for their wickedness during life, and they’d join the ranks of those like Sisyphus and Tantalus (a reference Harry didn’t understand but made a note to look up later). The furies, Erinyes, or Kindly Ones patrolled these fields, inflicting punishment as the deities of retribution. Harry shuddered at some of the punishments described and wondered if Voldemort had ended up under their whips and claws. The good, meanwhile, went to Elysium, where life was good and pleasant. Of course, a soul could choose reincarnation instead, dipped in the water of the river Lethe to remove all memories of life, and only those who were deemed worthy of Elysium three times could enter the Isles of the Blessed, where the very best heroes and very best afterlife resided.

Of course, a soul didn’t choose for itself whether it was moral or immoral during life. At the entrance, they could decide to be judged against a panel or take the easy option of entering the fields of Asphodel if they feared punishment. The very worst souls, Lord Hades himself kept an eye on, and had his furies escort them directly to the Fields of Punishment. Harry wasn’t convinced by the panel, seeing a list of example members, as it seemed strange and wrong to have people of entirely different eras, prejudices, and walks of life judging the more recently deceased, but he wasn’t sure what else could be done considering the sheer volume of the dead.

This, the book made a point to stress. A lot of people died. So many, all the time. And unlike the number of the living, which would fluctuate and mostly stabilise around a functional level, the number of the dead only ever increased. While most assumed that this would increase Hades’ power, this was in fact not true, as the additional power of a new person entering his domain was immediately cancelled out by the power needed to provide for their soul for the rest of existence. Hecate’s pointed words laid it out in literally underlined statements – Hades did not want the death of all people, or even more people; this would not benefit him. The way this was underlined, enlarged, and in a vibrant red gave Harry the impression that this was a commonly held, but erroneous, belief.

The other parts of the Underworld were for neither the mortals nor the monsters, but for the Underworld deities and spirits who lived there. Presumably, this is where Harry would one day be, if he couldn’t still be in the Overworld with his friends. These places included the dwelling places of the gods, such as their palaces and temples, like Hecate’s temple deep in an underground cavern, communal spaces, and private ones, like Persephone’s Garden. Each deity and spirit had a place just for them, either gifted to them or carved out by themselves. This could be anything from a plant to a river to a palace, and much larger numbers of deities and spirits inhabited the Underworld than Harry had thought, though he mostly skimmed over them by type of deity, intending to get back to them later.

Hades was the god and king of the Underworld realm, with complete control and dominion over the entirety of it (with the exception of Tartarus, who was his own kind of primordial). All the deities and spirits there reported to Hades and obeyed him. He had given equal power to Persephone, his queen, except for when her orders conflicted with his. The Underworld, as a rarely changing and incredibly old realm, ran as a well-oiled, if rather over-worked, machine, with every deity knowing their place in the system, so there was little need for written hierarchy beyond the rulers, just a vague sense of seniority and generally understood respect for certain individuals’ power. Very little was written about this, and Harry hoped that there was more information later in the book, because he didn’t have the same thousands of years of background knowledge about everyone as they all did.

Harry was to be the first addition to the Underworld immortals in a long, long time, which, if the book was to be believed, had something to do with Zeus, the king of Olympus, not wanting the Underworld to grow in strength, constantly paranoid about an uprising. Relations between the Underworld and Olympus were tense, with Hades generally considered an unwanted outsider, and Zeus fearing both his brothers equally for their potential plots. Between the Sea and the Underworld, it was fairly neutral, the book reported. They had less interaction and sometimes bonded over a frustration with their paranoid younger brother.

His reading was interrupted by the bang of the gavel echoing off the chamber walls once more. “Attention.” Questioner Willis called, voice not rising from its mellow tones but amplified around the room. “The court have made a decision.”

Everyone was attentively quiet, focus on the courtroom floor. Narcissa Malfoy, still on the chained chair, maintained a cool face, but even she couldn’t hold back from leaning forward in her seat a little.

“We, the Wizengamot of Great Britain, convict Narcissa Malfoy of conspiracy against the government, sheltering criminals, and failure to report criminal activity. We do not convict her of any violent crimes, nor believe her to be likely to commit them in the future. For this reason, and with sensitivity to her situation, we sentence her to five years of house arrest, terms to be negotiated in further detail later, and a fine of 50,000 galleons to be paid as reparations to charities dedicated to those harmed and displaced during the war.”

The gallery erupted with movement, although not sound as the silencing wards around the spectators were still activated. Five years’ house arrest was a light sentence for what amounted to treason, but Questioner Willis had given their reason – she had committed no violent crimes and was very unlikely to reoffend. 50,000 galleons wasn’t an amount to be scoffed at in the wizarding economy – even Harry, who was still unsure about how much money was worth in this society, knew that. Narcissa’s face cracked for the first time, allowing a hint of relief to show across her features before it was swept away under a blank wall once more. She nodded her understanding to the questioner, and apparently that was the end of that.

Her lawyer and the accompanying aurors collected her from the chair and led her through a side door out of the court chamber. The other lawyer, Mr Rees, huffed a little as he collected his rumpled scraps of parchment together into his briefcase and left the room, leaving his assistant to complete the final parchmentwork. Apparently, he wasn’t supposed to have left quite so quickly because Questioner Willis raised a grey eyebrow and when she spoke, her tone held an edge of irony. “The trial of Narcissa Malfoy is adjourned. We will rebegin the session, for the trial of Draco Malfoy, in 30 minutes.”

With that, Questioner Willis swept from her seat, magenta robes swirling around her ankles, and made her way to the courtroom floor. The silencing wards suddenly raised around the floor again as the officials scattered to various tasks. Willis was speaking animatedly to one of the DMLE employees, gesturing towards the door that first Narcissa and company and then Mr Rees had exited through. The scribes were still scribbling frantically, but others were now couriering the parchments away. It seemed there was a lot to do before Draco Malfoy’s trial could begin.

Chapter Text

Up in the gallery, there seemed to be lively discussion. Some people had left, apparently less interested in Draco Malfoy’s trial than his high society mother’s, but most remained. Harry remembered the news articles in his sixth year about the Malfoys’ fall from grace. He wondered how many people were here for the satisfaction of watching them finish falling.

He turned away after a moment. With nothing else to do, he took another apple slice. It was crisp, despite how long it had been out. Harry considered how he felt about Narcissa Malfoy’s sentencing. He hadn’t felt overwhelming good or bad about it. It was a light sentence, certainly, but he didn’t think overly so. In the end, he came to the conclusion that he didn’t have much of an opinion except that throwing her in Azkaban, which was more like continuous torture, or letting her off completely would both have been wrong, and this seemed to be a fair middle ground.

Now for Draco Malfoy’s trial. This was the one that Harry was the most invested in. How could he not be? This was someone that Harry had gone to school with, been rivals with, had in fact been the first wizard his own age Harry had ever met all those years back in Madam Malkin’s. Unlike Mrs Malfoy, Harry actually knew Draco Malfoy, had hated him and watched his every move for years, looking for, and finding, plots where others said he was just obsessed. It was weird to Harry that he would be seeing his school nemesis in court, being sentenced for criminal activities. He’d always thought Draco Malfoy was a bit of an evil toerag, an arrogant and prejudiced git, but it was an entirely different thing for him to be facing the law. It sat weirdly with him.

Harry spent those thirty minutes reading a little more of his book. It described the rivers that ran through the Underworld. There were five: Styx, the river and goddess by which immortals swore their oaths; Acheron, the river of woe; Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, which spirits drank from to forget their lives before rebirth; Phlegethon, the river of fire, which was used in both punishing souls and healing them and was one of the ones which flowed into Tartarus; Cocytus, the river of wailing, which was also used for punishment and emptied into Tartarus.

Styx was the most powerful of the Underworld river goddesses, fed by the souls who crossed her and the oaths sworn on her. Should anyone break their oath, their eventual punishment, in one way or another, would be dark indeed. Her waters were highly dangerous to mortals, holding the ability to dissolve their souls entirely, but should they be anchored and able to withstand her, she could grant them physical invulnerability, known to many as the Curse of Achilles. Styx, the book noted, was a little peeved about the name. She interacted the most with the other Underworld deities. Phlegethon and Cocytus tended to stick together, as the two who flowed also through Tartarus, and their temperaments reflected that, darker and more sadistic than their counterparts. Acheron’s river was loud, piercing the soul with the lamenting screams of all who had died and all who mourned them. Her presence could be…grating. Lethe apparently preferred to Drift and so was very rarely seen. Harry didn’t know what this meant, and the book made no attempt to explain. She was apparently frequently associated with Hypnos, god of sleep, and the god was often seen visiting her shores. Here, there was a rough map of the Underworld, but Hecate noted in her book that something so untethered to physical geography and laws such as the Underworld rarely stayed the same, had no true appearance, and was, to a god’s senses, more a concept than a place anyway.

Harry put the book down on that baffling statement. He understood in theory what that meant – the Underworld wasn’t a physical place under the ground but a divine domain which didn’t exist in the physical world – but couldn’t quite imagine how that worked or what it apparently felt like. Perhaps he’d understand better as he spent more time there. Or as one of them.

He shook that uncomfortable thought away and took a biscuit. It turned out to be a ginger biscuit, and he smiled around it, reminded of Professor McGonagall’s ginger newts. He wasn’t sure what time it was, though guessed somewhere around lunchtime, and didn’t want to eat everything too early. That said, there was a good spread of it. The DMLE were being quite generous with their portions. Harry still wasn’t back to eating large portions in any case.

Harry looked around the gallery, seeing if he recognised anyone. Rita Skeeter’s acid green quill stuck out among the reporters, and he scowled at her, safe from her sight but not from her vicious rumourmongering. He didn’t recognise anyone else. He wondered, if Draco and Lucius Malfoy were to go to Azkaban, would anyone tell Narcissa Malfoy, or would she find out from the newspaper?

The floor began to fill with people again around ten minutes in advance. A different lawyer sat down at the desk Mr Rees had had, a younger woman with her many braids plaited into an updo around her head. She set parchments out in a neat stack before looking out calmly at the gathered crowds. From her turquoise robes, she wasn’t a DMLE lawyer, like Mr Rees, and Harry wondered why. Questioner Willis returned soon as well, finding her seat without fanfare, nodding to the other woman on the way. A fresh set of scribes settled in amongst stacks of blank parchment, replacing their worn-out predecessors. All the magenta-clad jury found their seats again, uniform block once again unbroken.

Finally, Madam MacDougal opened the defendant’s door and signalled to Questioner Willis, who rapped the gavel down, drawing everyone’s attention. “The session begins again. We now commence the trial of Draco Malfoy. Please bring in the defendant.”

Draco Malfoy was escorted in with much greater watch than his mother. He was blanketed on all sides by aurors, and his lawyer was kept further behind. He looked sallow and stressed, fine, grey robes washing him out and strands of hair falling into his face and over his eyes where they’d grown too long. He had none of the arrogant swagger he’d once walked with. He was visibly nervous, skittish in front of the assembly, and his darting eyes contrasted badly with his mother’s previous composure. He sat gingerly on the chain-covered chair, eyeing the heavy chains warily, until he was told that they wouldn’t be engaged unless he threatened or attempted to enact violence. He looked scared and young.

Questioner Willis confirmed that he was in fact Draco Malfoy of Wiltshire and that the lawyers were one Ms Dada and Mr Candlebury. She then announced his charges. He was being accused of conspiracy against the government, his part in the murder of Albus Dumbledore, belonging to a terrorist organisation, and his actions as a Death Eater, including kidnapping, torture, and murder. Hearing the charges laid out like that made it clear that this was going to be a very different trial to Narcissa Malfoy’s.

The prosecution started, stating that he was a marked Death Eater and had been seen by many actively serving the Dark Lord during the war. He had made multiple attempts to kill Albus Dumbledore, including casting the imperius curse on Madam Rosmerta, and injured others in the process, including Katie Bell and Ronald Weasley. His actions actually during the war had been unclear, but he’d been on the side of the Death Eaters at the final battle and had been among those hosting kidnapping victims in his house. Most of the accusations of kidnapping, murder, and torture actually appeared to be aiding or ignoring them, rather than committing them himself, though of course, Ms Dada was clear that these couldn’t be ruled out.

Mr Candlebury, however, stated that Draco Malfoy hadn’t actually killed, tortured, or kidnapped anyone himself. He played up that Malfoy was still underage when he became a Death Eater and when Voldemort gave him the tasks to kill Dumbledore and find a way for Death Eaters to get into the castle, and was given heavy threats if he didn’t succeed, including the wellbeing of his mother. His actions during the war really weren’t all that ‘unknown’ as he had quite publicly been at Hogwarts for most of it, since he was still school-aged. He’d had no part in either the torture or kidnapping occurring in a house which didn’t belong to him, and any actions against the Dark Lord or his forces would have had immediate repercussions for his loved ones. During the battle of Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy hadn’t fought, only rescued the trapped Slytherins in the dungeons and gone to find something, which wasn’t a weapon, in one of the hidden rooms for Voldemort.

Mr Candlebury made a fair point about age. Harry had forgotten, but Malfoy was also one of the youngest in their year, so he would have been 16 when the war broke out at the end of their sixth year. It was one of the main reasons that Hermione had refused to believe he could be a Death Eater that year. Harry knew very little about wizarding law, but he was sure that of age and underage wixen were judged differently.

Willis also looked thoughtful, jotting notes to herself as Malfoy gave his own statement about growing up surrounded by propaganda about the dark and realising only too late what kind of person Voldemort really was and what kind of horrors he’d want Malfoy to do. He stated he’d been given the tasks as a punishment for his father’s failures in the Department of Mysteries so that Voldemort had a reason to punish their family further when Draco Malfoy failed, which had been his primary motivation. After that, Malfoy had tried to escape his Lord’s notice so he would be left alone and not given any more tasks.

The fact that he’d been at Hogwarts during the year was a point in his favour. It was hard to associate someone with the raids and oppression and senseless cruelty of the Death Eater regime when they’d spent most of that time trying to pass Charms. Malfoy fully opened up to what he had done – trying and failing to kill Dumbledore, cursing others, being part of the Death Eaters, letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts, knowing kidnapped people were in his family’s dungeons, carrying out tasks for Voldemort – but also said that he hadn’t killed or tortured (except because of the Carrows, at Hogwarts, and most of the Hogwarts population were guilty of that thanks to the Carrows’ reign of terror). He admitted to disarming Dumbledore, but being unable to kill him, to the extent that Severus Snape stepped in to do it instead. Malfoy said that he’d wanted to be a Death Eater when he was young, before he understood what it meant, and when he was one, he didn’t think there was any way out left to him, with the Dark Lord in his home, mark on his arm, and threats over his head. It did a good job of presenting him sympathetically. Malfoy’s uncharacteristic openness about his weaknesses and motivations showed him as he really was – a bit of a coward, a bully, and a bigot, but not a murderer.

The witness testimonies began. Madam Rosmerta spoke about being imperiused to curse Katie Bell into delivering the package to Dumbledore. Katie Bell herself talked about the damage the necklace had done to her, which lasted for months, but also her belief that it was accidental, a slip of the wrapping – not, she clarified, that she forgave him or thought that it wasn’t his fault, but she knew her harm wasn’t the intended goal. Slughorn’s statement was read out about the poisoned mead. Mr Borgin had had his own trial for his part in letting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, and his statement was also read. For the death of Dumbledore, Harry knew his own statement was key – apart from him, everyone who’d been at the top of the Astronomy Tower was either a Death Eater or dead.

He was called to the floor and once more gave his oath to Hecate to tell the truth. Harry resolutely didn’t look at Malfoy. They’d agreed, beforehand, to let him talk first about the death of Dumbledore, and question on that, before proceeding with the rest of his statement.

“I knew that Malfoy was a Death Eater, plotting something, and trying to kill Dumbledore for most of the year.” Harry said. “He’d been acting shifty, so I was following him around secretly all year to see what he was up to.” It was a little embarrassing to admit it in front of so many people, but Harry was at least vindicated by being right. “The summer before that school year, I saw him in Diagon Alley, acting weird, so I followed him into Knockturn Alley and saw him with Mr Borgin, saying something about the Vanishing Cabinet in the shop and showing Mr Borgin his left arm, which scared him. So, I guessed he was a Death Eater then.”

Harry continued to not look at Malfoy when describing stalking him all year. “During the year, Malfoy was acting weird, all angry and stressed. He kept missing meals and sneaking off. So, I found him going into the Room of Hidden Things and working on the Vanishing Cabinet. When Katie was cursed, I’d seen Malfoy near the bathroom, and we found Katie on the path, and I was there with Ron when he drank Slughorn’s mead meant for Dumbledore, so it was clear that someone was trying to kill Dumbledore and probably Malfoy. At Slughorn’s Christmas Party, Malfoy was caught loitering and claimed to be trying to gatecrash and I eavesdropped on a conversation between Snape and Malfoy, where Snape was trying to offer help with Malfoy’s task, because he’d sworn an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa Malfoy to help him, and Malfoy was refusing. So, I knew it was an official task from Voldemort. Also, that it wasn’t going well, because I found him crying in the bathroom.” Harry hadn’t been sure about adding that part, but figured it gave a more complete picture. “Anyway, of course I told Dumbledore, but he said that he already knew and not to worry.”

“On that night,” Harry started, taking a deep breath, “Dumbledore and I were out of the castle on… a task to do with stopping Voldemort. It didn’t go well. Dumbledore was very weak and still a little bit delusional from a potion he’d drunk, and we’d had to fight our way out. The Dark Mark was already in the sky, so we rushed into the Astronomy Tower. When there were noises on the stairs, Dumbledore ordered me to hide and then cast a body-bind on me so I couldn’t reveal myself no matter what happened.” He swallowed against the force of the memory, remembering his helpless rage.

“Then Malfoy arrived and disarmed Dumbledore. When Dumbledore asked, he admitted to letting the Death Eaters into the castle and to the plots to kill him during the year. Dumbledore thought they were half-hearted. Malfoy kept not actually casting anything and Dumbledore said that it wasn’t too late and offered protection for Malfoy, but Malfoy refused and said it was because he didn’t believe that Dumbledore actually could protect him and his family. He kept saying that he had to do this, but then couldn’t. Then, the other Death Eaters arrived, and they were trying to goad Malfoy into killing Dumbledore, until Snape stepped in and cast the killing curse to fulfil his vow to Narcissa Malfoy to help Draco Malfoy and to Dumbledore to kill him instead of Malfoy doing it.” A number of heads looked up sharply at that. “After that, Malfoy and Snape escaped from the castle together.”

Harry left that part of his statement there. A number of the Wizengamot looked particularly interested. He knew that no one had been expecting an outside view of what happened at the Astronomy Tower. Questioner Willis invited Ms Dada to start the questioning.

She seemed mostly concerned with Dumbledore’s death, though she did confirm with him that he’d definitely heard Malfoy confess to the plots involving the necklace and mead, as well as letting the Death Eaters into the castle. She noted that these plans had clearly been ongoing throughout the year and were clearly not spur of the moment. Then she moved on to that night. “So, Draco Malfoy attacked Albus Dumbledore in the Astronomy Tower with the intention of killing him?” She asked.

Harry frowned a little. That statement wasn’t strictly wrong, but it didn’t sound quite right either. “His orders were to kill him, yes, so theoretically, he disarmed Dumbledore in order to kill him, but he couldn’t follow through on it. He lowered his wand before the other Death Eaters arrived, so I doubt he would have managed to kill him.”

The prosecuting lawyer looked vaguely dissatisfied. “But he did disarm Dumbledore, allowing Severus Snape to kill Dumbledore.”

It wasn’t a question, but Harry answered anyway. “Yes, though I’m fairly sure that Dumbledore allowed himself to be disarmed. Actually,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m also fairly sure Dumbledore would have had another wand on him.” The jury looked confused. “The one he was using, of which Malfoy disarmed him, was the one he won from Grindelwald after their duel, not his original wand.” Harry could never tell with Dumbledore what was common knowledge and what was a complete secret, but judging by the raised eyebrows all round, that hadn’t been well known. “Besides,” he quickly continued, “although only Snape knew it at the time, Dumbledore was planning for Snape to kill him, had made him promise to, so he wouldn’t have fought back anyway.”

Ms Dada looked both perplexed and annoyed with him. Sometimes, Harry forgot how much more he knew about the details of the war than the average wixen. “Forgive me, Mr Potter, but how would you possibly know any of this? Some of these statements sound very unlikely.”

“Um,” he tried to figure out how to explain and how much to share. He was a bit miffed that she was implying he might be lying, but he acknowledged that it would sound weird. “About the wand, Voldemort traced its history from Gregorovitch, the wandmaker, who had held it for a while, but the wand was stolen from him in the night ages ago. He told Voldemort, before Voldemort killed him, that Grindelwald was the one who’d taken it. So, Voldemort went to Nuremgard and questioned Grindelwald, who revealed that Dumbledore had won the wand’s allegiance when he defeated him, so Voldemort killed Grindelwald. That’s why Voldemort broke open Dumbledore’s tomb before the battle – to get the wand. So, Dumbledore used that wand because it was powerful, but it wasn’t his actual wand.”

Several people were nodding, as if something had been explained, but most still looked mystified. Harry coughed awkwardly and continued talking. “For, er, the second bit. I found out about the promise between Snape and Dumbledore because I was there, hiding, when Voldemort killed Snape during the battle. While he was dying, he gave me his memories to try and explain what was going on and some of the plots that Dumbledore had put in place but hadn’t explained properly.” Harry tried to keep down the familiar aggravation at this. “I looked at the memories in the pensieve in Du-, um, the headmaster’s office, and they showed that Snape had been a spy for Dumbledore after all, since the first war, and had been acting on his behalf. Dumbledore was already dying from the curse on his hand, and he didn’t want his death on Draco Malfoy’s hands, so he made Snape swear to kill him instead – both to save Malfoy’s ‘innocence’ and to cement Snape’s place as trustworthy to Voldemort. Then, at the Astronomy Tower, when Draco Malfoy was being told to kill him and Dumbledore was probably dying from the potion anyway, he said ‘Severus, please.’, which, of course, we all thought at the time was asking him for help but was actually telling him to keep his promise and kill him.”

Harry’s story had gotten away from him a little, which was clear from the confused looks on everyone’s faces. He supposed he had just dumped a load of apparently unknown information on them in the middle of a teenager’s trial.

Ms Dada blinked for a moment, clearly trying to assimilate a load of context in a short space of time. “You are…clearly very well informed.” She said slowly. She didn’t seem to be saying anything with it, just lost for words for a moment. She rallied. “To be clear on your stance, you believe that Albus Dumbledore could have defended himself against Draco Malfoy but chose not to, on the basis that he already was planning to let Severus Snape kill him instead?”

“Yes.”

“And that Draco Malfoy wouldn’t have been able to kill Albus Dumbledore?”

“Right. They wanted him to use the killing curse, but you have to really mean the unforgivable curses, or they won’t work. And Malfoy didn’t even mean it enough to keep his wand pointed straight.” Immediately, Harry saw people’s expressions saying, ‘why do you know that???’ loud and clear.

“And you say that Albus Dumbledore would let himself be killed because he was already dying – could you explain that more? You’ve mentioned that several times, but I’m not sure any of us were under the impression that Albus Dumbledore was dying before he was murdered.” Ms Dada shot a look at the jury as if to confirm that, and there were rumbles of agreement.

“Ah.” Harry clearly had misunderstood how much was known. “The summer beforehand, he had encountered a cursed artefact. It’s, um, why his hand was blackened. Um, you saw that, right?” Harry was suddenly doubting everything, but there were nods. “The curse wasn’t just in his hand, it was spreading. Snape managed to slow the curse, but couldn’t cure it or stop it spreading completely, so Dumbledore was going to die fairly soon anyway from the curse. That was in the memories too.” Harry explained. “And Dumbledore showed me the artefact and told me about the circumstances. So, he was already weakened by that. And then, when we were doing the task before we came back, he had to drink a potion, which made him really weak and hallucinate. I, um, I don’t know if the potion would have killed him by itself. The only other person I know of who drank it died, but I don’t know if that was the potion, or the, um, dangerous surroundings.”

“Could you give more detail, Mr Potter?” It was Questioner Willis this time. “I’m aware that you have a deal with the DMLE to avoid sharing some of the dark magic that Voldemort was involved in, and that you may have encountered in defeating him, but should you be able to expand on your answer, that would be helpful for context’s sake. Could you say who died previously and why it may or may not have been the potion?”

Harry was glad that she was aware of the deal but stressed about these questions. “Regulus Black.”

There was a shocked outcry among the jury, who turned to frantic whispering. Questioner Willis banged the gavel until they quieted themselves. “Please continue.”

“Regulus Black died attempting to betray Voldemort.” He decided to get Regulus Black’s story out while he could. He deserved that much, at least. “He went to the same place, for the same reason as us, and drank the same potion. The problem was, as well as making you weak and confused, the potion makes you crave water. It’s a trap.” Harry explained. “The cup refuses to hold any conjured water, so you have to get the water from the lake. The lake is full of inferi.” Shocked whispering started again. “As soon as you touch the lake water, they start swarming the island. There were hundreds of them.” Harry shuddered at the memory.

“We barely got out. Regulus Black died, but because of that, I don’t know if the inferi killed him or the potion did, and they brought him into the lake afterwards. I know he assumed that he would die in the process because he left a note, having already stolen what we came to find, to Voldemort, telling him that Regulus would be long dead by the time he found out, but he’d died betraying him.”

There was a pause as everyone took this in. Both lawyers looked slightly dazed. “Thank you, Mr Potter.” Questioner Willis said after a long moment. “No more questions on this topic.” They had indeed strayed fairly far away from the original subject.

“I- no further questions.” Ms Dada said faintly, looking slightly dazed. Harry winced guiltily. He hadn’t meant to flood them with information and derail the questioning.

Looking just as unsure, Mr Candlebury was asked if wanted to make his questions, after he failed to step up the podium, and he waved it off wordlessly for a moment before managing to squeak out that perhaps it was best for Harry to give the rest of his testimony first. Everyone looked fairly apprehensive at the idea of Harry having even more unknown things to say. Hopefully, at least, this part would be more straightforward. Maybe.

“I next saw Malfoy at some point in Spring, late March, when we – me, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger – accidentally triggered the Taboo and were caught by Snatchers. They brought us to Malfoy Manor, where Malfoy was with his family. Hermione had hit me in the face with a stinging hex, to make my face less recognisable, so Lucius Malfoy asked Draco Malfoy to check if it was me. Malfoy said he didn’t know, couldn’t be sure, even though he definitely recognised me. It was pretty clear who Ron and Hermione were anyway, so Ron and I were chucked in the cells, where we met Ollivander, Luna Lovegood, and Griphook, while Bellatrix Lestrange tortured Hermione for information about an item we had with us. Lucius Malfoy had summoned Voldemort through his dark mark. We broke out, I snatched Draco’s wand in the scuffle, and then Dobby the house-elf apparated us all away. After that, I saw him during the Battle of Hogwarts, where he was trying to find a particular object in the Room of Lost Things. We argued a bit, because Malfoy wanted his wand back, which I was using. Then, his friends and my friends joined us. Crabbe kept trying to curse me while Malfoy was telling him to stop because Voldemort wanted me alive, and then Crabbe was trying to hit Ron and Hermione with the killing curse and cruciatus curse. Crabbe cast fiendfyre and lost control of it. There were some old broomsticks, so we managed to grab Malfoy and Goyle, but Crabbe got caught by the fire.”

At least this part was significantly shorter. Ms Dada stepped up, a slightly wary look in her eye at whatever nonsense Harry might spout this time. “How sure are you that Draco Malfoy was only pretending not to recognise you? Could it have been genuine?”

“No.” Harry replied immediately. “We were rivals at Hogwarts for six years. We can, and regularly did, pick each other’s faces out of a crowd, at a distance, and partially disguised, just to mess with each other. He definitely recognised me. Besides, he’s a terrible liar.” For the first time, Harry darted a glance over to where Malfoy was sitting and found his pointy features twisting up with offence. Even like this, it was satisfying having got to him.

“But he lied well enough to his father?”

“Oh, no. I mean,” Harry fumbled his words. “he tried to lie to his father, but it was honestly a little pathetic. The only reason it worked even temporarily is because Mr Malfoy was so terrified of possibly messing up again and getting in trouble with Voldemort again.”

Someone snorted quietly. Malfoy’s face was hilarious – obviously offended, but conflicted with Harry speaking on his behalf, and probably a bit offended that Harry was speaking on his behalf. Valiantly, Ms Dada had kept her own face straight. “Did Draco Malfoy attempt to fight you on your way out?”

“Sort of? It all happened very fast.” Which was one way of describing the chaos their exit from Malfoy Manor. “He was holding our wands and his own and was trying to hold onto them while I was trying to take them from him. After I got them, he didn’t really do anything, maybe because I took his wand too, and it was Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange firing curses and a knife at us. He and Narcissa Malfoy kind of stood away from where Dobby was dropping a chandelier on everyone.” It was sad, mentioning Dobby, but Harry enjoyed airing the house-elf’s deeds to the assembled wixen jury, who could only blink at him.

“As for the battle, you stated that this occurred in the Room of Lost Things – this is a part of Hogwarts? I’ve never heard of it.” This seemed like a simple clarification question.

“Yes. It’s a version of the Room of Requirement, where all lost things go.” After a moment, seeing that his explanation didn’t appear to have helped, Harry continued, “The Room of Requirement, or the Come and Go Room, is a hidden room within the castle which appears if you know how to request it right and holds whatever you need it to.” For instance, a secret place to practice magic, or hide students from Death Eaters, or quidditch pitches worth of abandoned junk.

“And Mr Malfoy was there with his associates to fight you?”

“Yes, or to prevent me in some way from the task I was doing.” He deliberated for a moment, “He was probably told to protect whatever I was looking for.”

“Did Mr Malfoy attack you in any way?” Ms Dada asked.

“Er, no, I think it was just Crabbe, and even then, Malfoy was trying to make him stop.”

“Do you think he would have if the late Mr Crabbe hadn’t cast fiendfyre?”

“Maybe?” Harry considered it. “Probably, if I kept trying to do my task. But not like Crabbe. That was really stupid. Voldemort would have murdered anyone who actually managed to kill me in a heartbeat, possibly even anyone who damaged me badly, and everyone knew that. Malfoy mainly just wanted his wand back and for me to go away.”

“But you think he would have cursed you?”

“I mean, yeah.” Harry said. “It’s not like we’ve never cursed each other before. We were in fights for years, but I don’t think he’d have done anything worse than we’d already done to each other at school.” Though, actually, thinking about it, that was a low bar when Malfoy had tried to chuck the cruciatus at him in sixth year. Still, Harry had nearly killed him with sectumsempra, even if he hadn’t known what the spell did at the time, so he couldn’t say much.

“And he was definitely following the Dark Lord Voldemort’s orders at this time?” Ms Dada asked.

“Yes. The only person who could have told him what we were after, what he needed to protect, was Voldemort.”

Something sharpened in the witch’s eyes. “So, he was personally, out of all the Death Eaters, entrusted with this task – which must have been vital if both you, You-Know-Who, and Mr Malfoy were concerned with it in the middle of a violent battle.”

Malfoy stiffened in the corner of his eye, and Harry frowned. “I guess? I mean, not that Voldemort had a huge number of choices. It was really early on, so the only Death Eaters in the castle were like, Malfoy, and any other students. Malfoy was the obvious choice – he already knows the Room of Requirement well and he’s the one who got the job done before. But, I mean, Voldemort thought Malfoy was pretty pathetic in general. He wouldn’t have trusted him with a task, outside punishment, if he had anyone better who could do it.”

Malfoy, once again, looked both thankful and offended. Ms Dada considered his words. “You believe you can speak for the Dark Lord Voldemort’s thoughts?” It didn’t sound accusatory, just considering, if perhaps a little confused. He was a little annoyed before he remembered that it was the lawyer from the trial before who had already asked him this. It occurred to Harry that the average person had no reason to believe that Harry knew anything vaguely personal about Voldemort, other than having engaged him in battle a few times.

Harry darted a look at Questioner Willis, who thankfully took the cue. “Mr Potter has, in the previous trial, sworn under oath the ability to speak for the former Dark Lord’s opinions and likely courses of action. Mr Potter is not required to speak regarding his attainment of information concerning the former Dark Lord.”

“So, we just believe whatever he says about You-Know-Who?” For the first time, Ms Dada’s professional composure cracked.

Questioner Willis’ pale eyes grew cold. “Yes. Unless you would personally like to bring the Head of the DMLE into this courtroom to request freedom of sensitive information.”

Harry coughed, “I take my oaths seriously. In case that helps. The truth oath isn’t binding yet but it could be very easily.”

They both looked at him with visible interest, but Questioner Willis huffed a little. “Thank you, but that will not be necessary.” She turned back to the younger witch. “Please continue with your questions or let Mr Candlebury take his turn.”

Ms Dada turned back to Harry. She was frowning slightly, looking, if anything, faintly betrayed. She took a breath and her face blanked once more. “After you saved Mr Malfoy and Mr Goyle from the fiendfyre, did you see what they did then?”

“Er, not really.” Harry was thrown off a little by the return to questioning. “We dropped them down in the corridor and they sort of ran away. I wasn’t really paying attention, I had other things to do.”

“No further questions.” Ms Dada said. She stepped back, looking faintly upset once more.

Mr Candlebury stepped up. He mostly asked further clarifying questions about things he’d already covered with Ms Dada. He lingered on Malfoy saying he didn’t recognise Harry in Malfoy Manor and him and trying to stop Crabbe from killing Harry. He asked whether Harry thought that Malfoy only stopped Crabbe from killing him due to Voldemort’s orders not to touch Harry.

“Uh, I don’t know.” Harry said, intelligently. “I mean, that was the situation and I’m serious that Voldemort would absolutely have killed whoever did it and whoever was with them, but, I don’t know. I mean, Malfoy’s loud and bigoted and thinks he’s better than everybody else, and says a lot of terrible shi- er, stuff, but he never acted on half of what he said, so actively killing a classmate, or letting his friend kill them right in front of him, even if it’s me… I don’t know.” He really couldn’t say for sure.

Mr Candlebury nodded and decided to ask nothing further. Thankfully, finally, Harry was able to leave the podium. It felt like he’d been down on the courtroom floor for days. He settled back into his seat with a sigh of relief. It felt so good to be back in the privacy of the seats, away from the hundreds of eyes bearing down on him and dissecting his words. And they weren’t even judging him this time.

He almost missed who was next called down to the floor and started when he heard the name Luna Lovegood. Of course, he couldn’t see her in this section, only when she emerged onto the floor, loose blonde hair floating behind her as she stepped up to the podium. Her silver and pink robes were neat, but strung with what looked like odd coins, feathers, and flower heads, and her eyes were wide but smile serene. She looked like she had no idea where she was but didn’t mind that at all. Harry smiled. It was always good to see Luna.

She swore the truth as she knew it – though not the objective truth, because she wasn’t sure there was such a thing, and how would a single person judge it anyway - to Lady Magic with an airy voice and, in the same breath, said that she’d be very excited if Lady Magic would visit to correct her if anything she said was wrong. Harry smiled into his hand. That would make things interesting. Around the courtroom, there was some muttering in the jury, but no one could really argue. There was no set phrasing for the oath, and, at the end of the day, she had sworn the important part.

Luna gave her statement about her time in Malfoy Manor. She’d been taken from the Hogwarts Express to Malfoy Manor by Lucius Malfoy and some other Death Eaters and held there to force her father to print articles in support of Voldemort rather than for Harry Potter. She said they’d been rough with her but hadn’t gone out of their way to hurt her, mainly because they considered her insane, and that they’d get nothing useful from her apart from a hostage. She was very calm as she said this, even while Harry prickled with anger. Luna wasn’t insane, or useless, or any of the horrible things that people said about her. She was weird, and that was the absolute best thing about her. He was pleased that she hadn’t been tortured for information, the way his other friends might have been if they’d been captured, of course he was. But he could hear behind the lines that they’d treated her badly in some way.

To his relief, Draco Malfoy hadn’t. He’d interacted with Luna because someone had to take food and drink down to the prisoners, and sometimes Pettigrew wasn’t available, and none of the Malfoy elves were allowed near the prisoners after Harry had corrupted the last one with morals and a desire for freedom. Harry almost snorted out his pumpkin juice at that statement. Malfoy hadn’t said much, not taunting them like some of the others or hexing them through the bars, nor had he spilled the food in front of them like Pettigrew sometimes did. Occasionally, he’d even sneak her an apple. He never admitted it, Luna said, pretended it was part of the meal that had been prepared for them, but it was hard not to notice when they got the same porridge and sandwiches every day, and she didn’t think any of the others were worried about their prisoners getting scurvy. She hadn’t tried to talk to him, like Ollivander had, but she thought he seemed sad. And absolutely covered in wrackspurts.

The lawyers questioned her a little on her interactions with Draco Malfoy – which mainly boiled down to ‘he was there and didn’t do anything to help but also didn’t do anything that made it worse’ before they let her go. To Harry’s great relief, no one tried to discredit her based on her reputation and sometimes bizarre statements. Once they were done, she skipped back through the doorway. It was odd to think that any second now, she might be walking in front of him, and he’d have no idea. He'd like to find her afterwards, if he could, though he had no idea how they were supposed to meet.

McGonagall had sent a statement along regarding his seventh year at Hogwarts, in which apparently, he was mostly quiet and stayed with his friends when not working. He was favoured by the Carrows but didn’t volunteer for any of their disciplinary assistant positions, which a horrifying number of people had. The statements drew to a close after a long while and the lawyers made their arguments again, using various bits that people had said to help them out.

Eventually, Questioner Willis seemed to have had enough, because she rapped the gavel and declared that the jury would begin their discussions. The silencing wards flew up and immediately, the jury seemed to turn to each other and begin speaking. On the floor, Draco Malfoy was led out of the room. Harry didn’t remember that happening at Narcissa Malfoy’s trial, though he may well have been distracted, and should have taken it for the hint it was that discussions were likely to go on for a long time.

Without his watch, Harry couldn’t track the time accurately, but he reckoned that it had been between one and two hours since Malfoy’s trial started. Up in the stands, the spectators were restless, many having filtered out for breaks. Harry helped himself to more of the food on the tray, grateful for what had seemed like an exorbitant spread this morning. It was already early afternoon, at a guess, and there was still a whole other trial, the most serious one, to go after this. The sandwiches were good, not having gone stale over time, and Harry was tempted to eat the lot, but left some for later anyway. He was more worried about the pumpkin juice, which was quickly running low. As he thought that, the level in the jug began to rise until it was as full as when it had first arrived. Ministry house elves, he realised – they must have been paying attention.

After his food, he sat back, stretching his legs out as far as he could in front of him. The cushioning charms were doing wonders – he’d be in so much pain sitting this still for hours without them – but they couldn’t quite make up for the fact that he’d be stuck in this room for who knew how many more hours. Technically speaking, he didn’t need to stay for Lucius Malfoy’s trial, but he had agreed to be there if the wanted to question him, and anyway, he wanted to see the result with his own eyes. Narcissa Malfoy, he hadn’t much cared about the sentence for, so long as it was fair and properly considered. Draco Malfoy, he cared much more about the results for, even with his complicated feelings that Malfoy was an arrogant, bigoted brat, but not the cold-blooded attempted murderer that the prosecution were trying to paint him as. Lucius Malfoy, on the other hand, deserved Azkaban, as much as anyone actually deserved that Hell on Earth.

Harry considered reading more of his book as the time dragged on. He probably should have done but there was only so much information he could take in at a time, and learning more about the godly world always brought up those feelings in his chest which screamed that this wasn’t fair or what he wanted. He tried to ignore them because when did Harry ever get what he wanted, and when had complaining about it ever made it better? But still, the books were interesting when he tried to pretend they didn’t actually apply to him, but reading about the Underworld, which he’d been to and which he would have to go back too, was a bit much right now.

Instead, he simply closed his eyes for a bit. There wasn’t much else he could do without leaving the witness section, where no one could see each other, and he was sure that if he went into the wider corridors, he would be mobbed. Thanks to the milling crowds of spectators, everyone knew he was here and around, and Harry was absolutely sure that they would have opinions on him speaking at the trials. After all, everyone seemed to have opinions on everything he did. He put his head back on the surprisingly comfy chair and let himself drift for a bit.

He didn’t sleep properly, wouldn’t have been able to in public, with the constant tension that ran through him, but it was still enough to leave him feeling a little refreshed. It had been a long day already. When the silencing wards came down, after a very long time, it was enough to stir Harry. He sat up sharply, eyes on the jury. They looked, as a group, tired and frustrated. He really hadn’t been paying much attention, but they must have been arguing for at least an hour, possibly more, and no one looked particularly happy about the results. Questioner Willis looked calm as ever, except for a single flyaway lock of grey hair, which had escaped her neat bun.

She called everyone’s attention once more and summoned Malfoy back into the room. He looked nervous, but also a little eager, as if no matter the answer, he just wanted to know now and be done with it. Harry empathised. Questioner Willis banged the gavel. “The jury of the assembled Wizengamot acknowledges this as a difficult case and would like to explain some of our reasoning. Firstly, we acknowledge that when he became a follower of the former Dark Lord known as Voldemort and was given his tasks, Draco Malfoy was under the age of majority, and, as such, in a vulnerable position. Furthermore, he continued to be underage until the summer, so we will judge the crimes committed by Draco Malfoy during the school year of ‘96/’97 according to the guidelines for judging a minor. For crimes committed after that, they will be considered under the adult guidelines.

“Accordingly, as a minor, Draco Malfoy joined a terrorist organisation which was plotting to overthrow the rightful government, carried out a plot to let other terrorists into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and attempted to murder Albus Dumbledore. However, we consider these activities to have been done under threat, and recognise that once in the position, Draco Malfoy was unable to follow through with his threats to murder Albus Dumbledore. Given that he believed them to be alone, we do not believe his disarming of Albus Dumbledore to make him an active accomplice of his murder, but a bystander.

“As an adult, Draco Malfoy remained part of the terrorist organisation known as the Death Eaters, and carried out non-violent actions on their behalf, but otherwise continued to attend school. He was not a combatant in the battle and has killed no one. For the above reasons, the assembled Wizengamot have urged leniency for Mr Draco Malfoy, in the hope that he has learned the error of his ways and believing that the actions of a child should not destroy his future. This is a principle that the Wizengamot will be applying further to those who participated in Death Eater activities underage. We of the Wizengamot find him unlikely as an individual to reoffend.” Malfoy sagged a little in the chair as she spoke, “However, Draco Malfoy will be required to swear a binding oath against repeating these criminal actions, complete 200 hours of community service, and, although he may return to Hogwarts to complete his education, he will be under careful supervision.”

She finished speaking and the look on Malfoy’s face was naked relief. Harry wondered if he’d been expecting Azkaban. He was pleased, he decided, that they’d decided that the things Malfoy had done at school shouldn’t be judged as harshly as if he’d been an adult when he did them. He was also pleased that they hadn’t let him off entirely. Community service sounded about right for him. They led Malfoy out swiftly, who looked like he had no idea what to do with himself now, and the courtroom quickly descended into the chaos of post-trial parchmentwork.

Chapter Text

The stands for the spectators looked rowdy, press cameras still flashing, even though the worst of it had died out once Malfoy was led away. People were talking animatedly, though nothing they said could be heard through the silencing wards. From the unflappable look on Questioner Willis’ face as she looked up at the stands, the fact they were still raised was entirely intentional. She didn’t seem to have much patience for people interrupting her trials.

“A break will be had for the next half hour before our final trial of the session will be held, for one Lucius Malfoy. Please reconvene at 3:45.” With that, many of the Wizengamot members left their seats. Harry imagined that they were starting to feel uncomfortable too after so long.

Harry himself stood up and shook out his legs. He stretched his hands up above his head, wrinkling his nose as one of his long sleeves fell down into his face. His back cracked. According to Willis, it was about 3:15 now. If Lucius Malfoy’s trial lasted about the same time as the others, they wouldn’t be done until 7pm at the earliest. He sat again and rested his chin on one hand. This was going to be a very long day.

By the time 15:45 wrapped around, Harry had opened and closed his book multiple times and taken in absolutely nothing, had paced aimlessly up and down the narrow walkway of the witness section seats a few times before realising this might mean he could accidentally bump into someone, and eaten his way through all the apple slices and half the grapes. The upper tiers were silent as ever, but they were absolutely teeming with people as the start of Mr Malfoy’s trial approached. Harry had thought that the previous two trials were well-attended, but they had nothing on this. The seating hadn’t been visibly empty before, but now it was packed. The number of press had doubled at first, and then again. Harry hadn’t known there were that many magic journals or journalists.

There was a restrained kind of energy in the air as the members of the Wizengamot jury found their seats. Questioner Willis, as she strode back in, of course betrayed none of this. She sat in her seat as calmly as if the Wizengamot had gathered for a three hour talk on the thickness of cauldron bottoms. She called the session to order as the last of the scribes prepared their quills and the lawyers made their way in. On the prosecuting side, it was Mr Rees again while Mr Finchley was resuming his role in defence, looking somehow even smugger than he had before Narcissa Malfoy’s trial. Harry wasn’t sure why it was those two again. Mr Rees’ briefcase, when he put it down, was bursting with sheafs of parchment.

At Willis’ word, Lucius Malfoy was led in by a group of aurors. Unlike his wife and son, he was shackled with some sort of lightweight chain, which hit the light oddly, as if smeared with a light-absorbing oil. He looked terrible, like he’d looked in the pictures from his last trial, which had ended up in the Prophet. His pale hair hung limp around his face and he’d visibly lost weight. Still, he was sneering at the assembled masses. Harry had been wondering whether he was going to try the imperius defence again, as he’d gotten off from charges after the last war, but from the look of him, he'd realised in advance that that wasn’t likely to fly. He pleaded guilty.

There was less need for the prosecuting lawyer to prove that he’d committed the crimes he was accused of, since Lucius Malfoy had readily admitted them, but the defence were trying hard to push for ideals similar to Narcissa Malfoy’s trial – that he’d been a family man afraid for his loved ones and unable to defend them from the poor choices he’d made when he was younger, and couldn’t risk angering Voldemort further than he already had. This was somewhat hampered by the fact that he very much had murdered, tortured, and actively plotted against the Ministry.

Harry, though he had volunteered to be available should they want him, wasn’t really expecting to be called for evidence, so he watched the trial with the rapt fascination of an audience member. Witness after witness were called, telling tales of discrimination, violence, and active participation in the Death Eater regime. Unlike his family members, Lucius Malfoy had fought for Voldemort in the battle. His trial was also made somewhat easier through the fact that he had already been arrested and charged with Death Eater activities before, after the fiasco in the Department of Mysteries.

His defending lawyer really wasn’t getting very far with trying to aim for mercy on Lucius Malfoy’s front, because for all that it was true that Malfoy hadn’t actively sought out Voldemort during the years he was believed defeated, that was because he had believed Voldemort to be dead, and he had been among the ones at the Quidditch World Cup to break out their old uniforms and terrorise muggles, which was a pretty strong case for him reoffending even without Voldemort around. Moreover, Lucius Malfoy had used his position in the Ministry to influence the previous Minister for Magic into taking actively damaging stances – denying Voldemort’s rebirth - and undermined the entire Wizarding World’s ability to fight back against Voldemort. His violent crimes were also far too much for his lawyer to sweep under the carpet.

In what was perhaps a fit of desperation, Mr Finchley called on Harry as a witness. This was a strange move to anyone who hadn’t seen the last two trials where Harry had spoken surprisingly positive things about the other two Malfoys. Perhaps, this lawyer was counting on more of the same. He was in for a surprise, Harry thought, as he walked down to the courtroom floor for the third time; whatever good will he might have held towards Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, he absolutely did not hold for Lucius Malfoy.

Harry thought Questioner Willis might also have looked a little surprised, as he once again swore truth to Lady Magic. After all, it wasn’t typically advisable to summon someone who might provide even more evidence against your client. Still, she didn’t object. As Harry finished swearing to speak the truth a third time, there was a tingle in the back of his mind.

“What, precisely, are you doing?” Hecate asked, voice instantly recognisable despite Harry only having met her the once, “You’re meant to be lying low and avoiding swearing any oaths on a deity or their domain! And why three times? Did you think the first two didn’t take?”

Harry wasn’t quite sure how to reply. Would she hear it if he said it loudly in his head? He decided to try that before speaking out loud and making a spectacle of himself. “Trials.” He thought very loudly and made his way to the speaker’s podium.

“Just speak normally in your head.” Hecate advised, sounding pained, even though he was fairly sure that it couldn’t have actually hurt a goddess. “And fine. But don’t swear any more today if you can avoid it. It’s like a little flare each time. I barely caught the first one in time to suppress it. This is the domain of others as well.” The last part sounded vaguely ominous.

“I’ll try not to.” Harry replied mentally, this time at a normal volume. “There are no more trials today.”

“Good.” Hecate said, sounding exasperated. “No child of mine, adopted or not, is going to get himself caught by unfriendly gods for doing something so stupid as testifying at other people’s trials. It is other people’s trials, right? Not your own?” If Harry didn’t know better, he’d say she sounded almost concerned.

“No, other people’s.”

“Good. Not that I care if you’re doing crimes, but getting caught for them would just be embarrassing. Ah, someone is talking to you, I’d better go.” With that, the golden light in his mind vanished, leaving Harry back in the courtroom with Questioner Willis asking if he’d like to start with a statement first, even though he hadn’t prepared one in advance, or if he’d prefer the lawyers simply ask their questions.

Honestly, Harry didn’t know what to say. Pretty much everything had been covered by someone else in better detail. He didn’t even know why he was down here. “Questions?” He replied, sounding unsure even to himself.

Mercifully, Questioner Willis simply nodded. “As the one who requested his testimony, Mr Finchley will question Mr Potter first.”

The dramatic lawyer swished up, heavily embroidered robes glinting in the light and matching the embedded jewels on his glasses. “Mr Potter, as someone who was privy to many of the details of the war that others may not have been, were there any of Lucius Malfoy’s relevant actions that you either witnessed or know about that may not have been mentioned so far in this trial?”

Well, that sounded like a fancier way of asking him to give a statement. He thought on it for a moment. This trial was focussing on his actions post-incarceration in Azkaban, though any unexposed crimes from before his previous trial were also valid, and there was really nothing that Harry could think of that he might know better than anyone else. “Er,” Something occurred to him, “Has it come up that he’s the one who slipped an 11-year-old girl a dark artefact which then possessed her and opened the Chamber of Secrets, releasing the basilisk on the school, and resulting in the petrification of multiple students and the kidnapping of Ginny Weasley?”

There was absolute dead silence for a moment. Lucius Malfoy, in the chair, whipped his head around so fast that his neck cracked audibly. “You!” He started, raising his bound hands at Harry and moving as if to rise. The aurors were on him immediately and he was forced back into the chair even as the chains rose from their position wrapped around the armrests and circled the wizard instead.

Questioner Willis rapped the gavel, drawing everyone’s attention back to her again. She was still admirably expressionless. “Mr Malfoy, don’t make this any worse for yourself than it already is.” She turned back to Harry. “No, I don’t believe that has come up. And I would be greatly interested to hear more about it. Please tell us all about these events, not just Lucius Malfoy’s direct involvement.”

“Okay, um.” Harry took a moment to figure out where to start. “Do I need to say who the girl was? I mean, it’s not a secret or anything, I just don’t want people to treat her differently and it wasn’t her fault she got possessed.”

Questioner Willis considered it for a moment. “It would be best if you did. It’s easier to fact check that way and this incident should already have been on Ministry record if it’s as serious as you say, so her name would come out one way or another. And I’m sure no one here would be foolish enough to blame a child for having dark magic forced upon them.” She gave a cutting look up at the press section, as if daring them to contradict her.

Harry nodded. “So, in the summer of ’92, I was visited by a house-elf called Dobby, who told me not to go back to Hogwarts because there were terrible plots going to happen in the school year. He couldn’t tell me who he worked for, except that they treated him badly. I refused to stay back from Hogwarts, and so he cast a hover charm in my relatives’ house to try and get me expelled.” Everyone was looking confused, so he added. “I promise this is necessary context. While I was in Diagon Alley, on the day that Lockhart was doing his book signing, Mr Malfoy and Mr Weasley got into a physical fight in Flourish and Blotts. After it, Mr Malfoy picked up Ginny Weasley’s books that had spilled and put them in her cauldron, while insulting their quality. He put another book among them.”

There were murmurs among the jury, perhaps people who remembered the rather infamous event of the two men fighting like muggles in public. Willis hushed them.

“After that, everyone always saw Ginny writing in a diary and thought nothing of it. Later, Ginny said that she thought that one of her parents or brothers had bought it for her without admitting it. Anyway, Ginny kept getting paler and quieter, but everyone just thought she was homesick. And then the petrifications started. On Halloween, Ron, Hermione, and I found a message on the wall, on the second floor, across from Filch’s petrified cat, saying ‘The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware.’ It was written in chicken blood. Pretty much everyone thought it was just a bad prank, apart from Dumbledore, who’d been teaching when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened, 50 years beforehand.”

“Weird things were happening in the castle.” Harry continued. “The spiders were running from the castle, and someone had killed all Hagrid’s roosters. People started being petrified. Colin Creevey was found looking through his camera, which had burnt up inside. Justin Finch-Fletchley was petrified behind Nearly Headless Nick, who was also petrified despite being, you know, a ghost. Hermione Granger and Penelope Clearwater were found petrified together, holding a mirror. It was kind of chaos. Everyone was trying to figure out who the Heir of Slytherin was and trying to look up the Chamber of Secrets. And most people thought it was me, because I spoke parseltongue accidentally in public.” Harry shrugged, aiming for nonchalant but probably not managing it. “I didn’t even know I wasn’t speaking English, I just thought magical snakes could speak.”

Around the room, there was a great deal of muttering and Harry wondered yet again how none of this had got out. Absolutely everyone at Hogwarts had known this and most of them had magical relatives. Willis quieted them again.

“Anyway, we were looking into it on our own and generally sneaking around where we shouldn’t be. So, I ended up finding the diary. Ginny had gotten scared – feeling weak, missing memories, and waking up covered in blood and not knowing why – and had tried to flush the diary away, but by chance, Myrtle, the ghost, was in that toilet and had thrown the book back, so I found it. It was blank inside.” Talking about the diary was skirting dangerously close to talking about the horcruxes, but he hoped he could keep it vague enough. “So, I tried writing in it, which is stupid, I know. But then the diary wrote back.” Willis sat up in her seat. “He told me his name and that he was a memory stuck in the diary. He was kind and informative, and when I asked about the Chamber of Secrets, he told me he'd been the one to catch the culprit – Rubeus Hagrid.”

Harry waited for a moment for the whispering to die down. “Of course, I knew Hagrid and that he’d never deliberately attack people, especially not for something as stupid as blood status. But I also knew that he sometimes doesn’t consider his creatures as dangerous as they actually are. So, we went to ask him about it, but Fudge and Malfoy were there to arrest Hagrid again for opening the Chamber of Secrets and take him to Azkaban. Turns out that’s what he was expelled for in the first place. Dumbledore tried to interfere, but Mr Malfoy gave him a signed letter from the Board of Governors saying they’d lost confidence in Dumbledore and wanted him removed. So, they took Hagrid away. And he told us, where we were hiding, to follow the spiders for answers.”

“One moment, Mr Potter.” Questioner Willis interrupted. “Can I confirm briefly that the Fudge you are referring to is Cornelius Fudge, the previous Minister for Magic, and that he was aware of these events?”

“Yes.” Harry said.

She noted something down with a frown. “Please continue.”

“Right, so, we didn’t know what to do – things were pretty bad by this point. Someone – Ginny – had stolen back the diary, but we didn’t know who back then; Hermione and the others were petrified; Dumbledore was gone; Hagrid had been taken to Azkaban; I’d been hearing a voice all year that only I could hear, talking about ripping, killing, and how hungry it was; Dobby was still trying to injure me badly enough to get me sent home; everyone thought I was the Heir of Slytherin and so no one was any closer to actually finding out who the culprit was. So, we followed the spiders.”

He took a deep breath. “The spiders led us to an acromantula colony deep in the Forbidden Forest. Their leader was an absolutely huge acromantula called Aragog, who Hagrid had raised when he was a student, and was the creature Myrtle’s death was blamed on. Aragog told us that Slytherin’s monster was the bane of all spiders, their greatest enemy. He then tried to eat us.” He smiled, a tad ironic. “We got away, of course. Anyway, we were trying to put together the clues when we found a piece of paper scrunched up in Hermione’s hand which we hadn’t noticed before. It was a page from a book, describing the basilisk, and she’d written ‘pipes’ on it, as the explanation for how the basilisk was getting around without being noticed.

“We were taking this information to the teachers when the news came out that a student was missing and had been taken into the Chamber – Ginny. Lockhart was boasting he knew where the Chamber was, so we went to his office and found him trying to run. We, er, kind of threatened him until he came with us. We worked out where the entrance to the Chamber was and I opened it. We sent Lockhart down first to check the way was safe. It was, but he overpowered us when we were down there and he took Ron’s wand and told us his plan to obliviate us and spread a story about how I was the Heir of Slytherin, Ron went mad with grief, and he found the Chamber, but too late to save Ginny. He cast the spell, but Ron’s wand had been broken since the start of the year and it rebounded on him. It also caused a partial cave-in, so I went ahead to get Ginny while Ron tried to dig a way through the rocks.

“I found Ginny, unconscious, and also the diary. I tried to ask the boy in the diary for help, but he revealed that this was his doing all along and he was going to suck the life out of Ginny to restore his own. He told me he’d always wanted to meet me, was annoyed when Ginny had stolen the diary back. I asked why and he told me his full name – Tom Marvolo Riddle. The name he later became known by, Lord Voldemort, is an anagram of it.” There was a shocked intake of air around the room. This was definitely too close to talking about the horcruxes, but they needed to know what Lucius Malfoy’s actions had almost caused. “I tried to fight him, so he called the basilisk. It wouldn’t listen to me, only him, the true Heir of Slytherin. Then Fawkes, the phoenix, appeared with the Sorting Hat. Fawkes scratched out the basilisk’s eyes, so then I only had to worry about being heard or smelled and the teeth.

“I was running through the tunnels for a while. Riddle mainly wanted me out of the way while he finished draining Ginny’s energy. I got back to the main chamber eventually and found the hat, which told me to put it on, and then the sword of Gryffindor came out. I, uh, I don’t know how to use a sword.” Harry admitted, oddly embarrassed for something which should be obvious, “So, it took me a number of tries, but I managed to stab the basilisk through the roof of its mouth and kill it. It got me, I had half a tooth snapped off in my arm, and really wasn’t feeling good. That’s when Riddle told me how venomous basilisks are. So, I took the fang out of my arm and stabbed it through his diary, which destroyed it, him. I thought I was going to die, but Fawkes is amazing and cried on the wound, which healed it. Then Ginny woke up, so we went back, and Fawkes carried us out.

“We went back to Dumbledore’s office and told him what happened, and I gave him the sword and the diary. Ginny’s parents were already in there. Then Lucius Malfoy arrived, trying to get Dumbledore to leave because he wasn’t Headmaster anymore, but Dumbledore said that firstly the situation had been resolved and secondly that, when he had spoken to the other Governors, they had been under the impression that bodily harm would come to them if they didn’t sign the letter to remove Dumbledore. Mr Malfoy saw the diary on the desk, and I saw him recognise it. He’d brought his elf with him, who was Dobby, so I knew Mr Malfoy was his master, the one who had been plotting over the summer. So, I realised what had happened – that Mr Malfoy was the one who’d given the diary to Ginny. I confronted him about it outside Dumbledore’s office, but he denied it and threw the diary away. I also tricked him into freeing Dobby, so he tried to curse me, but Dobby knocked him down the steps. Much later, I found out more about the diary and that it had been given to Lucius Malfoy by Voldemort for safekeeping as a very precious item to him, and that he was absolutely furious that Malfoy had ‘lost’ it. Er, that’s about it, I think.” Harry finished.

There was a beat of silence before someone, somewhere in the jury, whispered a “what the fuck?” which echoed much louder than they’d likely intended. There was a titter of nervous laughter. Harry couldn’t even blame them.

“Mr Finchley, please continue your questioning when you are ready.” Questioner Willis stated, still continuing to write something on the parchment in front of her. Nothing happened and after a moment, she looked up. “Mr Finchley?” Harry turned to where the lawyer was and found him staring at Harry as if he’d spontaneously grown a second head and it had declared itself the second coming of Merlin. “Mr Finchley, do you need a moment?” She sounded a little bored with the question.

The lawyer in question snapped himself out of it. “No, no, I’m quite… I will continue the questioning. Where was I?” He shuffled his notes uselessly, as if anything in his pre-prepared notes might help him with the madness that was Harry’s life. His assistant took pity on him after a moment and handed him a new sheet of parchment. “Ah, yes, thank you, Solvig.” He cleared his throat. “Do you have any proof that Lucius Malfoy was the one to plant the cursed diary in Ginny Weasley’s belongings?”

“Well, he was the one to touch her books, his house elf was warning me about plots, and Voldemort gave the book to him for safekeeping.”

“But is it not suspicious that his house elf was warning you against his master? That’s highly out of character.”

“Dobby was a bit of an oddball among house elves.” Harry replied. “He was treated badly in the Malfoy household, so he had no loyalty that wasn’t enforced, and apparently the dark side in general treated their house elves worse, so he was grateful to me for the defeat of Voldemort when I was a baby. He kept punishing himself for trying to tell me anything and couldn’t tell me who his masters were nor what the plot actually was, just kept trying to keep me safe in usually terrible ways.”

Mr Finchley moved on, sweating slightly. “Is it possible that Mr Malfoy didn’t know what the cursed diary would do?”

Harry thought about it. “He definitely knew it was dark and had to do with Voldemort.” He replied. “And he must have known that it would be able to do something at Hogwarts, because Dobby was already warning me that Hogwarts would be in danger from the summer, so he was definitely planning it. I doubt he knew what Slytherin’s monster was, because I don’t think even he would be stupid enough to release a basilisk in the same school that his son attends, but I think he knew that it would release Slytherin’s monster, because he told his son, Draco Malfoy, that it would only attack muggleborns, and one might die like 50 years ago.”

“And how do you know this?” Finchley seemed to be grasping at straws a little.

Harry shrugged. “He was boasting about it in the Slytherin common room. We snuck in.” It felt odd to be admitting in a court of law just how much sneaking around he’d engaged in during his school years.

Finchley, who finally seemed to understand that his attempt was backfiring on him horribly, recused himself from further questions. Mr Rees stepped up, a gleeful glint in his eyes. “So, you’re saying, Mr Potter, that Mr Malfoy enacted a plot to deliberately open the Chamber of Secrets and inflict the hidden monster inside on the students of Hogwarts in the hope of killing muggleborns?”

“Yes, essentially.” Harry replied. “And if we hadn’t got there in time, Ginny Weasley would be dead, Voldemort would have been alive again, and with a basilisk to kill however many people in Hogwarts as he liked.”

Both lawyers’ faces paled as that statement sunk in and there was a similar reaction across the jury. At some point, which Harry hadn’t noticed, someone had silenced Lucius Malfoy, and he was straining against his bonds, face red with fury.

“If, as you say, this item was given to Lucius Malfoy by the Dark Lord Voldemort for safe keeping, why did he enact this plot?” Mr Rees asked after a long, fraught moment.

Harry thought about it for a moment before he remembered. “Oh! I forgot. There were raids going on for dark and restricted items. And Mr Weasley was trying to pass a bill about misuse of muggle artefacts, so Mr Malfoy wanted to disgrace him somehow and get rid of a dark artefact that was harder to hide than the others. Draco Malfoy boasted about his father’s secret room under the trapdoor in the…drawing room, I think? It’s been a while.”

“Right.” Mr Rees didn’t seem to know what to make of that response, though the scribes were scribbling frantically and one of the aurors had already been sent out of the room with a note. “Hm, regarding the incident with the Board of Governors, did Lucius Malfoy give his reason for appearing with Fudge?”

“Um, as a representative of the Board of Governors, I think.”

“And Fudge? What was his reasoning, out of interest?” Mr Rees’ voice was light, but his eyes were sharp.

Harry glanced at Questioner Willis, wondering if this was off topic, but she looked just as interested. Ah well, didn’t matter to him if they were using his testimony against Fudge in some way. The man definitely deserved it. “He said that the Ministry had to be seen to be doing something. And since Hagrid was the one accused last time, of course it was him.”

Questioner Willis hummed and wrote something down, but neither of them said anything further.

“You said that Dumbledore said that Lucius Malfoy had threatened the other members of the Board of Governors to fire him?” Mr Rees moved on.

“Yes.”

“Okay. And, not that I don’t believe you of course, but further evidence is always helpful – do you have further evidence that could corroborate your story?”

“Um.” Harry considered it. “There’s Ginny herself, and Ron. Everyone at Hogwarts those years knows about the petrifications. I have the diary somewhere still. There’s, uh, there’s also the Chamber of Secrets itself. It’s still accessible. And there’s the basilisk corpse down there. And the sword of Gryffindor still has basilisk venom in. I think everyone else is dead who could have said anything.”

Mr Rees nodded, though gave no indication of how useful these were as evidence. “Could you, in brief, describe your interactions or knowledge of Lucius Malfoy’s Death Eater activities during the war?”

Harry thought about it and tried to go chronologically. “Well, I’m not quite sure when you consider the war starting, but he was among the Death Eaters who responded to Voldemort’s call when he was resurrected at the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. He was wearing a mask, but still had his cane, his hair is very distinctive, and Voldemort named him. Mr Malfoy said he was loyal to Voldemort but had thought he was dead, which is why he hadn’t helped resurrect him. And no one ever doubted that he was still up for muggle-hunting.” Harry sneered a bit, unintentionally. “Voldemort knew he was one of the Death Eaters who had dressed up and hurt the muggle family at the Quidditch World Cup but run when Barty Crouch Jr cast the Dark Mark, and said so.”

Harry sneered a little again. “I told Fudge this, of course, but he refused to believe anything, even when Snape showed him his Dark Mark was back to his face. He wouldn’t hear anything against Malfoy, because Malfoy was giving money to the Ministry. I saw him with Fudge in the Department of Mysteries after my hearing. Voldemort was after a prophecy there, and soon people broke in under the imperius curse. I can’t prove that was him but, well, he had the access.”

“Later, Voldemort lured me to the Department of Mysteries.” Harry admitted, still ashamed of what had happened. “Mr Malfoy was leading the group of the Death Eaters lying in wait and tried to get the prophecy from me. We fought for it until the Order of the Phoenix arrived. Voldemort was furious with him for the failure – he’d got caught and the prophecy was smashed. So, he left him in Azkaban and punished Draco Malfoy with the task to kill Dumbledore. When Voldemort broke him out, he was still angry, and ending up taking Mr Malfoy’s wand to use because his own wand wouldn’t fight against me properly. So, when we were brought to Malfoy Manor, he was very keen to call Voldemort to get back in his good books, though that went kind of spectacularly wrong for him. Then, I saw him briefly in the battle, looking for Draco Malfoy, but not much else.”

Mr Rees hummed. “Thank you, Mr Potter, you’ve given us a lot to think about. No further questions from me.” 

They both looked to Questioner Willis, who was looking very thoughtful. “Mr Potter,” she said, “you may return to your seat. I believe it will be best for the jury to take some time to discuss what to do regarding these new accusations.”

Harry nodded to her and exited. He hadn’t thought, when he’d headed down, that he had much more to contribute than had already been said to other people, but perhaps the Chamber of Secrets thing had rattled them badly indeed.

He sat tensely in his seat while the jury debated. A few times, messengers were sent and came back with rolls of parchment or, in one case, a number of other Ministry employees. Lucius Malfoy sat silenced and restrained through all of this, eyes wild and furious. Harry wondered what he’d expected from this trial – whether he’d resigned himself to the outcome beforehand. Harry had thought he had when Malfoy had plead guilty, but from his obvious discontent with the emerging situation, perhaps he’d thought he could make a deal to get off lighter. Or maybe he was just angry that it was Harry who was causing more problems for him.

Eventually, after a long and seemingly involved debate, the silencing wards fell again, and Questioner Willis spoke. “Due to the seriousness of allegations raised, the lack of time to collect additional evidence, and that the allegations describe events unheard of and uncovered by his previous trials, we of the Wizengamot have decided that Lucius Malfoy will undergo Veritaserum. This is not a decision that we have made lightly, but this way we hope to uncover the whole and complete truth. We shall first cover these most recent charges, and if the defendant is sufficiently stable, will continue to the previous accusations. In line with policies, an approved Ministry Potions Master shall supply the Veritaserum while a qualified medic stands ready. I hold appropriate qualifications as Questioner and shall deliver the questions to Mr Malfoy. Silencing shall be raised on everyone else in the room to prevent interference.”

Harry, since he had learned about Veritaserum, had always thought it was strange that they didn’t seem to use it in trials, since that’s what it seemed most useful for, but from the way Questioner Willis was speaking, it appeared that it was a much more serious affair that he’d thought. Many of the jury looked discontent about it while others looked excited. High in the stands, the spectators and reporters were talking animatedly. Lucius Malfoy, in his chair, looked grey and visibly nervous.

His viewing was interrupted by Madam MacDougal hurrying up to his seat. “Mr Potter,” she said quickly. “We haven’t much time, but Questioner Willis needs to know if there’s anything that she cannot ask Mr Malfoy, information that shouldn’t get out.”

Harry thought frantically. “Um. She shouldn’t ask what the diary was. If he knew what it could do, should be fine, but not about the purpose of the diary itself.” She wrote it down as he spoke. “Also, anything to do with Voldemort’s methods of immortality. They probably wouldn’t come up, but nothing to do with why Hermione was tortured in Malfoy Manor or what Draco Malfoy was guarding in Hogwarts during the battle, nothing about Voldemort’s snake, Nagini.” He wracked his brains for anything else that might be incriminating. “I don’t know, that’s probably the worst of it, but otherwise I guess just for her to focus on what Malfoy did, not Voldemort’s reasons for making him do so.”

Madam MacDougal finished writing and rolled the parchment up quickly. “Thank you, Mr Potter. I’ll pass this on now.” She fled away at a brisk pace that could only charitably be called walking. He saw her appear a few moments later on the courtroom floor and pass the scroll to Questioner Willis as unobtrusively as possible. Willis scanned the scroll quickly, frowning at it slightly, before nodding to Madam MacDougal, who left again.

Soon, a witch swept in with a tiny potion bottle in hand. Immediately, everyone’s eyes were on her. “Potion Master Shafiq, declaring this a viable and untampered with vial of Veritaserum for the court’s use.” She announced, voice strong and surprisingly low. She was soon joined by a wizard who looked slightly out of breath, as if he’d been summoned in a hurry. He probably had. “Healer Roth, reporting for court services.” He sounded out of breath too.

“Very well.” Questioner Willis said, “Healer Roth, please ensure that the defendant is in sufficient health.”

The wizard began to cast a series of charms over Mr Malfoy that Harry didn’t recognise. Questioner Willis kept half an eye on the situation while she organised her parchments, receiving new sheets from various aides every other moment. “The patient is in fair health, sufficient for the use of Veritaserum.” Healer Roth announced. His voice was firmer and cooler now, in his element. “Monitoring charms have been placed and will be maintained for mental and physical strain.”

“Good.” Questioner Willis signed something with a flourish. “Potions Master Shafiq, you are authorised to apply the Veritaserum. Aurors, if Mr Malfoy does not cooperate, please assist. Mr Malfoy, I strongly advise you to cooperate.”

Potions Master Shafiq stepped forward, holding the bottle carefully. As she approached Mr Malfoy, he eyed her warily, like a cornered animal. It looked like he was going to resist, but at the last moment, he seemed to regain some of his lost dignity and opened his mouth for the potion. Harry couldn’t see at that distance, but he assumed that the Potions Master had given it to him, because she stepped back, reinserting the dropper into the tiny bottle. “Three drops of Veritaserum given to the defendant.” She confirmed.

Abruptly, everything in the hall was dead silent except for Questioner Willis and Lucius Malfoy himself. His eyes slowly fogged over. Questioner Willis asked him some introductory questions, such as his name and place of birth, which he answered in a flat monotone. Then she began to question him seriously. It all came out. He’d been given the diary by Voldemort for safe keeping during the first civil war, knowing that it was his old school diary and that it was absolutely soaked in dark magic. He’d been told that it would open the Chamber of Secrets and release the monster within, which would continue its task of trying to purge the school of muggleborns, but that he should only do this on his Lord’s command. With Arthur Weasley’s raids that summer, he’d panicked and needed to get rid of the artefacts in his house so dark that their magic was too strong to be hidden in his secret room. He’d managed to sell most of them at Borgin and Burkes. The diary, he plotted to give to Ginny Weasley to open the Chamber and simultaneously discredit Arthur Weasley and his bill for Muggle Protection when it was found to have been her causing muggleborn deaths. He hadn’t known it was a basilisk, though it likely wouldn’t have changed his mind.

He hadn’t worried about the situation in Hogwarts because only muggleborns would die and he thought that was a positive. He had decided to use the chaos to get rid of Dumbledore and had threatened the families of the other governors to achieve this. He’d known Hagrid was innocent of opening the Chamber and killing Myrtle Warren, but had found it a good way of getting one of Dumbledore’s lackeys out of the way. He hadn’t expected the diary to try to kill Ginny Weasley, but he thought one less Weasley in the world was a benefit. He also hadn’t known that it would try to bring Voldemort back to life.

Healer Roth motioned that Mr Malfoy’s health was fine, so Questioner Willis continued. Lucius Malfoy had knowingly and willingly become a Death Eater because he agreed with the ideals of pureblood and dark magic supremacy and saw the opportunity to raise his own station by becoming the right hand of the Dark Lord. And with his ruthlessness, political position, and intelligence, he’d been highly placed in Voldemort’s forces, often leading them in battle and raids. He’d falsely claimed to be under the imperius curse and had achieved this by bribing Ministry officials. During the in-between years, he’d truly believed that Voldemort was dead, so contented himself with promoting the pureblood agenda through politics. He’d hoped, at one time, that Harry’s defeat of Voldemort was a sign that he himself was an even stronger dark wizard, and would become the future Dark Lord, and had been bitterly disappointed that that wasn’t the case.

Lucius Malfoy’s loyalty was to the dark agenda more than the individual Dark Lord, but once Voldemort was back, his loyalty hadn’t strayed. He’d deliberately weakened the country’s response by influencing Fudge to believe that Dumbledore was after his position and Harry was just an attention seeking brat, using the time to weaken their reputations and move the dark into better positions using Ministry intelligence. He had used his influence with Fudge to gain access to the Department of Mysteries and had cast the imperius curse on two people to try and get the prophecy. He’d then led the ambush to get it from Harry once Voldemort had lured him there.

After Voldemort had broken him out of Azkaban, Lucius Malfoy had worked hard to try and regain his favour, working within the Ministry on policy and arranging the politically motivated kidnappings and murders. He had fully intended to hand Harry and the others over to be killed. He’d attended the battle at Hogwarts intending to fight but had been sidetracked when Draco Malfoy had failed to turn up at their side as expected. He’d spent most of the battle looking for his son, though he’d fought against anyone in his way. He hadn’t been too worried about the battle, because he’d been sure Voldemort would win.

As soon as she’d got the necessary statements from him, Questioner Willis ordered Potion Master Shafiq to supply him with the antidote. The witch did so at once and Healer Roth began another barrage of charms. “The patient is emotionally unsettled but his health remains stable.”

Uncharacteristically, Lucius Malfoy swore at him viciously. He was immediately silenced by Questioner Willis.

“So I see.” She said a little wryly. “With his own truth-potioned testimony given, I think we can have no doubt that Lucius Malfoy is indeed guilty. The jury will discuss his sentence.” And the barriers raised again without further ado.

Harry sat, stunned. Lucius Malfoy had admitted to a lot. Harry had known, abstractly, that the Death Eaters had done awful things in the previous war, just as awful as the things they’d done in this one, but it was different to hear someone admit to murder, torture, coercion, sabotage, and many other crimes, and know that he’d been let off to live a comfortable life as a member of the gentry because he’d paid a few people. He’d known that Lucius Malfoy was a bad man, but it hadn’t quite sunken in just how bad. Everything had been deliberate, calculated for his own social improvement, and sometimes just because he enjoyed it. He had deliberately sent the diary to Hogwarts, intending it to kill all the muggleborn children, over his rival’s proposed legal bill. It made him feel sick. It sickened him further that Mr Malfoy was only one of many other people who had claimed the imperius and had been living as part of their society ever since.

Questioner Willis called their attention again after an indeterminable length of time and announced, without making a fuss of it, that Lucius Malfoy was being sentenced to life in Azkaban without the possibility of parole. Parole would have been an option if he weren’t at very high risk of reoffending, especially as his crimes extended throughout the years with no war. The man himself looked like he might pass out and the cameras in the upper gallery were flashing madly. His lawyer, Mr Finchley, looked like he must be sick, and Harry wondered how badly he was regretting having called Harry to the stand. Perhaps this would have been his sentence anyway, but Harry doubted it, since otherwise they would not have used the Veritaserum and only the charges they had adequate proof for would have stuck.

He felt guilty, for a moment, that someone, even Lucius Malfoy, would face life in the absolute Hell that was Azkaban because of Harry’s testimony, but he shook it off quickly. This was the punishment the law had decided for the crimes that Mr Malfoy had actually committed. Harry’s testimony only helped bring them to light. It wasn’t his fault that Mr Malfoy had committed the crimes, and it wasn’t his fault that Azkaban was a terrible, terrible place. A small, darker part of Harry was feeling satisfied that his enemy would never trouble him or his again. He took a sip of his pumpkin juice and watched the aurors march Lucius Malfoy away, the man still silenced and unsteady on his feet. Yes, it felt good knowing that Lucius Malfoy could never hurt anyone again.

Harry finished his pumpkin juice and then the rest of the sandwiches. Now the stress of the trial was over, he was realising how hungry he was. Mr Malfoy’s trial hadn’t been short either. As he ate, Questioner Willis declared the end of the Wizengamot session, and the assembled jury began filing out, as did the spectators. Harry considered making a run for it now and braving the crowds, but hoped that if he waited a while longer, he could miss the worst of them. Of course, there were bound to be a persistent few, especially the press, who would hang around for longer in the hopes of catching him, but the fewer the better.

Unsurprisingly, one of their number was Rita Skeeter. Harry thought a cockroach might have suited her better as an animagus form because, through everything, she only ever seemed to profit. “Harry! Harry Potter!” She cried, as he came into the Ministry atrium, on his way to the Floos, “Can you comment on the Malfoy trials? Why did you choose to speak for them?” Her shout had drawn the attention of everyone else in the atrium and soon they were flooding him with similar questions. As soon as they’d started, a couple of aurors jumped into position and maintained a barrier around Harry.

He sighed. Well, he’d been expecting a few questions. “I chose to speak at the Malfoy trials because I had relevant information to give. For Narcissa Malfoy’s trial, she helped me and likely saved my life, and I felt that the jury should know that in order to judge her fairly along with all the other information. For Draco Malfoy, I had a perspective on his actions at the Astronomy Tower and on Dumbledore’s death that others didn’t. As for Lucius Malfoy, I had no official testimony to give but agreed to stay available for additional questioning should either side wish to call me. I had, perhaps mistakenly, thought that I didn’t have much to contribute that others hadn’t already said.”

“What do you think about the verdicts?” Someone else cried.

“I’m pleased overall.” Harry replied. “I think the Wizengamot jury considered them carefully and fairly.”

“How did you know so much?” Someone asked, and there were general reiterations of questions to that effect.

Harry gave an awkward shrug. “I always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He said, then thought about what his friends would say and grinned a little. “And I’ve never met a mystery I could leave well enough alone.”

“What about Voldemort? How do you know so much about him?” Of course, it was Skeeter again. Her eyes were glinting behind her rhinestone-studded glasses in a way he didn’t like.

“Well,” He grimaced, trying to find something to say that wasn’t too revealing or too blasé, “if someone were hunting you down to kill you, I think you’d try and find out everything you could about them too.”

Reactions to that were mixed. It didn’t take a genius to realise that none of these people had ever considered what Voldemort and the war were like from Harry’s perspective. He gave a wry smile. “I’m off now, have a good day.” And with that, he left, ignoring the calls behind his back, as the auror guard kept back the more persistent of the press and general public.

He’d almost made it to the Floos when Kingsley fell into step, somehow managing to appear both unhurried but also purposeful. “Ah, Harry, a moment of your time before you go?”

Harry resisted the urge to sigh. He really wanted to go home at this point. Nevertheless, Kingsley was a good man and had been very effective so far as interim Minister. “Of course, Minister.”

Kingsley glanced around and threw up anti-eavesdropping charms all around, which Harry supplemented with a muffliato. “Ron Weasley came and told me that you had both decided not to join our auror program this year and instead return to Hogwarts.” His face was inscrutable.

“Yes.” Harry replied just as evenly. He’d had a lot of practice answering this particular question recently. “We wanted to do things properly and finish our education at Hogwarts.”

Kingsley nodded slowly. “You understand that we would not require you to have your NEWTs in order to join? With your…proven competency.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, but, it’s not just the exam scores themselves, we don’t have the education either. Of course, we couldn’t study the seventh-year syllabus during the year and, frankly, the years beforehand were spent more dealing with trouble than actually learning anything. We,” He cut himself off, “Ron is still very excited about working with the aurors in the future, but we think that it would be better to do it properly, get our scores, and apply the normal way.”

Kingsley considered this. “Ron is. Are you no longer interested in working with our auror department? If education is the problem, we’re very happy to give you both remedial tutoring during your training.”

Harry huffed a little. He could explain, he supposed, that he didn’t expect to make it through the auror training period as a mortal person, but he just didn’t want to. Not today, at least. “I’m not sure what I want anymore.” He admitted. “I didn’t honestly expect to see this side of the war. So, I’m going to go back to Hogwarts, finish learning what I’m supposed to know, and then figure out what I want to do from there.”

“You’d be a great asset to our department.” Kingsley pressed. “And a great morale boost for the people, to see you working as part of them.”

Harry bristled. “Is that what this is about, Minister? Me being seen as part of the Ministry?”

Kingsley shrugged unapologetically. “I do believe that you have the makings of an excellent auror, but yes, I do have to also consider the best thing for the Ministry, and that would be your visible support.”

Harry sighed tiredly and took his glasses off to clean them, just for something to do with his hands. “You know who else said that to me, about a year ago? Rufus Scrimgeour.” Kingsley didn’t quite wince, but he blinked in a way which looked vaguely pained. “I’m 17.” Harry said. “I haven’t finished school. And I’m tired.” He looked Kingsley in the eye. “I don’t want to be the Ministry’s walking, talking mascot, especially when I still don’t agree with many of its policies and actions. And the more everyone expects that of me, the more I don’t want to do it, because being here, in a building full of people who were registering muggleborns as criminals or killing them, who were hunting me and my loved ones, and who got away with it because they were just doing their jobs and following orders, makes me angry. And I’m not sure that’s going to get better over time. I know myself.” He had had to do a lot of reflection about this, “My authority issues are legendary. Ask any of my teachers. So, the more the Ministry tries to make me dance to their tune, the worse I’ll act out, and the more unhappy everyone involved will be. I respect you, Kingsley, and what you’ve been doing for the Ministry, so please don’t ask it of me.”

Kingsley considered him with thoughtful eyes. His gaze was evaluating, as if reassessing him as a person. “You understand that this deal, and any potential others like it, is a one-time thing? If you choose not to cash in on your current influence, you cannot later pick it up again for your benefit.”

Harry nodded. “I want to be a person, not a figurehead or chosen one or whatever it is that people want. I only ever wanted to be a person. I know I can’t escape being a public figure in some respects, but that isn’t a road I want to take.”

Kingsley nodded slowly again before a wide smile split his face. “Then I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours, Harry. And I look forward to seeing the man that you’re growing into.” And the interim Minister peeled away from him with a nod, gliding away with an easy stride.

Somehow, Harry thought that Kingsley may have liked him better after that conversation, even though he didn’t get what he wanted. It was an odd feeling.

Finally, finally, Harry made it to the Floo and practically hurled himself into the green flames in his haste to get home before something else happened today. Grimmauld Place greeted him, warm and comforting, and he sighed, the weight of the day finally falling off his shoulders as he sank into a squishy armchair in the drawing room. What a day.

Chapter Text

The press, of course, had a field day. The next day, there were so many stories in the Prophet that they jockeyed for space on the front page and continued on through most of the following pages. Lucius Malfoy’s dastardly deeds, Narcissa Malfoy’s surprising actions, and shock-horror baby-Death Eater Draco Malfoy is returning to Hogwarts. But most of all, the stories talked about Harry. Every word he’d said to the press after the trial had been dissected within an inch of his life. People took sides on whether his motives were what he said they were or if he had some hidden agenda. Some people criticised him for using his fame to influence a legal process while others praised him for paying his debts and calling for mercy for the youngest Death Eaters. He didn’t think he particularly had done that last one, but public opinion had never had much to do with facts. Most of all, they theorised about the things he knew – his knowledge of Voldemort, what he knew about everyone’s secrets and motivations, the confirmation that he had been hit by a second killing curse, what he’d been doing during the year and during the battle that was so important to bringing down Voldemort. The DMLE’s statement that they kept certain topics from being discussed in order to not promulgate the dark and forbidden magics that Voldemort had committed was received with great curiosity, which rather hindered the purpose.

“I thought you spoke well enough.” Andromeda had said, over their now-weekly tea. “I was there for Cissa’s trial, thought I might as well stay for her son’s, and then I was already a number of hours in, so watching Lucius Malfoy get his comeuppance was a well-deserved treat to finish my day.”

“And what did you think of the outcome?” Harry had asked her cautiously, leaning over to turn Teddy’s mobile. He could have done it by magic, but he wasn’t sure he could meet her eyes.

Andromeda hummed noncommittally. “The lawyer was an idiot.” She stated in a matter-of-fact tone that dared him to disagree. “Your testimony carried Cissa’s trial entirely, without much of his help, and then he thought he could get the same for Lucius even though they were in completely different situations.” She sighed, taking a sip of her tea which was a little more hearty than strictly polite. “It could have been better, could have been worse. If she’d had a decent lawyer, I reckon Cissa could have been out and about with only some reparations to pay. If you hadn’t spoken and she’d still been with that lawyer, well, they’d have bled her dry for one. Perhaps even Azkaban, though that would have been extreme for a non-combatant.”

“Her son was a silly boy.” She continued after a moment, staring at the gold rim of her flower-painted teacup. “But I’m glad they judged him as a child when he was a child. Azkaban would have simply ruined him; he’d never be a productive member of society again. And Merlin knows he’ll have to be if he ever wants to rebuild his family’s reputation. I’ve no doubt he was a little shit of a boy, maybe still is,” Harry snorted at her language, “but if nothing else, this war will have made him grow up. And with Lucius gone,” she hissed the name, “he has a chance to be a less detestable human being.”

Harry didn’t need to ask if she was pleased about Lucius Malfoy’s life sentence. There was something vindictive in her eyes, and something grieving, and he remembered that Lucius Malfoy had been one of the organisation points of the Snatchers, the group which had taken him but had also killed Andromeda’s husband, Ted.

“Have you, er, heard from your sister at all?” Harry asked, knowing he was potentially stepping on a land mine here.

Andromeda nodded, frowning slightly. “I wrote to her after her trial, couldn’t…quite take the thought of her sitting alone in that manor with no one to talk to. She’s alright. A little upset – they didn’t let her say goodbye to Lucius before he was taken to Azkaban.” She sighed. “He is a terrible man, but he is her husband.”

Harry nodded and didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what he could say to that.

Andromeda set her tea down with another sigh. “The terrible part about this whole thing is that, while we are fighting, we can say it’s us against them, but when it’s all over, we have to remember that it is our family, friends, and neighbours on the other side. We even call it a war, like it was an outside group, instead of a civil war of our own people. We took down an enemy, and that’s good, because he did awful things and would have kept trying to do them, but, at the same time, my sister will forever miss her husband, and her friends who died, and will never be allowed to say so in polite company for fear of being accused of treason.”

Harry drank his tea and considered her words. As the Boy-Who-Lived, he’d not interacted with the Dark side as anything but enemies, so sometimes it was hard to remember that they were people too – people who were loved, had careers and coworkers, people who missed them and felt guilty for missing them. The funeral announcements had been very public, advertised so that anyone who wanted to attend could do so, but he couldn’t remember seeing announcements for Death Eaters. Presumably, they’d had funerals, but they must have been quiet, carried out by loved ones who couldn’t announce their love to the world. He wondered how many people hadn’t had funerals at all, just thrown into the earth or burned where they lay when their bodies remained unclaimed. Their conversation turned lighter, but it continued to sit wrong with Harry.

-

He sat at home, drawing abstract images with the condensation from his glass of pumpkin juice on the table, and found himself restless. After a moment, Harry jolted to his feet and began to fish books out of his pocket until he found the one on the Underworld. He remembered, from planning for Fred’s funeral, that there was a section in there on funeral rites and Charon’s crossing, and he wanted to refresh himself. Finding the book, he began to read again. It still horrified Harry that souls who hadn’t been buried with wealth had no way of paying Charon and that Charon simply didn’t care for their plight, leaving them milling confused and impatient in his foyer until he bothered to ferry some across. Harry had made sure that Fred was buried with a galleon, of course, but he didn’t know why he’d ever thought that was enough.

Ripping a square off a sheet of parchment, Harry left a scrawled note to the others saying that he was running errands and rushed out the door. He stopped on the doorstep as soon as he emerged into grey drizzle. He hadn’t got the slightest idea where he was going. Ah well, he was a death spirit, sort of, or would be at least, he could figure this out. But first, he might need his boots. And perhaps an over-robe.

After finding his boots and some warmer layers, putting on his invisibility cloak just felt right. The light, silvery fabric felt cool and comforting as it hung over him completely, like the hush of the early hours of the morning, under a blanket, when you know you’re alone and that no one will bother you. The feeling of Death drifted around him, but it felt apposite to the task, solemn and purposeful.

Harry started with the graves he knew for certain. He stepped into the graveyard where Lavender Brown was buried and found her headstone. He took a moment to tidy her grave, removing some of the dead flowers and a few stray leaves, before taking a galleon and pressing it to his lips. “For safe passage.” He whispered into the metal. He sunk the coin down into the earth with his magic, stopping at a point that felt right. “I hope you find peace in the world below.” He told her. Where he’d sunk the coin, flowers suddenly sprouted. Harry looked around sharply for anyone else, but there was no one there. The flowers were white, six petals like a star, with many buds up a single stem. Asphodel, he realised, though he didn’t know how he recognised them. He touched the flowers with a thread of magic, and they turned to him like sunflowers towards the sun. Somehow, he was the one who’d grown them.

He found Colin Creevey’s grave and did the same, leaving white flowers in his wake. Remus and Tonks’ graves were hard, but he felt ready for them after Lavender’s and Colin’s. They were buried in a communal, non-denominational graveyard in the village near Andromeda’s cottage. Ted Tonks’ grave was only a row away. They were well-maintained, the result of Andromeda’s dedication and grief. He left a coin, a wish, and flowers for each. To Remus and Tonks, he also promised to look out for their son as much as he was able. To Ted Tonks, he promised the same for Andromeda. He hoped, wherever Remus and Tonks were, they were together. And perhaps reunited with Sirius and his parents again. They all deserved Elysium, or whatever equivalent afterlife they saw it to be.

He moved on to the other students. Harry hadn’t known many of them personally. Lily Moon and Sally-Anne Perks had both been in his year, he was fairly sure, but he couldn’t remember ever talking to them. Lily Moon had a nice headstone declaring her a beloved daughter and sister. Sally-Anne Perks had a sapling tree instead. After he placed the coin in the ground, the tree turned to his magic too, silvery bark seeming to glow in the waning light of evening. Most, he didn’t even recognise their names, but apparated to the place mentioned in their funeral announcements. There were fifty dead, from their side, in the battle. Some were students, some members of the Order who’d been newly recruited while he was out horcrux hunting, some members of Hogwarts staff.

Aside from Snape, only one professor had died, Camelia Sigan, who had apparently taught NEWTs Divination and specialised in aura reading. She was buried on Hogwarts grounds, in a plot to the back where Harry had never been before. It stood on a slope before the valley, sheltered by a copse of yew trees. The Hogwarts wards melted around his invisibility cloak like moonlight and he felt the notice-me-not charms that must have protected this area from nosy students bounce off him like rain on oilskin. Harry wished her peace and let the flowers spill across her grave, before heading to his second Hogwarts destination.

He came to a stop at the white stone of Dumbledore’s tomb. Compared to the other graves he’d visited this afternoon, it was ostentatious. He stood for a moment looking at it. Harry’s feelings on Dumbledore were still complicated but, he thought, as he whispered into the coin once more, it was not Death’s place to judge the living or the dead, only escort them to where they were supposed to be. “Be at peace now.” He told Dumbledore, and the coin melted into the tomb. Flowers bloomed all around the stone, white on white. A few grew in his footsteps as he walked away, until he chastised them with a look. He’d question this all later, he knew, but for now it all made sense.

Camelia Sigan had been the last of the fifty, Dumbledore an extra, and so he began the second half of his task. There were no announcements of where the Death Eaters had been buried, he wasn’t even sure what had happened to Snape’s body, but in that moment, he didn’t find that a problem. With unhurried steps, and a sense of deep peace that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before, Harry walked up the hill towards the castle.

Repairs were well underway. The paths up to the castle were clear, the grass regrowing where it had been burned, scraped, or eaten away, and the outside of the castle could have been mistaken for whole at first glance. On closer inspection, the stones were only held roughly in place, none of the windows had been replaced, and the courtyards, though clean, were empty of any decorations or furnishing. Harry stepped through the main door, which opened for him, and felt the warmth of Hogwarts even with the drafty halls.

It was dark inside, there was clearly no one around, not even industrious elves scurrying about. Harry didn’t make a light but walked surely through the gloom into the great hall. It was very different from when he’d seen it last. There were no bodies lying around, for one, but also the tables that usually filled the space were missing, put aside for mounds of construction materials. The charms on the ceiling held strong, illuminating the hall with the thin, grey light of a cloudy dusk.

Harry came to the centre of the hall and looked thoughtfully at the floor. He’d faced off against Voldemort here. This was where Voldemort’s body had fallen when his own curse had backfired. There had been great debate over what to do with it, but the Unspeakables, when they arrived with Kingsley’s ragtag band of aurors, declared they’d dispose of it thoroughly and safely. Harry had been too tired to care as much as he should have what happened to his enemy’s body. From the feel of it, and he knew it was correct, they’d used fiendfyre to erase his corpse from existence. The ashes were vanished, and no grave marker was made. It was a sensible way to dispose of an enemy’s corpse when you feared he might rise again, but disrespectful, nonetheless.

Harry stared at the patch of ground. There had been some whispers of putting up a statue or monument of some kind to commemorate Voldemort’s defeat, but he was glad nothing of the sort had been made. He didn’t trust the Ministry with their statue-making – he’d seen the atrium of the Ministry of Magic and the cenotaph at Godric’s Hollow. He wrestled with himself for a moment before kneeling down and carving TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE into the large stone tile. He debated adding more but left it as it was. No epitaph could ever sum up his complex feelings towards Voldemort in his death. He brought the galleon to his lips but found himself unable to whisper words of peace. Instead, he hoped that he be judged fairly for his deeds by the Underworld authorities and, after a moment, that his soul was whole once more. He dropped the coin down into the floor and flowers began poking through the cracks between the stone tiles, spreading throughout the hall before he could stop them, densest around the areas in which people’s bodies had been laid. In the end, it looked like a strange stone meadow, with stepping stones floating in a lake of pale flowers. Someone was going to have kittens about this in the morning.

Harry turned back from the hall and set off down the hill again. The asphodel tried to follow him, but he frowned at them. They didn’t look as right on a healing battlefield as they did on a grave. In response to his thoughts, red bloomed around him, spreading out from where his cloak brushed the ground. Poppies, dull in the fading light but that would be glorious in day, bloomed in joyous waves across the hills and valleys of Hogwarts, tumbling down towards Hogsmeade. Harry smiled to see them go, and continued down to the Whomping Willow, trailing scarlet behind him.

In the Shrieking Shack, he looked sadly at the mostly-rotted corpse of Severus Snape. It seemed he had been forgotten, no one having thought to bury him. The Shack stank and his corpse wriggled with insects. Sighing, Harry levitated it out of the Shack. It was no good to bury him there, where he’d once almost died and then finally met his death at the jaws of Nagini. He levitated the body all the way back to the plot where the other former professors were buried and dug a plot for him there. Harry laid the body gently in the earth and dropped a galleon in. “Find your peace.” He told his old, ornery professor sternly, then transfigured the earth into a dark stone tomb, like many of the others. On the top, he put simply SEVERUS SNAPE – HEADMASTER 1997-1998, and then, with all the best of his limited artistic ability, etched a doe into the surface. His magic must have been guiding him, because it came out clear and shimmering with a slight silver light, just the vaguest hint of the brightness of the man’s patronus. The asphodel flowers which crept up around the edges were bright against the darkness of the stone.

Task done, Harry headed back into the castle and up the stairs. They were still, eerily so after years of movement. He made his way to the Room of Requirement and asked it for the remains of Vincent Crabbe. Inside, he collected a jar of ashes. The jar was plain stone, surprisingly light, and he slipped a galleon through its lid, wishing Crabbe peace. It had been entirely his own fault, but fiendfyre was a horrible way to die. He carved Crabbe’s name into the jar and wrote a short note “Retrieved from Hogwarts”. Then, Harry used the odd feeling he’d had of his magic all evening to vanish Crabbe’s ashes home, to where his family was. He didn’t know how he knew that they’d arrived safely, but he did.

Thanking the room, Harry left the castle again. He’d been tempted to stay and look around for a while, wander the corridors like usual, but his self-appointed task beckoned and was much more important. There were no more bodies left in Hogwarts, having either been collected by family or disposed of by the Ministry, so Harry leant up against Hogwarts’ walls for a final time before he left. “I’m sorry you were hurt and that your children suffered.” He told the castle. He placed a hand against the wall, still covered by the cloak, and let it rest there for a moment before he began the walk past the wards. He looked back at the castle, and towards the Forest, for a lingering moment. He wanted to respect the dead of the house elves and the centaurs, and all the other creatures who had fought in the battle, but he knew that death, and the Underworld, were different for non-humans. In the end, he wove his ever-trailing asphodels into two wreaths and sent one into the kitchens and one to the edge of the Forest. Hopefully, they’d feel the brush of death magic on them and understand.

Without a second glance back, Harry crossed the wards and began apparating where he was drawn. He visited many graves and tombs and markers that evening, as the sky faded past twilight and into full night. He wished most of the Death Eaters fair judgement, trying to restrain his anger but not fully able to let go of it. Nevertheless, he visited all those graves and made sure that they would have safe passage to whatever awaited them in the Underworld and made certain that each of them had had some kind of funeral, even if it was just Harry himself laying them in the earth or inscribing their name into stone. Where the Ministry had simply disposed of the bodies, Harry had to call the lingering spirits with the resurrection stone and ask them who they were before he could bury them. He never showed them his face and they never asked, morose but tranquil in death. Anger burned like a cold, stony thing in his chest that very little attempt had been made to identify the bodies, and none to bury them properly. They’d either been discarded in shallow graves or burned without a place marker. The field they’d been left in bloomed white, and where Harry’s anger touched the flowers, the pigment bled from them, petals left transparent and stems a ghostly suggestion of the ones that had appeared elsewhere.

Finally, he ended up at the Lestrange mausoleum, where Narcissa Malfoy had placed her sister. He walked through the wards with no hindrance. Harry glared at the nameplate, complete with a moving photograph of Bellatrix’s laughing face, but left her the coin, wishes, and flowers. As much as he’d hated her in life, she was dead, and, he believed wholeheartedly, she’d get what was coming to her in the afterlife. He swept noiselessly out of the mausoleum and stared up at the moon, shining brightly in the darkened sky. Harry caught his breath for a moment, breathing in the smell of summer through the eternally cool fabric of the cloak, before striding back out through the warded gate onto a narrow country road.

He had to huff a laugh at the situation – here he was, a descendant of the Peverells with the three Hallows, walking along an empty road at midnight. His magic was peaceful around him, feeling lethargic like a well-exercised muscle. He wasn’t ready to go home yet. Harry walked aimlessly, not feeling the tiredness of his body, and not knowing where he was but not particularly caring.

After a long time, Harry found himself in a field, at the top of a hill, under the pale branches of a poplar tree. Everything was grey in the moonlight, and quiet wherever this corner of the country was, and Harry settled himself down against the thick, straight trunk of the tree. He watched the moon through the fabric of his cloak, swaddled in it. There were many others who had died in the war - in skirmishes, in targeted attacks, muggles killed for hate, muggleborns Snatched and killed or dead in Azkaban, political opponents disposed of – but for tonight, Harry sensed that his task was done. He leant back against the tree and closed his eyes for a brief moment, falling, without meaning to, straight into deep sleep.

-

“You are going to be trouble, aren’t you?” a woman laughed.

“What an interesting boy you are.” A low voice said, curious.

“They have crossed.” Someone confirmed shortly.

“It didn’t have to be gold, you know? Silver would work too.”

Be careful, little mortal, that you don’t burn that mortality out too fast.”

Chapter Text

Harry woke, head pounding, in a field of all places. His cloak had slipped off his shoulders in his sleep, leaving him in the very strange position of being able to see half his torso and one of his feet. Last night… he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened last night. It felt like an extremely vivid dream. He’d set out in his own mind, planning to do what was right, but at some point, the magic had overtaken him, pulling him to where he needed to be and guiding his hand through complex magics. Harry would have thought that the flowers, at the very least, were a figment of his imagination, but they bloomed cheerily and obnoxiously real in a ring around the tree trunk where he lay slumped.

It scared him a bit. Harry hadn’t felt his control over the magic slipping until it was already gone. He scrambled to his feet, collecting the cloak into his pocket, and groaning at the ache in his limbs. Everything ached like he’d done a day of hard labour, which, he supposed, he more or less had, walking for hours and expending large amounts of magic, then sleeping in an awkward position against a random tree. He brushed himself down, dislodging some dirt and a couple of blossoms, and apparated into the doorway of Grimmauld Place.

He made his way to the kitchen, hoping for some tea, and found Ron and Hermione at the table, pouring over the morning newspaper.

“Mate!” Ron cried, spotting him. “Where were you? You said you were running errands.” He glanced back at the paper in Hermione’s hands. “And have you seen the news? It’s mental.”

Harry lowered himself stiffly into the seat opposite him and almost cried in relief when Kreacher popped in with a tea set for him. He made up a cup of tea quickly and luxuriated in the warmth and familiarity of a good cup of tea. “It was a long night.” He said.

Both of his friends’ heads snapped up. “Harry,” Hermione said warningly, “what did you do?”

Instead of answering, he took the paper from her hands. He grimaced at the front page, which was covered in pictures of blooming graves. The Hogwarts Hall had its own place, a pale flower garden that looked even more ethereal in the light of day. Another picture showed the rolling hills of vibrant poppies, only broken up by the white spot of Dumbledore’s tomb. He laid the paper down and put his face on the table with a groan. “Like I said, it was a long night.”

They both only took a moment to catch on.

“This was you?” Hermione asked, astonished,

Ron’s “What? Why?!” was more of an anguished cry.

Harry turned his face sideways, so he was no longer crushing his nose. “I don’t know.” He said pathetically. “I-“ he huffed, sitting up and taking his glasses off so he could rub at his face. “I didn’t mean to, not all of it.”

“What were you trying to do?” Hermione’s voice was coaxing.

Harry sighed. “You know that thing we did with Fred’s funeral, where we gave him a coin for passage to the Underworld?” He waited for their nods. “Well, I felt bad that none of the others had that and were guaranteed to get past Charon.”

Hermione’s eyes went soft, and Ron gave him the look that pretty much screamed a fond ‘you and your hero complex’.  

Harry looked back down at his hands. “So, I decided to visit their graves and leave them a coin. Except, when I did, the flowers started blooming. At the time, I didn’t really worry about it. Then, I got to Hogwarts, and they hadn’t done any kind of grave for Voldemort, and I couldn’t leave it like that, so I made a marker for him, and then the flowers started going wild.” He didn’t look up at their expressions, not sure he wanted to know until he finished what they thought of him making it. “I still kind of knew what I was doing, was making my own decisions, but I just wasn’t questioning anything about it. Like, it was my decision to find Snape’s body and bury it – they’d just left it in the Shack to rot! – but I don’t know how I managed to transfigure and carve his tomb, or how I managed to send Crabbe’s ashes home. And by then, I’d decided to make sure that all the Death Eaters were buried and sent on properly too, but it was the magic pulling me where I needed to go and helping me to do the actual spells. By the end, when I’d finished, it was like I was in a dream until I fell asleep and woke up in a random field.”

He chanced a look up at them. They both looked thoughtful.

“Was it… your normal magic or the other magic?” Hermione asked slowly.

“The other one. I think.” Harry replied. “Not that there’s any difference, really. It’s all my magic. But… I felt like Death.” He admitted, a little embarrassed to say it out loud.

“You felt ill?” She checked, dubious.

“No, like, Death the entity. I remember weird thoughts like being angry with the Death Eaters and, and Dumbledore, but thinking ‘Death should be impartial’, that kind of thing.” It felt like admitting he was going mad.

“Oh, Harry.” Hermione sighed. No one seemed to know what to say to that. Perhaps, they were as scared as he was that his humanity seemed to be slipping away faster than they could have anticipated.

“Well, it’s just one more weird thing.” Ron reasoned, after a long pause. “Harry did a thing, weird shit happened, what’s new, really?” Harry snorted and Ron continued. “It doesn’t have to mean anything big; magic is like that sometimes – it gets away from you. And, well, if this is you changing, it’s not the worst thing that could happen. You’re still the only idiot who would possibly be nice enough and stupid enough to traipse all over the country because you’re worried about people who are already dead.”

That shocked a little laugh out of Hermione too. “Maybe Ron’s right.” She said.

“Again, with the tone of surprise.” Ron muttered, but she ignored him except for a tiny smirk.

“It sounds like you knew what you were doing.” She continued, reaching out to pat his hand. “Your magic just…helped. And grew some flowers. And,” She took a deep breath. “that was a very kind thing you did, Harry. If you really did manage to help, I’m so glad, even for those on the other side. I’m…” she cut herself off, lost for words, “I’m still very angry with all of them – the Death Eaters, the supporters, the Ministry who let itself be knocked over and then followed along blindly – but the dead are dead.”

“They left so many of them just in a field.” Harry said quietly. “The Ministry, that is. They just left the bodies or ashes. I had to keep calling spirits to find out whose body they even were.”

Ron looked uncomfortable. “That’s not right.” He said. “Wizards, we, I don’t know, it’s important to bury people properly. Or burn them, if they want, that bit’s not a big deal. But leaving a body out… I mean, screw the Death Eaters, I’d kill them for what they’ve done but, y’know, I’d never do anything to the body. It’s pretty taboo.”

They lapsed into silence.     

“What are they saying in the papers, then?” Harry finally asked.

“Bit of a mix.” Ron replied, picking up the paper again. “They’re pretty confused. Some people think it’s some kind of blessing. The marker you put down for You-Know-Who threw everyone for a while before they realised it was him. Apparently, you mentioned his real name in the trials? Now they’re pretty mad about it, but since no one’s owning up, and you crossed a load of wards you shouldn’t have been able to cross without making a racket, they can’t exactly do anything and it’s a stronger argument for a natural magic reaction. They tried uprooting some of the flowers. What were they called again?”

“Asphodel.” Hermione interjected.

“Right, them. But they just grew back. So, meals in the Great Hall might be weird if they don’t go. Uh, what else… Oh, most people are pretty chill with the flowers on the graves, like, it’s not a bad thing. They’re more worried about how someone – you – got past their wards. Mainly, it’s just something weird to gossip about, I think.”

Hermione hummed her agreement. “And it’s quite beautiful.” She flattened the newspaper in Ron’s hands so they could all see it. Her fingertips brushed over the moving pictures of swaying poppy fields and asphodel almost glowing in the sunlight. “They’ll investigate a little, for the wards’ sake, but no real damage was done, so I doubt anything much will be made of it. It’s a lovely way to honour them, really.”

Harry blushed and turned his face away, even though it had been his magic which had done the real work.

“Oh!” Said Ron, looking up suddenly. “Mum wanted to know whether you’d both be at Sunday lunch this week.”

“Yes?” Harry replied. They’d been going every week, even on the days when they really hadn’t wanted to. It was one of the routines holding the Weasley family, and their extended friends and family, together. Hermione said the same, also looking curious.

“Right, just checking. Apparently, Bill and Fleur are going to be there this week as well, and Charlie’s visiting too, so Mum was thinking about doing something bigger in the garden, and asked if we could come and help set up.” Ron looked quietly thrilled that his two oldest brothers were planning to visit at the same time. They’d both been there for the first couple of weeks after the battle, and for Fred’s funeral, but they had their own separate lives and couldn’t make it very often.

“Of course.” Hermione replied and Harry nodded. It made something in him giddy to be asked to help set up like he was one of them, family, instead of a guest. Meeting her slightly watery eyes, Harry couldn’t help but think that maybe Hermione felt the same.

-

Contrary to Harry’s hopes, discussion about the grave flowers was still going by Sunday, when it was time for Weasley Sunday lunch. He’d done his own reading, and of course Hermione had looked into it too, and together they’d found the explanation in one of Hecate’s books that the more a deity or spirit acted in accordance with their domain, the stronger their magic towards their goal. A second part said that their divine magic always left traces in the natural world, which were stronger when they were actively working magic. Even just standing, Persephone would always cause flowers to bloom above ground, the air around Poseidon would always smell of the sea, Zeus would always be surrounded by static. They guessed that, even mostly mortal, Harry had accidentally tapped into his future domain so powerfully that the asphodel flowers were his divine trace. Unfortunately, the edge of the Underworld in his magic was strong enough that the investigating aurors had picked up on it, and it had whipped the wizarding world into a gossiping frenzy.

“Word around the Ministry is that Death himself grieved the battle and wandered around the burial sites.” Arthur Weasley said casually, helping Harry and the others levitate out the large wooden tables into the garden. “Of course, some people are saying it was a necromancer, marking them out for the future, but the aurors confirmed that the bodies themselves weren’t tampered with, even though some of the tombs or gravestones appear to be new.”

Harry coughed awkwardly, while Ron and Hermione shot him meaningful looks. He hadn’t yet confessed his part in this.

“So, no real idea who did it?” Asked Bill, floating the tent covering over and arranging it above them with an enviable ease.

“No, they’re absolutely stumped.” Mr Weasley sounded oddly gleeful. “They have no idea who could have done it. They thought, for a while, it must have been one of the Death Eaters or a family member of one of them, because apparently there were some unidentified bodies who were then identified, but none of them would have left flowers for Dumbledore. And the magic! No, they’re all stuck up in meeting rooms throwing out increasingly ridiculous ideas.”

Hermione sniffed. “Don’t they have anything better to do?” She asked. “There are still Death Eaters out there, after all.”

Mr Weasley sobered but it was Bill who answered for him. “What do Ministry workers, who also worked under Voldemort, care about fleeing Death Eaters, when there’s someone who could get through their own wards? It’s all about the self-motivation.” Bill’s voice was surprisingly cutting.

Mr Weasley pulled into himself a little and Bill rounded the table to put a large hand on his shoulder. “You know I didn’t mean you, Dad. You were doing everything you could. You know the type I was talking about.”

Mr Weasley straightened his shoulders and clapped Bill’s hand with his own. “I do, indeed. Some of them… There’s a rotten lot still working there. And Bill’s right.” He said, turning back to Hermione. “They’re putting a lot of pressure on the aurors over this. Someone who can get past all those wards makes the average wix very nervous.”

Guilt curdled in Harry’s stomach. He hadn’t meant to make a public problem which would drag the attention of the law enforcement away.

Hermione must have seen it because she spoke up forcefully. “Then it’s the fault of the aurors for letting themselves be pressured. If they’re spending all their time looking for someone who didn’t hurt anyone but might have the ability to instead of people who actually did hurt a lot of people, that’s their fault. And whoever is in charge of them.”

“Hmm, well said, Hermione.” Mr Weasley considered. “Of course, the politics of the Ministry is a bit more complicated than all that, but yes, the people in charge being nervous doesn’t mean they should allow that to get in the way of proper law enforcement procedures.”

Harry relaxed a little, until he found Bill’s sharp eyes flicking between him and Hermione speculatively and tensed right back up automatically.

Bill’s eyes narrowed and he waited until Mr Weasley went back inside for the cutlery before turning to them. “Spill.” He said gruffly.

Harry deflated a little. “We were going to bring it up later!” He defended himself in advance. “It was an accident, well, some of it, I mean-”

Thankfully, Hermione took over, and summed up what had happened in a much more concise way than Harry could have managed.

Bill’s eyes gleamed. “And getting through those wards, do you think that was the magic or the cloak?” He asked. Harry remembered suddenly that Bill was a curse-breaker, so of course he would be fascinated about an ability to simply walk through wards.

“A bit of both?” Harry wasn’t entirely sure. “They’re both Death magic, Underworld magic, so…”

Bill snorted. “Best of luck getting to your vaults then.” He said, and Harry realised he hadn’t told the Weasleys about what happened at Gringotts. “Goblins are a bit touchy about Death Magic, and they already don’t like you. There was some kind of upheaval at the bank a little while back, about clients and Death Magic, I’m not really sure about the particulars and even if I were, I couldn’t tell you, but they’re on high alert right now.”

Harry and Hermione exchanged glances and Bill looked at them with steadily rising eyebrows. He crossed his arms and leant against the edge of the table, before letting out a deep sigh. “That was you.” He didn’t even phrase it as a question, which was fair.

Harry shrugged awkwardly. “Guilty?” He replied. “It worked out okay in the end, though they did get the assessing stone out.”

Bill’s eyes widened but he didn’t interrupt.

“And then their patron replied saying I’m fine and to tell me to stop getting myself into trouble, and that may have caused a bit of a fuss.”

Bill looked like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sigh. “Yes, I’d imagine that would.” In the end he snorted, “I doubt even their patron could get you to keep yourself out of trouble.” He seemed fondly amused, even as Harry wanted to shrink into himself. “Trouble follows you like a clingy crup.”

He wasn’t wrong. If there was something going wrong, it was either happening to Harry or he’d caused it. He didn’t know what was showing in his face, but Bill came and knocked his shoulder gently. “Not your fault.” The older wizard said, and then teasingly, “Though if you do end up starting some kind of goblin revolt, could you owl me before I go into work?”

Harry laughed, even though his heart wasn’t fully in it. Bill’s words had hit slightly too close to home. The wizard himself went back into the house, leaving Harry with Hermione, the faint shouts of Ron and Ginny enthusiastically de-gnoming the garden in the background.

“He didn’t mean anything by it.” Hermione said, slipping her hand into his.

“I know! I know. But…” Harry trailed off.

“But it was true and a little hurtful.” She finished for him. “But, he was right that it’s not your fault. You only control what you do, not how other people act or even how they react to you. You did something good, visiting those graves, and it’s the aurors’ and the DMLE’s fault that they’re overreacting to it. You went to Gringotts, as you are allowed to do, and how the goblins reacted is up to them. Voldemort, all of it… None of it’s your fault, Harry.”

He squeezed her hand and rested his head on her shoulder. Often, he still felt a little insecure about his height and that she was taller than him, but it made this more comfortable. “I know. In theory.”

Neither of them spoke for a minute or so, both lost in thought until Ginny let out a tremendous whoop of victory, startling them both into laughter. “Come on.” Said Hermione, leading him by the hand, “Let’s see what help Molly needs in the kitchen.”

-

Between them all, they managed to get lunch out on the tables on time. There was roast lamb with gravy and mint sauce, roast potatoes, cauliflower, Yorkshire puddings, peas and sweetcorn, and a small array of drinks. Something in the kitchen was smelling sweet. They all dug in with fervour. Mrs Weasley’s cooking was good as ever and the atmosphere around the table was cosy. Ron had thankfully fixed his habit of talking with his mouth full, but still tended to fight with his siblings to grab the food first, which resulted in an amount of light-hearted squabbling and a few stray elbows.

Harry sat next to Hermione, who was also sitting quietly. The Dursleys had done Sunday lunch every week, but of course he was never invited to it, even though he was expected to help prepare it. He’d watched, from the darkness of his cupboard, as they chatted and ate, and a part of him had longed for years to be included in their family group, even as he hated them. Being with the Weasleys was his first real taste of what being part of a family was supposed to mean. Hermione, on the other hand, had had a family. He didn’t know as much about them as he should – had only ever seen her parents in passing and Hermione didn’t talk much about them – but he knew they still weren’t taking her memory wipe well. Harry wondered, as she ate her lamb in silence, if this was something her family used to do. He elbowed her gently and smiled. She brightened a little.

“So, Harry and Hermione were telling me something fascinating.” Bill started, gaining most of the table’s attention. He threw Harry a teasing look.

Harry groaned and put his head in his hand.

“Oh?” Mrs Weasley asked, looking between them.

“Mm.” Bill looked to be enjoying himself much too much. “Turns out that the culprit who’s had the Ministry up in arms is the usual suspect.”

Harry, maturely, looked up and stuck his tongue out at him. It was that or his middle finger, and Harry respected Mrs Weasley too much for that.

“Harry?” Mr Weasley asked, baffled.

Everyone’s eyes were focused on Harry, and he groaned again. “Hermione, please?”

She scoffed, but took over for him, explaining the situation once more. By the time she’d finished, Ginny was laughing at him. “Harry Potter,” she laughed, “can’t even walk without doing some unknowable magic and upsetting the entire country.”

“Ginny.” Mrs Weasley scolded. “Don’t be mean to Harry. It’s not his fault that the Ministry worked itself into a tizzy. They ought to be ashamed!”

“It does explain a lot.” Mr Weasley mused. “I suppose they were closest with the theory of Death grieving. Which is not what I was expecting, to be completely honest.”

There was a moment of quiet before Fleur broke in. “Harry, it is your power coming in as a spirit, no? Or a god? I do not know the difference here.”

 “Yeah, yeah we think so.” Harry admitted with a sigh. “But I don’t know why it would be coming in so early. I mean, I’m not supposed to – y’know – for three years.” Everyone looked vaguely discomforted. Hermione reached to grip his hand tight under the table.

“Could it be power?” Percy suggested thoughtfully, looking over the rim of his glasses. “Perhaps, if you were to become particularly powerful, then the early signs would be stronger.” He explained himself.

Harry considered it, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know why I’d be powerful though. I’m not an old god, I don’t know what my area is supposed to be, but all the big ones are already taken, and I don’t have worshippers or followers that would make me stronger.”

“Do you not?” Fleur asked lightly, though there was a hint of concern in her bright, silver-blue eyes. Fleur had always been the type to say the things that needed to be said, but she was also kind about it. It was one of the things that Harry had grown to like most about her as he got to know her better. “As far as I see it, most of Wizarding Britain is your follower now, are they not? Who do they thank, and praise, and rely on for strength and protection from evil? Who do they pray in their hearts will come to their rescue when faced with dark wizards? Who do they tell stories about as their prophesised saviour?”

Harry couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t be right but also, he couldn’t point out where she was wrong. He hated that it made a certain amount of sense. There were considering murmurs around the table.

“But Harry’s just a celebrity, right?” Ginny asked, from her place further along the table. “Just because everyone talks about him doesn’t mean they worship him.”

“No, but…” Hermione shot him an apologetic look. “All the heroes and demigods who later became gods, they were essentially the celebrities of their era. They were raised to gods because the public saw their heroic deeds and they gained cult followings, and eventually the other gods agreed they were worthy.”

“So,” Bill continued her thoughts, “Harry already had something of a cult following in the wizarding world for years, and everyone knows he defeated You-Know-Who, and he’s already got the agreement of some of the gods. And he’s only grown more popular after the war.”

Everyone was looking at Harry again, while he studiously ignored them. He licked his dry lip nervously. “So, what you’re saying is that you think all of magical Britain counts as my followers because they made me out as some hero against Voldemort? And because they still treat me weirdly?”

“It is not such a bad thing, Harry.” Fleur reassured him softly. “We do not know if this idea is correct. But if it is, eh, at least you get power out of their stupidity.”

He snorted into his pumpkin juice and some of the tension broke around the table. George, who had been quiet as he often was now, couldn’t resist launching into an overdramatic display of reverence while Mrs Weasley very half-heartedly tried to get him to sit down. From the sidelines, Ginny and Ron yelled out suggestions for things to act out next.

“How are the old gods worshipped?” Charlie asked from across the table. “Not whatever it is that George is doing.”

Harry was stumped. “I don’t really know.” He said, rubbing his neck awkwardly. It really felt like the kind of thing he should know. “My, er, patron, sort of adoptive mother I guess, told me not to do anything that might grab the Overworld gods’ attention. So, worship was a bad idea. And a weird one, if I’m going to, y’know.” Thankfully, none of the Weasleys ever commented on the fact that Harry could rarely bring himself to admit out loud what was going to happen in less than three years’ time. “I’m supposed to stay away from temples and not burn offerings, so probably something to do with that.”

Charlie looked vaguely disappointed.

“Ah, yes, the offerings!” Fleur said, leaning over Bill. “My grandfather was one of those very traditional types, yes, and when we visited him, we always had to burn the offering before the meal. He was very strict about it.”

“How did you do it?” Percy asked, interested.

“We have a brazier of coals or enchanted fire. Like so,” Fleur said, transfiguring her napkin into a large metal bowl and filling it with magical fire. “And before you eat, you take the best portion, the one you would like most to eat for yourself, and you put it in the flames.” She demonstrated this by taking an untouched platter of roast potatoes, which Ron had been eyeing hungrily, and taking the crispiest and most golden of them, still with a bit of butter melting on top, and spelled it into the fire with a twitch of her finger. Every now and then, Fleur’s magic reminded everyone that she had been the top student at Beauxbatons. “Then, you dedicate it, and maybe say a prayer. For Harry.”

It could have been his imagination, but for a moment, Harry was sure that he caught the scent of roast potato, unburnt, and accompanied by the faint scent of all his favourite foods. He looked up, startled, and caught her silver-blue eyes where they’d been watching him carefully. She smiled enigmatically. No one else seemed to have caught the moment.

“Normally, you’d do it for the Lady, right?” Ginny asked, shuffling closer to the burning bowl. “So, you just-” she picked up the nicest Yorkshire on her plate with only a minimum of regret and tossed it into the flames. “For Lady Magic.”

They all peered into the bowl, where no residue of Yorkshire pudding or roast potato was left. “Huh.” Charlie said. He poked at the fire with his wand, displaying a very impressive array of fire-related charms. “There’s nothing there.”

“And this is a traditional wizarding thing?” Hermione asked, eyes gleaming with interest. Harry was half-surprised not see her holding a parchment and quill.

“Yes.” Mrs Weasley agreed. There was some discomfort on her face looking at Fleur’s brazier. “All the old families know about it vaguely but barely anyone really believes in it. There are certainly no temples anymore, though a few of the oldest families might have their family shrines still. I must say I thought it all nonsense and superstition, but clearly…”

“Mainly a geographical thing.” Bill said, spooning some cauliflower into the brazier and watching intently as it disappeared. “Different regions, different histories, different gods, different ways of doing things. They still recognise the old Egyptian gods in wizarding Egypt, and I’ve seen some interesting things there.”

“There’s more than one set of gods?” Ron asked.

“Apparently, there’s loads.” Hermione said. “Harry’s books say it’s all pretty complicated, but the pantheons try to keep themselves and their followers away from one another. Most of the time they don’t mind each other, unless there’s territory or domain disputes, something about different planes I think, but everything gets complicated when Monotheism gets involved. The explanation didn’t make much sense. Maybe it’s a godly thing.”

Harry wasn’t sure which book that was from, but it certainly wasn’t one he’d read yet. He decided to keep that to himself and act as if this wasn’t earth-shattering news to him. He hadn’t really considered this from a religious point of view. Religion had never really been a strong part of his worldview. He certainly hadn’t had the time to sit and think about where he stood on it.

“There’s a fairly strong Norse following, in some parts of the country.” Mr Weasley said cheerfully. “Of course, we’ve got a nice selection of influences after so many invasions over the years, but they all have a goddess of magic, so everyone’s happy enough just calling her the Lady Magic and not squabbling too much over precisely which goddess of magic that is. And even that fell out of favour generations ago.”

Everyone considered that for a moment until Mrs Weasley whipped her head around. “Don’t you dare, Ginevra Weasley!”

The girl in question returned the pot of gravy to the table instead of hovering behind her unsuspecting brother’s neck.

“Hey!” Ron cried, belatedly realising the danger he was in.

“I didn’t do anything.” Ginny said innocently.

“Only because mum stopped you!”

“Still, I didn’t actually do anything.”

The bickering drew everyone’s attention away and back to lighter topics. With some effort, Harry decided to put off thinking about it and enjoy the rest of his lunch. The roast potatoes really were as good as they smelled.

Chapter Text

After lunch, and several slices of Mrs Weasley’s unfairly delicious apple and blackberry pie, everyone lazed around, over-stuffed and sleepy. The plates were spelled back into the kitchen, where they began washing themselves.

“Oh!” said Ginny, sitting up suddenly. “Weren’t the Hogwarts letters supposed to be coming out some time this weekend?”

Harry and the others turned to her. “Where did you hear that?” Hermione asked. “Isn’t it a little early for the letters?” That was true. They usually came around Harry’s birthday, which was still a couple of weeks away.

“From McGonagall.” Ginny replied. “She mentioned she’d be sending the letters earlier because everyone’s still in a bit of a mess and people might need more time to prepare.”

“Huh. Guess she’s confident everything’s going to be ready on time.” Charlie mused. “I heard the repairs were going well.”

“It was looking pretty good.” Harry agreed, valiantly ignoring the reason why he knew this. “I guess magical construction goes pretty fast, and there’s still a month and a half left to get things sorted.”

Everyone cast him side-eyes but didn’t comment, apart from Ginny who wasn’t even attempting to hide that she was laughing at him. Hermione, meanwhile, was distracted, staring at the sky like the owls might come any moment. She always got like this about Hogwarts letters. He couldn’t blame her – they’d been his lifeline to the magical world too.

“Would be good if they did.” Harry said, after a moment. “Gonna need to catch up a bit. I don’t even remember anything from sixth year at this point.”

“Right?!” Ginny exclaimed, flopping on her side towards him. “I can’t believe I’ve theoretically done pretty much all of sixth year, because I basically learned nothing all year.”

“I can’t believe you’re going back.” George said, shaking his head. “Voluntarily.”

Ron huffed. “Don’t remind me. But apparently, we’re being ‘responsible’.”

Ginny and George booed this.

Mrs Weasley tutted. “Well, I’m very proud of you, Ronald. And you too, Hermione, Harry. I think this was a very mature decision.”

Hermione glowed with it and Ron grumbled in a way that Harry knew was hiding how pleased he was with his mother’s approval.

“Hey, are we going to be in the same classes?” Ginny asked.

“Professor McGonagall hasn’t confirmed yet.” Hermione replied. “She said that it depends on numbers. But it’s a difficult situation either way, because even within year groups, there’s such a wide range of how much instruction students got last year. And even then, the quality of instruction differed so greatly.”

“Hm, that’s true.” Ginny said. “Lots of us spent at least part of the year hiding in the Room, but some people went to classes all year.”

Hermione nodded. “Yes, so that’s what she was trying to work out last time I spoke to her. And then, if most people go back, it would be too large for one year group anyway, so she’d need to decide how to split the group practically anyway.”

Everyone hummed. Harry sort of wished that the years remained separate – it would be odd to suddenly be surrounded by a load of new people, even if it would mean maybe getting to spend more time with Ginny and Luna. Then again, maybe mixing things up would be good for all of them.

“Can you even imagine attending class after all that?” Ron asked, picking at a napkin, and not meeting anyone’s eye.

He had a point. Harry had never been a good student but now, after a year out of the education system and constantly on edge, he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to sit quietly and learn charms in the castle where he and so many others had died.

“I’m sure they’re aware of that.” Mrs Weasley said quietly. “No one is expecting you all to pretend that nothing happened. It took all of us a long time, after the last war, to get going again, and it was never quite the same. Of course, it couldn’t be, after everything. It’s going to be difficult for all of you,” she cast her eyes over all her children, as well as Harry and Hermione, “but you’re all being very brave in trying.” Mr Weasley leaned over and took her hand. He didn’t say anything but gave her a look which spoke volumes.

George pushed back from the table suddenly and stood. “Thanks for lunch, Mum. I’m going to…” He jerked a hand towards the surrounding field.

“Of course, dear.” Her smile was slightly shaky. “Give him our best.”

Everyone watched him go quietly. George was doing a lot better than he had initially, but still withdrew frequently.

“He’s been taking great comfort from talking to Freddie.” Mrs Weasley told Harry and Hermione, once he was out of earshot. “What you did for Fred’s funeral, I think it helped him. Gave him a little peace. He – we all – like to take him some food and tell him what’s been happening. It’s nice to think we did everything we could to make sure he’s settled and safe, wherever he is.”

Harry nodded solemnly. Ron had kept them updated on how the family were doing. “I’m glad.” He said, for lack of the words to properly express how he felt.

She gave one last watery smile before her eyes caught on something in the sky. “Oh! Looks like you were right, Ginny.” Approaching them rapidly were a number of owls.

Hermione gasped and whipped around to face them, hair swiping Harry in the face. He spluttered. The black specks in the sky soon resolved into recognisable owls and then they were upon them, landing amid the leftover crockery and pitchers on the table. One perched in front of each of them, a large barn owl hopping across the table to Harry with stern eyes. It proffered its foot imperiously, and he hurried to untie the letter.

He ran a finger along the wax seal of the Hogwarts crest, smiling, before breaking it open. Inside, was a short letter, the booklist, another letter, and surprisingly, a small metal badge. “What?” He muttered picking it up. To his surprise, it wasn’t even the quidditch captain badge, which was the only possible conclusion he’d leapt to, but a prefect’s badge. He stared at it blankly. “What.” And quickly opened the letter.

  Dear Mr Potter,

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are pleased to welcome you back for your final year.

Due to mixed classes and increased numbers in our first years especially, we have made the decision to increase the number of prefects in our top two year groups, and I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected. Due to the circumstances, we elected to give the Quidditch Captaincy to a student in the year group below yours, who would normally be going on to their seventh year, if they choose not to repeat their sixth. I have full trust that you will live up to the role of prefect, as a guiding and supportive student, even if not a model example of obeying the rules. Prefect guidelines are attached to this letter, please read them thoroughly before term begins.

Autumn term will begin on Monday 31^st August. Your ticket for the Hogwarts Express, leaving at 11 o’clock sharply on Sunday 30^th August from Platform 9 ¾ is attached within. Please find your way to the prefects’ carriage on the Hogwarts Express at the start of the journey, for the briefing from the Head Students.

Finally, there has been a great deal of confusion regarding how the year groups will be arranged, so an explanation has been included.

All students who attended Hogwarts last year will be given the choice whether to repeat their previous year or proceed to the next one, following exams which will be held in the week commencing 10^th August. For students in fifth and seventh years, these will correspond with Ministry testing for OWLs and NEWTs, which has been rearranged to better suit the circumstances. Those students who were unable to attend Hogwarts will repeat the year they should have been in. As a student who was unable to attend and has expressed a desire to return, you have been noted down as repeating your seventh year. Please confirm this via letter for our records.

In practice, we expect a fairly even split of students repeating and advancing, as most of the school year had elapsed before Hogwarts had to close in such an unfortunate manner. However, we expect the first years to be a particularly large group, since there is a full batch of new students, many who were unable to attend last year, and many students who were unfortunately taught faulty foundations under the previous year’s regime. Furthermore, to our great regret, the cohort of repeating seventh years is most likely to be sadly lacking. To this end, we ask the help of all our returning older students to look out for your younger years, who may be especially lost and confused after the war.

You are due to be taking classes, and NEWTs, in Charms, Herbology, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, and Potions. Your booklist for these subjects is attached, except for the Defence Against the Dark Arts text, which will be provided by the course instructor.

For any queries, please contact me or the new interim Head of Gryffindor, Professor Vector.

Awaiting your owl,

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall

Harry only gave a quick glance at the other sheets of parchment to confirm that they were indeed the booklist and the guidelines for prefects before looking up at the others. Each of them was also holding a badge.

“I’m Quidditch Captain!” Ginny exclaimed, holding up the badge excitedly.

“Oh, well done, Ginny!” Mrs Weasley exclaimed.

Ron looked around at Harry. “Hang on, if you’re Quidditch Captain… Harry! What are you holding?”

Hermione’s head whipped around as well.

Harry turned the badge around to face them. “Um, prefect?”

“What?” Ron cried. “But I’m prefect too.”

“Yeah, McGonagall said that there were going to be more prefects this year because of everything. Didn’t your letter have that too?”

“No!” Ron replied, bouncing out of his chair to look at Harry’s letter. He skimmed it quickly. “Ahahaha, ‘even if not a model example of obeying the rules’.”

Harry pretended to be offended. “Hey! You were right there with me for most of the rule breaking. And Hermione’s the one who set a professor on fire and she’s a prefect.”

“Um, actually.” Hermione interrupted quietly, face flushed dark and eyes alight. “I’m Head Girl.”

They stopped bickering immediately. “Huh?”

She turned her badge around, which she’d been cradling in her hand like it was something precious which might be snatched away at any moment. There, etched on the badge, were the words ‘Head Girl’.

“Hermione!” Ron exclaimed and bounded back to wrap her in a hug. He kissed the top of her head, making her flush further. “I forgot that was a thing. Of course, you’re Head Girl.”

Harry nudged Ron out of the way so he could get his own hug in. “Congrats.” He said with a little squeeze. “I know how much you always wanted this.” The rest of the Weasleys chimed in with their own congratulations, and when Harry pulled back, Hermione’s eyes were shiny.

“I didn’t think I’d get to, I mean, I always wanted it, but-” She cut herself off, choked. Ron stroked her shoulder gently. “Professor McGonagall said that they’d had to discuss whether it would be fair to have repeating students as the Head Boy and Girl, but that they couldn’t think of anyone better.”

“Of course not.” Ron scoffed, sounding ridiculously proud. “You’ve been angling for Head Girl since first year. I think everyone just assumed it was going to happen.”

“Oh, well done all of you.” Mrs Weasley said. “Ron and Harry, prefects. Ginny, Quidditch Captain. And of course, our Hermione is Head Girl. I’m so proud of all of you.” She looked ready to burst with pride.

Ginny grinned at her mother before lighting up with mischief. “Though I don’t know what they were thinking making Harry prefect. He’s probably broken the most rules out of anyone at the school.”

The others all laughed at Harry, which was probably deserved.

“Who’s Head Boy?” He asked suddenly, thinking about it. “Did McGonagall tell you, Hermione?”

“Oh, yes, she did!” Hermione was grinning. “It’s Neville!”

“Neville? Neville Longbottom?” Mrs Weasley asked, politely trying not to sound dubious.

“Oh, he’s a great choice.” Ginny said. She turned to her mum. “He was really shy and everything before last year, but he’s the one who led the resistance in Hogwarts and looked out for the rest of us in the Room. And then you saw him at the battle when he told Voldemort where to shove it.”

“He’s nice.” Harry said, which seemed like an underwhelming statement, but Ginny got it.

“Yeah.” She agreed. “He’s a very nice person. One of the kindest people I know. He’ll be good, especially now he’s got some confidence.” Ron and Hermione nodded along.

“Well, you’d best go write your replies.” Mrs Weasley said, shooing the four of them towards the house. “Best not to keep Minerva waiting.”

They did as she said, scurrying into the Burrow in search of parchment. Back at the table, there was silence for a moment before Charlie broke in. “Anyone for a game of cards?” Bill and Fleur were quick to agree, as was Mr Weasley, and the afternoon lapsed back into comfortable activity.

-

Now the letters had arrived, and the replies had been sent, it was starting to feel very real indeed. Harry had meant it when he said he remembered very little of what he’d learned in his last year of schooling, and a quick look though his old textbooks had him absolutely lost. Sometimes, he recognised things and half-remembered learning them, but others he was fairly sure he’d never come across. Even the ones he half-remembered didn’t make full sense. With a groan, he dug even further in his trunk to uncover his fifth-year textbooks and tried to start with them. They too were full of half-forgotten facts, even if Harry was a little more solid on them.

Harry stared blankly at the calendar on his wall. It was the 20^th of July, so he had a little over a month to get back up to a speed that wouldn’t be entirely embarrassing for him back at Hogwarts. Thankfully, he was only taking five NEWTs, so those were the only subjects Harry desperately needed to catch up on. He put his textbooks into piles while making notes on a piece of parchment. Defence Against the Dark Arts was his strongest subject, thanks to his need for the subject but also due to the time he’d spent tutoring in the DA and all the preparation he’d had to do for that. His theory was a bit rocky at times, especially regarding anything that wasn’t wixen actively casting dark magic, but his practical was good. So, for that, he really just needed to get a firmer grip on the theory (preferably using some of the books from the library, because the selection of textbooks that previous years of DADA teachers had assigned were questionable at best), and practice anything that he hadn’t covered yet but should have done.

Transfiguration was eh. Harry didn’t know half the theory he should have done, but he usually got average results anyway. Though, perhaps, he thought, tapping his fingers idly on the textbook cover, average at best wasn’t the kind of result he should be striving for. He resigned himself to going back over years of theory until he finally understood what was going on. It would be dull, and there was so much of it, but he wouldn’t be in this position if he’d just learned it all in the first place.

Charms was in a slightly better state. It had always come reasonably easily to Harry, but he’d never put much effort in, which was unfortunately a running theme. He had less theory to catch up on, though there was definitely some he’d only ever skimmed over, and was more a question of practice. He didn’t ever remember practicing casting charms outside class since his first year. Hopefully, at least, all the spellcasting he’d been doing recently would help him there. Most of those were charms.

Potions was, as ever, in a sorry state. The only reason he’d been able to make it through his sixth year without blowing anything up was Snape’s old potions book. Snape had been an absolutely dreadful teacher, and Harry wholeheartedly blamed him for Harry’s complete ignorance about the subject, but Snape was gone now, and Harry had the chance to learn the subject properly for once. He’d have to go right back to basics, but he knew he was a decent brewer when the instructions were good, and no one was throwing things in his cauldron. What he really needed to know was why it all worked the way it did, which he was still, after six years of classes, confused about.

Herbology was fine, he guessed. Harry had only really taken it because it was a core class and necessary for his professed desire to become an auror. He’d attended classes and done the homework but hadn’t paid it any real attention in years, which, now he thought about it, was pretty sad. The Dursleys had sort of ruined gardening for him, making him think of chores every time he was out in the greenhouses, and thinking about it now, he didn’t want to let them ruin anything else for him. He was no Neville, but magical plants were cool and very useful. And maybe it was time to see the class as something other than a chore.

Harry could justify it somewhat that each year he’d had more important things to worry about than his grades, but he knew the truth was that he’d never really cared about them. He never could care at the Dursleys, with Dudley stealing his homework and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia telling all his teachers what a troublemaker he was before he even met them, and he supposed he’d gotten into the habit of not trying. But Hecate was right. This wasn’t just homework, this was magic; his dull classes were teaching him to do magic. Her words had been the wake up call he needed. This was his final year at Hogwarts, and he wanted to take the chance to prove to himself, as well as others, that he was a capable wizard.

Unfortunately, the first step in doing so was reading, and despite Harry’s best intentions, he was finding it increasingly difficult to read. It frustrated him; his head hurt, and he couldn’t focus for long, but he kept trying until one day, his head hurt enough that he couldn’t focus his eyes properly to read the words on the page. Harry threw down his Transfiguration textbook and leant his head on it, groaning into the library table.

“Me too, mate, me too.” Ron said, as he passed by on his way to the kitchen. A few minutes later, Ron returned with two cups of tea, and placed one down by Harry’s head. “What’s wrong?” The redhead asked, plopping down into the seat opposite. “You’ve been scowling at these books like they’ve insulted your whole family tree.”

Harry took his cup of tea and cradled it. “It’s just not working.” He said. “I keep trying to read them, but my head hurts and the words keep blurring.”

Ron made a concerned noise. “Not…?” He gestured vaguely in the area of Harry’s scar.

“No, no.” Harry confirmed. “Normal headache.”

Ron looked relieved. “We’ve got some pain relief potions in the cupboard, I think. I could get you one if you need.”

Harry sighed. “I took one yesterday. And Friday. The leaflet said I shouldn’t take them too many days in a row.”

Ron frowned. “Yeah, they can build up and make you sick. This is happening every day, then?”

“Yeah.” Harry replied, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Every time I try to read.”

Ron looked down at the table, or rather, at Harry’s hand holding his glasses on the table. “When was the last time you got new glasses?” He asked. “You’ve been wearing those ratty ones as long as I remember.”

It was true that the frames of Harry’s glasses were looking rather scuffed. Repairing charms were excellent, but there was only so much they could do after years of use and abuse. “Uh, I don’t even know.” Harry said. He had a strong suspicion that these were the same glasses he’d started Hogwarts with, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to admit that to Ron.

“You probably need new ones then.” Ron said sensibly. “Percy used to get really bad headaches before he found out he needed glasses. Maybe that’ll help.”

Harry really should have thought of that himself. In retrospect, that would explain a lot of his trouble trying to get through these books. “Uh, yeah, probably.” He grimaced. “Um, I haven’t… Where do you get new glasses? You know, in the wizarding world?”

“Oh!” Ron looked surprised and then chagrined. “Yeah, I guess it would never have come up. Huh. Generally, through St Mungo’s. There’s the odd shop around that does glasses, but most people prefer actual healers doing the job for anything to do with eyes. Delicate and all, and lots that can go wrong with magic.”

Harry grimaced again. He’d been putting off following through on Andromeda’s suggestion to seek out a medical appointment at St Mungo’s, but it looked like his streak of avoidance was forcibly being drawn to an end by his still-blurred vision. He sighed. “Right. I’d probably best make an appointment then.”

Chapter Text

With the combined help of Mrs Weasley and Andromeda Tonks, Harry managed to make an appointment for the 27^th. Andromeda had advised him to take private healthcare, rather than the universal healthcare offered to all British wixen, for both speed and privacy reasons. After going through the price list with her, Harry agreed. Even private healthcare wasn’t very expensive here, especially for appointments rather than hospital stays. Andromeda was also right that he had a better chance of retaining his privacy if there was only one healer with access to him and his notes. Healers were supposed to retain their patients’ privacy, but people were people, and ‘accidents’ with records happened. They’d booked him in for a full physical and magical health exam, as well as the eye test, since his only healthcare had been at Hogwarts and the records didn’t transfer unless the patient had ongoing health conditions. Harry had been worried about the magical health exam, given his slowly but surely changing magic, but Andromeda had reminded him of her concerns regarding his upbringing.

Harry flooed to St Mungo’s five minutes before his 11am appointment and followed the instructions he’d been sent up to Healer Oswald’s office on the 3^rd floor. He passed the sign for ‘Private Medical Care’ and checked in with the receptionist at the desk, who was staring a little too widely at Harry to fully pull off professional, but managed to direct him to be seated in the waiting room until he was called. Harry picked at the cuffs of his robes while he waited. He wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this, though both Andromeda and Mrs Weasley had walked him through it multiple times, and the nerves were starting to get to him. Harry was sure he hadn’t felt this jittery walking to his death. That had felt like peace and resolve. And had involved considerably less waiting.

“Mr Potter.” A man’s voice called, the receptionist. Harry was glad he was the only one in the waiting room, or he was sure that would have drawn everyone’s attention. “Healer Oswald is ready to see you now.”

Harry followed him down the corridor, where he was directed to a door. He wasn’t sure whether to knock or not, so did, and was greeted with a “Come in.”

Inside the room, a slim witch in her thirties was seated at a desk. She wasn’t wearing the lime green robes of a St Mungo’s healer, but pastel blue ones of a similar cut. Her eyes were dark and sharp, assessing him. “Mr. Potter.” She greeted. “Please close the door and take a seat.” He did. “I understand that you’re here for a full physical and magical scan, as well as an eye exam.” She checked her notes and looked at him expectantly.

“I am.” He agreed.

“Okay, that will be fine. Before we begin, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions so that I know if there are areas I need to focus on. Now, have you been experiencing any symptoms out of the ordinary? What led you to make an appointment?”

“Um.” Harry hadn’t been expecting this. “For my eyes, I keep getting headaches when I try to read, and I can’t focus on the words properly.” She nodded as he spoke, making notes. “My body feels normal, fine I guess, but a lot has happened. And my magic has started to feel a lot better.”

“Better?” Healer Oswald asked, looking up sharply. “Any reason why?”

Harry grimaced. He was no longer a horcrux, for one. “I’ve been using it more.” He said. “And more casually. Andr- uh, someone said that they think I might have been supressing it somewhat.”

The healer’s lips pursed briefly. “We’ll start with that immediately then.” She said, rising to her feet. “I’d like to ask you more questions about that, and I certainly shall after the scans, but for now I’d prefer to get the scan done.” She gestured for Harry to rise and pointed him to a raised stone pedestal surrounded by loops of joined runes. “Stand on there. If you are able, focus on your magic and drawing it out of your core. If you are not able, do not worry. I will be casting scans on you. Some will have a visible result, some will not. You do not have to worry if nothing appears to have happened. This should be non-intrusive, but if I have to inspect something closer, I may pull on your magic. You’ll feel it as a slight tug. Please try not to fight me on this. For my own concentration and in the interest of better results, I will not discuss your results or what I am doing as I do it. Depending on my findings, this will last anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour. Should you become uncomfortable during the process, alert me, and I will end my spells. Please do not step through the rune circle until I tell you to. Is everything clear?”

Harry blinked at her, trying to shuffle through all that information. He liked her no-nonsense attitude, but it left little room for taking everything in. “Yes. Stand there, focus on my magic, don’t fight, don’t step out until you say so.”

She gave him a sharp smile. “Good enough. Hop on then.”

Harry stepped onto the pedestal and felt the rune circle around him like a pressure in his ears, slightly muffling the outside world.

“Begin bringing your magic up now.” Healer Oswald instructed.

Harry closed his eyes briefly as he felt for his magic and, like coaxing a bubbling stream, let it spill through his body. It felt like warm, gold champagne, fizzing through him and popping on his skin surface like miniature sunbursts. It warmed him from within like hot soup on a winter’s day.

“Good.” Said Healer Oswald. “Hold it there if you can. I will now begin.”

Harry opened his eyes, letting his magic keep spilling through him, and watched her work. She had a small frown of concentration between her eyebrows as she cast spell after spell and inspected them for only she knew what, but otherwise her professional mask remained in place. He didn’t feel anything for most of it, just a light brush of magic against his own. Sometimes, lights glowed around him, above his body or in the air in front of her. Five minutes came and went, and she was still jabbing her wand at him, pulling readings from him. One particular pull had his magic catching for the first time, and Harry understood what Healer Oswald had meant by ‘tugging’. It was like she’d pinched his magic between her fingers and pulled it out to look at it. Perhaps that’s what she was doing, though with her own magic, not her fingers.

She did one particularly long spell, tracing her wand around the outline of his body, drawing it in the air above each foot and leg, above his stomach and chest, down each arm, and then finally spiralling around his head. This result, she read for much longer than the others. She immediately returned to his head and repeated the gesture, tugging his magic firmly and seeming to twist it in a few directions. It was uncomfortable but not painful, so Harry fought the urge to bring his magic back to him. She cast a few more spells around his head before focussing on his forehead. Harry realised it must have been the scar reacting to whatever it was she was casting.

Eventually, Healer Oswald was done with his head and returned to the rest of him. She geared up for another long spell and took hold of his magic with a decisive yank. His magic didn’t like that and roiled, even as Harry tried to calm it. Her lips thinned, but she didn’t give up, a firm pressure tugging it outwards from all angles. Eventually, something gave, and Harry watched in confusion, and a small amount of horror, as black smoke drifted out of his skin. It was the first result that was within the barrier. The smoke hung in the air instead of dissipating, seeming to cling to Harry with insubstantial tendrils. On the floor, the runes were lit with a faint purple light. He looked up at her, hoping for some kind of answer, but she was focussed on the black mist, hitting it with spell after spell. She eyed it for some time before eventually dismissing it with a harsh flick of her dark wand.

She cast for a few minutes more after that, coming up to around the 20-minute mark if Harry had to guess, before she stepped back. “We are finished.” She declared. “Please step out of the circle and join me at my desk.” She turned around before he had a chance to do as she said, and slid into her chair, spelling words and images onto parchment with great speed.

Harry moved stiff limbs and sat on the same wooden chair as before. He gradually relaxed his magic from where he’d pushed it to the surface and let it sink back into its usual loose pool.

Healer Oswald continued to write quickly for a minute or two, a single section of brown hair falling out of her bun and occasionally into her eyes, where she’d swat it away irritated. Harry didn’t like to interrupt and ask her for his results, so sat there feeling like a child sent to a teacher’s office.

“Right.” She said, putting her quill into its holder with a definitive snick, “If it is alright with you, Mr Potter, I would like to do your physical exam before discussing the results of your magical exam. I have a feeling that the two would be best discussed together.”

That seemed vaguely ominous. “Okay?” Harry said, unsure but not willing to argue it.

Healer Oswald nodded, pleased. “You are fine to remain seated as you are.” She said. “I shall come around the desk and cast the scans on you. These should be a lot quicker, and you shouldn’t feel a thing, however, it shall take me longer to read through all the information, as this is a full scan.”

After a pause in which Harry could have objected but didn’t, Healer Oswald rounded the table and stood a little way in front of him. “And now I will begin.” She said and looped her wand in a complicated knot above him. Eventually, a ring formed, and began working its way down Harry’s body. On the desk, he could see her quill flying across parchment, writing an incredible amount of information. The ring passed over him a few times, changing colours and intensity, before it dissipated and reformed a sheet of light. This approached him directly and, when he thought it would stop, didn’t and passed directly through him. It felt odd for the fact that he couldn’t feel it at all, except for a lingering awareness that magic was superficially coating his insides and then being brought back out.

Healer Oswald snapped her wand down, causing the sheet of light to shatter, and rounded the desk to her seat again. “Please wait while I skim through your results.” She said, sounding slightly distracted already. “I will owl you the full breakdown of results later, once I have had time to make sense of all of them, but I will report to you anything obviously wrong at today’s appointment.”

So, Harry sat and waited as Healer Oswald flicked through the sheets of parchment, occasionally marking something with a quill, and shuffling the pages into piles that made sense only to her. At one point, she stopped on a section and frowned at it, tapping the feather of her quill absently on the table next to her. Harry shuffled a little in his seat while he waited, looking around her room at the various books laid out in her bookcases and the displayed items of some unknown, presumably medical, purpose. The rune circle appeared to be the oldest and roughest part of the office, most of which was done in dark woods and inoffensive creams.

“Well.” Said Healer Oswald after some time. “I admit that I don’t quite know where to start, Mr. Potter. I suppose I’d best lead with there’s nothing immediately life threatening, and you are at little to no danger of losing your magic.”

Harry hadn’t even considered those as options until she’d said them and now found himself the opposite of reassured. “Um, that’s good?” He tried.

She hummed, unconvinced. “That said, you have some serious magical and physical damage that we need to start on rectifying as soon as possible. There are also some more mundane problems. Would you like to discuss those first before moving onto the larger concerns or start at the top and work down?”

Harry was grateful for the choice, even though it was a difficult one. His Gryffindor courage faltered a little. “The mundane ones, I think. Or I might forget about them.”

“Very well.” Healer Oswald nodded, “Though I would be sending you an appointment summary and treatment plan with the very hopes of you not forgetting. Anyway,” she pulled one of the stacks towards her. “You are currently underweight, and your diagnostics show that you have been for most of your life, though it became particularly severe over the last year. Even in times you have not been underweight, you have been malnourished, likely from not getting the right kind of food. Treatment for this is relatively straightforward. We will look into a potion regimen for you, to enhance your appetite, improve absorption, add lacking nutrients, and begin healing existing damage. This should help with some of your problems, such as weak bones, fatigue and such, but at this stage, they can do little for your height, which is likely somewhat stunted.” She paused to check he was following.

Harry was stunned into silence and couldn’t have spoken even if he’d wanted to. He knew that the Dursleys hadn’t fed him right and he’d always been too skinny compared to the other kids around, but somehow, he’d never considered that it might have made him ill as well as scrawny. The Dursleys had actually, physically damaged him, and he hadn’t even realised.

“I have to ask, Mr Potter,” Healer Oswald looked at him with stern, dark eyes. “Have you suffered from an eating disorder before?”

“What? No!” Harry replied, surprised. He wasn’t expecting that at all.

She nodded, making a note. “Yes, I didn’t think that was the case, but I had to check. In which case, this seems to be prolonged starvation over the course of your childhood.” She met his eyes again, something intense in them. “You are of age now, so I am no longer required, as a medic, to report this kind of worrying result to the government services, but, as your physician I am asking you, do you expect this to continue?”

Harry took a moment to realise what she was really asking: ‘are you safe now?’. “I, no, I’m not, um, it shouldn’t continue.” He stammered out.

She held eye contact with him for a moment longer before nodding in acknowledgement. “Alright then, we can proceed with a recovery treatment plan for that then. I’ll be in touch with the details after the appointment, with further attention to your results. As for the rest of you, your body shows signs of prolonged overwork combined with odd periods of atrophy. Your eyes appear to have some abnormal light sensitivity that would result from long stretches of time in the dark. Should you wish to press charges,” Healer Oswald looked up with full seriousness, “I would be willing to present your results and testify on your behalf.”

Harry didn’t know what to make of that. “I, um, no, thank you.”

She pursed her lips again. “As you wish, though the offer stands. Regardless, the damage should be easily treatable with a short potion regimen. Hmm, what else minor?” She asked herself quietly, flicking through the pile. Harry was concerned what was considered major if these were still minor. “Ah yes, your eyes. You’ve got some nasty strain there, but nothing a muscle soothing potion can’t help with. We’ll prescribe you an extra strength one at the end of the session. Do not attempt to floo, apparate, or do strenuous activities under its effects.”

Harry nodded an agreement to her warning.

“Otherwise, can I ask when you last had your prescription adjusted?”

Harry grimaced. “Uh, nine years back, I think?” He’d been about eight or nine the last time his eyes got so bad that he couldn’t see in class. The teacher had written home and Aunt Petunia had reluctantly dragged him to the opticians. He’d been holding the same pair together with Sellotape, charms, and sheer will ever since.

Healer Oswald sighed. “That would explain it. Your prescription is far from correct and has been causing your eyes additional strain. Thankfully, an eye exam is a quick procedure, and I have your results here.” She passed over a slip of parchment. “Take this to any opticians and they can prepare glasses with a proper prescription for you. St Mungo’s has its own shop, but between you and me, Occelli’s, just off Diagon, does them much cheaper for the same quality.”

Harry took the parchment and looked over it automatically. He didn’t know why he bothered, because he understood nothing written on it. “Right, thanks.”

She nodded and continued with her list. “Okay, eyes done. Now, ah yes, you’re missing a few vaccinations, which we normally only see in muggle-raised wixen.”

“I am muggle-raised.” Harry admitted. It still confused him that no one seemed to know this.

“Ah, that would explain it.” Healer Oswald said neutrally, though she quickly made a note on one of the sheets. “Usually, Poppy at Hogwarts catches those, though I can see why you might have slipped through the cracks. The Dragonpox vaccination is the only one that I would strongly, strongly recommend you have, as it is often lethal, but I would recommend you take all of them.”

Harry agreed. If there were vaccinations to some of the strange wizarding diseases he’d heard about, he’d gladly take them.

“Splendid.” She smiled at him and tapped what looked like a brick on her desk. “Healer Oswald, vaccinations for Dragonpox, Spattergroit, Fiendfever, and Pixie Flu.” After a moment, the brick lit up and four potion vials of varying colours popped out onto it. “Excellent, they’re fast down in the Potions Department today. Now, Dragonpox and Pixie Flu require a second dose in four weeks, which will be sent to you. Spattergroit only lasts two years, and you should seek medical attention if you come into contact with an infected person within that time anyway. There are a couple of nasty, resistant strains going around. The other three all last for five years each, after which time you should look into getting a top up dose. The four were specifically formulated to be safe to take together, though some people have reported a stomach-ache afterwards. If you notice yourself coughing blue bubbles or feel any sharp pains in your lungs in the evening afterwards, contact the Emergency Department. A very, very small part of the population has an intolerance to valerian petals.” She pushed the vials towards him. “If you would, please take these now. There’s no particular order, but the Fiendfever vaccine shouldn’t get too warm.”

Harry took the vials and, gritting his teeth, downed them one after the other. They uniformly tasted disgusting, though each in their separate ways. The Dragonpox one was weirdly salty, Spattergroit was bitter, Fiendfever was horribly cold and tasted of dirt, and Pixie Flu was like blackcurrant, except the aftertaste of iron was intense and wouldn’t go down properly for a few swallows. Harry tried not to gag, settling the potion vials back down on the table and pushing them away.

Healer Oswald looked faintly amused at his disgust. “Not the most pleasant bunch.” She said far too cheerily. “You would not believe how many patients I’ve seen spit them back out. Anyway, good that’s done, let me just confirm it in your notes.” She wrote quickly for a minute. “Excellent, glad to get that sorted.” She said. “Now, moving up to medium severity.” She looked up at Harry and paused to give him enough time to interject.

Harry gulped but nodded her on.

“You have a degree of curse damage.” She said. This was definitely not news to Harry. “I’m going to need you to walk me through what happened in these situations, so I can get a better idea of what is and isn’t treatable.”

Harry agreed tentatively. “That should be fine, but some things I’m not supposed to talk about.”

She looked displeased. “I’m your healer, not a reporter, Mr Potter. I understand your caution, but I cannot treat you correctly if you don’t tell me what I’m treating.”

Her words made sense and Harry bit his lip. He could see the benefit of talking to her, but he wasn’t sure he should. She was a healer, yes, but he’d just met her, and everyone agreed that some bits of information shouldn’t get out.

Healer Oswald sighed. “If you need me to, I would swear an oath not to reveal anything you tell me, outside of official medical purposes.”

“Official medical purposes?” Harry checked.

She raised an eyebrow at him sardonically. “Well, I’m not going to be much good to you if I can’t reveal to the potions department which potions I require for you, or tell anyone if you have a spell or ingredient allergy when being treated in an emergency.”

That was fair. “Okay.” Harry agreed after a moment’s thought. “I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t trust you personally, it’s just…” he trailed off.

“Some really horrifyingly dark magic?” Healer Oswald finished for him. “Yes, everyone guessed as much when the news came out about your deal with the DMLE, considering that it concerned the former Dark Lord. Regardless, I am your health professional here, Mr Potter, so I would argue that if anyone needed to know, it’s me. So, to that end, I swear on my magic that I will not reveal anything that Harry Potter tells me within our session without his permission, unless in a strictly official medical capacity.”

Harry felt the vow settle warm and heavy in the air for a moment. “Okay.” He exhaled roughly. “Then, I’ll answer.”

“We’ll work our way up to the big ones.” She soothed, clearly happier now that he had promised to be cooperative. “Let’s start with the scarring on your hand.” She gestured to his left hand where the words Umbridge had forced him to carve into himself through detention sessions remained. The words were still clear and raised, not having faded in the two years since he received them. “There’s a small amount of dark magic embedded in the wound.” The healer explained. “It appears to have occurred over a long period of time, which allowed the dark magic to take root and is preventing the scars from fading. What happened?”

Harry frowned at the table but answered her question, describing Umbridge’s punishments.

Healer Oswald tutted unhappily. “And you say there are others with scars like these? Dreadful woman.” She lifted Harry’s hand and inspected it closer. “It’s a little harder to deal with because it was repeated so much, but, in theory, there’s no reason that I can’t simply extract the harmful magic.”

“Would the scars go away then?” Harry asked.

“Hm, maybe. Hopefully.” She said, still looking at his hand. “It’s only so raised because it’s a curse scar. Without the residual magic of the curse… Well, hopefully it would heal more normally. And even if it didn’t, it’s best not to be walking around with any more harmful magic in your system than at all possible.”

“What would you need to do, then? To extract the curse.”

“I should be able to just pull it out.” Healer Oswald replied, taking out her wand. “I am a curse specialist, I assumed that was why you made the appointment with me.”

This must be why Andromeda had recommended Healer Oswald in particular. Harry hadn’t known but was somewhat relieved to hear it. “Can you, then?”

“Well, I wasn’t just going to send you away with a cursed hand.” She replied. “Hold still, let’s get this over with.” She held his wrist and placed her wand above the carved words, before sinking her magic in and tugging. As she pulled, Harry felt something foreign, small enough that he hadn’t even noticed it as a disruption in his body, come free. The dark magic oozed out like an oil spill, reminding Harry of the sheen on the feather of the blood quill. Healer Oswald vanished it quickly and went back to inspecting Harry’s hand. The words were raw and a little swollen, but his left hand already felt less stiff. She summoned a jar from a cupboard across the room and spread a little of the ointment inside over the back of Harry’s hand. It stung for a moment before it soothed, like aloe vera on sunburnt skin. “All done.” She said, a tiny note of triumph in her voice. Harry guessed that he’d made her feel doubted earlier. “It should heal as normal now.”

“Thanks.” Harry said, taking his hand back and inspecting it. The ointment was already working, reducing the redness and swelling visibly.

“Now onto the next.” She declared, and Harry realised that they truly would be in for a long session.

Chapter Text

Healer Oswald went after the long cut on his forearm next, and wasn’t pleased to hear that it had been for a dark ritual he’d been an unwilling participant in. The lingering magic extracted, she moved onto the one on his leg, where he’d been bitten by an acromantula during the Triwizard Tournament, but hadn’t gotten proper treatment for it with everything else going on. Apparently, he also had some lingering nerve damage all over from the cruciatus curse, but it was mild enough that she could siphon the dark energy out easily enough. Harry hadn’t realised that he’d held tension and discomfort in his system from it still until it was gone. The large circular scar on his inner arm where the basilisk fang had gone through, she looked at for an unnerving amount of time before simply stating she’d come back to it.

“There are two on your chest I’d like to have a look at.” Healer Oswald said. “If you could pull your robe to the side.”

Harry loosened his over-robe and pulled the loose-fitting under-robe down at the neck to show his chest. In the centre, was the burnt-in mark of the locket horcrux, where it had clung to him and tried to drown him. A little off to the side of that was where the killing curse had hit him for a second time, leaving another lightning bolt scar.

Healer Oswald paused as she looked at it, eyes flicking to his forehead. “Is this…”

“Killing curse.” Harry confirmed quietly.

She raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, instead tracing her wand in the air above it. “Heavy remnants of the curse left behind.” She said, “For obvious reasons, there are no prior writings on how to remove it, but I’m going to try to extract it cautiously. The residue shows no signs of backlash, but I’ll move slowly just in case.” Healer Oswald gave him time to object and then began reeling the magic out of his chest with her wand. It came out in glowing strands the same green as the curse itself, coiling itself reluctantly around her wand as she pulled. The curse residue was cold, as it moved out of his skin, and Harry could feel its absence like the room had warmed a degree.

“That should do it.” Healer Oswald said, dispelling the cursed strands on her wand. “Relatively straightforward to remove, that one. I’ll write it down for future reference but, well, I doubt it will be useful to many people. How does it feel?”

Harry told her how much warmer he felt.

“Hm.” She considered. “It’s an interesting curse, the killing curse. The residue wasn’t strong enough to do anything but was constantly trying to push you towards death. With its weakness, it could only use up a little of your energy, which I suppose is why you are warmer now.”

It was disturbing to think that any amount of the curse had lingered, futilely trying to fulfil its original purpose.

“Now, this curse scar.” Healer Oswald said, prodding gently at the locket scar. “If I’m right, this was from a cursed item.”

“A locket.” Harry confirmed.

“Very, very dark magic, going from the feel of it. Highly dangerous.”

“Mm.” Harry agreed.

She gave him an unimpressed look.

“A horcrux.” He said eventually.

“Horcrux…horcrux… I’ve heard that before, let me place it… Ah! Oh.” Healer Oswald clicked her fingers in triumph and then her expression darkened considerably. “I did a stint in Greece when I was specialising in curse healing. One specific group of cursebreakers there had a horrible time when they encountered one in a burial. Ghastly things. I’d almost forgotten, but it’s hard to forget entirely something which tries to drain the very soul out of its victim.” Thankfully, she didn’t comment on the implications of why Harry might have been dealing with a horcrux.

She let off another barrage of spells, frowning lightly at the results that came back. “This was a nasty one.” She commented. “I imagine it was leeching off you the whole time, trying to influence you.”

Harry nodded. “It was watching us the whole time, making us angrier and more hopeless, and trying to drive us apart.”

Healer Oswald hummed an acknowledgement. “Lengthy exposure to this kind of dark magic is never good. It anchors in your mind and soul, which makes it much harder to detect and remove than those just affecting the body.”

Harry winced internally – she wasn’t going to like what she found about the scar on his forehead.

“Nevertheless,” she continued, “I can get the residue out of your body easily enough. For your mind, only you can work through that. You must get to know your own mind, learn when your negative thoughts have traces of outside influence on them. A mind healer might be able to help magically, but some good therapy might be just as effective. As for the soul, well, I’m no soul magic expert, no one is, except for perhaps some Unspeakables and they’re certainly not sharing, but it’s best not to mess around with the soul. But,” she paused, seeming to be considering the right words, “what we do know is that the soul is resilient. I wouldn’t worry about that too much.”

Harry supposed that oddly, he had to worry even less than the average person. After all, his soul was close to ‘flipping’ as Hecate had put it. Did soul damage even count anymore when you no longer, technically speaking, had a soul? The thought left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. The alternative was even worse – if it was damaged much more, would Harry even have enough soul to die properly, like a human, or would he simply vanish into magic like a spirit? As Hecate had said, there was no guarantee that if he died with his soul as it was, that he could ever reach a mortal afterlife, and he certainly wasn’t immortal yet.

“I will now begin extracting the residue from you.” Healer Oswald stated, pulling him from his dark thoughts, and did as she’d said. It pooled like ink on his skin, thick where the locket had lain for so many days and beading around his neck where the chain had sat. Harry felt sick to know this had been in him, with him none the wiser. Healer Oswald wiped his skin clean, where more tarry magic kept seeping out. “Best not to cast on this, I think.” She wiped again. “This is a concerning amount.” She said after a moment. “How long were you in contact with the horcrux?”

“Physical contact or near it?” Harry clarified.

She looked pained at the question. “Tell me both.”

“Er, physical contact, a few days at a time on and off for months.” Harry said and Healer Oswald couldn’t hide her wince. “Nearby it all that time. And on and off near it without knowing for a couple of weeks at a time over a couple of years.”

The healer tutted. “No wonder. You’re absolutely drenched in it.”

Harry felt queasy once more. If just the locket had done this, what was his scar going to look like? Or was the locket residue this bad because he’d already been soaked in the filthy magic of being a horcrux?

Finally, the dark spots stopped beading on his chest, and Healer Oswald vanished the filthy and stinking cloth. “Hopefully, that should start to feel better.” She said. “Please keep an eye out in the next few days for changes in your mood and physical health and let me know next time. Hopefully, there should be a benefit to each. Now,” she leant against her desk for a moment. “we need to deal with the matters of the curse scar on your forehead, whatever that is,” she said, gesturing to scar from the basilisk fang, “and why it’s messing with your blood, and the magical activity of your blood in general, before we move on to our final matter. Where would you prefer to start?”

It was a little galling to hear that there was still so much to go. “Um. I don’t really mind.” He considered it for a moment when she made no move to continue. “Maybe this one.” Harry said, gesturing to his forehead. “It’s, uh, along the same vein.”

Healer Oswald took a moment to process that, looking confused, before her face paled rapidly in horror. She immediately cast rapid fire at his forehead, which was slightly intimidating so close to his face, and Harry had to look away from the wand waving inches away from his eyes. “Mother Magic.” She cursed under her breath. “You weren’t… he didn’t… All this time?” The horror never faded from her face as her spells must have confirmed that yes, indeed, Harry himself had been a horcrux. She leant back against the desk hard. “I’ll be honest with you, Mr Potter, this is going to be deeply unpleasant. I can see that the horcrux has been destroyed – and I’m not going to ask anything about how that happened – but the remnants are strong.” She paused for a moment, clearly choosing her words carefully, with the face of doctors everywhere needing to give a patient bad news. “You must have seen a horcrux destroyed, yes?”

Harry nodded.

“Then you’ve seen how the decayed magic drips out, along with the soul fragment. The soul fragment, thankfully, is gone from your scar, but I’m going to make an educated guess that whatever you did to destroy it, that black magic never came out.”

With growing unease, Harry realised she was right. All the other horcruxes had made quite the mess when they’d been destroyed – soul fragments screaming and an ink-like substance bleeding out - but he’d woken after being hit by the killing curse without even blood from his scar.

She must have read the realisation in his face because her face was grim. “I’m going to lance it all out, extract it, like I did the residue from the other one, but this is going to be severely unpleasant. Unlike the…locket, I think you said, the horcrux didn’t just touch you, you were one. It concentrated in your scar, but your entire body was part of it.” She no longer looked faintly horrified to be saying the things she was saying, but a touch of pity had crept into her eyes. “We will have to do a full purge. I’d usually not stress your system like this after so many other treatments, but I can’t morally accept putting this off. It’s, frankly, a miracle that you’re functioning as well as you are. While it still lived, the horcrux in you would have maintained its container to some degree, preventing too much damage, but now…” She trailed off. “No, best to get this out as soon as possible, Mr Potter. Do you agree and understand?”

Something unpleasant rattled through Harry like an electric pulse. He’d thought that with the horcrux gone, all its effects would have too. To learn that it was still poisoning him to this extent… Harry wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t been dragged to the Underworld and started on the path to immortality. Would he be dead or dying? Or worse, would the dark magic have warped him into something monstrous? He wrenched his mind away from worrying about what-ifs. “Yes. Please. I want it out.”   

Her expression softened a little. “I’m sorry, Mr Potter. I don’t imagine this was a pleasant thing to learn. Now, or…whenever you did. But the good news is that after this treatment, all the physical traces will be gone. Now, I’m going to leave a patient’s robe on the desk here. I want you to change into it and lie down on the bed. I’ll go outside. Call me back when you’re ready.”

Harry was about to ask ‘what bed?’ when Healer Oswald summoned a miniature bed off her shelves and expanded it to fit neatly in the middle of the room. She pushed her chair and desk back with a wave of her wand, making space around it. Harry looked at her shelves with new – if distracted – eyes, now seeing her collection of ornaments as a vast array of shrunken medical equipment. He looked back when she dumped a clean set of simple, white robes on the desk.

“Change, lie down, and call me in when you’re ready, yes?” She repeated herself clearly. Harry figured he must look as dazed as he felt.

He finally forced an agreement out of his throat, and she left the room, closing the door with a heavy click. Harry mindlessly began the process of taking his robes off, undoing the various buttons and ties, before draping them on the chair where he’d been sitting, tucking his boots under the chair. He wasn’t sure whether he was meant to take his trousers off too but took the cautious approach and took those off too. If what he was dreading about the magic sludge was true, there was no point ruining a good pair of trousers.

The patients’ robes were thin and papery, with nothing but a thin tie around them, like a dressing gown. Still, they were better than nothing, so Harry put them on and lay down on the hospital bed. He could hear the squeak of a waterproof covering under the thin sheet as he lay down, which was probably for the best. Harry went to call Healer Oswald in, but found his throat catching on the words, so took a minute to calm himself down. Realistically, this changed nothing. He’d already been living with the dark magical residue in him all this time and had had no idea. Healer Oswald was going to help him and remove it. It was horrifying to know, but he’d been fine before, when he hadn’t known. This could only help. Taking a deep breath, Harry called Healer Oswald back in.

She entered immediately and scanned him over. “You’ll be fine, Mr Potter.” She said, clearly seeing something in his face. “This is going to be unpleasant, certainly, but is unlikely to be dangerous. I apologize if I worried you before, it was simply shocking to find out.”

Harry shrugged half-heartedly. He had been worried, but more than anything, he’d just been disgusted to learn about it. “And I’ll feel better for it, right?”

Healer Oswald nodded. “That is very much the hope. Now, this will progress the same as before, just likely on a larger scale. The worst spot will be from your scar. However, the extracted magic shouldn’t hurt you, it will only look, feel, and possibly smell off-putting.”

Harry nodded. “Okay, then.”

She hummed in response and, after a long moment’s pause, began her casting. He felt her magic latch on like gentle but insistent hooks all over his body. As it tugged, he felt the bed underneath him and his robes growing damp and looked down to see the inky magic spilling out of every pore in his skin. It came together in clumps, dripping off and puddling under him. He had to close his eyes as it spilled, strangely warm, over his forehead and towards his eyes. There was rustling as Healer Oswald grabbed a clean cloth and swiped it over his eyes, before leaving it there to prevent further drips falling.

Harry felt absolutely disgusting, every inch coated in decayed dark magic. He could feel it pooling between his fingers, catching in his ears, and sliding down his ribs. He tried very hard to breathe lightly as it passed his nostrils and didn’t dare open his mouth. Healer Oswald’s magic gave a more insistent tug, and he felt the residue spurt out of him, like he was a wet sponge being squeezed. He fought down the sudden burning in his eyes, convinced if he let them escape, his tears would come in drips of black as well.

His breath hitched as the steady oozing continued and Healer Oswald kept pulling the horcrux magic from his body. It was so foul. He could almost taste in the air how wretched the magic was and the thought of it polluting his system for so many years was sickening. Actually, he really was going to be sick. Harry didn’t manage to warn Healer Oswald before he was lurching to side of the bed and throwing up. He gagged again as it came out in oily pools of black.

“Let it out. Let it all out. There’s a good lad.” Healer Oswald soothed, though she didn’t let her grip on the magic slacken for a moment. If anything, she tugged stronger. “Just let it happen. Sooner it’s gone the better.”

Harry threw up one more time, just little spots of ink amid bile. He was definitely crying now, helpless against it. He could feel the sting of it past the discomfort of the odd escaped drip in his eyes.

“Nearly done. Nearly done. You’re doing very well.”

Harry didn’t feel like he was. He felt filthy and uncomfortable and oddly ashamed. He was lying there, drowning in magical pollution. Her magic pulled decisively at his head and Harry couldn’t stop a pained noise from escaping his throat.

“I’ve almost got it. It’s resisting. Very deeply embedded.” Healer Oswald’s voice was slightly halting and distracted as she battled the resistant residue. Suddenly, Harry felt it give inside, and winced at the feeling of his scar splitting open as gunk poured from it. It felt thicker, more solid than what had seeped out of the rest of him, and his skin crawled further at the feeling of it falling across his face and down his left temple.

“There we go, there we go. That’s the last of it.” Healer Oswald swiped the gunk off his face with a cloth. She washed his face carefully but quickly, cleaning the residue from around his eyes, nose, and mouth. When Harry opened his eyes again, she looked mostly calm, only her wide eyes giving her away. “That was a lot.” She admitted. “Much more than I was expecting, but all the better that it’s out. How are you feeling now?”

Harry considered how he was feeling aside from gross. His head hurt a bit and his mouth tasted foul from the vomit, but otherwise… “Better.” He said. “Stronger.” He’d been expecting to feel weak and drained after all that, but he actually found himself feeling oddly rejuvenated, like he’d just woken up from a good sleep. Even his mind felt clearer, like a fog he’d had his whole life had been suddenly evaporated away. He told her this.

“Excellent.” Healer Oswald replied as she swiped more of the thinner residue away from his head and shoulders. “That would be the lack of curse pollution. Curses are always stronger when active of course, but everyone forgets that the residue can be potent too.”

Harry found himself agreeing. “I felt so much better once the horcrux was gone.” He admitted. “More focused and energetic and definitely less angry. I didn’t even think that it was still a problem.”

She looked at him curiously but didn’t ask further. “Well, this is going to be a little undignified, Mr Potter, but I’m going to essentially hose you down. Ordinarily, I’d send you over to a shower room, but I’m not risking the residual magic getting out and clogging something else up.”

Harry wanted to argue but he could see the sense in it. Let the curse specialist figure out what to do with the horcrux goo, rather than some unfortunate plumber. He nodded.

“Okay then.” And thus, she began pouring warm water all over him with her wand. It was slightly soapy and worked wonders at getting the decayed magic off. Harry had been faintly nervous that it was beginning to dry on him, and he’d have to pick it off, but it was coming off easily in thin streams. Somehow, the papery robe was intact. The liquid sluiced off him as Healer Oswald moved her wand, until she directed him to sit up, then stand, as she got it all off his back. She spelled the bed itself clean and dry before directing him to sit again. “I’ll just get your hair and then we’re done with this.” True to her words, she washed his hair out, being extra cautious of the thicker matts of gunk from his scar, then dried it with a charm, which she then directed at the rest of him.

“All clean and dry.” She announced. “Give me a moment to collect the residue together and then you can change back into your robes.” Most of the horcrux residue had fallen to the floor and was lying there like a particularly malevolent oil spill. Harry hadn’t noticed as it had been happening, but the water was being vanished instantly before it could touch the floor, so only the curse magic remained. She twirled it around her wand carefully, sucking it up into one amorphous blob, before taking a jar off her shelf and letting it ooze in. There was something unsettling about the way the magic moved, like it never quite went in the direction it was supposed to. “I’ll dispose of that through the proper procedures later.” She said, screwing the lid of the jar on tight and placing it on her shelf. The spot lit up with wards as she did. Harry distantly wondered if all healers’ offices were like this, or if it was just the curse specialists who seemed to have a thousand hidden things around the room.

“Get changed. Take a few minutes. I’ll knock, tell me if you’re decent.” Healer Oswald strode out before waiting for a reply.

Harry watched her in surprise – it suddenly occurred to him that she might also have been unsettled by all that. He stepped off the bed cautiously, but it seemed Healer Oswald had got all the decayed magic off the floor, so he hurriedly changed back into his robes. They were soft and comfortable against his skin, and Harry took a moment to enjoy the warmth and comfort of them. Everything felt heightened, but not in a bad way. He ran his fingers over the fabric of his sleeve, and it was like his fingers had been half-numb all his life. The red of his sleeve was more vibrant, the embroidery shinier, and the feeling of it was indescribably different. Even looking around the room, everything seemed more saturated.

Soon, Harry was sitting across the desk from Healer Oswald. She’d brought a glass of pumpkin juice in with her and sternly told him to drink it. He felt better for the fluids and sugar already. “As unpleasant as that was, the extraction was a resounding success.” She said, as she passed some scans over his body. “Your body already appears healthier. I had not thought you looked greyed out until I saw you now. It is not a large difference but notable, nonetheless. Are you feeling any effects?”

Harry hadn’t known that he was apparently looking healthier. If anything, he’d imagined he looked quite tired and pale. “Yes. I don’t know about my mind or magic or anything, but physically, everything feels…more.”

Healer Oswald nodded, visibly pleased. “Yes, that much residue in you will have been affecting you badly. It clogs up your entire system and hampers your magic. I must say, it’s very good that you decided to seek medical treatment. Even if it wasn’t for this, it is very good that we caught it and extracted it now. I understand that you’ve had this in you as long as you could remember and so you wouldn’t recognise it as feeling odd, but hopefully now it’s gone, you can know the signs to look for, for residual curse magic.”

Harry drank the last of the pumpkin juice. “And it’s all gone?” He queried.

“Yes, thankfully.” She replied. “It went fairly easily. Your magic must have been trying to push it out on its own, for how easily it was dislodged.” It hadn’t felt very easy. That must have shown in his expression because Healer Oswald huffed a little. “Relatively, of course. Magic like horcruxes…they like to cling. But something in your system must have been rejecting it.”

Harry considered that. Perhaps it was just his magic, but he had a suspicion that it might have been the godly magic of the golden apple at work. Did that mean that if he hadn’t done anything, the dark magic would have been purged on his own? He didn’t know, but the idea of facing the outpouring of sludge on his own, with no idea what was happening, was horrifying, and he was very glad no such thing would happen. “Huh.” He said in the end.

“We have only two more urgent things to discuss today.”

Harry abruptly felt exhausted again.

Chapter Text

Healer Oswald cast Harry a look that somehow managed to be both stern and compassionate. “I know this has been a tough session for you, Mr Potter, but it would be irresponsible to leave these issues to linger until your next.”

“Yeah, I know.” Harry sighed, eventually. “It’s just a lot. Are all healing appointments like this?”

She snorted. “Not even nearly. Though you’d be surprised at the kind of nonsense that cursebreakers get themselves into. Now,” Healer Oswald said, voice firm once more. “Tell me what happened to your arm.” She pointed at his arm, where the scar from the basilisk fang lay under his robes.

“Er, I got bitten by a basilisk.”

To her credit, she only blinked. “A basilisk.” Healer Oswald said flatly. “Arguably one of the most dangerous magical species out there, certainly the most dangerous snake. How were you healed? I was unaware there was a cure.”

“Um, Fawkes the phoenix cried on me.” Harry replied.

“Ah, phoenix tears!” Healer Oswald nodded as if it all made sense. “Terrifically difficult to study because phoenixes don’t exactly cry on command, but renowned for their healing power. Yes, this would explain a fair amount. Except… how old was the basilisk that bit you? How large?”

He wasn’t sure why she was asking but duly answered. “I don’t know how old, but the rumour was that it was Salazar Slytherin’s. It is…possible.” He replied with a shrug. “It would make sense. So, however old that is. As for size, about 50ft, I think?”

Healer Oswald’s eyes were wide. “Yes, yes, that would do it.” She rallied a little. “Lesser-known fact about basilisks, their venom becomes more potent over time. Phoenix tears should have completely defeated the venom in your blood and then vanished itself, but with a basilisk that old…”

“It didn’t get rid of the venom?” Harry inferred, shocked.

“Not as such, no. Your results showed that your blood contained two elements neutralising each other. Neither is doing you any harm, they are completely balanced, but they are nonetheless present. Learning of the circumstances explains a lot.”

“Can you get it out?” Harry asked, already dreading sweating and vomiting mixed basilisk venom and phoenix tears.

“No.” Healer Oswald looked apologetic. “I do not want to risk upsetting the balance and having the basilisk venom become corrosive within your veins. It kills very quickly, and we do not have phoenix tears on hand, so in this case, I think better to leave it. I had to know what it was that was doing this to make this decision, and to inform future medical decisions for you.”

“Like what?” Harry asked, curious. He may have been trying to distract himself from the memory of the burning venom in his body, thinking he was about to die in the Chamber of Secrets.

“Well, for one,” she said sardonically. “you are absolutely forbidden from being a blood donor in any circumstances. It is going in your file, right at the top, so that mistakes are not made in an emergency.”  

Oh yeah. Harry had never thought about that, but that could have been really bad.

“For another,” she said, “it explains some of the unusual level of magical activity in your blood but not all of it.” She fixed him with a serious look. “My readings were absolutely haywire.” She informed him. “Your blood is incredibly magically sensitive. This shouldn’t be a big problem for you, unless you plan to involve yourself seriously in blood magic, but you need to be aware that any magics you do that anchor themselves in your blood, are fuelled by it, or in fact are even peripherally related to it, may be stronger or more attuned to your personal wishes than the technical details of the spell. Your blood, it’s like it’s been trained to contain, bolster, and attune to magic.”

Harry winced at the last bit, and Healer Oswald’s eyes sharpened. “Tell me.” The Healer said.

“It wasn’t, you know, intentional on anyone’s part.” Harry assured her quickly. “But I guess my blood did keep being used for magic?” And that didn’t even count the goddess of magic’s blood which apparently flowed through him, even at a few generations’ remove, nor the magic of the golden apple that was slowly turning him immortal.

She relaxed a little but not a lot. “Explain more thoroughly.”

Harry tried to compose his thoughts. “Well, first, there was my mum’s blood protection.”

“Lily Potter’s?” Healer Oswald asked, surprised.

“Yeah. There was, um, a lot going on with that. Uh, so, in case it wasn’t incredibly obvious already, no, a one-year-old baby didn’t defeat Voldemort that time.” Harry shrugged and Healer Oswald snorted, waiting for him to continue. “Voldemort told- no, hang on, I’ll go back further. There was a Death Eater who was in love with my mum.” Which still weirded him out, Snape and his mum, ugh. “He begged Voldemort to let her live, so when Voldemort came to kill us, he offered her three chances to step aside. My mum didn’t take them, begging him to kill her and not me. When he killed her, her death formed a protection from him over me, so when he cast the killing curse, it rebounded on him.”

Healer Oswald’s eyes were glinting with fascination, but she let him continue his story.

“Her protection stayed with me, in my blood. Dumbledore used it, anchored it, I guess, on my relatives’ house, because they were my mum’s blood relatives, to extend the protection to the whole house. So, as long as they kept me, we were all safe.” Harry couldn’t help the bitterness that crept into his tone at the end. “It worked, though. When I met Voldemort again, in my first year when he was possessing Professor Quirrell, the touch of my hands burned him alive when he tried to hurt me.”

Healer Oswald sucked in a sharp breath.

“So, for his resurrection, Voldemort needed an enemy’s blood, and would only accept mine, because when he took my blood for the resurrection ritual, he also had her protection in his veins, and so it couldn’t be used against him any longer.” Harry frowned at the memory. “So, he could hurt me again.” He grimaced. “But he made a mistake, because having the same blood tethered us together, so that when he hit me with the killing curse again, I could return to life. So, that’s another magical blood thing, I guess.”

Healer Oswald’s eyes were very wide, but she let him continue.

“And, when he did. Well, I don’t know how much you personally know about the battle, but Voldemort had offered several times that if people gave me up, if I gave myself up voluntarily to him, then he would spare the people in the castle. So, I’d just found out I was a horcrux,” the words almost stuck in this throat to admit, “I knew I had to die, so I took him up on it. I let him kill me to protect everyone else. But the blood connection happened, and the extra bit of soul was there instead, so I had the choice whether to pass on or come back and keep fighting. And of course, I came back to finish it. But once I was back, and the fighting resumed again, I noticed that none of the Death Eaters could hurt my allies seriously. So, I think that the same protection my mum gave me, I’ve also given them. And I don’t know if it would be anchored in their blood or my blood or both, but, yeah.” He trailed off unimpressively.

Healer Oswald sat still for a long moment, mulling over his words. “It would make sense.” She said eventually, “I won’t pretend to be any kind of expert on the kind of magic that you’re describing, but the repeated, long-term, and powerful usage of blood-centred magics would account for your blood’s magical reactivity.”

“What does that mean, though?” Harry asked. “What difference does my blood being reactive or whatever make?”

She considered this. “Again, not my area of expertise, but in general, certain magics will affect you more or less strongly than the average person. Your blood is primed to hold and use your magic, so they will affect each other. More than anything else, you may find your magic naturally less centralised in your magical core, and more spread throughout your body. This isn’t something to worry about, but you may have to adapt any fine spellcasting to adjust for it. The worry is that magic you introduce to your body could change you, or changes to your body could impact your magic. Especially given the last treatment, you can see why I might be concerned.”

Harry could indeed. “So, the horcrux pollution, my blood was making the effect worse?”

Healer Oswald hummed noncommittally. “Hard to say. Your blood might well have been battling it with your mother’s protection and your own magic instead. But the risk is there. There’s nothing much we can do about this, you just need to be aware that you – your body, magic, and perhaps even soul – are more easily influenced than most by any magic in your vicinity, especially anything you introduce into your body.”

“But I’m not easily influenced?” Harry queried, confused. “I can fight off the imperius curse.”

“That’s not what I mean.” The healer replied patiently. “That’s a matter of the mind and will. What I mean is that your magic and health will reflect, to an extent, what is in your vicinity. Anything that manages to touch your blood, you will subconsciously absorb and begin to reflect. Around magic in general, you will feel stronger. Surrounded by dark magic, you will take some of that into yourself and begin to emit a little of it too. If enough builds up, it would be as if you had another curse weighing you down. Strong magic, cast with enough intent, may be enough to influence your own mind towards that intent. So, you have to learn how to purify your own body and magic on a regular basis, along with recognising which impulses are your own.”

Harry sat quietly for a moment, taking that in. Was this why his magic was feeling so much healthier already? And why, only a couple of months after eating the golden apple, he had entered into that haze of death magic when trying to make sure everyone’s souls were safely delivered? It scared him to think that he could be changed just by his surroundings. “And there’s nothing I can do to stop this?”

“Not nothing.” Healer Oswald replied, putting some of his fears to rest. “The more you are surrounded by your own magic, the harder it’ll be for anything else to break through. I’m going to assign you books to find with information on purging your magic and body of outside magics and influences, and as long as you do that regularly, there shouldn’t be much chance of anything building up strongly enough to have a large effect. This passive sort of magical build up doesn’t happen quickly. Anything active, like a curse, you should draw out as soon as possible, but that too can be cleansed out in the same way. Otherwise, you simply have to know yourself – the better you know your magic, body, and mind, the easier it will be to spot anything amiss. For this, I would recommend taking regular time to yourself in a place without strong magic – perhaps outside, with only natural magic around – to learn the ins and outs of your mind and magic. I have a book on beginner’s occlumency here, which I can lend to you. And I’ll also give you a pamphlet on meditation techniques for attuning to your own magic.”

Harry grimaced at the mention of occlumency. “I’ve, uh, tried occlumency before. Didn’t go well.”

Healer Oswald raised a surprised eyebrow. “Why- ah.” She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess, someone just used legilimency over and over trying to get you to block it.”

Harry nodded.

“Of course, that wouldn’t work.” She scoffed, “You had a gaping great hole in your natural defences called a horcrux. Your mind couldn’t possibly have defended itself entirely because someone else’s soul was lodged in the way.”

It settled something in Harry that he hadn’t known was still hurting to hear that maybe it wasn’t his fault. “I could never have done it? No matter how hard I tried?” He hated to hear how something vulnerable had crept out into his voice uninvited.

“No.” Healer Oswald confirmed, sympathy clear. “You could have given them a slightly harder time, but your mind’s walls were already turned inwards, protecting you from the invading soul. Especially against…the owner of the soul,” she skirted around the name, “no, you could never have blocked him entirely.”

“Oh.” His voice came out quiet. “But I can learn it now?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were actually rather good at it.” The healer replied more cheerfully. “All that magic and mental energy is now freed up. It would probably do you some good as well.”

“Oh.” Harry said again. He didn’t know how he felt any more. There had been so many revelations today. The thought that he could learn occlumency, that it hadn’t been his fault, struck him deeper than he’d thought it would. “Yes, I think I’d like that.”

“Good.” Healer Oswald said. “You can get started with the beginner’s book and see how it goes. If it’s helpful, and if you’d like to progress, we can speak more on it once you’ve finished it.”

Harry agreed to that.

“In summary, on this topic: magics you cast pertaining to blood may be stronger and more nuanced than you intend them; magics affecting your blood may influence you more than the average person; to protect yourself against this, you should follow the instructions to clear impurities from your magic and blood, try to understand your base state better, protect your mind with occlumency, and protect your magic and body by surrounding yourself with magic. For this last one, I would recommend perhaps looking into personal wards and protective spells, which would be both a barrier against harm and unintended outside magic.”

It sounded a lot when she said it all like that, but also more like something Harry could work towards and deal with. He agreed.

“Now,” She said. “We have one final topic remaining.” Her face was serious, even as she dragged another pile of parchment towards her. “Mr Potter, have you heard of Suppression Sickness?”

“Uh, no?”

Healer Oswald nodded as that were the answer she had been expecting. “It’s much less common than it used to be, and is mostly found among muggleborn and muggle-raised wixen. Among the magical community, we tend to take it very seriously indeed.”

“Is it bad?” Harry asked, worried now.

“It can be.” Healer Oswald’s voice was calm, which settled him a little. “Did you learn about obscurials at school, Mr Potter?”

It rang a faint bell, but no details came back to him. “I’ve heard the word before, but I don’t know what it means.” Harry admitted. “My schooling was a little, uh, interrupted.”

“Mm, I can imagine.” She said dryly. “An obscurial is a dark, magical parasite. It forms as a result of the young wix consciously or unconsciously supressing their own magic, usually as a result of abuse.” She watched him with careful eyes, taking in every facet of his reaction. “Eventually, the obscurial overpowers the wix and starts lashing out, dealing immense amounts of damage to their tormentors and surroundings until, in the end, the wix is consumed by the obscurial and only dark, malicious magic remains.”

Harry paled. “And what does this have to do with me?” He could guess, but he needed her to spell it out to him.

“From your results and our previous conversation, I have gathered that you were left in the care of muggle relatives who…mistreated you. Am I correct?” Her face was grave.

 Harry squirmed in his seat. “It wasn’t that bad.” He muttered.

“You forget, Mr Potter,” Healer Oswald replied, a touch of ice in her voice. “that I have your medical results in front of me.” And really, there was nothing he could say to that. “I need you to tell me how they were about magic.” It clearly wasn’t a request.

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. “They hated it.” He admitted with a rough voice. “My aunt was jealous of my mum for being a witch and so she hated magic in the end. And when I was dumped on her doorstep, she hated me for being abnormal too. My uncle knew as well, and hated the idea of anything freakish, but my cousin didn’t know until I got my Hogwarts letter. They, uh, didn’t tell me.” He huffed a humourless laugh. “They hoped if they told me enough that magic wasn’t real, punished me when I did something freakish, and generally kept me downtrodden enough, they could stamp the magic out of me. Apparently, they swore that when they took me in. I knew something weird was happening, but they’d been very clear that magic wasn’t real, so I didn’t know what until Hagrid came.”

Healer Oswald’s stony look briefly flashed to one of confusion, so Harry explained. “They didn’t want me going to Hogwarts and learning to do magic, so when my Hogwarts letter came, they destroyed it and any that came after it. In the end, they packed us up and tried to run from the letters, until finally Hagrid was sent to get it to me himself.” In retrospect, it had been an absolutely ridiculous situation. “After that, they didn’t really have a choice about me knowing about magic and going to Hogwarts, but they made sure to lock my things away whenever I was back over summer, so I wouldn’t have access to anything magic, and it still wasn’t allowed to say the word ‘magic’ in the house. Or talk to any of my friends. Or do anything vaguely freakish.”

Healer Oswald was visibly displeased. “One of the reasons that many among magical society object to magical children being raised among muggles isn’t simply because of prejudice, though certainly that plays its part, but because it is a serious danger to supress the magic of a growing child. You may not have known that it was magic, but you knew it was something you were doing that was getting you in trouble, and that it was something the people who were supposed to be your caretakers hated. Your magic is an extension of yourself and when you begrudge it, consciously or not, you turn it against itself, it fights itself, and the damage festers.”

Harry swallowed. “Does that mean I have one of those obscurial things?” He asked tentatively.

“No, no.” She shook her head. “Most obscurials don’t make it past ten, and someone would definitely have noticed given your time at Hogwarts. You have the preliminary stages of one, which we call Suppression Sickness, but we haven’t had a full obscurial since the seventies and it’s classified as a national emergency.”

Harry felt his eyes blow wide. “Why?”

Healer Oswald grimaced. “Mostly because an obscurial threatens the Statute of Secrecy with their uncontrolled magic, partially because the magic is almost always harmful, and a small part because an obscurial in your country says that something is going very wrong with magical child welfare. Privacy or not, if you’d been an obscurial, I would have had to contact the Ministry immediately. Even now, you’re borderline for reporting.”

Harry’s heart skipped a beat. “But you don’t have to, right? They don’t really need to know. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, Mr Potter.” Healer Oswald looked annoyed with him for the first time this session. “Obscurials don’t form on a whim, and they certainly don’t vanish easily either.” She took a deep breath and visibly calmed herself. “I understand your situation and why you’d want to keep your name and personal circumstances away from the Ministry’s eyes even more than most, and I am attempting to handle your case with the appropriate delicacy. But Mr Potter, for a case of Suppression Sickness as advanced as yours, your magic had begun to turn on itself, fear itself, hate itself. You must have, subconsciously or otherwise, resented magic to a degree that I as a witch find difficult to even think about.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t thought that he’d resented magic before, but when he really thought about it, he knew that each year at Hogwarts had left him a little more scarred and jaded than before. He’d looked to magic as his escape from the Dursleys and then specific magic, his mother’s protection, had trapped him there anyway. And then the wizarding world had grown so unsafe and uncaring that even the Dursleys’ house was a safer space, and people were using the magic he’d looked to as a lifeline to try to kill and torture him and his loved ones. “I resented my mum’s blood protection.” He confessed quietly. The words burst out before he could stop them. “Even though it, she, saved my life. Because I had to stay with the D-, with my relatives because of the blood protection. And I hated everyone a little bit who told me to stay there for my own protection even though I never felt safe inside, and everyone outside who was doing their best to hurt me, and the wizarding world for alternately hating me or loving me and never seeing me as a person.” His words ran out suddenly and Harry let out a long breath. Healer Oswald watched him carefully but let him continue.

Harry felt heavy and bitter, but somehow better for acknowledging it. “I hated everyone who made me fight the whole battle just because it was prophesised by a drunkard that only I could kill him.” The last part was even quieter. “I don’t regret fighting and dying for everyone who was fighting Voldemort, but sometimes I look at things now and they’ve barely changed, and I wonder what the point of it was. And yeah, sometimes I wonder if things wouldn’t have been better if no Hogwarts letter had come and they’d just left me in that cupboard, and sometimes, when I can’t help it, I imagine that maybe they could have loved me like their own son if I was normal and didn’t have magic.” Harry scoffed at the thought – like Vernon and Petunia could ever have loved him. But, as a child who still didn’t understand what was wrong with him, he’d wanted it so painfully that he’d had to quash every thought of it before it broke him.

“Yes.” Said Healer Oswald, “You’re not fine.” She looked sad. “That resentment has been eating away at you for a long time, since before you even knew what made you different from those relatives of yours. That resentment is going to try and eat you alive if you don’t get a handle on it, and take everyone else with you.” Her eyes were sharp, though not unsympathetic. “The only reason,” she said to him, voice emphatic, “that I am not considering reporting this is that you mentioned your magic feeling better with use.”

“Huh?”

Healer Oswald rubbed a slender hand over her face. “Contrary to popular belief, an obscurial can form at any age.” Her lecturing voice was back. “Almost always, they form as children, because children are powerless and adults are usually integrated into magical society, and so at least subconsciously accept their magic as normal through exposure to everyone else. However, in cases like yours, where magic has dealt you more harm than good, and you’ve had thoughts of rejecting it, the Suppression Sickness you’ve carried with you since childhood can evolve into an obscurial.” She looked him dead in the eye. “This is still a risk. However,” and her voice was a little lighter now, “you mentioning that your magic was feeling better with use is a genuinely excellent sign because it indicates an increased acceptance of magic.”

“Oh.” Harry didn’t know how to deal with the sudden change of tone. “So, it’s serious because it could be a big problem in the future if I kept being angry at my magic, but it’s not that bad because I realised recently that I actually like magic?”

Healer Oswald looked slightly pained by something in that statement, but she nodded regardless. “Essentially. If you have indeed had a realisation, and come to accept your magic, then you are on the path to healing.”

“But what does any of this even mean for me now?” Harry asked after a moment. “If I’m healing or whatever? What does Suppression Sickness even do?”

“For one, it weakens you.” Healer Oswald replied. “While that part of your magic is snapping angrily at everything, including your own body and magic, it is draining you for strength. While you have it, that corrupted part of your magic is unusable and even hostile to you. Every spell you’ve ever cast has been weakened by the Sickness.”

That was a galling thought, given that Harry had just barely survived a war.

“The real problem,” she continued forcefully, recapturing his attention, “is that it seeks to grow itself. It is not thinking or feeling yet, like a fully formed obscurial might, but it seeks to increase itself. So, it preys on your mind, uses the damage that allowed it to form in the first place to convince you to fuel it further with negative emotions. Most people with this sickness are prone to bouts of rage and self-hatred, making them lash outwards or inwards in a mimicry of an obscurial’s harmful power. Should these emotions run high enough, the dark smoke which forms an obscurial may even become visible. This is what I inspected in your magical scans earlier.”

Harry remembered the black smoke that had made her frown earlier. It didn’t seem possible that it was his own magic corrupted by his resentment into fighting against the rest of him. It felt wrong to relate that dark cloud to the rest of his magic, which sparkled in joyful golden, like sunlight through a crystal glass of champagne. “But I can fix it, right?” There was a sudden desperation in his core, an acknowledgement of how wrong it would be to leave his magic like that.

“Yes.” Healer Oswald replied, though she sounded a little hesitant. “There’s no instant fix. Simply put, you have to persuade yourself, and your magic, that it is accepted by you. Your magic was damaged because outside forces made you fear and hate your own magic; the only way to fix it is to accept that it was never magic at fault, but people.”

Harry sat in silence struggling with this for a moment. He wanted to say that he knew – that of course he knew magic itself wasn’t the problem – but his rant only a couple of minutes earlier told him that at least a part of him wasn’t so sure.

“I want to see you weekly on this.” Healer Oswald said suddenly. “I’d have had you back for check-ups anyway, given the number and severity of your other conditions, but this treatment will need effort from both of us to keep you healthy and within acceptable boundaries.”

Harry blinked and thought on it. “Ah, I’m going back to Hogwarts in a month.”

Healer Oswald frowned slightly, before jotting that down. “I suppose that can’t be helped. Well, we’ll do what we can before then, and then I’ll hand you over to Poppy. I’ll ask her to keep me updated. I’m going to have to write to her and inform her of any and all ongoing treatments, but especially this one.” She said seriously. “It would be frankly irresponsible not to let her know.”

Harry winced but acknowledged the truth of that. “Do you have to, er, tell anyone else?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” She said, firmly but sympathetically. “Your headmistress needs to know, as well as whoever the new Head of Gryffindor is going to be. In case of the worst-case scenario that your Suppression Sickness becomes more aggressive, they need to be on the lookout. And even just for your healing, I would seek accommodations, such as information on which days will be more magically intensive than others, and permission to leave if things become too overwhelming. They also need to know about your blood sensitivity and, though I will of course not give details, that you’ve recently been cleansed of a massive amount of dark magic residue, through no fault of your own. It will be up to them to decide if any of the other teaching staff need to know, but I would imagine that your potions professor at the very least will be told, in case of any potions that interact with blood.”

Harry pulled a face. He thought he remembered that Slughorn was going to be teaching Potions still, and he wasn’t thrilled to think that the man would know any more about him that necessary. Still, there was nothing he could argue with there. At least it wasn’t the Ministry. “And the healing? How long will that take? What do I even do?”

Healer Oswald sighed. “It’s a difficult question. Anything that involves the mind and the personal magic is imprecise at best. The exercises I was going to give you for your mental horcrux residue will help, as will occlumency, but truly healing your magic will only come with use and acceptance of your magic. I advised you earlier to surround yourself with your own magic to keep yourself free from outside influences, and to seek a quiet place away from the magic of others, and this is now doubly true. It sounds ridiculously trite,” she said, pulling a face, “to say that you essentially need to find yourself,” Healer Oswald looked faintly bemused that the words had even come out of her mouth, “but you do. Find what you love about magic, especially your own, and cling to it. Avoid lingering on negative feelings as best you can, and if you do feel like you’re about to lose control, tell someone if you have time to do so and remove yourself from the situation.”

Harry nodded mutely.

“The good news,” the healer said, “is that that should be us done for today. I’ll owl you with a summary of today’s session, your treatment plan, and your fees. I’ll also let you know, as a courtesy, when I have contacted Poppy Pomphrey. You’re free to leave, the details of your next appointment, should you decide to continue treatment with me, will be included in the letter. Should you start encountering any sudden changes to your health or magic, you can reach me at my emergency floo address.” Healer Oswald handed him a card with “Oswald Emergency Healing. Password: Murtlap” on.

Harry took the card and thanked her for her time, somewhat dazed from it all.

“I’ll see you soon then, Mr Potter. All the best.”

And with that somewhat firm dismissal, Harry saw himself out, past the receptionist and a couple of waiting patients, and then through the floos back home, where he promptly collapsed on the sofa and refused to think for a few hours.

Chapter Text

The following few days after the Healing appointment, Harry almost wanted to feel offended by how much better he felt. The world felt brighter and more interesting; he felt both stronger and calmer. The potions Healer Oswald had sent for his malnutrition were disgusting, but Harry found himself eating much more. He still couldn’t eat a lot in one sitting, but he found himself having a snack several times a day. Kreacher had taken the list of recommended foods that the consulting nutritionist had sent with glee, and promptly took the opportunity to force food onto Harry at every available opportunity with the valid but irritating excuse that Harry’s healer demanded it.

Harry had gone to get his new glasses the day after his appointment, and it was bittersweet. He’d kept the familiar circular frames and opted only for the basic strength and cleaning charms, as apparently the more interesting charms were highly regulated. Putting them on, the world was clearer than Harry could ever remember seeing it, and he marvelled to see the world as it really was but was guiltily bitter that he’d never had this before. Still, it more than solved his reading problem.

With his eyesight clear and the fog swept clear from his mind, Harry found himself understanding his coursework better than ever. Words finally connected to concepts, theory to practical, and Harry found himself zipping through the catchup work at a rate that had his friends impressed and mystified. For the first time, Harry felt confident approaching the school year and wondered if this feeling of ease in his chest was at least part of the reason why Hermione kept herself ahead of the course. Another part, he soon found, was that learning new magic could actually be fun, when it wasn’t all nonsense to you on the page. Guiltily, happily, Harry thought that maybe, for the first time, he might be living up to his position as a legacy, and now adopted son, of the goddess of magic.

He still hadn't come to terms with what Hecate was supposed to be to him now. It was honestly weirder to him that she had apparently always been one of his ancestors than the idea that she'd claimed him as a sort of son. Harry had grown up with the knowledge that his only relatives were the Dursleys, so learning that he had a great-something-grandmother was incredibly strange. He had lain awake more times than he liked to count wondering whether that meant that Aunt Petunia was a legacy of the goddess of magic too. There was a horrible sort of irony in it.

Still, it had been sort of embarrassing to realize that Harry was related to, and adopted by, the literal goddess of magic and still couldn't muddle his way through a sixth-year potion without the instructions from Snape's old book. It had made excellent motivation on the days when the summer sun was bright outside and he'd wanted nothing more than to go round to the Burrow and fly around. Even better motivation was realising that he was now in charge of the house, so it was up to him to set decent temperature regulating charms when the old ones failed, and they were left baking in the old brick house until he got the fiddly charm work done.

The spellwork hadn't been all that complicated, but it had been precise, which Harry, with his dissipated magical core and old habit of brute forcing his way through problems, struggled with. He'd had to learn anew how to refine his magic into a thin but steady stream, and direct it delicately, without any of the strands tangling or dropping. It took him the best part of a week to get down, but once he emerged, it was with a better understanding of his own magic and a freshly cooled house.

It was just in time, because the days leading up to his birthday felt a heatwave that left the country sweltering. Britain, with its moderate temperatures and tendency to rain, only had about two weeks of high temperature in the summer, and as such, was utterly unprepared for them. For those two weeks, Harry was used to baking in his cupboard or room, moving only as much as he had to, and trying to get his chores done in the early morning, before the sun had risen too high in the sky. For the same but opposite reason, Aunt Petunia liked to give him tasks in the afternoon, while fanning herself and begrudging their lack of air conditioning. Living in his own house, with temperature charms, Harry was forcefully reminded of the conveniences of magic.

Still, even the fiddly temperature charms didn’t expend as much magic as Harry was supposed to per day for his healing. Similarly, the meditation part of his occlumency was coming on reasonably, when he could make himself sit still, but involved very little use of actual magic. Now that he was paying attention to it, and his system wasn’t being absolutely drowned in dark magic, Harry could feel when his magic was underused, crawling under his skin like a caged animal, which before he might have ascribed to his own restlessness. It had taken several days of focusing on his magic to understand what he had been feeling, but now that he had, Harry knew that he'd always be able to feel it in the future.

The problem was, Harry grew to understand as he experimented with it, that Harry seemed to have a lot of magic. He’d never really paid attention to what made a witch or wizard powerful, just understanding that some, like Dumbledore or Voldemort were powerful, and some people weren’t. In the back of his mind, he’d understood it as people who knew more magic or knew complicated magic, but he was swiftly realising that people actually had different amounts of magic, and he had no idea why. Vaguely, Harry remembered Hecate commenting that Hermione didn’t have a lot of magic but used what she had very well. Focussing on his own magic, then on Hermione’s or Ron’s, Harry’s looked like a radiant sun in comparison. Of course, this didn’t automatically make him a better wizard by any means, because he had to try and channel that magic into a useable spell rather than a small explosion. It also gave him a lot of trouble trying to keep his magic active, as the utility spells that he’d been using in his everyday life got a little of his magic moving, but weren’t enough to push his recovery any further forward than it was now.

Aside from casting the patronus charm every day for extended periods of time, Harry was a little stuck on what to do. This eventually led him to his newest project – personal warding. This solved the two goals of surrounding himself with his own magic to keep everyone else’s out, and to use a good part of his magic over long stretches. Harry’s first problem was that the only protections he knew were for inanimate objects or spaces, or the shield charm. Still, he had a whole library at his disposal. With that goal, he found himself ransacking the Black family library for all it had on protective spells.

In retrospect, Harry thought, as he shoved another book away with a grimace, he really should have expected that a good portion of the wards employed by the Black family were neither legal nor ethical. Of course, they had some useful collections, as a paranoid Pureblood family who frequently involved themselves in controversial politics, but Harry spent half his time crosschecking those spells in lawbooks, to see if he’d get himself in trouble for using them in public. The Black family motto appeared to be “just don’t get caught using it, and if you do, bribe the officials”, so it was sometimes difficult to tell. Many were useful in part, such as forming a magically impenetrable but invisible wall around him but had nasty side effects such as charring anything that brushed against them. Still, after a few days’ effort, he’d narrowed them down to his favourite few.

Protego reflectandum was a modified protego charm, which bounced any spell cast back on the caster. It was usually held as a duelling shield, but Harry was positive that, with the help of another couple of charms, one which rendered a spell light invisible, and another that anchored a spell into a set of jewellery so he didn’t have to constantly focus on it, it could be workable. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but Harry found that many of the spells he’d found were too efficient for his use. Previous wixen had put effort into lowering the magical requirements on the caster, so while many of the spells would be perfectly useful as shields for Harry, and he might well try some when he went out in public, they wouldn’t work as magical exercise. It was for that reason that protego reflectandum had been mostly abandoned to the pages of history books, since it required constant magical output from the user, even while anchored, while a newer version didn’t. Conversely, the author noted that this made protego reflectandum a useful duelling choice at times, when an opponent wouldn’t be expecting it.

It came to Harry shockingly easily. It had taken days to get the temperature charms working properly, but the first cast of this modified shield charm settled easily around him like a second skin. The warm weight of his magic felt like being cocooned in something soft and snug, and Harry felt it not as a drain on his resources, but as a reassurance. Confused, he tried again, with other warding spells, and all of them fell from his wand like his magic was eager to bend itself back into a shape it had always held. For contrast, Harry tried other spells, offensive ones, transfiguration, and they felt the same way they always had, except for his own greater understanding of them. It was just the protective charms which were oddly easy. The happy familiarity of his magic had him bemused for a long while until the realisation struck Harry, leaving him feeling a little like an idiot – of course protective spells came as easy to him as a well-practiced lumos, his magic had been defending him from outside and inside threats since he was a baby. His blood – the overreactive blood that the healer had warned him about – had carried and enacted powerful magical protection constantly since he was a year old, and now held his own protection over his allies from the Battle. Protection, over him or others, was what his magic knew best. Something warm curled inside Harry at the thought.

Regardless, now that Harry had the shield up, he was reluctant to take it down again. It was physically permeable and now invisible, so it shouldn’t interfere in his daily life, and no one would even notice it unless they were looking out for magic. It felt comforting, both in the feeling of being surrounded by his magic and knowing that he was protected from an unexpected attack, and the constant pull on his magic was soothing, like a walk outside after having been cooped up in a classroom too long. Harry reckoned that he could do a better job with warding magic, and he might keep fiddling around with it when he had spare time, but this was perfectly serviceable for now, and he had things to be doing.

Not least among those was collecting the books for the year ahead. Harry had been avoiding Flourish and Blotts in the short while since the Hogwarts letters came, knowing that they were bound to be swamped with students, but he really needed to get them. He was roughly caught up on the last years textbooks (and hadn’t that been galling, going back and realising how much he’d either skipped over or misunderstood, so that he’d only gotten through the more advanced magic by muddling through with brute force), at least in theory where he hadn’t had time to practice all of it, so he wanted to skim the coming year’s books for anything he’d missed in his catch up sessions.

He knew that Hermione was keen to get her books as well but had wanted to get them together and make a day of it in Diagon Alley. She could have gone on her own, she acknowledged to him over tea, but he wasn’t the only one still feeling nervous about venturing out into the wizarding public alone. In the end, they agreed to go that Friday, to shop and have a birthday lunch out.

Harry’s birthday had snuck up on him, overshadowed by everything else going on. He didn’t have any real plans, though Ron hadn’t been quite as subtle as he thought he’d been when he asked if Harry was doing anything that evening. Harry was pretending he didn’t know that the Weasleys were planning something, but the thought that they were filled him with a warm giddiness every time he remembered. It still felt weird that other people might be interested in celebrating his birthday with him.

Harry had stayed up until midnight the night before, as he always did, but this time, Ron and Hermione had joined him on the sofa for the hour leading up to it – Ron, bleary eyed and barely staying up and Hermione bringing the book she’d been reading. Basilissa, always incapable of not being the centre of attention, had plonked herself down on Harry’s lap and demanded strokes from all of them. They hadn’t said anything about it, just settled in casually on either side of him with cups of tea and easy chatter, until the old clock clanged in the hallway for midnight. They’d hugged him and said their happy birthdays, and Harry thought that something inside him might break with how much he loved them.

They set off to Diagon Alley after a late brunch, Harry’s nerves barely making an impact on his good mood. They’d decided in advance to get their books first, then mill around for anything else they might like, and then go on to lunch. The Alley was busier than last time he’d been here, and the shops were in better shape. Further down, Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes was open again, though Harry knew it was being run by other staff for the time being; George, understandably, was not quite up for returning. More people were around and more active, socialising and shopping with a cheer that had come a little harder a month or so ago.

Flourish and Blotts was seeing the usual influx of students and parents in the pre-Hogwarts year season, though they had missed the rush when the letters first came out and would thankfully miss the last-minute shoppers as well. Instead, there was a steady trickle of customers, some of whose faces Harry vaguely recognised from around the school, but none that he knew personally. The textbooks were easy enough to find, as the Hogwarts books were generally set away from the others, and Harry grabbed those quickly before going back to browse. He hadn’t had a real browse through the shelves since his first time here, when everything was new and magical and he didn’t really understand what he was looking at, so it was different to look through the shelves now that he was older and at least a little more informed.

Looking now, it was clear that the majority of the books were aimed at students and amateurs in various fields of magic. There were plenty of textbooks and potion-recipe books aimed at the average wix who wanted to dabble in a new field or refresh their memory from their school days, but nothing particularly complex. Certainly, nothing like the blood, soul, or high-level protection magics that Harry was most interested in finding. He supposed it made sense – they were sensitive topics that were barely legal at the best of times, of course they wouldn’t be easily available in a high street shop. Anything he wanted to read on those topics, he’d have to hope was hidden away in the Black family library or the Hogwarts restricted section. Briefly, Harry wondered if he’d be able to get a pass for the Restricted Section, especially if he said it was to look further into his own medical conditions. It was maybe worth asking, but a problem for later him.

Turning the corner from a section of ‘Short Introductions to…’ (which had him interested, and promising to come back to their topics later) Harry found himself in a corner he’d never seen before, faced with a small, slightly battered sign reading ‘Muggleborn Introduction Collection’. Harry swallowed thickly and leafed through the small shelf of recommended books, finding things like short summaries of the differences between muggle and magical culture in Britain, dictionaries for the magical world, books on international magical cultures, and books describing all the basic magical concepts that magical people took for granted, but muggleborns wouldn’t know. Harry didn’t know how to feel. Had these books been here all along and he’d simply never seen them? If so, why had no one mentioned them? Or were they new, after the end of the war and the change of rhetoric to pro-muggleborns? He didn’t know, and couldn’t bring himself to ask anyone, but picked up a copy of each. Better late than never, after all.

Thankfully, Flourish and Blotts anticipated the problem that books were heavy and people would only buy as many as they could carry, so they had baskets with a feather-weight charm by the door. Harry stacked his pile in one of those. It made browsing a lot more tempting, but, he reminded himself as he eyed a book on introductory cursebreaking, he had the Black family library, the contents of which he’d barely skimmed, and the Hogwarts library for at least one more year. It was a better idea to use that for anything he wanted to find out now, and only buy more if he was sure that he needed them afterwards.

So, instead of buying more textbooks, Harry found his way to the fiction section. Ron was there as well, browsing the Quidditch magazines that were stacked nearby. With his eyesight, Harry had never been particularly into reading. He’d had to read a little at primary school, during their assigned reading times, but he didn’t take the books home from school because he knew that Dudley would trash them, and so he’d not gotten into the stories. It’s not like he could have read them inside his cupboard anyway. By the time he was older, away from the Dursleys or at least in Dudley’s second bedroom, he’d never gotten into the habit of reading. He didn’t even know if Hogwarts had a fiction section.

But Harry could finally see, he was away from the Dursleys, and he was trying not to let them rule his life anymore. He wasn’t quite sure that he understood the point of reading fiction, really, but Hermione always recommended it, and he trusted her more than his Dursley-influenced opinions. The problem was, Harry didn’t know where to start. Faced with a wall of books, he had no idea what he would like or how to find it. The books all looked more or less the same to him.

There were some signs up as he got closer, like ‘Adventure’, ‘Muggles’, ‘Unicorns’, ‘Historical’, and Harry found himself picking up a book with an engraved image of a wizard fighting a dragon on it, called ‘The Worst Dragon-Tamer’. It looked…terrible, in all honesty. Harry put it back and scanned over the others, before gravitating slowly to the bestsellers section. He wanted to give up at this point but resigned himself to choosing two. After much deliberation, Harry eventually added one that appeared to be a magical version of a sci-fi book and one that appeared to be a story about a witch getting lost in the deep sea to his basket. He’d give them a go, at least.

Finally, purchases made, they all left. Harry popped into the pet shop on the way to get more treats for Basilissa, as well as a new brush. Sadly, Hannah wasn’t working that day, but Harry supposed he’d see her at Hogwarts. They wandered around a little more, Hermione picking up some potions ingredients to replace some she’d been experimenting with, and Ron checking out some keepers gloves, but they were drawing stares from all around, and eventually, they were all sick enough of it to duck into their lunch spot a little early.

The cafe was nice, dimly lit but fresh and clean, with carved partitions draped in climbing flowers between tables for privacy. Fleur had recommended it to them last time they’d seen her. The ceiling was covered in the trailing flowers, and bees flew among them. Thankfully, there seemed to be a barrier stopping anything from falling through to the tables. The tables were covered with soft blue cloths, the chairs delicately carved but with plump cushions, and there was soft noise from a waterfall feature wall instead of background music. Harry could see why Fleur liked it here.

“Happy birthday, Harry!” Hermione suddenly whisper-shouted, making his attention snap back to the table. She was grinning, hands resting on a colourfully wrapped package which she had snuck onto the table while he was distracted looking around. Next to her, Ron was also grinning, rummaging in his pocket until he also withdrew a package.

“Thanks, guys.” Harry said, taking them.

He opened them quickly. Hermione’s was a set of books. One was on Greek Mythology. “It was my favourite as a child.” She said. “Not very detailed, but I loved the pictures, and it was easy to remember.” There was no need to explain why she’d given it to him. Another was a thick compendium of spells - “I asked around and this was the most recommended book of practical spells for the everyday wix.” The third was a rather battered old thing which claimed to be about traditional wixen religion. This one also didn’t require an explanation. Harry thanked her for them.

Ron’s started off with some chocolate frogs, because refreshing his chocolate supplies was always welcome, but his main gift was a nice cloak buckle in the shape of a thestral. “I just saw it and thought of you, mate. Don’t know anyone else mad enough to come up with the idea of riding to London on a thestral.” It was lovely, silver in colour and detailed, the thestral’s bony shape carved in.

“Thanks.” Harry said, running a finger along the thestral’s knobbly spine. “This’ll go really nicely with my new cloaks.” He tucked both gifts into his expanded pockets.

Their lunch was good. They all got the daily soup to start off with, which turned out to be a creamy garlic and mushroom thing. Ron and Harry shared some kind of loaded flatbread between them, which was covered in a rich cream sauce, slices of beef, and vegetables, while Hermione got a vegetable pasta. They considered dessert for a while, but eventually decided that it would be a bad idea – they would be over at the Burrow in the afternoon (Ron wasn’t even trying to pretend it was a surprise party anymore, after Harry accidentally mentioned it), where there was sure to be cake and more food than any of them could comfortably eat anyway.

It was nice to eat out with them both. They often ate meals together at Grimmauld Place, but there was something different about going out to eat together. It helped that their table was nicely secluded with the carved screens around, and the table service relied on tapping on an item on the menu and elves popping it up. Harry found himself more relaxed than he’d expected to be out in public.

Ron seemed to be enjoying it too, happily eating his portion of the flatbread in half the time it took Harry and speaking animatedly about the auror application requirements. Unlike Harry, Ron was still enthusiastic about joining the aurors after Hogwarts. Ron had made his peace with not joining this year, and after some thought, had admitted it probably was a much better idea to do their final year of NEWT study and apply properly. It would be worth more to him as well, knowing that he’d gotten in fully on his own merit, rather than maybe just as Harry Potter’s best friend, though of course, Harry had slightly more tact than to say this out loud.

The auror requirements weren’t hugely difficult. They required EEs across the board in DADA, Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology, and Charms, though there was some leniency for Transfiguration and Herbology, so long as it was a pass grade, and the other subjects were significantly stronger. Ron generally averaged As with the odd EE, but this was due more to a general disinterest in academia and a preference to goof off, rather than a lack of ability. With a goal in mind, Harry suspected he’d have little trouble meeting the requirements.

They took a couple of hours over lunch, nursing coffee and a cheese board afterwards while they chatted, but eventually they had to make a move. Harry and Hermione went back to Grimmauld Place while Ron went on to the Burrow to set up for the party. Harry stowed his gifts in his room, placing the books on his new bookshelves, which were slowly growing fuller, before flopping on his bed to bother Basilissa for a bit. She was generally a very independent cat, spending her days and nights getting up to who knows what, but like all cats, she had a tendency to take over every available surface and sleep on them. She was particularly fond of Harry’s bed and became grumpy if he ever tried to move her so that he could sleep.

Today, Harry curled up loosely around her, and stroked between her ears with gentle fingers. She opened green eyes lazily to look at him, before snuggling back down and accepting the petting as her due. After a few minutes he stopped then laughed as her eyes opened much more alert and she butted her head into his hand indignantly. “Apologies, my lady.” He told her, laughing, and resumed the strokes. She purred happily. There was something soothing about a cat’s purr. Harry had never really considered himself a cat person, though he liked cats more than dogs after Aunt Marge’s dog had been set on him a time too many, so he had never really intended to own a cat. Now that she was here though, Harry enjoyed Basilissa’s company. She was a chaos gremlin, frequently messing things up for the sheer fun of it, demanding attention at all times of day or night, and dragging her kills back to show off to Harry (including one live, very traumatised, Cornish pixie), but he loved her for it.

Basilissa shuffled herself so that her face was pressed into Harry’s chest, one paw digging into him slightly uncomfortably, with claws that threatened to dig in at any moment.

“You’re so right.” He told her, fishing her claws out of the material of his shirt. “It is time for a nap.”

She mrrped in agreement.

-

With a couple of hours nap behind him, Harry was feeling a lot more ready to face his birthday party. Naturally, when he got there, he had to pretend to be surprised. He didn’t think he actually fooled anyone, but it was all in good spirits. As well as the Weasleys, Luna and Neville were there, along with Seamus and Dean. Fleur stood with Bill, a step away from the chaos, and was cooing over Teddy, held in Andromeda’s arms. Mrs Weasley had indeed baked him a cake, a Victoria sponge with an iced quidditch pitch. Harry took a funny kind of pleasure from eating the piece with the seeker, who looked suspiciously like him.

After food and excessive quantities of cake, they all settled around the table to relax and catch up. The Weasleys and Harry saw each other regularly, so there wasn’t a lot of news to share, but it was interesting to hear about the others’ plans. Luna and Neville both confirmed that they were going back to Hogwarts, as well Seamus and Dean. Seamus had been considering not going back, but changed his mind when Dean decided to. Neither of them really knew what they wanted to do after Hogwarts. Seamus was naturally good with fire magic, but he didn’t know how that related to a job, or if he even wanted to pursue it, and Dean was mostly interested in art, and didn’t know what creative jobs were available in the magical world. The older wixen all had ideas and pointers for them, leaving both Seamus and Dean looking interested but slightly overwhelmed, until Ginny rescued them by starting the party games.

Sadness crept around the corners sometimes, in forced smiles and flinches at sudden spell-light, but nonetheless, it was a good evening.

Chapter Text

August passed in a blink. At Harry’s insistent prompting, the others had found their own ways to a Healer’s office, via private care or St Mungo’s, and they too got to experience the manifest joys of horcrux gunk leaking out of their skin. Ginny had already seen a Mind Healer following her possession, but none of them had thought about the traces of dark magic that might have been left behind, so reportedly found her appointment particularly disgusting. Still, it had been worth it. All of them had been left feeling healthier and more energetic, less prone to depression. Hermione had cried when the curse was removed from the scars Bellatrix had carved into her arm, finally allowing them to begin healing properly. Even after the heatwave had passed, she was starting to wear short sleeves again.

Harry’s weekly teas with Andromeda had swiftly become something he looked forward to, first to see Teddy, but also soon for his growing friendship with Andromeda. She offered him a lot of perspective in the magical world, which he lacked before. From an old pureblood family, she knew the ins and outs of magical society, all the old gossip, unspoken rules and superstitions, and all the connotations that he would, and had, missed as a newcomer to their society. While as an outcast from said family due to her marriage to a muggleborn, she also understood the many and varied faces of blood prejudice, the cultural differences a muggleborn or raised wix faced in adapting, and how to explain them to a newcomer. It was through her that Harry finally began to internalise that being a Slytherin or a pureblood wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The pureblood thing had taken explaining, but as Andromeda had pointed out, magical society was a lot bigger than it seemed at Hogwarts, less insular than it appeared, and the number of muggleborns was actually relatively low. There were probably only five or six muggleborns in his year. Further, when was a pureblood wix going to meet a muggle? Wixen rarely strayed into the muggle world, and muggles certainly couldn’t enter theirs, so the number of half-bloods was usually determined by the number of muggleborns who married into the wizarding world. And even the child of a muggleborn and a muggle was considered a half-blood by a fair share of their society.

Of course, she reassured him, the preoccupation with blood status was absolutely ridiculous and was a huge problem in some circles, as the war had just demonstrated, but just because someone was a pureblood, didn’t mean that they were automatically from a supremacist family. After all, the Weasleys were purebloods, even though they’d always been pro-muggle and muggleborns, simply because they stayed in the magical world and happened to rarely fall in love with a muggleborn. Ron was likely to break that trend, Harry thought, though he kept it to himself.

As for the Slytherins, Andromeda had reminded him that firstly, she herself was one, and secondly, that there was nothing wrong with Slytherin’s primary traits of being ambitious and resourceful. Harry himself had been very ambitious, and interested in self-preservation, when he’d decided to defeat a Dark Lord of all things, even tempered with Gryffindor bravery and the necessity of the situation. Andromeda had actually sat him down with a sigh and told him that the Houses were just silly stereotypes and actual adults, the ones who had matured from their school days at least, did not care about Hogwarts Houses. It was apparently a learning curve that every Hogwarts graduate went through after entering the adult world and realising it had all been silly school rivalry all along.

Admittedly, it had made Harry feel a bit foolish to have thought that anyone would care about the Houses beyond school, but in his defence, it was all anyone seemed to talk about there. He actually had to reassess his image of himself when he realised how much of his own identity he’d built around the idea of being a Gryffindor. “The Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin.” He’d blurted out suddenly, surprising even himself. She’d considered that for a moment before saying that she wasn’t truly surprised, she could see the Slytherin traits in him. He’d almost recoiled from that before realising that she meant it as a compliment.

It had felt odd, and he’d moved the conversation on awkwardly, but it had lingered in the back of his mind during the month before Hogwarts started. He supposed she was right – there was nothing wrong with being ambitious or resourceful or having a keen sense of self-preservation (goodness knows everyone told Harry he needed more of one) or even achieving your goals through cunning means, so long as they didn’t hurt anyone. It hung like an uncomfortable weight in his chest that he’d come very close to despising a whole House because it had had members he didn’t like. He didn’t like Zacharias Smith either, and some of the Hufflepuffs had been right arses to him on occasion, but he'd never held the same dislike for Hufflepuff as he did Slytherin, because they were Hufflepuff and had a different reputation. Harry found himself a little glad that Andromeda had had this conversation with him before September, even though it was uncomfortable.

There really wasn’t much preparation Harry had had to do for Hogwarts. He’d already been working on catching up and practicing his subjects, so he was feeling in a good place to start the year, and all he’d had left to shop for were his Hogwarts robes, which he picked up very quickly. He’d had a few more Healing appointments with Healer Oswald, who’d been pleased with his solution to using his magic and protecting it from outside influences by having a constant energy-draining shield running. The nutrition potions and diet plan were going well, and he’d gained a little weight already, and she urged him to keep it up and give the information to the Hogwarts House Elves once he was in the castle – they would follow it and make sure he had suitable food near him at mealtimes.

The only things she did remind him to work on were his occlumency, which he’d started but hadn’t been putting a huge amount of effort into, and allowing himself time alone in places without the magical influences of others. Harry had thought he’d been doing that, but she’d given him a dry look and pointed out that sitting under layers of powerful wards, in an old family townhouse, was hardly the kind of neutral, natural magic she’d recommended. She also noted that he hadn’t looked into purging his magic of outside remnants, which Harry had, indeed, entirely forgotten about. Thankfully, he’d still had time to track down the literature she’d recommended on it before he was due to be going back to Hogwarts.

Two weeks before he was to get the Hogwarts Express, Healer Oswald let him know during their appointment that she had written to Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey about his Suppression Sickness. They’d both replied swiftly, acknowledging her letter, and said that they would discuss it further with Harry once he’d arrived. Healer Oswald had also sent along his medical records to Madam Pomfrey, as was normal procedure, so that Madam Pomfrey could administer healing to him fully informed of any potential risks or side effects. Harry had fought not to squirm with the knowledge that anyone else knew what had happened to him. Shame and old instincts to hide his living situation boiled up before he could properly quash them again.

He really wasn’t looking forward to that meeting, Harry thought, as he arrived at Kings Cross Station. Still, it was easy to put out of his mind at this point – arriving at Hogwarts was a much more exciting and daunting prospect. His trunk was shrunk down in his pocket, and all he had to hold was Basilissa’s carrier, so navigating the station was much easier than previous years. As usual, none of the muggles noticed as Harry ducked towards the entrance to Platform 9 ¾, but this time, with his greater sensitivity to magic, Harry felt the muggle-repelling and notice-me-not charms around the wall.

Melting through the wall, Harry was struck with nostalgia, seeing the gleaming red train and groups of wixen clustered around it. It almost felt like being eleven again, new to the magical world and utterly in awe of it. This feeling was swiftly broken by the whispering that immediately started when the first person noticed him, but Harry couldn’t stop the fond smile that stretched his lips as he stepped onto the Hogwarts Express, ignoring the gossiping crowds.

Hermione had gone on ahead, deciding as Head Girl that she should arrive at the Prefects’ carriage early and set up. Ron had been at the Burrow for the night, and would be making his way to the Platform with Ginny. Harry didn’t expect to see them until five minutes before the train was due to leave. The Weasleys had many excellent qualities, but punctuality wasn’t always one of them. Harry, now a prefect himself and feeling very strange about it, made his way to the Prefects Carriage up front.

He'd never been there before, never having to approach one of the prefects during the train journey, but it was labelled in large letters on the sliding doors and about triple the size of the other carriages, so it was difficult to miss. Inside, Hermione was setting out jugs of pumpkin juice and water on a long table, with a few snacks. Chatting near her were Susan Bones and Terry Boot, from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw respectively.  

“Oh, Harry!” Susan Bones was the first to see him. “You’re a new prefect this year too?”

He nodded, stowing Basilissa’s carrier on the seat. “Yeah. McGonagall said they wanted more prefects this year, so…” He shrugged, generally indicating himself in a ‘here I am’ sort of way.

“Alright, Potter?” Boot asked. Harry hadn’t interacted with him much since Dumbledore’s Army in Fifth Year, though he’d spoken to him briefly before the Battle.

“Not too bad.” Harry replied. “And yourself?”

Boot shrugged. “Alright. Summer was a bit rough, so looking forward to be going back. Just want to get my NEWTs and be done with it, you know?”

No one questioned it. After all, everyone already knew why the summer had been difficult. It had been difficult for all of them.

“It’s going to be weird being sat in classes again and doing homework.” Harry said. “Spend a year living in a tent on the run and you completely forget what an essay is.”

Susan snorted. “Yeah, we were pretty much just living in the Room by the end. Not a lot of actual studying going on all year.”

“Any idea who the other new prefects are?” Harry asked, as he rounded the table to help Hermione with the napkins. They jumped from her hands and spread themselves on the table with a flick of his wand. She gave him an exasperated look and charmed them into animal shapes. Harry, not to be outdone, animated them.

Boot paused, watching this interplay, before replying. “Not all of them. Obviously, Susan and I are. It’s not uniform, I think there’s one or two extra prefects per House. And I think not all of the original prefects were given their positions back.”

Harry hadn’t remembered before that Susan and Terry weren’t the original prefects, but wracking his memory, he recalled that Hannah Abbott and Anthony Goldstein were the ones he’d been thinking of. He couldn’t remember the others, though he knew that Malfoy and Parkinson had been the Slytherin prefects. They’d both been pretty awful about it. “Not Malfoy and Parkinson, I’m guessing.”

Terry Boot shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything, but it would be weird if they were.”

Harry agreed. Just because he didn’t want Malfoy to go to a prison surrounded by soul-sucking demons didn’t mean that he was under any illusions that Malfoy was a good role model who could be trusted with impressionable, young children. Parkinson, likewise, had always been a bit of a bully.

“Hannah is still prefect. As is Ernie.” Susan confirmed. “We were all surprised to hear that there would be extra numbers, but it does make sense. Anthony and Padma too, I think.” Susan continued, after a moment’s thought. “I don’t know anything about the fifth or sixth years.”

“I have the full list.” Hermione volunteered. “As does Neville, I imagine.”

“Neville?” Terry asked.

“He’s Head Boy.” Hermione explained, with a small but proud smile.

“Good.” Susan nodded sharply. “No one better for it. He proved that much last year.” She looked around as if someone might argue, but of course none of the three of them would.

Hermione found the list in her bag, after searching through a truly improbably thick stack of parchment for a minute or two then abruptly giving up and summoning it. “Here we go.” She said, laying it out on the table.

They all crowded around to have a look. Head Girl and Head Boy were obviously Hermione and Neville. “Headmistress McGonagall says they debated for a while whether it would be fair to have head students from the same House, but eventually decided that they trusted us to be impartial.” Hermione commented. Susan nodded, but Terry looked as if he might have something to say, though he kept his mouth shut.

For seventh year Gryffindor prefects, there were Harry, Ron, and Fay Dunbar. Harry had never really spoken to Fay outside of classes. She was quiet, but generally non-disruptive and good at classes, which Harry supposed was why she was picked over Parvati, who was popular among the Gryffindor students, but sometimes fell behind on classwork. Harry suspected that McGonagall also wouldn’t want to put any additional pressure on Parvati, who’d always been very close to Lavender Brown, and to a lesser extent, Lily Moon. Ravenclaw had Terry, Padma, Anthony, and Mandy Brocklehurst. Harry had to admit that he had no idea who Mandy was, though maybe he’d recognise her when he saw her. Hufflepuff had Susan, Hannah, Ernie, and Justin Finch-Fletchley. Slytherin had taken the biggest hit, with both prefects replaced, now with Blaise Zabini, Tracey Davis, and Daphne Greengrass. Harry didn’t really know any of them. He’d met Zabini once at Slughorn’s party on the train, then seen him at the others, but Davis and Greengrass he’d only ever seen around. They generally hung out around Pansy Parkinson, which wasn’t a great sign, but had never sought out fights with the Gryffindors like Malfoy and Parkinson had.

The carriage door slid open suddenly, and Neville walked in, talking with Ernie MacMillan. “Oh, hi, everyone.” He said, glancing around the room and quickly stowing his trunk on the racks above the seats. “What are you all doing?”

Ernie also said hello, a little more stiffly.

“We’re looking at the prefects list.” Susan said. “Since there are more of us this year and all.”

“Ah.” Ernie said. Harry got the impression he wasn’t thrilled about it. He rounded the table to look with them, as did Neville.

The fifth and sixth years were a bit of a mystery to Harry. Ginny hadn’t been made prefect, which would have been surprising, but he had actually met her. While she was a very capable witch and would be excellent at keeping the Quidditch team running, she wasn’t cut out for dealing with irritating younger students. There would be hexes flying by the second week. What was surprising was that Luna was made prefect. Harry was oddly proud of her. For the fifth years, there was another Greengrass in Slytherin, Astoria, who must be related to the Daphne in their year, and Ritchie Coote, who was a beater for the Gryffindor team, but he knew none of the others.

The sixth-year prefects were Andrew Kirke, Jack Sloper and Anne-Marie Morrison of Gryffindor, Luna, Selena Fawcett, and Joshua Chambers for Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff had Tsiala Meyer, Oskar Persson, and Malaika Abdul, and the Slytherins were Mariam Shafiq and Quintus Tremblay. There was an odd number of these between the houses and sexes, which Harry predicted could be a bit of a problem later on. The fifth years were Ritchie Coote, Aneesha Kaur, Orla Quirke, Stewart Ackerly, Derek Cornfoot, Corinna Rothwell, Astoria Greengrass, and Gavril Baciu. There were only two per house, as was usual.

“Well, it might as well serve as attendance, to see who’s here already.” Hermione said, ticking her own name off.

She handed it around to the others, who dutifully ticked their names, including the couple who’d trickled in while they’d all been searching the names for people they knew. Some had had more success than others. The Hufflepuffs seemed to know everyone in their House and were excitedly talking about the new fifth year prefects and the extra sixth year, Meyer. According to them, Sprout had considered her for prefect before, but had decided on Abdul, because Meyer tended to get over-stressed around exam time, which was perfectly useless gossip for Harry about someone he’d never met. The Ravenclaws knew the sixth years, but not the fifth years; Neville knew some of the Gryffindor prefects from last year; and no one really knew any of the Slytherins, apart from Susan, who knew Mariam Shafiq through her aunt’s work friend. Harry wondered if they were the same Shafiq as the potion master at Lucius Malfoy’s trial.

“Susan!” Hannah Abbott cried, launching herself into her friend’s arms.

Susan rocked back, laughing. “Hannah! It’s been all of… a week?”

“Too long.” The blonde protested, grinning. She straightened, looking around the room, and called out cheerful greetings to her fellow Hufflepuffs. Soon, her eyes landed on Harry and the carrier behind him, and she rushed over. “Harry! How is she?”

Harry moved out of the way so Hannah could crouch down to look in at Basilissa. “She’s good.” He said. “Hasn’t eaten through my wards, so I’m probably doing okay by her.” Inside Basilissa opened a smug green eye and prrped at him. Hannah laughed.

“Oh, Harry, you have a cat now?” Neville came over as well. He tactfully didn’t comment on Hedwig’s absence.

“Yeah.” Harry said, as if the memory of his former animal companion wasn’t slicing his lungs to shreds like a thousand tiny paper cuts. “Anyone mind if I get her out?” He waited for a moment, but no one seemed to care much. He unlatched the carrier and immediately a mass of black fur and claws was launching at him. Seeker reflexes thankfully kicked in and he caught her, cradling her fluffy body. She purred happily at him, as if she hadn’t just thrown herself bodily in his direction.

“This is Basilissa.” He introduced her to Neville and Susan, who had come over too. “We named her because, as far as she is concerned, she has the imperial prerogative to do whatever she likes.” Susan snorted. “I wasn’t planning to get a cat, but I was in Magical Menagerie and her ladyship latched on and decided to destroy the wards instead of being left behind.”

“It’s true.” Hannah chirped. “Hell of a thing to explain to my boss.”

“Oh! This is that cat.” Susan exclaimed, peering down at Basilissa. She’d clearly heard this story before. “Did you ever find out what her other half is?” She asked Harry.

“Certainly not kneazle.” He said a little dryly. “Otherwise, no clue really. Other than a menace, of course. Apparently, an infamous one.” Harry scratched under Basilissa’s chin, where she was looking far too smug about being a renowned menace to society.

Neville looked a little nervous about being next to a ward-eating cat, which was a little funny for a man who had literally faced Voldemort, but he gamely said that Basilissa was very beautiful. She happily lapped up the attention.

As more people started filling the carriage, Harry was relieved that it was so ridiculously large. If they were planning to fit all the prefects, there would be nearly thirty of them. Many of the younger years, he didn’t recognise, though in retrospect, he did know Kirke and Sloper as the pair who’d tried out for Beater and failed so miserably. Hopefully, they were better prefects than Quidditch players. He did, on the other hand, recognise Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass as they entered, trailed quickly by Tracey Davis.

Greengrass had a waterfall of blond hair, bright and pale against her black Hogwarts robes. Her face was blank, almost stony, a contrast from the animated chatter he’d sometimes seen with the other Slytherin girls, and her pale eyes were flinty. Zabini was looking good, filling out and coming into his bone structure. In Harry’s memory, he’d been sort of short and weedy, but there was nothing of that. Harry remembered that his mother was allegedly a black widow, and he could see how if there was a family resemblance. Davis looked more like a skittish mouse, lacking the aloofness of the other two and hiding half behind Greengrass, wide eyes flickering around the room. Harry didn’t think he’d ever heard her speak.

There was a stutter in the conversation before Ernie MacMillan walked over. “Greengrass, Zabini, Davis.” He greeted. “Congratulations on making prefect.” He was clearly trying, but it came out awkward.

“Yes, well,” Greengrass drawled, her voice surprisingly low and smooth, “the competition wasn’t exactly fierce.”

Harry, listening in, couldn’t help but snort, and Hannah let out a choked giggle. Like that, some of the tension in the room melted.

“How are your family doing?” Ernie continued. “Your sister?”

Greengrass softened a little. “Astoria is well. She’s been looking forward to the school year and seeing her friends again. She should be along soon. Everyone else is fine.”

While they were talking, Zabini wandered off to look at the parchment on the table, which people were intermittently approaching to read and tick off. He read through it with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Lots of us.” He commented casually, looking around the room where there were already about fifteen people, even half an hour before the train was due to leave. “Seven of us, nine Hufflepuffs, nine Ravenclaws, and ten Gryffindors, including the Heads.”

What he wasn’t saying, which everyone heard anyway, was that the imbalanced numbers could cause problems between the Houses, especially since prefects were the only students who could reward and take away House points. Also, McGonagall’s whole purpose of adding prefects was to support the Houses better, so Slytherin having only one extra prefect put them at something of a disadvantage.

Some people bristled, but Hermione stepped in calmly. “Yes, that’s part of what I was hoping to bring up in this meeting.” She said, tone entirely level as she sent bits of parchment flying around to each seat at the table. Peering over, Harry saw that they were a list of topics to be covered during the meeting, such as number imbalance, patrol rota, and pastoral care role.

“Granger.” Zabini nodded to her. He didn’t seem particularly antagonistic, just incredibly neutral.

“Zabini.” She replied in the same way.

A couple of people had picked up the meeting agendas to look through. “Granger - never knowingly under-organised.” Someone commented, in a not entirely pleasant tone.

Harry’s head snapped in the direction it had come from, but before he could say anything, Hermione responded herself. “Mm, it’s served me well enough.” Somehow, her response managed to imply ‘yes, my tendency to organise did indeed keep me alive in a society that was aiming for the death or subjugation of everyone like me, when I personally was a high-level target, accompanied by an even higher-level target.’ He didn’t know how she managed to say that with so little, but it was scarily effective.

Zabini seemed to laugh silently, and even Greengrass quirked a smile. Susan raised an impressed eyebrow. “Granger’s calmed down a lot. She’s a bit scary now.” The way she said it, that was absolutely a good thing.

“Hermione’s always been scary.” Harry said, and Neville nodded vigorously. “Now she’s just owning up to it.”

“It suits her.” Hannah said, still stroking Basilissa’s head. “And honestly, I’m glad that she’s the one organising things this year – it all has the potential to be a bit of a trainwreck.”

Harry grimaced. That was an understatement. Putting a couple of hundred traumatised magical kids in a school with minimal adult supervision just a couple of months after their society’s gruesome civil war had ended at that very school was a recipe for disaster. No one commented, clearly agreeing.

Basilissa butted her head against his shoulder hard, making him yelp, and scrambled around with too-sharp claws until she’d managed to climb onto his shoulder, and put her front paws up on his head. There, she looked around, enjoying her vantage point, ignoring Harry’s indignant noises.

“Were we boring you, pretty lady?” Hannah asked her, laughing. Basilissa’s withering look clearly said ‘yes’.  

“Er, Harry,” Neville started, “just how intelligent is your cat?”

“Very.” He replied, making her rub her cheek against his head, messing his bird’s nest of hair up further, “Best not to question it, really.”

Someone lingered at the edge of their small group and Harry turned to find Padma Patil. She smiled a hello, but it didn’t meet her eyes. “Harry, could I have a word, quickly? Actually, and Longbottom?”

“Uh, yeah, of course.” He moved away from the long table, to where some benches sat further down. Neville followed behind. Susan and Hannah moved off politely to give them some space. “Muffling charm?” Harry asked Padma.

“What? Oh, yes, maybe.” She seemed strained and distracted.

Harry cast the muffliato. “What’s up?”

Padma sighed. “I was going to talk to all the Gryffindor prefects, but I can’t see Weasley or Dunbar, and Granger is clearly busy wrangling everyone right now, but if you could pass this on later… Well, obviously, you know about Lavender…”

Harry and Neville both nodded solemnly.

“Parvati really isn’t dealing well.” Padma said. “I mean, no one’s dealing amazingly, it was a war, people died, loads of people were hurt-” Her tone was something between apologetic and defensive, even as she sped up.

“It’s okay.” Neville interrupted the rambling gently. “You don’t need to justify it. We know how close they were.”

Padma deflated. “Yeah. It’s why I wanted to talk to her housemates, really. Even if none of you were super close with them, you understand what they were like.” She sighed. “Parvati’s grieving, and she doesn’t know who to blame or how to ever feel better. V-Voldemort and most of the Death Eaters were defeated before even two hours had passed, so the ones at fault are dead or imprisoned and it was over so soon she can never get her revenge for Lavender. She’s angry with no one left to be angry at, so she’s lashing out at everyone. And she can’t have the one person she wants most to be with her, so she doesn’t want anyone.” Padma looked defeated, and Harry could see the shadow of a summer spent trying to get through to a sister who kept shutting her out in the tiredness in her face.

Harry nodded. “We’ll try to look out for her. As you said, we were never super close, but she’s one of us.”

Padma nodded but didn’t look much comforted. “This is also a warning, really.” She took a steadying breath. “She’s lashing out at all the wrong people right now, and there’s some things she’s said that aren’t fair and are going to be hurtful if people hear them. Especially you. Thing is, we all know you were doing something to bring down V-V-Voldemort, but not what, and that means that some people are questioning why the war lasted as long as it did and why it had to end at Hogwarts, around the students.”

Harry grimaced. He’d heard similar things from other people over the last three months. It wasn’t a large portion of the population, but they were vocal. He’d tried to ignore it, even as it cut deep inside him where the guilt festered that he should have done more, could have saved more people if he’d just been better. Worse, it rankled at the dark parts of him which he tried to ignore, which hated the rest of the magical population for their complacency and passiveness in the face of Voldemort. It was bitter on the back of his tongue.

“I don’t believe that.” Padma continued, and the words hit Harry like a splash of cold water, shocking him from his negative spiral. “No one who knows you would ever think you’d not give your all against V-Voldemort, and everyone in the DA knew there was something urgent you were doing in the castle before the Battle, looking for something. Everyone who fought volunteered for it, and also because they needed to, because we were nothing but hostages against the rest of the magical world otherwise. Giving you up would have only resulted in more death for the whole country.” She met Harry’s eyes. “I believe that, and you need to as well. Because people are going to say some awful things this year, and for Parvati’s sake, I need you to be patient with them.”

Harry didn’t know what to say to that.

“She’ll come round eventually.” Padma said, tiredly. “She doesn’t really blame you, she’s just angry at the world right now. I just wanted you to know in advance, so it didn’t take you by surprise. And I know it might be difficult for you personally, but if the rest of your House could look out for her, that would be good.” She seemed to run out of steam, her piece said.

“We’ll do our best.” Neville said, after a moment’s pause. “She’s definitely going to make people angry if she starts saying things like that, we’re all a bit on edge still, but we’ll try and talk her round if it comes to that. And we won’t outcast her or anything. Hermione and I have been talking and, well, there are big plans in the works to try and stop that kind of thing. And we’re still her friends and housemates. We’ll try and help.”

“I won’t hold it against her.” Harry assured Padma, even though he wasn’t 100 percent sure that was the entire truth. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone said something like that to me.” He tried to smile, but it fell flat.

“They shouldn’t.” Neville said firmly, a hint of steel in his voice.

“No, they shouldn’t.” Padma agreed. “You did what no one else could and defeated the Dark Lord, which is an absolute miracle. The people who ask ‘why not sooner’ treat it as a given that you could, like it wasn’t madness to pit a seventeen-year-old against the Dark Lord.”

Harry smiled at her genuinely for the first time in their conversation. It was reassuring to know that at least one other person understood that his situation was ridiculous, and his victory had been very far from guaranteed. “I think people bought into the whole Chosen One nonsense a bit too much.”

Padma nodded. “Some of them seem to have convinced themselves that you could have defeated V-Voldemort at any point if you’d just faced him.”

Harry scoffed, but then became thoughtful. “Do you think it would help at all if I explained, in vague terms at least, what we were doing in those months?”

Padma considered it. “You shouldn’t have to, but yes. From an outside perspective, you just disappeared for eight months or so, and then there was a load of strange rumours about breaking into Gringotts, and then suddenly, you were at Hogwarts, and defeated You-Know-Who in Battle.”

“You don’t have to, Harry.” Neville appeared vaguely upset at the idea of this. “You don’t have to explain yourself to people who take you for granted.”

“If it will help, though, maybe I should. The only reason that we weren’t saying anything is that the DMLE agreed it was best for people not to know the details of how Voldemort intended to live forever and everything.” Harry argued, shrugging. “Okay, hang on, let’s test it out. I have nothing against Padma knowing the broad strokes of it. I tell her, she can say if it might help, you make sure I’m not saying too much?” He asked Neville.

Neville, naturally, had wanted to know why killing Nagini was so important, as well as why they’d been hunting for an artefact in the castle. He’d waited until after the Battle and things were settling, before tracking them down to ask them, and they’d told him then. Harry trusted Neville with his life. He couldn’t think of anyone less likely to be interested in giving out Voldemort’s method of immortality.

Neville considered this. “If you’re sure. You can say what you like, of course, I just don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

Harry bumped his shoulder against Neville’s, unsure how to put into words how grateful he was for Neville’s constant, quiet support.

“Okay, Padma.” Harry addressed her. She was looking very curious. “So, Voldemort took measures against dying, which was why he was able to resurrect himself back in fourth year. Before we even thought about killing him, we had to find a way of making him stay dead, or he would just resurrect himself again. We found out how he was doing this, and spent those months making sure he couldn’t if we eventually did manage to kill him, but we had to do it in secrecy, because if he had any idea that we knew, he’d be able to stop us and maybe pursue immortality in another, unknown way, and we’d be even worse off than before. We didn’t know where to find the magic tying him to life, what it looked like, how to defeat it, even how many possible tethers there were. And Voldemort and his followers were hunting us the whole time. Voldemort had hidden something in Hogwarts that enabled his immortality – because he thought it was funny to put it under Dumbledore’s nose – so, there was no avoiding Hogwarts. And he’d just figured out what we were doing when we escaped Gringotts, so we had to defeat him as soon as possible, before he made himself immortal again. Even if I had fought him at some other time, and somehow managed to defeat him, it would have been useless. Voldemort was still immortal until the very end of the Battle, right before I duelled him in the hall.”

Padma’s eyes were very wide. “You mean he actually was immortal? That wasn’t just rumours?”

“Yes.” Harry nodded grimly.

“Oh.” Her voice was weak. “I thought he was just weakened when you defeated him before and when he was ‘resurrected’,” she put air quotes around it, “it meant he got his power back. I, um, yes, I’d say that makes a difference.” She looked pale and uneasy.

“Maybe don’t mention the tethers.” Neville suggested. “But otherwise, yeah. I-, Padma, is that something that lots of other people believe? That Voldemort’s immortality was just a rumour?”

“Um, yes?” She said. “I mean, there’s the Flamels, but otherwise, no one ever really achieves immortality? And the Flamels will die if you kill them, they just won’t die of old age, and are too clever to be killed.”

“Huh.” Harry was so used to the idea of Voldemort being able to escape death that he hadn’t seen it from other people’s point of view. Then again, it had been all too clear recently that Harry had a very different perspective on Voldemort and the war than the majority of people. “Okay, I’ll focus on that, then.”

Padma still looked pale. “It does explain a lot.” She said. “It’s just a really uncomfortable thought. Shows how much worse everything was than we even knew.”

Neville nodded. “My gran always told me that Voldemort strayed so far into dark magic that she wasn’t surprised if he wouldn’t die, and he’d boasted about defeating death in the first war, so it was horrifying but not that surprising when he came back. I didn’t realise other people didn’t think that.”

Harry agreed. “I’ve been talking a lot about the war and things leading up to it, and it keeps surprising me what is and isn’t common knowledge.”

There was contemplative silence for a moment before Neville spoke. “If you’re sure about this, then probably this meeting is the best place to start. If we clear up any misunderstandings about the war among the prefects, then hopefully they can spread it among the school.” He paused. “And it might be good to find out what everyone’s thinking happened, because otherwise everyone’s going to keep being confused.”

Harry considered it. “Okay, yeah, sounds like a fair plan.”

“Alright then, I’m going to talk to Hermione quickly and let her know, so she’s prepared to schedule it in.” Neville said. “And see if she has anything to add.” He darted quickly off to Hermione’s side and started whispering in her ear.

Back with Harry, Padma shuffled uncomfortably. “Thanks, Harry.” She said. “For the thing with Parvati. I know it’s got to be unpleasant and I’m really sorry.”

Harry shrugged awkwardly. He wasn’t happy or comfortable with it, but he couldn’t imagine ever hating Parvati for it when he knew what she was going through. “We’ve all got to look out for each other this year, I think.” It wasn’t entirely an answer, but it was the best he could give right now.  

Padma let it slide, nodding and moving off into the crowd. Harry sighed. He’d expected to be facing some of this at Hogwarts, but he’d still hoped… Ah well, no use lingering over it now, before anything had even happened. He reached up and petted Basilissa blindly, where she’d sat quietly across his shoulder and head for the duration of the conversation. “If I were a cat, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.” Harry commented thoughtfully.

Basilissa bit his hand playfully in reprimand.

“Alright, alright!” 

Chapter Text

At fifteen minutes to, Hermione shot up sparks and called the meeting together. “I know not everyone is here yet but let’s take our seats and get started. The rest can trickle in as they arrive.”

There was some grumbling, but most people sat down quickly without fuss. Harry sat among a cluster of his fellow seventh years. Neither Ron nor Fay Dunbar had arrived yet, and Harry had looked for Luna but hadn’t seen her.

“Firstly,” Hermione said, once the scraping of chairs had quieted. “Congratulations everyone on being selected as a prefect, whether new this year or continuing from previous years. For anyone who isn’t aware, my name is Hermione Granger, and I’m your Head Girl this year.”

“I’m Neville Longbottom, and I will be Head Boy.” Neville continued smoothly. Even speaking to a room of attentive people, the strength in his voice hadn’t faltered. “From what I understand, this prefects meeting is usually a fairly informal thing, where the Heads pass out the patrol rota and set people off going around the train.” Neville, of course, hadn’t been a prefect, so hadn’t been to one of these meetings before. “We’re doing something a bit more formal.”

There was muttering around the carriage, particularly among the sixth- and seventh-year prefects who had already been to these meetings before.

“As I’m sure everyone is very much aware,” Neville continued, “this is going to be a difficult year. Many of us lost people in the previous year, whether in the Battle or the year before that. There are going to be empty spaces in all our Houses where a friend and classmate once stood.” He paused for an uptick of murmuring. “Hogwarts was a scary place last year. We couldn’t rely on our teachers or classmates for protection, we didn’t know what was going on, and most of us were, though in unofficial terms for the most parts, hostages against our families. Outside of Hogwarts was an even scarier place.” He sighed. “We are, truthfully, not expecting anyone to be okay this year. I’m not.” He admitted, making it look easy to say, though Harry knew it wasn’t. “But we were all selected because our teachers trust us best to be able to look out for all the other students. And to do that, we all need to be working together, with a plan, to try and do the best job we can for all the students of Hogwarts. So, for that reason, Hermione and I decided to have this as a more official meeting, and to schedule more during the year than in previous years. It shouldn’t be too much,” Neville reassured, as some people broke off to comment to their partners, “but I hope you all understand where we’re coming from.”

Neville paused to let questions come and soon a Hufflepuff Harry didn’t know spoke up. “How often are we talking?” She asked. “And for how long?”

“Honestly, we really wanted weekly meetings.” Hermione said, and there was a general noise of protest. She talked over it. “But we decided every other week would be better.” People still didn’t look happy. “If we get there, and find there is little to discuss, I will be happy to talk about meeting less frequently, but I fully suspect that it will not come to that.”

“For how long?” Someone else prompted.

“However long it takes, really. Ideally, no more than an hour. Hopefully, more like half an hour. But it really depends on what’s being discussed.” Hermione replied. Her tone was light, but didn’t invite a lot of argument. It was clear to everyone already that neither Head was prepared to compromise on prefect duties this year. There was muttering around the room, but no one dared contradict her. “Okay, good, let’s proceed to today’s agenda.”

From there, Hermione and Neville laid out their plan for the meeting. They wanted to discuss the roles of the prefects, a combined strategy for all the Houses to share around reintegrating students into normal life, a standardised points system for rewards and punishments, ideas for pastoral care and tutoring, how they might aim to correct the numbers imbalance between the prefects’ Houses, and finally a discussion section about the War, to clear up any misunderstandings and make everyone aware of potential problems before the school year started, before leading into topics that anyone else would like to bring up. The last part had the chatter rising high, eyes darting towards Harry. His yearmates had been mostly ignoring him, too used to him to be overly bothered by his celebrity, and the year below followed their lead, but some of the fifth years had been pretending not to stare at Harry throughout the entire meeting but could now barely look away.

It was clear that many people would prefer to start with that section, but Neville and Hermione politely bulldozed on. Neville laid out the requirements of the prefect position, summarising what most of them should have read in the information packets sent to them by their Head of House. It was fairly straightforward. They were meant to be role models to their peers, maintaining good behaviour and good grades. While they had the authority, and were expected to, enforce the rules, this was not actually the main part of their role, which was to be peer support, and a source of help for situations that did not require the direct intervention of a professor. “In particular,” Neville said, “if you find yourself in a position where you’re stuck between enforcing the roles and being supportive, you should choose the support. So, if you find a younger year out of bed after curfew, not causing trouble but unable to sleep, focus on finding out what’s wrong rather than taking points for being out of bed.”

The Hufflepuffs especially seemed pleased with this. “Sprout always tells us that we’re there to be approachable to younger students.” A Hufflepuff sixth year, who introduced himself as Oskar, said. “No point having prefects if everyone resents us.” There was a general smattering of agreement around the carriage.

“We predict that there will likely be a lot of students acting out this year.” Hermione said, looking faintly pained. “They need help, not rules thrown at them.”

Harry glanced over at Padma, who was playing with her napkin. The napkin danced away from her fingers, still animated as a stork.

“What can we do, though?” Terry Boot asked. “I don’t mean we should ignore everyone’s problems, but we’re also students, what can we…” He trailed off, but the point was made. Many people looked like they agreed.

“Not much.” Hermione agreed with a rueful smile. “We can’t be everything for everyone, we certainly can’t solve everyone’s anger, fear, and grief. Some things, only professors can help with, and sometimes not even then. But we can be there and do the best we can.”

“It doesn’t have to be huge things.” Neville added. “Just talk to someone if they seem lonely, help with small things like lost property, little arguments, and pointing people to someone who might be able to help answer an academic question. If it’s something serious, or you’re very worried, it needs to go to the Head of House. But otherwise,” he shrugged, “we don’t want everyone to be their House’s mind healer, we just want all of us to be friendly and approachable and check in on people now and again.”

“Our House has a system for that.” Hannah said. “It’s not official, it’s just ideas that previous prefects have noted down and Professor Sprout has approved for trying to get House morale up. We can share it.”

“That sounds wonderful, Hannah.” Hermione replied, eyes already distant with teeming thoughts. “We can save that for our next meeting if everyone agrees?” There were vague noises of agreement from around the carriage.

“Well, we’ve sort of covered pastoral care.” Neville said. “Only other thing to note is that we’d like to introduce a more solid tutoring system, given everyone’s very different levels going into this year.”

“Ah, we have a tutoring system.” Anthony Goldstein said after a moment. “I don’t see why we can’t share our system.” He looked around at the other Ravenclaws, who all nodded or shrugged.

“We have one as well.” Daphne Greengrass spoke up. “Though it is largely informal, so a more formal one might well be welcome. If Goldstein is agreeable, we could meet to discuss it, along with anyone else who is interested, ahead of our next meeting.” She looked over to Anthony, face calm but shuttered. Harry had the distinct feeling that she was preparing for her help to be rejected.

“Ah.” Anthony glanced around to see if anyone would protest, but no one did. “Alright then, Greengrass. A moment after the meeting then?”

She nodded, a faint smile touching the edge of her lips, and turned back to Hermione and Neville.

“Excellent.” Hermione said. She looked very pleased with how that had worked out. “Onto the standardised point system.” She looked around the carriage. “We all know that the points system doesn’t really work. It’s a good motivator for the younger years, but it doesn’t take long to see that it’s frequently unfair and easily biased. While we can’t do anything about what the professors do, except suggest to them that they too adopt a standardised system, if we all agree on how many points should be given or taken for certain, everyday things, we might be able to even it out a little.”

Most of the prefects looked intrigued, except those who looked desperately bored.

“Do you have a mock-up of what this might look like?” Ernie MacMillan asked, correctly assuming that this was something that Hermione might do.

Drawing them swiftly out of her bag, Hermione sent a sheet of parchment to everyone at the table. “This was just an idea.” She explained, settling her own version in front of her. “So, anyone can raise their own suggestions about individual points, but I wanted to know if this would be welcomed as a whole.”

There was quiet for a moment as everyone looked over their parchments. There were grids set out into sections with labels like ‘minor’, ‘medium’, ‘major’ and filled in with acts like starting a fight in the corridor, damaging school property, wearing uniform incorrectly, and, on the flip side, helping other students or performing a spell well sorted into different columns.

Everyone looked them over for a long moment. “I can see how it would be useful.” One of the Ravenclaw prefects said, “But not how we could enforce it, unless everyone agrees.”

“Well, hopefully, that’s what the meeting is for.” Hermione responded. “Does anyone have an issue with adopting a scheme as a whole?” She asked the gathered prefects.

No one answered. There were a few people who looked like they thought this was a waste of time, but looking around, Harry thought that the prefects seemed more interested than anything else. “It seems like a good idea to me.” He said eventually, into the quiet. “I don’t really know why we don’t have something like this already.” His voice broke the stillness and quickly, there were more people joining in to agree. Unfortunately, him speaking had the effect that he’d feared it might, and everyone’s attention was dragged back to him again. Hopefully, they’d get used to him quickly, but Harry knew his reputation was greater than it had ever been in the past, and people had been plenty stupid about him then. Fleur’s comment about British wixen being his followers filtered back into his head, and Harry swiped the thought aside viciously. He really didn’t want to think about that.

“Excellent.” Hermione said, as no one objected. “The grid you all have is just a preliminary version, and I imagine there are many things I’ve missed, so I have prepared a suggestions and voting system.” She pulled yet another piece of parchment out of her bag. “This lists an assortment of common misdeeds and good acts, though it is by no means an exhaustive list. Anyone interested can drop by the prefects’ common room sometime in the next week and add a vote to the points section or add another item onto the list to be voted on. At the end of the two weeks, the votes will be tallied automatically, and the new scheme will be updated on the parchments you have now.”

Across the table, a bored sixth year who had been doodling on the edge of his parchment looked up suddenly and winced. Harry shared his opinion to some extent – there was no way his parchment was surviving all year, even with judicious use of preservation charms.

“There will be spares in the common room.” Hermione reassured.

“Ah, yes, I meant to query that, Granger – what common room?” Anthony Goldstein asked. “There wasn’t a prefects’ common room before.” There was an array of agreeing murmurs around the room from everyone who’d been a prefect before. It occurred to Harry that, true enough, he’d never seen such a place on the map.

“It’s new.” Hermione confirmed. “Headmistress McGonagall decided to prepare one after the decision to increase the number of prefects went through, on the basis that we’d need better management with more numbers, a more integrated approach than each House working independently, and also as a reward for more duties. I haven’t seen it, of course, but I’ve heard that it should be comfortable.” That circled around the room like wildfire. Harry himself was curious to see the room.

“I think the Headmistress said something about converting some unused rooms on the Third Floor.” Nevile put in.

Harry’s head snapped towards Neville. The only empty rooms he could think of on the third floor were the ones surrounding the room in which Fluffy had been kept. He hoped that wasn’t the case. It might make things… interesting. He glanced around, but no one else seemed to have made the connection. They were talking excitedly about the new common room, questioning the two Heads on what it might contain, though both Neville and Hermione claimed to know very little.

“We’ll all be able to see once we’re there.” Neville stated conclusively. “But I think everyone was interested in clearing up our numbers imbalance first.” That doused the room’s enthusiasm.

“It’s just not quite fair.” A Slytherin sixth year started tentatively. “It’s not just the points.” He clarified quickly. “I agree with everything we’ve talked about so far regarding extra duties and looking after the other students and all, but we don’t have the extra numbers to help with that and, as I’m sure you’re all aware, we have a complicated situation within the House.”

Harry grimaced at that. It was true that Slytherin had made up a large part of the dark side’s forces, even if the other Houses had contributed their fair share too. With Andromeda’s explanation of the greater importance of hierarchy within the House, he could see that such a complete reversal could spell chaos in the short term.

“Are there any others in the Sixth or Seventh years who might be suitable?” Hermione asked.

Zabini leant his chin on his hand, elbow propped up nonchalantly on the table. “Not in the Seventh.” He replied. “Not Malfoy or Parkinson, for obvious reasons. Millicent still doesn’t play well with others. Goyle, again, for obvious reasons. That just leaves Theodore, who is, admittedly, a good student and had no intention of becoming a Death Eater,” a few people around the room recoiled from Zabini’s blasé way of saying this, “but he would hex me so badly I’d never recover if I volunteered him for anything that dragged him away from his precious books for significant periods of time.” A couple of people around the room snorted. Harry had only the vaguest memory of who he was referring to. He’d seen Theodore Nott around, in classes, but had never interacted with him. From the sound of it, that wasn’t uncommon.

“Similar for the Sixth.” The other sixth-year Slytherin prefect replied. If Harry remembered correctly, she was Mariam Shafiq, Susan’s aunt’s work friend’s daughter. “Higgs… wouldn’t be right.” She and the male prefect shared a look. “Wei and Dagworth-Granger wouldn’t be bad, but they wouldn’t be good either. Anselm would’ve been great, but…” She trailed off into the kind of loss which had become so familiar after the war. No one spoke, silently acknowledging her meaning. “So, no.” She said eventually. “None that would care to do it well.”

“If it’s help you want, then we could help out?” A Hufflepuff Harry didn’t know suggested. “I don’t know…how your House might take that,” they made an awkward gesture which didn’t quite communicate their meaning, “but there’s no reason why we can only help our own House.”

Greengrass looked interested, leaning forward. “Are you suggesting that we share prefects somehow?” There was no judgement in her voice, just honest curiosity.

The Hufflepuff seemed to sweat a little under the collective weight of everyone’s attention but soldiered on. “I mean, I don’t know how it would work exactly, but why not? That was the whole idea of this, right, that we work more collaboratively?”

The Slytherin prefects seemed to consider this. “Help might be useful.” One of them said, and Harry searched for who until he eventually landed on Tracey Davis, who was darting glances at the others before continuing, “But I’m not sure how everyone would react to, well, outsiders coming in and trying to get involved with the House.”

That might be a problem. Harry wasn’t sure how he would have felt if one of the other Houses’ prefects had come into Gryffindor and started trying to act like a Gryffindor prefect. “Is it an authority thing or a trust thing?” He asked her.

She looked a little like a deer in the headlights, wide eyes fixed on his like she couldn’t believe he’d spoken to her. Still, Davis cleared her throat. “A bit of both, I’d imagine. The younger years know us, and hopefully respect us at least a bit. Someone else…”

Harry nodded, understanding. “A stranger, and one with no clear place in the hierarchy. That would be confusing.”

Greengrass tipped her head curiously at him. Even just in their short meeting, it was becoming increasingly clear that Greengrass was characterised by a boundless curiosity for everything, one which was barely restrained behind a shield of polite restraint. “You seem to have more idea about how Slytherin is run than the average Gryffindor, but with no Slytherin friends to speak of. Now where are you getting your information from, Potter?”

Before he could answer, Susan snorted and mumbled. “Probably sneaking around in places he shouldn’t be, doing questionable things.” She clearly meant it as an aside to herself, but it came out much too loud in the quiet of the carriage. Everyone turned towards her, and she blushed bright red. “Oops.”

Harry himself looked at her accusingly, feeling vaguely insulted but also unable to deny anything she’d said.

“In my defence, Harry,” Susan exclaimed suddenly, “it’s not like I’m wrong. I was there for your witness testimony,” Oh, Harry hadn’t known she’d been there, “and every other sentence was about you sneaking around, getting into every weird mystery, and somehow coming out of it with inexplicable information. It was maddening!” It was clear that this had been on her mind for a while.

Across the table, Hermione couldn’t quite muffle a laugh in time. Neville turned away to hide his smile. “She’s not wrong, Harry.” Luna’s voice drifted over the table, calm and amused. “You do have a habit of knowing things you shouldn’t.”

“What is this, pick on Harry meeting?” He asked, pushing a hand through his hair. This accidentally jostled Basilissa, who batted at his hand in reproach. Soothing his irritated magical cat was a much more welcome task than facing a carriage full of curious eyes, so he set to that, stroking over her pitch-dark fur.

“As…enlightening as that was,” Zabini drawled, amusement clear, “we should probably get back to the point at hand.”

“Right.” Hannah said, jumping in. “I was thinking about what Davis said and, if the other prefects being strangers is the problem, then we could just spend time among you lot, with your Slytherins. You know, hang around, help out, be available in your common room and such.”

Hermione tapped her fingers on the table pensively. Harry knew her well enough to know that the suggestion had got her mind firing excitedly. “We are supposed to be approachable to members of every House.” She agreed. “And how are we approachable if we only ever spend time in our own Houses?”

Several people looked dubious. “So, you’re saying we should visit each other’s common rooms?” Anthony Goldstein asked, after no one else moved to say anything.

“It wouldn’t hurt.” Hermione said, eyes a little distant in the way that meant that she wasn’t quite present, mind whirling. “But I was thinking,” she said, gaze sharpening, “what about something a little more formal? Having all of us around as people to go to in trouble has got to be helpful, but to have too many people floating in and out would be confusing. It would be hard to make strong connections and people would never know who exactly is responsible at any given time. However, we have the normal number of prefects plus the extra, who are the ones most unbalancing our numbers. So.” She paused to write something down, lost in a train of thought. Harry and Ron were used to this, but the other members of the carriage watched her and waited for Hermione to finish for a long moment, before realising she wasn’t going to.

“Ah, I think I see where Granger was going with that.” Greengrass said. “If we have the normal two prefects per House assigned to an individual House, then the extra numbers can be the – what did Granger say? Floating? – the ones between Houses.”

“Mm.” Hermione agreed distractedly. “Though whether everyone would rotate, or everyone had two particular Houses…”

Everyone stopped to think about it. It was a strange suggestion, to be responsible for more than your own House. Of course, prefects took points off anyone they saw breaking the rules, regardless of House, but generally their supportive role was contained to their own House. Harry certainly couldn’t imagine even Percy Weasley, who had taken his position more seriously than anyone Harry had ever known, going out of his way to be solve the problems of younger years from other Houses. Everyone knew that you went to your own prefect.

“Can we even do this?” A Ravenclaw fifth year asked. “Are we allowed?”

Everyone turned back to Hermione, as the living encyclopaedia of the Hogwarts rules. She considered it. “I don’t see why not.” She said after a moment. “We’d probably have to go through Headmistress McGonagall, but I don’t see that she’d refuse us, especially if we put in a good case for why we think it might help.”

“Would it help?” Ernie MacMillan asked sceptically. “It sounds interesting and all, but would it make that much of a difference?”

“It might be worth a try at least.” Hannah retorted. “You can’t deny that a problem with this whole system is how insular the Houses are. And an extra set of hands to help out, no matter whose, should always be welcome.”

Ernie raised his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying.”

Padma, who’d been quiet during the meeting, nodded. “You both have a point. It might achieve nothing at all. But there’s no saying that if we tried it, and it didn’t work out, we couldn’t simply abandon it and go back to normal.”

“What do you lot think?” Harry asked, looking over at the gathered Slytherins. “We’ve sort of got away from the point, but the whole idea was to help with your House. Do you think this would do anything?”

The seven Slytherins all looked at Harry. It would have been intimidating a few years ago, when he hadn’t been dragged through a war. They all exchanged glances, communicating in slight facial expressions, until Greengrass turned back to Harry. “If done right.” She said. “Having someone, or a few people, around on a regular basis would let them fit into our House. There’s no telling how…accepted they might be, but familiarity would be a great benefit, and the House will always respond more strongly to someone they know.”

“Are we doing this just with Slytherin or with all the Houses?” Susan asked. “Of course, Slytherin needs the extra help, but it would be nice to get to know another House’s students as well. And visit your common rooms.” She added cheekily at the end.

“A sort of prefect exchange programme.” Terry Boot said, ponderingly. Framing it in those words seemed to settle some of the people who’d still been on the fence with the idea. “To give additional hands where needed, show interhouse unity, and expose younger students to more authority figures they can go to for help.

“Yes, exactly.” Hermione said.

The carriage buzzed for a minute with discussion. “The first step then,” Justin Finch-Fletchley said, raising his voice across the din until it quieted, “must be to decide who is fixed to their House, and who is, as you say, floating.”

“Split into Houses for a minute and figure it out among ourselves?” Hannah suggested, already looking around for all the other Hufflepuffs.

Everyone agreed, so Hermione called out for everyone to meet back in five minutes. The Gryffindors assembled around her automatically, including Fay Dunbar, who’d entered quietly while the meeting was ongoing, and Ron, who had just clattered through the doors and was now wondering what was going on.

“Congratulations, again, everyone.” Hermione said, smiling at the Gryffindors. “I look forward to working with you all this year. We might as well do introductions quickly, just to make sure everyone knows everyone. I’m Hermione Granger.”

“Neville Longbottom.”

“Harry Potter.” Harry said, somewhat stupidly. Still, it was a change to be able to introduce himself.

“Ron Weasley.”

Fay Dunbar said her name, as did the sixth years Andrew Kirke, Jack Sloper, and Anne-Marie Morrison. The fifth years were Ritchie Coote and Aneesha Kaur. Harry felt a little bad that he didn’t really know anyone in the younger years except Ginny and Luna.

“We have one extra prefect in sixth and seventh years.” Neville pointed out. “If we’re not counting ourselves.” He checked with Hermione.

“Best not.” She agreed. “Do we mind much about male-female split?” Hermione asked the rest of the group.

“Kind of, yeah?” Fay said, after a moment. She didn’t look like she wanted to elaborate but after a long pause she continued. “Personally, some things, I’d only want to go to a female prefect for, you know?”

Aneesha nodded, and Hermione looked thoughtful.

“That’s absolutely fair.” Neville agreed. “And a good point.”

Fay looked relieved and deflated like she’d been psyching herself up for an argument.

“That makes it easy.” Hermione said. “In that case, for both years, one of the boys should go.”

“Why do we have so many male prefects?” Aneesha asked.

“Well, I was the prefect before.” Hermione replied, “And, well…” She stopped, seemingly unsure how to continue.

“There’s only one other girl left.” Fay said, voice hard. “Just Parvati. We lost Lily and Lavender. Can’t speak for the sixth year, though.”

“Jade.” Anne-Marie said quietly. “And Colin from the boys.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, the air heavy. Aneesha and Ritchie looked a little lost. “I knew there had been some, I mean, everyone knew that-“ Aneesha cut herself off. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“It’s okay.” Fay said, with a heavy sigh. “I think it’s difficult for any of us to picture what it actually means for our year groups.”

“Could we, maybe, do something for them? In the common room, I mean.” Jack Sloper asked. His voice had sunk and he’d shot up like a weed from his try outs.

“It’s a lovely suggestion.” Hermione replied, smiling. “And something I’d very much like to do. We don’t have time just now, but we can talk about it afterwards, perhaps with some of their friends?” She suggested.

The group agreed. It would be good, Harry thought, to have a proper Gryffindor talk.

“Back to it,” Neville called their attention mildly, “Harry, Ron, do either of you particularly want to stay within the House or do the exchange?”

Harry considered it for a moment. He hadn’t actually pictured himself doing it, but he had nothing against it.

“If it’s all the same, mate,” Ron turned to Harry, “I’d probably rather stay within Gryffindor.”

Harry shrugged. “Works for me. I’m happy enough doing the exchange thing.”

“Good.” Hermione said. “That’s you sorted. What about you, Jack and Andrew? Any preference?”

Jack and Andrew both shrugged.

Anne-Marie sighed. “Andy, you have cousins in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, right? Why don’t you do it and see if you can spend time with them?”

This was, apparently, the deciding factor, and Andrew Kirke ended up as the other free prefect.

It was just in time, as Hermione checked her watch and drew everyone back to the table. “Has everyone had enough time to decide?” She asked the other groups.

“We have!” Hannah said enthusiastically, and the other Houses agreed.

“Excellent.” Hermione said. “To start with, as Heads, Neville and I are going to try and be involved with all the Houses anyway, so we’re counting ourselves out as prefects. Our two extras are then Harry and Andrew.” Whispering started up at Harry’s name, but he ignored it.

“We put forward Terry and Mandy for seventh year, and Selena for sixth.” Padma said.

Hufflepuff had apparently struggled to narrow it down because everyone had wanted to volunteer, but they had eventually decided on Susan and Ernie for seventh and Malaika for sixth. Slytherin only had the one extra, which Daphne had put herself down for.

“So, that’s nine.” Padma said thoughtfully. “Six and three. How do we want to do this? Pick one additional House or go between all of them?”

“One is better.” Mandy said. “At least for me. I’d like to make some good friends.”

Harry agreed. This already had the potential to get messy.

“Greengrass, if you’re happy to stick to Slytherin right now, then that’s eight, two for each House.” Susan suggested. “Whichever House doesn’t get an extra sixth year, gets two seventh years.”

Daphne Greengrass agreed, with something which looked like relief, to stay with Slytherin.

“Anyone particularly want to go anywhere?” Terry asked, clearly trying to speed things up. “I’ve always wanted to check out Gryffindor, if I’m being honest.”

“Ravenclaw was the other House the sorting hat considered for me.” Susan admitted.

“Hufflepuff.” Mandy said a little shyly. “It always seemed so nice.”

“Ravenclaw as well.” Ernie said. “It was the hat’s second choice.”

Everyone abruptly stopped as they realised where that left Harry. “Are you good with Slytherin, Potter?”

It was a good question. Harry had always, infamously, had a bad relationship with the House. He blew out a breath. “Well, technically speaking, I’m already in my second-choice House.” He admitted. “Might as well make the old hat happy now and take its first choice.” He said this in good part because he wanted to enjoy everyone’s expressions. They did not disappoint.

“Potter!” Susan cried, playfully scandalised, “Have you been holding out on us?”

“Wait, wait.” Hannah pulled her down, “Why does this make so much sense?”

“It does!” Susan replied, eyes wide. “The sneakiness, the secrecy, always getting into the weirdest things but somehow getting out of them again. Treating the rules like guidelines…”

“What, precisely, are you saying about our House?” Zabini asked her, though he was still smiling.

Susan levelled an unimpressed look at him, though it was somewhat ruined by her glittering eyes. “Try and deny it then.”

The joking around smoothed some of the awkwardness that had nevertheless crept up in the room. Almost everyone, Harry knew, had a very set idea of what kind of person he was, and when he acted against those expectations, things could get dicey. To hear that he, the epitome of reckless Gryffindor, could well have been sorted into Slytherin was probably a bit of a shock.

“Are you serious, Potter?” Greengrass asked after a moment.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I had to persuade it to put me in Gryffindor. I mean, no offence,” he said, not wanting to sound like he still hated the House the way he’d done in previous years, “but the first Slytherin I met was Malfoy.”

Zabini scrunched his nose. “No, fair enough.” Then he laughed, tipping his head back with the force of it. “You and Malfoy, hah!”

He didn’t need to continue. With a sinking feeling, Harry filled in the gap and realised that he’d just signed himself up for a year of spending time around Malfoy. “I’m willing to be…civil… if he is.” Harry forced himself to scrounge up every speck of maturity he’d gained. “I’m sure we can both ignore each other for the year.”

Greengrass raised an eyebrow that clearly stated she’d believe it when she saw it. “Welcome to Slytherin, Potter.” She said, also sounding amused. Harry wondered what on earth he’d gotten himself in for.

“Hem hem.” Hannah cleared her throat and everyone’s heads whipped towards her uncanny impression of Umbridge. “Oh good, I can still do it.”

“Hannah!” Justin cried. “We’ve talked about this! Don’t do that!”

Harry consciously made himself relax from where he’d tensed up, fingers tight around his wand. Basilissa scrabbled for balance on his shoulder, and he took her down into his lap, scratching behind her ears as he tried to calm down.

“Hannah.” Neville said, sounding disappointed, and somehow that was the worst chastisement that any of them could have given. Hannah deflated, saying sorry quietly. Harry guessed it was hard to remember, if you weren’t one of the people she tortured or tried to pass bills against, that Umbridge had been more than a terrible teacher.

“Anyway.” Hermione said. “That’s the seventh years. We have two in Ravenclaw, so sixth years, are you okay with the other three Houses?”

The sixth years all looked at each other.

“I’d quite like Hufflepuff.” Andrew Kirke said. “I have a younger cousin there.”

The other two nodded. “Gryffindor or Slytherin?” The Ravenclaw, Selena, asked the other.

“I’d prefer Gryffindor.” Malaika, the Hufflepuff replied.

“That’s fine, Slytherin for me then.” Selena seemed very unconcerned, while Malaika looked very relieved.

“Excellent, that was nice and easy.” Hermione said, writing them down. “That’s perfect then. Now we simply have to decide what exactly the prefect exchange is going to mean.”

They spent ten minutes trying to hash it out before Neville drew the discussion to a close. The Hogwarts Express had set off during the first few minutes, and there would have to be prefects patrolling soon. “Let’s do the rest of the group agenda now, then the fifth years can start patrols, while we finish up the House exchange talk.” Neville said firmly, while everyone sat back to hear him speak. “We had one more fixed point on the agenda, which was to clear up any misunderstandings about what happened during the war.”

Chapter Text

“We had one more fixed point on the agenda, which was to clear up any misunderstandings about what happened during the war.”

Abruptly, there was dead silence. Apparently, no one in the carriage wanted to miss this.

Neville continued. “We don’t want to rehash everything, or start assigning blame for anything, but people are going to have questions, so it’s important that we’re all on more or less the same page.”

“What kind of thing do you mean?” Anthony asked.

“Well, some of us were at Hogwarts during the war, some of us weren’t.” Neville said. “Those of us who were in Hogwarts were very isolated from the outside world, while everyone outside didn’t experience what we did. And, we’ve been talking,” he said, nodding to Harry and Padma, “and it’s very clear that there’s some confusion about what is and isn’t common knowledge. So, we decided it would be good to talk it through now, as a group.”

No one said anything for a long moment. “Can we ask questions?” Meyer from Hufflepuff asked.

“Yes, get us started, Tsiala.” Neville said. “We can go from there.”

“Okay.” Meyer looked nervous but turned to Harry. “I guess this is best asked of you, Potter: I get that there was some kind of reason, but why did the battle have to be at Hogwarts? Couldn’t it have been somewhere else?”

There was dead silence, the air hanging still in anticipation. Harry straightened up. He’d known this was coming, had suggested it even, but it didn’t make it much easier. He sighed. “I’m going to try and answer as many questions in one go as possible.” He said to the expectant group. “Short answer, yes, it had to be at Hogwarts.” He replied to Meyer. “The long answer is a bit more complicated, so bear with me.”

Harry tried to drag his thoughts into order, remembering what he’d spoken about with Padma earlier. “This needs some context, so, the first thing that everyone needs to understand is that Voldemort was immortal.” There were flinches around the room with his name and, having lived through the Taboo himself, Harry couldn’t even blame them. “That wasn’t just fearmongering. He’d taken measures against dying. When he attacked my family in ’81 and the curse rebounded, he should have died then, but his measures worked. He was trying to restore himself ever since. First, possessing Quirrell to go after the Philosopher’s Stone-“

“Wait, what?” Justin Finch-Fletchley interrupted. “Quirrell was possessed? By You-Know-Who? And what was that with the Philosopher’s Stone?”

Oh, dear. Harry could be here longer than he thought. He looked around and no one was treating Justin’s questions like they were obvious facts. The lower years just looked confused. He looked back and Ron and Hermione also seemed surprised. “Uh, yeah. Quirrell was possessed. Voluntarily, and all. It’s why he wore that smelly turban – he had Voldemort’s face kinda rotting on the other side. The possession wasn’t really working out well for them, so Quirrell had to keep killing unicorns in the forest to drink their blood, which is why they were dying.” Everyone looked shocked and disgusted. “Dumbledore had hidden the Philosopher’s Stone in the Third-Floor corridor, which is why it was out of bounds, after Quirrell managed to break into Gringotts.” The seventh years had looks of revelation on their faces. “Near the end of the year, Quirrell went for the Stone while Dumbledore was away. We,” he indicated Ron and Hermione, “knew someone was after it,” he tactfully didn’t mention they’d thought it was Snape, “and stopped him. Quirrell died. Voldemort abandoned his body and had to find a new way to resurrect.”

“Morgana’s tits.” Hannah swore, pulling a laugh out of some unsuspecting younger years. “Is that why you all got a stupid number of points at the end of year feast?”

“Oh, we hated you for that.” Zabini said cheerfully. “Makes a bit more sense now though.”

“Uh, yeah.” Harry rubbed his neck. “It was a bit of a dick move, in retrospect, doing it at the feast, but in fairness, I’d just woken up again. Uh, where was I?”

“Voldemort, immortality.” Ernie supplied, face pale.

“Right.” Harry grimaced. “So, it was pretty clear from then that Voldemort was still alive and was trying to bring himself back to full power. Dumbledore started looking into how Voldemort kept himself from dying, but, well,” Harry shrugged tiredly, “Dumbledore was a secretive old man at the best of times. He managed to keep what he knew from Voldemort, but it also meant he wouldn’t ask for help from anyone else or share his secrets, even with the people involved. So, he didn’t make any real progress until the summer before sixth year, after Voldemort had already resurrected himself.”

“So, he knew all along that the Dark Lord was alive?” A Slytherin fifth year asked. “And didn’t do anything?”

Harry shrugged half-heartedly. “He knew. In theory, everyone knew. There was always the possibility that Voldemort was still alive, just powerless somehow. People only started denying it after I said he was resurrected, and that was Fudge digging his head in the sand and Lucius Malfoy pushing Voldemort’s agenda in the Ministry. As for why he didn’t do more, I really don’t know. Dumbledore was trying very hard, once Voldemort was back, to tell the Ministry, but I don’t know what things or even if he was doing things before then. I guess the whole resurrection thing really turned up the heat for everyone.”

“I never knew people didn’t believe Voldemort was immortal.” Neville added helpfully. “My Gran and her friends always believed it, so I grew up assuming he was still out there but powerless.” Several people around the room looked like their worlds had been overturned.

“Yeah.” Harry agreed. “Anyway. The point is that it took him years, but Dumbledore finally figured out how Voldemort was keeping himself from death, started putting in the work to counteract it, got himself fatally cursed in the process, played silly mind games for a year instead of just telling anyone what the problem was, and then left me to complete it without ever actually explaining any of the details.” Not that Harry held a grudge or anything.

“I thought you and Dumbledore were really close?” Susan asked.

Harry blew out a breath. “So did I, until I had to spend a year on the run with no idea what I was doing because he would never give me a straight answer. He was withholding information from everyone, right to the end. And his grand scheme worked, but it nearly went very, very wrong so many times. Difficult not to be a bit annoyed.” Hard to think of a man who he’d considered a mentor but had knowingly sent him to his death.

“So, that’s what you were doing?” Terry asked. “Figuring out V-Voldemort’s immortality?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, sorry, got side tracked there. Short answer, yes. We were also being hunted down to be killed at the time, which certainly slowed us down, but yes, the main task we were doing was trying to make Voldemort killable again.” He considered how to explain it. “There were so many problems. We didn’t know where to look, how many measures there were, how to stop them even once we found them. And most of all, we couldn’t risk drawing his attention, because if he found out what we were doing, he’d guard them better or use more methods we didn’t know about, and the task would become impossible. That wasn’t even considering that even if we succeeded, we’d still have to somehow kill Voldemort.”

Hermione reached over and squeezed his hand. He was grateful for it. Everyone was listening in rapt silence. “We managed it, but it wasn’t easy. One of the last involved breaking into Gringotts. Things went wrong, we were betrayed, and we got out again, but it was very public. He finally realised what we were doing, so there was no time to waste. The final part was in Hogwarts.” Harry sighed. “There was no avoiding Hogwarts. Voldemort hid it there because he found it funny to put a method for his immortality directly under Dumbledore’s nose. Voldemort was coming to Hogwarts anyway and we had to beat him there.”

Harry rubbed his hand down Basilissa’s spine, remembering the chaos before the Battle, and worse during it. “It’s important to understand, I think, that Voldemort wasn’t mortal until after I went to meet him in the Forest. And, just to be clear, of course he didn’t catch me running away, that was just another stupid lie. I went to meet him about his deal.” Hannah looked alarmed and like she wanted to interrupt, but Harry continued on. “There are lots of people asking why I didn’t fight him sooner, and that’s why. Even if I thought I could win against him, there was no point, because he wouldn’t die, and we’d lose the advantage of secrecy. Lots of weird magical factors went into our duel, I had no hope of defeating him in skill alone.”

“But you’re the Chosen One, aren’t you?” A fifth year Ravenclaw said. “Of course you had to beat him.”

“Am I?” Harry said, and he couldn’t help the edge of bitterness that slid into his tone. “Because a prophecy said so? Who knows how many prophecies go unfulfilled. No one else knew what the prophecy said, either. Not even Voldemort knew the full prophecy. And I can tell you that it said nothing about who would win, only that I, maybe, had the power to destroy him, not that I would, and that one of us would kill the other.” Surprisingly, it was this that seemed to scare everyone the most. Had they really believed that his win was guaranteed? “It didn’t even name me. Merlin, it didn’t even name which Dark Lord it was talking about.”

“Morgana’s tits.” Hannah swore again, though this time it was less funny.

“Yeah.” Harry said. “That about sums it up.”

Everyone was contemplative for a bit. “What was going on with Snape?” Mandy Brocklehurst finally asked. “All we knew was that he was a Death Eater and killed Dumbledore, and then all of a sudden you were saying he was a spy and that V-v- You-Know-Who had killed him for some reason.”

“Ah, yeah, I guess we never really explained.” Harry rubbed his neck. “So, I was there hiding when Voldemort set Nagini on Snape. It wasn’t because he knew he was a spy, but to try and master the wand he thought Snape had. It’s a long story. Anyway, Snape managed to get some memories out to show me, which showed that he’d made a vow to Dumbledore a long time ago, right after the first war, to protect me.” Everyone in Harry’s year group looked confused, unsurprisingly since the antipathy between Harry and Snape was well known. “Yeah, was weird for me too. Anyway, he was passing information to the Order and, when Dumbledore was dying from the curse that withered his hand so badly,” many of their faces lit up with recognition, “Dumbledore made Snape promise to kill him, both to gain Voldemort’s trust and to keep Malfoy from having to do it. He also told Snape about Voldemort’s immortality, so Snape was working on that behind the scenes. The memories he gave me explained what was going on and how to deal with the last part and make Voldemort mortal. So, yeah, Snape was a right foul git, but a spy.”

“It does explain a fair bit about last year.” Ernie Macmillan said. “He was still an arse, but everyone knew it was the Carrows you had to look out for.”

Neville shifted at the mention of the Carrows, and he wasn’t the only one.

“Will you tell us what was going on at Hogwarts?” Justin Finch-Fletchley addressed Neville and the rest. “I’ve heard bits and pieces, but of course, some of us weren’t welcome at Hogwarts last year.” Harry sometimes forgot that Justin was muggleborn.

“Yeah, yeah of course.” Neville said, with a small grimace. “It was strange. I can only tell you my side, of course, but, yes.”

Harry listened intently. Neville had told him some of what it had been like at Fred’s funeral, but that was only a small glimpse.

“First off,” Neville said, “it was isolating. Letters in and out were heavily monitored, especially among Harry’s friends, so it was almost impossible to keep up to date on what was happening outside the castle, except for what the Death Eaters and their kids were saying. Lee Jordan had his radio show, but radios were banned pretty early on, so we could only listen in secret. The Prophet came, of course, but you could only try to pick through the propaganda. Voldemort was in charge and running everything, and we didn’t even know if there was much of a resistance left, let alone if it was actually getting anywhere. Ginny told us you all had some kind of a plan, and had disappeared, Harry, so I guess we pinned a lot of our hopes on that. And then we heard nothing from you and had to assume that was a good thing.”

He took a drink of water. “As Justin said, muggleborns weren’t allowed at Hogwarts, so the castle was weirdly empty, and pretty much everyone had friends they were worried about. But you couldn’t say anything or risk it getting back to the Carrows.” Neville scowled at the table. “The Carrows were the worst part. They were only there because they wanted to hurt people. They enforced so many rules, it felt like a prison. It was one, really. Every time someone thought of protesting in some way, they’d threaten their parents or relatives. They went through with the threats too. McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and the others, they all tried to help, but what can you do against Death Eaters when Voldemort’s in charge?”

Neville looked angrier than Harry had ever seen him. “The worst part was, they didn’t just hurt students themselves, they wanted us to hurt each other. We all had to learn dark magic in class, but they wanted us to practice on the lower years, to punish them, or on anyone who publicly rejected Voldemort’s authority. Some of the students, the ones with Death Eater parents or who wanted to be Death Eaters themselves, joined up with the Carrows for benefits – like Umbridge’s Inquisitorial Squad, you know? They could break the rules and get away with whatever they wanted, so long as it didn’t annoy the Carrows. Then they started selling the benefits – information for news from home, rat someone out for the safety of a family member – and then it was difficult to know who to trust, because everyone was desperate.”

He sighed. “There was resistance, of course. Ours was the largest, I think.” He said, nodding to the people who’d been hiding in the Room of Requirement with him. “We tried to keep people safe, got news from the radio when we could, tried to get Harry the sword. A good part of that was just making a scene and taking the blame for the younger years when they made a mistake. It wasn’t much, but we had to do something. All of us were restless and feeling useless. By the end, it just wasn’t safe, we’d made the Carrows so furious, so we could only stay in the Room and leave to get food and such. I really don’t know what we’d have done if it dragged on much longer.” Neville stopped, visibly struggling to find the words. “I know it was scarier outside the castle, but… I don’t know. They made Hogwarts something unsafe. And people did really bad things to try and stay afloat in the Carrows’ Hogwarts, and now we’ve got to go back to the same place and all face each other again.”

There was a heavy silence. “Thank you for your explanation, Longbottom.” Justin said at last. “I, uh, I heard a lot of good things about your resistance, from a lot of different people. It,” he paused, looking conflicted, “it made it easier to come back. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to, with all the, you know. I spent the year hiding in the muggle world, away from my family – I spent every day wondering if it was the day I got caught, and I missed magic, but I couldn’t help thinking maybe it would be better if I stayed away, where I was welcome.”

Many of the purebloods looked aghast. “You could do that?” Susan asked. “Give up on your magic entirely?”

“Not easily.” Justin replied. “But I grew up in the muggle world, I could do it again. Magic wouldn’t be worth the price of being hunted down and killed.”

Harry could see on their faces that they still didn’t get it. Magic was so firmly entrenched in pureblood culture that it was like saying you’d happily live without your spine.

“My parents wanted me to.” Hermione spoke up. “From my very first year at Hogwarts, they tried to persuade me to come back home where it was safe. Maybe I would have done, if these two idiots didn’t need me.” She nudged Harry and Ron playfully.

“I thought about it.” Harry said. The group turned to him, gaping. “Everyone seems to forget I’m muggle-raised.” He complained lightly, and saw many of their faces twist with shock. “Sometimes, magic seemed more trouble than it was worth. At first, I just hoped it would get better, and then I knew that Voldemort would never stop looking for me even in the muggle world, so there was no point.”

Harry, Hermione, and Justin shared a look. There was a kind of solidarity there.

“The war without Potter or Granger.” Zabini said quietly, staring at the far wall, “We’d have been doomed.”  

“Wouldn’t it be bad for you, though?” Padma asked. She, and many of the others soon seemed unsettled. “Not using your magic would be like suppressing it, and then…”

“Suppression sickness, yeah.” Harry confirmed. Justin looked confused, evidently never having heard of it before. Most of the others seemed to recognise it and winced. “There’s a reason it generally occurs in muggleborns or muggle-raised wixen. Not that anyone would think about warning us about that, because it wouldn’t even occur to them.”

Neville looked faintly ill at the thought. It was strange to Harry how badly pureblood wixen reacted to the idea of Suppression sickness or obscurials.

“Anyway,” Hermione said, “we are already running a little late and we have yet to finish our discussion ironing out the prefect sharing system. Fifth years,” she addressed the youngest group, “can I trust you to handle patrols for the next twenty minutes? You should go in groups of two or three, not on your own, and anything that you don’t know how to deal with, send for one of us."

The fifth-year prefects were split between being eager to leave the over-long meeting and disappointed not to hear the end of the discussion. Still, they split themselves into groups and left to complete their rounds.

Chapter Text

In the end, it took them the entire twenty minutes to iron out even the rough sketches of what they wanted the prefect exchange to look like. While the prefects would stay attached to their own House, they would ideally spend half their time with the other House and be welcomed as an honorary member. They would pair up with a prefect originally from that House and complete their usual duties – rounds, hall monitoring, guiding the younger years – together. There was some talk about the shared prefects actually staying in the other House, but they weren’t sure how the logistics of that would work. Regardless, the details could be sorted out further when they were actually at the school and could test how their arrangements worked out. Finally, they also agreed that they would send a fast owl ahead to McGonagall, giving her time to either veto the idea or prepare, and, if she approved it, the exchange prefects would go with their new Houses to be introduced.

“Now for rounds.” Said Neville, cutting through the persistent attempts to raise one more idea. “We need a couple of people in here at all times, so people can find us if need be. We can switch out over the course of the journey. Otherwise, we need a few people at a time monitoring for problems up and down the train. This means that everyone should have a short slot doing the rounds and can spend the rest of their time with their friends. We have a time slot sheet here.” The parchment he held up contained Hermione’s distinct, neat but spiky handwriting. The first twenty minutes had been blocked off with the fifth years’ names. “Please consider pairing up with someone you don’t know well.”

Harry and Ron stopped shuffling towards each other and exchanged a sad look.

“Honestly, boys,” Hermione huffed at them, laughing, “it’s not going to kill you if you spend an hour away from each other.”

“It might!” Ron protested, “You never know.”

Harry nodded along, trying not to laugh, “We’re simply taking precautions. Self-preservation and all that.”

Ron couldn’t keep his straight face at that, snorting loudly. Harry fake-glared at him.

“Potter,” a voice came from behind him, and he turned to find Blaise Zabini, “want to pair up for the rounds? Get to know your new House and all.”

“Zabini.” Harry greeted. He looked back at Ron and Hermione. Hermione was making an encouraging face that was probably meant to be subtle. “Sure, why not? Any preference on time slot?”

Zabini studied him for a moment, light eyes flickering over Harry’s face. “Alright.” He said slowly. “The sooner the better. I have people I want to see.”

“Mm, me too.” Harry agreed. He really wanted to seek out Ginny and see what she made of the scheme they’d all concocted. Her take was sure to be funny.

Zabini led over to where the sign-up parchment had been dragged to the end of the table closest to the carriage doors. With a searching glance at Harry, as if he might protest, he wrote their names in the first available slot, which was just coming up. From the side, Harry could see Greengrass and Davis watching closely.

“Great!” Harry said, trying to pretend this wasn’t awkward. “You know, I’ve never actually walked the full length of the train before. Never really gone beyond the first free compartment – not counting the time that I went to spy on Malfoy in his – so this should be interesting.” He wrestled a grumpy Basilissa back into her carrier for now.

Zabini eyed him curiously as they left the carriage. “I was at Malfoy’s trial as well.” He revealed conversationally. “And I must say, you seemed as obsessed with Malfoy as he was with you.”

Harry huffed. He’d have been offended by this before, he knew, but losing the horcrux and then the further purge of the remnants had drained so much of his anger. Now it was just funny. “Difference is,” he said, waving goodbye to those of his friends still inside the prefects’ carriage, “I was right – he was up to something.”

Zabini shrugged, “Ah, but from all I’ve heard, so were you.”

That startled a laugh from Harry. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag with that one.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Never thought I’d be admitting to breaking so many rules in front of the Wizengamot.”

Zabini hummed an amused sound. “But Potter, think of it this way – you admitted to breaking the rules in front of everyone and still got away with it. That’s how you know you’ll fit in in Slytherin.”

Harry’s steps stuttered. He didn’t know how to react to that.

“Say, Potter,” Zabini continued, eyes darting to the side to look at him, “was it true, what you said, that the Sorting Hat considered Slytherin first for you?”

“Oh, uh, yes.” Harry replied. He scrunched up his face trying to remember, “Something, something, thirst to prove myself. Uh, something about ‘Slytherin will help you on your way to greatness!’.” He couldn’t help reenacting the hat’s overdramatic tones.

Zabini snorted. “Would you believe all the hat told me was ‘hm, I see… SLYTHERIN!’” He whisper-shouted the last bit. It wasn’t a half-bad impression.

Harry laughed. “At least it touched your head. Do you remember Malfoy’s? It got one whiff of him and that was enough.”

Zabini leaned in conspiratorially, “Apparently, he was shouting ‘Slytherin’ in his head from the moment he sat on the stool. I wouldn’t be surprised if the hat just wanted him to be quiet.”

Harry grinned. He’d never quite gotten out of the habit of collecting new information to goad Malfoy with the next time the ferret approached him. “Anyway, that made my decision.” He said, “I’d only met Malfoy twice, and I don’t think he even remembers the first time was me, but it was enough to not want to be in a House with him for seven years.”

Zabini stopped in his tracks, turning to face Harry fully. “What, really, that was it? I know what Malfoy was like, especially in first year, but he was enough to make you derail your own sorting?”

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, him and I’d heard some of the normal bad rumours about Slytherin.” It felt odd to be saying that to someone from Slytherin House. “I wasn’t really too bothered about which of the other three.” He admitted, “I didn’t really know anything about them. Malfoy was the only one who’d made a really bad impression, and I didn’t want to be near him or anyone like him.”

Zabini considered him. “I hope you understand that ‘being like Malfoy’ isn’t what Slytherin is.”

Harry let out a breath. “Yeah, I know now, of course. But I was eleven, and my introduction to your House was Malfoy and Snape.”

“That’d do it.” Zabini winced.

“It’s sort of why I hope this works out.” Harry said, as they continued down the train. Most of the compartments they’d passed had been pretty quiet, just people sitting around chatting. “The whole House system sort of screws over getting to know people outside your House.”

Zabini hummed consideringly. “It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.” He said, noncommittal. Then, he brightened. “Ah, but Potter, you’ll get to be a rare breed of Gryffindor indeed – one who’s been in the Slytherin Common Room!”

“I’ve already been in the Slytherin Common Room.” Harry replied absentmindedly, speeding up as the sound of raised voices started filtering down the corridor.

“Eh?” Zabini sounded offended. “When was this? How?”

As much as Harry was enjoying their conversation, he wasn’t going to give away all of their secrets, only the ones that got funny reactions. “Second year.” He replied. “Hermione is a scary witch.”

“What? That doesn’t answer anything!”

“Hold that thought.” Harry said, as they approached the compartment where the shouting was coming from. “We should probably see what this is about.”

Zabini shot him one more disbelieving look but hurried with him to where a clump of students had gathered around a compartment door.

There were multiple people yelling, so it was difficult to work out exactly what they were saying. At a guess, Harry would put them around fifth year, though it was always hard to tell. With it being so early in the train ride, very few people had changed into their uniforms already, so there was no clear House distinction. At the door of the compartment, a red-faced boy was shouting at another boy, both with their wands held out and evidence of spellfire around them, though neither appeared to be harmed.

“OI!” Harry shouted, as he tried to get through the knot of onlookers. “What’s all this?”

Some of the spectators saw him and scampered, while others stayed to see what happened. The two arguing entirely ignored him and kept on their screaming. Harry caught something about Death Eaters from one and ‘unworthy’ from the other. He had a fair idea already what this was about.

“Enough!” He shouted, as the two continued to launch spells at each other. None of the spells seemed to hit the boys, glancing off. They didn’t hit the bystanders either, but the furniture was less fortunate.

“Arresto momentum.” Zabini intoned from behind him, catching both boys. Briefly, Harry wondered why this spell hit when none of the others seemed to, but he didn’t have time to stop and think about it. The boys hung in space, as if suspended in thick jelly. At last, Harry and Zabini had their attention.

“Good thinking, Zabini.” Harry said, as he shuffled the last of the crowd out of the way. “Now,” he said to them both, “if we drop the spell, are you willing to talk about this civilly?” The good thing about the momentum-stopping charm was that it slowed movement through space to a crawl but wouldn’t stop smaller movements like blinking or speaking. For that reason, it wasn’t recommended against a strong opponent, who might be able to cast a spell without the wand movement but was perfectly capable of containing two angry fifth years.

The one in the carriage glared, but nodded slowly, loosening his grip on his wand. The one in the doorway was less easily convinced. “Potter?” He cried, voice catching with all the shouting he’d already done. “You’re supposed to be on our side! You don’t know what he’s done!”

“I haven’t done anything to you!” The other rejoined.

“Enough!” Harry raised his voice again. He turned back to the blond in the doorway. “What side is that exactly?” Though he had a bad feeling that he knew what this was going to be about. “If you calm down and tell me what’s going on, maybe we can get to the bottom of this. Okay?”

“But-!”

“Okay?” Harry asked harder. He glanced back at Zabini to see if he had any suggestion to how Harry was handling this, but he just lounged against the wall in a conspicuously casual manner, though his eyes kept careful watch of their surroundings.

“Okay.” The angry boy deflated.

“Excellent.” Harry said, trying to inject cheer into his voice though he was feeling tired already. He turned back to the spectators. “Anyone not involved, clear off. Anyone who is involved, stay behind.”

There was some huffing and grumbling but most of the assorted mass moved away, though Harry caught some lingering further down the train. He didn’t care enough to make them go further.

“Right.” He said, turning back to the two paused boys and the few other students who’d remained. “We’re going to talk about this one at a time, without shouting or spellcasting.” Harry mentally counted up the number of students. “We’ll just about fit.” He said, “Come into the compartment and we’ll put up some muffling wards to keep the nosey parkers out, yeah?”

Zabini, taking this as his cue, released the two from his spell. They stumbled and glared at each other, but both found seats on opposite sides of the compartment as the other students filed in. Zabini entered right behind them, still appearing nonchalant.

Harry slid the door closed behind him and cast a quick muffliato. Zabini’s eyes glimmered with interest, but he knew better than to ask now.

“Alright.” Harry said, staring down the unknown group of younger years, “Who’s going to start?”

The two boys glared at each other for a long moment before one of the group who’d followed them in sighed. Harry vaguely recognised her as one of the younger members of the DA, Maisy something, from Ravenclaw. “Craig started it, Harper made it worse.”

Both boys immediately blew up with protests.

Zabini shot sparks from his wand to grab their attention. They exploded silently, but in a bright flash of orange. “One at a time.” He said, still leaning against the compartment door.

“Let’s start with names.” Harry said, already feeling out of his depth. He turned to the blond and looked expectantly.

“Craig Portman.” He mumbled.

“Leon Harper.” The other boy said, without prompting. He looked guarded, as if waiting for something bad to happen.

Zabini shot a look at Harper and something like understanding came over his face. Clearly, he knew more than Harry did about the situation.

“We’re going to do this without interruptions.” Harry said, trying to be stern. It felt sort of ridiculous when he was only a few years older than the two. “Yelling at each other isn’t getting anywhere. You’ll both get a turn to say your piece and then we can talk it out further, yes?”

They both, reluctantly, agreed.

“Portman, off you go.”

Portman, who had slowly been becoming less red, puffed up again. “Last year,” he started, “Harper’s stupid, Death Eater wannabe sister took something of mine, and I want it back! But he won’t give it back!”

From his place against the wall, Zabini sighed. In his seat, Harper was almost vibrating with wanting to respond, but kept quiet after a glance at the two prefects.

“Alright, Harper, your turn.” Harry said, after waiting a moment for Portman to continue.

Harper scowled. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t give it back; I said I didn’t know what it was or what she might have done with it.”

“Liar!” Portman shouted getting to his feet. “You’ve got to know. She was taking everyone’s things last year, like the rotten thief she was, and you were always around her.”

“Stop talking about my sister!” Harper yelled right back.

With a flick of the wand, Zabini had them frozen and silenced again. He beckoned Harry over, so Harry went. “Harper’s sister, Lucille, is dead.” He murmured in Harry’s ear, and Harry’s heart sank into his stomach. “Lucille was in the year below us, Slytherin. She was one of the Carrows' favourites, wanted to join the Dark Lord’s ranks when she graduated, made something of a reputation for herself last year for picking on the less influential half-bloods like Portman. She fought for the Dark Lord and was killed during the Battle. Leon Harper was in fourth year, I believe.”

Harry nodded his thanks and went back towards the two, a weight still sitting heavy in his chest. “Zabini, if you could…” He indicated the two frozen boys.

“Ah, of course.” Zabini undid his spellwork as casually as he had cast it.

Portman and Harper stuttered into movement again, though made the wise decision to stop yelling at each other.

“Okay, one thing before we continue.” Harry began, looking sternly at Portman, “Insulting people’s dead relatives is pretty much always a step too far. I don’t want to hear any more of that. Am I understood?”

“But she was on the other side!” Portman protested. “She was a Death Eater wannabe.”

“Perhaps so.” Harry agreed. “But she also has a family who mourns her. Whatever she did was done by her and her alone, whatever Harper here,” he nodded his head to the boy in question, “did is his and his alone. Whatever grudge you have against the older Harper, however justified, you don’t take out on this one. And you certainly don’t use his dead sibling as ammunition.”

Harper was watching Harry with wide, dark eyes. Zabini too was watching, face inscrutable.

Portman’s face was mulish, so Harry sighed and continued. “You’re allowed to be angry at her, Portman.” He said, and the boy looked up. “You’re allowed to be hurt and furious about the people who’ve hurt you. You don’t ever have to forgive her if you don’t want to.” Portman looked confused. “It’s about not punishing other people for something she did.”

Portman seemed to grapple with that for a few moments. “Fine, fine, whatever. I won’t say anything about his sister to Harper.” That was probably the best Harry was going to get from him. “But it doesn’t change that she took my memory orb and I want it back.”

Harry resisted the urge to sigh. At least lost or stolen property was more within the usual boundaries of prefect duties. “What happened? Was this Harper with her when she took it?”

“No.” Portman admitted grudgingly. “She cornered me in the corridor coming from the library. It was just her and Bletchley. I don’t know who told her I had it – must’ve been one of my dormmates, I guess – but she made me hand it over or she’d make something up to snitch on me to the Carrows.”

“What was this memory orb?” Zabini asked, speaking up unexpectedly.

“Uh,” Portman seemed startled, like he’d forgotten the Slytherin prefect was there, “It was something my uncle made. Like a pensieve, but it stored flashes of multiple memories like a picture gallery. I used it for my family, when we couldn’t get letters in.” He looked away from the other students in the compartment as if embarrassed to admit he’d missed his family.

Harry understood the vehemence of his response a little better. “Okay, a very valuable item to you, then.” He turned to Harper. “Alright, Harper, your turn: do you know anything about this memory orb?”

“No.” Harper said. “I knew she’d taken something from Portman because she and Bletchley were laughing about it, but Lucille never said what she was doing with anything she took. And now,” he shrugged, voice bitter, “I can’t exactly ask her.”

Harry nodded. “I understand this is difficult, Harper, but did anyone ever retrieve her things from Hogwarts?”

Harper’s shoulders hunched inwards. “I don’t know.” It was the voice of someone who hadn’t even thought about it before and now was feeling guilty for not.

“Okay.” Harry considered the options. “How’s this: Harper, is there anyone you can write to at home who might be able to tell you if they have her things, and if so, check for anything that matches Portman’s description?”

Harper’s face scrunched up. “I guess. We haven’t really touched anything of hers yet.”

“Alright.” Harry said. “Then you do that, and if anyone finds Portman’s memory orb, get it back to him. Otherwise, if your family don’t have your sister’s things or it’s not there, the best bet is to ask the House Elves.”

“The House Elves?” Portman and Harper both asked.

Harry resisted the urge to sigh. The general ignorance to the power and usefulness of House Elves was astonishing. “Who do you think collects lost things in the castle?” He asked them. “They usually have very good memories as well.”

Portman and Harper both looked like they’d never considered this. Probably, as most people who’d grown up in the wizarding world, they’d grown used to never considering House Elves at all.

“What if the elves don’t know?” One of the other students asked.

“Then that’s that.” Harry shrugged. “There’s always the chance that Lucille Harper was destroying the things she took, and there’s nothing we can change about that now. Only thing we can do is look for it in case she didn’t.”

Portman scowled at the floor.

“Anyway,” Harry said, “is that a deal, boys? Harper makes a reasonable effort to find the orb, Portman, you accept that what happened was between you and Lucille Harper, not Leon Harper, no matter whether Harper manages to find it or not.”

The two boys stared at each other for a long moment.

“Okay.” Said Harper as Portman grit out a “Fine.”

“Right.” Harry was sincerely relieved that part was over. “Part two…” Though the problem between Portman and Harper now had at least the bare bones of a solution in place, it didn’t change the fact that they’d been fighting on the train with words and spells. After questioning both boys and their friends, Harry said that he’d be writing a report to give to both of their Heads of Houses as soon as they were off the train. The professors could deal with them. The fighting hadn’t been nasty, mainly due to the fact that they couldn’t seem to hit each other, but the words they’d spoken had been. Portman had gone straight in with insults and Harper had replied in kind, with a strong hint of blood supremacy rhetoric. Harry knew that it wouldn’t simply have vanished after the war, especially with the sheer number of people who supported it, but it was still discouraging to hear slurs about blood status on the first day of Hogwarts reopening.

Eventually, they shooed Portman and his friends out of the compartment, leaving Harper and his group to sit in peace. Portman and co. moved off, talking loudly about what happened, and Harry was left alone in the train corridor again with Zabini.

Harry cast a quick tempus charm and saw that a good 20 minutes had elapsed. “Merlin, that felt longer.” He said with a heavy breath.

Zabini hummed in place of an answer.

“You didn’t say much during that.” Harry tried. Zabini had been there as backup if Harry needed him but had mostly let Harry lead the whole thing.

“Forgive me,” Zabini said, movements languid as ever as he leant back against the wall, “I was too curious to see what you would do.”

Harry looked at him unimpressed. “Well?”

“Not bad.” Zabini replied. “Not quite how it would have been handled in Slytherin, but it was reasonably fair, and I doubt they’ll cross wands again.”

“Well, I live for your judgement.” Harry said sarcastically. He was feeling a little miffed about having spent the last twenty minutes trying to wrangle angry fifth years for Zabini’s entertainment.

“Ah, don’t be cross, Potter.” Zabini said, peeling himself off the wall and beginning to walk down the corridor again. “You talk the good talk about fairness and Houses, but it’s only natural that I might want to see what your actions say. Besides,” he said cheerfully, “you had them both scared absolutely shitless. Who am I to mess with a good thing?”

Harry rolled his eyes, “If you plan to spend the rest of the rounds testing me in some way, it’s going to get very old, very fast.” He warned.

“No,” Zabini replied, something speculative in his look, “I think I’m about done.”

Harry huffed.

Thankfully, Zabini kept his word and involved himself equally for the remaining time of their shift. He came off laidback in a way which invited people to listen, rather than immediately ignore any form of authority figure, but his eyes were always serious. They broke up a couple more fights, though on a much smaller scale, briefly passed by Malfoy’s compartment – which was warded to Olympus and back – without stepping in, found an assortment of somehow already lost property, and captured a loose toad. The toad, once Harry got a good look at it, turned out to be Trevor, so he set out to find Neville as their slot ended.

“Is that Longbottom’s toad?” Zabini asked, eyeing the slimy lump in Harry’s hands. “I do believe I recognise it from Potions.”

“Yep.” Harry said, holding the squirming toad aloft, “Meet Trevor. He’s an escapist.”

“Oh?” Zabini asked in good humour. “I wasn’t aware toads had such a skill.”

“You know, I’d have written it off before I got my cat, but she just claws through wards she doesn’t like.” Harry said. “Trevor here seems to always find a way out, no matter how hard Neville tries, so maybe he can do the same.”

Zabini looked dubiously down at the toad. Trevor stared back. Zabini was the first to look away. “I’ll take your word for it, Potter.”

They found Neville in the prefects’ carriage and handed off Trevor, who seemed relieved to be back in the company of a human he actually liked. Neville was just exasperated.

“Well, that’s us done.” Harry said, looking around to see if one of his friends was in the carriage. “Guess I’ll catch you later, after the feast? Presuming McGonagall agrees and all.”

“Indeed.” Zabini replied. “If all goes well, come to our table when the feast is dismissed and join our walk to the dungeons.”

“Alright.” Harry agreed. He could probably find his own way, but he wouldn’t know the password.

“I’ll see you around then, Potter.” And with that, Zabini strolled out of the carriage.

Harry left too, after retrieving Basilissa from her carrier and soothing the ball of feline rage, tracing his steps back to where he’d passed Ginny and Luna in a compartment. He hoped the others were there too – he desperately wanted their opinions on all this.

Chapter Text

By the time Hogwarts came into view, darkness had fallen. After the excitement of the first hour, the rest of train journey had passed as normal. Harry had sat in a clump of Gryffindors, with Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and their usual Ravenclaw addition, Luna. People had come by to say hello, mainly their fellow Gryffindors but also some of the former members of the DA. It had been relatively peaceful, even if there was a definite uptick in the number of people who passed by the window simply to gawk at Harry.

When they first turned the corner and the tiny glimmering lights of Hogwarts’ windows appeared in the darkness outside, a hush fell. Conversation paused in stuttering steps as they all looked out to the faintly illuminated shape of the castle. Most of them had not been back since the clean-up of the Battle, once the bodies were claimed, the worst of the curses removed, and students could get into the dormitories to retrieve their belongings before the school closed for repairs. Although pictures were regularly published in the Prophet, showing repairs, it wasn’t the same as seeing it in person, nor had it remotely prepared anyone for the reality of being back. Harry found himself swallowing harshly. Hogwarts had been his home for six years, a refuge from the Dursleys and the proof that he could make something more of himself. It had also been home to threats on his life, and then the lives of all the students. It was hard to reconcile the dissonance.

Hermione looked wistful, seated next to Harry, her gaze locked on the faint lights of a thousand candles filtering out into the night. He knew that she was looking forward to being back but wasn’t sure what to expect. Ron was more openly tentative. After all, he was about to eat a feast in the room his brother’s body had laid in, in the school where he’d died. Ginny held a more complicated expression, sat with Neville and Luna on either side of her. This was also the castle they’d waged their own, quiet war in for a year.

“It’s good to see the lights on again.” Harry tried, breaking the silence.

“Yeah.” Ginny agreed. “Looks like it always did.”

The view of Hogwarts was blocked again by the hills and woods as they approached Hogsmeade. Harry urged Basilissa back into her carrier as they neared the station. “It’s only for a little while.” He assured her. “The elves will come and collect you and the luggage from the pick-up point and take you to the dorms. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She still didn’t look pleased, but stayed within the carrier instead of destroying it, so Harry tentatively assumed he was in the clear.

Before the train rolled into a halt, Harry brushed himself off, cast a few freshening and neatening charms on himself, and joined his friends in making their way towards the door, luggage shrunk in his pocket. As seventh years, they knew how to avoid the initial crush of students – either go early, as they were, or wait for a few minutes in the carriage before joining the corridor. Hermione and Neville were needed to shepherd first years towards Hagrid, or whoever might be filling in for him if Hagrid wasn’t there, and the second years towards the thestral-drawn coaches. The others had wordlessly agreed to accompany them. Besides, it wouldn’t feel right to Harry to go in without Hermione, and he thought Ron probably agreed.

The platform was chaos as usual. Students were milling everywhere, trying to talk to each other instead of moving forward, and luggage was either being hauled or floated, but invariably hitting someone else’s ankles. “First years over here!” Hagrid was shouting, lantern in hand. His towering frame made him stand out from the sea of teenagers and pre-teens, which was probably why the task was assigned to him. For a moment, in the darkness, the muggy heat of an early autumn night, with Hagrid’s voice calling out, Harry felt like nothing had changed.

“First years look like they’re doing fine.” Ron said, watching the smallest students gather close around Hagrid. “Hey, Hermione, Neville! Harry and I will do the coaches!”

Neville gave them a thumbs up from where he stood near Hermione some distance away.

“Right, mate, let’s go.” Ron said, lugging his trunk behind him. Hermione had offered to shrink it, but Ron had shrugged and cast a feather-weight charm instead. Harry followed him to the station exit, where the track led up to the coach stand.

Immediately, it was clear that something was wrong. Most of the younger years had gone ahead, but there were a number of older students standing around instead of hopping into the coaches and riding off towards the castle. Harry tried to see what they were looking at, but all he could see were the thestral-drawn coaches. It took an embarrassingly long time before he realised that that was the problem. Of course, after the war, there would be many more people who could see thestrals, who couldn’t before.

“It’s just a thestral, it won’t hurt you.” Ron said to a skittish sixth year who was shying away from the bony winged horse.

“They eat meat!” the sixth year protested, eyeing the thestral in fear as it turned its head to look for the noisy human.

“Yeah, as they’ve always done.” Ron said cheerfully. “They didn’t eat you any other year.”

The sixth year had to concede the point and nervously flung himself into the coach, which could finally leave.

“These are thestrals?” A Ravenclaw asked. Harry was fairly sure she was in their year. “All the drawings seemed a little more…ferocious.”

Harry could see what she meant. He’d seen the pictures of thestrals printed in textbooks of magical creatures and those always emphasized their sharp bones, ungainly limbs, sharp teeth, and front-facing eyes. In person, the thestrals were still a little eerie, but there was no denying that there was something almost sweet about their prancing steps and heavy-lashed eyes. “They get a bad rep.”

The Ravenclaw hummed and petted the back of the thestral. It whinnied and pushed into her hand. “Fascinating.” She said.

“Oy, Turpin, we’re trying to go!” One of the people inside the carriage shouted. Huffing, Turpin turned away from the thestral and climbed into the coach, but not before taking a long look back at the thestral. Harry had a feeling Luna wouldn’t be the only one feeding them in the forest this year.

Between them, Harry and Ron managed to chivvy everyone into a coach. Some were just nervous, others interested, and more still upset by the sudden knowledge that they could now see the creatures. A good half of the people were just there to comfort their friends. While Harry sympathised, it was causing a massive tailback, and usually just a reminder that they were doing so was enough to get people moving again.

Eventually, it was just Harry, Ron, and Terry Boot, who’d joined in when he saw what they were doing.

“Are you waiting for Longbottom and Granger?” Boot asked, eyeing an empty coach.

“Yeah, you go on ahead.” Ron replied. “We’ll wait for them to catch up.”

Boot nodded and was on his way.

It took another few minutes before they heard the sound of Hermione and Neville making their way up the track. They were talking quietly, holding an assortment of odds and ends.

“Hi, guys!” Neville greeted them cheerfully.

“What have you got there?” Harry asked, eyeing the trunks, cloaks, and other items spilling out of Neville’s arms. Harry was fairly sure that that was a telescope propping up the small pile of hats.

“Lost property.” Hermione explained. “We did a quick look over the train – an incredible mess – and picked these up. We’ll give them to the elves once we’re at the castle.”

Harry and Ron both took some of the items from them, freeing up a hand each, so soon they, their trunks, and the piles of lost property were clattering up the path to Hogwarts. Hermione had given the thestral pulling their coach a fascinated look before climbing up, but thankfully she had better impulse control than some of the others, so hadn’t lingered. Inside, the coach was cool and dark, but something about the atmosphere felt intimate, a ride in the dark with a few of their closest friends.

Looking through the window, Harry saw the moment that they entered Hogwarts proper. Around them, the fields bloomed in brilliant red. The poppies, which he had created in the summer, were still growing strong, a sea of vibrant scarlet which waved in the breeze. Harry had no idea how long poppies bloomed for, or when they were supposed to flower, but he assumed that their long life could be blamed on their magical creation.

“It’s beautiful.” Hermione gasped. “I saw the pictures, but…”

She was right. Though dulled in the darkness, the sea of flowers was a magical sight. There was a faint smell, all around them, of something not quite floral but earthy.

“I still can’t believe you did that, mate.” Ron chuckled. “Why flowers?”

“I don’t know!” Harry said, aggrieved. “I wasn’t exactly making all the decisions. They just sort of…happened.”

Neville looked at Harry with the most deadpan expression he’d ever seen. It was at this moment that he realised he hadn’t actually told Neville yet that it had been him who’d broken wards all over the country and left flowers. Well, mainly he’d left galleons, but no one seemed to know about that.

Harry shrugged apologetically and Neville looked away, shaking his head but unable to mask an amused smile.

The coach climbed the last hill leading up to Hogwarts, and the flickering lights that had caught their attention from the train earlier appeared once again from the darkness, but now much closer. Hogwarts towered above them, silhouetted vaguely against the indigo sky of thick clouds. Harry’s breath caught. He hadn’t known how much he’d needed to see Hogwarts full and functional again. The sight of students lingering by the doors or making their way in, rough blobs still at this distance, was a sharp relief from his last memories of law enforcement and vigilante militia sweeping battlefields, and families hunting for loved ones.

“It still looks the same.” Neville said softly. “It feels like it shouldn’t.”

Ron patted his shoulder wordlessly. His own face was a little pale.

Their coach pulled up by the doors, and they were able to drop their own luggage and the selection of lost property over at the marked area. The huge doors were wide open, spilling out light, warmth, and noise in a golden glow. Harry had to stop and stare at it for a moment.

He was jolted from his thoughts by a nudge at his shoulder. Harry jumped around to see what it was, hand twitching towards his wand, and startled the thestral which was sniffing at his robes. “Merlin’s beard.” He swore, taking a step back. The thestral stared back with implacable white eyes, before taking a deliberate step towards him, snorting. Harry worried for a moment, but nothing about the thestral’s behaviour was aggressive, just odd. “Hello.” He told the thestral, reaching up slowly to put his hand in front of its nose. It snuffled into his palm, its breath oddly cool. All of a sudden it licked him, snorted, sank into a bow that would have been elegant on a hippogriff but looked awkward on a thestral, and backed away.

“Uh, okay, bye!” Harry called, as it drew its empty coach down the track towards the coach house. Naturally, the thestral didn’t answer. “So, that happened.” He said to his friends, turning back to find them in varying states of resignation to his weirdness.

Hermione shook her head, though there was a contemplative look in her eyes. “Come on then, we’d best get in before the Feast starts.”

-

McGonagall was waiting for them in the entrance hall, along with some of the other prefects.  “Ah,” She said, as soon as she saw them, “just who I was looking for. Mr Longbottom, Miss Granger, I would like a word about this scheme of yours. Mr Potter, I need a word with you too. Mr Weasley, well,” she didn’t quite smile but her eyes crinkled in good humour. “you might as well complete the set.”

There was something slightly off about the way McGonagall looked at Harry. With a sickening jolt, he remembered that Healer Oswald had written to McGonagall and Madam Pomphrey a couple of weeks ago, and that they’d both said that they planned to speak with him.

They gathered around her. “I read over your proposal,” McGonagall started, “and I must commend you all on being quite thorough in your planning. I am not wholly convinced of the effectiveness of such a scheme, but” she spoke louder, as a couple of people looked ready to interrupt, “I see no reason to prevent an attempt, so long as you are all aware that this will be primarily a student-run exercise. Should there be problems later on, I, or my colleagues, may decide to step in, but for now we have agreed to give you all an opportunity. Now, I must ask you,” McGonagall looked to Neville and Hermione in particular, before turning her sharp gaze on each of the prefects, “are you quite sure about this? Once it has been announced at the Feast, it might be difficult to later rescind.”

McGonagall’s stern tone had even Harry doubting himself and checking his feelings for a moment.

“I’m definitely sure.” Susan Bones spoke first. She was echoed by Terry Boot and Mandy Brocklehurst. Ernie Macmillan spoke up as well, and Harry, realising a second slow that he was the only one of the seventh years who hadn’t agreed yet, chimed in his agreement as well.

“Very well.” McGonagall said. “Please relay this to the younger year prefects. One of you must be prepared to give an announcement after the Feast. It does not matter who, please decide among yourselves. Now,” she clasped her hands together after a light clap, “you may find your seats ready for the Feast to commence. Not you, Mr Potter.”

Harry had already assumed that he wasn’t included, so it was slightly embarrassing to face everyone’s curious looks as they filed towards the Great Hall.

“Mr Potter,” McGonagall fixed him with a sharp look over her spectacles, “I trust you have had a refreshing summer. You are of course aware that I have received an owl from your healer regarding your continued health conditions?”

“Er, yes.” Harry agreed.

“Splendid. These things are best left for closed doors, and I do not want to take up too much of either of our time right now, but I trust that you understand the seriousness of your particular condition in such a stressful environment as this. Would there be any reason in particular why you could not make it to an appointment with Madam Pomphrey and myself in the Hospital Wing at 11am tomorrow?” McGonagall’s tone was stern, but her eyes betrayed a worry for him that had become rather too familiar over the course of his school career.

“Yeah, that should be fine, Professor. Er, Headmistress.” He stumbled over her title a little.

She nodded sharply, pointed hat not moving an inch off her head. Now he thought about it, there was probably a spell for that. “Then we had both best get ourselves to the Hall before the Sorting starts.” McGonagall paused for a moment before reaching out with a bony hand and squeezing his arm gently. “It’s good to have you back, Potter.”

Harry grinned at her. “It’s good to be back.”

-

The Hall, when he entered, was everything good that Harry remembered about Hogwarts. The room was lit by hundreds of floating candles, with braziers on the walls, and a large fireplace on either side, dousing the room in warm, orange light and the faint smells of smoke and wax. Students sat, chatting, at four long tables, cutlery and crockery prepared for when the elves would send up the food. The staff table at the back had a few changes, but there were Flitwick and Sprout talking, Hagrid looking through his many coat pockets for something, and Sinistra looking unimpressed with something Trelawney was saying. The only things that marked a difference from previous years were the few, but prominent, absences at the tables, and the thick field of white flowers that bloomed from between the cracks of the stone floor.

By candlelight, the white flowers were less eerie, but no less magical. They were not as ghostly pale in the warm lighting but seemed to glow as if lit from within, clusters of white heads dripping pale silver streaks up into the air. Harry walked over them to get to his friends at the Gryffindor table, using the stone slabs of the flooring like stepping stones. He needn’t have been so careful – no matter where he stepped, the flowers were unbothered, springing back up and refusing to break. The flowers were short enough to not be too much of a hassle, brushing the tops of the benches, but no higher.

Harry’s friends looked at him with put upon expressions as he slid into the space beside Ron.

“Really, Harry?” Ron said, indicating the Hall around them with a tip of his head. “Neville heard from Sprout that they’ve tried absolutely everything to get these flowers out, but nothing will touch them. Not even any of Slughorn’s best poisons.”

Harry coughed awkwardly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Ronald.”

“Perhaps a discussion for later.” Hermione agreed, looking pointedly at the sea of students around them.

Ron subsided, but yanked the edge of his cloak from where it was draping over a flower stem with an aggrieved huff.

“Seamus! Dean!” Harry called a little further down the table, eager to get away from the topic, “Didn’t catch you on the train, how was the rest of your summer?”

After a few more minutes of chatter, McGonagall called for silence from her place at the centre of the high table. It was odd to see her seated there, instead of Dumbledore. “The Sorting will now commence!”

Instead of McGonagall, it was Professor Vector who led the new first years in. There was a fair number of them, but not as many as expected, considering the year group theoretically contained all the muggleborns and less fortunate half-bloods who’d been barred from attending Hogwarts last year. Harry wondered how many of them hadn’t wanted to risk Hogwarts this year; he wondered how many had died. The thought distracted him from the Sorting Hat’s cheerful singing, and he missed all of it.

The Sorting was slow as ever, a monotonous call of name, then silence, then the call of the House, but it was a good kind of boredom – the boredom he’d felt in every other school year except his first, when everyone was hungry and wanted it to be over. Finally, Yaxley, Lorna was sorted into Ravenclaw, and the attention was back on McGonagall.

“As usual, most of the announcements will be given after the Feast,” McGonagall spoke as she rose from her seat, “but a few minutes more of your time before you eat will not have anyone fainting from hunger, despite rumours to the contrary.” Harry didn’t think it was his imagination that she shot a look at Ron when she said that, a small crinkle around her eyes. “Welcome to all of our new students and welcome back to our returning students! Now,” her expression sobered, “I could not begin any kind of address without first acknowledging what happened last year within these walls and outside of them. The Dark Lord Voldemort has been defeated and his regime has been toppled, which is a great cause for celebration amongst those of us who suffered under his reign of terror.”

A mass of heads turned towards Harry at her words, and he resisted the urge to duck down, staring straight at McGonagall as if he hadn’t noticed them.

“However,” McGonagall continued, “their effects will continue to be felt for a long time hence. Within Hogwarts, we are committed to securing a safe space for young wixen such as yourselves to learn and grow – for all young wixen, regardless of blood status, House, and family connections or political affiliations. We are now, blessedly, in a time of peace, and that is a peace which you should all actively work towards maintaining between yourselves. We have lost too many children already, for the fighting to continue when the war is over. This year, I ask you all to find the courage, the empathy, the wisdom, and the resilience inside yourselves to come together and lead Hogwarts into a better future.”

McGonagall let silence reign over the Hall for a long moment, looking between the four tables with her stern, cat-like eyes. “It is very good to see this Hall full again. I am very proud of everyone here for having the courage to return. Elves!” She called for the food, proving once and for all that Dumbledore had never needed to say his ridiculous trigger phrases for the house elves to send up the food, he’d done that because he wanted to.

A mass of food popped onto the tables, bringing with it appetising smells. Meat, vegetables, soups, salads… The sight never failed to awe Harry. The mood in the Hall quickly picked up as people began to eat. Ron cheerfully filled his plate with just about everything he could reach, causing Hermione to make long-suffering eye contact with Harry from across the table. Harry, knowing that when he was too hungry and ate too quickly, his stomach would rebel, started with a soup. It turned out to be a nice mushroom and mixed vegetables.

As they ate, the Gryffindors caught up with each other. Their class sizes were small enough that the loss of Lavender Brown and Lily Moon were notable at the table. Parvati sat at the fringes of their year group, by Fay Dunbar, and politely rebuffed any attempts to draw her further in. Seamus and Dean both tried, at several points, to involve her in the conversation, but she made it clear that she wasn’t interested. No one pushed too hard. It was clear, just looking at her, that she wasn’t doing well.

The main course gave way to pudding, and Ron handed Harry a slice of treacle tart before he could even start looking for it. “Thanks, mate.” He laughed, exchanging it for the chocolate pudding. Even with Kreacher’s cooking, nothing compared to the Hogwarts treacle tart. Harry was going to have to persuade the kitchen house elves to give him the recipe before he left, or he was going to spend the rest of his life trying to recreate it. Or, Harry swallowed the mouthful that seemed to stick in his throat all of a sudden, was that the kind of thing he’d no longer care about once he wasn’t mortal? No, he decided, he’d find a way to enjoy treacle tart in the Underworld, even if he had to become the god of treacle tart to do so. He tried to imagine Hecate’s face – or, Merlin forbid, Hades’ – when confronted with the chthonic god of treacle tart and snorted into his pumpkin juice, waving off his friends’ questions.

All too soon, the Welcoming Feast was over, and the plates had been popped away, leaving only jugs of water on the tables. McGonagall rose from her seat and began to give the notices. Most of it was the same as usual – the Forbidden Forest is, despite popular opinion, forbidden; there is a list of banned and restricted items in the caretaker’s office; fighting in the corridors is not permitted – though there was a strong emphasis on her anti-bullying and anti-fighting stance. Harry was interested to see to what extent she’d enforce these, considering how lax the professors had been towards bullying in previous years. Finally, McGonagall announced that there was a memorial set up for everyone who had died in the Battle in one of the courtyards on the west side, and smaller ones solely for the students who’d died in each of the common rooms, should people wish to pay their respects.

Parvati’s face, already pale, turned ashen. She was visibly struggling to keep it together in public but shrugged off Fay Dunbar when she tried to console her.

“For our final notice,” McGonagall declared, “one of our prefects is going to tell us about a new initiative that they have put together.”

Harry had forgotten all about the prefect exchange and subsequent announcement over the course of the meal and was relieved when Susan Bones confidently stood up as if she had been waiting patiently for her cue all along. She must have been, because she’d been sat at the far end of the table, closest to the head table, where the first years and fifth year prefects normally sat.

“Hello, everyone.” Susan called cheerfully. She must have been using an amplification charm because she didn’t seem to be raising her voice at all, but it rang out loud and clear around the room. “I’m Susan Bones, one of the seventh year Hufflepuff prefects. As you may or may not know, there are several additional prefects this year, to help with the smooth running of the school.” Which was a particularly nice way of putting the utter mess they all expected to be dealing with. “As a group, all of us prefects this year are really interested in working together and bringing the Houses together. With our extra numbers, we decided to test out a new scheme – a prefect exchange.” The Hall was attentive, if somewhat confused. “The plan is that we’re going to share some of our prefects.” Whispering ticked up. “What this means, is that every House has its original number of prefects, but the extra numbers will be shared between their original House and one other, splitting their time half and half, to get to know and help out students in another House as well.”

It was not so much whispering at this point but all out conversation, until McGonagall cleared her throat loudly and called the Hall back to attention.

“You’ll get to know your new, guest prefects in your Common Room, a little later.” Susan said. She was smiling enthusiastically, in a way which inspired others to share her confidence. “We hope that, like this, we can get to know some new people and we can all have extra people to turn to if something goes wrong. Thanks for your attention!” She skipped back to her seat. Susan was so bubbly that it was hard to remember sometimes that her aunt, her last remaining family member, had been murdered by Voldemort before the war had even broken out in earnest.

“Thank you, Miss Bones.” McGonagall said. “I am sure we are all very excited to see the results of such a scheme.” She didn’t sound excited, mostly bemused still, but Harry appreciated that she was letting them give it a go anyway. “Now, off to bed with the lot of you. Classes start tomorrow and I want you all up bright and early.”

Harry clapped Ron and Hermione on the shoulders and stood up quickly, edging to the side of the Hall and around, before he could get stuck in the crush of people. It was easy to find Zabini, stood as he was right at the end of the table with Davis and Greengrass.

“Potter, Fawcett.” Greengrass greeted, and Harry turned to see that the sixth year Ravenclaw had also made her way over. They stuck out like sore thumbs with the red and blue ties and robe linings against a sea of green. A couple of places down the table, Malfoy’s eyes boggled, and he opened his mouth in instinctive outrage before clamping it shut again with a glare at Harry. Perhaps he understood that picking a fight with Harry first thing and in front of the entire school might be a bad move at this stage.

“The fifth years will take the first years.” Zabini said, watching them collect the first years together in a group. “We’ll head out once the rest are ready to follow. It’s traditional to let the first years get a look at the common room first.”

Harry nodded, easily settling in to wait a few minutes. Now he thought about it, he remembered the Gryffindor common room being empty when they’d first been led to it as first years – perhaps that hadn’t been by chance either.

“Where is your common room?” Fawcett asked.

Harry looked at her confused – how could someone go through six years of Hogwarts and not know where the entrances to the other common rooms were? Sure, they were supposed to be secrets, but surely everyone knew anyway?

The amused look that Zabini shot Harry more or less confirmed that he was being the weird one once again instead of the norm. “Potter, why don’t you tell her? Since you’ve apparently been in our common room and all.” It was a good-humoured challenge.

Fawcett turned to him, along with Greengrass and Davis. Judging by their expressions, this was information that Zabini had kept to himself.

“Uh, in the dungeons, under the lake. The entrance is behind a blank stretch of wall.” Harry hoped they didn’t want a more detailed description because he wasn’t sure he could give it – it had been a few years after all.

Fawcett looked back to Zabini who nodded, smirking. “Full marks, Potter. Excellent work sneaking around.”

Harry snorted, as did Davis, who looked a little embarrassed after she did. Greengrass looked at him as if he were a particularly strange insect she’d like to dissect.

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” Harry asked, amusedly resigned. Zabini seemed to have latched on with a fervour to the idea of him spending his Hogwarts years snooping around everywhere he shouldn’t have been.

“Definitely not.” Zabini grinned.

The nearby Slytherins were pretending to not be listening in, though their silence gave them away, even as they pretended to be staring at different parts of the Hall. Pansy Parkinson looked as if she’d smelled something rotten, though she was darting nervous side glances at him, which wasn’t particularly surprising when he remembered that she’d been the most vocal about surrendering him to Voldemort at the start of the Battle. Malfoy was still making the most interesting facial expressions, though he was now glaring at the table instead. Harry was careful not to catch his eye. Goyle was looking somewhat incomplete without his usual co-conspirator and fellow lackey, Crabbe. He was looking somewhat forlornly at where the food had been, and Harry wasn’t sure he’d even noticed Harry was there. Bulstrode and Nott stood against the edges of the Hall, though still near to the others, and kept carefully blank expressions.

“Alright, that’s enough time.” Greengrass announced after a long moment. “Slytherins!” She called. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it called everyone sharply to order. “To the Common Room!”

Harry watched, surprised, as everyone fell roughly into step. He felt out of place, next to Fawcett, who also didn’t have a space in this line. Fawcett’s eyes were wide and nervous, before she looked up at the head table and relaxed.

Zabini motioned them to follow. “Habit.” He explained to Harry, grimacing. “Last year’s walks were more of a march. We were supposed to walk in hierarchy.”

Harry looked back behind them as they left the Great Hall and saw people slowly relaxing out of their positions and into a shape closer to the usual disorganised clumps that he recognised from previous years. They went through a door on the right of the entrance hall and started descending the stairs down to the dungeons. As they got deeper into the castle, the air cooled and gained a hint of damp. Harry tried to memorise the way, recognising some of it.

Finally, they reached a blank stretch of wall with only candle holders down it at intervals. The only thing that differentiated it from any other part of the corridor were the small snakes carved into the candle holders, in a similar shape to the snake carving on the tap in the second-floor bathroom. Harry wondered if it would open the same way, but that was a question better left for when he was on his own, not in front of the majority of Slytherin.

“The password is: Iusticia. It is on the noticeboard. Please remember to check the noticeboard for the new password in two weeks’ time.” Greengrass seemed to be the spokesperson for the seventh-year prefects.

The corridor melted into view at the password and a short tunnel led into the Slytherin Common Room. The insides were just as Harry remembered them. The room was washed in faint green light, coming from torches and somehow from the lake. The Common Room was much more spacious than the Gryffindor one, being in the dungeons and not a tower, and the furnishings were elegant but formal. Everything was in shades of green or grey, except for the dark wood of some of the bookshelves and other wooden furnishings.

The first years were clustered in the seats nearest the fireplace, listening bleary-eyed to something the fifth-year prefects were saying. Greengrass nodded over to them.

“House meeting!” She announced, low voice amplified but serene.

Harry wasn’t sure if anyone would listen – he certainly wasn’t sure all the Gryffindors would have obeyed if one of their prefects suddenly tried to call something like a House meeting – but perhaps the Slytherins were more used to this, because everyone found a seat or somewhere to stand without protest, informing the ones who trailed in afterwards what was going on. Soon, there was attentive silence. It was odd. Harry wasn’t sure there had ever been silence in the Gryffindor Common Room at a time that wasn’t well past curfew.

Harry found himself shuffled over to where Greengrass was standing, and Fawcett joined him a second later. He wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up there, given that no one had directed or nudged him, but put it down to some kind of Slytherin trade secret. The gathered Slytherins looked at him with barely hidden suspicion, and a healthy dose of rebellion. He doubted he was their absolute favourite person at the moment. But even in the Snake Pits, Harry wasn’t free from the ever-present staring and gossiping. Some of them were watching him with the wide, worshipful eyes that he’d come to hate in the general populace, the ones that regarded him as a saviour.

Greengrass spoke to the masses, “As you heard earlier, we as a prefect group have elected to participate in a scheme which involves sharing our upper year prefects, in the hopes of promoting unity throughout the school and additional support where needed. They will be spending time in our Common Room and helping with our House problems, so you should get to know them and feel free to go to them with the usual problems.” She waved an elegant hand towards where Harry and Fawcett were standing. “These are Harry Potter of Gryffindor and Selena Fawcett of Ravenclaw, who will be joining the Seventh- and Sixth-year prefects respectively. I hope that, despite any past histories,” she paused minutely and set a flinty glare across the room, “you will welcome them and treat them fairly.”

“Why’s Potter here?” Someone called out. Harry couldn’t see who. “This is just to watch us, isn’t it? Treat us like criminals.”

There was a murmur across the room, heads turning to whisper to their neighbour.

Greengrass raised a pale eyebrow at Harry. It seemed that the Slytherin prefects weren’t going to stop challenging him any time soon.

“I’m here because I’m a prefect, part of the scheme, and the others went to different Houses.” Harry replied evenly. “We’re not singling you lot out. There are other prefects in other Houses right now.”

“No one’s here to spy on anyone.” Zabini sighed. “The war is over. Potter, here, is a prefect, not an auror. Give him a chance and I think you’ll find that he’ll fit in quite well.” He cast a sly, amused glance over at Harry, “He’s a slippery one.”

Harry snorted, but Zabini’s words did their work as some of the students eyed him with curiosity, rather than outright distrust.

“Regardless,” Greengrass spoke, pulling the room’s attention back to herself, “we’ll have the rest of the year to get to know our new shared prefects. I expect everyone to give them a chance or at least not make a nuisance of yourself.” Her gaze lingered on some of the Slytherins with the most mulish expressions, silently promising repercussions. Harry hadn’t known much about Greengrass, other than her enthusiasm for new information, but he was now seeing that she was the type of person to rule with a firm hand but without ever raising her voice. It was intimidating, in a good way. “Other notices will be handled tomorrow or at our Saturday meeting. Dismissed.”

The room burst into loud conversation and movement around them. Greengrass turned back to them. “We weren’t going to get much further tonight. Everyone is tired and irritable from the journey, and I have no interest in hashing out more arguments about the war, which is exactly what this would have become. It’s best to let everyone sleep on it.”

Harry nodded. He could see the sense in that.

Zabini looked conflicted for a moment. “I would have invited you to stay down here for a bit and socialise, Potter. You too, Fawcett. But Greengrass is probably right.”

Fawcett shrugged. “I’d rather not be out too late anyway.”

Harry agreed – his bed in Gryffindor Tower was calling his name. “Alright. See you both around then?”

They nodded. “We’ll speak tomorrow.” Greengrass said, walking him and Fawcett to the door.

Harry took the dismissal and left, parting ways in the corridors with Fawcett to head to their respective towers and made his way back towards the Gryffindor Common Room through the familiar paths. The portrait of the Fat Lady was propped open, likely for stragglers like Harry, and he released a sigh as he crossed into the warm room of reds and golds. Students were scattered about in the armchairs, though many appeared to have gone straight to bed, and he could spot Terry Boot chatting with a group of sixth years near the fireplace. He was home again.

Chapter Text

Morning found Harry down in the Great Hall, trying to balance some scrambled eggs on a slightly soggy slice of toast. Ron sat beside him, sleepily loading his plate with sausages, bacon, and beans, while Hermione sipped her tea, not quite functional yet. It had been an odd night for Harry, back in Gryffindor Tower, and he was sure it had been the same for the others. Despite how tired he’d been, it had been hard to fall asleep in a place that was so familiar, yet so changed. Harry had finally fallen asleep in the small hours of the morning, and so had been mightily disgruntled when his alarm charm started ringing not many hours later. However, something about the sleep had settled him, made him feel like he really was back at Hogwarts for school, not just running through the motions of an elaborate pantomime.

Harry poured himself a cup of tea and passed the pot on to Hermione, who welcomed it gratefully. Ron wasn’t much of a tea drinker, preferring pumpkin juice, but Harry and Hermione had gotten themselves hooked on it over the summer and couldn’t face a morning without some. He added sugar with abandon, hoping for some energy for the day ahead.

The Great Hall was quiet in the mornings. The younger years could be boisterous with their boundless energy, but otherwise it was a room full of teenagers with no strict bedtime. The enchanted ceiling let the warm sun of late August spill into the hall, illuminating it with a whiter light that the candlelight that filled it during the evenings. The asphodel flowers looked somehow dimmer in the sunlight, more natural.

About halfway through the breakfast slot, when most people had arrived, the Heads of Houses started handing out the timetables. It was odd to see Professor Vector doing her rounds at the Gryffindor table, rather than Professor McGonagall. Harry wasn’t even sure that Professor Vector had been a Gryffindor, which was usually a requirement for being the Head of House, though she did tend to wear a lot of red, which might be a clue. Professor Vector was going slowly around the table, seeming to stop to talk to everybody. It was clear why when she reached them.

“Good morning, Miss Granger, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley.” The professor acknowledged them as she reached their section of the table. Her voice was clipped but not unwelcoming. “I have your timetables here.” She handed them out. “Of course, I know Miss Granger here, but to introduce myself, I am Septima Vector, lead teacher of Arithmancy and current Head of Gryffindor House. My office is on the second floor of the Defence Tower, and I have office hours posted on the door, though I will also have those posted on the noticeboard in the Gryffindor Common Room. That said, if you need me urgently, come and find me any time, regardless of office hours. I look forward to getting to know all of you.” She nodded to them and started forward again, presumably to say the same to the next group of Gryffindors but turned back. “Ah, Mr Potter, just so you know – Minerva felt the need to invite me to your… meeting later. I didn’t want to catch you off guard.”

“Right, er, thanks, professor.” Harry managed to get out. She nodded again and turned, long dark hair trailing behind her.

“I wouldn’t worry too much.” Hermione said, and Harry turned back to her. “Professor Vector has a reputation for being very strict, but that’s mainly to do with schoolwork. Outside class, she’s very nice and always answers questions.”

Harry considered that. He was glad that she’d thought to warn him that she would be at the meeting with McGonagall and Madam Pomphrey, even if it did reignite the anxiety sitting like a ball in his chest. He knew he would have reacted much worse with no warning.

“Ugh, Potions, why?” Ron exclaimed, staring down at his timetable and dragging their attention back to the sheets of parchment they were holding. “Why is it always Potions first thing on a Monday morning?”

Harry looked down at his timetable and true enough, there was Potions in first period, Monday morning. McGonagall must have known his timetable already, because he had a free period after that, when his meeting was due to take place. After that, there was Transfiguration, and finally Herbology in the afternoon. “Hey, do you know if McGonagall is still teaching Transfiguration?” He asked.

Ron and Hermione looked back up. “No idea.” Ron replied.

“I had assumed, but…” Hermione trailed off, looking bemused. “I suppose it wouldn’t make sense, would it? I simply never imagined anyone else teaching us. I don’t think a new Transfiguration teacher was announced last night.”

“Huh.” Harry said, looking up at the staff table. There were a few new faces there, all of whom had been introduced at the Feast last night, but Harry couldn’t remember who was who for the life of him. “What about Defence? Did they say who would be teaching that?”

“Honestly, Harry.” Hermione sighed, but she was smiling. “You didn’t listen at all, did you? The one on the end, in the Auror uniform is Professor Barnaby. He’s taking over Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

“We don’t have him until tomorrow.” Ron commented, pointing to the slot.

“An Auror?” Harry mused. “What do we bet that he’s at least semi-competent? I mean, surely the curse on the post has to be gone by now.”

The other two stared up at the new professor calculatingly. “Nah, mate.” Ron said, eyeing the professor, “Your luck is too bad. I reckon this one will try to kill you too.”

“Ronald!” Hermione exclaimed, though notably, she didn’t disagree. “Well, perhaps…” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, “if he’s an Auror, and not a corrupt one, why isn’t he helping the Ministry? They’re horribly understaffed in the DMLE.”

“Protection?” Harry suggested, though he wasn’t particularly convinced himself.

“Pft.” Ron made his thoughts on that clear. “Doesn’t matter. If he’s terrible, we’ll just learn it ourselves. Like every other year.”

“Almost every other year.” Hermione corrected. “Third year was good. Mostly. And fourth year wasn’t actually all that bad. And actually, sixth-”

Ron glanced quickly at Harry’s face and changed the subject. “Whatever, you know what I mean. If it gets really bad, there’s always the DA.”

Hermione turned to Ron with interest clear in her face. “Are you thinking about starting it up again?”

Ron looked slightly taken aback with the force of her focus, “Uh, not, like, seriously, but we could, couldn’t we?”

“Mm.” Hermione nodded enthusiastically, “I was thinking about it too. Harry?” She asked him.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Harry avoided the question. “Maybe this professor will be alright.”

He convinced precisely no one.

-

After breakfast, the three trooped down to the dungeons. The door to the Potions classroom was open already, so they let themselves in. Ernie MacMillan had already arrived and had claimed a desk in the second row. “Morning.” He nodded to them.

“Morning, Ernie.” Hermione greeted. “How was Ravenclaw?”

“Oh!” He said, putting his bag down from where he’d been rummaging through it. “It was splendid! I love their Common Room, there are so many books and the view from the windows is superb.”

“Did everyone accept you okay?” She asked.

Ernie twitched an eyebrow. “Yes, of course. The Ravenclaws are mostly quite interested in the scheme – I think the younger years are very keen to do some kind of placement in another House – or else, they simply went to bed. Why? Did it not go so well elsewhere?” He glanced over at Harry.

“Nothing serious.” Harry reassured him. “We knew they’d be some tensions with me being, well, me, so really it went quite well.”

Ernie didn’t look entirely convinced but backed down. “They’ll get used to you. Greengrass and Zabini, and Davis,” he seemed to tack her on as an afterthought, “are decent sorts.”

“Talking about us, MacMillan?” Zabini drawled as he came through the door. “All good things, I hope.”

“Well, I, of course.” Ernie stuttered, accent getting posher with his distress.

“Relax,” Greengrass smiled lightly, “Blaise is just teasing you. He likes to get a reaction.”

Zabini huffed dramatically. “Spoilsport.”

Nott trailed behind them, looking sharply over the room but not engaging with anyone. He chose a desk a couple of spaces behind where Zabini and Greengrass sat. Malfoy slunk in a minute later, taking a seat sullenly a space or so from Nott.

“Hey, Potter.” Zabini called over the room.

“Yeah?”

“Are you coming to our Common Room today?”

Harry considered it. “Would tomorrow work? Just, I wasn’t with the Gryffindors yesterday, so.”

Zabini nodded, accepting that easily. Greengrass and Davis continued setting up for class like nothing unusual was happening, but Nott watched them both like a hawk.

The Ravenclaws filtered in as quiet conversations were struck up around the classroom. At NEWT level, there weren’t very many of them in the class. Snape only accepted O students, and though Slughorn was more lenient at EE, many Potions students didn’t make the grade, and even fewer of them wanted to subject themselves to two more years of brewing. There were three Ravenclaws, Michael Corner, Terry Boot, and Turpin, the one who had stopped to look at the thestrals the night before. Harry thought her name might be Lisa, but he wasn’t sure. He had vague memories of there being a fourth Ravenclaw in the class, but the other three clearly weren’t expecting anyone else, and he didn’t like to ask.

“Ah, welcome back, welcome back!” Slughorn exclaimed, entering the room in a burst of noise and plum velvet. He went around the edge of the semi-circle of desks, stopping at the teacher’s desk and display area at the front. “Is this all of us?” He looked around the mostly empty room, doing a head count, “Ah, of course, poor Stephen.”

That must have been the missing Ravenclaw. Harry was glad he hadn’t asked as he had a sinking suspicion why he wasn’t there. There hadn’t been a Stephen on the list of the fallen in the Battle – Harry remembered all of them – but many more had died over the course of Voldemort’s regime.

“Well, welcome back to NEWT Potions!” Slughorn seemed to be trying to break the dimmed atmosphere with exuberance alone. “Now, I’m sure that I don’t need to be the one to tell you that your NEWTs are at the end of the year, and that the time sneaks up on you much faster than you might think. Nor, of course, that your NEWTs are the cornerstone of your future employment and study opportunities.” He let out a chuckle.

Harry felt dread settle over him as an automatic reaction to exams, which was ridiculous in so many ways. It felt surreal to be worried about exams given the circumstances.

“In this year, we will be building on all the skills you learned before, in your previous years. As my NEWT class, I expect you’ll all cope very well.” Slughorn gave them an indulgent look. He went on to explain the syllabus for the year, while Harry took notes quickly, his writing more legible than ever with the use of the simple charms to stop dripping or smudging.

They were supposed to be finished with simple and mixed antidotes for poison last year, and would now be moved onto more complex potions, and ones which involved more active magic during the preparation. Harry was intrigued by the last bit, considering how clear Snape had always been that Potions wasn’t about ‘foolish wand-waving’, and more so when Slughorn mentioned the use of Potions for curse-breaking. Harry was glad already that he hadn’t skipped this year of Potions, though, he thought, as his hand ached from being unused to so much fast writing, that could yet change.

-

11am wrapped around much faster than Harry thought possible. He barely had time to run to the Great Hall after Potions to grab a snack and a glass of juice from the table, before he was heading off again to the Hospital Wing. He found Professor McGonagall there, talking quietly with Professor Vector, while Madam Pomphrey was treating someone further up the ward.

“Ah, Mr Potter, right on time.” McGonagall said. “I trust your morning class went well. Poppy is just finishing up with someone else, but we can head into her office now and she’ll be along in a moment.”

Harry followed the two older witches into Madam Pomphrey’s office, on the left of the ward. He’d never been inside it before and looking around was a good distraction from his sweaty hands and nervous fidgeting. Her office, like every other professor’s, was full of books. There were several neat shelves of them on the wall, boasting titles that Harry could now read with his new glasses but still not understand. There was a large potions cupboard taking up one wall, with wards strong enough that he could feel their radiating power even at a distance, and several knickknacks and devices scattered around that meant nothing to him. There was, however, a rune circle on the floor which he did recognise from his appointments with Healer Oswald.

“Take a seat, Mr Potter.” McGonagall said, settling herself into one of the four wooden chairs gathered around the desk.

Harry took a seat in the one directly facing the desk and, to his surprise, Professor Vector chose the one next to him, instead of facing him. He supposed she’d left that one for Madam Pomphrey.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

“You’re not in trouble, Potter.” McGonagall eventually said, sounding a little exasperated, “I haven’t seen you this nervous since you and Mr Weasley crashed Arthur’s car into the Whomping Willow.” That got a smile from him. “We just need to talk about your treatment plan while at Hogwarts, any accommodations you require, and a safety plan for any potential outbursts.”

“I’d forgotten about that whole affair.” Professor Vector said, amusement in her voice, “I’m not sure I ever saw Pomona so irritated as when she came into the staff room, muttering about that Lockhart trying to tell her how to heal a plant.”

McGonagall sniffed, though Harry could see her eyes shining. “Indeed. Foolish man. Got what was coming to him, I suppose.”

Professor Vector hummed. “They never did say how exactly he lost all his memory, just something about a misfired spell.”

“Oh, uh, that was us too.” Harry, finally relaxed enough to join in the conversation, tensed up when Professor Vector turned to him with raised eyebrows. She wasn’t as scary as McGonagall, but Harry could see the similarities. “I mean, we didn’t curse him, he tried to obliviate us and leave Ginny to die in the Chamber, but he used Ron’s wand, which was broken, and the spell backfired on him instead.”

“Truly?” Professor Vector asked, though she didn’t seem to require an answer. “Then he really did get what was coming to him. Honestly, obliviating school children…”

At that moment, the door opened again, and Madam Pomphrey came through, ceasing the conversation. “Ah, good, you’re all here.” She said, rounding the desk and pulling a sheaf of parchment towards her. “Mr Potter, thank you for joining us.”

Harry didn’t know how to respond, so he just nodded.

“No point in beating around the bush. Your healer wrote to us to inform us of a couple of relevant health issues, namely your blood magic sensitivity and subsequent need to purge your magic of contamination, and your Suppression Sickness. Does that sound about right?” There was no judgement in her tone, professional as ever, but Harry felt the urge to sink down in his chair anyway.

“Yeah.” He said. “And needing to exercise my magic a lot more.”

Madam Pomphrey nodded. “The main concern to us is of course the Suppression Sickness. I’m pleased to see that your healer has noted that it appears to be getting better with conscious work on your part, but we must have measures in place in case of a flare up for safety reasons.”

“Like what?” Harry asked.

“I’ll need to monitor the level of suppressed magic in your system each week.” Madam Pomphrey replied. She indicated the rune ring on the floor. “I’m sure you recognise this from your appointments at St Mungo’s. Each week, we will have an appointment to check that your levels are within safe limits, and to discuss anything which might be causing further negative feelings towards your magic.”

Harry nodded slowly. “And if they’re not in safe limits?”

Madam Pomphrey pursed her lips. “Let us hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, policy would be to remove you from the vicinity of other pupils, who might get hurt in an outburst.”

“I’d be expelled?” Harry asked.

“Medical suspension at most.” McGonagall interjected quickly. “It is not the same as a disciplinary suspension and would not stop you from returning once you were well. It would not be a mark on your academic record. You would hardly be the first student who had to take some time out for health reasons, Mr Potter.”

“As I said,” Madam Pomphrey continued, “let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Your previous scans were well within reasonable limits, though of course higher than I’d like, so this is not a discussion that needs to happen right now. What we do need to discuss is the rest of the plan going forwards.” She fixed him with a stern look, “This is going to require your cooperation. As I’m sure you’re aware, Pre-Obscurial Suppression Sickness feeds on negative feelings towards magic, especially your own, and on you attempting to push down or not use your magic.”

She paused for a moment and Harry nodded to indicate he understood.

“For that reason, we would try to keep you away from stressful environments. Healer Oswald has indicated to me that you are no longer in the unsuitable environment that produced this sickness away from Hogwarts.” Madam Pomphrey waited again until he confirmed this. McGonagall’s lips were pinched white. “We do not have to discuss that at this stage, though I’m sure Minerva will want a word at some point. At this venture, we need to discuss how to make Hogwarts a safer space for you emotionally.”

Harry wasn’t entirely sure what she meant and said so.

Madam Pomphrey pursed her lips. “I am aware that this year might be quite tense, in the aftermath of the war, especially in the very place where the final battle was fought. For yourself especially, as a rather pivotal figure, I expect that to take a toll. More than that, your Suppression Sickness was not reversed during your younger years at Hogwarts, before the war, even in a school full of other magic users for your mind to accept and normalise. Therefore, there are factors within the school feeding into your rejection of your magic.”

Professor McGonagall looked as if she’d sucked a lemon; Professor Vector wasn’t much different. Harry remembered that to most magic-raised wixen, the very idea of hating or rejecting your magic was unthinkable and highly disturbing.

“So, Mr Potter, how can we help make Hogwarts better for you?” Madam Pomphrey continued.

Harry felt a bit lost. “I don’t know?” He said. “I mean, it’s already better now I don’t have Voldemort,” there was a flinch around the room, which he now recognised as an instinctive reach for a wand, “trying to kill me. At least his followers aren’t usually very good at it. And he’s also not in my head anymore.”

Professor Vector turned to him with wide eyes, though Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomphrey only blinked.

“That would help.” McGonagall said dryly. “Perhaps we are going about this wrong. In such a case that you were beginning to feel badly about yourself or your magic, do you have someone – say, Miss Granger or Mr Weasley – that you could go to, who you could talk to?”

Harry considered it. “I don’t know, probably. I didn’t really realise that I sort of hated magic until I talked to Healer Oswald, so I don’t know if I’d recognise it.”

McGonagall visibly fought to keep a straight face, lips narrowing only incrementally. “If you felt that you were about to lash out, or you needed time to calm down, do you have somewhere you would go to and do you think you could make it there first?”

“Maybe? I guess I’d go to the Room of Requirement, but I haven’t seen it since-” wait, no, Harry had seen it when he collected Crabbe’s ashes, and the room was working fine then. He’d forgotten since the whole evening seemed more like a dream sequence than a memory. “No, actually, it’s fine. I’d go there. Or I guess there’s the Chamber of Secrets if I really needed to be alone, but it’s kind of…” he trailed off, not knowing whether he wanted to say disgusting, filled with a basilisk corpse, or also full of bad memories.

“And could you get there, if you needed to calm your magic down?” McGonagall prompted, brushing over the rest with a calm that only someone who had seen decades of Gryffindor madness could obtain.

“Probably?” Harry shrugged. “I don’t want to- I don’t like hurting people.” He said in a rush. “I’m not as angry as I was before, with Voldemort spilling into my head, so, um, I’m not likely to lash out at people like I used to.” Remembering his fifth and sixth years was a little bit embarrassing in retrospect, but Harry put a firm portion of the blame on literally having a maniac’s soul stuck in his head. “I just, I don’t know, get mad at the world sometimes.”

“There’s a lot to be angry about.” McGonagall agreed, fire banked deep in her eyes, “But not with yourself, Mr Potter. By all means, it sounds like you are on your way to healing, but talk with your friends, ignore the general idiocy of the population as best you can, and should you run into any emotional difficulty, you have permission to leave classes or miss classes for it, to spend time alone to calm yourself.” Harry’s eyes widened and she raised an eyebrow. “Of course, if there are any signs of you abusing this, then we shall have to look into alternatives, but you are now an adult, and I think we should be able to trust you to attend your classes without outside prompting. Does this sound useful to you?”

Harry thought about all the times through the years when he’d been in class, feeling trapped and smothered, rotting in anger or worry, or forcing himself to eat in the Great Hall, feeling everyone’s eyes digging into him like parasites trying to wriggle their way under his skin. “Yeah, that would be good.”

“Good.” Madam Pomphrey said. “We’ll do the weekly scan later, and set up a routine for you to visit, but let’s move on now. Her best recommendation, as part of your acceptance of magic, was that you should use your magic more regularly. How has that been going?”

Harry told her about what he’d found – that using even some of his magic regularly was good for him, and made him feel better, but that he seemed to have a lot of magic, so he’d had to find specific methods, like his permanent protego reflectandum charm, to use more.

“And you’re still casting your normal magic on top of that?” Madam Pomphrey asked, taking a note.

“Yes. It’s not really much of a drain to keep going.”

Madam Pomphrey made a noncommittal noise. “I’m beginning to see the issue. What’s the biggest piece of magic that you’ve cast? How tired did you feel?”

“Uh, recently?” Harry clarified.

“Within the last year or so.”

It didn’t help Harry much. The biggest recently was the graves night, which he absolutely didn’t want to admit, and before then, was probably the protection that he’d cast over Hogwarts’ defenders with his own death. The only answer he could think to give was, “Um, sometimes fiddly magic works better than powerful spells. A patronus is easy, but the house temperature control spell took me ages just because it was delicate.”

Madam Pomphrey looked interested, and noted that, but continued to look at him expectantly. “We’re not here to judge you, Mr Potter, but it does help to know what we’re dealing with.” She huffed.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He trusted McGonagall and Madam Pomphrey, and he didn’t know Vector, but decided he might as well make a leap of faith. “I’d appreciate it if this didn’t go anywhere,” he said seriously, and the trio of witches straightened and nodded, “and it wasn’t really deliberate,” he was putting off saying it and he knew it, “but ah, you know the whole graves and flowers situation, uh, yeah.”

McGonagall gave him the flattest look he thought he’d ever seen from her. “Pomona owes me 5 galleons.”

Harry spluttered.

“I taught you for six years, Potter.” She sniffed, “I know when something has your particular brand of unlikely on it.”

“Back on topic.” Madam Pomphrey said, with admirable calm, “What magic did you do and how did it make you feel?”

“Uh,” Harry searched around for a way to say what he did without making it seem like grave desecration – if well-meaning. “So, for context, I went to the Underworld and apparently, the ferryman really won’t let people across without payment.”

“What?” Professor Vector, who had never met him or been involved in his shenanigans, looked absolutely bewildered, while McGonagall got by with some rapid blinks and a drum of her fingers on the table.

“Go on, Potter.” McGonagall said.

“Right, so, uh, the plan was just to leave a coin in each of the graves? And maybe some wishes for a peaceful afterlife.” Harry continued, “But, I don’t know, something went wrong or right, and I got caught up in the magic. At first, I knew where I was going and I was doing everything deliberately, and then the flowers started growing and I couldn’t stop them, and then I couldn’t remember why I should stop them. So, I came to Hogwarts for everyone who died or was buried here – sent Crabbe’s ashes home, buried Snape’s body.” McGonagall’s face went ashen. “But my magic had taken over, and I was doing things I don’t know how to do. Then I found where the Ministry had dumped all the unclaimed bodies in a field,” anger bled into his voice again, “so, I identified the bodies I recognised, summoned the souls of the ones I didn’t, and buried them.” All three looked like they wanted to interrupt but didn’t. “And then I visited the graves of the Death Eaters who died in the battle too, and sent them on with payment, but mostly so they’d face judgement quicker. I didn’t know where I was going, but also I did. So, yeah, as for the wards, I just walked through them. Ended up falling asleep in a random field, with a load of those flowers, and woke up wondering what had happened. It felt pretty good though.” He admitted. “Tiring, but like after quidditch practice, when you’re sore but in a good way.”

There was a moment of quiet. “Potter, what are we going to do with you?” McGonagall asked, sounding fondly exasperated.

Harry shrugged helplessly, “It just sort of…happened.”

Madam Pomphrey’s face was still circling through a variety of expressions. “That would be a tremendous amount of magic.” She finally said. “Normally, I’d say it would be a very bad thing for someone in your situation to be getting lost in their magic, but it doesn’t sound like it was a negative reaction?”

“No.” Harry confirmed, “I was angry – about the stupid deaths for stupid prejudices, the lack of respect for proper burials, that sort of thing – but it was about fixing it. You know, as much as I could.”

Madam Pomphrey nodded. “Yes, this sounds much more like the classic cases of people accomplishing greater deeds than they thought possible when acting particularly in line with their magic. There are plenty of stories about that.”  She wrote a note, “For now, brushing over some of the particulars of your story,” which was a delicate way to say ‘the absolute madness of what he’d just said’, “it does appear that you have to use a rather concerning amount of magic to feel in any way exhausted by it. Normally, this would be a good thing for the average wix, but it might give you some trouble.”

“Are we not going to talk about Potter summoning the souls of the dead? Or being in the Underworld?” Professor Vector asked McGonagall quietly, but not quietly enough.

McGonagall sighed. “With Potter, if it’s possible, it will happen to him. If it’s impossible, it will also happen to him.”

Harry choked on a laugh, fingers brushing over the resurrection stone on his hand, then abruptly stopped. How had that gotten there? When he’d summoned the souls of the dead, it had made sense at the time, and even in retrospect, when he hadn’t thought too hard about it, but the resurrection stone as he’d last seen it, spilling unexpectedly out of his pocket in Gringotts, had been a loose stone. So why and how was it glinting innocently at him from his finger?

Harry pulled the ring off the fourth finger of his right hand and inspected it. The setting was new, a slim black metal that seemed to reflect the light slightly wrong. It clasped around the stone with five tendrils that looked uncannily like a hand. The stone sat in the middle like a void, sucking in light and life, and calling, begging to be used when it noticed Harry’s attention on it. Unlike before, in the Forest, the compulsion to use it had no effect on Harry now, washing over him like water on wax. The feeling of death, of Thanatos, radiated from it, and Harry had a firm suspicion on how it might have ended up on his hand, where he’d be unable to ignore it entirely.

Following this suspicion, he reached into his pocket for his wand (the repaired holly wand being in its holster) and pulled out the elder wand, long, pale, entirely in one piece, and absolutely not where he left it in his trunk. His invisibility cloak caught on the end of it, spilling out like the slippery silk, despite being packed away in an entirely separate compartment. It seemed that the Deathly Hallows refused to be too far away from their Master, no matter where he left them. He’d tried to forget them entirely, apart from the cloak which he loved dearly, but the Deathly Hallows refused to be forgotten. Harry hadn’t put much stock in the rumours of becoming the master of death upon obtaining all three Hallows – especially after he met the god of death, who didn’t seem the type to be mastered – but something about the Hallows being together, and latched onto him, felt significant.

“Potter?” Madam Pomphrey called, and Harry realised that from an outside perspective, he was just staring at a ring in the middle of a conversation.

“Sorry, Madam Pomphrey, I got distracted. What did you say?”

She eyed him curiously but didn’t comment. “I was saying that your professors will not be told why but are to give you information at the start of the week from here on out on whether their classes will contain light, moderate, or heavy spellcasting, so that you can make informed decisions about how much magic to expend outside class to keep yourself healthy. For Potions, you should assume that the spellcasting will be light, unless otherwise informed. Would that be agreeable?”

Harry nodded. Healer Oswald had mentioned something of the sort, though he wasn’t really sure how much difference it could make. Sometimes, it felt like he had much more magic than he knew what to do with.  

“Excellent. Now, your healer said that because of your blood magic sensitivity, you are particularly vulnerable to outside influences. I’m pleased to hear about your shielding charm, as that will help distance others’ magic, but it cannot do it completely. As for the need to purge your magic, I have a healing ritual room at the far end of the ward – thankfully, you haven’t had need to see it until now – which you can use. I would suggest a weekly basis, especially as Healer Oswald’s notes suggest you haven’t been doing this so far. Perhaps, in that case, you could have a weekly appointment in there just after our meeting for your tests? Two birds with one hex, after all.”

Harry agreed to that. He’d picked up the reading materials on how to expunge external pollutants from his magic, but hadn’t yet gotten around to performing any of the spells. This was in part because it required a protective rune circle, which he didn’t have and didn’t trust himself well enough to draw. If there was one here already, that was good news for him.

“What should I do about needing to spend time outside other people’s magic?” Harry asked. “Hogwarts is sort of full of it.”

“We’re just getting to that.” Madam Pomphrey replied. “Minerva tells me that she’s found a promising spot just outside the wards around the back of the castle, in the back hills.”

“It’s not far from the staff burial site.” McGonagall said. “I’m sure you remember well enough where that is.”

Harry did indeed remember. The wards had only barely extended that far back, so the spot must be a bit further on.

“If you can wait until the weekend, I can take you out there myself.” McGonagall offered. “But if you feel yourself to be at any risk,” she said the word sternly, “I can provide you with a map.”

“The weekend should be fine.” Harry said. He also still hadn’t done this part of Healer Oswald’s instructions, which she’d given him weeks ago. Another week wasn’t going to hurt. Probably.

“Very well then.” McGonagall settled back into her chair. “That is settled. Was there anything else, Poppy?”

Madam Pomphrey checked her notes. “Only that Mr Potter needs to be informed any time blood might be used in Potions or other spell-casting, as his reaction might be unpredictable. And of course, I should avoid giving him potions that contain any kind of blood as an ingredient.”

Harry hadn’t known about that last bit before, but he supposed it made sense.

“I can spread the word with his professors.” McGonagall nodded to herself. “I believe Pomona has a few carnivorous plants this year, which often catch a student or two by surprise to take a nibble. And Horace, of course, is teaching a few blood-bound potions. Merlin only knows what Amentius will be teaching this year.”

“Amentius?” Madam Pomphrey queried, “Is he new?”

“Amentius Barnaby, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Ex-Auror, though still wears the robes.” McGonagall’s tone was carefully neutral. “His lesson plans were very vague.”

“Ah. Now I remember.” Recognition lit in Madam Pomphreys face. “Yes, very good. No need to tell them why, of course.”

“Of course.” McGonagall sniffed, looking faintly offended at the idea that she would spread Harry’s medical information willy-nilly.

“I can direct them to come to me.” Professor Vector suggested. “And then Mr Potter need only talk to me at the start of the week, rather than seek everyone out.”

“Hm, yes, good idea, Septima.” McGonagall nodded.

“I think that’s about us done.” Madam Pomphrey said. “Mr Potter, if you’ll stay a moment for your first scan, but thank you for your time, Minerva, Septima.”

The two witches nodded and left, striking up a conversation as they headed out the door.

“Into the circle.” Madam Pomphrey instructed, wasting no time, and Harry stood on the spot and waited for the familiar pulling on his magic to begin.

Chapter Text

It turned out that McGonagall was indeed teaching them Transfiguration this year. As she explained to them, she had managed to find a suitably qualified instructor for the OWL years but had yet to find a replacement for Advanced Transfiguration, so would be continuing with the NEWT students for a final year. As McGonagall laid out the syllabus for the year and noted their main reference books, Harry found himself pleasantly surprised by how much more he was taking in. When McGonagall referenced certain theorems and schools of thought, he found himself remembering at least the bare basics of them and knowing where he had to look to find out more. In previous years, he’d sort of blanked out all the names, and mainly got by with throwing more magic at his practical work and hoping for the best.

The syllabus was looking to be quite interesting, if fairly challenging. As in Potions, seventh year appeared to be the culmination of all the work of the years before, using all the little pieces to come together into a more coherent whole. They’d previously covered inanimate to inanimate, inanimate to animate, animate to inanimate, and animate to animate transfiguration in various forms, but they’d only learned theories and individual spells. The purpose of seventh year, it seemed, was to become so familiar with all the theorems and forms of incantation required, that they could transfigure just about anything into something else, without having to search for a highly specific spell. They were also supposed to learn about how to change the other properties of a transfiguration, such as how long the object stayed transfigured, the varying effects of charms on transfigured items and transfiguration on charmed or enchanted items, and the odd use of transfiguration in Potions. All in all, Harry was very pleased he’d done the catch-up work over the summer, because he would have been completely swamped without it.

McGonagall had set them a 30-inch essay on Sedgwick’s Theory of Elemental Exchange for Friday, and Ron was complaining about it all the way down to lunch. “It’s the first day!” He grumbled again, as they entered the Great Hall. “Slughorn already set us reading on the first two chapters for Wednesday. Forget the loose Death Eaters, they’re trying to kill us with homework!”

“Really, Ron.” Hermione reprimanded him. She was inured to complaints about homework by this point, but the comment about the Death Eaters was probably what pushed her over the edge. It was still a little too soon.

They found an empty spot about a quarter of the way down the table and slid onto the benches, pulling trailing robes from where they’d caught on flower stems.

“It shouldn’t be too bad.” Harry said, grabbing a couple of sandwiches before he looked around for a teapot. “We did Sedgwick’s theory in sixth year. Near the end, I think.”

“We did.” Agreed Hermione, eyes sparkling. She was always happy when Harry and Ron weren’t falling behind, which was unfortunately not very often.

“Still,” Ron said, clearly not to be placated, even by an excellent lunch, “We’ve still got Herbology to go today, and we haven’t even had Charms or Defence yet – if they all give us homework, we’re going to be absolutely swamped.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong. Both McGonagall and Slughorn had been very clear that this was their NEWT year and that both would be piling work on them to make sure they were all up to scratch for their exams. They seemed to take the idea of one of their students failing as a personal insult. While Harry was better prepared for this academic year than any before, he knew it wouldn’t take much to fall behind, especially as, now he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he knew how he was supposed to study when not doing the absolute minimum at the last minute.

“Hey, Hermione.” He called her. “Do you happen to have a study timetable yet?”

Hermione looked at him with an oddly guarded expression. “I’ve worked one out for myself already, yes.”

“Could I maybe use it too? Well, maybe with some modifications.” Hermione was, after all, taking two additional subjects, and didn’t have to schedule around quidditch practice. Actually, Harry wasn’t sure he had quidditch practice either. No one had mentioned it yet.

She looked bemused. “Seriously?” She asked him.

“Yeah. Ron’s right, there’s a lot of work this year and I don’t want to fall behind.”

“Oh.” There was a lot in that sound that Harry couldn’t understand. “Yes, of course, that would be excellent. You’re very welcome to join me.”

Harry nodded, pleased. “Thanks! Could I see what you’ve written down so far?”

Hermione pulled a roll of parchment out of her bottomless bag and laid it out on the table, after Harry shifted a platter of cut fruit out of the way. She showed him where she’d planned out her study sessions, around her classes and Head Girl duties, and how she’d make modifications depending on in which classes homework tended to be set.

Harry scribbled his own rough grid on a plain sheet of parchment, though he left more spaces for things to be shuffled around during the week because of unexpected events. As they discussed it more, and she saw that Harry was serious, Hermione became more enthusiastic.

“I’m so pleased you’re taking it seriously this year, Harry!” She said, with a bright smile. “I sort of thought you were joking earlier.”

It curdled something in Harry’s stomach to realise that it wasn’t completely unfair of Hermione to think that the only reason he’d be asking after her study timetable was to mock her. Certainly, they’d done enough mocking of her work ethic and rigid timetabling that it wasn’t unlikely. Every time she’d attempted to introduce a schedule to them, usually approaching exams, they’d blown her off and eventually suffered for it. It was true that Hermione’s timetables were usually over full and rather too inflexible, but as he’d just discovered, it was the work of minutes to change it to something that suited him better.

“Just wanted to start this year off on the right foot.” He muttered, a moment too late.

Ron looked over at Harry’s study schedule, a look of disgusted resignation on his face. “Fine. Library before dinner it is.”

--

They had Herbology three times a week, always in the afternoon slot. In their class that afternoon, Professor Sprout explained that it was because they would be dealing with the most active magical plants that could be found at Hogwarts, and that frequently ended up with careless students covered in dirt, plant products, or, occasionally, poisoned by whatever they were working with. It was a slightly unnerving introduction to the year, but Harry had to admit that he was more interested by plants that did things rather than the ones that just sort of sat there. Of course, the magical plants they’d studied in previous years also did things, but Harry hadn’t been in much of a mood to appreciate them then, and he was interested to see what Sprout considered more active than, say, Devil’s Snare.

Therefore, it was with some confusion that he saw that the first plant they’d be studying was moly, a white flowering plant with a black stem that didn’t appear to do much of anything.

“Can anyone tell me about the uses of moly?” Professor Sprout asked the class. “Yes, Miss Granger.”

“Moly can be eaten to counteract enchantments on a person.” Hermione replied, “It can also be added to Potions with a restorative effect.” She glanced over at Harry. “In Greek mythology, it is the plant given to Odysseus by He-, by the messenger god,” she stumbled over her words. They were all trying hard to avoid saying the Overworld gods’ names. “to counteract the enchantment Circe used to turn the men into pigs. Homer said that it is dangerous for mortals to pick, but not the gods.”

“Excellent answer, Miss Granger.” Sprout said cheerfully. “Five points to Gryffindor. Yes, indeed, the moly’s use against enchantments is its most prized quality, but you hit upon the real reason we’re studying it this year – when handled incorrectly, moly can be absolutely lethal.”

Harry eyed the white flower with some trepidation. It didn’t look like much but then again, the deadliest flowers never did.

“The interesting thing about moly,” Professor Sprout continued, “is that it must be grown and harvested with magic. Naturally, it can often be found in remote areas, such as high mountains, deep caves, and old forests, places which pool and collect natural magic. To handle or harvest moly, you have to saturate it with magic the entire time. One moment without magic, and the stem and sap become extremely toxic, and the curative effects are no longer viable. This is likely where the stories of gods picking moly come from, as it would have to be done by someone constantly circulating their magic through the plant.”

She continued her lecture on the care of moly, covering its lifecycle, preferred climates and soils, how often it should be watered, and best season for pruning, before directing them all over to the long workbench at the side of the room. “Your practical project for this term will an experiment into the effects of different magical growing conditions on moly. We will touch upon it at times during the term, but I expect this to be an individual and independent research project. At the end of term, I would like a thorough and detailed analysis of your experiment, including how you designed your tests, with written up and clearly described results, and a reasonable hypothesis for why you obtained the results you did. You will each be given three plants in separate pots. Should one die, I will not be giving replacements, and expect a good reason why. I, and your Heads of Houses, will be keeping the antidote to the toxin at all times, but carelessness will lose you marks.” With that, she sent them all off to retrieve three pots of moly.

Harry took his three pots, each containing a single stem with a bright white flower. They’d been drooping slightly when he picked them up but had started perking up as he carried them. He set them down on his workbench, and saw their petals lose a little of their radiant lustre. They were very sensitive to magic then.

“Do NOT touch them!” Sprout shouted out. It was always odd to hear her raised voice, as she was generally very easy-going so long as they didn’t take the mick too much, and usually meant that someone was doing something incredibly stupid that would imminently result in them getting hurt.

Harry turned around to look and saw Michael Corner rapidly retracting his hand. “I thought you said it was okay to touch them if you have magic?” He asked, casting fearful eyes at the little plant.

Sprout looked like she wanted to plant her face directly in the soil on her table. “I said you could touch it if constantly circulating your magic.” She said. “Simply having magic isn’t circulating it. It is within you, not wrapped around you.”

Harry understood what she meant, though from the faces of some of the others, they didn’t. He’d gotten to know this quite well during his healing to counteract the Suppression Sickness. As wixen, their magic came from within them and they channelled it out of them to perform magic, either with a wand or wandlessly, usually with a hand. Their magic permeated through them. While it was predominantly encased in their magical core, every part of their bodies contained magic. However, unless they were actively shielding, as Harry was all the time, their magic stayed in their bodies. Otherwise, they’d be constantly enacting little bits of accidental magic on the world as their magic reached out and changed things.

“Moreover, you have to be putting magic through the moly plant as well.” Sprout continued. “Until all of you can circulate your magic to an extent that I am happy with – and we will spend five minutes at the end of each class working on it – you are to touch the moly only with your dragonhide gloves and ensure that they are washed thoroughly afterwards.”

She dismissed them with their moly plants and their first bit of homework – to write 15 inches on how they would account for other variables in their experiment and to practice moving their magic over themselves and through a conduit. She also gave them a stern warning to keep their plants well out of reach of any lower years and non-Herbology students.

“Professor!” Harry called, as his classmates started to file out. Ron and Hermione were waiting for him, and Neville had joined them. “If you have time, could you check how well I’m circulating now?”

Sprout flicked up a tempus charm. “Alright, don’t see why not. First, we’ll see around yourself, because that’s the bit that’ll stop you getting poisoned.”

Harry didn’t actually change anything, even as she pointed her wand at him. He could feel the constant drain of the protego reflectandum spell encasing his body in a thick, but intangible layer of his own magic.

Sprout cast something and seemed pleasantly surprised. “Very good.” She said. “Lovely thick shield over your body, there.”

“Will it matter that it’s a protego variant?” Harry asked. The thought had just occurred to him. “I don’t want to, like, accidentally blast back the flower.”

Sprout chuckled. “Not to worry, Mr Potter. So long as the moly is neutralised by magic saturation, it will be no threat, and so your shield shouldn’t respond. Now,” she handed him a quill, “try to fill this with your magic.”

This was the bit that Harry was less prepared for. He took the quill in his hand and tried to coax his magic out. It took a few moments, but with some effort, he had his magic all around the quill.

“A good first attempt.” Sprout said, flicking her wand over the quill, “But your magic is only surrounding it, not filling it up. You need to work on pushing your magic into an object before our next class. A jolly good attempt though, take five points for Gryffindor.”  

Harry frowned at the quill before handing it back to Professor Sprout. “Alright. Thanks, Professor!”

-

They dropped their moly plants back in their dorms. Hermione was the only Gryffindor girl in their class, but there were Harry, Ron, and Neville for the boys, so their dorm room soon had a collection of nine potentially deadly plants. They surrounded the plants with the strongest wards they knew, which was actually a little impressive in the end, but also wrote a note saying: “DO NOT TOUCH – Herbology project – LETHAL”. Dean and Seamus were generally decent dorm-mates, though sometimes one or the other got it into their head to play a prank, but they’d all run afoul of some of Neville’s more interesting plants enough in the past to know to take the warning seriously.

“Are you coming to Silent Study in the Hall?” Neville asked, as they sorted their books out.

“Library.” Ron said, dropping his Herbology textbook on his bed. “Got to make a start on the Potions reading and Transfiguration essay.”

Neville winced sympathetically. “Glad I don’t have those anymore.” Neville, if Harry remembered correctly, was doing NEWTs in Herbology, Charms, and Defence.

“Yeah, you’re lucky.” Ron said. “Don’t know what possessed me, honestly.”

Harry ignored Ron’s grumbling, knowing that he didn’t actually regret taking the subjects, given that they were prerequisites for his dream job as an auror, and decided to bring all his books with him. He hadn’t yet decided what he was going to work on.

“Let’s go.” He said, as Ron finished packing his bag. “Hermione’s probably waiting for us in the Common Room.”

Ron’s smile turned a little dopey. “Yeah, let’s go.” And his step gained an extra lift as he hurried out of the dorm room a little too fast to be casual.

Neville caught Harry’s eye and they both had to muffle their laughter.

-

In the library, Harry turned a quill over in his hands. He’d intended to be doing his Potions reading for Wednesday, but he’d gotten bored pretty quickly. Instead, he was focussing on trying to soak the quill in his magic. It was harder than he’d thought it might be. Harry could feel his magic surrounding the quill, but trying to push it into the quill had resulted only in some scorch marks. He had the feeling that he was going about this wrong somehow, but didn’t know how to do it right. He pushed his magic again, trying to force it inside the quill. There was a pop and the smell of burning feathers, as the edges of the feather caught alight. Harry quickly put it out.

Hermione frowned from her seat beside him. “I’m not sure what’s giving you so much trouble with this, Harry, but maybe leave it until later, in the Common Room. You know Madam Pince doesn’t like people practicing spells in the library.”

That was a fair point. Harry was slightly surprised that the smell of burning feathers hadn’t already brought over the strict librarian. Frustrated, he set the charred feather down and picked up his Potions textbook again. Their brewing was set to become much more complicated this year, and while Harry had a better understanding of Potions theory than ever, thanks to his summer study, he still didn’t fully understand the reasoning behind some of the stages in each potion or the interaction between ingredients.

The first two chapters of this textbook introduced the idea of alchemical elements. Harry hadn’t come across much alchemy before; all he knew of it was the Philosopher’s Stone, which could turn things to gold and produced the Elixir of Life. The elements, as far as he could see, included the normal things like metals, but also more abstract ideas such as Life, Death, Sun, and Moon. These alchemical elements were supposedly what made the difference between harvesting ingredients by day and night as some of the pure alchemical energy of the moon or sun was captured as well as the raw ingredient. The degree of Life and Death was influenced by factors such as how freshly the ingredient was harvested, how long it had been alive beforehand, and how healthy it had been while alive. There were apparently many more of these pure alchemical energies, but for now they were only learning these. Harry supposed it could get very complicated to keep track of.

It was actually very interesting to learn about alchemical elements. Before, Harry might have struggled with it, but being so much more sensitive to Death magic now, Harry could understand what they meant by the pure energy of an element. He knew what pure Death felt like, and he knew what it felt like in traces, so it wasn’t hard to imagine that the Sun or Moon could do the same. Actually, this gave him some ideas for his Herbology term project.

Harry grabbed the charred quill, shaking free a little ash, and jotted down his notes – would different alchemical properties in the magical environment change how the moly grew? He could definitely account for how much sun and moon the plants got and, with his magic, could also feed them strong traces of death. Harry picked up his textbook again, determined to finish the chapters and see if there was anything else he could use for his moly experiment. It made the reading much easier to have a firm goal in mind, and before he even realised, he’d read both chapters in half the time it usually took him to force his way through them.

He ticked off the reading in the spare piece of parchment he was using as a rough planner and cast a tempus charm. It was just coming up to half past four. Dinner wouldn’t be for another hour and a half. Part of Harry wanted to call it a day – he’d done one piece of homework and felt like that should be enough – but he knew that was just the laziness talking. Harry looked around and saw that Hermione was writing something, probably the Transfiguration essay, given her open Transfiguration textbook, and Ron was clearly fighting sleep, nose dipping towards his Potions textbook.

Harry stretched his legs out under the table, his knees giving a satisfying click. The Transfiguration homework would definitely take him longer, but the Herbology one was due sooner, on Thursday, so he felt justified on putting the essay off a little longer. Instead, he considered the notes he’d made while going through their Potions book. The easiest answer to his moly experiment was simply to have one only in sunlight, one in moonlight, and one surrounded by his own death-tinged magic, but he was already seeing problems with this. Most plants, he knew, required sunlight to grow, so it was entirely possible he’d just end up killing the one in moonlight. And it was potentially plausible to add Death by surrounding the one moly in his own magic, but he was going to cast magic on the other two plants as well, so they’d get it too. Moreover, his magic wasn’t pure alchemical Death, it had other elements, as did the rest of their surroundings. All of them were surrounded by the dense and powerful wards of Hogwarts, fed by hundreds of years of different inhabitants with their different magics. Clearly, the problem lay less in adding an alchemical element, so much as in isolating them from the rest.

“Hey, Hermione.” Harry called her attention quietly. She looked up from her essay. “Do you know where the alchemy section is?”

Hermione looked like she wanted to ask why but was already flicking her eyes back towards her essay, clearly not wanting to lose her train of thought. “Behind the Potions periodical stacks, I believe. Madam Pince can tell you if not.”

“Thanks.” Harry wasn’t sure where the Potions periodicals were kept, but he knew where the general Potions section was, and figured he could work from there. He set off through the rows of shelves, past clusters of students. Everywhere he walked, whispering started up. It was sort of unpleasant, but no one was actually bothering him, so there was nothing he could do about all the staring. A couple of the more obsessed students got up to follow him. Harry pretended he didn’t notice them, even as he walked faster. People following him put all his war-honed instincts on edge, and it was a struggle not to reach for his wand.

Finally, he found the Potions periodicals, a massive selection of Potions magazines and scholarly papers going back centuries. Behind that, in a dim corner, was a small, sad collection of books on the shelf labelled Alchemy. There weren’t many books at all, and they didn’t look well used. Harry supposed that there was little reason to seek them out, normally – Hogwarts didn’t teach alchemy, and all the alchemy they needed at NEWT level was covered by their course textbooks.

Harry wasn’t sure where to start. He looked through the books, trying to find something that mentioned separating things into their alchemical elements, but he didn’t know enough about alchemy to know where he’d find it. Eventually, he took A Beginner’s Guide to Alchemy from the shelf and hoped it would get him somewhere. It seemed that it would be a lot of research, far more than he’d usually do for a piece of homework or even a term project, but he’d promised himself that he would do this year properly, and Harry was determined to keep that promise. He took the book back to the table, past the giggling gossipers, and began to flick through.

He made it through the introduction and part way into the first chapter before Ron dropped his head onto the table, on top of his Potions book. “We’ve got to be done by now.” Ron’s voice was slightly muffled from being pressed into the table, “Have mercy. My brain is dribbling out of my ears and it’s only the first day.”

Harry snorted but patted his back sympathetically. He was getting a bit tired too.

Hermione lifted up a lock of Ron’s overgrown hair and peered at his ear theatrically. “I don’t see any brains.” She said, poking at his ear with a wide grin, “I suppose it must be so small I can’t see it.”

“Hey!” Ron sat up at once, a mask of fake insult on his face.

Harry and Hermione laughed into their sleeves so as not to get kicked out of the library by Madam Pince.

“You’re right, though.” Hermione said, beginning to gather her things together. “That’s enough for now. Too much studying without a break is bad for you.”

Ron turned to Harry with wide eyes. “Am I hearing things? Did Hermione just agree that we’ve done enough studying?”

Harry snorted as it was Hermione’s turn to feign offence.

“Of course, Ronald, if you disagree, you’re welcome to stay longer.” Hermione said, a smirk on her face.

“Nope! I’m good.” Ron rapidly began throwing his things in his bag as well.

“I’ve just got to check out this book.” Harry said, putting a scrap piece of parchment into it as a bookmark. “Be back in a sec.”

Madam Pince eyed his choice of reading material suspiciously but given that he was a seventh year and alchemy became relevant in his courses, didn’t comment. Perhaps she was just suspicious because Harry only ever seemed to check out books when there was some kind of crisis going on, and she was wondering what crisis could possibly involve alchemy.

Regardless, it took all of a minute, and soon Harry rejoined his friends to head down to dinner. It was a weird feeling to think that he’d gotten some of his homework done before dinner – he didn’t think he’d ever done so before. It was even weirder to be having homework, after a year spent evading the Dark’s forces and trying to kill Voldemort. Still, dinner itself was a welcome comfort, the smells and tastes of good, hot food mixing with the familiar sound of people all around. It was still light outside, the sun lingering long on the last day of August, but candles and braziers had been lit around the Hall, spilling warmth and golden light. The four great hourglasses of House points, behind the teachers’ table, were already starting to fill with their respective gems.

After dinner, Harry found himself following Ron and Hermione back to the Common Room. It was Ron’s day on the prefect schedule to be in the Common Room and available for help, so they all drifted back there, even though Harry might have preferred a walk around the grounds. The seats closest to the fire were taken, as they always were unless you got particularly lucky, but the castle was still heated by the remnants of summer, so he wasn’t disappointed not to be near the roaring flames.

They found some chairs around one of the bigger tables. Ron immediately challenged Harry to a game of wizard’s chess, but Harry wasn’t particularly in the mood to be soundly beaten. He brought out the poor, battered quill he’d been experimenting on earlier and stared daggers at it. He refused to be defeated by a feather. The scratching of Hermione’s quill and the scraping on the chessboard as Ron ordered a piece forward, playing against an unsuspecting fifth year, settled over Harry, combining with the sounds of life inside Gryffindor Tower and Harry couldn’t help but smile, even as he prodded the recalcitrant feather. This was what they had been fighting for.

Chapter Text

Harry woke on Tuesday morning with a jerk and a gasp. The contents of his dream were already slipping away as he untangled himself from the duvet and flicked up a tempus charm. It was 05:39, earlier than he’d like, but late enough that it wasn’t worth going back to sleep. Harry wasn’t sure he would have been able to anyway. His heart was still pumping fast from whatever his dream had been. He vaguely remembered running, looking for something while being chased, but nothing specific. He pulled the curtains of his bed aside and looked around the dormitory, lit by the soft grey light of early morning. The others were all still sleeping, faint snores and sounds of breathing filling the room in a familiar way. Basilissa, lounging on the pillow next to him, gave him a deeply unimpressed look for letting the light in, and curled up once more.

Getting his things together as quietly as he could, Harry headed for the bathroom, hoping that a hot shower would help wash away the lingering panic that threaded through his limbs and left him restless. He turned up the heat and let the water batter him just this side of too hard, tipping his head back with a sigh. Harry didn’t stay long, plans for the day forming as he came more awake. He dried his hair with a spell – one of the few he’d tried that didn’t make his hair even more impossible – and got his uniform on. It was neat and wrinkle-free, thanks to charms, and Harry had to admit that it did make a good difference to his appearance.

The others were still asleep, it being not quite six yet, so Harry grabbed his bag and headed down into the Common Room. Curfew would only lift at six, and Harry debated sneaking out, but decided that the extra ten minutes of waiting didn’t bother him enough. Besides, he liked the Common Room at this time of day. The pale light of the early morning washed through the great windows of the tower, bathing everything in a gentle glow and soft shadows; the only sounds were the quiet crackling of the burned-down fire and the shrill chirping of birds outside. Nobody else was down yet, so Harry had his pick of seats. He found an armchair by the fire and sat back. It was rare to see the Gryffindor Common Room so peaceful and Harry cherished it, knowing that he wasn’t truly alone, just the only one awake.

Harry flicked the small balls of light overhead that he usually used in his reading nook and cracked open the alchemy book he’d started the day before. He was going to have to get a much better understanding of the topic to see if his idea for the Herbology project was even feasible. Luckily, it seemed that what he wanted to do – separating out alchemical elements and refining them down to a pure form – was one of the major areas of alchemy, and as such had plenty of information, even within this introductory book. However, although it mentioned that separating out parts like sunlight and moonlight were possible, the book noted that this was far more complicated than refining a physical element, as it involved somehow trapping and containing a type of magical energy. Nevertheless, it had been done, fairly often in fact, and was very much possible, so Harry was feeling reasonably optimistic about his chances.

He was finishing up the relevant chapter and jotting down a couple of sources that the book had mentioned for further reading, when people started trickling into the Common Room. Most of the early risers didn’t spare him much of a glance – simply passed him on their way out to breakfast – but a few stopped to look. Harry tuned out most of the whispering, unable to stop the stabbing of disappointment within him that not even his own House, who should have been used to him, were immune from the new and unwelcome heights his reputation had grown to.

“We should!” said one behind him.

“No!” said another, “Don’t you know who that is?”

Curious against his will, Harry tuned back in. The voices were young.

“I’m going to.” The first said firmly. “Excuse me.” She said, coming up to Harry.

Harry looked up from his book and vaguely recognised the girl as one of the first years who had been sorted the other night. “Can I help you?” He asked.

“You’re Harry Potter.” She said firmly, as if informing him of this. Harry had to bite the inside of his mouth not to laugh – she reminded him so much already of an eleven-year-old Hermione.

“Yes.” He agreed.

“And you’re also a prefect.” This too wasn’t a question.

“I am.” Harry was no longer quite so sure where this conversation was going.

“Then can you help us get down to the Great Hall?” She asked, a little of her bravado melting away. “We forgot the way.”

Harry looked back to her little group, another girl and a boy standing there, looking sheepish. “Yeah, of course.” He said, marking his page in the book and packing it away with his notes in his bag. “Are you waiting for anyone else or is it just the three of you?”

They all blinked at him with wide eyes, apparently not having expected him to agree so easily.

“Just us.” The other girl said after a moment. “Everyone else is still asleep.”

“Alright then.” Harry said, “Let’s head on down.”

On the way, Harry tried his best to make small talk, in between pointing out landmarks that the first years could use to orient themselves. These mostly consisted of statues and oddly shaped landings, since the stairs moved, and the occupants of the paintings changed too often for them to be useful. He learned that the two girls were Kareena and Cornelia – Kareena being the one who reminded him of Hermione – and the boy was called Elliot. Cornelia was a half-blood and had attended last year but not liked it much (Harry tried not to react too visibly to that statement) so her parents had quietly pulled her out after the first term, while Kareena and Elliot were muggleborn. Elliot was supposed to attend last year, but McGonagall had got to his parents before the Ministry and warned them away. Neither he nor Kareena really understood the state of the Wizarding World, only vaguely that there had been a war, and that Harry was the one to kill the ‘bad guy’.

Harry tried to lighten the mood by asking about their classes, and soon had three excitable young Gryffindors telling him all about how Professor Bernard (apparently, McGonagall’s replacement for the lower years) turned his desk into a crow, and it flapped around the room before he could turn it back. Harry laughed – he bet that in future years, this Professor Bernard would do something less likely to escape, like McGonagall’s pig.

The Great Hall was mostly empty when Harry arrived. There were a few clumps of people at each House table and Professor Flitwick was looking bubbly as ever at the high table, but the majority of Hogwarts’s population appeared to still be getting ready for the day. Harry had been considering leaving the first years there and going back to the Common Room to wait for Ron and Hermione, but the three looked at him expectantly as they sat down, and Harry crumbled like wet tissue paper.

He poured himself a cup of tea, added the milk and sugar, and drank a good half of it before he even began to look at food. The platters around him had subtly been rearranged by house elf magic to contain the foods that were recommended by his nutritionist. Presumably, Madam Pomphrey had spoken to the elves, because Harry had forgotten to entirely. Sighing, he loaded a bowl with some yogurt and fruit to eat before the heavier breakfast fare.

“What’s Professor Vector like?” Cornelia asked him. “Last year, Professor McGonagall was our Head of House.”

Kareena and Elliot both looked curious at that, this evidently not having come up before.

“She’s strict, but nice.” Harry said, paraphrasing what Hermione had told him before. “She’s mostly strict about classwork, rather than outside class.” He didn’t have much more information to give them, having only met her the day before, but luckily this seemed enough for the three first years, who continued to pepper him with questions about the professors and Hogwarts throughout breakfast.

Soon enough, the trio had finished breakfast and were raring to go. Harry couldn’t ever remember having that much energy so early in the morning, but supposed he must have done. “What’s your first class this morning?” He asked them. First years, unlike the oldest years, did not have any free periods – the professors, probably correctly, thought that they would use them to get into trouble.

“Um.” There was general shuffling around and looking into pockets before Elliot finally scrounged up his timetable. It was already looking pretty battered, with a corner torn off. “Oh, Charms!”

“Nice.” Harry said. “Professor Flitwick is very good.” They’d already mentioned that they hadn’t had a Charms class yet.

The three all, completely unsubtly, turned to look at the professor who was supervising the breakfast hall, now joined by Professor Babbling. Flitwick saw them looking and nodded his head towards the three, which sent them all looking away bashfully. Harry just waved.

“Do you know where you’re going for Charms?” He asked them.

They turned to each other before looking back at him. “No.”

“I forgot.” Cornelia said.

“Okay.” Harry used a tempus charm again. It was still early, now about 8am. The three first years looked admiringly at the glowing numbers in the air. “It’s still early, classes don’t start until nine.” He made a quick decision. “I’ll stay down here and wait for the rest of your class. You can either wander off for a bit and come back for 8:50 or wait here.” It wouldn’t be a disruption to his day – he had a free period first thing, so he had no class of his own to get to – and he remembered his first week at Hogwarts, constantly running around lost and late.

“I want to explore!” Kareena said immediately.

Cornelia and Elliot looked less convinced, but the unstoppable force of Kareena’s personality quickly got them going.

“Alright, see you back before class.” Harry said, waving to the three. They’d been surprisingly fun to talk to, Harry had forgotten how much he liked helping out the younger years, but they were also a bit tiring. He was glad of the opportunity to sit quietly and drink more tea.

“There you are!” Ron said some time later, clapping a hand down on Harry’s shoulder as he slid onto the bench next to him. Hermione sat on Harry’s other side, nimbly stealing the teapot which he’d commandeered as his own.

Harry marked his page in the alchemy book, which he’d made surprisingly good progress into, and looked up. “Woke early.” He shrugged. “I was going to wait in the Common Room, but some of the first years needed help getting down here.”

Ron shrugged, “No matter.” Though Harry could see the remnants of stress sliding off him, a reaction that none of them had managed to break yet when one of them went missing unexpectedly.

“Alchemy, Harry?” Hermione asked, once her cup of tea had been finished.

He explained his idea for the Herbology project, explaining his thoughts about how the hardest part would be to limit the factors affecting the plant.

Neville, who had joined on the other side of the table a couple of minutes after Ron and Hermione also looked interested. “That’s much more complicated than what I was going to do.” He said, looking slightly dubious.

“What were you going to do?” Harry asked.

“Well, I was just going to test the water.” Neville said. “One watered with magic, with conjured water, the second watered with magic with normal water, and the third watered by hand with normal water.”

“Oh.” Harry said. Yeah, that did seem a bit more straightforward and achievable than his own plan to somehow isolate and harness immaterial alchemical elements.

“You should do it though.” Neville encouraged, apparently seeing that Harry was disheartened, “I think it sounds like a really interesting experiment. I’d really like to see the results, and I’m sure Professor Sprout would too.”

“Did you do the same experiment last year?” Hermione asked.

Neville made a face. “No. The Carrows had the syllabus chucked out the window, and Herbology was just growing ingredients needed for the potions they wanted Snape to brew for the Death Eaters. I mean, there were some really interesting plants,” his expression brightened a little, “but it felt kind of terrible to be growing things for the Death Eaters.”

Ron patted his shoulder awkwardly across the table. “At least it’s new classwork?” he tried.

“Yeah.” Neville agreed. “I’ve been looking forward to this. I spoke to Professor Sprout over the summer about what we’re going to be dealing with when I was helping clean up the escaped Devil’s Snare, and we’ve got so many more great plants to grow. Did you know…”

Harry listened for a while to Neville’s impromptu lecture on the differences between common flesh-eating trees in the Mediterranean, but soon, a couple of younger faces caught his eye.

“Be back in a sec.” He said quickly, rising to catch the students. “Hey, are you lot first years?”

They looked somewhat intimidated, four of them staring up at him with big eyes. “Yes.” One ventured, “Why?”

Harry tried to smile reassuringly, but he wasn’t sure how well it worked. “You’ve got Charms next, right? I was going to bring a group of you up there, so if anyone doesn’t know the way, feel free to wait, and we’ll go at ten to.”

“I already know the way.” Said one of the boys a little snootily. He looked slightly older than the others, likely repeating the year.

Harry deliberately didn’t react. It wasn’t like first years being a bit snotty was going to really test his patience, not after all his anger had been drained out with Voldemort and the horcrux goop, but he knew from experience that children could be sensitive to an adult’s anger. “That’s great if you do. I’m just letting you all know that we’re going, so anyone else, who doesn’t know the way, can join us.”

The boy huffed. “Well, I’m going now.” And walked away, two of his friends following.

The third hesitated a moment before slowly sinking back down into the seat he’d just vacated. “I wasn’t finished with breakfast, but Miles said he was going now, and I don’t know the way.”

“That’s fine.” Harry said, trying to remain cheerful. “It’s good to eat a good breakfast. I’ll be over there,” he pointed further down the table where his friends were looking curiously, “come and join us whenever you’re ready or when it’s time to go. Oh, and if you see any others in your class, let them know as well, okay?”

The boy nodded, and Harry went back to rejoin his friends.

“What was that?” Hermione asked.

“I’m taking a few of them up to Charms.” Harry explained, “Some of them know the way, some of them don’t. Bit of a mess with the mix of repeating students and not.”

“I sort of forgot about that mess.” Ron said thoughtfully, “I don’t think there’s anyone in our year from the year below, is there?”

Neville shook his head, “No. Pretty much everyone in OWL or NEWT years wasn’t ready to progress. And some of them transferred to other schools to finish up and didn’t come back.”

It would account for the emptiness in the hall, even at peak mealtimes. Harry hadn’t even considered going anywhere other than Hogwarts to finish school, but clearly many others had.

-

Soon enough, Harry was joined not only by the four Gryffindors he was expecting, but three more of their housemates and a little clump of Ravenclaws. “Hello, everyone.”

“Stewart said you were taking everyone who didn’t know the way to Charms.” One of the Ravenclaws said. She looked nervous, like he might yell at her.

“That’s right.” Harry agreed. He hadn’t been expecting the Ravenclaws, but it was hardly a problem. “We’ll just give it a few minutes more for latecomers to show up, then we’ll be off.”

For those minutes, Kareena, Elliot, and Cornelia seemed determined to regale Harry with the tales of everything they’d seen. From what he could tell, they’d mainly walked in small circles around the Hall on different floors. The other first years seemed very interested in everything they had to say, the Ravenclaws quickly assimilating into the group with endless questions about the trio’s explorations.

“Alright,” he said, once the time hit 08:50, “let’s head off.”

The small clump of first years followed him out of the Hall. Harry was absurdly reminded of a trail of ducklings, and unsure how to feel about being designated the mother duck, even in his own head.

“Okay, so, the Charms classroom is on the third floor.” He spoke as they walked. “Usually, the easiest way to get there is to go up these stairs here. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that the stairs like to change, but these ones are pretty regular.” They all waited in a huddle on a landing for the next set of stairs up. “You’ll know you’re going the right way if you find this rather hideous statue of a dancing troll on the first-floor landing.” He pointed out the statue to the first years, which made them all giggle. The stairs arrived and he shooed them on up. “Then on the second floor, there’s this really big painting here.” It was one with a meadow scene, which was fairly distinctive, even if some of the other portrait residents often liked to use it as a picnic spot. They carried on up the set of stairs. “And then on the third floor, there’s this big arch over the corridor. This is the start of the Charms corridor.” The ceiling here was vaulted and covered with the carvings of stars. Some of them shifted as they watched, trailing lines like comets.

Harry led them up to the open door of the classroom, where Professor Flitwick was standing with a bright smile on his face. “And here we go, your classroom and Professor Flitwick, the Charms Professor and Ravenclaw Head of House. And this is where I’ll leave you.” He told them, before thinking of something, “Oh, and to get back, just do the same route in reverse.”

“Thank you, Mr Potter.” Flitwick said, “Ten points to Gryffindor for what sounded like an excellent tour.”

Harry grinned, “See you later, Professor! Bye, you lot!”

The gathered first years gave a smattering of goodbyes, clearly already distracted by their new teacher and classroom.

Harry headed back to the Great Hall, where Ron and Neville had agreed to wait. Hermione had Arithmancy now, but everyone else had a free period. When he got there, the breakfast things had been cleared off the tables, leaving only the drinks and small snacks that were provided throughout the day. Luna had joined the other two at the table at some point while Harry had been gone, and she and Neville were deep in discussion about one of Luna’s creatures. Harry didn’t think they were dating, though he was hardly the most observant person when it came to relationships, but he could be wrong. They were certainly very comfortable with each other.

“Alright, mate?” Ron said as Harry dropped down onto the bench. “Deliver the firsties okay?”

“Yep.” Harry replied, “Hopefully, that’ll cut down the number of them getting lost at least a little.”

“I wish we’d had a prefect showing us the way.” Neville said a little mournfully, “I was getting lost for months.”

“Us too.” Ron confirmed cheerfully, “We ended up in the third-floor corridor that one time, where Fluffy was. Filch has had it out for us ever since.”

“Filch has it out for everybody.” Harry grumbled. He couldn’t believe the crotchety old man was still here.

“Too true.” Ron agreed, taking an apple from the fruit bowl.

“Where to now?” Neville asked the group. “Back to the Common Room or…?”

“We could stay here.” Harry suggested. “It’s pretty quiet but not as silent as the library.”

They all considered this for a minute but came to the conclusion that they might as well stay in the hall. The library was pretty strictly for reading and writing homework only, and the Common Room could get very noisy, so wasn’t a great place to work. They settled in peacefully, digging books, parchment, and ink wells out of bags, and getting on with whatever they needed to do, interspersed with odd patches of conversation. Neville had already finished his Herbology homework, so was doing some further reading on plants that reacted specifically to magic, Ron was begrudgingly getting on with his Transfiguration essay, Luna appeared to be enchanting a new pair of Spectrespecs, and Harry used the promising chapter he’d found in his book to start noting down how he could control the alchemical variables, as well as the other, more normal ones, in his experiment, for the Herbology homework.

“Hey, Luna?” Neville asked after a while. “Has your year had Defence yet?”

She squinted through the Spectrespecs at him, each lens swirling through a spectrum of opposite colours, before lowering them and staring at the glasses with a look of disappointment. “Yesterday.” She replied, poking at the left lens with her wand. A small puff of smoke appeared, and the lens warped inward.

 “How was the new professor?” Ron asked. He shot a look at Harry which clearly said that Ron was still betting on the defence professor being no good.

Luna hummed. “He had a lot of wrackspurts, but most people do nowadays, so I wouldn’t hold it against him.”

“Did he seem to know what he was on about?” Harry was the one to ask this time.

“I suppose so, even if he didn’t believe in heliopaths.” Luna replied. She pressed the tip of her wand against the deflated lens and pushed it back into place, smiling when it began to wobble on its own. “He was better than Umbridge, but I think I preferred Professor Lupin.”

The range of competence between Umbridge and Professor Lupin was vast.

“Yeah, Voldemort on Quirrell’s head was better than Umbridge.” Ron grumbled. “Even with the weird fake stutter.”

“We have Defence next, right?” Harry checked.

“Yes.” Neville replied, “Which is why I was wondering what the new professor’s like.”

“Guess we’ll find out.” There was something faintly mulish about Ron’s expression, and a tension in him that was unexpected. Harry realised that Ron was more serious than he’d thought about doubting the new professor’s either competence or morals.

The great clock above the doors of the hall clanged for 10am and the beginning of break. After a few minutes, there was a new influx of people around, grabbing a snack or a drink between classes. Seamus and Dean saw them and waved, coming up to join them.

“Alright, lads? And Lovegood.” Seamus swung onto the bench next to them, Dean following a second behind. “Defence next. What do we all reckon this’ll be another Ministry stooge?”

Ron filled him in on the bets between him, Harry, and Hermione.

Seamus considered it. “Alright,” he grinned, “I’ll take that bet – I’ll say he won’t try to kill Harry, but he’s not a good teacher.”

“Guess I’ve got to do the opposite then.” Dean said, though he didn’t really seem to mean it, “My bet is that he does try to kill Harry, but he is a good teacher.”

“Hey, I’m not sure I like this betting.” Harry protested, but his grin gave it away. “I’ll raise you one better – he’s not the real professor, the real professor is locked away in a trunk somewhere.”

“Ooh, good one, Harry.” Seamus said, though Neville looked torn between being appalled at the joke and laughing.

“Hermione said she’d meet us there.” Ron interjected. “Shall we head up?”

-

The Defence Against the Dark Arts room was open when they arrived. There was no sign of Hermione yet nor the new professor. Harry took a good look around the room once he’d dumped his bag at a desk. How they’d set up the room was always a fair judge of the DADA professor’s character. The classroom was pretty plain, lacking the ever-present pink of Umbridge’s occupation, the images of dark curses from Snape’s, Lockhart’s gurning portraits, or Crouch Jr’s magical devices. There was a blackboard at the front with a couple of pieces of chalk laid out, the professor’s auror credentials framed on the far wall, and, less encouragingly, some Ministry propaganda posters filling the space on each wall.

Harry had seen the type before during his visits to the Ministry over the summer. They all had some kind of trite message about how the Light had been restored and peace reigned once more, or the Ministry is strong and whole once more with everyone’s cooperation. Harry had absolutely refused to have his face or name attached to them, but more of them than he’d like referenced him more obliquely with some kind of lightning or phoenix imagery. Those were the ones that littered the classroom walls, and Harry grimaced.

More than simply being embarrassing, it was also horrifically tasteless. The propaganda posters glorified their victory, without acknowledging that it had been a civil war between members of their own community. Moreover, the Ministry itself had played no part in that victory, being as it had been under Voldemort’s regime and actively hunting down Harry, his friends and associates, and all muggleborns. To put the posters up in the school where the students had fought, at times against their own relatives, and had loved ones die was… It was something. Harry didn’t even have the words to express, even to himself, how repulsive he found them.

“Oh, honestly.”

Harry turned around to see Hermione looking at the walls with the same disgust he felt. She’d gone on more than one rant about them over the summer.

“Ministry stooge it is.” Seamus declared victoriously, making a beeline for the chalk sticks. With a whoop, he found that they were entirely unwarded or hexed. That was the second strike against the new professor – anyone who’d taught teenagers before knew not to leave the nice, new chalk sticks unattended or unprotected. Immediately, Seamus and Dean began teaching this lesson to the new Professor by drawing – or scribbling, in Seamus’ case – across the whole board, and then fixing it with spells to make it hard to remove.

Harry just shook his head, plonking himself down in his seat. Ron found a seat to his left, Hermione to his right. She was still glaring up at the posters, particularly one which just happened to feature two wizards and a witch standing with wands raised victoriously, lighting up the Ministry symbol.

“Think I can take them down and bin them before the professor arrives?” Harry asked the other two quietly.

“You definitely could.” Ron said grumpily, “But they’d just put up more.”

“I could curse the walls, so nothing sticks?” Hermione suggested wistfully. “Give me a little time, and I’m sure I could curse it so the posters would burn on contact.”

“Tempting.” Harry admitted. “Might be a bit obvious though.”

Hermione considered the walls with much too much sincerity. “Well, it has been a year since we were in classes, and we are so terribly traumatised,” she began in a faux innocent voice, belying that they were, in fact, terribly traumatised, “my wand might just slip and happen to direct one of the fire spells we learn in that direction. And oh, what a pity, I must have gotten my countercurses confused, and now it’s permanent.”

Ron and Harry snorted into their desks. Hermione had changed a lot since their first year at Hogwarts, but her proclivity to setting her problems on fire had not.

“Merlin, Granger, remind me not to get on your bad side.” Zabini had taken a seat behind them, grinning. “Though, I,” he glanced up at the walls and scrunched his nose, “do agree with your opinions on the décor. Very classy.”

“Zabini.” She greeted, and Harry echoed her.

“Alright, Potter?” He said, draping himself over the desk to sit slouched with his chin in one palm, “You still on to come to our Common Room today?”

Harry had, admittedly, entirely forgotten about this. “Yeah, of course. I have Herbology last thing, so I can meet you after dropping my things in the Tower?”

Zabini looked satisfied with that, nodding. “Daphne thought it would be good to start getting them used to seeing you around the Common Room. We managed to extract a promise out of Malfoy to shut his gob for an evening.”

“Has he been saying a lot?” Harry asked.

Zabini shrugged laconically. “Less than years before, probably still more than he should. He won’t shut up about you speaking at his family’s trials. I think he doesn’t know what to make of it.”

“Huh.” This year was already unusual in that they were two days in and Harry had yet to have a confrontation with Malfoy. “Well, I’ll be polite if he is.”

“Fair’s fair.” Zabini shrugged. He paused. “What are Thomas and Finnegan doing?”

Harry turned back to the front, Ron and Hermione looking back too. Dean was levitating Seamus onto the chandelier high above the desks, where Seamus seemed to be replacing the unlit candles with the chalk sticks.

Hermione sighed. “As long as the chalk can be summoned, I won’t take points!” She called out to the two, who saluted in acknowledgement. “What?” She asked Zabini, who was staring at her.

“Nothing.” He smirked, “I just thought you were more of a stickler for the rules.”

“Common mistake.” Ron said consolingly, “We all make it. You get fooled by the tidy uniform and hand-waving for answers, and then you get to know her.”

Hermione huffed exasperated, “I’m not that bad. There’s nothing wrong with a harmless prank and it’s easily fixed with a spell. Besides,” she said, a small, sharp smile appearing on her lips, “I’d rather like to see how the new professor reacts. If he can’t manage a summoning charm, then there’s no hope for him.”

Zabini looked delighted. “I like the way you think, Granger.”

Seamus was soon returned to the floor and the candles were chucked quickly into a cupboard. Word of what was going on spread around the classroom, catching up everyone who entered later. It wasn’t a huge class, but it wasn’t a small one either, being composed of all four Houses. Unlike with Potions, many people had felt the need to continue to the DADA NEWTs. Fay Dunbar and Parvati Patel had found seats near Seamus and Dean while the two had been fooling around. The Ravenclaws had come in in a couple of groups and all sat together, while the Hufflepuffs found seats wherever they were available. Malfoy had slunk in at some point and taken a seat at the back, though notably missing Goyle. Daphne Greengrass was sitting with Tracey Davis and Millicent Bulstrode, though she nodded when she saw Harry looking. Theodore Nott sat in a corner at the back, quiet as ever.

It was a much larger class than any Harry had been in so far this year, but it still seemed emptier than in sixth year. There were some glaring absences. Parvati and Lavender had always taken the opportunity to sit together in classes they shared, now Parvati had left the desk to her right empty, placing her bag on it and not allowing anyone to sit. Their side of the room looked empty without Lavender Brown and Lily Moon chatting up a storm as the three of them. Harry would be the first to admit that he didn’t know his classmates as well as he should, but looking at the other Houses, he could see gaps where he remembered a familiar face being, a couple each from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. It caught up to him at odd times, the memory that there should have been more of them. He’d visited their graves, those of them who had died in the battle, but not the ones who had been killed during the rest of the year. It was a sickening lurch every time he remembered that he didn’t even know what had happened to them.

The far door into the Defence professor’s office banged open suddenly, making everyone jolt and reach for their wands. Harry’s wand was pointed out and an expelliarmus on his lips before the sight of a wizard in auror robes caught up to him. From the corner of his eye, he could see Ron and Hermione stood in the same pose. From somewhere behind him, Harry could see the edge of a shield spell.

“Wands away, wands away.” The professor waved a hand dismissively at them, as he closed the office door with another bang. “There’s no need for all that here. You’re all perfectly safe with me, ahah.” His carefree laugh grated on Harry’s ears even more than his words did.

Harry lowered his wand, tucking it up his sleeve and noting with a frown that he’d managed to draw the elder wand instead of his holly wand. He saw the others doing the same, though little of the tension had leeched out of them.

“Why so tense?” The professor asked, arriving at his desk. “I won’t bite.”

And that was enough confirmation – the DADA teacher this year was an idiot.

Chapter Text

“You have got to be kidding me.” Hannah Abbott’s mouth had once again run a little faster than she intended, and her words came out loud in the still classroom. Harry snorted, and he wasn’t the only one.

“What was that?” The new professor asked, though he didn’t seem to have caught who said it. He gave up looking a moment later, folding his hands behind him and puffing out his chest. “Never mind. My name is Amentius Barnaby. You can call me Auror Barnaby. Or Professor Barnaby, I suppose.”

Harry looked to see his friends’ reactions. They did not disappoint. Ron was sitting with the most unimpressed expression Harry had ever seen on a person’s face in his life, while Hermione had simply tilted her head a few degrees, an unholy light in her eyes.

“If you’re an auror, why are you here?” Seamus asked the question that all of them wanted answered. “Last I heard, all capable and trustworthy aurors were supposed to be helping mop up the Ministry, so...” He trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid.

Professor Barnaby spluttered a little at that, looking offended, “I’m here because the Ministry trusts me to look after you children after such a traumatic time.” None of them were children. “Of course, I could hardly sit back and do nothing when such persons as yourselves,” Harry could have sworn that the professor’s eyes darted over to the desks where he and his friends sat, but it was only for a split-second “needed a professional to guide them in their education.”  

If ever Harry had had the misfortune to picture what the ungodly lovechild of Dolores Umbridge and Gilderoy Lockhart would sound like, his poor imagination might have come up with something rather like this. The distinct mix of showboating professor mixed with ministry stooge leant a slimy feeling to his words; the feeling of a politician lying to the public about where charity funds had disappeared to.

“Now,” the professor continued, "since your previous education was… sadly disrupted, we have a lot of work to do to get you all ready to pass your exams.” He turned to the board and tutted loudly, taking in the chalk scrawled across it. “How immature.” He huffed, flicking his wand at it. It did nothing. The professor scowled again and let off another few flicks, which also did very little. Seamus sniggered from his seat. After a minute or so more, Professor Barnaby finally found a combination of spells that cleared the board. With a smug look, he picked up a stick of chalk to begin writing, and immediately paused again after leaving a sweep of wax across the board instead of chalk. Harry hadn’t noticed before, but apparently not all the candles had gone in the cupboard – one had replaced the chalk sticks.

The professor turned to face all of them. “This is hardly the kind of behaviour I would expect from students your age. You’re almost adults now.” Again, they were all adults. “This kind of immaturity won’t stand in my classroom. Whoever did this can expect a detention.”

Shockingly, no one spoke up.

Professor Barnaby huffed again, putting the candle on his desk. “Where is the chalk?” He asked the class at large.

Harry had to repress a snort – if the candle itself hadn’t been a hint, he didn’t know what else would be.

“Come on,” the professor tried to cajole them, irritation barely hidden in his voice, “just tell me and we can get on with this. I’m sure you don’t want to start your year like this.”

Harry glanced around the classroom and caught some of his classmates’ eyes; they all seemed to share the thought that actually, annoying a ministry plant was precisely how they wanted to start the school year. He might have been more sympathetic to the man if he didn’t seem determined to act as if they were all fourteen-year-olds who’d never seen a warzone.

“Fine.” Professor Barnaby scowled darkly, “They did say you all might be running wild this year, but I certainly won’t be going easy on you for this rudeness. I’ll be speaking to all of your Heads of Houses.”

Unfortunately for him, the threat of talking to their teachers was somewhat less effective after a year at the epicentre of a civil war. Professor Barnaby huffed again, face flushed. Harry wondered if it was from anger, embarrassment, or simply the amount of huffing he seemed to do.

After a couple of tries, the new teacher managed to transfigure the candle into a chalk stick. It wasn’t perfect, a distinctly waxy quality to his writing, but he managed to write his name and start off listing out his syllabus for the year. He divided it into dark creatures and spells. Most of the creatures seemed to be amortal or undead, and Harry began noting them down, feeling a hint of surprise that so far, the curriculum seemed to make sense. They were reviewing dementors and lethifolds, covering undead creatures in more detail, and were due to have a unit on spirits and creatures related to death, given their closeness to necromancy. Harry knew that death spirits like the grim were popularly associated with the dark arts, but it left a bad taste in his mouth to see thestrals listed among them. There was nothing dark about them, just a bad reputation. They were also due to look closer into detecting and removing dark curses on items and living beings.

The main problem was made apparent with the spells that the professor wrote on the board. They were all reasonable defensive spells – Harry recognised many of the warding ones from his time in the tent, all the defensive shields from his own research, and many of the others as dark-detecting or beginner curse-breaking – but there was no mention of dark spells to study. Had it been his sixth year, Harry wasn’t sure he would have noticed, but despite Snape’s general awfulness as a human being, he’d made a half-decent DADA teacher, and he hadn’t been wrong that they needed to understand how dark spells worked in order to properly defend against them.

He caught Hermione’s eye after he finished jotting down what was on the board. She was nibbling on the end of her quill, as she often did when deep in thought, and he knew that she’d caught the same gap that he had.

Before either of them could raise their hands to question it, Susan Bones had called out from her side of the room. “What about studying dark spells? Which ones are we doing this year?” It seemed Susan had given him the benefit of the doubt that the professor might simply have forgotten to write them down.

“Ah.” The professor straightened, putting down the candle-chalk and holding his hands behind his back. “Indeed, normally that would be a part of the curriculum, but with our continued efforts to expunge dark magic from our society, the Ministry have judged it unwise to continue teaching dark arts spells to impressionable students.” He shot a look behind Harry’s desk, where many of the Slytherin students had gathered. An expression flickered over his face too fast for Harry to catch before it cleared again.

“But it’s not teaching us dark arts?” Hannah queried. “It’s teaching us about how dark spells work so we know how to face them.”

“Nonetheless,” the professor turned to face her, “the Ministry have judged this to be too much exposure to the lure of the dark arts. Enough of our society has been corrupted by its influence already and we have all faced the consequences.”

Harry raised an incredulous eyebrow. Learning about spells which they had already faced in combat was too much exposure for them? The way he spoke about the dark arts was as if the mere mention of the magic might cause them to turn evil on a whim. It was odd, and reminded him of all the Ministry propaganda he'd seen specifically about the light and the dark, as if the type of spells they'd used had been the only difference between them and Death Eaters. The pit in his stomach grew.

“We’ve already been exposed.” Fay Dunbar said in a matter-of-fact tone. “The Carrows were teaching Dark Arts last year and everyone else was hiding from or fighting Death Eaters. What’s the use in pretending we’ve never seen a dark spell before?” Harry was pleased that he’d been hearing more from Fay Dunbar recently. She seemed to have a very level head.

“And what happened last year was a tragedy.” Professor Barnaby said. He seemed to be aiming for soothing but landed squarely in condescending. “But the Ministry and Department for Education reject the methods and ideologies of the previous regime and have reacted to ensure a safer learning environment which does not force students to be exposed to evil magic.”

“That’s great and all,” Harry found his mouth moving before he even thought about it, “but we’re all pretty invested in learning defence to the best of our abilities – for obvious reasons I think – and ignoring how the dark arts work because they make you squeamish is a great way to get killed by them.”

A hush fell at his words, before his classmates began chiming in their agreements.

“Ah, Mr Potter,” the professor’s tone was almost enough to make Harry wish he hadn’t spoken. Professor Barnaby’s face was mostly neutral, though still faintly flushed, but his eyes were intent on Harry. They were a light brown, almost amber, and their fervency was enough to make Harry run a quick check over his occlumency shields. “while I commend your desire to learn to the best of your ability, the situation has changed now. With the Dark Lord dead and his followers arrested, the Ministry no longer regards this as wartime, and thus there is no need for students like yourself to sully yourself with such rotten topics.”

Harry’s incredulity rose. Less than two months ago, he’d been sweating and vomiting out the tar-like gunk of corrupted magic after spending almost his entire life as Voldemort’s soul container, and this man thought that, what, his metaphorical virtue could be besmirched by studying school-approved spells? Everyone knew that Harry and his friends had done something to do with dark magic and Voldemort’s immortality, so dark that the public couldn’t know the name – the deal with the DMLE had been a point of discussion on and off since the Malfoys’ trial – so why was the professor acting as if the mere mention of an inferius might mentally scar them? Harry wondered what his reaction would be if Harry mentioned that he’d cast unforgivable curses.

Ron snorted loudly, though Harry wasn’t sure whether it was because of the professor’s words or whatever face Harry himself was making.

Professor Barnaby cleared his throat loudly. “I will not be taking any more questions about the syllabus at this time. It has been approved already by the Ministry’s Department of Education, at that is all you need to know.” He ignored the muttering and louder protests. “For now, open your textbooks to the first chapter. We shall go through what you will be studying for the next two weeks.”

Zabini was the one to get things rolling this time. “There was no textbook on the book list.” He drawled. He was audibly unimpressed. When Harry glanced at him, he was lounging with an elbow on the table, chin on his fist.

“Sit up straight.” Professor Barnaby snapped. It was the first time his voice was so harsh, and Harry had to wonder whether they were finally getting on his nerves or if it was something about Zabini in particular that had annoyed him. He didn’t acknowledge Zabini’s point but waved his wand and started passing out books from a pile on the side.

Harry took his copy, and flicked through, looking over the contents page. “Advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts: Protection from the Forces of Evil” looked to be as uninspiring as its name. Harry sighed – this was going to be a long year.

 -

The class filed out of the DADA room in large clumps, gossiping together. Harry found himself caught up in a large group, predominantly made of people who had been in the DA.

“Is he going to be like that all year, do you think?” Terry Boot asked. “Stupid Ministry decisions aside, did you see how he responded to Anthony’s question about warding in muggle zones? I don’t think he had any idea.”

“His answer was completely wrong.” Padma confirmed. She was walking a little ahead of them with Parvati and Fay but turned back to answer Terry.

“Ugh.” Terry groaned. “The position can’t still be cursed, can it?”

Hannah laughed. “Looks like it. Ah well, I guess it wouldn’t feel right at Hogwarts unless there was something wrong with the Defence teacher. It’s a rite of passage or something. Self-study it is. Again.”

Most of them laughed but Hermione frowned. “Well, it’s alright for us – we all know when he’s saying something wrong – but what about the younger years? What if he’s teaching them wrong too? And what are we supposed to do about the topics that he’s refusing to teach in case they corrupt us?” Her scorn was easily audible.

They all grimaced. Harry looked to the others in case anyone had suggestions and found many of them looking at him speculatively. He didn’t put the dots together until Ernie began voicing his thoughts. “You know,” Ernie was saying, “what did we do last time we had an incompetent Ministry instructor in an important exam year?”

Ron was grinning madly next to him, having caught on, “How did we learn Defence without a teacher?” He asked, turning to look directly at Harry.

With a sinking feeling, Harry remembered their previous conversation about what they could do with an incompetent professor. Harry facepalmed, ignoring the frames of his glasses digging into his face and groaned. “No. Not again.”

“But Harryyy.” Hannah dragged his name out playfully. “You were such a good teacher.”

Susan nodded. “In all seriousness, Harry, I’m not sure I could have passed my Defence OWL without the DA. Would it be so bad to start it up again?”

Hermione looked excited. “There’s no reason we couldn’t.” She told him gleefully. “There are no rules about student meetings like with Umbridge, so we wouldn’t have to keep it secret, and there’s no reason to forbid us forming what is essentially a subject-based study group.”

They all looked hopefully at Harry. He needed time to consider this. They’d made good points, but he hadn’t been prepared to seriously do this again. “Let’s give it until the end of the week.” He said eventually. “We can give Barnaby a couple more lessons to see if he improves and if not, we can talk again.”

Several of them let out whoops as if he’d already agreed. Considering how hopeless Barnaby had been during class, Harry didn’t have much hope either.

-

“So, what’s this I hear about you starting back up your super-secret defence club?” Zabini asked, as soon as Harry found him outside the Great Hall.

Harry groaned. “Is there anyone who hasn’t heard about that?” Former DA members had been approaching him all day – his classmates during Charms and Herbology, and the younger years at lunch. Ginny had been particularly enthusiastic. Even though Harry had hung back a little to check whether Professor Sprout thought that his moly experiment was doable (she did, but assured him that he was welcome to pick an easier test if he struggled at all with the alchemy), the former members who hadn’t spoken to him earlier had all waited for him outside the greenhouse to encourage him to restart the club. “It’s nothing official yet. Just, well, you were in class this morning too.”

“Yes.” Zabini sniffed. He nodded to Greengrass and Davis as they joined them. “Ah, Daphne, we were just discussing the new Defence professor’s class this morning, and Potter’s super-secret Defence club that we absolutely don’t know about.”

Greengrass quirked a smile. “It was never very secret.” She said, as they headed down the stairs towards the dungeons. “Everyone knew it existed, just not how to find the meeting room or how to get proof of who was involved.”

“How did you get found out?” Davis asked curiously. It was a small surprise to hear her speak. She was often quieter when Harry was around.

“Edgecombe, Ravenclaw, year above ours.” Harry replied. “She snitched to Umbridge.”

“Ah, I remember her.” Greengrass replied. “She developed that awful acne on her face.”

Harry’s lips twitched. “Probably shouldn’t have snitched then.”

Zabini snorted, leading them further into the dungeon. “Your work?” He asked. “I didn’t think you were the vindictive type.”

“Worse,” Harry replied. “Hermione’s.”

“That explains everything.” Zabini said with an air of enlightenment. “I have a great and growing respect for Granger’s willingness to curse people.”

“She set Snape’s robes on fire during a Quidditch match in first year.” Harry said, feeling very little guilt about throwing her under the metaphorical bus, “Everyone should fear Hermione’s anger.”

Davis choked on air. “She what?”

Harry nodded. “I don’t know why everyone thinks Hermione is the sane one. Half of our worst plans are hers and the rest are ones she helped plan for.”

Daphne’s smile took on a slightly feral edge. “I think I might like to get to know Granger better.” She said, voice deceptively light.

Zabini side-eyed her. “Now look what you’ve done, Potter. We’re done for.”

Harry patted his shoulder in mock pity. “Just accept your doom and roll with it. That’s what we do.”  

“Will we be invited?” Davis asked suddenly. She shrank a little as they all turned to her. “I mean, we all want to do well in Defence too.”

They all looked at Harry for a reply.

“I don’t see why not.” He said, before realising that he too was acting as if there was no question that the DA would get back together. He couldn’t even lie to himself and hope that Barnaby somehow proved competent in the rest of the week. “Last time, we only invited people who we were sure wouldn’t tell Umbridge, and then they could invite people they were sure wouldn’t. It’s not going to be a secret this time, it’s just a study club really, so I think anyone can join so long as they’re not going to be disruptive.”

“Huh.” Zabini said. “I might take you up on that. Your lot were ridiculous on the OWL exams. During the practical, I saw most of yours making corporeal patronuses. On the OWLs.”

Sometimes, Harry forgot that a corporeal patronus was supposed to be a rare and very difficult thing. “It’s not as hard as people make it out to be.” He offered. “Pretty much everyone in the DA managed it.”

“I, for one, look forward to seeing Professor Potter in action.” Greengrass proclaimed, making Harry’s face heat up.

“That’s, I- Ron and Hermione run it too!”

Greengrass looked at him as if he were an idiot. “It’s your group, Potter. Everyone knows that. I know that and I didn’t even attend.”

“Ugh.” Harry was relieved to see the blank section of wall that denoted the Slytherin Common Room ahead. He wanted to escape this conversation as soon as possible.

Chapter Text

Inside the Slytherin Common Room, the atmosphere was a lot more relaxed than on that first evening back. Everyone was settling into school again, and despite rumours to the contrary, Slytherins were students just like the other Houses. People were spread around the Common Room, either relaxing or working on homework, and a low rumble of chatter filled the room. This died off a little as more people noticed Harry, but once he followed Greengrass and Zabini over to a table on the right-hand side, it tentatively started up again.

“What homework do we have so far?” Zabini asked. His voice was a little louder than conversational.

“Hmm, I have Arithmancy and Runes.” Greengrass replied. “Transfiguration as well. Flitwick didn’t set any, I don’t think. Right, Potter?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, he said to read over chapter 1 if we could, but I looked at it, and it’s basically a recap of last year. There was Herbology homework as well, but I don’t think any of you are in that? Oh, and the Potions reading for tomorrow.”

“None for Astronomy.” Davis said. “And no, none of us still do Herbology.”

Zabini faked a shudder. “Morgana forfend. Five years of getting dirt under my nails, five! How do you bear it, Potter?”

Harry blinked at his dramatics. “Uh, gloves.”

Davis snorted loudly, seeming to startle even herself.

Greengrass shook her head, smiling, as she pulled a couple of textbooks and some rolls of parchment out of her bag.

Harry did the same, retrieving his transfiguration things. The table had dips for ink bottles and quills, which already made it a step up from the ones in the Gryffindor Common Room. Still, he charmed the ink pot stable on reflex. Around him, the others were also moving to get on with their homework. The air was slightly off, clearly an enforced calm while the rest of the House pretended not to watch, but the Slytherin trio knew their House best, so Harry was happy enough to play along with what they were doing.

He opened his transfiguration text to the first chapter, which covered the Elemental Exchange theory they were supposed to be working on. Surprisingly, he’d already read about many of the terms and ideas behind it. They had been covered in the introductory sections of his alchemy book, which, when he thought about it, only made sense. After all, transfiguration was the discipline mostly closely related to alchemy, especially when dealing with individual elements. The prevailing theory of elemental exchange would naturally be covered in a field which dealt almost entirely with exchanging elements. Newly engaged with the essay topic, Harry also retrieved the alchemy book and set about using the further information on that to develop aspects of Sedgwick’s theory and show how it had been proved in practice.

He was feeling more confident in this essay than he thought he’d ever felt about a transfiguration essay in his life. Part of that, Harry knew, was how he’d gone back over the textbooks from his previous years in the summer and learned all the things he’d missed or forgotten, but also, finally, he was understanding why his professors kept telling them to ‘read around’ their subjects. It hadn’t made sense until he’d felt it for himself how having additional information about a related topic made the new information click.

His writing was interrupted by a pinging feeling behind him and a shout of “Potter!”. Harry recognised the feeling as his shield reflecting a spell in the same instance and whirled to find Goyle being knocked off his feet by his own jinx. Where Gryffindor Common Room would have been in uproar immediately, the Slytherins were silent and still, but each one was watching them like hawks.

Harry rose from his seat, but leant against the desk, trying to portray a casualness that he absolutely did not feel. His mind felt sharp, ready for a fight, and his grip on his wand was loose but prepared. “Goyle.” He said back as the other man climbed to his feet. It looked like he had tried to send a knockback jinx at Harry.

“Potter!” He exclaimed again. “You can’t be here. What are you doing here?”

“Well, I was doing my homework.” Harry answered.

“Goyle, you know Potter is allowed to be here.” Zabini said, still from his seat. His voice was cold. “We went over this with you four times. Even if he wasn’t, you can’t simply attack people in the common room. You are already on probation.”

“But he’s Potter!” Goyle seemed stuck on that point. Harry had often wondered if Crabbe and Goyle were as dim as they seemed to be and had mostly settled on the conclusion that while they weren’t the brightest, most of their troubles seemed to come from the fact that they refused to listen to anyone they didn’t deem worthy of their notice. Unfortunately, the only people who they did deem worthy were Malfoy and the Death Eaters, which didn’t include the rest of their teachers or classmates.

“We noticed.” Greengrass said drily.

Goyle looked like he didn’t understand, alternating between glaring at Harry under his heavyset brow and casting looks around the Common Room like he was expecting the others to back him up. “He’s Potter.” He repeated. “He’s our enemy.” He said it as if it were the most obvious fact in the world.

“The war is over, Goyle.” Harry said tiredly.

Goyle looked as though he didn’t accept that. He ground his teeth with a mutinous expression, jaw working side to side as he looked to be trying to think of a comeback.

Harry sighed internally. Goyle certainly wasn’t the only person who didn’t seem to understand that the war was finished. There were people like that on both sides. Harry understood, to an extent, because he couldn’t imagine ever stopping fighting if Voldemort had won, but equally, Voldemort would never have let him stop. Goyle had no obligation to the war, no one hunting him down, no price on his head, no lasting repercussions that prevented him from living out the rest of his life even, he just wanted to keep fighting because he thought his long magical ancestry made him superior to everyone else.

“Gregory, enough.” Malfoy peeled off from the wall, where he’d apparently been sitting in a shadowed corner. He stared Goyle down until the other man retreated with a huff and stormed into the back corridors, towards the dormitories. Only then did Malfoy turn to face Harry himself. “Potter.”

Harry had almost missed the way Malfoy spat his name as if it were a particularly repulsive invective. It had been a staple of all their school years. “Malfoy.” He replied warily.

Malfoy glared at him, though there was something complicated in his eyes. Harry wondered if he looked the same way to Malfoy. “Think you’re too good to sit with the Slytherins without your fancy shields up?” Malfoy spat. It wasn’t the question Harry had been expecting. It threw him for a moment, and Malfoy took the opportunity to continue. “Fat load of good it does when you’re talking all high and mighty about moving on and getting along, but you don’t actually trust any of us enough to be here unwarded. Shows what you really think.”

A quick glance around showed that many of their audience seemed to have taken Malfoy’s words to heart. There was a rumbling of discontent around the room. Harry considered his answer for a moment more. He didn’t think ‘well, given that someone did just try to curse me…’ would go down well. “It’s not personal, Malfoy.” He settled on, “I always have the shields up. You know, seeing as there are still people out to kill me and all.”

 “Pah.” Malfoy had reddened, hands in fists by his side, though his wand was still holstered. Harry had mailed it back to him after the trial, though naturally he hadn’t had a response. “We don’t want you here or need you here, Potter. We’re not your new charity case! You think you can come here and preach your goody goody forgiveness and make us all fall into line? Pat yourself on the back for trying to redeem all of us? You don’t know anything!”

Harry watched him with sharp eyes while the pieces settled into place. This wasn’t about the other Slytherins at all, it was all about Malfoy – as usual. This was the first time they’d spoken since the battle, though they’d seen each other at Malfoy’s trial. Harry himself still had mixed feelings about the testimony he’d given, so he could only imagine what Malfoy was feeling about the whole affair. He hadn’t spoken to help Malfoy, exactly, nor because he pitied him, but it’s not like he’d stopped to explain his motivations to Malfoy during the trial.

“Leave off, Malfoy.” Greengrass spoke from behind Harry, startling him a little - arguing with Malfoy always seemed to give him tunnel vision. Greengrass’ voice was hard and uncompromising. “No one’s a charity case and I, for one, certainly don’t appreciate being called one. All the prefects agreed to this, everyone’s doing it, and it’s only people like you and Goyle who keep dragging out old enmities who are keeping the rest of us from trying to make the rest of our year better than it would have been.” This was probably the most passionate that Harry had heard her. “You don’t like Potter? Fine, don’t talk to him, no one’s making you, but stop trying to wreck opportunities for the rest of us because your pride can’t handle it. It was the ridiculous House divisions that got us all locked in the dungeons during the battle, that meant there was no one to go to for help,” Her voice cracked on the word, “because no one would believe we were anything but evil. Just, for once in your life, shut up and leave it alone, Malfoy!”

Harry turned to look at her, concerned. There was obviously a lot more going on under the surface than he was aware of. As he watched, Zabini pressed his arm against hers gently, while Davis knocked her shoulder subtly into Greengrass’. Greengrass’ hands unclenched a little, though fury was still written in her usually impassive face.

Malfoy huffed, though his face had paled, and he’d taken a half-step back when Greengrass’ voice rose. “Like they actually care!” He sneered, “Whatever. You’ll see what I mean eventually. You can play at friendship all you like, but they’ll never actually accept you.” His sneer deepened as he looked back to Harry. He looked like he wanted to say more, but cut himself off with a scoff, storming towards the dormitories.

The Common Room was quiet in his wake. Harry turned back around to the rest of the table. Greengrass was sitting with her chin on steepled hands, face stormy as she gazed at nothing in particular; Zabini was muttering something angrily in a language Harry didn’t recognise but could guess was probably Italian; Davis was simply looking at the table, appearing very much as if she’d rather be anywhere else but there.

“Should I go?” Harry asked them. “I get it if it’s easier if I go for now.”

“No!” Greengrass exclaimed, head snapping around to him. “No.” She repeated quieter. “That would sort of defeat the point after all… this.” She waved an aimless hand in the direction that Malfoy had been standing.

“Okay.” Harry wasn’t wholly convinced but took his seat again. “I get the impression that this kind of, er, conversation has been happening a lot.”

Zabini sighed. “What can you do, people talk. Of course, there are a lot of people wondering what the point of all this is, with, well, you especially being here. Most people, I believe, are taking it in good faith that we’re all working to try and get along, but there are those who fear that this is just an excuse to monitor and punish us, if we step out of line. Having a Gryffindor, the Gryffindor if you like, in the only safe, Slytherin space, is putting some people on edge.” He snorted, “Of course, Malfoy simply hates it because it’s you and he’s aggrieved by your general existence.”

Harry choked on an unexpected laugh.

“It is hard.” Greengrass said, frowning. “Even for those of us who weren’t on the other side of the war to you – those of us who were never able to make that choice because everyone already assumed it and wouldn’t trust us if we said otherwise. It still feels like we’re lumped in with the Dark Lord and his followers. But that’s why we agreed to this scheme.” Her pale eyes were piercing. “I don’t- I can’t be locked out of something like the battle again because no one knows us as individuals and thinks that the loudest person in our House speaks for all of us.”

It was the second time Greengrass had mentioned being locked in the dungeons for the battle. Harry had never considered before what had happened after McGonagall told Filch to take the Slytherins to the dungeon, but a moment of thought and he knew it must have been terrifying to have no choice but to sit out of the fight and not even know what was going on outside. He knew why McGonagall had chosen that, roughly – there was no time to go through them and see who supported which side, so it was safest to send them all away to be both safe and contained – but it must have very much reinforced the idea that their entire House were considered Voldemort’s followers. An idea that Harry knew was perpetuated among the other Houses, even though all three had had their own share of Dark supporters, and that he’d only begun to rid himself of this summer.

Harry nodded, not sure what else to say.

“Say, Potter,” Zabini started, with false levity, “do you really have shields up all the time? Doesn’t that get tiring?”

“Uh, yes and no.” Harry replied. He shrugged awkwardly, “I mean, yes, I have them up all the time, but no, they don’t really get tiring. I, um, I have them anchored, so I don’t need to think about them all the time, but they’re always there.”

The trio all looked intrigued. “I guess they pay off.” Davis said, eyes flicking to the dormitories where Goyle had gone to. “It’s not paranoia if there really are curses flying at your back.”

“Well, yes, but…” Harry wasn’t sure how to explain that he needed to cast them constantly for medical reasons, or even if he wanted to. They were all nice enough, but this was personal. He made a face, “It’s also just to give my magic something to do. It gets antsy when I haven’t cast enough, so something simple and invisible…” He shrugged a shoulder again.

The three looked at him speculatively, but didn’t voice any thoughts that they may have had about that.

“Huh.” Was all Zabini said. “Is that the kind of thing that you teach at your super-secret Defence club?”

Harry snorted, “Sort of, I guess? I mean, not this charm in particular – though it is useful under the right conditions – but really, we tried to cover everything that might be on the OWLs and then the most useful basic Defence spells.”

“I’m not sure that the patronus charm counts as a basic spell.” Greengrass raised an eyebrow, bright eyes dubious.

“That was more the exception than the rule.” Harry shrugged. “It’s useful enough that everyone needed to know it.”

“How long did it take for everyone to learn it?” Davis asked. There was something that might have been hope in her eyes.

“Er,” Harry tried to remember back, “a couple of months, I think. Some people got it faster than others, but it’s really not as hard as people say it is. It’s just that the emotional bit of it throws people off.”

“A couple of months.” Zabini echoed thoughtfully. “And those of you being fifth years, and some below.”

Greengrass turned herself more towards Harry, “What do you mean about the emotional part?” She seemed much brighter now, discussing spells, than she had a few minutes ago.

“Well,” Harry tried to find the words, thinking back through all the ways he’d seen the patronus charm written about, the ways Remus Lupin had described it to him, the way he cast it, and the way he taught it to everyone else. “I’m sure you all know the theory of the patronus charm-“

“Pretend we don’t.” Zabini interrupted quickly even though he clearly did know the theory, eyes darting to something behind Harry.

“Um, okay.” Harry gathered his thoughts, slipping with far more ease than he’d expected back into his role as teacher in the DA. “The patronus charm is a powerful defensive spell which uses the positive emotions of the caster and channels them into the shape of a shield or, as a corporeal patronus, a spirit guardian. The shape your patronus takes is wholly unique to you and also very personal. When casting the spell, the caster needs to use a single, very powerful feeling of positive emotion. It doesn’t have to be happiness, exactly; hope, will to live, sheer confidence, that kind of thing also works. Most books, and instructors, will tell you to use a happy memory, because that’s what works best for most people, but it doesn’t actually have to be a memory.” He shrugged, a little self-consciously, “If you don’t have that kind of pure, happy memory, imagining something like that also works, so long as you don’t get distracted. The point is the feeling, not where it comes from.”

Greengrass was following along, head tilted and eyes bright. Davis had leaned forward in her chair, occasionally tapping her quill on parchment or making a note. Zabini looked casual as ever, but his eyes were sharp and tracked Harry the whole time.

“The trouble most people have, aside from putting enough power into the spell, is feeling that kind of powerful emotion while also channelling it properly, and not letting whatever circumstances are making you cast the patronus affect you. If you’re casting a patronus, you’re probably in horrible danger or at least under a lot of stress, which doesn’t help you think happy thoughts.”

Zabini sniggered quietly.

“The key is to learn it in a much lower stress environment.” Harry explained. “Like I learned it with Professor Lupin, and then when I taught the others in the DA. Then you can experiment with memories and get used to the feeling, without the negative emotions, so by the time you need to cast a patronus, you already know you can, so you have confidence supporting your spell, instead of self-doubt and dread holding it back. The first time I cast a corporeal patronus was,” he paused, deciding it was probably a bad idea to tell them about the whole time turner fiasco, “a really weird situation, but it worked because I, in a long story that I’m not going to explain, knew already for absolute certain that I could. And because I was certain it would work, it did.”

Greengrass looked vaguely enlightened.

“Since then, I’ve had much, much less trouble casting it because I knew how it felt to use a patronus and also simply because I knew I already had. And I think that’s true for most people. Patronuses are still harder to cast in actual danger, sure, but when you’re not,” he shrugged, “none of the others have failed then either.”    

“So, the problem is that you have to cast it with purely positive emotions?” Zabini asked.

“Sort of.” Harry replied. “It’s complicated. It’s partly that, but…” He trailed off. “I need to explain better what a patronus is.” He struggled for words for a moment, trying to find the way to express how much of your soul was bared in a patronus. “I called it a spirit guardian because it is. It’s not just a shield with your favourite animal. It displays the animal you have the greatest affinity to at a soul-deep level because a patronus guards against evil, like dementors and lethifolds, by pulling out the best and most desperate parts of yourself and forming them into a guardian. It’s you at your most viciously protective, fighting to defend everything that makes your life worth living. So, it requires an amount of sheer will and a desire to protect which is difficult to explain. And I think that’s why some people can only cast a patronus after they’ve been in life threatening situations, because you can only understand what it really means to fight to defend yourself and others if you’ve lived it.”

“I’ve never heard anyone talk about the patronus like that.” Greengrass commented. “The books just make it sound like a difficult spell.”

“Yeah.” Harry agreed. “And I think that’s why so many people don’t get it.”

They all looked thoughtful. “Is that why all patronuses are unique?” Davis asked. “Because they’re made up of what’s personal to you?”

“Yes.” Harry nodded. “And it’s why patronuses can change as well, but it only happens rarely; if something happens that changes you on a personal level, enough that your whole identity is shifted, your patronus changes too.” He huffed a laugh. “That sounds kind of dramatic, but the only time I saw it was because someone had fallen in love, and her patronus changed to mean her partner.” His smile fell when his thoughts inevitably drifted to Remus and Tonks’ deaths. “But yeah, that’s why patronuses are so personal – they all mean something.”

“Yours is a stag, right?” Zabini asked. He didn’t ask the follow up question, but his curiosity was clear.

“Yeah.” Harry replied, though honestly he couldn’t say for sure. He’d considered casting a patronus to help get his magic moving but a moment of fear had always held him back – he’d changed so deeply, he couldn’t help but feel as if his patronus might reflect that. Harry wasn’t sure he could bear to see a different shape. He decided to answer the unspoken question, “It’s my dad’s animagus form and my mum was represented as a patronus by a doe.” He tried hard not to think too much about Snape’s patronus form. “My memory when I cast is the certainty that they loved me.”

“Oh.” Davis said, eyes wide. “That’s…” She trailed off, unable to finish.

Harry didn’t blame her for it. It was a complicated topic for him too. “Yeah.” He nodded. “Love, any type of love, is probably the best kind of feeling to cast with. Love magic is very strong.”

Zabini cocked his head curiously, “Love magic? Like, Amortentia?”

“No!” Harry didn’t quite know where that response had come from and coughed awkwardly, “Er, sorry, no. Amortentia isn’t love magic. Love potions make obsession, not real love, and I don’t know why they aren’t completely illegal anyway.” He’d looked into them a little after the fiasco in sixth year and they all turned his stomach. “I mean magic that’s fuelled by love. Like, how my mum used her death as love magic to protect me from Voldemort.” All three twitched at the name. “That’s why Voldemort’s curse rebounded on him when I was a baby.”

“What, seriously?” Davis asked. He’d never seen her this invested in a conversation.

“Yeah.” Harry nodded. “It certainly wasn’t anything I did – I was a literal baby. This whole Boy Who Lived business has always been nonsense.” It felt good to be telling people that. “I mean, it was sort of complicated, but a Death Eater who loved my mum begged Voldemort to spare her and he agreed, then my dad died to give her time to run with me, and when Voldemort got to her, he gave her three chances to step aside but she begged him to kill her instead of me. So, when he did kill her, those all added up and created a very powerful protection made entirely of love. It’s why Voldemort had to have me kidnapped to take my blood for his resurrection – he couldn’t even touch me without burning to ash before, because of the love magic.”

“Holy shit.” The words slipped out of Greengrass’ mouth. All three were sitting there with wide eyes. “But why hasn’t that happened before? Lots of people have died trying to protect each other.”

Greengrass had a fair point, but Harry had been thinking about it a lot too. “It probably has.” He admitted. “But not always in the same way, or with someone as infamous as a Dark Lord on the verge of winning a war. And I think it has to be intentional – a deliberate, willing sacrifice to protect others from a particular enemy. I’m not sure on that last bit, because my mum’s protection never worked against anyone but Voldemort, but mine worked against the Death Eaters too and I think even anyone attacking Hogwarts students.”

Harry froze as soon as he’d stopped speaking. He’d gotten caught up in his explanations of love magic and protective magics, which he’d become very interested in academically, and hadn’t meant to say the last bit out loud. It was just something he’d been thinking about recently, after seeing minor altercations on the train and in the halls.

“What do you mean yours?” Zabini asked, face blank.

“Well,” there wasn’t a lot of point hiding it now, “you all heard Voldemort offer to spare everyone in the castle in exchange for my life, yeah?” Harry rolled his wand around in his hands nervously, trying to ignore the creeping dread spreading over their expressions. “Just me dying, instead of everyone else, didn’t seem like such a bad idea.” He hurried to get the rest of the explanation out, “My friends knew what to do to finish defeating Voldemort, and there were other things going on, but basically, yeah. I knew I was going to die, and I was doing it deliberately to protect everyone in the castle from the ones attacking it, so when I died…” He shrugged, staring at the desk to avoid their eyes. “Obviously, some weird, complicated magic happened and the whole death thing didn’t stick, but I still died with that intention and so, the magic worked. Works. I guess you weren’t in the battle, so you wouldn’t have noticed it then, but haven’t you seen that the students, the ones that weren’t fighting for the Dark, nothing hits them from anyone attacking? Even against each other.”

“Oh, Merlin.” Greengrass breathed. “That’s you?! I knew something weird was going on, I thought maybe the wards had something new, but- And you died? I…” She cut off the ramblings abruptly.  

“What the fuck, Potter?” Zabini’s question seemed mostly rhetorical, shock evident in his tone.

“So, yeah.” Harry said awkwardly. “Love magic is one of the strongest there is, and definitely helps fuel a patronus.” He hadn’t meant to get so far off topic and had little hope that they’d ignore all that to go back to the patronus discussion, but it was worth an attempt. With growing dread, he realised how quiet the Common Room had become, and turned his head to find the entire room looking at him, not even pretending not to be listening. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Um, whoops.”

“I don’t even know where to start.” Zabini said, sounding utterly defeated by the thought.

Harry couldn’t stop a bark of laughter from breaking loose. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“Can’t imagine why.” Zabini said into his homework, as he placed his head on the desk.

“Potter, your life is certifiably insane.” Greengrass said, sounding entirely serious.

“I know.” He agreed.

“I would not believe a word out of that from anyone else,” she continued, “but too much of that simply makes too much sense.”

He snorted, but mainly felt relief. He’d only known these three a few days, but he’d already found himself enjoying their company, and didn’t want to lose that because he hadn’t known when to shut up.

“The protection,” Davis started, “does it work for us too?” Her voice was tentative.

Zabini and Greengrass also looked at him with curious eyes and it took Harry a moment to work out why. “Yeah, of course.” He replied. “Zabini, Greengrass, try sending a hex at each other. Something that would actually hurt.”

They looked at him and each other for a long moment, before spellfire burst from their wands. At the last moment, the spells swerved. A bit of Zabini’s chair shattered in the impact, sending splinters flying which hit no one, despite the proximity to him and others sitting behind him. Zabini’s spell hit a wall, leaving a charred patch.

“Yeah, of course it does.” Harry repeated, his voice as gentle as he could make it and hopefully hiding the relief he was feeling that he’d been right about his protection still working and how it worked. “You’re not my enemies, I don’t want you hurt, you’re Hogwarts students. My protection was meant for everyone who needed it, not just people I personally knew and liked.”

“Oh.” Davis looked overwhelmed. “Um, thanks?”

For some reason, that broke the heavy atmosphere, and Harry laughed. After a moment, a few others joined in.

“Well,” Zabini said, after a long moment, “that’s the only proof I need that joining Potter’s super-secret Defence club will be worth it. They said you were good at Defence, but damn, Potter.”

Greengrass and Davis nodded too. “We’ll get a sign-up list to you shortly.” Greengrass said, “Once we’ve got the timings for tutoring sessions worked out, of course. Let us know when you can which day you’ll be running it on.”

Harry sighed. There was no point staying in denial and claiming he might not be starting up the DA again. The people had spoken. “Alright.” He agreed. “I’ll let you know.”

Greengrass looked particularly pleased. “Excellent.” And, as if nothing had happened, she turned back to her homework, Zabini and Davis following suit swiftly.

Harry shook his head, unable to keep a small smile from settling over his face. They were a funny lot, Slytherins, but he thought he might get on with them just fine.

Chapter Text

The rest of the week passed without too much incident. Harry finally remembered about the prefects’ common room when Zabini mentioned it and found himself taking a look around during his Wednesday free period. He was thankful he had, because he was scheduled for patrol the next evening. Patrol, as it turned out, was a reasonably quiet affair. It wasn’t nearly as exciting being on the other side as trying to not get caught had been. He and Tracey Davis had met up five minutes before curfew, near the Great Hall, and spent their hour slot quietly making a slow loop around the floors, focusing on the entrances to each common room.

They’d found a couple of Hufflepuffs giggling in an abandoned classroom, a Gryffindor sneaking up from the kitchen with an armful of snacks, and a clump of Ravenclaws who were having a riddling competition with their door knocker. Harry was almost sorry he had to break it up, because it looked like they were having a lot of fun, but they were technically outside their Common Room. He wasn’t sure if the reason they found no Slytherins was because there were none out or if they were simply better at not being caught, but Davis seemed quietly relieved whenever she saw the House colours of whoever they’d found weren’t Slytherin green.

It had been a nice walk, refamiliarizing himself with the sights and sounds of Hogwarts, and Harry had found that it ended too soon. He’d considered staying out and wandering around himself under his invisibility cloak but thought that it was maybe a little too soon to be breaking the rules he was meant to be upholding. Give it another week.

Friday had brought the final DADA class of the week, and by now Harry had to admit that everyone was right – the DA would be needed again. Professor Barnaby wasn’t the worst teacher they’d had by far – he knew the topic better than Lockhart, was less likely to torture them than Umbridge, and Harry didn’t think he was planning to kill anyone in the castle, which put him above some of the previous professors – but he certainly wasn’t a good teacher. Privately, Harry thought that the reason the DMLE had sent him to Hogwarts (if he was even telling the truth about that, and he hadn’t just applied independently) was to get him out of the way of the actually competent aurors. Sure, he could manage a fair expelliarmus, hold a solid protego, and tell them all the approved guidelines for use of force against an attacker, but he had no imagination, and the harder topics left him scrambling for an answer, while the class watched on unimpressed.

“I can see him being decent up to Fifth year.” Ron allowed, flopping into an armchair in the Gryffindor common room. “You’d just about pass your OWLs with that, I reckon, but Merlin knows how that man got enough NEWTs to be an auror.”

“It’s like he hasn’t even looked at the topic since he graduated.” Hermione agreed.

They looked expectantly at Harry, who sighed. “You’ve made your point.” He told them with a flat look, barely restraining the grin that wanted to replace it. “And I expect you both also have some ideas about what you’d like us to cover instead.”

Ron whooped victoriously, and Hermione pulled out a bit of parchment from her bag, spreading it on the coffee table between them. “We may have discussed it.” She grinned at him.

Harry took the parchment and read through it, glancing over the sections split into spells, concepts, and theory. Hermione’s neat, spiky handwriting made up most of the page, with comments and additions from Ron scrawled around the sides. Near the bottom, he’d written his own section, on combining DADA with the other subjects.

“Well, it’s supposed to be what this year is about, right?” Ron explained when asked about it, “OWLs teach you the basics, sixth year makes it more complicated, and seventh shows you where everything fits together. I know when Bill works, he doesn’t think of things just as Defence, it’s all a big mess of Charms, Runes, Potions, anything else as well. We already know we’re covering some dark creatures that we talked about in Care at OWLs, so… yeah, it just made sense.”

Harry nodded enthusiastically. “We can definitely do that.” He looked over the list again. “I’m going to trust Hermione with the Defence theory portion.” He smiled at her, and she brightened. “Ron, sounds like you know what you’re doing with that bit – maybe talk to someone who does Runes, Arithmancy and stuff and see if they have any suggestions? – so if you can flesh that out, we can work it into the plan. I’ll take spells? And maybe some of the Dark Arts theory?”

They both nodded easily. Ron’s smile was broad and confident, a determined look in his eyes. “Sounds good, mate. Sounds like we’re nearly ready, to be honest.”

“Well, we need to make more of a plan first.” Hermione said, a little dubiously, “We’ve only got a vague idea what we’re going to do. And we haven’t spoken to any of the teachers about it yet, but I suppose we could do that over the weekend.”  

“I’ve got my healing appointment tomorrow.” Harry said, “And then I’m probably going to do the whole magic purging thing outside the wards at some point. I can try and pick some spells while I’m doing that – I’m not really sure how long I’m meant to stay out there – and maybe we can talk to McGonagall after that?”

“We’re going with McGonagall, then?” Ron asked.

Harry actually hadn’t considered it. McGonagall was just the obvious one who had popped into his head.

“Professor Flitwick might be good.” Hermione suggested. “He’s a former duelling champion, after all.”

“We could ask either of them, I guess.” Harry shrugged, “I mean, we’re just doing it as a club, right? The professor isn’t, you know, teaching, so, I don’t know if it matters.”

Hermione hummed, considering the point. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Whoever isn’t too busy, then?”

Ron laughed. “So, definitely not McGonagall.”

Harry snorted. It was true – even with her role as Head of Gryffindor gone, the Headmistress was still rarely seen outside of class if not by appointment. He could only imagine the amount of work that had to go into reopening Hogwarts and getting everything running again after the war. Like most of the professors, she didn’t receive her post at the table during meals, but veritable flocks of owls seemed to swarm around the window to the headmaster’s office at all times of day.

“Perhaps not.” Hermione agreed with a small smile. She straightened the parchment on the table and flicked her eyes over it. “I’m so glad we’re doing this again. Umbridge was awful, of course, but I rather missed this.”

“Admit it,” Ron said, pointing a quill at her, “you liked the sneaking around and breaking the rules just as much as us.”

Her lips twitched, eyes bright. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d do at all.”

Ron made an indignant sound, pulling himself up straight in his chair. “Excuse me, Miss ‘Dumbledore’s weapon is in the forest, oh whoops you got attacked by centaurs, who could possibly have predicted that?’.” Harry was startled into deep belly laughing. “We know you too well for that.”

Hermione smoothed her robes down primly, shuffling her notes with a sniff. “Prove it.”

Harry threw his head back cackling, as Ron spluttered in the background. Yes, he’d missed this too.

-

After his appointment, Harry could use the ritual circle in the Healing Wing to finally follow his Healer’s instructions and work on getting other people’s magic out of his system. It wasn’t a particularly difficult spell, but it required a rune circle like this one to contain any outbursts of magic, and it was time consuming. He couldn’t even take his textbooks into the ring, as he was planning to do outside later, so he was stuck sitting on the floor and peering over at Madam Pomphrey’s bookshelf for the seventeenth time since the spell had begun. As with all the sixteen times before, he could just about make out the titles, thanks to his new glasses, but he didn’t know enough about healing magic to understand what they meant. Somewhere between the seventh and tenth time he’d looked over, Harry had started a game of trying to guess what each of them could be referring to, but he got bored easily, and the sensation of magic being dragged out from under his skin was distracting, like tiny pinpricks everywhere, but not so much painful as uncomfortable.

By the time the runes faded, indicating the spell was done, Harry’s legs had long gone to sleep, and he was too eager to get out to really feel any difference in his magic. He grabbed his bracelet cuffs from the floor, letting the familiar feeling of his protego variant wash over him, found his bag at the door, and hurried off to find Professor McGonagall with a quick call of goodbye to the mediwitch. McGonagall had promised to lead him to an empty area in the back hills of Hogwarts grounds, where the wards didn’t reach but were generally left untouched.

He didn’t get far before the witch in question called out to him from behind.

“If you had waited just a moment, Mr Potter,” McGonagall said wryly, “Poppy could have told you that I’d floo down to you and meet you at the doors.”

Ah. That would have made sense. Harry looked sheepishly at the Headmistress. “Sorry, Professor.”

“No matter. I could use a walk after so long in my office.” She replied, falling into step with him and proceeding to march further down the corridor. Harry had never stopped to consider McGonagall’s age – other than older than Snape and Sprout, and younger than Dumbledore – but she picked a mean pace for a seemingly elderly woman. He scurried to catch up.

She took him around the side of the castle, past the Herbology greenhouses, and down a small path which must have been hidden by powerful notice-me-not charms, because Harry, in all his various adventures around Hogwarts, had never seen it, nor did he think it was on the Marauder’s Map. The path led up the hill, away from the brilliant red fields below Hogwarts, to the copse of trees sheltering the staff graveyard Harry had found when he’d visited that night in summer. They veered off to the right before they reached it, circling lower around the hill on a branching path, but Harry could see the glimmer of white in the distance when he looked up.

The hills behind Hogwarts were beautiful in the bright light of an autumn day. There were very few trees, and while a path was worn with dappled grass and moss, thick mounds of heather covered the surrounding ground with purple and white blossoms. Shrubs grew thick but short, and wildflowers poked out in abundance. There were a few rabbits Harry could spot a little further along and something rustled in the spiky gorse when he and McGonagall passed by. It was peaceful but vibrantly alive, in a way that the carefully maintained gardens and mown grass parks of Little Whinging had never managed.

They walked up to a stone wall, which rose to about his chest, with a tall, arched gate across the path. The gate itself was clearly worn by time and weather, iron rusted and deformed from what must have once been an elegant pattern of swirls and forest imagery picked out with careful craftsmanship, but the stone of the wall itself was oddly pristine. Although it butted right up against the foliage, no plants grew in the cracks between the bricks, there were no patches of moss, and no insects or lizards skittered about on warm stone.

“This marks the boundary of the wards.” McGonagall spoke, laying a hand against the gate until a wash of silver magic passed over the surface, and the joints screeched as the gate swung open. “Naturally, we prefer our guests to approach from the front, so most people never know there is a second entry point, but many of the older, trusted staff members may choose to come this way when we wish to escape from the hordes of unruly students.”

Harry followed her through the gate, letting it clang shut behind him as he felt the Hogwarts wards pass over him like a film, before he emerged back into the outside world. However welcome, he hadn’t realised how thickly the magic of Hogwarts had pressed against his skin until he was breathing fresh air again.

“As such,” McGonagall continued, “I expect you to keep the knowledge of this way to yourself. Or at least, between yourself, Miss Granger, and Mr Weasley – Merlin forbid one of you three keep a secret from each other.” She softened the last part with an amused twitch of her lips.

Harry snorted a laugh but agreed. He could see why the professors wouldn’t want students or visitors tramping about this way.

“This is where I will leave you.” His professor said, stopping a few metres out from the gate. “Take however long you need out here – you’re old enough that I’m certainly not going to chase you – but if you worry your friends, I’ll leave you to deal with them. You shouldn’t run into any trouble out here, but if you do, send a patronus or a flare, and I will be alerted.”

Harry nodded. “Thanks, Professor.”

She nodded back and turned, sweeping towards the gate after a pleased look back at the castle, the top of which was visible through the gate, framed by the heathland above and fields and forest below.

Harry waited until she was gone and then found himself at something of a loss at what to do. He dithered for a moment, before shrugging, and found a spot slightly off the path, before a patch of taller ferns, where he laid his cloak down and sat on it. He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to be doing, other than spending time away from other people’s magic, so he dug his books and parchment out of his bag and, realising his mistake pretty quickly, transfigured a loose stick into a rough but workable low table.

It was surprisingly easy to work outside. Magic solved most of the inconveniences of daily life if he knew the right spells – keeping him cool, safe from sunburn, and free from the many, many insects which plagued the Scottish countryside – and it wasn’t as distracting as he’d thought it might be. Sure, Harry’s attention was sometimes taken by the winging of birds between shrubs or the movement of something in the corner of his eye, but the rustling of leaves and odd bursts of birdsong provided easy background noise. The Gryffindor Common Room was often too busy to work in, the Slytherin Common Room too tense, and the library was paradoxically too quiet, leaving Harry hyperaware of himself and eager to break the oppressive silence.

He stretched himself out, putting his Potions homework aside, and pulled some pops out of his spine and elbows. A breeze ruffled through his hair lazily as he pulled one of the Defence textbooks he’d borrowed towards him, slumping into a more comfortable position with the aid of abundant cushioning charms. This was nice. Harry hadn’t been expecting it to be so nice. He’d never spent so much time outside on his own just for the sake of it. Most of his memories of being outside were of avoiding the Dursleys or on the run in the Forest of Dean. He closed his eyes for a moment, tipping his head back to catch the warm sunlight as the gentle breeze brought the sounds of small animals and earthy smell of flora. He hadn’t known the world could feel so peaceful.

-

The sun was beginning its descent when Harry finally decided to head back inside the castle. Its rays cast the world in a syrupy gold, warming the grey stone of Hogwarts’ walls and casting dramatic shadows. When his hand touched the gate, Harry felt Hogwarts’ wards spark over his fingers, before the gate was covered in that same silvery light as earlier and creaked open. The weight of the castle’s magic settled over him like a cloak, a welcome brush against his skin but so much harder not to notice now that Harry had spent hours without it.

He set off down the path, half enjoying the walk, and half thinking back over the list of spells he’d prepared for the DA. He’d need to do a more detailed read later, give them all a try himself before he committed to introducing them to the others, but he was tentatively pleased with his selection. The preparations made their plans feel more real, and excitement was beginning to grow in Harry, even if he was a little apprehensive about getting such a large group back together in non-emergency times.

As Harry turned the corner, emerging into the public area of Hogwarts grounds again, noise filtered back around him. The other residents of Hogwarts seemed to be taking full advantage of the warm autumn night, groups of students spread out around the grounds. Some waded amid the poppy fields, others found seats by the Black Lake. He stopped for a moment, leaning against the outer walls. It was good to see people out and about again. There had been a definite air of caution around the halls of Hogwarts for the last week. Fights sparked easily in the dry tinderbox of the student atmosphere, even as others maintained a rigid, fearful discipline that they couldn’t seem to break. Out on the grounds, as students lounged around in the flower fields and smoke rose from the chimney of Hagrid’s rebuilt house, Harry could maybe believe that they were going to be okay eventually.

Chapter Text

“Thanks fer comin’ ter see me, ‘Arry.”

Harry had been surprised to get a letter from Hagrid asking him to visit during the week. It wasn’t so much that Hagrid wanted to see him which was surprising, but rather that he’d specified he’d rather talk to Harry alone if it was possible. “Yeah, of course.” Harry replied, both hands wrapped around an oversized mug of tea. Hagrid had offered Harry some rock cakes as well, but Harry had declined for fear of his teeth – he still wasn’t sure that Hagrid had noticed that humans without giant heritage couldn’t bite through them. Perhaps he had but thought it was funny to offer them anyway.

“’Ow are Ron and ‘Ermione doin’?” Hagrid asked, his own teacup appearing almost delicate in his huge hands. There was something off in his tone. His face seemed jolly as ever, expressive dark eyes under bushy eyebrows and a beard that might never have seen a comb if it weren’t for the introduction of one Maxime Olympe, but his voice seemed a touch too cheerful, forced.

“They’re doing okay.” Harry replied. Conversations with Hagrid were never normally this awkward, and Harry had to clench his fists under the table to try and settle himself. Hagrid had been his introduction to the wizarding world and one of the first people to ever try and be nice to Harry; Harry had treasured his friendship with Hagrid, misfit to misfit, and this stilted small talk had him mentally scrambling. “Hermione’s very glad to be back in classes, and she’s still thrilled about being Head Girl. Ron’s enjoying spending time with other people, I think. Probably, he’s had enough of just seeing our old faces every day.”

Hagrid chuckled a little, but it was a touch flat. “Good old ‘Ermione.” He said. “She’s been aimin’ for that Head Girl spot since before she ever set foot in that there castle, I reckon. Course it was gonna be her, no one better.” He smiled proudly, shaking his massive head. “And a surprise that Ron came back. I thought for sure he was goin’ ter follow his brothers and leave school early.” He winced a moment later, both of them acknowledging without words that one of those brothers wasn’t around to be a role model, good or bad, anymore.

“Listen, ‘Arry.” Hagrid started, interrupting any attempt that Harry might have made at continuing their awkward back and forth, “There’s somethin’ I wanted ter talk to you abou’ before the year got well under way.”

Harry picked his mug of tea back up and took a sip, more for something to do with his hands than any real desire to drink it – nerves had turned the taste to ash and the liquid seemed to leave his mouth drier than before he’d drunk it. He nodded at Hagrid, unable to find the right words.

“I though’ about this conversation for a long time.” Hagrid said. “Havin’ it, not havin’ it. But there were things I needed ter get off me chest.” He took a deep breath, eyebrows drawing together as he laid his own mug back on the table, wiping off a little bit of tea where it had spilled onto his hand. “I though’ I watched you die, ‘Arry.” He burst out suddenly. “I carried your- your body all the way back ter the castle. And he, V-Voldemort, he was spoutin’ all his lies ‘bout you runnin’ away, and I though’ that I was goin’ ter be the only person on our side who ever really knew wha’ happened to you.” Hagrid let out a great sniff, voice fraught with oncoming tears, “Little ‘Arry Potter, who used ter fit in the palm of me ‘and.”

Harry’s heart sunk in his chest. “I’m sorry.” He said. It didn’t feel like enough – it wasn’t enough – but he didn’t know what else to say.

“’Snot your fault.” Hagrid replied, blowing his nose noisily into a red and white polka dot handkerchief as the tears overflowed and got lost in his bushy beard. “Was tha’ ruddy dark lord wha’ made you hide yerself. Bu’, it’s goin’ ter be a long time, I reckon, before I can look at yeh withou’ seein’ you dead in tha’ forest.”

“Do-, do you want me to stay away?” Harry asked tentatively, trying to hide the hurt that was making his throat tight.

“No! No, ‘Arry.” Hagrid blew his nose again before fixing Harry with a stern expression. “Course not. Jus’… needed to see your face. Alive an’ all. An’ wanted you ter know why if I was bein’ off, is all.”

“Okay.” Harry felt his whole frame sag with relief. “I’m sorry.” He said again. “I didn’t know that you were going to be there and see …that. You shouldn’t have had to do that, I’m sorry.”

“You should’na had ter do that.” Hagrid said fiercely. “I know you, ‘Arry. I’ve known you since you were a wee lad gettin’ yer wand. You walked into tha’ forest and let tha’ monster kill you, and you didn’ know you were goin’ ter be gettin’ back up again.” The sharp look in Hagrid’s beetle black eyes dared him to deny it.

Harry couldn’t answer him. They both knew he was right.

“You never do tha’ again!” Hagrid continued, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You walked into tha’ clearin’ an’ I could see in your face tha’ you were goin’ ter let ‘im kill you and you’d made your peace with tha’.” Hagrid’s eyes bored back into Harry’s angrily. “Well, I ‘adn’t! Your friends ‘adn’t! Ain’t nothin’ worth lettin’ that bastard kill you like tha’, ‘Arry!” Hagrid was crying again in great streams down his face, “Ain’t nothin’ worth givin’ up on life.”

“I had to!” Harry replied. “I needed to die first for him to lose his anchor in me. I didn’t want to die!”

“Didn’t yeh?” Harry had never heard Hagrid’s voice so cynical. “No’ even a bi’? No’ even jus’ so it were all over and you could see Lily an’ James an’ Sirius Black again?”

Harry’s protests died in his throat.

“Everyone’s goin’ ter be tellin’ yeh tha’ you were very brave, ‘Arry.” Hagrid said. He sounded gutted. “You were, don’ get me wrong, course you were. Bu’ no one makes their peace tha’ quickly unless they were halfway there already. An’ I won’ watch you walk ter your death again. So, yer goin’ ter promise me, righ’ now, tha’ you’re never goin’ ter do somethin’ like tha’ again.”

Harry ran a hand through his already messy hair, no doubt making it stick up as if he’d been electrocuted. He realised that he hadn’t mentioned his impending immortality to Hagrid, or pretty much anyone at Hogwarts. Well, no time like the present. “It’s complicated.” He started and rushed out a quick explanation of what had happened. “So, I don’t have a choice, really. I’m not going to live.” It was the first time he’d fully admitted that out loud. “But I’m not going to be dead either.”

Hagrid blew out a long huff of air, his chin in his large hands as he slouched in his seat. “Every time I think you can’ possibly find another mess bigger than the one before, it comes an’ finds you.” He still looked unhappy.

Harry guessed that Hagrid hadn’t been distracted, even by the new information, and that both of them knew that Harry hadn’t really answered Hagrid’s statement. “I’m not going to let them just take me away.” Harry said, after a long moment of trying to find the right words. “I have people, friends, and things I want to do, maybe.” Both of them knew Harry’s ties to the wizarding world lay almost entirely in his loved ones. The magical world itself, well, there was a reason he’d developed the Suppression Sickness. “I’ll always try to come back.” It wasn’t quite a promise, but it was the best Harry could do.

“You’d better.” Hagrid said, blowing his nose into his hankie again. “Who else is goin’ ter be around gettin’ into the mos’ ridiculous nonsense I ever saw ‘round Hogwarts?”

Harry grinned, a touch strained by the emotional conversation but no less genuine for it. “Well, you get Ginny here for another year.” He replied. “I’m sure she’ll find something to blow up eventually.”

Hagrid snorted, long used to the chaotic ways of the Weasley brood. “As long as it’s no’ the fores’. The centaurs are mad enough already.”

Their conversation eased into something lighter, and Harry relaxed into his chair a little more as their awkwardness seemed to dissipate the longer they spoke. He would have missed his teas with Hagrid, the knowledge that there was always someone around who supported him unwaveringly. Their previous conversation sat heavy in the air still, but it was being replaced by the reminder of several years’ worth of good talks and shenanigans.

He stayed for another twenty minutes or so, before remembering that he’d agreed to meet the Slytherin prefects in the library for a joint study session before dinner.

“’Arry.” Hagrid caught him on the way out. “I’m no’ good with words. We all know I’m no good with words. Bu’ wha’ I really wanted ter say today were two things. It’s very good ter see you an’ I’m ‘appy ter see yer doin’ well, even with these ‘ole new things.” He clapped a hand gently on Harry’s shoulder. “But, ‘Arry, it don’ count as savin’ everyone unless you save yerself too. Yer own life is jus’ as important as anyone else’s, and don’ le’ no one tell you otherwise.”

Harry didn’t know how to reply, once again lost for words and caught up in a wave of rising emotions that he didn’t understand. He patted Hagrid’s hand on his shoulder. “It’s been good to see you too, Hagrid.” He didn’t run away exactly, but it was more than he could take right now.

-

It was hard to get back into a routine of attending classes, obeying curfew, and set mealtimes after a year on the run and then a summer as an adult with his own house. Although the familiarity of classes was comforting in some ways, it was also stifling, and Harry found himself chafing at some of the rules. By the end of the second week, Harry couldn’t deny that he was feeling trapped amid the crowds of other students. It had been nice, at first, to see all the familiar faces again, but there was only so much time he could spend around them before he was longing for the quiet of Grimmauld Place and his own room.

On Friday night, as the Common Room grew rowdy and the dorm was no better, filled with the booming radio narration of a game between the Holyhead Harpies and Appleby Arrows, which had been going on since earlier that day, Harry found himself slipping his invisibility cloak on with practised ease and weaving around his housemates until he emerged from the portrait hole. It was instantly cooler in the corridors, without the heat of bodies and the cheerful fires that flickered in the grates overnight. The dim quiet of the late evening was like a balm against Harry’s overheated skin.

He hadn’t had a plan when he left, more an overwhelming desire to get away, so Harry just stood in the corridor for a moment, before heading off down the corridor to nowhere in particular. At this time, the only people Harry might encounter were prefects or professors doing their patrols or ghosts doing whatever it was that ghosts did all day. Covered by the cloak, with his footsteps silenced and eyes adapted well enough to the dark, Harry doubted even the ghosts would notice him in his wandering.

Despite the hour, the halls weren’t silent – they never truly were. So many portraits were bound to make a cacophony of noise when not disguised by the racket of hundreds of schoolchildren, even if most of that was snoring. Harry made his way down staircases that swung through the air, heedless of their lack of passengers, until he found himself outside the Great Hall. His feet had brought him here automatically. Harry saw no reason not to go in.

Having silenced the doors, Harry swept through them noiselessly, closing them behind him. Moonlight spilled through the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, painting the room in silver. The odd stone and flower meadow he’d accidentally turned the floor into reflected the moonlight brightly. Too brightly, in fact. The waning moon and starlight were brilliant in the clear skies of rural Scotland, but most of the light seemed to come from the dim glow of the white petals themselves. Though there was no breeze, the plants seemed to sway, casting eerie shadows on their surrounding stone.

It had already gotten easy to ignore the plants, given that they all used the Hall at least three times a day, but Harry was struck again by how otherworldly the scene was, and the knowledge that it had come from his magic. It was hard to reconcile that his magic, the tool he used and weapon he fought by, had created something so beautiful.

It was something novel to look around the Great Hall entirely on his own. He’d sat in this room multiple times a day every year he was at Hogwarts, and yet he’d never had time to simply explore and look at every detail. There were carved decorations under each ceiling vault, depicting magical plants or animals, and the house points counters had small, illuminated numbers at the bottom, telling how many points each House had amassed so far. The high, arched windows that covered the back wall of the Hall were set surprisingly deep, creating space for window seats behind the staff table, though Harry doubted that anyone used them as such.

Explorations finished, Harry settled into one of the ledges, covering the cold stone with warming and cushioning charms, and looked out of the old, warped glass into the night. Little could be seen out the back of Hogwarts, only the faint shape of the hills in the night. It was a comfortable silence – a familiar place seen from a new and different angle, but no less comforting for it. Harry tipped his head back, breath falling into the soothing patterns he’d learned from the texts Healer Oswald had recommended and focused on the feeling of his magic and Hogwarts’ mixing together like the flowers among the flagstones.

A new magic made Harry open his eyes some time later, peering through the magic of the cloak. Gliding among the asphodels, as silver in the moonlight as the ghostly glow of the petals, was the Grey Lady, Helena Ravenclaw. As she reached a patch that grew particularly thick, Harry saw her kneel down and run her fingers through the crop of plants. Surprisingly, her hands didn’t pass through them, but ruffled them. She stroked through them again, almost meditatively. Harry watched her for a moment, unsure if he should leave quietly or let her know he was there to stop intruding on what was clearly a private moment.

In the end, the knowledge that he needed to let her know what had happened to her mother’s diadem made the decision for him. He slipped out of the window seat, removing his charms, and took off the cloak as he rounded the staff table, still a way away from her. She stiffened as soon as she caught sight of him, going from her seated position to floating between one second and the next, her face unreadable.

“Hello.” Harry started simply. He didn’t speak loudly, but he didn’t need to in the hush of the night.

“Harry Potter.” She acknowledged him, her face still cold.

Harry knew that she would leave if he didn’t get to the point quickly. “I thought you should know, your mother’s diadem and the horcrux in it were destroyed during the Battle.”

Something which might have been grief shot across her face, before she seemed to lighten. It wasn’t just her expression, but something about the feel of her ghostly magic, which Harry couldn’t remember having such a distinct feeling to it in the past.

“You kept your word.” She said at last. This seemed an almost confusing concept to her, which made something in Harry ache.

“Yes.” He agreed, instead of saying any of the half-thought responses that wriggled around in his head.

She drifted closer, intangible skirt rustling the flowers in a way which shouldn’t have been possible. “You’re a strange man, Harry Potter.” Helena Ravenclaw said at last. “Stranger, even, than when we last spoke. But,” she mused, “perhaps the world would be a better place if people were a little stranger.”

Harry didn’t know what to say to that and didn’t want to interrupt, seeing that the Grey Lady was in a rare talking mood.

“We ghosts are odd existences.” She said, clear voice echoing strangely in the empty Hall, “Not alive, not wholly dead, not complete people, but also not…not. We are the dead clinging to our last remnants of life, not truly achieving either – lingering in the living world, but unable to interact with it above the bare minimum.” She leant down and plucked a stem of asphodel, twisting it between her fingers. The broken stem on the ground twisted itself back upright and grew back, shooting out white flower heads and leaves as they both watched. “How odd to find you here, feeling more like a ghost than a living man, in a room full of flowers that touch both the living and the dead.”

Harry was surprised for a moment, but only the one, because when he thought about it, it made a certain kind of sense that he would register as closer to a ghost than anything else to those who were already dead.  “A spirit.” He replied, answering her implied question, “An Underworld one. Or, at least, I will be. I died and came back, but not forever. Not for long.”

“The Underworld?” Helena’s lips quirked into a strange sort of smile, as if she hadn’t smiled in a very long time and had forgotten how to. “It’s been many years since I heard that name. Many more since I made my own offerings to Dis Pater and the Lady of Spring.”

“You worshipped the gods?” Harry asked. He’d never considered the religions of the ghosts around the castle, had barely even recognised that they’d been people with lives of their own.

Helena nodded, gliding away a couple of metres to feel the plants catching on her robes again. “Most did, in my time. My mother was a daughter of Lady Providentia after all, blessed with her power of foresight and my grandfather’s legacy of magic.” There was an edge of old bitterness in her voice, but considerably mellowed since the last time they had spoken.

Harry’s mind was blown. “Wait, Rowena Ravenclaw was a daughter of Pr- a goddess? Why does no one know?”

Helena gave an elegant shrug. “Such is the way of history; details become lost. The gods moved their seat of power away from here and their influence on the modern world moved with them, leaving them as myth in their former territories. It did not seem such an important detail that I must continually inform people for the rest of my eternal unrest.”

Harry mulled this over. “You follow the Roman form of the gods, then?” He asked eventually, pinning the name as Latin.

Helena nodded. “You do not?” She asked quizzically, “Yet your energy feels familiar.”

“Greek.” Harry replied.

She nodded her understanding, continuing her slow circles through the room. “It has been so long since I touched something that wasn’t another ghost.” She said, after long minutes of silence. She held the picked flower to her face, “Many centuries since I have smelled a flower’s perfume. I did not realise just how lacking my facsimile of life was until I had a tiny part of it returned to me again.” There was something mournful in her gaze.

Harry studied her, his instincts nudging him into a question he was certain he knew the answer to. “Do you wish to move on?”

She turned back to him sharply, wanderings forgotten, eyes fixed on his with an intensity he remembered from their last conversation. She scanned over him, looking for something, though he didn’t know what. After a long moment, she turned around, sighing, and began her circular pacing again. “I lingered for the sake of my mother’s diadem.” She said into the stillness of the Hall, “To atone for my foolishness. Yet all that led to was many centuries of misery trapped in my mother’s best-loved child, her school, pursued eternally at a distance by the very man who killed me. Who, after all these years, cannot either manage a paltry apology or give me the decency of space, but watches me always with useless guilt.”

Harry had almost forgotten about the role the Bloody Baron played in Helena Ravenclaw’s tale, and was, for the first time, getting an inkling of how horrifying it must have been for Helena to be eternally stuck in the same castle as her murderer. No wonder she was the most difficult of the ghosts to locate.

“By the time Tom Riddle came,” Helena continued, face twisted with a bitter kind of irony, “I was so eager for my task to be done that I let him persuade me with honeyed words and false promises, despite my better sense. And then he defiled it in the most horrific of ways, and I could never rest with my mother’s legacy turned into the unnatural anchor of a madman.” The anger slipped off her face and she began drifting again. “For better or for worse, her diadem is destroyed now, her legacy purged of his filth. I have no more need to linger, and yet, I have not faded. I fear perhaps I have offended the Wealthy One by refusing to enter his realm when my time first came, and this is my punishment.”

“No.” Harry said, and his response caught both of them by surprise. “I don’t think so.” His instincts were disagreeing with her conclusion in a way he couldn’t put into words.

She raised an elegant eyebrow. “Why then do I stay, Harry Potter? I have no more wish to cling to life; I wish to embrace my death at last, but something blocks me.”

“I’m pretty new to this.” Harry admitted. “But I have some books the goddess of magic gave me – I bet they have something in them about ghosts, which might be able to help. Worst comes to worst, I have to go back there, to the Underworld, over the holidays, so I can always ask her then. I’m not sure how the Roman-Greek difference might work, but the Underworlds are similar, right?”

Helena nodded but looked uneasy. “And they will not punish me for avoiding my afterlife?”

“I don’t know.” Harry said honestly, “But, from my experience, they respect people more for facing their deaths head on instead of running from it. It’s going to happen sooner or later, unless you want to stay a ghost until the end of time, so you might as well get the hard part over now.”

She still looked uncertain, but something between resolution and resignation was making its home on her face.

“I won’t do anything if you don’t want me to.” Harry said, even though his magic twisted at the thought of leaving Helena Ravenclaw to her unhappy un-life, “But if you do want help passing on, let me know and I’ll do what I can.”

Helena fixed him with eyes that were no less sharp for their translucency. “Then I will be requesting your assistance for a final time, Harry Potter, to meet my end with grace.”

Harry nodded, feeling the air gathering heavy around them, matching the rhythm of his own death-touched magic. “And I will help you, Helena Ravenclaw, to pass on to your awaited afterlife.”

The magic settled into a vow, like a tugging in his gut, and Harry felt the thrill of the immortal magic he was growing into pulse just once through his system. It left him light-headed for a moment.

“Well,” Harry said, grinning up at Helena Ravenclaw and breaking the solemn atmosphere, “looks like I’ve got a new mystery for the term.”

She sniffed haughtily, turning back to her circles across the flagstones, but Harry caught just a hint of a smile on her face before she turned away.

They stayed there in companiable silence for a long while, a ghost and a not quite dead man, enjoying the quiet of the night until the sky brightened, and the faint trails of rosy-fingered Dawn began to appear above the horizon.

Chapter Text

After his late-night talk with Helena Ravenclaw, Harry started noticing the odd behaviour of the ghosts around the castle. They weren’t avoiding him precisely, nor seeking him out, but they were certainly more watchful of him than they had been before. It was a constant reminder to do more research in Hecate’s books – not that he hadn’t been doing so since his promise, but Harry hadn’t been able to give it as much time as he might have liked, given the preparations for starting the DA back up and his ongoing experiments into alchemy for his Herbology project.

Professor Flitwick had happily approved their plans to reinstate the DA, telling them with twinkling eyes that he’d never seen a cohort do so well in their Defence OWLs, but advising them to perhaps think of a different name. He was right. While Dumbledore’s Army had felt like a fine joke at the time, a big ‘screw you’ to Umbridge and the Ministry, it hit differently on the other side of a war. Harry, in particular, was feeling conflicted about being so closely associated with Dumbledore’s name, when his feelings towards the late headmaster were so mixed up. The Defence Association, an earlier suggestion, was a much safer choice and kept the initials they mostly called it by.

Their first meeting was on Tuesday 15^th. This was a preliminary meeting, before a true timetable had been set, given that the Quidditch clubs were being slow to get off the ground this year, so they didn’t yet have to work around all four House’s practice times, only their members’ other clubs and societies. It felt odd putting up flyers in the four common rooms for their meeting, instead of sending covert messages on their fake galleons. Harry knew that many of their members had kept their DA galleons anyway, and had, for old times’ sake, put the notification of the meeting on there as well. Almost instantly, he’d gotten giddy looks from a select few around the Hall and grinned back at them.

They were holding the sessions in the thankfully intact Room of Requirement once more, given that that was the best place to practice spellwork on a large scale, outside of perhaps the Great Hall. Professor Flitwick had come along to supervise the first session, so it was just him, Harry, Ron, and Hermione setting up the Room half an hour before the others were due to arrive. Hermione had made extensive notes on their curriculum of course, but Ron and Harry’s contributions were no less thought through.

One of their greatest difficulties had been deciding how to handle the mix of year groups and abilities. The new DA was open to any student who wished to attend, so there could be anyone from the newest first year to their fellow original DA members. It was on this basis that they’d decided that the first session would be spent introducing everyone to what the DA was and how it functioned as a student-led group, and then testing the basics of people’s theory and practical skills to place them into one of three groups. The groups would, predominantly, be years 1-3, 4-5, and 6-7, though anyone who was majorly ahead or behind could be placed into a different group.

They had painstakingly compiled syllabi for each of these groups, making sure that everyone was taught the knowledge they needed to pass their exams, but made certain to balance it with additional spells and theory that they thought would benefit the others to know in the real world. Flitwick, when going over their plans with steadily rising eyebrows, had commended them on their thoroughness before allotting them 20 house points apiece.

They’d disagreed at first on how to teach the different groups – whether to have them come on different days and all teach them, or have them all in the Room together but separate out into teaching groups led by one of them – but the deciding factor was time. Hermione, as Head Girl and utterly driven to change Hogwarts for the better while she was in a position of influence, had only minimal time left over, while Harry was juggling a number of different projects, to the extent that he had yet to give his answer back to Ginny on whether he planned to be auditioning for the Seeker role once more. They decided that they would have two sessions a week, but the second being a repeat of the first for people who hadn’t been able to make it, with Ron taking the first group, being the most approachable of the three and better at making his explanations simple, Hermione taking the second group, being sure that she could catch them up on all the technical skills and theory for the OWLs that their previous, unreliable teachers might have missed, and Harry taking the third group, applying their skills in more practical and creative ways for their NEWTs.

It would be odd, not leading the group together, but their individual work was felt through their carefully crafted curricula, so Harry knew he’d feel Ron and Hermione’s support behind him even as they worked with their own groups. Still, for this first session, it was nice to stand at the front with both of them once more, as they waited for the club members to arrive.

If Harry had been horrified at the turnout the first time they had a DA signup, years back in the Hog’s Head, now he was nothing short of appalled. True to their words, it seemed that almost the entirety of Slytherin had shown up, save those who had prior commitments or disliked Harry more than they cared about their DADA grades. Gryffindor weren’t far behind, lacking only in younger years who had never heard of the group before, and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff weren’t anything to scoff at either.

Harry turned to Ron and Hermione, hoping for once that he wasn’t the only one taken aback by this, but Hermione only blinked languidly, reminding him vividly of Basilissa when she got her way about something (which was most of the time), and Ron only gave him a wry smile. Traitors. Flitwick himself seemed to be almost vibrating with excitement, clapping his hands together and bouncing on his toes as the room continued to fill. “Marvellous!” The wizard was saying, “Absolutely excellent turnout, Minerva will be thrilled!”

Privately, Harry couldn’t imagine McGonagall acting thrilled about anything, but he’d take Flitwick’s word for it.

At seven, their meeting time, Harry nodded at Ron and Hermione, and together they stood forward from the wall and Hermione cast a charm that sounded like a ringing bell, drawing the attention of the room.

“Thank you everyone for coming.” Harry announced into the newly quiet room. “For anyone who’s unaware, my name is Harry Potter-”

“We know who you are, Potter!” Someone called out from the Hufflepuff section, drawing scattered laughs and some shushing.

“Yes, thank you.” Harry said dryly. “And these are Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.” He indicated the two of them. “Two, er, three years back, we ran a Defence club called Dumbledore’s Army in direct protest of Umbridge and the Ministry interfering in Hogwarts teaching and generally making a hash of any actual teaching. If you’re from Slytherin, you might know it better as ‘Potter’s super-secret defence club’ that you all knew existed but couldn’t prove.”

There were some sniggers from their side of the room, most loudly from Zabini himself.

“While we’re less interested in undermining the Ministry this time around,” some more laughter, mostly from the original DA members, who knew he wasn’t joking, “the original members of the DA found it to be a useful method of preparing for exams and to personally defend ourselves. Due to the Defence position’s, uh, dubious track record, we decided to reinstate the club-”

A cheer went up from the original members.

Harry rolled his eyes and continued, “Reinstate the club to make sure everyone interested can get the solid education in Defence Against the Dark Arts that they deserve to feel safe, this time as an official club, the Defence Association. As such, membership is now open, though we’d like it if people signed up so we have an idea of numbers. Er, what else? Oh yeah, we don’t have set times yet, since we’re waiting for the House quidditch teams to get back to us on their practise schedules, but we’ll put up notices on the House bulletin boards, when we do. Now, er, questions?”

Nigel Wolpert went first, hopping up and down excitedly with his hand in the air. “Are you going to be hexing the sign-up sheet again?” Several people swiftly looked nervous.

Harry turned and grinned at Hermione, who’d flushed red. “Why don’t you take this one, Hermione?”

She shot him a glare but answered anyway. “No, Nigel. That was for when we were an anti-establishment secret society. Now we’re just a club.”

“Why should we learn from you?” A fourth year asked.

“You really don’t have to.” Harry answered. He hadn’t missed that question from the first time around. “This is an entirely voluntary club. Why us, specifically? We’re seventh years with some of the best grades in Defence and, unfortunately, most practical experience in using it. At the very minimum, we’ve already been through your year and passed your exams.” Harry was a lot more confident in his answer now that he was a final year student who had defeated a dark lord, rather than a scrawny fifth year with more determination than skill.

“Also, he’s bloody good at it.” Ron chimed in, backed up by woops and calls from the DA members.

A nervous Ravenclaw raised her hand, who Harry thought was a year or two below them. “This might be a stupid question, but why are you so worried about Defence? We’re safe now, aren’t we? The war’s over, right?”

This elicited a burst of muttering among the gathered throng of students. Harry shushed them until they fell quiet again. “It’s not a stupid question.” He affirmed first. “The war is over.” He said firmly. “Hopefully, none of us ever see anything like that again in our lifetimes. We’re not here to train you to fight in another war – that’s one of the reasons we changed our name to the Defence Association. But just because there’s no war, doesn’t mean that there’s nothing in the world that can hurt you. There are ordinary criminals, dark creatures, magics gone wrong, and all sorts of interesting but dangerous careers out there, which might require you to defend yourself.” He shrugged, trying not to make this too heavy, “It’s better to know too much and not need it, than be hurt because you don’t know enough.”

“Besides,” Ron said, “we’ve all got exams to pass.”

That got a laugh, which Harry was grateful for.

There were a few more questions, mainly about logistics and what they’d be teaching them. After the bulk of the explanations were done, they moved on to the testing stage, trying to keep their audience from becoming too bored. Ron took the first to third years, Hermione the OWL years, and Harry the NEWT years.

Harry took his group off to the right side of the room. Looking around at those present, he thought they made up probably two thirds of the year groups. “Alright, everyone.” He said, “Welcome to the Defence Association. I’m going to be taking the NEWT year groups if everything goes to plan. I guess let’s start by going around, saying our names, our year group, how confident we feel in Defence, and what our favourite defence spell is.” They all looked politely dubious, so Harry continued. “I’ll go first: you all know my name unfortunately;” some laughter, “I’m a held back seventh year; I feel most comfortable with purely defensive spells though I’m fine with offensive ones, and my weakest area is probably in the legalities of spells;” someone, he suspected Zabini, snorted, “my favourite defensive spell is probably the disarming charm, because it’s so useful, or the patronus, because, well, it’s cool as hell as well as useful.”

Once he’d done his own introduction, the others followed suit, though with considerably less enthusiasm. Harry kept track of their answers, looking for patterns, and found that, outside of the basic shield charm, most people’s defensive spell knowledge centred around hexes and jinxes, the kind which would end schoolyard battles. Most of them knew some Dark Arts, either from the Carrows’ teaching last year or from their own homes, but few knew much of the theory behind it, nor how that impacted how to defend against it. Largely, they could defend against a fellow student, but not against a trained attacker.

“Okay, and final question before we do something more fun: what do you want to get out of this club?”

This produced a variety of answers that more or less boiled down to: 1) pass my exams, 2) defend myself better, 3) cast a particular, cool spell, or 4) find out what all the fuss was about.

“They’re all valid reasons.” Harry smiled at the group. “And I hope those of you who were just interested will find another reason to stay the further we go through. Now, let’s go through what we have planned for the rest of the year and then we’ll do a few quick power and accuracy tests…”

In the end, it was a long but satisfying couple of hours. Harry wasn’t sure that a few of the sixth years, who had another year before their exams became more urgent, were going to stay, but he had a good feeling about the rest of them. Many of them had asked good questions and looked thoughtful, if not entirely enthused, about the plan for the year. Considering that Harry was trying to get everyone, including the sixth years, up to NEWT level in practical skills, he could understand their doubt, but he knew for a fact it was possible if they put the effort in. It mainly came down to how much of their free time people wanted to dedicate to Defence.

“So, did it live up to your expectations?” Harry asked the three Slytherin prefects, who had lingered behind at the end.

“I did enjoy seeing Professor Potter in action.” Zabini grinned.

“It was informative.” Greengrass nodded. “I can see you’ve put a lot of thought into it.”

Davis agreed. “Do you think we can actually cover all that before the exams?” She asked.

“Yeah.” Harry nodded with a smile. “We only have two hours – maybe three if people want longer sessions – per week, as opposed to the professor’s three and homework, but we can focus more intently, and not worry about wasting time on things like homework or reading through the textbook. We can do it more personalised.”

“Highlight of the evening,” Zabini declared, “was Granger, the Head Girl, admitting openly and shamelessly, that she’d been part of an anti-Ministry rebel group.”

“Undesirables number 1 and 2.” Harry said with a half-shrug.

“Is it possible to get a copy of the curriculum?” Greengrass jumped in suddenly.

“Er, sure.” Harry replied. He cast a copy charm on his own parchment and handed it over to her. “Feel free to give it to whoever wants one.”

Davis looked at him with a tilted head. “Even if they’re not part of the club?”

Harry considered it. “Don’t see why not. The whole point of the club is to help everyone learn Defence. If people would rather go it alone, but with an idea of what topics to cover, then better than nothing.”

She hummed, not giving away her thoughts on that.

“Ah, Mr Potter.” Professor Flitwick’s slightly squeaky voice came from around Harry’s stomach height behind him. “A word, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Harry waved goodbye to the Slytherins quickly and turned to where Flitwick had returned to Hermione and Ron on the far side of the room, away from any stragglers.

“Ah, you’re all here.” The Charms professor said happily. “Now, I must say it was a delight to witness the infamous DA in action. Your plans were, of course, excellent, but it’s always something else to see it in practice.”

They all grinned at him.

“Now,” the professor continued, “as I’m sure you all understand from last time, this will be a massive and time-consuming undertaking. For this reason, having verified the nature of your club, hours put towards running the Defence Association count as tutoring your fellow students, and will be put towards extra credit.”

Hermione looked giddy, despite the fact that she already regularly undertook extra credit work and was thus well known to have grades exceeding 100. Harry himself wasn’t sure that he would need the extra credit, considering that DADA was his strongest subject, but he’d been planning to lead the club anyway, so it didn’t hurt.

“Should any other students put themselves forward as instructors, they too will be awarded extra credit, respective to their contributions, but I do ask that you don’t tell them of this avenue. The staff would rather this be a reward for going above and beyond, rather than an extra credit assignment.”

The three agreed. Harry considered Flitwick’s words – he hadn’t planned to recruit any of the others to help lead the group, but it might be useful to help tutor the lower years.

“Excellent.” Flitwick said with a wide smile. “I very much look forward to where you three take this club in the future and commend you all for your dedication to improving the learning of your fellow students.” He pulled a wry face. “Especially, since the teaching of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts has been so variable in years past.” He carefully did not comment on the quality of teaching in the present year, though his momentary pause somehow managed to imply it vividly regardless.

“Ah.” Flitwick said, after a moment. “On that note, this being an official school club, rather than a - what was it that you called it again, Miss Granger? ‘An anti-establishment secret society?’” His eyes glinted with good humour as Hermione blushed. “Yes, as a club, and most likely the largest in the school at that, it would be rather impossible to keep it from the attention of our newest Defence professor.” He pursed his lips. “I rather doubt that young Amentius will give you much trouble about it, but pride is a funny thing, so be sure to let me know if his ruffled feathers are giving you any grief.”

Harry hadn’t even thought about the reaction of the new Defence professor. He didn’t think about Professor Barnaby much at all, if he was honest, except if he said something stupid during class or stared at Harry a little too worshipfully. Even that barely caught his attention due to the number of others who did the same on a daily basis. Still, it had to be somewhat insulting that a group of students had decided that he was so incompetent that they needed to teach themselves and the rest of the student body. Worse still that most of the student body appeared to agree. Harry winced.

“We’ll let you know.” Ron confirmed easily. “If he asks, we can always bluff him that we’re all just really big fans of Defence or something. Something, something trauma from the war, maybe.”

Flitwick kept his face blank apart from his eyes, which sparkled. “Now, I could never condone lying to one of my colleagues, but this is the Defence Association, after all – what else could it be for but a group of Defence enthusiasts? Much like my Charms club.” He pulled off a tone of false sincerity surprisingly well.

“Exactly, Professor.” Ron agreed emphatically, making Harry snort and Hermione smile.

“Well, I had best be off.” Their Charms professor said, nodding to the three of them, once more with a wide smile. “I will see you all in my class tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Professor!” They called after him, as he left the room.

They turned back towards each other.

“Do you think he’s right that Barnaby could be a problem?” Ron asked.

“Perhaps.” Hermione answered slowly. “But I really can’t see him doing more than being a bit snippy about it. What can he do, after all?”

Harry hummed his agreement. “Honestly, whatever trouble he might cause, I think we can more than get over it. It’s us versus one half-competent ex-auror. He’s got nothing on some of the old professors.”

Ron laughed. “Fair point.”

They took this as their cue to start moving towards the exit, letting the door swing shut, and the Room return to however it did or didn’t exist when there was no one around to witness it.

Harry was surprised, upon leaving the room, to find Ginny leaning against the wall outside, clearly waiting for them.

“Harry.” She said, a little rushed, “I was wondering if we could talk.”

“Uh, okay.” Harry wasn’t sure what he’d done now, but this was definitely a talk talk.

Ginny and Hermione made eye contact, and Hermione nodded to her, beginning to drag Ron away by his elbow, while the much taller man protested.

“Is here good or should we go back in the Room?” Harry asked, filling the silence that suddenly seemed kind of awkward.

“Here’s fine.” She shrugged, “No one’s around.”

Harry nodded, trying not to fidget too much as he waited for Ginny to bring up whatever it was she wanted to talk about.

He didn’t have to wait long. Ginny always preferred to tackle her problems head on rather than beat around the bush. “We haven’t had a chance to talk.” She said, before huffing, and blowing a stray strand of brilliant red hair out of her face. “That’s not true. We’ve had plenty of chances to talk, we just haven’t.” She looked him in the eye, something almost assessing in her gaze. “We had something going on between us, before you set off on your camping trip with Ron and Hermione, and I know I wasn’t the only one thinking that we were planning to pick things up again afterwards.”

Harry’s mouth went dry. He hadn’t even thought about it. How hadn’t he thought about it? She was absolutely right that there had been a mutual understanding between them.

“Now,” she continued, “I gave you time and space, because there was a lot going on, for both of us.” A flash of grief crossed her face before she rallied again. “But time kept passing, and it kept becoming clearer that you weren’t even thinking about it, about me, except for as a friend, and maybe as a fellow combatant.”

“I’m sorry.” Harry said, voice raw. His mind was a mess, thoughts scrambled up into a rioting storm of emotions. He hadn’t meant to forget his almost-relationship with Ginny, there had simply been so much going on.

“Don’t be.” Ginny shook her head. “If I’m being honest, I didn’t think much about it either, unless someone reminded me. I can’t say I’m all that hung up on you either.” She looked at him softly. “It’s not that I don’t like you - you’re one of my closest friends and I’m glad to know you - but I don’t feel like the person I was before last year and I don’t think you do either.”

She looked for a response and Harry didn’t know what to give her. He took a moment to work through the instinctual hurt, before really thinking about what she’d said. Ginny was right. Their experiences had changed them so much from the people they’d been before that it was foolish to have thought that they’d ever simply slot back into the same shape together. Harry had changed soul-deep, and was still scrambling to figure out the new shape of himself before he changed once more, this time permanently. And this new shape, whatever it was, was not one which had been considering Ginny romantically. He still thought she was beautiful – of course she was – but he’d been enjoying her company as a friend, not a romantic partner. And, he thought a little guiltily, it was the easiest they’d ever gotten on.

Harry nodded slowly, hoping his face conveyed the words that he couldn’t string together. “So, this is a sort of breakup?” He wasn’t sure what else to call it.

Ginny laughed. “Yeah. A sort of break up.” She looked both sad and incredibly relieved.

“Okay.” Harry agreed, feeling sort of stupid in his shock. He tried to gather his roiling thoughts as best he could. “I’m still sorry I forgot. I really don’t know how.”

Ginny shrugged. “It happens. We’ve all had big things going on, you more than most. It wasn’t exactly a priority or anything, but I wanted to clear the air between us. You know, not leave anything weird there.”

“Is there anything weird?” Harry asked her. He hadn’t felt anything of it in the previous months of summer, but as their conversation referenced, he’d clearly not been paying attention.

“Nah.” She said. “Not if there isn’t for you.” Ginny smiled, leaning back against the wall. “You know, when I was younger, I always wanted to be Harry Potter’s girlfriend. It was the dream and the crush that never went away. But now I’ve felt it, I think I much prefer being Harry’s friend.”

Harry smiled back, wondering how he’d ever gotten so lucky with his group of friends. “And I’m honoured to be Ginny Weasley’s friend.”

“Damn right you are!” Ginny exclaimed, straightening off the wall and knocking his shoulder with hers. “Come on, back to the common room before Ron thinks I’ve murdered you and sends a search party.”

And so, Harry walked back to the Gryffindor common room with his friend.

Chapter Text

Hermione’s birthday was rapidly approaching, luckily falling on a Saturday that year. Harry and Ron had been conspiring to try and do something nice and had approached Professor Vector about being allowed to go down to Hogsmeade for a meal, despite it not being a Hogsmeade weekend. She’d seemed baffled, until she realised that between her and Professor McGonagall, they’d confused who was going to be telling the eighth years that they had permission to leave school grounds every weekend, so long as they signed out and back in again by curfew and were not prevented from leaving by any disciplinary measures. Harry wished he’d known that sooner but was pleased to be the bearer of good news both to the other Gryffindor eighth years and the Slytherins when he saw them.

He'd been working on Hermione’s birthday present on and off for about a week approaching her birthday itself. Harry hadn’t been sure what to get her, especially since he hadn’t known he could leave the school grounds to go shopping. He’d considered books, of course, since Hermione’s love for them was well-known, but he ran into the issue that he didn’t know which ones she already had or had read. Besides, a book felt impersonal for a friend he trusted with his life and had lived in a tent with for many months; there were many things he loved about Hermione, not just her love of knowledge. It wasn’t until he saw her wearing one of her new robes, the one with the pretty lace overlayer, that he thought of jewellery.

Hermione had never been in the habit of wearing much jewellery, and Harry initially hadn’t considered it because of that. It seemed too girly for Hermione, but, remembering what they’d talked about in Madam Malkin’s, Harry considered that perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing after all. She could look pretty and be the smartest wix in their year. So, Harry thought about what he could give her. He considered a bracelet and chucked the idea out in the same thought, because he knew that she wouldn’t want anything that might potentially get in the way or distract her when she was working. For the same reason, rings were out. Maybe a necklace would be alright, but that also ran the risk of dangling when she was leant over her books, so Harry eventually decided on earrings. It took a stealth mission including a feigned pillow fight with Ron that inevitably turned into a real pillow fight, but he did eventually confirm that Hermione had pierced ears, so his gift was decided.

That was step one. Step two, and all the subsequent steps following, were in the actual precuring of said earrings. Harry thought that there were probably mail-order catalogues that he could get some earrings from, but somehow it didn’t feel special enough. He felt, guiltily, like he hadn’t made a big enough fuss of either of his friends’ birthdays in previous years. Part of this, he knew, was that he’d never had friends before whose birthdays he could celebrate, but a good part was simply that he’d been distracted with everything else going on at Hogwarts. So, Harry decided, with characteristic determination over common sense, that he was going to make the earrings himself.

Of course, the problem here was that Harry had no idea how to make earrings, or even what earrings were supposed to look like. He wasn’t too concerned about making something, because changing the shape of metal was a relatively minor transfiguration that he shouldn’t have too much problem with, but he wanted to make something nice and comfortable. Some sneaking around and probably suspicious staring led Harry to the information that the only other Gryffindor in their year with pierced ears was Parvati, who he didn’t feel comfortable approaching so early in the term, when she was still so clearly upset. In the year below, he only really knew Ginny, and she didn’t have pierced ears. Luckily, Luna did.

Once Harry thought about Luna, he knew he’d likely hit the jackpot – not only did she have pierced ears, so he could look at what earrings were supposed to look like, but she often made her own jewellery, and was likely the best person to help him. He found her on Wednesday in the Hall for lunch, the day after the first DA session, and asked Luna if she could help him make them.

“I think you’d look very nice with pierced ears, Harry.” She said approvingly.

“Er, they’re not for me.” Harry should probably have explained that first.

Luna looked very disappointed. “Are you sure? They can be very useful, you know. You can put all sorts of fun charms on them.” She jangled her own radish earrings, which giggled as they swung.

Harry went to refuse and then paused. If he thought about it, why not? He probably wouldn’t want anything big like Luna’s radishes, but he’d always thought Bill’s dragon fang was cool. “Yeah, alright.” He said, causing Luna to look up with surprised delight. “I mean, I’m making a pair for Hermione’s birthday, that’s what I want help with. But I can practise making my own.”

Luna’s smile was radiant. “Excellent! Oh, this will be so much fun. Meet me here after classes. I’ll bring my jewellery making kit, you bring something to sit on. We’ll go outside.”

Harry looked up at the ceiling, where the clouds were looking distinctly dark and rainy, but shrugged mentally. There were charms that could keep them warm and dry – perks of being a halfway decent wizard. “Meet you here then.” He agreed.

Luna grinned at him giddily. Guiltily, Harry wondered how many friends Luna had who actually joined in her hobbies, instead of just tolerating them. Well, if no one else was, maybe this was something they could do together. He’d been meaning to spend more time with her anyway.

-

The afternoon classes wrapped up quickly enough. In Potions, they’d been brewing a series of potions which changed properties based on which moon phase their ingredients had been harvested in. It was actually very interesting how potions with a base of aconite changed from highly toxic to healing with different levels of alchemical moon. It made Harry wonder what the alchemy was like for the wolfsbane potion. Emerging from the dungeons, he waved goodbye both to his friends and to the Slytherin trio he’d been spending a lot of time around and ran to the nearby kitchens for a basket of food, before grabbing some materials from his dorm and hurrying to meet with Luna.

She was sitting on the edge of the Ravenclaw table, kicking her feet so they trailed along the top of the flowers below her. Luna had changed out of her school robes, as they could all do after class hours, though few bothered so early in the afternoon, and was now in a floaty robe that was mostly a shimmery peach but had one tie-dyed rainbow arm. Harry couldn’t tell if it was intentionally like that, or if it had gotten caught up in one of Luna’s more experimental charms or potions. Her shoes were a brilliant emerald green and her new spectrespecs sat on her head, swirling in a way which made an onlooker slightly nauseated if they looked too closely. Her wand was behind her ear as usual, her long hair loose, and she held a patchwork bag overflowing with odds, ends, bits, bobs, and other unnameable paraphernalia. Overall, she looked absolutely dotty. A swell of affection grew in Harry’s chest.

“Hello, Harry Potter.” She said as he drew up, dreamy smile melting into something brighter.

“Hello, Luna Lovegood.” He mimicked her, his own grin growing. “Shall we head outside?”

She considered him seriously. “We shall.” Luna slung her bag onto her back, somehow not spilling any of the contents, and then offered him her arm, like a well-mannered gentleman.

In good humour, Harry accepted, slipping his arm through hers. Some people nearby giggled, and Harry wasn’t sure if they were laughing with them or at them. It had better be the former because anyone who laughed at Luna nowadays had better be aware that they’d find Harry’s wand between them and her. He looked around, noting their faces for future reference, but allowed Luna to pull him out of the Hall and towards the outside.

Outside, it was indeed raining, not at full pelt but a measly drizzle. The sky was a dark grey, foreboding heavier rain, but the two of them ignored it as Luna led them towards the lake, where there was a nice scattering of trees that many students made good use of as a place to sit. Harry kept a wide umbrella-like charm up for them on the walk, until Luna stopped at a flat space and looked at him expectantly. Obligingly, Harry put up a stationary barrier against rain. It was one he wished he’d known during the time they’d been camping on the run. Embarrassingly, it had been covered in second year Herbology, to keep copious rain off more sensitive flora, and he’d only found it during his review of previous textbooks.

Afterwards, he laid down a blanket. Luna sat with her patchwork bag and began pulling out the contents. Curious, Harry watched her. She had a truly dizzying range of materials. Many were obviously plants or from animals, like her collection of bright feathers, but some were ordinary, everyday items like the butterbeer corks she strung into necklaces. Some were obviously pretty and good for jewellery, like a little collection of colourful seaglass, while Harry had to wonder about what looked like a clump of muddy roots. Excitedly, she showed him her current project, which was a string of what Harry had to wrack his memory to recognise as alihotsy pods, which they were meant to be handling later that year.

“The leaves cause uncontrollable laughter; the treacle stops it.” She explained. “So, what do the pods do? Maybe, if I wear them, they’ll act a bit like chocolate and cheer me up.”

In her roundabout way, it was the first time that Luna had admitted to being at all unhappy being back at Hogwarts. Harry wanted to ask her about it, but he didn’t want to make her upset by commenting on it, so he focussed on the necklace itself. “It’s very nice.” He said. “The pods make it an interesting texture.” They were sort of oval-ish, so could be mistaken for wooden beads at a difference, but with bright red swirls across their hard shells.

It seemed to be the right answer, because Luna nodded happily, showing Harry where she’d charmed the string through, without leaking any of the fluids out and maybe making herself too giggly or sad by touching it. She showed him a couple more of her projects, before settling down to business: “So, what are you making for Hermione? Do you reckon she’d like giggling ginger earrings? Turnip? I’m very good at the ever-lasting giggle charm, but only on small plants for some reason.”

“I reckon she only likes the one giggling ginger.” Harry said, before he could stop himself.

Luna’s laugh rang out, loud and unselfconscious. “Most likely.” She smiled to herself, “Perhaps I’ll give her some ginger sweets. Then, it’s a gift and a joke!” She looked very pleased with this idea.

Harry snorted. “She’d probably like that. I know she likes ginger ale.”

Luna nodded, still looking very pleased. “What were you thinking of doing?” She asked curiously.

“Well,” Harry had spent quite a bit of time thinking about this once he’d decided he was making earrings. “I don’t know if I can make them well, but I’d like to make, er, I don’t know what they’re called, the small earrings, not the dangly ones. And, um, make them look like animals – our patronuses, mine and Ron’s.” He felt oddly embarrassed to explain it. “So, she always has us with us, supporting her.”

Luna’s smile was soft. “That sounds like a lovely idea, Harry.”

Over the course of the afternoon, Luna showed him the shapes of earrings, posts, butterflies, and all the normal spells and enchantments that were usually applied to magical jewellery for longevity, disinfection, anti-tarnishing, preventions against being ripped out of the ear (which Harry hadn’t even thought of) and a whole range of colouring and animation charms. It was the first time Harry had used some of the animation charms since his first couple of years at Hogwarts, and he found himself oddly delighted to have an actual use for them.

At one point, he’d been practicing the animal animations on small, transfigured balls of steel, but had left too many slightly misshapen animals in the same space, so had had to catch the small three-legged stag, from where it was chasing after a stretched-out otter, which itself was bounding after what might have been a dog, but equally might have been an oddly furry pig. Luna had giggled until she was lying down on the blanket, as Harry had had to pry the three apart, while the irritated fake animals bit at his offending finger tips. “Traitors!” He declared, “My own, tiny, metallic children turning against their creator!” sending Luna into a further fit of laughter.

Eventually, by dint of enlarging the balls of metal before transfiguring them, so he could picture the details better and any mistakes were mostly hidden when he shrunk them back down to size, Harry ended up with two workable earrings. One was a proud stag, antlers jutting upwards, but spelled to be blunted and not pierce the skin no matter what happened. The other was a small dog, the closest to Ron’s jack russell patronus as Harry could remember. They were both a silver colour, with anti-allergy charms worked into the metal, and an enchantment to give off faint silver mist, like their patronus counterparts. Harry had decided to keep the movement charms simple, not wanting Hermione to feel an odd squirming sensation on her ear, so the Jack Russell’s tail wagged away from the ear and its tongue lolled out sometimes, while the stag’s front right hoof stomped in the air every so often. All in all, they’d taken a few hours, but he was quite proud of them.

After some thought, he’d made a copy of both the stag and the dog, then made two otters, splashing a little misty water. He didn’t want to take away from Hermione’s gift, but there was something nice about all three of them having a symbol of the others. He wasn’t sure if Ron would want earrings – wasn’t sure how he felt about it himself, having never worn them before – but it was a nice thought. He mentioned it to Luna, and she nodded seriously, before showing him how to make cufflinks. Harry could have smacked himself for not thinking about it before, but happily followed her instructions, which were surprisingly good for a witch he’d never seen in cufflinks before. Soon, Ron’s stag and otter were ready, and it just left Harry’s.

“Er, Luna,” Harry started nervously, “how do you pierce your ears?” It was a question he should probably have asked earlier, but he’d never been one to consider all the practical details of something before embarking on it.

“Hm,” she looked at him critically, or rather at his ears, “there are charms. Most people use a numbing charm, then a very hot needle, and then a healing charm while the needle is still rotating. Episkey should work. That’s what I did with mine. Then you put the earrings in.”

That didn’t sound too bad. “How long does it take to heal?” Harry asked, vaguely remembering the girls who had to put tape over their earlobes in primary school PE lessons because they couldn’t take their earrings out.

Luna looked confused, wide eyes enhancing the look. “What do you mean? The episkey heals them.”

Harry tilted his head, “Like, how long do you need to leave the new earrings in before your ears are used to them?”

She looked at him as if he were mad before realisation hit. “Is this a muggle thing?” Luna sounded fascinated by the thought. It wasn’t often that he was reminded that Luna was a pureblood witch, but this was definitely one of those occasions. “The healing charm heals it. Done.”

“Oh.” Oddly, this had Harry awed. It was incredible the difference magic made to the simplest things. “How come everyone doesn’t have piercings, then?” He asked. After all, most of his trepidation had been about the healing process.

Luna shrugged. “Some of the old families get odd about it.” She replied. “They don’t like changes to the body – piercings, tattoos, that sort of thing.”

“Huh.” Harry replied, his mind still blown, even as a darker part of himself couldn’t resist laughing at the irony of that statement. This opened up so many options if he found he liked the earrings. “Could you do mine then?”

Luna grinned, nodding fiercely, before heating up two needles with a bright flame from the tip of her wand. She left them floating in the air, glowing with heat, as she cast a numbing charm at Harry’s earlobes, which felt decidedly odd. She then seemed to do some kind of measuring charm before, without warning, jabbing the needles through first one ear and then the other. Harry automatically went to recoil, but stopped as he felt no pain. He assumed that the needles must be spinning, as Luna twisted her wand, but felt nothing until Luna sent a quick episkey at both ears. He sort of wished he had a mirror to see it with. She twisted the needles again, checking there was no problem with how the holes had healed, before taking them out with an odd pulling feeling that Harry realised he could now feel.

Harry transfigured a lump of metal which might once have been a fork into a hand mirror and looked. Sure enough, he now had a small hole in the lobe of each ear. They weren’t even irritated with how quickly Luna had healed them. He went to pick up his otter and terrier earrings to put them in, but stopped when he realised that that would be a dead giveaway days before Hermione’s birthday. Instead, he picked up one of the practice pairs he’d made with Luna’s help, a pair of six-petalled flowers that, now he looked at them closely, suspiciously resembled the blossoms that still crowded the Great Hall.

Luna looked back at him innocently, not acknowledging his suspicious look, before reaching forward and adding a layer of glossy white to the top of the metal petals and enchanting tiny beads of silver light to hang millimetres above the centre. She ran through the preservation and hygiene charms on them before handing them back to Harry, as if nothing had happened. In the end, he snorted, shaking his head, before putting them in. He needed the help of the mirror, having never tried to poke little poles through his ears before, but Harry got them in before too long, and put the plain silver fastenings on the back.

They weren’t quite the dragon fangs Harry had been thinking of when he agreed to getting his ears pierced, but he found he quite liked them. They were reasonably small, not gaudy but still eye-catching, with their gleaming white coating reflecting the silver of the bobbing lights. Besides, he’d long given into his fondness for the asphodels which flowered in the hall and around the burial places. They oddly suited him.

“Thanks, Luna.” Harry said after a long moment.

She grinned at him and they both began new projects, working on silly things for him to put in next, until the bell for dinner clanged from the clocktower and they had to go outside. Harry hoped they’d find time to do this again.

-

The second part of the gift came to him on Friday night. He’d been poking at his quill again, finally managing to coax his magic to cycle through it without incinerating the feather about 50% of the time, when he realised what he’d been doing wrong. Harry had been so focused on getting his magic into the feather, that he hadn’t thought about it leaving again, so whenever he pushed too much in too fast, the magic built up too suddenly and the excess energy made the feather catch alight. It was only when he remembered to pull the magic out before putting more in that it worked.

This had got him thinking about alchemy, where the aim was to push some property in and keep it there, so there were many standard ways developed to contain a particular form of magic and infuse it into a substance. Working on a hunch, Harry used one of these enchantment methods on the stag earring, pulling his own magic in gently and then trying to infuse it into the metal without the intent of doing any particular spell. It took a few tries, but soon the metal radiated a little of Harry’s own magic, a distinctly cool feeling against the constant warmth of Hogwarts’ wards.

Grinning, Harry clattered downstairs to the Common Room, intent on grabbing Ron. This was somewhat scuppered by the fact that he was sitting with Hermione near the fireplace, heads bent together as they shared a sofa. Their hair both caught the light of the fire, making them look like they were wreathed in flames. Harry was almost sad to interrupt them. Almost. He’d been subject to too much of their flirting and mushy feelings to truly feel bad. He flung himself onto the sofa opposite them, making them both jump. “Alright?” He asked them, pretending like he hadn’t interrupted a moment.

Hermione looked caught between exasperation and being dubious of his intentions while Ron gave him a long-suffering look. “Harry.” They greeted him together.

He grinned at them. “Would you mind terribly if I borrowed Ron for a minute?”

Somehow, this made them look even more suspicious.

“Why?” Ron asked slowly.

Harry grinned wider, enjoying his friends’ reactions. “You’ll see.”

Ron turned to Hermione. “If I don’t return, my chocolate frog card collection goes to George. Ginny gets nothing.”

Hermione snorted, pushing him gently off the sofa. “Go and see what the menace wants.”

“Hey!” Harry said, but happily pulled Ron upstairs. The teasing melted off his face as soon as they were in the dorm. “I didn’t want to say why downstairs because it’s about Hermione’s present.”

Immediately, Ron looked more interested and less full of dread. “Oh, alright then. What is it?”

Harry launched into a brief explanation of his gift for Hermione, including what he’d just figured out he could do. Ron was surprisingly enthusiastic about the idea, especially the part where all three of them had something from the others. He quickly ran back downstairs to tell Hermione that he was helping Harry with a charm gone wrong in the boys’ dorm, but they didn’t need more help – reportedly, she’d been alarmed but amused – and volunteered to let Harry experiment with his magic. It was harder than infusing the stag earring with his own magic, because Harry had no innate feeling of Ron’s and had to stop his own from interfering, but eventually, he got it down. Thrilled, Harry put Hermione’s earrings in a little transfigured box for the next day.

-

Harry and Ron had debated for a while beforehand where they were going to bring Hermione to celebrate her birthday. There were limited places to sit and eat in Hogsmeade – the Three Broomsticks was their usual haunt, but it was always full of other Hogwarts students; the Hog’s Head was much quieter, but the dodgy clientele, dirt floor, and half-cleaned glasses wasn’t quite the atmosphere they were going for; Madam Puddifoots’ on the hand was perfectly clean, but also perfectly tacky, like someone had dressed it up for Valentine’s Day and never taken the decorations down. They’d also considered a picnic, which had the benefit of privacy and scenery, but meant they’d have to decide everything they brought with them beforehand and was away from facilities. In the end, they decided the food and bar service of the Three Broomsticks trumped the rowdiness, as they could muffle that with privacy charms – the joys of being of-age wixen.

“Happy Birthday!” Harry greeted Hermione at breakfast. He’d gone down a little earlier with some of his first-year tagalongs, who definitely knew the way by now, but seemed to like making him take them down to the hall anyway for some unknowable reason.

She and Ron took their seats across from him. Hermione was smiling widely. “Thanks, Harry!”

They had a slightly louder breakfast than normal, as their friends and classmates approached Hermione intermittently to wish her a good day, and she received a few letters over owl post. Her parents had sent her a card, which was only slightly awkward, and a collection of healthy, muggle snacks. Neville came over early on and gave her a slightly lumpy scarf, which apparently, he’d made himself, and Luna dropped a collection of ginger sweets into Hermione’s surprised hands, serenely saying, “Because you like gingers.” and walking off. Ginny cackled.

After they’d finished their breakfast and usual copious quantities of tea, Harry and Ron exchanged a look before standing up. “Alright,” Ron said, nudging Hermione up with a gentle hand under her elbow, “we’re kidnapping you.”

In truth, they’d asked Hermione if she’d be willing to make her Saturday free a week or so in advance, so they knew it wasn’t exactly unexpected, but she still smiled in delight. The walk down to Hogsmeade was pleasant. The path was surrounded on both sides by scarlet flowers, which waved merrily in the breeze, and the September day was pleasantly cool. It was overcast but didn’t look like it was going to rain in the next half hour, which was about all you could judge with British weather.

The Three Broomsticks, when they arrived, was quieter than they’d ever seen it before. Of course, the difference now was that it wasn’t a Hogsmeade weekend, so it didn’t have five years of students poured into it. Some of the locals looked up as they came in, obviously clocking who they were, but mercifully, no one tried to approach them. Harry and Hermione found a table as Ron volunteered to get the first round of drinks.

“This is nice.” Hermione said, sitting back in her chair and looking around the pub. “I’ve never seen this place outside of a Hogsmeade weekend, but it’s much more like a normal pub now, isn’t it?”

Harry wasn’t sure he’d ever been to a normal pub. He’d been eleven the last time he was living full time in the muggle world and the Dursleys certainly avoided taking him with them any time they decided to eat out. Still, he nodded – no reason to drag the mood down. Besides, Harry thought he sort of saw what she meant. It felt different being here than any time before. On previous visits, it had been a fun novelty to get out of the castle, but after spending a summer as an adult who could go where he liked, it just felt like a lunch out. In their non-school robes, on a different weekend, he felt less like a student on a school trip, and more like he belonged. It was an odd but nice feeling.

Ron returned with three glasses of butterbeer and a lunch menu each. “Rosmerta sends her regards.” He said, plopping the glasses down and spilling a little of the fizz off the top.

Harry took his and sipped it. The familiar flavour, sweet and warm, was something he hadn’t realised he’d missed.

“Presents time!” Ron announced, from where he’d pulled up a chair next to Hermione’s. He plonked a badly wrapped rectangle down on the table and looked at Harry expectantly. Harry pulled his gift from his extended pocket, leaving the little box next to Ron’s.

Hermione beamed at them, then inspected the gifts. He could see she was curious, especially as neither of the presents were book shaped. She started with Ron’s. Taking off the bright orange paper revealed a small digital camera, some magical printing film, and a few ready-made potions.

Ron began to explain as she looked at it. “I know you’ve been having trouble reconnecting with your parents, ‘specially since they don’t really know much about our world, so I thought maybe if you had pictures to bring back, they could get to know you again, and all your friends, and the places you go and stuff.” He sounded a little nervous as he rambled. Hermione’s parents were still a touchy subject. “It’s from the whole family, really. Dad enchanted the camera, Mum made the picture potions, the others all chipped in for the camera and film. But we thought that if you want your parents in your life, and they want you but you’re not sure how, maybe you could show them your life. So, yeah.”

Hermione’s lip wobbled and her eyes were wet. “Thank you, Ron.” She said thickly, pulling him into a hug. “I love it. And thank you to all your family. It’s such a thoughtful gift.”

Harry wasn’t sure how he could follow that, and waited a moment while Hermione wiped her eyes, before sliding the box over to her.

She opened it with careful hands, gasping when she saw the earrings inside, their silver glow bright in the darkness of the box and animated limbs moving. “Oh, Harry, they’re gorgeous.”

“They’re, um, our patronuses, mine and Ron’s.” Harry explained, though of course she already knew. “They’ve got some of our magic trapped in them, which hopefully shouldn’t fade. So, you, er,” for some reason, this was harder to say to Hermione directly than it had been to explain to Luna, “so you don’t have to feel alone ever, ‘cos we’re always with you.”

Hermione’s eyes were welling up again, as she stroked a light finger over the features of each animal. “What happened to my emotionally stunted boys, huh?” She asked them wetly, though a bright smile was on her face. “Thank you, so much.” She blew her nose into a quickly conjured handkerchief.

 “Um, there’s another part.” Harry said tentatively. “I didn’t want to take away from your gift, but I thought it would be nice, I guess, if we all matched.” He brought out his own earrings and Ron’s cufflinks from another box. “As the three of us.” He said, showing Hermione her own otter patronus in silvery metal. “So, if it’s okay, at some point I’d like to put some of your magic into these too, so we match.”

“Harry, did you enchant these?” Hermione asked, startled, inspecting the jewellery again with new eyes.

“Er, yeah. Made ‘em too.” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling oddly bashful. “Luna helped me get them right.”

“They’re beautiful.” She said, voice thick with emotion. “Of course, I’m happy for you to add my magic to those ones. It’s a lovely idea. Oh, Harry, I love them.”

Harry smiled as she picked her earrings up, and with much more skill than Harry, put them in without needing a mirror. They weren’t too big at all, but were bright against the brown of her skin, tiny amounts of silver mist wisping around the ear lobe.

“Happy birthday, Hermione.” He said, trying to infuse the words with all his love, and Ron echoed him.

She smiled enormously, before the moment broke as Ron’s stomach let out a tremendous growl. Harry and Hermione cackled as Ron pouted at them. “I can’t help it, I’m a growing lad!”

The rest of their lunch was peaceful. The food was hot and good, the atmosphere pleasant, and the company even better. Harry, with the practice from pulling in Ron’s magic, got Hermione’s into the otters over their second round of butterbeers, and soon slipped his own earrings in with only a little bit of jabbing at his earlobes. He could feel the magic of his best friends radiating like pinpricks of warmth, as if they were standing over his shoulders. Ron took his cufflinks and put them through his shirt sleeves immediately, tracing fingers absently over the curve of the otter’s back as they talked.

Hermione pulled them both in at the end of their meal and turned the camera so that it faced all three of them, capturing their high spirits and wide smiles. She was surprised a moment later, when Rosmerta brought over a cake lit up with candles, which apparently Ron had slipped to her when he’d ordered that first round of butterbeer. Harry took the camera from her lax hands and snapped a couple of photos of her and the cake. It was an indulgent chocolate and caramel cake, with caramel butter icing. It was too rich to eat much of, so they agreed to bring the rest to the common room. Hermione slipped her arms through both Ron’s and Harry’s on the way out, squeezing them gently. “Thank you, boys. It’s been a wonderful birthday.” 

Chapter Text

Professor Barnaby wasn’t pleased with the reformed DA, but aside from some snarky comments and an increase in staring at the three of them, there was little he could do. After all, officially, the club was only a supplement to the Defence lessons, rather than a replacement. He’d popped in to watch their second meeting, on the Monday of the next week, and lingered there like a particularly disgruntled elephant in the room, but soon left when it became clear that the topic for the meeting was just a recap of basic theory and spells. Still, their Tuesday class was almost painfully awkward, as the professor watched the desks where they sat with dark eyes.

Any thought of this, however, was put out of Harry’s mind when Wednesday dawned. From the moment he woke, Harry could feel something odd in the air. Magic hung thick, denser than normal and almost vibrating. He’d say that it felt more alive, but at the same time it felt the opposite, closer to heavy stillness of the goblins’ Underground. It kept him on edge throughout the day, as if in anticipation for something. His friends were clueless, none of them feeling the odd edge in the air, and Harry began wondering if he was simply imagining it. By the time Potions came in the afternoon, Harry was a jittery mess, and everyone around him had started looking at him in concern.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Harry?” Ron asked, as they headed towards the Great Hall. They’d planned to get some of their copious homework out of the way before dinner, though Harry didn’t know how he’d possibly managed to concentrate long enough to get anything done.

Harry just shrugged. He’d had enough today of telling people that he didn’t know what was wrong. Not that it was wrong precisely, he didn’t think there was a problem, there was just something going on and he didn’t know what. He plonked himself down onto the long bench and pulled out his textbooks, willing the buzzing in his limbs to subside.

It came to a head in the evening, back in Gryffindor Tower, as the sun slowly sank beneath the horizon and darkness fell on the castle. Abruptly, Harry was too high up, too far above the ground where he belonged. Ignoring his friends’ calls as he suddenly leapt up, Harry charged out of the portrait hole and down the many flights of stairs to where solid ground beckoned. At the doors leading to the outside courtyards, Harry joined the Hogwarts ghosts, who acknowledged him distractedly, all looking out at the fields of the Hogwarts grounds. There, rising from the ground, was a faint bronze fog, which glimmered with a metallic sheen where it caught the rays of the fast-fading sun.

“Harry, what are you doing?”

He slipped his shoes and socks off and stepped onto the dirt ground outside, all the better to feel the pulsing through the earth which echoed with the throbs of a drumbeat. If he strained to hear, there was a whisper of music from below and a weak wailing on the wind. The urge to join and dance in sync was strong, even though Harry didn’t know the dance or who he was supposed to be joining. The ghosts lingered at the doorway, not crossing over the threshold but letting the wisps of mist waft over them. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but where the bronze mists touched them, they seemed to grow opaquer.

Harry stood in the field of flowers, surrounded by the remnants of his own magic, as the last rays of sunlight fell beneath the earth and night enfolded the skies. In the dark of the cloudy night, there was light only from the open windows of the castle and the faint glimmer of Hogsmeade below. And yet, the darkness was lifted by the tendrils of fog, which gleamed brighter than ever, lit from within, covering everything as far as the eye could see in a sheen of bronze.

“Harry! Hey! Harry, what are you looking at?”

He walked through the fields, heedless of stones under his bare feet, and broke into a jog, unable to contain the energy that threatened to spill out of him. The beat grew louder as it pounded through the earth, jolting up through his body. Harry felt a grin on his face, stretched broadly and utterly unselfconsciously. Pure joy seemed to radiate through him, pulses of relief and excitement making him laugh out loud, even as the wind wailed louder, like a woman’s mournful cry. Bronze mist kicked up higher wherever he stepped, distracting him for a while as a playful part of him tried to see how high he could get it and whether he could feel it in his hands. He couldn’t, swishing through it instead, but that was equally fun.

At some point, Harry tripped over a log, covered by the dense foliage, but didn’t feel any pain nor any embarrassment. Instead, he tipped himself onto his back, staring up blankly into the sky through a fog of bronze, exhilaration still pounding in his chest like the beat of drums, stronger now with his whole body touching the ground. He dug his fingers into the soil, laughing. Around him, in the sides of his vision, he caught glimpses of the ghosts, who had finally emerged onto the grounds. They too were dancing to the beat, though none of them seemed to be dancing the same dance, a chaotic but beautiful ensemble.

He realised he could see them from his place on the ground, despite the usual coverage of flowers, and looked around to see that all the poppies had wilted at some point. Their vibrant red was gone, and their stems were black and withered in the dim light, flat upon the earth. He frowned to see them go, missing their bright hue, but something told him that they were not gone forever – simply gone wherever it is that flowers go whenever they are not above the earth – and would return when it was time. This was no longer the season of flowers. Not here, at least.

This did not seem to be a bad thing to Harry, and the joyous music agreed, echoing up in a fierce beat from the world Below. The earth sung a song of long-awaited return: summer had ended, and the Queen was home once more.

-

Harry was starting to get a bit tired of waking up in fields after a night gallivanting around them. True, it had only happened twice, but it set a precedent that he wasn’t sure he liked; once had been disconcerting, twice seemed to be habit-forming. He hauled himself up into a sitting position and was surprised to find a sleepy looking Ron a few feet away, while Hermione slept with her head on his lap.

“Morning.” Harry said, for lack of anything better. Somehow, someone else being around to witness it made the night before all the more embarrassing.

“Morning.” Ron echoed, blinking most of the sleepiness away and rousing Hermione with a gentle shake. She sat up slowly, but quickly grew more alert as she looked around. “Mind telling us what the fuck that was?”

“I’m not totally sure.” Harry answered, vaguely mortified at the memories of the previous evening. He’d acted like he was on a dodgy batch of euphoria elixir! “It was the, er, end of summer, I think. And they, um, the ones down Below, were celebrating. Or at least, that’s what I think happened.”

“Oh!” Hermione said, understanding dawning on her. “It was the autumn equinox yesterday!”

“But why’d that mean Harry was acting like a drunk crup?” Ron asked. “Not that it wasn’t funny and all, mate.”

Harry mock-glowered at him, but he thought the effect was probably ruined by the heat he could feel in his cheeks.

Hermione frowned, considering it. “I couldn’t say.”

Harry grimaced. He didn’t know why the Underworld celebrations – which he was fairly sure had been what the music was – would have affected him in such a way.

“Maybe you could ask the Lady?” Ron suggested, as neither Hermione nor Harry had an answer forthcoming.

“Maybe.” Said Harry noncommittally. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d go about contacting Hecate – he doubted an owl would reach her – nor if it was worth bothering her. He stood up instead, brushing down his robes and shaking out his stiff limbs. The morning dew was thick, soaking the hem of his robes and chilling his ankles.

“You’ve got, ah, here.” Hermione said, reaching up and pulling a twig out of his hair. Her lips wobbled with laughter despite her best efforts. Harry hadn’t seen himself in the mirror, but he doubted that twig was the only one in the birds nest he called hair.

He fired off a tempus charm, making a face at the time of 06:07, and looked back towards the castle, which was quiet in the early morning. In the early morning light of a cloudy day, everything was washed out grey. It was especially obvious with the loss of the scarlet fields of poppies.

“Did you two stay all night?” Harry asked, as Ron and Hermione collected their things from the ground.

“Yeah.” Ron said. “You weren’t reacting to anything we said, and there was clearly something weird going on, but it looked harmless enough, so Vector let us stay out to watch you and make sure you were okay.”

Harry’s face, which had just started recovering, burned red again. “Vector was there?”

“Professor Vector, boys.” Hermione stressed, though her eyes were amused. “And yes. I went and got her as soon as it was clear that something was wrong. She and Madam Pomphrey came to check on you, but, since you didn’t seem to be in any harm and they know what’s happening with you, they decided to leave you be, so long as someone supervised.” She paused. “We should probably go and let one of them know.”

“Vector said she’d be taking the early morning shift, right?” Ron turned to Hermione, who confirmed that.

The three headed back towards the castle, Harry grimacing as he avoided particularly muddy spots. “Anyone know where my shoes have got to?”

“Oh! Sorry, mate, I picked them up.” Ron replied, quickly summoning them out of his bag.

With his friends’ help, Harry balanced on one foot as he sent a variety of cleaning charms at the other, then slipped his shoe on, before repeating the process. The walk was a lot easier after that.

Professor Vector, who was sitting in her office with a cup of tea and looking a little more rumpled than Harry had ever seen her in the past, was glad to see them. “Thank Merlin.” She said, as the three of them traipsed in. “I was beginning to worry. I know you said it was likely to do with Mr Potter’s other magic…” She trailed off and visibly re-centred herself. “Mr Potter, now you’re back with us, do you have any idea what occurred yesterday evening?”

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. This whole thing was excruciatingly awkward. “We think it was something to do with the autumn equinox.” He offered. “There were celebrations in the Underworld and, I don’t know, maybe they got carried up with the fog or something?”

“The fog?” Hermione queried, before anyone else could.

“Yeah?” Harry gave her an odd look. “You know, the glowing, bronze fog from last night.”

“How interesting.” Professor Vector broke in. “I don’t believe any of us were able to see such a fog.”

“Huh.” Harry didn’t know what to do with that information. He was fairly sure the ghosts had seen it, but now he was doubting that too.

“We think Harry should try asking the goddess what happened.” Ron said to Professor Vector.

Harry pursed his lips, still not sure of this plan.

Professor Vector looked at him consideringly. “If you have a way to reach her,” and her sceptical expression couldn’t hide her doubt about this, “it might provide some sought-after answers.”

“I’m not sure how.” Harry replied. “Well, maybe one way…” After all, now he thought about it, couldn’t all the gods be talked to through prayers?

There was silence in the room as the other three occupants stared at Harry expectantly. He shifted on the spot before sighing. He might as well try. At worst, she’d just ignore him, probably. In his head, trying to focus his thoughts and feeling rather silly about it, he called out “Hecate? Uh, I don’t know if I’m doing this right, but do you know what happened last night?” He left it there, unsure what else to do or say.

For a long moment, it seemed as if nothing had happened and Harry really had been talking to himself like an idiot, but all of them turned to face the torches on the walls as their light flared green for a moment – the ghostly colour Harry had seen in Hecate’s temple – and a piece of lightly charred paper was spat out from one of them, hitting Harry’s head. Rubbing his head where the folded paper had hit and picking it up, Harry ignored Professor Vector’s incredulous look and Hermione’s fascination, and unfolded it.

The writing was a little messy and swam in front of his eyes, initially a half-known alphabet shifting into something he understood.

Harry,

How curious to hear from you! I didn’t think you would be sensitive enough yet to the currents of the Underworld to feel much of anything last night, but it seems I was mistaken. Perhaps, I can teach you more of our magic than I had expected to be able to this winter.

I was hardly paying attention to the mortal world last night, so I don’t know exactly what you might have experienced, but the celebrations on the first night of our Queen’s return are always fierce. It would not surprise me at all if a little too much of the Underworld had leaked to the surface last night. When the god of the Underworld rejoices, the Underworld rejoices with him. We denizens of the Underworld feel it too.

Perhaps I can explain more over your break, but for now, there is more dancing and feasting to be done.

Hecate.

P.S. you don’t have to yell in your head. I’ve told you this already.

“Huh.” Harry said intelligently. He slid the note over to Hermione, who was trying to politely hold back her curiosity and failing miserably.

She scanned over it quickly. “Ancient Greek? What does it say?”

Harry took the note back and read it out loud.

“Fascinating!” Hermione said, “So, the Underworld reacts to its god? I wonder if he too reacts to the state that it is in? And what difference would the people that enter it make? After all, outside of the magical communities, there is very little true belief in the Greek gods left, so…” She descended into rapid muttering, which Harry tuned out as a method of self-defence. It was far too much for not even seven in the morning.

Ron, dead on his feet, but watching Hermione with incredible fondness, seemed to agree. “But the point was that it was just their lot partying, and Harry accidentally got caught up on it?” He asked her.

“Yes.” Hermione nodded.

Harry handed the note over silently to a slightly shell-shocked Vector, who gave it back after a single glance. He reckoned that McGonagall’s unflappable nature was a learned talent, after too many years of heading up Gryffindor House and all its associated shenanigans. She’d get there. Probably.

“There was something I read that this reminded me of.” Hermione continued, eyes looking into the middle distance as she frowned, deep in thought. “Oh, Orpheus!” She said, as if this should make any sense to Harry. At his blank expression, she rolled her eyes, “In many versions of the myth, Orpheus is ripped apart by the Maenads, the mad women – female followers of Di- um, the wine god – when he refused to play for them after failing to bring back his wife, Eurydice. They danced and revelled in a kind of drunken rapture – sort of like what you and the ghosts were doing last night, Harry.” Hermione looked slightly apologetic for pointing this out. “I hadn’t read that that god was particularly associated with the Underworld, though. But perhaps, as it’s a yearly celebration, they were invited last night, and that’s where it all came from.” She tilted her head considering it. “Or perhaps just something like that.”

Harry bit his lip. He didn’t like the idea of being swept up in other random fits because of the whims of the gods or their followers. He didn’t like that it was touching him here, taking him from his normal, everyday life, instead of staying in the Underworld where it belonged. It felt like an encroachment on what little mortality he had left. Suddenly, the Underworld, the gods, and immortality felt much too close and real.

“Well, nothing to do about it, from the sounds of it.” Professor Vector said, steepling her fingers under her chin. “It didn’t seem to harm Mr Potter, and we are not well versed in ways to avoid, ah, divine influence either way.”

Harry couldn’t help but grimace. She had a point – there wouldn’t be a book entitled “15 Common Ways to Avoid Getting Caught Up in Godly Parties” in the library.

Ron and Hermione exchanged a complicated look but didn’t comment further.

“Well, I don’t know about you, mate, but I’m famished.” Ron said jovially, after a moment of silence. “Can’t imagine you’re not after everything.”

Harry snorted. At least Ron could be relied on to keep them all out of their heads and thinking with their stomachs. He was right though. Now Harry thought about it, he was hungry, and, if he were willing to admit it, craving some normalcy.

“Yeah.” Harry said with a smile. It was a little forced, but they all pretended it wasn’t. “But first,” he gestured to his grass-stained robes and dishevelled hair, “probably a shower.”

Professor Vector nodded from her seat. “Go on, all of you. I don’t think there’s anything more to be gained from standing around theorising.” She looked like she was craving a hearty breakfast herself, tiredness lingering in her features now the important part of the conversation was done. “I’ll send word to Poppy and Minerva.”

“Thanks, professor.” Harry said, turning to leave. He stopped and faced her again. “For, um, looking out for me and all last night.”

Professor Vector gave him a small smile. “Of course, Mr Potter.”

Harry headed back to Gryffindor Tower, to the warm showers, fresh robes, and familiar sounds of grumpy teenagers rushing to get up in the morning, and tried not to feel the approaching deadline of the end of his mortality tightening like a noose around his neck.

Chapter Text

September ended quietly. They held another DA session, which seemed to be getting into full swing; classes churned out enough homework to make Harry think longingly of the peace of Grimmauld Place; Harry had made use of the sudden freedom in his weekends to reschedule his teas with Andromeda; the prefects made their rounds in various groups as the more academically inclined among them figured out a tutoring system; and Quidditch try-outs had been announced for the first weekend of October.

Harry, doing better in his classes than ever but juggling more responsibilities than before, had to seriously consider whether he was going to be trying out for the team. He knew it wasn’t unusual for final year students to drop Quidditch in favour of their studies, unless they were hoping to continue professionally, but Quidditch had always been such a large part of his Hogwarts experience. Certainly, Ginny seemed to have no doubt he’d be there, laughingly threatening him with 5am practices if he didn’t move his books off her favourite armchair, but he had to wonder if he was being selfish. After all, he’d been the Seeker since his first year, excluding when Umbridge had banned him and then again while he was on the run and Quidditch had been cancelled under the Death Eaters anyway; was it fair of him to return for an eighth year and take the spot? He’d been mulling it over for a few days but was no closer to an answer. Logically, he thought he should probably let someone new take the place and spend more time on his work, but the thought of sitting the games out sat badly in his stomach.

Eventually, it was Neville who challenged him on it. They’d been making small talk as they watered their respective moly plants, and Harry had fallen silent when Neville had asked him about the team, before blurting all his thoughts out in a tangled mess. To his credit, Neville considered it seriously. “Well, have you asked what anyone else thinks?”

Harry hadn’t. He ended up taking the question to Ginny, who snorted at him. “That’s what the reserves are for, Harry. Train ‘em up for the future while the better player wins us the Cup.” And as simple as that, it was settled.

-

The way in which things fell apart was both completely unexpected and completely predictable in hindsight. Harry had been working in the Common Room with Ron and Hermione, finishing up a Charms essay before getting onto his alchemy research, when there was a shout near the notice board.

A short figure pushed through the milling groups of students, charging up to the table where Harry and his friends sat. Dennis Creevey, still the shortest boy in his year and looking so much like his older brother had, was flushed red with rage and gripping the DA notice in his hand, where he had ripped it off the wall. “You can’t!” he shouted “Not again! You’re going to get them all killed again!”

The common room quieted, onlookers turning to see what all the commotion was about. Harry, startled, looked up from his homework, and his heart sank when he saw who was speaking. Dennis’ absence from the DA and from their House social group had been noticeable, but understandable after the death of his brother, so none of them had wanted to push and try to talk with him if he didn’t want it. It seemed that that might have been a mistake.

“Dennis, mate-” Ron started, though he didn’t manage to get very far.

“Shut up!” Dennis cried. His voice cracked halfway through. It was all the worse because Harry didn’t think he’d ever heard Dennis raise his voice before. “I’m not talking to you!” He looked back to Harry. “How could you?!”

Harry didn’t know how to answer him. “It’s just a Defence group this time, Dennis. Just for exams.” He tried.

“It’s not, it’s not!” the boy shouted, “You’re teaching them to fight for you and then they’re going to get themselves killed because someone’s trying to kill you! And it’ll be all your fault again!”

“Hey, Dennis, you know that’s not fair.” Neville’s soothing voice came from a few tables to the left, even as Harry tried to think through the headrush that overtook him for a moment. His lips were numb, heart pounding.

“No!” Dennis shook his head vigorously, red flush only growing brighter. “No, not fair is that my brother is dead instead of him!” He jabbed the hand holding the flyer at Harry. “Because he trained him to fight and so Colin went and fought and got killed instead of him.”

The accusation struck Harry deep, guilt choking him.

“And now he’s doing it all over again!” Dennis continued, watery eyes narrowed.

“Colin should never have been in the Battle.” Harry said, trying to wrangle his thoughts together into coherent sentences. “He was underage, and so shouldn’t have been allowed out of the castle.” He caught Dennis’ look of increasing rage and swiftly continued. “I’m not saying it was his fault.” Harry stressed. “He was a brave kid, and he was only trying to help. But we wouldn’t have let him out there deliberately; we definitely wouldn’t have asked him to fight. No one knew he was out there instead of safe in the castle.”

“He only went out there because of you!” Dennis retaliated, “Because you made him think that he could fight and that he was supposed to!”

Harry’s irritation rose, though it was vastly overwhelmed by the guilt that tried to smother him. “I taught him to defend himself, not to fight for me. I don’t want people fighting and dying for me. That’s why we made the DA – so that everyone could at least try to defend themselves.”

“Fat lot of good that did him! What, you’re saying it’s his fault that he wasn’t good enough?”

“No!” Harry didn’t even know how Dennis had got that from his statement. He scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to think of a way to regain the thread of the argument. His hands shook slightly with adrenaline. Too many emotions to name pounded in his chest with his heartbeat, but he’d be hard-pressed to name a single one of them.

“Dennis,” Hermione joined in, “Colin’s death was tragic and of course you’re angry about it, but Harry wasn’t the one who killed him, he didn’t ask him to fight, and you know that the DA wasn’t Harry training people to fight for him because you were there too.”

“I hate you! You were supposed to keep him safe!” Dennis screamed, ignoring Hermione completely. “You’re Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One! Colin admired you so much that he followed you into the Battle, and you didn’t even care enough about him to keep him safe?”

Every word hit like a sucker punch to the gut, which Harry had experienced often enough through the tender care of one Dudley Dursley. “Of course I cared.” He tried to soothe. “Colin was my friend. Of course I tried to protect everyone I could, but I can’t protect everyone.” 50 names, 50 graves visited that were etched so deeply into his mind, his soul, that he thought he could be ripped apart by dementors and still wake up grieving them.

“Dennis, mate, take a breather.” Ron suggested, standing up and setting a hand on the irate boy’s shoulder. Dennis shrugged it off angrily. “We’re getting nowhere like this.”

Dennis quieted, but continued to stare viciously at Harry with a hate that he wouldn’t ever have imagined could appear in those eyes. “It’s your fault.” His voice, now he wasn’t shouting, trembled. “You-, Colin was the best, and now he’s dead because of you. Because You-Know-Who wanted to kill you and you dragged everyone else into it with you.”

“Enough, Dennis.” Neville said sternly, having risen from his seat near the start of the argument and come towards them.

“It’ll never be enough.” Dennis scowled back. He looked around the quiet Common Room, where most of the House was watching the events unfold, and tsked loudly. “And you’re all cowards that you won’t admit it.” He threw the flyer on the floor, stepping on it on his way out of the Common Room and to the stairs up to the dormitories.

Talking started up again after a moment, a slight rumble and then louder as everyone turned to gossip with their friends. Harry was frozen, still looking where Dennis had left, and that was the only reason he caught Parvati Patil slipping out of the room after him. She turned back to glance at the room and, as her eyes met Harry’s, he could see the accusation in them loud and clear. Another moment, and she was gone, leaving Harry in the suddenly cloying company of his friends.

“You know what he said wasn’t true.” Hermione was saying, her hand on his arm.

“He’s just grieving.” Neville continued. “He’ll get over it at some point and realise he was wrong.”

“Was he?” Harry asked, humourlessly. Self-recriminations thundered around his head, threatening to pull him under. He ignored the subsequent outburst of his friends, pulling his things carelessly into his bag, and slinging the strap over his shoulder. “I’m going out for a bit.”

“Harry!” one of them called. He couldn’t even tell which one through the thumping of his heartbeat in his ears and the guilt which felt like it was trying to eat him alive. Harry could remember, vividly, seeing Colin’s body laid in the hall when the Battle had been paused, how tiny it had looked. He remembered also the way that Colin had followed him around for years for photographs, eyes full of hero worship, and had joined the DA with such enthusiasm not because he cared too much about Umbridge’s teaching, but because Harry was doing it.

Harry stumbled out of the portrait hole somehow, though he couldn’t quite remember doing it. Colin wasn’t supposed to be in the Battle. He wasn’t even supposed to be at Hogwarts – he was muggleborn and barred from attending. The only reason Harry could think that Colin had been there was that he’d seen the message sent out through the DA galleons that they were going to fight in Hogwarts and had come to join them. Then, it really was Harry’s fault. Even if he hadn’t known, would never have asked Colin to join them on the battlefield, it was his fault that he hadn’t been more careful. His fault that he hadn’t fought harder, his fault that he hadn’t been smarter, hadn’t put the pieces together before, hadn’t been trustworthy enough or good enough at occlumency for Dumbledore to bring him into his schemes earlier, hadn’t taken himself to Voldemort to die earlier. So many people could have been saved if Harry had simply been better.

His chest ached and Harry had to fight the urge to find a small spot to curl up in and wrap his arms around himself. He was still in Hogwarts, still surrounded by students that he was a danger to, that he had always been a danger to, who’d kept getting caught up in Voldemort’s attempts to kill him through no fault of their own. Harry sped up, unable to stand spending any minute more around people he was a danger to, charging through the corridors until his breath caught, and he had to stop to try and drag burning air into his lungs. He found a door on his left, an empty classroom he’d never seen used, and threw the most powerful wards he knew at the door, even as he clattered through the abandoned desks and chairs until he collapsed against the far wall, under a narrow, arched window.

Air refused to come easily, breath shuddering. Oh, he was crying. He wasn’t sure when that had started, vaguely hoped that it hadn’t been while there were still other people in corridor, but he was past caring much. He swiped at the tears angrily with the sleeve of his jumper, but they didn’t stop. Harry crossed his arms, hands gripping the opposite bicep, with his knees clenched up to his chest, and lowered his head to his knees with a silent scream. He wanted to lash out at something, wanted to rage and shout, to do anything that wasn’t feeling like this. His magic wanted to lash out too, barely restrained around him, pushing at his control like abrasive waves.

Was he training them all to die again? The DA had seemed like such a good idea, and he was proud of the work that he and his friends had put into it, but was it worth putting a target on their backs by being associated with him? Was it worth getting to know people and making friends when they were always going to be at risk because of him? Voldemort was gone, and Harry didn’t think there was any way he was coming back, but his followers were out there, and they hated Harry like nobody else. Would these new students, these children, also think it was their responsibility to follow Harry out into danger when inevitably one of his enemies came for him? Would they join the list of people who had died for him?

And truly, the list was too long already. And all for him, Harry, who didn’t feel like he was worth a single one of them. Surely, it would have been better if he’d died back in first year, when Quirrell cursed his broom or in the Forbidden Corridor. He would have died and the horcrux with him, Quirrell wouldn’t have been able to get the stone without his unwitting help. Without him, Voldemort couldn’t have used his blood to be resurrected, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have targeted the students the same way without Harry’s presence among them. Dumbledore would have worked out the horcruxes and maybe taken someone better than Harry with him to the cave, and not died. Without Harry, there was one horcrux less, and maybe someone cleverer, faster, could have taken up the search, and so many more people might have lived. There was another potential prophecy child, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if Neville would have done a better job. He would have done, surely, because he wasn’t Harry, who ruined everything he touched.

Harry curled in on himself further, gripping his arms too hard. His magic slipped, just for a second, and suddenly there was an explosion of splinters around the room and his magic lashed out around him, pulverising the furniture. A few wood shards blew back and caught him, but he didn’t notice, caught up in the storm in his head. Even his magic was like him, causing problems wherever he went. He choked out a bitter laugh at the thought. It must have sounded insane, half-drowned by the tears that refused to stop. He leant his forehead harder into his knees, ignoring the sharp pressure of his glasses on his nose. What was the point? Did he really think he’d done enough good simply by defeating Voldemort to make up for all the harm he’d caused? His magic continued to rage around him, shaking the room with barely perceptible tremors. He closed his eyes and tried not to think until the world around him was blanked out and only his misery remained.

-

Harry didn’t know how much later it was that they’d found him. He’d become aware, at some point, of someone picking at his wards. The feeling of it drew him slowly back to awareness, where he found himself equally miserable as before, but an awful lot calmer. They sliced through the wards carefully and clinically, peeling back each layer before dismantling it at its weak spot and methodically moving onto the next, so Harry was unsurprised that it was Hermione who opened the door. She held a piece of parchment in her left hand, which she had forgotten to clear, so the moving map of Hogwarts was still sprawled out across its surface.

Hermione glanced at the splintered ruins of the classroom, but her expression didn’t change, and she came over to Harry and sat next to him quietly. The warmth of her shoulder pressing against his was almost too strong, and Harry wondered distantly if he were cold to the touch. He couldn’t feel it past the numb heaviness still pressing him down. She continued to not speak even as Harry tensed for it, and his defensiveness fell away the longer they sat in silence. Eventually, he found himself relaxing his stiff posture, loosening the grip of his arms around his knees and slumping into her, until his head rested on Hermione’s shoulder. An escaped strand of her hair tickled his nose, and he batted it away, after unsuccessfully trying to blow it off his face. She caught his hand with hers tentatively, as he moved it away, and he let her, intertwining their fingers.

“We’re not training them to fight for me.” He said roughly, voice gravelly after his crying. It was meant to be a statement but came out as more of a question.

“No, Harry.” Hermione confirmed, smoothing her thumb over the back of his hand. It was comforting, and Harry watched the motion of her thumb with an odd sort of longing, wondering if anyone had ever held his hand like this before. “And we never were.”

“It still feels like…” He broke off, unable to voice precisely what it felt like.

“Like they were part of the fight because of you.” Hermione continued for him. She spoke slowly, as if measuring her words, but with conviction. “But they weren’t. Every single one of us, and every person who was in the Battle, was there because we had our own personal stake in it. No matter what he might have said, Voldemort was never going to leave us alone even if you weren’t there. The people in Hogwarts were already there as hostages against their parents. Muggleborns were already being hunted down to be registered and accused and worse. You didn’t drag anyone into this, Harry, because Voldemort and his regime were already trying to hurt us. All you did – all we did, because we were no less part of it – was give people a better chance to fight back when, inevitably, Voldemort brought the danger to them.”

Harry sighed. They’d been through this whole song and dance before. He knew his friends and allies were always offended if he said it was his fault because they said it minimised their own decisions and their own reasons for fighting, but his enmity with Voldemort had always been so personal that it was hard to see it that way.

“Colin,” Hermione continued, a note of strain in her voice, “was a sixth year Gryffindor. Now, I don’t know if you remember yourself in sixth year, but I remember someone who couldn’t keep his nose out of anyone else’s business and was absolutely determined to be involved.” She tilted her head, so it hit the top of his gently, an affectionate gesture to take any sting out of her words. “He was responsible for his own decisions, and he had just as much stake in the Battle as us. He should have stayed home - of course he should have - but I don’t think anyone was really surprised that he didn’t. Not even Dennis.”

Harry tensed at Dennis’ name, but Hermione’s thumb kept sweeping its regular circles on his hand.

“You know as well as I do that Dennis is just angry at everything right now for Colin’s death, and the only difference is that you’re here and visible, so easier to blame than Voldemort, or the Death Eaters, or even Colin himself. And,” Hermione squeezed his hand a little tighter to get his attention, “even if he were right, and it was the DA sessions that made Colin recklessly believe that he could get through the Battle safely, that’s still not your fault.” She said the words fiercely, though still quietly. “You never told him that going to the DA would make him invincible. We all knew it didn’t. The entire point of it was to learn enough that we might have a chance to get away to safety if attacked, but everyone knew that, often, it’s not enough. And everyone went into the Battle knowing that there was a good chance we wouldn’t survive it, but it was too important not to try.”

She let out a shuddery breath and Harry gripped her hand tighter. Memories of the Battle were hard on them all. “He’ll come around.” Hermione said after a long moment. “He just needs time. But in the meantime, you’ve got to keep believing that it wasn’t your fault because it wasn’t. Unless you picked up your wand and cast the curse yourself or deliberately pointed the Death Eaters to anyone, you’re not responsible for anyone else’s actions.”

Harry didn’t say anything, but turned his face further into Hermione’s shoulder, resting his forehead there and trying in vain to stop the tears which wanted to spill out again from falling. With her other hand, she ruffled through his hair slowly, fingers catching in the knotty twists that never seemed to brush out. She huffed as her hand got stuck and Harry let out a wet snort too.

“Really, Harry, your hair is ridiculous.”

He let out an agreeing noise, knowing full well he couldn’t refute that.

“Do you ever brush it?” Her fingers kept stroking gently, even as she teased him.

“Keeps breaking the brushes.” He murmured back, startling her into a laugh. After a moment, he couldn’t help but join in too, some of the aching sadness bleeding away as the world became more solid around him. Harry lingered in the warmth of Hermione’s shoulder for a few seconds longer, but he was now becoming aware what an uncomfortable position he was sitting in, and of the coldness of the stone floor, so he dragged himself upright, blinking as he did into the light of the room.

It was an utter wreck and he had to grimace. The furniture wasn’t so much broken as it was kindling. What had once been chairs and desks were now slivers of wood no bigger than his palm, all piled up against the far walls, with odd bits of bent metal poking out. There were cracks in the stone tiles surrounding him, small crevices spreading out like lightning, and everything seemed to be covered in a thick layer of dust. “I don’t suppose a reparo will work on this.” He said, making a weak gesture with his free left hand.

Hermione turned to survey the damage. “Probably not.” She didn’t say anything else about it and Harry was guiltily glad. He was feeling bad enough about the destruction his magic had caused that he didn’t think anything she said about it could have made him feel better. “Madam Pomphrey is waiting outside for when you’re ready.” She told him, which didn’t really help either.

“She’s here?” Harry asked redundantly.

“Ron went and got her as soon as you left the common room.” She said. “You probably didn’t notice, but your magic was… Well, we could already feel it.”

Harry looked at her, alarmed. “I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?” His heart was frozen in his chest, stomach sick.

“No, no, not at all.” She reassured him quickly. “It was just…heavy, I suppose would be the best word. And you rattled the portraits quite a bit on the way out. But since you warned us what to look out for…”

Harry nodded. Ron and Hermione had both been diligent about learning the signs of Suppression Sickness worsening, the clearest of which was magic becoming uncontrolled.

“Probably for the best.” He agreed. Harry looked around the wrecked classroom again, grateful that this hadn’t been the Gryffindor Common Room, horrified that it could have been if he hadn’t managed to get himself away fast enough.

“Are you ready?” Hermione asked, her voice non-judgemental.

Harry let out a long breath through his nose. “Yeah.” He said climbing to his feet. Truthfully, he didn’t want to talk to Madam Pomphrey yet. He was embarrassed about how badly his control on his magic had slipped, but more than embarrassed, he was scared of it. “I reckon I probably need to talk to her.” He shook his legs out, where they’d gone stiff and numb, and pulled Hermione up by their still joined hands.

She looked at him with assessing eyes, but whatever she saw must have reassured her, because she nodded and started towards the door, clearing a path through the rubble with her wand.

Harry followed close behind, dreading the coming meeting, but fearing more the kind of damage he could accidently do if he lost his control like this again.

Chapter Text

It was becoming increasingly apparent, as Madam Pomphrey did an emergency session with Harry, that Hogwarts simply didn’t have the capacity for the kind of care that a couple of hundred traumatised teenage wixen needed. While she was trying to reassure the both of them that Harry wasn’t about to spiral out of control into a dark force of mass destruction, there was no one manning the Hospital Wing, a fact which visibly put her on edge and kept the guilty thoughts in Harry’s mind alive, prolonging both of their issues. Besides that, Harry was only one wizard, and while he might have been one of the more problematic students, there were bound to be many others in the castle who would need individual attention from the mediwitch at various points during the year, and Harry couldn’t see how she was meant to keep up with all of them and still be on duty in the ward. In truth, when he thought about it, he didn’t know how Hogwarts had ever gotten away with having only one mediwitch without some things slipping through the cracks. Perhaps it never had gotten away with it – he’d slipped through after all.

The prefects were doing their best to pick up the slack, but it wasn’t that simple. They were all teenagers themselves, the very oldest in their returning year just having turned nineteen, and had all been through various traumatic events. None of them had any training on how to handle the younger years, and they were all juggling their coursework as well. It had been the main topic of their first prefect meeting back. Certainly, no one had disagreed on the second week that every other week was too often – they now understood what the two head students had anticipated.

The teachers were trying too. McGonagall might have been mostly unreachable due to the never-ending stream of work she was wading through, but the Heads of Houses had their office doors open from early morning to late evening every day, when they weren’t teaching class. The other teachers too were available when they could be, but there was a steady stream of people needing their help, and they’d always been busy simply with their teaching roles. It was rapidly becoming clear that the situation was unsustainable.

“I don’t understand.” Padma said, that Friday evening, which they’d rescheduled the prefect meeting to in order to account for the Quidditch try-outs over the weekend. “This can’t have been how the school was being run in the past or these problems would have come up time and time again. Or at least something similar. The professors are completely overrun and there’s no support structure. Surely, there would have been complaints about it.”

There were agreements from around the prefects’ common room, where the lot of them surrounded a long conference table. It was polished dark wood, and Harry watched the reflections of his fingers as he drummed them absently. He couldn’t help but feel cynical about the point. After all, there had been many, many problems at Hogwarts over the years he’d attended, and not one of them had been fixed. He thought it seemed right on brand that they’d be abandoned to try and hold themselves together with minimal help.

Hermione nodded seriously from her place at the centre of the long table, facing the entrance. The parchment in front of her was already filled with notes. “Hogwarts has always had an unusually low number of staff per student while we’ve been here. I did some research, before first year, and I have to say I was confused when there were so few professors.”

Justin Finch-Fletchley nodded. “I was due to attend Eton, you know.” They did know. He’d brought it up a lot in first year, before he’d figured out that the magical-raised children had no idea what that meant. “So, I was well-prepared enough for a boarding school. But, generally in muggle boarding schools, there are far fewer students to teachers. Perhaps one to six, maybe a little more.”

The magical-raised looked to each other in surprise. That was, after all, very different to the situation in Hogwarts.

“What would the extra professors do?” Susan asked.

“Well,” Hermione looked thoughtful as always, “it’s actually rather odd that there’s only one professor, at most two, per subject. Normally, you’d have a few of them, so there could be two classes of the same subject going on at the same time, and the teachers wouldn’t have to teach every single class of that subject. There’s usually a head of that department, who does more of the organising. And positions like Head of House would be much more to do with monitoring that House, and less actually teaching. Certainly, there would be more than one nurse – mediwitch.” She explained quickly.

There was some noise around the room as people muttered their comments about that. Harry himself was intrigued. He had no idea what a muggle boarding school was supposed to be like, other than the little bits he overheard from Dudley’s time at Smeltings, but even in muggle primary school, there were more teachers than classes.

“Could Hogwarts afford it?” Oskar from Ravenclaw asked.

It was a good question. There must be a reason why Hogwarts didn’t have more staff. Harry had no idea how Hogwarts actually financed itself.

“Hogwarts: A History has a section on Hogwarts’ financials.” Anthony Goldstein said. Once again, Harry thought that he probably should have read it. Maybe he’d finally borrow Hermione’s copy. It seemed to have a lot of useful information. “The school is funded in part by government grant, tuition fees, charitable donation, excess crops from the Hogwarts’ fields and orchards, and some magical creature materials from the grounds. There may be more in the charter about fundraising.”

Hermione nodded, noting this down, but Neville paused the conversation from going further. “This sounds like something we should be bringing up with Headmistress McGonagall.” He said. “She’ll be able to tell us whether it’s possible or not, and what’s stopped Hogwarts from hiring more professors in the past.”

Neville had been doing an admirable job in the past few meetings of keeping the conversation sensible and on track. Hermione, for all her logic and adherence to the written word, was a dreamer when it came to her ideals, and often got too caught up in thinking about what she wanted to happen, rather than preparing the steps for how to get there. Neville, who was much more down to earth, was the voice of reason they all needed.

The meeting ended soon afterwards with them all in agreement – they couldn’t keep going as they were, and Hogwarts needed more help.

-

Saturday brought the Quidditch try-outs. Harry joined the rest of the hopefuls down at the pitch an hour after breakfast. Ginny had declared that no one from the previous line up was safe, herself excluded as Captain of course, and that they all had to re-audition for their positions. It was the sensible choice, especially since it had been over a year since the last time any of them played, but it meant that there was a large crop of potential players to get through on that Saturday morning. All the Houses were holding try-outs that weekend, with Gryffindor and Ravenclaw splitting Saturday, and Hufflepuff and Slytherin doing theirs Sunday. Ginny had mentioned over breakfast that she was going to be ruthless in getting through the auditions because they only had the pitch until lunch.

“Alright, you lot.” She yelled, as her tempus charm showed 10:00. “Shut it and gather round.”

The players drew closer to her, a loose semi-circle forming from the previous chattering scatter. They were all quiet quickly too – Ginny had too much of a reputation to be messed with, and no one wanted to jeopardise their position on the team through something as stupid as talking.

“Here’s how we’re going to do this.” She was yelling still to be heard by everyone at the back, so Harry, who’d been standing near her at the start, cast a low-powered sonorus at her. She nodded her thanks and continued. “We’re auditioning for all positions on the team and the reserves. Keepers, over there.” She gestured over to the left. “Chasers, there.” Now, just off to the side. “Beaters, here. And Seekers, on the right. If you’re trying out for more than one position, come and talk to me.”

Harry moved off to the right, after clapping Ron on the shoulder. He was looking a little nervous, but nothing like as bad as the first time he’d attended try-outs. At least there was no more McLaggen – he’d graduated after their sixth year. There were few Seekers. Despite being the role with the most attention and highest stakes, most players tended to go for Chaser. It was a more interesting role to actually play. There were only two others – a younger boy and girl he didn’t know.

“Alright?” He said, as he joined them.

They looked at him nervously. He supposed that to them, not only was he Harry Potter, famous vanquisher of dark lords, but also the returning Seeker. He tried to smile encouragingly.

“Yeah.” The girl ventured. She looked like she was in third or fourth year.

Harry nodded. “Is this your first try-outs?”

She nodded, and the boy nodded too.

“It’s not so bad.” He told them. “Most of the excitement is for the Chaser roles. For us, they usually just set a snitch loose and make us look for it, occasionally hit a bludger around to see if we’re paying attention.”

The boy paled at the mention of the bludger.

Neither of them said anything else. Ginny was still wrangling the few people who wanted to try out for more than one role, so Harry continued his one-sided conversation. “What are your names?” he asked them.

“I’m Natalie.” The girl, Natalie, said quietly. “Natalie McDonald, but you can call me Nattie if you want. Most people do.”

“Alright, Nattie, nice to meet you.”

She gave him a small smile, still visibly nervous.

“What about you?” He asked the quiet boy.

The boy looked like a deer in headlights. “Er, Euan Abercrombie.” He said eventually. “I’m, um, third year.”

“Nice.” Harry said. He tried to remember how the friendly members of the older years had talked to him when he was younger and nervous, but mainly remembered Oliver Wood telling him to catch the snitch or die trying, which he didn’t think would be particularly helpful. “What subjects did you pick?”

If possible, Euan’s eyes got wider. “I, uh, Care of Magical Creatures. And, um, Ancient Runes.”

Harry nodded. “Oh, I did Care. Not Runes, though, but Hermione said it was pretty great.”

“I like Runes.” Nattie added tentatively. “And Arithmancy, but Charms is my favourite. I’m in fourth year.” She added at the end, likely for Harry’s benefit.

At that point, Ginny called them all to order. “Alright, everyone.” She shouted, then recast the amplifying charm on herself. “We have seven for Chasers, five for Beaters, two for Keepers, and four for Seekers. Yes, I am including those of you who want to try more than one.” She confirmed, before anyone could protest that the numbers in their section were wrong. “We’ll start with Keeper and Chaser try-outs at the same time to start with. Two teams of three Chasers and a Keeper each, we’ll switch out the Chasers as we go. Everyone else, to the stands for now.”

Harry led his small group to the hidden stairs which led back up into the stands from the ground of the quidditch pitch. They took their seats on the front row, quickly joined by the Beater hopefuls. Harry looked curiously at the selection. It was an odd but welcome change to be back on this side of the team selection. He’d enjoyed being Captain, but if he were being honest, he enjoyed just being a player more. Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote were trying out again for their old spots, and Andrew Kirke and Jack Sloper were challenging them again. Privately, Harry hoped that they’d made some good improvements to their playing, because Kirke and Sloper’s previous try-outs had been lacklustre at best. Honestly, Peakes and Coote hadn’t been great either, but he knew some years, there were simply no better options.

Down on the field, Demelza Robins and Dean Thomas made up two of the seven Chaser hopefuls. Katie Bell had graduated, so they were the only two, aside from Ginny herself, who had been on Harry’s team. Dean Thomas hadn’t been as good as Katie, but he’d made for a fair substitute after Katie had been injured, so Harry was interested to see how he fared against the other players. The remaining five were drawn from the younger years. Surprisingly, the DA’s Nigel Wolpert was among them. He was weedier than the others, more of a Seeker’s build.

The other Keeper hopeful was a lanky boy Harry hadn’t met. He had the look of a teenager who’d recently hit a large growth spurt and hadn’t quite grown into it, all long limbs and knobbly joints. Harry could see him and Ron talking, and Ron seemed happy enough, if nervous, so hopefully it wouldn’t be anything like the last lot of Keeper trials.

Soon, they were all up in the air. Without the Beaters playing, this section of the try-outs was about watching the Chasers for throwing, catching, teamwork, and general flying, while the Keepers did their best to block their respective hoops. Ginny switched the team compositions every now and again, cycling the leftover Chaser in, and testing out player combinations.

Harry had noticed some of the hopefuls getting restless around him, so at some point he’d found himself commentating on what she was doing and looking for. As the ex-Captain, he probably had a clearer view of it than the others. No one told him to shut up, and occasionally someone threw in their own comment, so it was either more interesting than sitting in silence or everyone was too nervous of him to make him stop. “Ah, that’s the third time that Nigel’s fumbled it.” He said, as the boy in question dropped the ball, letting the other team take possession of the quaffle. “Aneesha Kaur’s very good at intercepting it – see how she reacted faster than any of the others – but watch now, she’s not so good at setting up passes with her teammates. Dean is much better placed than her to make a shot at the hoops – and about as good a shot – but she keeps going herself. A fair throw though, that almost went in. Slow response from the Keeper there – Blake, you said his name was? He’s good at covering the first two hoops, but he always flies a little too low for the highest…” 

“Alright!” Ginny called the trial “Keeper is easy enough – Ron, you’re on the team, Blake, you’re Reserve Keeper.” The boy in question looked disappointed but unsurprised. Ron had very obviously been the more experienced player. Ginny turned back to the Chasers. “Robins, you’re in. Kaur, you need to work on your team plays, but I reckon that we can train that into you, you’re also in.”

That one was more of a surprise to Harry. He might have gone for Dean.

“Dean,” Ginny addressed him, “you’re good, but not as fast. You still up for being a Reserve?”

He grinned and shrugged, not looking too bothered, “Sounds good to me.”

“We generally have two Reserve Chasers.” Ginny explained to the remaining hopefuls. “Lutterworth, you’re planning to trial for Beater and Barnsley for Seeker, so we’ll do those first before final decisions, alright?” A boy and girl nodded, and Ginny continued. “The rest of you, sorry, but you haven’t made the team this year. Better luck next time. Nigel, if you want to improve, you need to work on your coordination. Winn, you need speed and accuracy.”

With that said, Ginny ended the Chaser and Keeper try-outs, calling the Beater and Seeker hopefuls down. Lutterworth joined the group of four, while Barnsley, a short-haired girl who had been fast but missed openings during the Chaser games, joined Harry’s group.

“Right,” Ginny got their attention, “we’re doing this in a few parts. First, Beaters, we’re going to check each of you with bludgers on the ground, so there’s less chance of someone getting their brains knocked out because they weren’t used to live bludgers. Seekers, over there, we’ll be with you shortly.” She motioned them to the side of the pitch and handed out bats to the Beaters, before opening the quidditch case and wrestling a couple of bludgers out. “You lot will be trying to hit the bludgers to the opposite side of the pitch. Avoid the Seekers and each other.”

Instructions given, Ginny threw the two writhing balls of rage away from herself and stepped back quickly. The bludgers swerved in the air, turning back towards the Beater hopefuls. Lutterworth, the only one who hadn’t auditioned for Beater before, looked particularly wide-eyed, but managed to get a decent hit in, flinging a bludger far away. Peakes also connected solidly, the bludger flying in a more controlled line away. Sloper, when one came for him, did manage to hit it, but his angle was wonky, sending it hurtling upwards, so Coote had a rather difficult time keeping it from coming for his head. Kirke, on his turn, hit the bludger with a resounding smack, but it veered alarmingly close to the group of Seekers.

They kept it up for a few minutes before Ginny called it to a halt. “Sloper, Kirke, thanks for your time, but you have not made the team this year. Peakes, Coote, and Lutterworth, for the next part, you’re going to be keeping the bludgers away from the Seekers, while they race for the snitch.”

That had Harry’s attention again. It was interesting to see the rest of the trials and how Ginny was building her team, but this was the part he was really interested in. They gathered round, mounting their brooms after Ginny had released the snitch, and waited for her signal. Harry had of course tried to track the snitch as it flew, helped immensely by the fact that he was now wearing the correct glasses prescription, but he lost it some ten seconds in.

“Seekers, go!” Ginny set them off and Harry shot up into the sky.

It felt incredible to be back in the air. The wind whipped through Harry’s hair as he flew, lashing cold against his skin. He took a vantage point high above the pitch, beginning a loop around in motions that felt familiar even though it had been over a year since he’d last played. It was odd to be tracking the motions of three Seekers instead of just one, but the lack of other players causing confusion in the air more than made up for it. No sign of the snitch yet, but Harry kept his eyes peeled.

“Beaters, go!” Ginny’s voice rang out. “Coote, you’re attacking, Lutterworth and Peakes, you’re defending!”

The three Beaters were soon in the air as well, toting their bats.  The bludgers were let loose again a moment later, hurtling towards the circling Seekers.

Harry fell back on well-practised motions, keeping half an eye on what was happening with the bludgers, spinning out of the way of one poorly aimed hit from Peakes, while looking for that glint of gold. Euan getting knocked off his broom by a bludger made him wince, but he didn’t have time to keep paying attention to that, because he’d seen a glimpse of that elusive gold on the other side of the pitch, about ten metres or so from the goal posts.

Harry tried not to react, his better mind overcoming the immediate instinct to dive towards it at full speed. Both remaining Seekers, Barnsley and Nattie, were closer than him to the snitch, and they’d both been keeping a keen eye on him for any sudden movements. Instead, Harry continued on the loop of the pitch he was making, edging steadily towards the snitch, while his hands stayed tense on the broom handle in order to pick up speed on a moment’s notice should it become necessary.

He was most of the way over when he caught Barnsley exploding into motion a way behind him and started his own rapid acceleration in response. The time for stealth was clearly over, and the race for the snitch was on. His firebolt shot forwards, speed making his eyes water for a moment, but Harry lost none of his focus. Here, on a broom, charging full tilt towards the snitch, he was in his element.

The snitch began evasive manoeuvres as he drew near it, tipping left, then right, then rising straight upwards. Harry followed it with single-minded focus. Through more experience than actual vision, Harry could feel Barnsley right behind him, and Nattie wasn’t too far away either, having caught onto the snitch chase. The snitch suddenly dropped in height and Harry followed without thought, pointing his broom almost vertical in a steep dive. Gravity aiding his broom-powered dive, it was only a couple of seconds before Harry was catching up with the small golden ball again. He stuck out an arm, preparing to reach out for it, before catching a flash of black in the corner of his eye and retracting his arm quickly, twisting his broom in a tight corkscrew to avoid a well-hit bludger from Lutterworth, who was on the offensive now.

Harry emerged unscathed, having narrowly dodged it, but from the cry of pain behind him, either Barnsley or Nattie hadn’t been so lucky. Still, while the bludger had cost Harry a little speed, he’d kept track of the snitch, and with one final burst, managed to clasp his fingers around it, before pulling up from the ever-approaching ground. It was a rush like no other, exhilaration and adrenaline thundering through his veins. Harry slowed from his dive with a half-loop around the pitch, grinning from the thrill of it as much as his actual success. There was some cheering in the stands from the players who’d stayed to watch and their friends, a pale imitation but welcome reminder of an actual game.

Ginny whistled, drawing them all down. “Alright, everyone. I think I’ve seen enough.” She took the snitch from Harry as she spoke, putting it carefully back into the Gryffindor practice case, and wrestled the bludgers in with help from Lutterworth and Peakes. “Harry, you’re our Seeker.” He grinned. “Lutterworth and Coote, you’re our Beaters. Peakes, you’re Reserve. That means that you’re Chaser Reserve, Barnsley, and you’re Seeker Reserve, MacDonald.” She pointed to each person as she spoke. “Abercrombie, thanks for trying out, you’ve got some skill, but you need to work on spatial awareness on the pitch. The rest of you, I’ll be talking to you shortly about practice times.” 

And like that, the Gryffindor Quidditch team for the ‘98/’99 school year had been picked. Harry trudged back to the castle with the rest of the newly formed team, tired and slightly sore in muscles that hadn’t been used since the last time he’d flown a broom, but utterly elated.

-

McGonagall, when they managed to schedule a meeting with her about the problems within Hogwarts the next week, let out a world-weary sigh. “We’ve been saying it to the Board for years, decades even. Head of House was never supposed to be combined with a deputy role, nor a core subject teaching post. Albus asked me to do so temporarily, while he found someone new, and then the Board of Governors declared that we were functioning well enough without a separate person, so why hire more? Of course, we put in complaints and requests over the years, but the budgeting was hard enough anyway. I honestly don’t see how we could afford so many more members of staff.”

Hermione frowned hard at this, shuffling through her notes. She and Anthony had spent most of the week preparing their arguments and researching both Hogwarts’ historical fundraising and the changes in Britain’s magical economy over the years. Harry wasn’t sure why precisely he was also in this meeting, but presumed it was for moral support. Neville’s presence, though he had been less involved in research, made much more sense.  

“Unless the grants have changed massively over the years, Hogwarts shouldn’t be struggling so much.” Hermione began. “Even taking into account the recessions caused by the two wars with Voldemort and the previous one with Grindelwald, Hogwarts’ charter claims a generous percentage of government taxation.”

“That may have been then.” McGonagall replied, shaking her head, “But the money covers much less now.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Anthony claimed. The scowl on his face was clear and he cleared his throat apologetically when his tone came out combative. “Sorry, Headmistress. What I mean is that Hogwarts’ charter accounts for fluctuations in the economy, including how inflation or other economical events might influence the value of money in the future. It’s a truly impressive contract, far ahead of its time. The rumour goes that it was Ravenclaw herself who initially negotiated it, and then a later Headmaster affirmed it when the Ministry was formed.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr Goldstein.” McGonagall was beginning to sound exasperated, “This is the financial state of Hogwarts as I know it.”

Anthony continued to look vaguely mutinous but didn’t respond.

Hermione had tilted her head in a manner which Harry recognised as calculating. “Would we be able to take a look at any of the financials?” She asked. “It might be nothing, but maybe we can get a better idea of what could be possible.” Her tone was too casual for Harry to believe it. He knew when she was after something.

McGonagall let out a gusty sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.” She said. “I doubt the Board would be keen on me handing out Hogwarts’ confidential parchmentwork to students, but the Head Girl and Boy do have some input on the management of the school, so I might be able to slip it past them. I doubt there’s anything you can do, but if you’re so set on some part of the charter, well, best of luck to you all.”

Hermione’s returning smile was sharp, and she hurried the rest of them out of the Headmistress’ office before McGonagall could change her mind.

Anthony continued to grumble in the corridors, once they passed the gargoyle which guarded the office. “It doesn’t make sense! Hogwarts shouldn’t be strapped for money unless it were sinking it all into something we don’t know about. The contract was very clear.”

“Exactly.” Hermione agreed. The light in her eyes was vicious. “Which means that we need to find out precisely where that money is going.”

Harry himself sighed, even as a part of him perked up in interest – this was sounding increasingly like a mystery to solve, and gods knew he couldn’t leave one of them well enough alone.  

Chapter Text

Harry had had to take more time to himself over the following week. He’d been swept up in the excitement of classes, new projects, reforming the DA, and had happily used the distractions to ignore his very real problems. It wasn’t just his own feelings that Harry had been avoiding – battered on all sides as he was by reminders of the war – but the knowledge that he had a different future waiting for him. When he stopped to think, it threatened to crush him, coming to him at random times of day and intruding into his other activities. It all felt so pointless sometimes – why was he trying so hard to do his Herbology project right when in a couple more years, he wouldn’t be properly part of this world anymore? Did his NEWT scores matter when he’d never be able to use them for a career? Was it right to make new friendships when he would soon be ripped away from them?

Harry hadn’t realised how badly he’d been avoiding anything related to the Underworld since the autumn equinox until he’d caught sight of Helena Ravenclaw gliding through a wall near the Charms corridor. She hadn’t seen him – hadn’t sought him out since their conversation – but just the glimpse of her blood-stained skirts had filled him with an unwanted sense of guilt. Despite his promise to her, Harry hadn’t properly looked into how to help her pass on. He’d looked at his books half-heartedly, trying to decide which looked the most promising in terms of answers, but had always found some excuse not to open them. It wasn’t hard; he had plenty of ongoing projects, so it was easy enough to justify putting off the reading once more. Even now, he found himself itching to dig into the mystery of why Hogwarts was struggling so badly financially, and even though that was also a worthy task, Harry knew that his reason for looking into it was to avoid the thoughts of his impending immortality.

His immortality, and his future place in the Underworld, were making Harry uncharacteristically indecisive. Usually, he was quick to adapt – too quick to make decisions, some might say – but he swung from having mostly accepted it to outright denying it, from being furious about it to being depressed. It was in trying to push away the clinging thoughts that tried to convince Harry that everything he was doing was pointless, that Harry realised he’d never actually taken the time to think about it. Every time his thoughts and doubts had cropped up, Harry had quashed them, focusing on what he was doing at the time or simply dismissing them. Over time, this had built up to a tight knot of tumultuous feeling that kept him on edge, refusing to be pushed down anymore, and preventing his restless magic from settling.

If Harry were being honest, the last thing he wanted to do right now was spend some time poking at his messy feelings, but how badly his magic had slipped after the thing with Dennis had scared him. Though that had been mainly based on his lingering feelings of guilt about surviving the Battle in the place of others, he couldn’t deny that his constant half-worrying about the godly side wasn’t helping. So, begrudgingly, Harry collected the magical books Hecate had given him – which had somehow spilled out of the sealed bag he’d placed them in, though hadn’t yet managed to work their way out of his trunk – and brought them out to read in his usual place just beyond the wards.

It was raining, reasonably lightly for now, but dark grey clouds lingered on the horizon, threatening a downpour. Harry ignored them, umbrella charm held above him as he walked the familiar path up to Hogwarts’ back gate. He considered drying off the plants before laying his cloak down but didn’t know any drying charms which wouldn’t damage the leaves, so instead made his cloak impervious to water before sitting on it. The rain-proof charms over his head were the work of moments to set up, a well-practiced motion in the Scottish countryside.

Harry shuffled through the books again, setting aside the ones which weren’t directly related to the Underworld, like the bestiary, treatise on plants, and book on the Overworld gods. He frowned at the remaining books. He probably needed to read them all before setting foot in the actual Underworld again, which Hecate had told him would be during his winter holidays. It was mid-October now, leaving him only a couple of months longer. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be too hard to read four or five books before the end of December, but with how busy he was and the way he kept putting it off… He tentatively picked up the one on the structure and function of the Underworld. He’d read a little of during the trials, when bored, so he knew it was as good a start as any.

Harry paused before he opened the cover – he’d come out here to think about the whole gods thing properly, not actually to read; was this just him trying to distract himself again? He put the book down again and tugged his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them as he stared unseeingly at the grass in front of him. He'd done a lot of meditation exercises recently. Harry wasn’t very good at them, because his head was so busy, but he’d been making an attempt to get to grips with how his mind worked. Right now, even surrounded by the quiet noises of the outside which he’d come to enjoy, Harry’s mind was roiling.

It just wasn’t fair, was the first clear thought he managed to wrangle out of the mess. For some reason – hopeless naivete, perhaps – Harry had thought that once Voldemort was dead, his part was done. Once he was no longer the Chosen One, he could be Just Harry, and could live a relatively normal life with his loved ones. That had been the optimistic part of him. The rest of him had said that once Harry was dead, at least that way he’d be finished with it all. The thought had brought him a horrible kind of relief all through the war. He would fight Voldemort with all he had – because Voldemort was too awful for Harry to ever let continue wreaking havoc if he had any way of stopping him – but if he failed, or if Voldemort brought Harry down with him, at least Harry could then find peace with his parents and Sirius.

The mess with Voldemort had never been fair, and Harry still struggled to swallow the resentment of everyone who’d pitched him, a teenager and student, up against the worst dark lord in their history, when the year before they’d been all two happy to slander him for trying to warn them that he’d returned. But Voldemort, in a dreadful kind of way, had made sense to Harry. Everything Harry had ever been in the wizarding world had been warped by the dark wizard – first by the prophecy before he was even born, then entering the magical world as the Boy Who Lived, and then continuing to try and survive Voldemort. Harry could almost feel the way that their fates had revolved around each other, the way their histories mirrored each other but with such crucial changes, the awful symmetry of their trajectories. Harry, however much he hated the idea, had built so much of his identity around being the opposition to Voldemort, and Voldemort, in turn, had spent his every moment since hearing the prophecy centred around Harry.

It had never been fair. It was a war he’d been fighting since he was too young to understand what war was, his position declared before he’d even been born. He’d had a mortal enemy out for his death before he’d ever heard of the man. Harry hadn’t even lasted a full day in the wizarding world before he’d met his nemesis – hidden though he’d been under Professor Quirrell’s turban. But, Harry had come to accept, if reluctantly, that Fate had bound them together inextricably, two halves of a great and terrible whole. Defeating Voldemort should have been the end, Harry thought furiously. He’d accomplished his destiny, fulfilled the prophecy, and given almost all of himself that he had to give in the process. It should have been over.

This, the pending immortality and the reveal of a whole other world of gods and monsters, was something new and extra that they had no business heaping on Harry’s already tired shoulders. He didn’t want immortality – he never had. The thought of leaving his loved ones behind eventually - Hermione and Ron, the Weasleys, Andromeda, and, gods, Teddy – made him feel sick to the stomach, a tight feeling in his chest which might have been a sob or a scream. He’d been ready to leave them behind when he walked into that forest to meet Voldemort, but with the understanding that it was necessary and that he’d see them again later, maybe. This was him being wrenched away from them for something once more beyond his control.

The worst part was, Harry thought it might have been better, somehow, if he’d been snatched from the wizarding world straight away. It might have felt more like an extended death then – in a world beyond the reach of his living friends, even if not the one he might have expected. Now, he was finally, finally, beginning to live, but with an immovable deadline in only a couple more years. Harry was living on borrowed time, and the knowledge of that threatened to smother out all the joy he experienced during it. He’d tried to tell himself that he should be grateful for the extra time, should make the most of it, but he couldn’t help but blame the Underworld for cutting it short.

It didn’t help, he realised, that Harry had no idea what was expected from him as a spirit or god or whatever it was that he was supposed to become. He had only the vaguest of ideas about what gods were, let alone what they did or how he was supposed to fit into it. The future loomed before him as a great unknown, and Harry felt the loss of control keenly. He’d finally escaped his own prophecy mostly intact, finally understood the nature of Dumbledore’s machinations yet chosen to see them through, and now there was a whole other force seeking to control and change his existence, and one which he didn’t think he had any idea of how to fight. What could a wizard do against a god? Immortal as he may have been, Voldemort had ultimately just been a man who’d done monstrous things, and Harry had defeated him with more luck than anything else. Harry could finally recognise the clawing feeling in his gut as powerlessness.

Oddly, it was this realisation that set Harry onto a more useful path. If he didn’t understand what was going to be expected from him, what he was to become, how he would compare to others, and whether he had any power in this situation, he’d just have to learn. Hecate may have given him the books to stop him from making stupid mistakes, but what she’d actually handed to him was a treasure trove of information on how he might be able to take some degree of control back for himself. Once he had that, he could begin to work out how to make sure that, whatever happened, he would never be ripped away from his loved ones again. Harry had always performed better with a definitive goal and something to defend, and now he had both. Determination hardening into shape and thoughts clear for now, Harry looked again at the book he’d put down. It was thick, a little daunting to a slow reader like him, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him this time.

The first thing Harry learned was that, although they were based in the Underworld, chthonic deities could walk the Overworld like any other god. The only ones who were truly restrained to the Underworld were the gods of the Underworld’s geography, the primordial god Tartarus, and Persephone during winter. Underworld spirits, like the torch-bearing nymphs, could technically leave, but rarely did since their power depleted to almost nothing in the Overworld. The other gods left the Underworld at their own discretion. Some, like Makaria or Achlys, almost never ventured into the Overworld, while others like Thanatos could rarely stay. The ferryman of the dead, Charon, was always moving between the living world and the dead; Nyx completed her daily cycle, rising into the sky to wrap the earth in night and sinking back into the Underworld when Hemera brought day; Melinoe was said to walk the earth every night with her train of ghosts. All of these were based in the Underworld, but others, like Hermes the psychopomp and Hypnos, spent most of their time Above, only coming Below to complete a task. Harry’s own adoptive mother, he learned, stayed in the Underworld during winter, to do her duty as Persephone’s handmaiden, but went freely between the two during the rest of the year, based on which world was better for the magic she was performing.

It was a relief to know that he wouldn’t be trapped down there forever. Until he’d started reading this section, Harry hadn’t even considered that he might be stuck in the Underworld permanently and never see the light of day again. The thought of it was alarming. He didn’t know what his role in the Underworld was supposed to eventually be, but he hoped it would be one of the ones which required him to spend more time on the surface. The main factor in whether he could go to the Overworld seemed to be whether he would be a god or a spirit. After all, Harry certainly wasn’t a part of the Underworld geography, nor was he kept in the Underworld by breaking their rules, so the only reason that he should struggle to go Above again would be if he didn’t have the power. Harry had never been one to seek out power for power’s sake, but in the name of his loved ones, there was little that he wouldn’t do. For now, he had a new research project to complete: how do you influence whether you become a spirit or a god?

-

Harry ended up being very glad that he’d asked Hermione to help him with his schedule. He had so many projects going this year that he absolutely knew that he would have forgotten something or crashed and burned if it hadn’t been written out in tidy writing. He was at the end stages of his alchemy research for Herbology; the DA was running twice a week; he needed to research the divine world; he was helping Hermione and Anthony with the Hogwarts budget investigation; he had Quidditch practice three mornings a week; the prefects were all working hard to try and keep Hogwarts peaceful and functioning; he had his regular healing sessions and occlumency practice; he was constantly trying to avoid the hexes thrown at him in the halls by people who blamed him for something or other (easy enough, given his shields, but a pain to track them all down and hand out the required detentions), but also the awful hero-worship from others; and that was on top of the ordinary, gruelling pace of coursework, as their teachers tried to prepare them for the NEWT exams.

Quite frankly, Harry had never looked forward to the winter holidays more in his life, and that was even with the knowledge that Hecate was planning to kidnap him down to the Underworld. The phrase “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” was morbidly applicable. Thankfully, Harry was able to tick two of those tasks off within the same week, after a library binge with Neville.

The first realisation was nothing much to do with the book Harry had been reading on the mind arts, and everything to do with the devil’s snare Neville was doodling on his parchment at the time, instead of writing his Charms essay. Harry had been watching the leafy limbs come to life on the parchment, following Neville’s quill around and trying to wrap it up and strangle it, despite the fact that they couldn’t reach beyond the parchment surface. Still, Neville gamely let the vines pretend, leaving the nib of his quill in place when ‘caught’, until the inky vines were satisfied and let go again. It reminded Harry of first year, in the third-floor corridor. It had been incredibly hard to follow Hermione’s advice and not panic, instinctive reflexes screaming at him to fight back against his attacker. They would have been done for if Hermione hadn’t remembered the sunlight spell.

At that point, Harry smacked his head into the table. He was an idiot. He’d been searching through all these different books about Alchemy and Potions and had forgotten the very important fact that any spell for something reasonably simple most likely already existed. He’d done a huge amount of reading into how to trap and isolate sunlight, while the sunlight charm had been taught to them in first year Herbology, as a lumos variant, quite literally the first spell they’d ever done in Charms. Of course, he’d have to check if that’s what the charm actually did, but given the way it was noted as a defence against devil’s snare, which didn’t care much about other artificial light, Harry was betting he was correct about lumos solem creating alchemical sunlight.

He found it in a book on basic charm variants and was simultaneously pleased and enraged to be proven right. Even better and worse, there, among the list of other lumos variants (some of which looked very interesting, and Harry would have to give them a try later), was lumos lunam, the moonlight spell. By this point, Harry was confident in his ability to enchant an object with the two charms, so that the charms held even when he wasn’t actively there and casting them, so all he had to do now was put the two moly plants into separate, dark areas, place the enchanted item above each one, and then make sure that no other light touched them while he watered them. The third moly, the control, could simply be left near the window with Neville’s and Ron’s plants.

Ultimately, Harry decided he was pleased that he’d found a solution and could wrap up his Alchemy research, even though it had actually been very interesting, and had helped him understand concepts in Charms, Transfiguration, and Potions too. It was one thing that he could tick off his ever-growing list of commitments. He still felt like a fool for forgetting about the sunlight charm – and not realising that maybe, some wix in the past might have had the need for artificial sunlight – but he’d had a pretty good time looking into it.

In a much better mood, Harry returned to the mind arts text. It was one that had been heavily referenced in a couple of the other texts, so Harry had decided to seek it out once he’d finished those. His occlumency, as it was, was passable, but Harry still felt he was struggling much more than he was supposed to. All the books made clearing your mind sound easy, the work of a moment, but Harry had to sit and struggle through ages of meditation before his mind was even partially calm. He felt that he could probably throw someone out of his mind reasonably well – though he didn’t have a legilimens to practice with, so he couldn’t say for sure – but he knew there was no way that he’d be able to successfully hide or control his thoughts if someone caught him by surprise. Oddly, this was the part that all the books made sound easy, much easier than blocking someone out, so Harry was frustrated with not knowing what he was doing wrong.

He found out later that week, about halfway through the book he’d borrowed. It was an aside, barely a mention, but for the first time that Harry had read, the text had emphasised that occlumency was a magical discipline. The section had been talking about how mind arts differed in their presentation between different magical beings and had commented on how muggles were unable to learn it, due to their lack of innate magic. Harry, upon reading this, was confused, because he didn’t see how magic was involved. After all, wasn’t it essentially all meditation and willpower? Apparently not. Harry wanted to scream into his pillow as he went on to read that occlumency was supposed to involve using magic to clear the mind. Most wixen and magical beings, the text went on to say, used their innate magic by instinct in their minds, directing their willpower and magic as one.

It took a few tries, but once Harry knew that he was supposed to be using magic, he could feel the way it washed over his thoughts, blanketing them and forming a shield like a ward around his mind. The urge to scream was still present, though muffled under the mind ward, and Harry had to take a few deep breaths so as not to lose his concentration. It was supposed to be this easy? He felt cheated, almost grieving, over every horrible, painful occlumency lesson with Snape, every hour he’d poured over books and pamphlets trying to understand, every time he’d sat and tried so hard to calm his mind and thought that it was somehow his fault. Nowhere, in any of them, had said that he was supposed to be using magic for this.

Harry collapsed back in his bed, staring at the ceiling above him. The whole thing stank of the general wix’s inability to conceive that anything could be achieved without the use of magic. Even as an adult, eight years into knowing he was a wizard, Harry still wasn’t a proper part of their community, nor did he understand the things that they took to be implicit. It was frustrating and isolating. Harry pushed the book away from him and swept his magic through his mind again, clearing through the irritation like sweeping up autumn leaves. He wondered how many other things he was still missing – things that he thought he’d understood – even though he was trying his best to learn them now.

Harry had been doing well in his classes. His revision over the summer, and putting more than minimal effort into his classwork, had rapidly paid off, raising his A-EE average to predominantly EEs and Os. He still struggled more on his written coursework, with a tendency to lose focus on longer answers and mixing words up when he wasn’t careful, but his practical scores bumped him up each time. He’d thought he was doing well, that he was finally understanding magic, but if nothing else, this proved that he still had a long way to go. That was fine though. Harry had built his life on overcoming insurmountable odds. At least, this was a challenge he’d chosen for himself. It might take more work, more than he’d known when he’d first started trying to catch up, but one way or another, Harry was going to become a wizard he could be proud of.

Chapter Text

Harry wasn’t sure the Slytherins would ever accept him fully, but he liked to think he’d established himself well enough as someone who would answer questions if younger years were stuck on homework or intervene in a fight in the corridors. For the most part, fighting fizzled out once it was clear that neither party could land much of a blow on the other, and tended to devolve into shouting – which drew the professors quickly – or a physical scuffle on the floor, which most wixen weren’t very good at. Harry, as the leader of the DA, and thus well known for his skill in Defence, was able to break most of these up within a matter of moments. Still, it was disheartening to find the same few culprits at it again.

Some of the grievances were settled reasonably easily, as with Harper and Portman. Upon asking the House Elves, it turned out that Portman’s memory orb had been among Lucille Harper’s belongings when she died, and knowing they were stolen, the House Elves had collected all the objects that belonged to other people for safekeeping. Not only was Portman’s orb returned to him, but Leon Harper took it on himself to track down and return the rest to their owners. Portman himself had been surprisingly helpful in this, talking to others in his House when they refused to see Harper, and though the boys couldn’t be described as friends, Harry had seen them nod to each other in passing in the corridors.

Others were harder to work with. Blood supremacy still ran rife around the school, but was particularly concentrated in Slytherin House, where the old families had indoctrinated their children into believing that their lives were worth more than other people’s because of their long magical heritage. Harry had earned a surprising amount of goodwill from what he’d revealed in their common room in that first week – even more from the way that he and his friends had readily accepted the Slytherins into the DA without commenting on it – but even that was put to the test when he refused to hear slurs and pureblood supremacism in his presence. The Slytherin trio backed him up, running Slytherin warmly but firmly, and though the perpetrators quieted – and some of the more moderate among them seemed to be really considering their views – Harry had the feeling that they were simply biding their time for now.

The worst of the fighting came surprisingly from the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. From what Harry had been able to gather, the Houses had had very different internal experiences throughout the year that the Death Eaters had held Hogwarts. In Slytherin, the dark families and allies had held a majority, which had looked wider than it was because of how vocal they were. The others had long seen the way in which the winds were blowing and had mostly managed to keep their heads down around their outspoken and privileged peers. Of course, that hadn’t always been enough, but there had been more than enough targets in other Houses to sate the aggression of those who wanted someone to pick on. Now, the light supporters and the neutral were the dominant political ideology, and though there were those who missed the power and privilege that had been given to them by the Death Eaters, Slytherins were nothing if not adaptable.

Gryffindor had been the opposite – the most vocal of Harry’s own House had been on their side, even though half of the residents had kept quiet during the Carrows’ reign over the castle. Those members of the House who did support the former Dark Lord – who certainly did exist – were outnumbered badly enough not to flaunt it. Gryffindors, after all, were brash enough to fight them, despite the punishment that would have resulted. Harry wasn’t blind to the hateful way some of his own House’s eyes lingered on him, but now more than ever, there would be stiff repercussions for them, so Harry found himself wary but not paranoid.

Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, on the other hand, hadn't had one side with a decisive majority over the other. The supporters of the dark side and the light side counted roughly the same, and the number of people who had taken no particular side and simply wanted to live through the war far outnumbered both of them. Somehow, this created much more tension within their Houses even than the rapid reversal of hierarchy the Slytherins had experienced. The Carrows had sewn discord in the students with their handing out of favours for favours, which had only festered in the summer months. Students could avoid the other Houses, but there was no avoiding your own House, and the yearmates whom you may have betrayed just as they’d stabbed you in the back. Everyone being enclosed in one space together, even one as large as a magical castle, was an explosion waiting to happen. Or rather, an explosion happening all the time, in many different ways, between many different people.

In an unprecedented move, the Head of Houses had begun calling on the final year prefects to manage detentions, because they were too overrun with their other work. This, naturally, led to an increase in work among the prefects, as they all had to juggle their responsibilities and sometimes pass them down to other year groups, making everyone stressed and unhappy. Harry was certainly feeling the strain, as he tried his hardest to keep up with everything. He found himself having to abandon anything that wasn’t strictly scheduled in his planner – like the Gryffindor monthly tea party and the fortnightly Slytherin House meeting – in favour of simply keeping himself afloat.

Hermione, who was beginning to look a little as she had done in third year, when she was keeping to a ridiculous timetable with her timeturner, seemed to be fuelling herself on rage and tea alone, as she threw every spare moment she had into her research with Anthony Goldstein.

They’d managed to track down a copy of Hogwarts’ original charter, as well as copies of every legitimate amendment there were (of which there were very few, since the Hogwarts Charter was incredibly extensive and most of the potential amendments had been refused as obvious power grabs from one group or another). Through some delicate finagling, diplomacy, and only the most exquisitely veiled of threats, they’d also managed to get their hands on the Ministry’s laws and decrees regarding education. There was a table in the prefects’ common room dedicated to their research. Or rather, it had started as a table, and was now a pinboard occupying an entire wall, with notes strewn about in managed chaos on a cluster of tables below it. Harry and the other prefects knew not to touch anything on pain of inventive hexes.

“There’s nothing!” Hermione exploded one day.

Harry and Ron had followed her to the prefects’ common room during the lunch hour, after they’d all scoffed down a portion. Harry was sitting on the long, central table, while Ron sat by Hermione, rubbing her back.

“We’ve been through everything.” Hermione continued, dragging her fingers through her hair viciously. They snagged, and Ron reached up, gently detangling the curls and smoothing them back into place. “There’s been no change to Hogwarts’ income, and we’ve worked out estimates for all the school’s bills and such, and they simply don’t add up.”

“Have the Board agreed to let you see the expenses yet?” Harry asked.

“No.” She scowled. “I’ve asked, Neville’s asked, Anthony’s asked, Headmistress McGonagall has asked, but they won’t hear a word of it. We’re completely stonewalled at each turn. The Headmistress is starting to get angry because they won’t even give the information to her for her own private use.”

Ron scoffed. “Like that doesn’t stink of corruption.”

Hermione nodded. “It’s looking increasingly like the only answer. Somewhere between the bank and Hogwarts, there’s a leak, but the Board won’t answer anything about it.”

Harry tilted his head in thought. “Well, if the Board won’t say anything, what about the bank?”

Hermione went to reply and then stopped. “Well, I-” A considering light came into her eyes. “Maybe. I still have some contacts from over the summer. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask them a few questions…” Quickly, she brought out a new sheet of parchment, headed it with ‘Gringotts’, and began writing an almost incomprehensible stream of thoughts in her spiky handwriting.

“Alright, you can send your letter, or whatever it is you’re doing, later.” Ron said, ever the keeper of common sense among them, “For now, we’ve got Defence.”

They all grimaced. DADA continued to be mostly a waste of time, even though the professor had lost some of his obnoxious bravado as the weeks went on. There was just enough content to make them show up still and not stage a larger protest, but every scrap of viable information was coached in enough Ministry propaganda and devotion to law enforcement to put them all on edge. Professor Barnaby, it seemed, had actually re-read his textbooks after they’d started the DA sessions up again, so his lessons were less rife with mistakes, but he more or less parroted the textbook, with the odd grand tale thrown in from his, apparently illustrious, career as an Auror. There was no point asking him any clarification questions, because he’d just repeat the textbook’s answer almost word for word each time and look at the offending student as if they were the stupid one, or simply move on. He didn’t even pretend to answer the questions of the Slytherin students or those from traditionally dark families, and none of them bothered to put their hands up at this point. Most people saved up any questions they had to speak to Harry, Ron, or Hermione after class.

Worse for Harry personally, it was the staring. It had been reasonably subtle at the start of the year, and Harry couldn’t point at a particular time that it had gotten worse, but it had escalated to the point that the professor spent probably half of the lesson looking at Harry and his friends. There was often a look on his face, which Harry recognised from the many others who stared at him the same way, of seeing Harry and having him not measure up to the image of him they had in their head. Harry tried to ignore it, took it as an unfortunate consequence of being a celebrity figurehead for the war, but he could feel the man’s eyes on him like a clinging film of oil every lesson.

Perhaps it would have been easier if the professor were much worse. If he yelled at Harry or hurt him like Umbridge, Harry could hate him in peace; if he was as incompetent as Lockhart, he could ignore him completely. Instead, Harry was stuck in a kind of uneasy truce with the professor, where Professor Barnaby mostly didn’t comment on how Harry and his friends had unofficially taken over the teaching of DADA within Hogwarts, and Harry put up with the staring and Auror glory tales. Even the comments he did make had changed uncomfortably in tone, from vaguely offended huffing to a strange almost-praise, adulatory tones saying, “Leading and teaching the other students - what else could we expect of our boy saviour?”. Harry shuddered every time the professor came out with a new variation, oily words matching oily gaze, all the worse for being horribly embarrassing in front of everyone else.

They trudged into the classroom a few minutes before the bell would ring. The three found their habitual desks near the middle of the classroom, away from any of the Ministry posters which lined the walls in their likenesses. Harry sat in the middle, with Ron and Hermione on either side. They’d split up, at times, in the early classes, while Harry was still trying to get to know the Slytherin prefects and Hermione, at various points, had wanted to be near someone she was coaching in theory, while Ron sometimes enjoyed goofing off with Seamus and Dean. However, that had quickly come to an end as the staring continued and the dark emotions in it had increased whenever Harry was sitting with or talking to one of the Slytherins. Harry’s friends, ever protective, had closed ranks immediately. Susan and Hannah sat in front of them, sometimes with Ernie and Terry, who’d formed a fast friendship, while Anthony typically sat behind them with Mandy. Despite Harry’s protests that the professor seemed mostly harmless, none of them would hear it, simply forming a wall around him and expanding the betting pool.

Today’s lesson was supposed to be a review of inferi, which they’d glanced over in sixth year, but were now supposed to cover in more detail.

“You have seen, of course, our theme for the term, is none other than the very darkest of arts, that is, Necromancy.” The professor curled his lip at the word, a look of utter disgust on his face. “These foulest of magics are pursued by dark wizards, usually looking to find a way to immortality or inflict a deathless weapon upon their foes. Of course, none find immortality – it’s pure stupidity to believe it’s even possible, but how can we possibly fathom how dark wizards think?” The professor shot a dark look over at the Slytherin contingent while the rest of the class, who’d all heard a version of Harry’s talk with the prefects, looked over for his reaction instead. Harry looked back wryly.

“Instead,” Professor Barnaby continued, “these degenerates defile the dead bodies of others to raise puppets to fight in their stead. I, myself, have come across many an inferius in my time as an Auror, during the wars.” Harry had to seriously doubt that, as the professor only looked to be in his early thirties, so would have been just joining the Auror ranks as the first war ended, if he’d gone straight from Hogwarts, and, while there had been a huge amount of fearmongering about it, there hadn’t been many sightings of Voldemort’s inferi during the recent war. Or, not any that lived to tell the tale about it. “Now, who can tell me how you might recognise an inferius?”

Boredly, the class turned to glance at each other, before Terry gave in and tiredly raised a hand. “They’re dead.” He said, “Mostly skeletal, foggy eyes, don’t respond to anything they’re not enchanted to attack.” This was old news to all of them. There had been flyers handed out near the start of the war about how to recognise and defeat inferi.

“And how would you defeat one?” Professor Barnaby asked.

Terry looked to see if anyone wanted to take this one but was met with a sea of apathetic faces. “Fire.” He said simply.

“Very good.” The professor replied, ignoring the lack of energy in the classroom. “Now, we will move on to talking about Lethifold distribution-”.

“Wait, that’s it?” Hermione spoke out somewhat uncharacteristically, making Ron and Harry turn to her, along with most of the class. It seemed like the stress and tiredness had pushed her a step too far. “What about the differences between inferi and natural zombies? The powers and weaknesses of inferi? Known uses historically? Not even the basics of how an inferius is created? How they might act differently depending on the strength of the caster and the number of enchantments put on them? And why would we be moving onto lethifolds? They’re amortal creatures while inferi are necromantic constructs – they’re entirely different topics!” Her voice sped up as she went, getting louder and faster.

“Now, Miss Granger,” Professor Barnaby tried to console her, condescension dripping into a tone that was trying to stay jovial, “it hardly seems worth our time to try and grapple with the flawed experimentations of madmen. As Mr Boot so amply demonstrated, you all remember the important parts of how to defeat an inferius – what else would you really need to know?”

“Professor,” Hermione was doing an admirable job of keeping her voice controlled, considering how tightly she was gripping the wood of her chair under the table, “I understand that you are… squeamish, shall we say, about teaching anything to do with dark magic.” The professor, blatantly offended, looked like he was about to interrupt, but Hermione steamrolled over him. “But this is the Defence Against the Dark Arts class, and this is the kind of information we are going to need to pass our NEWTs and, more to the point, succeed in any Defence-related career. Everything in this course is related to the Dark Arts. We can’t simply gloss over it all because it makes you uncomfortable, or we’d have better luck reading the dictionary entries for each creature.”

Harry coughed a laugh into his sleeve. He wasn’t entirely sure why he bothered when several members of the class were sniggering along, and all the others had put their full attention on the conversation as prime entertainment. He was sure he saw a couple of people exchanging coins and wondered whether they’d bet on someone finally snapping at the professor, or Hermione in particular.

Hermione’s hair had frizzed up around her head, breaking out of its normally controlled curls back into the way it had been in their early years, before she’d learned how to care for it properly. Harry could feel her magic behind it, sizzling around her like static. Her eyes – tired, stressed, and so sick of their society’s incompetence – were sharp on the professor, daring him to argue.

Of course, Professor Barnaby was too much of a fool not to continue. “That’ll be 10 points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger, and as the Head Girl no less. I must say, I am disappointed that you, of all people, would not understand why we at the Ministry are working so hard to keep sensitive information away from young minds.”

Hermione looked like she might burst or storm out, until she took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and leant back in her chair. “Yes, that famously sensitive information on the difference between inferi and zombies – so sensitive in fact that it got printed on Ministry flyers a couple of years back.” Her tone was darkly amused, a far cry from the Hermione Granger who had shouted and left Divination in third year. This was the Hermione Granger who had lived through a war, fought in a battle, and helped lead the resistance against a society who wanted her dead for her parentage. “But tell me more about what you meant by me ‘of all people’. I’d love to know.”   

Professor Barnaby seemed to be the only person in the room unaware of just how thin the ice he seemed determined to kick through was. Harry and Ron were alert on either side of Hermione, Harry fingering the wand in his pocket which had leapt eagerly to his hand. The rest of the room was silent, anticipatory, no longer laughing and whispering comments.

“Well, surely,” the professor blustered, “as a member of the light who was specifically targeted by the dark side, you understand how dangerous that magic can be. And how it is our responsibility now to limit any of it reaching impressionable minds and beguiling them. To teach Necromancy in a school…” He trailed off with theatrical horror. The poor fool looked like he actually expected Hermione to recant her words and agree with him.

“The Death Eaters weren’t after me because I was a light witch. They wanted to kill me because I’m a ‘mudblood’.” Hermione said bluntly, tracing her right hand gently over where the scars were fading on her left arm. There were sharp intakes of breath from around the room, though Harry didn’t move his attention away from Hermione to see where they were coming from.

“Miss Granger!” The professor gasped out, but Hermione ignored him.

“And on the run with Undesirable No. 1, besides.” She indicated Harry with the nod of her head. “The idea of a unified light side is a fiction created after the war, by a Ministry who, on balance, did absolutely nothing to overthrow Voldemort’s regime.” There were flinches and quiet exclamations around the room at the use of his name, as well as the vehemence of her statement, but Hermione was on a roll now, and it would take more than that to stop her. “The Ministry is trying – in a blatantly obvious fashion – to promote the idea that Voldemort’s people were swayed to his side by some mystical allure of the Dark Arts, rather than the desire to torture and genocide non-magical people. It takes the responsibility out of their hands, instead of making them acknowledge that there remains a large proportion of the magical population who think that people like me don’t belong in the magical world because we happened to be born to non-magical people, or that non-magical people aren’t people at all. And the very fact,” Hermione spat the words out as if they were poison, “that you are in here, spouting the same nonsense at us, as if we didn’t fight for our survival in the war while you cowered away in the comfort of your magical heredity, shows that the government hasn’t changed in the ways that really matter. You claim to be working to aid the light? Your policies are closer to supporting a dark lord.”

“Well, I never.” Professor Barnaby couldn’t seem to string together a sensible sentence, flushing red and blanching white until his face was a mottled mess of the two.   

Hannah whistled and cheered from in front of them, breaking the worst of the tension, while Justin Finch-Fletchley joined in with loud, pointed claps. Harry joined them, clapping loudly and looking meaningfully at the professor when he turned to see how Harry was reacting.

Professor Barnaby looked genuinely betrayed by Harry, as if somehow it was a surprise to him that Harry might support his friend over a Ministry-appointed mouthpiece. He watched Harry for a long moment, as Harry watched him back, eyes hard and chin tilted up in challenge. Finally, the ex-auror ripped his gaze away, turning back to the rest of the class he’d lost complete control over. He flushed darker, anger and what looked to be humiliation tinting his face, until even his ears were lit up red. “Enough of your nonsense!” He snapped at the class.

It was the harshest Harry had ever heard him speak, and a small part of him that had relaxed sat up straight, recognising someone near the breaking point of their anger.

“I can’t say how disappointed I am in you, Miss Granger.” And oddly, it seemed that Professor Barnaby genuinely was disappointed. “Your grades are excellent, of course, but I thought I’d heard that you were an intelligent girl.”

Harry would have jolted to his feet if Hermione hadn’t reached a hand over and pushed his arm down before he could.

“This is a Defence Against the Dark Arts class, as you so kindly pointed out earlier.” Professor Barnaby continued, condescension no longer even partially hidden in his tone. “Not a conspiracy theory club. Your NEWTs are assessed and taught along with Ministry guidelines, so the content of this class will be more than enough to perform to a satisfactory standard, for those members of the class who haven’t worked themselves into hysterics overthinking it.”

Harry would have gone off at him again, as would Ron on his other side, if Hermione wasn’t making it blatantly clear that this was a battle she wanted to fight herself. Still, his jaw ached from how tightly he was grinding his teeth, and Harry had to breathe evenly to try and wrestle escaping strands of his magic back under control.

“Now,” the professor continued, “if you’re quite done disrupting the class and being a bad influence on your peers, Miss Granger,” he looked darkly at her, “then we can continue the lesson in a productive manner.”

Surprisingly, Hermione didn’t argue back, just leant back again and tilted her head, regarding him with a cold half-smile. “Go ahead.” She said graciously, as if he’d legitimately been asking her permission, “Continue to prove the Ministry’s corruption and inadequacy.”

Harry couldn’t fight back his snort, which came out loudly in the still of the classroom. The professor looked at him for a long moment before turning away and beginning to lecture loudly.

It didn’t matter – Hermione had won anyway; no one even pretended to listen to a further word of his lesson, chatting among themselves about her outburst and theories about the Ministry’s propaganda. The lesson ended with the professor throwing down his book and shouting out a “Ten points from each one of you!” before storming out of the classroom. That didn’t matter either – what did House points matter to adults who understood real consequences?

“So, do you have some kind of a plan?” Ron asked Hermione, after the initial burst of loud chatter had shrunk down.

“Not yet, no.” She said, still calm, still considering, “This was all a bit impulsive.”

“No?” Ron mocked lightly, “Really?”

Hermione reached over Harry to give Ron a small shove as they got their bags together.

“Not yet?” Harry asked, more curious about that part.

She nodded, lips pressing together as a determined set grew over her face. “Not yet, but soon, I think.” She sighed. “There was so much to do that dealing with the Ministry propaganda ended up at the bottom of my list. Seems I’ll have to bump it up somehow, though I’m not sure where I’ll find the time.”

“Well, you’ve got us.” Ron said, gesturing between himself and Harry. “Don’t know where we’re getting time either, to tell the truth, but between the three of us, we’ve done more.”

The three of them exchanged a look at that, part amused and part traumatised at the memories of just how much they had achieved between the three of them.

“Granger!” Justin Finch-Fletchley slid into the conversation. “If it’s people you need, you’ve got all of us.” The other Hufflepuffs followed behind him.

“And us.” Kevin Entwhistle, a quiet, muggleborn boy who Harry hadn’t interacted with much, led the Ravenclaws over.

“And, um, most of us.” Tracey Davis joined the group, trailed by a grinning Zabini and slightly more composed Greengrass. Nott lingered at the back of the room, not joining, but notably not leaving either.

The air was charged with something like anticipation as Hermione nodded, a calculating glint slipping into her eyes. The hair on Harry’s arms stood up as the feeling settled throughout the room.

“Well then.” Hermione said, her own static-inducing magic lighting the atmosphere with something electric. “They say history is written by the victors. In that case, we need to make clear who exactly won. Let’s write history.”

Chapter Text

The night before they were due to meet with a Gringotts representative, Harry found himself aware that he was dreaming. He hung weightless in a room he’d never seen before. It was a non-magical hospice, clear by the modern furnishings and medical equipment, like the bed in which an elderly woman lay. There was no one else there but her and Harry. She breathed softly, eyes half open and dim, her shaking, liver-spotted fingers skittering gently over the side rails of her bed.

“Hello.” Harry said. He wasn’t sure why he was dreaming this – he certainly didn’t know the old lady – but it felt rude to say nothing.

Her eyes opened a little wider, fixing on where he floated a few inches above the floor at the end of her bed. She raised a wavering hand and crooked her fingers in a short jerk, summoning him.

Harry went, unsure of what else to do.

Her mouth moved but no words came out, or at least, nothing recognisable. She gave him what might have been a smile and raised her left hand towards him.

Harry looked to see if she was pointing, but there was nothing there, only him and the shadows on the wall. He could hear, vaguely, as if muffled, movement and voices from outside the room, but they seemed further away than they should have been, unlike the rasping of the old lady’s breath, which broke the silence with crystal clarity.

She moved her hand again, and Harry realised she wasn’t pointing, but reaching out. He didn’t know what any of this meant, why he was dreaming of this, but he was hardly going to refuse her. He took her hand in his, surprised by the texture of it. He’d never held an elderly person’s hand before – having no grandparents or old family friends of his own – unless the copious amount of handshaking he was subjected to was included. The skin of her fingers was softer and saggier than he expected, feeling like his own rough hands might permanently indent it. She squeezed his fingers lightly, looking up at him with dim, dark eyes and then closing them again with a sigh.

Harry stood by her bedside, holding her hand, as she wheezed. If this were real, he might have opened the door, tried to find someone who knew what was going on, but he knew, with the certainty of dream knowledge, that no one was coming. “My name is Harry.” He told her. “What’s yours?”

Her eyes flittered open again, and her mouth parted a few times, but no sound came out. She raised her other hand after a moment, her right, and raised a finger vaguely towards the wall. There, Harry found a medication chart and carers’ instructions. Under ‘Preferred Name’, Harry found ‘Melanie’.

“It’s nice to meet you, Melanie.”

She gave him the twitch that might have been a smile again and laid her head back down. Her fingers gripped his with surprising strength, cool against his sleep-warm hands. She did not let go and tightened her clasp when he moved to readjust. Harry found himself reassuring her that he wouldn’t leave, even if he didn’t know if such a thing would be possible in a dream. In the nonsensical way that dream-time passes, they might have been there for seconds or hours, her shallow breath the only thing stirring syrup-thick air.

Between one moment and the next, like they’d always been there, wings coalesced from the shadows, black feathers refracting dim rainbows of light like they had trapped all the constellations of the night sky within their feathers. The deity they were attached to entered the room on silent feet. His cloaked head bowed as he checked what seemed to flicker between a scroll and a tablet.

“Melanie.” The deity greeted, his voice infinitely warmer than when he’d last spoken to Harry, and soporific, making Harry’s eyes blink shut heavily, even though he was already asleep and dreaming.

Melanie lifted her right hand again a few inches off the bed and held it out to the deity, who smiled softly, but placed a fingertip on her forehead instead. Melanie breathed out and wisps went with her breath, trailing silver lit from within by bright highlights that went beyond any colour Harry could describe. The deity gathered these wisps in his hands with boundless gentleness, coaxing them into a ball, and, stretching out a wing, nestled the tiny ball of light in among his feathers. For a moment, Harry could see them as they were, thousands of souls held safe and warm within the tender wings of death, before his vision returned to normal as the deity closed his wings again, sheltering their light.

Harry lowered Melanie’s lax hand to the bed as carefully as he could, unsurprised that she was no longer breathing.

“Go now, Harry Potter.” Thanatos said, looking at him for the first time since he’d entered the room. “Your mortality strains, and it is time to awaken.”

-

When Harry woke, the scene didn’t fade in the usual way that dreams did but lingered as clear as a memory. Harry found himself sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for an emotional reaction which didn’t come. He’d seen a woman die, her soul being collected by the god of death, but Harry couldn’t find it in him to mourn her death when he’d felt the peace of her soul sheltered in Thanatos’ wings. Whatever afterlife awaited her, she’d greeted it gracefully, and Harry could only feel pleased that someone had been with her in her final moments, even if it had been a stranger like him. Eventually, when it became clear that the only thing that he was feeling was confusion about precisely how and in what way he’d appeared somewhere else in his dreams, Harry moved to get ready for the day, but the memory of his dream stayed at the back of his mind, even as he met Hermione, Neville, and Anthony for the Gringotts meeting.

Gringotts had been surprisingly cooperative with their request to talk about Hogwarts’ financial situation. Whether this was their normal working relationship, their lingering respect for Hermione’s willingness to challenge them, or the goblins too wanted to dig into the problem, Harry didn’t know, but it had worked out well for them. Steelcore, the representative for Hogwarts’ accounts, readily agreed to meet with them, after procuring McGonagall’s permission. The students, all being eighth years and allowed off the school grounds on weekends, were to floo to Gringotts from Hogsmeade.

Harry, Neville, and Hermione all walked to the doors together. They’d all opted for robes for a formal meeting, so they were a surprisingly colourful ensemble, Harry’s dark blue robes swishing against Hermione’s teal, and closely followed by Neville’s deep red. They met Anthony at the main door. Both he and Hermione were holding folders, containing all the information they’d scraped together, highlighted, cross-referenced, and with a spare of each other’s parchmentwork in case anything got lost.

The conversation down to Hogsmeade was surprisingly light. Harry could tell that the others were also nervous, in the hunch of Hermione’s shoulders which she relaxed every time she noticed it, to Neville’s quietness, but Anthony had brought up a new Transfiguration publication he thought Hermione might be interested in, so they were talking about that, rather than the meeting ahead. Harry didn’t have much to chip in – he was a better student now and could understand what they were discussing, but he wasn’t sure that Transfiguration would ever be his passion – but it was nice to simply be part of the group. He breathed in the fresh air as they walked, taking in the earthy scent of the outside. It was a cloudy day, not so cool that Harry wished he’d brought a cloak, but clear enough that autumn was well underway.

When they flooed from the Three Broomsticks into Diagon Alley, the temperature difference was noticeable, a few degrees warmer. It was sunny in London, at least for now, and Harry had to blink away the surprise of changing weather between moments. Magical travel made things like that odd. The Alley was also a lot busier than Hogsmeade had been. People were bustling around the shops and stalls. There seemed to be a market further up, which Harry had never seen before. Then again, he hadn’t spent a lot of time in Diagon Alley, let alone during the weekends of term time. The Bank, when they got there, had a steady stream of customers entering and leaving, watched carefully by the goblin guards.

As they reached the door, Harry paused. Seeing the guards had reminded him of his last visit, which had been a very odd experience, and one he wasn’t sure if he’d have to repeat. Hopefully, their impasse held, since it seemed that he was once again going to be bringing death magic into their establishment. He ran a thumb over the band of the ring on his right ring finger with a wry smile – clingy artefacts. Hermione also stopped before the inner doors, where the second pair of guards stood, surprising Anthony and Neville who had moved to go through.

“Hermione?” Neville asked.

“Part of our deal. Harry, Ron, and I, that is.” Hermione explained sheepishly. “Sorry, I forgot to say. Steelcore will meet us here and escort us in.”

Neville nodded, but Anthony looked aghast. “Are you banned from Gringotts or something?” He asked.

“Not banned.” Hermione replied, colouring a little. “But we did fly a dragon through their floor, after stealing from a vault, so it’s understandable that they have some conditions.”

Neither of the goblin guards acknowledged the conversation, but one of them did leave their post briefly to go inside the bank, before returning to their position as if nothing had happened. Harry watched this with a gaze that wasn’t quite wary but was certainly watchful, even as he turned back to the stone carvings that had caught his attention the first time he’d had to wait here. They were even more beautiful than he remembered, tiny details inscribed into glossy stone.

The doors swung open again before too long. A goblin in a dark suit stood in front of a small contingent of goblin guards. Harry supposed he and the other two should expect this kind of escort every time they entered the bank. “Miss Granger, Mr Potter.” The goblin said, revealing a surprisingly high and melodic voice. “And companions.” She nodded to Anthony and Neville. “I am Steelcore, keeper of accounts for Hogwarts school. We may proceed to a meeting room.”

She led them into the winding corridors off the side of the main banking room. After his last visit, Harry could just about spot the signs when their route began to take impossible turns, through corridors that always looked upright, even when he knew that they were somehow on the walls or ceiling, or going up the same set of stairs but on what had previously been the underside. Forget robbing the vaults, it was clear that the most secure part of Gringotts was, and had always been, the tunnels in which the goblins stayed.

“I have been looking forward to this meeting.” Steelcore said, once they were all seated in her office. She leaned her elbows on the table, steepling the tips of her spindly fingers. “It has been so long since anyone with permission has taken an interest in the running of the Hogwarts vaults.”

The others caught onto it immediately. “With permission?” Anthony asked. “So, there have been others without permission who have been making enquiries?”

Steelcore huffed, tipping her chin up. “Of course. If there is one thing for which we can count on wizard-kind, it is their greed for riches that do not belong to them.” No one rose to the bait and Steelcore smirked at them before continuing. “We do, of course, record attempts made.” She slid a piece of parchment over to Hermione, who scanned through it quickly, before passing it over for Anthony and Neville to see.

“I don’t recognise most of these names.” Anthony said, “Though I think some of them are from the Ministry.”

Neville nodded. “The Ministry, a couple of journalists, and, oh, some of the governors?”

“The governors don’t have permission?” Harry asked.

“No.” Anthony answered, though he sounded distracted, still looking through the list of names and dates. “They’re supposed to monitor the wellbeing of students and the overall quality of Hogwarts instruction, but they’re not involved in the decision-making process about financial matters, unless they’ve raised a protest about a particular choice of the headmaster.”

Neville drew everyone’s attention back to the main topic of their meeting. “What can you tell us about Hogwarts’ financial state?” He asked Steelcore.

It turned out, with Headmistress McGonagall’s permission, rather a lot. She showed them Hogwarts’ overall income from donation, Ministry subsidy, fees, and sales of product. It was a substantial amount, and close to what Hermione and Anthony had calculated Hogwarts should be receiving. There were also mock ups of Hogwarts estimated yearly spending, which was reasonably low – the largest costs were staff wages, food, and materials. The money spent on food was reduced further by the farmland and orchards that the Hogwarts elves apparently ran offsite, and the staff wages were, according to Neville, staggeringly low. There should have been more than enough money to pay double the number of staff they actually had, even with the repairs that had taken place over the summer, which had largely been financed by donations.

Steelcore, who had seemed invested in what they were doing from the start, supplied them with every bit of parchmentwork she could to help them trace where the missing money was going. Most Gringotts goblins, she confessed, weren’t overly bothered with how their clients used their money, given that they generally believed wixen to be foolish and frivolous, but her own sense of professional pride was rankled by the niggling feeling that something was going wrong just beyond her reach.

It was Anthony who finally found their first lead. The staff wages were paid via direct transfers between vaults, each labelled. “Support staff?” He queried, pointing to a note, “Who are the support staff?”

Everyone looked closer. There was a substantial portion, accounting for many people’s wages, going into this vaguely labelled vault.

“Something to do with the farmland?” Hermione suggested, though she sounded dubious even as she said it. “Hang on.” She said, beginning to dig through the papers she’d brought, “Headmistress McGonagall gave me the list of everyone on the staff payroll.”

They began to check off everyone and by the end, everyone still was accounted for, even the caretaker, Filch.

“We should have documentation for the owner of this vault as it is a direct transfer.” Steelcore said, frowning at her own sheaf of parchments. She looked through them half-heartedly, “As I thought, no mention. Excuse me for a moment while I send for the account manager of this vault.” Steelcore ducked out of the office and said something quietly in the goblin language to one of the guards outside. The rest of them exchanged a look. It was too early to say, but perhaps, they were finally getting somewhere. Steelcore settled herself down again, though her long ears were still raised in agitation.

Once the account manager arrived, a visibly nervous male goblin named Jartip, the whole affair spilled open rather fast. Jartip, with the help of the entire Board of Governors and the Ministry liaison for Hogwarts Affairs, had been siphoning off over a half of the Hogwarts revenue through establishing the governors as paid staff roles, with huge bonuses and ‘allowances for improvement of the school’, which naturally never went anywhere near improving Hogwarts. Not only were the Board members taking salaries, but they’d bribed Jartip with his own, so that he hid the affair on the Gringotts side, and intercepted any banking information going to the Headmaster and replaced it with false documents. The Ministry liaison was also being bribed, and had been for at least the last thirty years. Seeing that Steelcore was steaming mad, and perhaps hoping to garner some mercy from her, Jartip confessed to everything, even pointing out the missing parts they hadn’t yet noticed in their own documentation, where money had been sunk into repairs that never actually happened or initiatives that had never been suggested.

By the end, they had been joined by a collection of goblin guards, who were all looking at Jartip with the darkest expressions Harry had ever seen on goblins, even with their general moody demeanour and specific distrust of him.

“You are a shame on yourself, on your clan, on Gringotts Bank, and on Goblinkind.” Steelcore pronounced, as Jartip came to a stuttering stop. “You have broken your vows, impugned your honour, and your word is void. You are not worth your armour. You have claimed wealth that was never yours, and for that, you have dishonoured our patron. May He judge you for your crimes.”

This appeared to be a signal, as the guard on the left of Jartip suddenly moved to make him stand straight, while the guard on the right immediately swung their halberd. The strike was powerful but controlled, cutting through Jartip’s unarmoured neck, with an odd, fleshy snap, but stopping before it could endanger the goblins stood behind him. Blood, slightly darker than a human’s, spurted as Jartip’s head hit the floor with a wet thud, rolling once before coming to a stop against one of the legs of Steelcore’s desk. The body was caught by the guard on the left, who began hauling it out unceremoniously. The guard who had decapitated him picked up the head, as if it were a bag of shopping, and walked off with it. They all ignored the large puddle and streaks of blood that were left.

Harry, who had taken a step back, when the guard with the halberd had swung, glanced over to the others. Anthony was looking faintly green, pointedly averting his eyes from the blood-covered floor, while Hermione’s lips were pinched together. Neville appeared calm, though Harry could see the tightness around his eyes. They’d all seen violence before, so it was nothing new and shocking, but that didn’t mean that any of them had wanted to see it again.

By contrast, Steelcore looked very satisfied. “Unfortunately,” she said, gathering her loose parchments together, “goblin justice cannot be applied to wixen.” She sneered, looking bitterly disappointed about it, “So, you shall have to pursue the punishment of these governors through your own government.” She scoffed, clearly remembering that a ministry official was one of the ones taking payment for their silence, “Gringotts shall prepare a statement with key evidence drawn from Jartip’s parchmentwork and submit it to the headmistress and the head of the Department of Law Enforcement. Gringotts Bank deeply apologises for the lack of integrity of one of our own. For this reason, for each year that Jartip was facilitating fraud for his own benefit, Gringotts will not charge fees on Hogwarts’ accounts.”

Harry didn’t know if that was a big thing or not, but judging by the expressions on Anthony and Neville’s faces, it was a very good deal.

“Thank you for your help today.” Said Neville, after a long moment’s pause. “It’s been a productive meeting.”

Steelcore smiled at him with the sharp teeth of a predatory species. “Indeed, it has. I look forward to doing further business with you in the future.”

The four took this as their dismissal.

“Well, at least we know we were right?” Anthony said, as they stepped out of the doors into the fresh air of the Alley. “Though, I could have done without the, you know.”

Hermione nodded, still looking tense. Harry knocked her shoulder gently with his as they walked, and she gave him a small smile. “I’ll be fine.” She said to him quietly, while Anthony went ahead to procure them floo powder for the return trip. “Just wasn’t expecting it.”

Harry hummed his agreement, though his mind lingered less on the casual violence or smell of blood, and more on the sensation he could have sworn he’d felt, like a thread snapping, a moment or so after Jartip’s head dropped to the ground – a dual echo of the halberd whipping through the air and the rasp of intangible shears closing. No matter how much he tried to distract himself, the after echoes rang loud in his ears.

-

McGonagall’s lips were pinched white when they told her what had happened. Harry wasn’t sure if she was angrier about the theft that had apparently been perpetrated for decades or the swift and final goblin sentencing that had been carried out in front of them. In the end, she commented on neither. “It would seem that I owe you all a thank you. I had long given up on the state of Hogwarts’ financial affairs, believing that it was simply the way it was, but it seems you were quite correct in believing that there was a problem.”

Neither Anthony nor Hermione looked as pleased as being proved right usually made them. They’d all been quiet on the way back, grappling with the implications of what they’d found out. For Hermione, Harry knew this was simply one more way in which authorities had proved that they were corrupt and untrustworthy at every level, breaking down yet another safe space for her. Harry empathised – he knew he had authority issues already, so he’d rarely experienced the same blind trust in such figures when he was younger (he ignored the rotten feeling in his chest that cropped up when he thought of Dumbledore, who he’d believed loved him like a grandfather) – but it was still unpleasant to find out that one more set of adults who were supposed to be looking after the children of Hogwarts were once more choosing to let them suffer in favour of increasing their own wealth.

“I will be taking over the investigation from now on.” McGonagall told them, drawing Harry out of his thoughts. “You have all done excellently, but it is now up to the DMLE to raise charges against all those involved and determine if any others might have chosen to profit from their enterprises. For now,” she told them, looking sternly at their drawn faces, “let go of this part, and perhaps start thinking about those ideas you presented to me before.”

They all brightened. Now that they’d found the leak, Hogwarts should have about triple the funding. Soon, perhaps, they might be able to put their hopes for a better Hogwarts into practice.

Chapter Text

October 31^st dawned with a light rain. It had picked up at points during the night, soaking the ground and draining down the hillside until it met the stream that led past Hogsmeade village, and grey clouds threatened further heavy spells ahead. Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, which had many of the younger occupants of the castle terrifically excited. Harry himself couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm. Not only was it the anniversary of his parents’ deaths at the hands of Voldemort, but something always happened on Halloween, and Harry was rather tired of things happening right now.

He had agreed to spend the day down in the Slytherin Common Room, now that the other Slytherins had gotten more used to seeing his face around. The DA had certainly helped with that, since Harry had managed to prove himself as a decent Defence tutor to the older years, as Ron and Hermione had proven themselves to the younger years. Of course, some still wanted nothing to do with him or anyone connected to him, but none were so stupid to attack him in the common room, the way Goyle had, so they mostly just sneered from their seats. Harry couldn’t bring himself to care about it at this point.

The green-toned room had become familiar to him by now, not in the same way that the Gryffindor common room was home, but he no longer felt like an intruder. Now, sitting with the usual trio of Daphne, Blaise, and Tracey, Harry couldn’t help but wonder if this is what it might have been like if he’d allowed the Hat to sort him into Slytherin in first year. Probably not, he thought after considering it for a moment longer – in every other year, people like Malfoy had been the most vocal of the Slytherins, and though they were not a majority, no one else spoke out against them. From what the others had told him, the neutral and light inclined students had gotten through by being quiet (but too stubborn to be worth converting) and Harry, being the figurehead he’d been since that Halloween night, would never have been afforded the privilege of quietness or neutrality.

Harry was working on his lesson plan for the upcoming DA meeting on Tuesday. They were working a couple of months ahead of the sixth-year syllabus, aiming to complete both years’ curricula and some extra before the end of the school year. It had become increasingly obvious during the time he’d been leading the sessions that, for the most part, the seventh years all needed the in-depth refresher. So many of the fundamentals had been lost or forgotten, swept aside by incompetent teaching, the more immediate need for practical spells during the war, and then supplanted entirely by the Carrows’ Darks Arts classes.

Unofficially, this was also the time that any Slytherin who wanted to ask questions – usually about Defence, but also anything else – could do so. Harry had already had some interesting questions about events during his school years – which they’d all been suitably shocked about – and about his personal life. Some of these, he refused to answer, but on balance, Harry had decided that openness was the key to successful communication. If nothing else, it was funny to see some of the Slytherins’ reactions to getting frank honesty for very little effort, instead of having to subtly interrogate information out of him.

In some cases, the questions had led to very interesting group conversations about subjects like what people would most like to see change around Hogwarts. Naturally, some of the first years had answers like “sweets at every meal” and “no more essays” but many others were things that either their prefects or Harry noted down to bring up at prefect meetings, where the students were discussing the suggestions that they could make about the running of Hogwarts now that the yearly budget had increased so dramatically. Harry was engaged in one such debate, with Blaise, Daphne, and some fourth years, when Theodore Nott unexpectedly joined them in their loose circle of sofas.

Theodore Nott was tall and thin, dark-haired with very pale blue eyes that looked slightly eerie under his too-long fringe. He sat down across from Harry, near Daphne, and fixed those eyes on Harry’s face. “I have a question.” He said.

Harry didn’t think he’d ever heard Nott’s voice so clearly before. He didn’t raise his hand in class and answered very quietly when called on. “Er, sure, Nott.” He said, trying not to feel thrown off balance.

“You died.” Nott started. It wasn’t a question but a statement with absolute certainty. “My family,” he made a face Harry couldn’t quite interpret, “we know that sort of thing. You died, fully. But you came back.” He still wasn’t asking his question. “You’ve come back wrong. Not human.”

Someone whispered and Daphne sucked in a sharp breath, but Harry didn’t turn to look at anyone. He watched Nott’s face carefully, his mind racing. The man didn’t make it easy on him, showing little expression except for the intensity in his gaze.

They held eye contact for a long moment before Nott continued. “I’ve been watching you, and you are nothing malicious, as most of the undead are warped to be. In fact, you are not undead at all, though I don’t know if I could call you living with the death magic that surrounds you. You feel like a ghost, but eat, drink, and sleep; you’re alive, but your sacrificial protection magic holds over us. What are you and what are you doing here?”

Harry couldn’t resist a small smile, even as he held Nott’s gaze still. Though his thoughts now spun in dizzying circles around his head, it was oddly refreshing to be asked questions to his face, and that it was Nott doing so felt weirdly like a mark of trust from the quiet man. There was silence around them, and Harry weighed his words carefully for a long moment. His instinct was to deny, but he didn’t think there was any fooling Nott, nor would the other Slytherins let it lie – probably why Nott had asked him so publicly, now he thought about it – but why should Harry hide it? Hecate had told him there were no restrictions around who he told of his coming ascension or of the gods in general, so long as he tried to evade their direct notice.

“You’re right.” Harry said eventually. He noted the shocked exclamations around them, as well as the surprise that flickered over Nott’s face – clearly, he hadn’t expected Harry to admit it so easily. “When I died and – knowingly or not – used my soul in a protective sacrifice spell, I caught some people’s attention. Well, not people.” He acknowledged. “Gods.”

Nott’s face flickered knowingly at that, which was an interesting reaction.

“They said that, at that point, I was more magic than soul, and so a decision had to be made – kill me, or let the transformation continue.” Harry continued slowly, still trying to find the words to explain without dumping everything out too quickly. “So, I’m living on somewhat borrowed time until that’s complete, and I finish becoming a spirit.” Or a god, but Harry supposed that spirits might be easier to understand for the gathered wixen, given the ghosts who haunted the castle.

Blaise, in the corner of his vision, looked stricken, but Nott seemed satisfied. “A death spirit?” He clarified.

Harry shrugged. “Of some sort, I think.”

“What?” Daphne croaked. “Potter…Harry, what?” When he turned to her, she was ashen. “You’re going to die?”

It wasn’t quite the right word for what was happening to him, but it also wasn’t completely wrong. He said as much. “Technically speaking, I’m ascending.” He explained. “I’m not dying, but I am losing my mortality. So, I won’t be dead, but I also won’t be human.”

“A god.” Nott said it for him. He looked over Harry assessingly, before nodding to himself.

That seemed to put it into a different perspective for the others. Some objected to the idea of this, or were just confused, while others looked at him with dawning comprehension and awe.

“What the fuck?” Blaise asked, looking between the two of them.

“I can’t stay mortal.” Harry said, shrugging a shoulder awkwardly. “Burnt out too much of my mortality, apparently. So, I could either die and risk my soul disappearing instead of crossing into the afterlife or take their offer of becoming one of them. It was a bit of a shock to me too to find out they were real.”

“Which pantheon?” Tracey asked, cutting into the pause in the conversation. Nott looked up, freshly interested again.

“Greek.” Harry replied.

Nott, for some reason, looked vaguely disappointed.

“Why Greek?” Daphne asked, leaning forward in her seat. “I’d have thought, maybe Celtic, since we’re in the Isles. Or Roman, perhaps.”

Harry shrugged. He’d been doing his reading, and he could make some guesses, but he couldn’t be sure. “There’s a whole bunch of them around apparently, but I haven’t heard much about the Celtic lot. From what I know, the Romans and Greeks are both based in the US now – don’t ask me why, I didn’t get that bit, something about influence - but they were here at some points before. Probably, I’m in the Greek one because someone in my mum’s line was apparently descended from Hecate.”

“Really?” Blaise asked, “Is that why, you know, she had magic?”

Everyone looked slightly awkward after that question.

“Er, no.” Harry replied. “I mean, Hec- uh, the goddess of magic said that muggleborns are her ‘blessed ones’ or something, but not her children. And my aunt is my mum’s sister but doesn’t have magic.”

“How does that even work?” One of the fourth years, Scott, asked.

Harry shook his head, “Not a bloody clue.”  

Blaise scanned over Harry, still looking faintly dubious, but there was a considering light in his eyes. “I can kind of see a god – I mean, you’re Harry Potter, half the wizarding world here practically worships you like one – but why a death god?”

Harry’s lips quirked with something that wasn’t quite humour. “Because my time came, and I greeted Death like an old friend.” It was oddly funny to reference an old wixen bedtime story, knowing that the others couldn’t understand the full depths of the statement. “I died and came back, which generally got their attention, so it was the god of death and goddess of magic who summoned me to the Underworld to decide if they found me worthy.” He couldn’t deny the hint of irony that crept into his voice at the word. “The god of the Underworld approved it and gave me the golden apple to begin my ascension into one of his Court.”

“Why aren’t you saying their names?” Tracey asked.

Harry opened his mouth, but it was Nott who answered. “Because you don’t want the attention of the gods, and their names will summon it. Better to respect them from a distance.” His tone was dead serious, breaking through the relative lightness of their conversation, and carrying with it a surprising weight.

Harry couldn’t deny he was curious about Nott’s connection to the gods – whichever gods those might be – but knew that it was too early in their acquaintance, and too public, to ask him. Perhaps, if Harry got to know him better.

Nott looked around the group, finishing with his eyes locked on Harry. “I had to be sure you’d answer, Potter, no offense intended.” He nodded to him, as he abruptly stood from the sofa. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ll be a good one.” Before Harry could react to that, Nott pulled something from his pocket. “It’s not really our way, but…” He tossed whatever he was holding into the closest brazier. “For Harry Potter.”

Harry’s breath caught as the scent of caramel hit him, and he got the oddest impression of Nott’s magic – which he’d never felt before, but instantly recognised – mixed in with the taste of his offering.

Nott, having watched his face, caught Harry’s reaction and gave what might have been a tiny smile on a face unaccustomed to smiling, before leaving the group behind.

The others watched him go. After a long moment, Daphne shook her head, smiling. “Every time I think I almost understand Theo, he goes and pulls something like this.”

“Oddly sweet of him.” Blaise agreed.

“Huh?” One of the fourth years queried.

“Theo wanted to let us all know something was strange about Harry, just in case it was dangerous to us.” Daphne explained. “He’s looking out for the rest of us, in his own way.”

“Well, we knew Harry was strange.” Blaise tossed a teasing look at Harry. “Just not how strange.”

Harry couldn’t protest. “It’s a fair cop.”

“Are you coming back?” Tracey asked abruptly. “After you, um, ascend?”

The mood sobered again. Harry set his jaw, glancing around at the faces of his new friends and the newly familiar wash of the lake lights in the Slytherin Common Room. “Yes.” He replied firmly. “One way or another, I’ll make sure I come back.”

The others exchanged looks before questions started again, and they settled back into a quick-paced interrogation session about what was sure to be Hogwarts’ newest gossip. Harry answered everything he could, stumped by some of the questions and confused by others, but clung to the warmth he’d felt at his new friends’ expressions of clear relief.

-

When evening fell and the others gathered for the Halloween Feast, Harry signed himself out of the castle and walked down the hill to the edge of the Hogwarts wards, before apparating to the graveyard in Godric’s Hollow. Hermione and Ron had offered to come with him, but this was something Harry had to do alone. He appeared behind the old tree he’d remembered from his first – and only – visit to the graveyard and checked that the coast was clear before stepping out. Further down the road, he could see people walking between houses, children dressed as monsters ringing doorbells with their parents trailing behind, but the graveyard itself was empty.

Just in case, Harry pulled the invisibility cloak from his robe’s pocket and put it on, letting the hood fall over his face and give the world a cool tint. This time, he slowed as he passed the Peverell graves, knowing they were his ancestors. There were many more of them than he had imagined, and almost all of them had the symbol of the Deathly Hallows etched into their stone. Godric’s Hollow must have been an ancestral burial place for the descendants of the youngest Peverell brother – a fact that Harry sort of hated to discover on his own, rather than grow up knowing it. He’d long understood that his parents had been people, rather than nebulous concepts of a mother and father, but every now and again, it hurt to reacknowledge that they’d come from somewhere, had whole histories and families and connections that he’d never know or understand as one of them, instead stuck with what he could glean looking in.

Harry still didn’t understand their epitaph, he thought, as he stood by their grave. The last enemy that would be destroyed is death? It didn’t make sense to Harry, given the Potters, from their Peverell heritage, were the line who passed on the invisibility cloak from parent to child on the understanding that afterwards, they were no longer hidden from Death, but would greet him amicably when their time came. Death wasn’t their enemy, but their friend. Harry’s own father had looked death in the face when Voldemort came and decided to stand his ground and hold him off for as long as he could, to buy his mum some time to escape or protect Harry. His mum had famously offered her own death in Harry’s place, and magic had accepted her offering. Death hadn’t scared them. It had been death which separated them from Harry, keeping them from raising him, but it wasn’t Death who’d caused their misfortune, but Voldemort. He stared at the sentence a little longer, wondering if there was some less literal meaning that he was missing.

Finally, he shook himself free from his thoughts, and, copying the spell Hermione had cast last time, wove a wreath of flowers for them. The spell was meant to create roses, but Harry wasn’t all that surprised when he was met with the bold white petals of lilies mixed with asphodels. His magic increasingly reacted closer to his wishes than any specifics of a spell. It settled down against the headstone.

Harry had come today with many half-thought plans. He could send a galleon down to them each, make sure they’d crossed in Charon’s boat; he could dig a small trough and fill it with food and wine to summon their ghosts; he could take the easier way and summon their spirits with the resurrection stone. But now he was here, Harry couldn’t find it in himself to do any of them. There was no point giving them a coin – they’d already crossed. He knew it somehow, without doubt. He could certainly summon them in either way, but it felt wrong in some way to disturb their rest. His parents, whether they were in Elysium or some other afterlife, didn’t belong in the living world, and it felt selfish to summon them just for his own sentimentality.

Instead, Harry simply sat down at their grave and thought about them as the evening sky darkened, and the noise of the village began to quiet as the children went home. He thought about the feeling of his mum’s love, preserved in the magic that had protected him for 16 years after her death. He thought about his dad, by most accounts a brash and arrogant boy, but one who’d matured into a man who’d stand in the way of a dark lord, knowing he’d die, if it bought just one more moment for his wife and son. They’d both died young – never had the opportunity to grow into who they might have become. 21 had seemed old when he was 11, but he was 18 now, only a few years away from them. Harry mourned his own potential childhood with his parents, but now also that they’d barely been adults themselves. He wished they’d had a chance to be a family together, but he couldn’t resent their deaths (he resented Voldemort, fiercely, but Voldemort was defeated and couldn’t hurt anyone else). Death simply was.

A while after Harry had managed to find his peace with his grief, he became aware of a whispering around the graveyard. The residents of the village were mostly quietly inside, apart from one house which seemed to be hosting a party, so Harry looked around to find where it was coming from. It wasn’t a group of teenagers, which he’d half-suspected. Instead, standing luminous under the moonlight, was a woman followed by a train of ghosts. She was tall – inhumanly so, standing at 10ft at least – and draped in a Grecian dress. A golden shawl was thrown over her head and shoulders, but her hair hung around her face, white on one side and black on the other. Her skin was the same, appearing deathly pale on one half and pitch black on the other. He would have known she was a goddess even if he hadn’t recognised her from her description in one of his books, from the weight of ancient magic that rolled off her like mists. She looked near where he sat but couldn’t seem to fix her eyes on him directly.

Harry stood, pulled the hood of the cloak down, and nodded his head towards her. “Melinoe, Queen of Ghosts.” He acknowledged her.

She looked at him with full black eyes, tilting her head in the slow, eerie gesture he recognised from Hecate. “And Bringer of Nightmares.” Her voice was low and raspy, as if she’d been screaming for too long. “I’m glad to see you recognise me, young godling.” Melinoe said, drifting forward on silent feet. “I’ve certainly heard enough about you, Harry Potter.”

Harry ran through whatever information he could remember about Melinoe in his head. He remembered she was a goddess of necromancy, like his adoptive mother, and of ghosts, nightmares, and funerary rites, but he wasn’t sure what exactly had caught her attention, nor why she was here. He didn’t have to wonder for long, because she told him herself.

“I hear this is an important day, in some mortal cultures, for ghosts to cross the veil and walk the earth. The Mist is thin indeed across these lands this evening. My ghosts and I walk each night, though the foolish mortals seldom see us. Perhaps tonight, we shall have better luck. I do so enjoy it when they scream.” She beckoned him with an imperious hand. “Come, Harry Potter. Join my train tonight. You shall be one of our Court soon enough and it is fitting that we meet.”  

Harry cast a final look at his parents’ graves but heeded the goddess’ words.

She nodded at him in a slow, smooth movement, like a statue brought to life, before beginning to step out of the graveyard. Mist kicked up in her wake, and from every grave she stepped past, translucent hands pulled their owner out, and a new spirit joined their procession.

Harry didn’t look back, not wanting to know if his parents had been summoned into their march – not knowing if he’d rather they were there or that they were not. He followed her out into the street, surrounded by the icy chill of her divinity, and began to walk in time with her long, slow stride. Cats hissed as they passed and the village dogs howled at their clueless owners, warning them of the dead in their midst. The living did not listen, mortal flesh unable to comprehend the brush of the dead against them, eyes unable to see their translucent features, and ears unable to hear the whispering scrape of a thousand ghostly feet against cobblestone; their minds did, knowing in some instinctual, animal way that something was wrong, but able only to express themselves in the plague of nightmares that trailed the goddess’ path.

They wound their way through cities and countryside alike, pulling the dead from their resting places until their march was transformed into a seemingly endless river of low-glowing silver. Their surroundings warped around them as they moved, sometimes much closer than they had been before and at other times stretching out until the same street felt like it would never end. The moon and stars were their silent witnesses, the clear sky letting the temperature drop sharply as the night wore on. The artificial lights of houses, streetlamps, and headlights failed to illuminate the procession, as if the ghosts brought their own darkness with them.

Melinoe didn’t say a word, though the ghosts moaned and groaned in symphony. Harry, unsure what he was supposed to do or say, stayed quiet as well. His feet were starting to hurt with their hours of walking, but it felt distant, and though he was cold to the bone, his body didn’t react with shivers. His invisibility cloak hung soft and comforting around his shoulders, a pleasant brush against his arms with every step. Hood down like this, it was visible – something Harry hadn’t even known it could be while worn – and the silvery sheen of its silken fabric matched well with their ghostly entourage.

Melinoe stopped in the middle of a city. Though it must have been into the early morning, the city wasn’t quiet. Party-goers were still out and about, the thumping of a club’s music filtering out into the night. Many of the people out were dressed up in some way, while others were clearly just happy for any excuse to party. Police roamed the streets in clumps of two or three while paramedics were loading a passed-out man into the back of an ambulance. Bright signs of fast-food chains blared out, advertising greasy goodness, and taxis whizzed to and fro around a central roundabout.

“They never see.” Melinoe said, scratching voice catching Harry by surprise. “The living never do.” She turned to him, void-like eyes failing to reflect the lights of the city centre. “Blinded by all of… this.” She waved a disgusted hand as a student-age group staggered past, one vomiting into the bushes of a restaurant front. “They know it happens, but not to them, not tonight.” She smiled a little cruelly. “Until it does. Death could come any moment to any one of them, and yet they carry on fearless, arrogant, heedless of the constant death around them. They stand above millennia of fallen civilisations like the ground will not rise up and cover the shape of their society too with time; like there are not hundreds of people dying in this city, more who have already died without anyone’s notice yet. But it does not matter to them until it is personal.”

She surveyed the blinking city lights with a scowl. “So many mortals of this day are sanitised from death. They do not kill their own food, they do not personally bury their dead, they have places to hold the dead instead of their own homes – they pay other people to do it for them. They believe themselves above superstitions, putting all their trust in what they can prove with science. My ghosts once terrified the nights, and now,” she looked behind her at the ghosts, who had fanned out around the town centre, immaterial forms swept through by cars and passersby, “now, it seems that only I see them.”  

Harry didn’t know what to say. “Uh, why is it that we can see magical ghosts?” He asked eventually. “Like the ones in Hogwarts.”

“Mm?” The goddess turned to him surprised, as if she hadn’t expected him to speak. “Oh, your magical people. We, gods of magic that is, tend to keep an eye on any magical people in our regions of influence. Magic can do funny things to the line between life and death. Not only does it tend to make people a little more convinced about ideas like lingering after death, it is also what gives those ghosts the power to resist a psychopomp’s pull. Magical people believe ghosts to be real, so they see ghosts. Magical ghosts expect to be stay and be seen, so they are.” She scoffed harshly, “For all the good it does them.”

“Can they move on? After they’ve been a ghost for a while?” Harry asked her. He hadn’t really expected Melinoe to answer, let alone in any kind of detail, so he wanted to get any information that might be useful for Helena while Melinoe was in a talking mood.

She looked back at him with those expressionless eyes. “Of course. The afterlife is open – and inevitable – to all mortals. Even those too cowardly or stubborn to accept their deaths in the first place. The only reason the various gods of death let them stay for a while is that they can never cross into life again, so eventually they will lose the will to cling to it. Even then, some gods do not allow it among their followers. If we have to spend our time tracking down and claiming fools who seek a facsimile of immortality, there are far worthier candidates among those who have avoided Death’s touch in the first place, rather than the ones which will someday join my ranks.”

Melinoe clearly didn’t have a high opinion of those who refused to accept their own deaths for one reason or another, but it was nothing like the disgust in her voice when she’d spoken of those who tried to avoid death. Harry hadn’t expected it of her, as a goddess of necromancy, but, if he thought about it, Harry wasn’t actually sure what necromancy was, either to the gods or in the magical world. He tried to focus. “And, um, if I knew a ghost who wanted to move on, but wasn’t sure how to, how would I help them?”

Melinoe’s gaze gave the impression of sharpening, even if her completely black eyes made no obvious change. “What is it that mortals say? Better late than never, I suppose.” She straightened. “I would hardly prevent someone from joining us now that they have finally realised the futility of their persistence. In your magical world, yes? Think of where; we shall go.”

This wasn’t at all how Harry had imagined the night going. Still, after taking a moment to centre his thoughts, he thought about Hogwarts and Helena Ravenclaw. Melinoe stepped forward, Harry and the ghosts trailing behind automatically, and the world warped around them, until they stood on the edge of the Hogwarts wards.

“My spirits shall await us here.” Melinoe proclaimed, before stepping through the wards with a visible shimmer of light. Sure enough, her ghost train had halted, spilling out long behind them through Hogsmeade and further past the hills and valleys until their dim light could no longer be seen. Already, there were lights flicking on in Hogsmeade, some kind of alarm clearly raised. Melinoe looked back and smiled, taking a deep breath through her nose as if scenting the fresh, night air. “Good. The wind carries the smell of fear. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be rightly feared.”

Harry tried not to show how much this unnerved him, though he suspected that Melinoe might be pleased to know it. He didn’t know what to do around this goddess who seemed to detest mortals and want to terrorise them. It was against everything he stood for, but the crushing weight of Melinoe’s divinity made him think twice about opening his mouth and saying something – he wasn’t sure that even Hecate’s and Hades’ interest in his eventual immortality would be enough to stop her squishing him like a bug. Or, at the very least, cursing him to never know a peaceful night’s sleep again. He wondered if the other Underworld gods were like this – which might go some way to explaining why they were generally considered apart from the other gods – or if Melinoe was an exception. The thought of spending the rest of eternity surrounded by gods like Melinoe was deeply unsettling.

Melinoe began walking up the hill towards Hogwarts, and Harry quickly followed her. He was having second thoughts about letting the goddess anywhere near Hogwarts and its inhabitants, but he didn’t think there was anything he could do to stop her. Better to get this over with as soon as possible.

“I can feel your magic here.” The goddess commented as they walked, “A crude spell, but effective enough for a mortal. I feel it anchored on almost every soul in the building. Love magic, how quaint.” Her tone had dropped rapidly into condescending. “Still,” her smirk was sharp enough to cut, “how nice it is to see the stench of Rome displaced by some Greek magic.”

“Rome?” Harry asked, surprised.

Melinoe looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Your people cast their spells in the Roman tongue, and you ask me about the influence of Rome?” Her stride never faltered, bringing them rapidly towards the darkened castle. “This far North, the land itself retains the influence of its ancestral gods, but your people took on the magic of the Romans a long time ago. Even our occupancy in these lands before we moved overseas was not enough to fully displace the power of their Roman influence.” She looked faintly disgusted.

Harry had never really thought about why their spells were in Latin (or rather, a butchered form of it, as Hermione had ranted about), even though he was vaguely aware that other countries used different spells from different languages. Even many of the traditional wixen names were taken from Roman history or mythology.

“But aren’t the Romans and Greeks-” Harry stopped himself before he said ‘the same’ or something similar, knowing uncannily that this would go down very badly indeed, “connected?” He settled on.

“Some.” Melinoe acknowledged with a tip of her head. “But I am a Greek goddess only, with no Roman form. For them, Mania took on many of my duties.”

This seemed to be a sore spot for her, so Harry wisely chose not to press.

“Keep up.” Melinoe said, warping the hillside around them a little more. “I tire of this.”

They walked through the entrance doors and then forward into the Great Hall. As if summoned, and perhaps they had been, every ghost in the castle was gathered inside, watching them with wide eyes and stiff limbs. Their glances darted to Harry every now and again, but for the most part, their eyes stayed fixed on Melinoe, like prey creatures spotting a predator. There were more ghosts here than Harry had ever seen together – more ghosts than he even knew Hogwarts had. Not even Sir Nicholas’ Death Day party had prepared Harry for what every Hogwarts ghost gathered together would look like.

Melinoe scanned over their ranks. “So many.” She murmured, gravelly voice carrying clearly despite its quietness. “I am Melinoe, Queen of Ghosts.” She announced into the eerie stillness. “I have come to collect one of your own. Who is it who desires my services?”

The ghosts turned to each other with fearful expressions, looking terrified that Melinoe would snatch them away from their desperate grasp to the living world. Only one moved, and that was Helena Ravenclaw, gliding across the floor with asphodels clinging to her skirts. “My Lady.” She presented herself with a curtsey.

Melinoe looked down at her from her towering height. “A Roman’s get.” She acknowledged with a hint of bite to her tone. “You have seen your folly?”

Helena refused to look cowed. “My task is complete.”

Melinoe hummed. “Then why have you not moved on?”

“I do not know how.” Helena replied, with the same calmness.

Melinoe turned to Harry. “And why did you not release her?”

Harry tried not to fidget. “I don’t know how to either.” He said, “It feels like I should know, but it’s just out of reach.”

Melinoe looked unimpressed and sighed heavily. “I suppose your divine mother shall teach you.” She looked back at Helena. “Very well. Come, join my train tonight, and when the sun chariot begins to rise in the sky once more, I shall lead you to your Underworld.”

Helena looked around, once at the Hogwarts ghosts behind her, who were watching with shock and some dismay, and once at Harry, before she swept gracefully over to stand behind the goddess. In the crowd, the Bloody Baron made half a step forward, before shrinking back once more with a glance at Melinoe.

“Is there any other among you who desires my assistance in entering your eternal rest?” Melinoe asked the crowd of ghosts. Her face was still grim and unsmiling, but she didn’t regard the dead with the blatant dislike as she had the living.

Some of the ghosts shuffled back rapidly, though they didn’t manage to go more than a foot or two. Something, presumably Melinoe, held them in place, preventing them from fleeing.

“I would, my Lady.” An elderly voice spoke out, as an unexpected figure came forward. Cuthbert Binns, the ghost who had continued to teach History of Magic ever since his death decades ago, strode to the front. He looked sharper and more aware than Harry had ever seen him. “I have been stuck, unaware that I was dead, for many years. Now, in your presence, I understand that I should long have passed and left my duties to the living. I would gladly seek my afterlife, though I do not believe it is the same one that you are offering, my Lady.”

Melinoe’s gaze softened minutely. “It does not matter who brings you there – you shall end up in your correct afterlife no matter which. Come and be at peace.”

Professor Binns floated over, joining Helena Ravenclaw behind Melinoe. He looked relieved, and Harry felt bad for him – though they’d all said it as a joke, no one had ever actually realised that Professor Binns hadn’t understood that he was dead. He was glad, now, that Melinoe had come to the castle; he wondered how long Professor Binns would have been trapped here if she hadn’t.

Harry thought that would be all for the Hogwarts ghosts, Professor Binns already being a surprise, but another familiar figure made her way to the front. Myrtle looked young against the backdrop of adult ghosts. Harry sometimes forgot that, even if she’d been around for over fifty years, she was the ghost of a child – forever frozen, unable to grow or mature.

Myrtle pulled on the end of her hair, shuffling her feet, even though they hovered above the flagstones. “I know who killed me now.” She said, visibly nervous. “And I made some friends.” She looked over at Harry. He smiled back at her, trying to be reassuring, even though he was shocked by this turn of events. “I don’t think I want to stay in my bathroom forever.”

“Then come, young one.” It was the softest he’d heard Melinoe speak. The goddess beckoned Myrtle until the girl came over. “Anyone else?”

No one else heeded the goddess’ call and her gaze grew contemptuous. “Very well. Cling pathetically to life as you will. Your time will come.”

Melinoe turned to the doorway, which barely accommodated her 10ft frame, before looking back at Harry. “You may stay.” She allowed him, probably sensing his hesitance to leave now that he was home. “Your task is done.” His magic acknowledged her words, releasing him from his promise to Helena. “We shall meet again, godling, perhaps in our king’s domain. You shall be more interesting when you are one of us, I think. Until then.” Melinoe didn’t wait for Harry’s response before she was warping the journey away from them with a flash of divine light that Harry had to close his eyes against.

Harry let out a breath as the freezing cold of her magic left them. The ghosts, though they did not need to breathe, did the same. Some scattered immediately, fleeing to the furthest parts of the castle, while others quickly broke out into gossip. For his part, Harry stretched out his legs, wincing at the soreness that settled in without the numbing of Melinoe’s magic. The ghosts gave him a wide berth, even the ones he knew relatively well, as if he might whisk them away at any moment as the goddess had. Harry was too exhausted to care.

A tempus charm showed that it was past three in the morning – long past curfew, which he’d have to talk to Professor Vector about at a more reasonable time – and he wanted nothing more than to return to his own bed. Still, the impression of Melinoe’s magic lingered in the castle, and Harry couldn’t forget her correction that she was also the goddess of nightmares. Pulling his hood up and becoming invisible again, Harry walked away from the clustered ghosts and tried to feel for the protective magic anchored in his soul and blood. It took a few tries, but eventually, he felt the threads of it leading out from him in hundreds of directions around the school, grouped where the house dormitories were. Carefully, gently, Harry tried to push peace and warmth towards them. It faltered and Harry frowned, until he knew what he had to do.

“Expecto patronum.” He whispered. He hadn’t been able to cast the spell since his death and subsequent un-death, too afraid that its form might have changed. Or truthfully, already knowing that it had. But now, for the hundreds of children sleeping uneasily tonight in the castle, Harry was willing to face it. A bony thestral, illuminated by its internal light, stood before him, buffeting small clouds of patronus mist with every shuffle of its broad wings and sharp hooves. Harry sighed, though couldn’t find it in him to resent the change now that he had seen the face of his new protector.

“Go.” He whispered to the manifestation of his soul, “Keep them safe.”

The thestral melted into light and then flowed along each and every thread belonging to his soul protection. The drain on his magic was not insignificant, but Harry knew that he could keep it up for this one night. He made his way back to the Gryffindor common room more by habit than any actual thought. Harry barely got his boots off before he was collapsing his bed, swaddled still in his invisibility cloak. The cool magic of the cloak and the comforting radiance of his own patronus, pouring out love and hope all around the castle, soothed him towards sleep far faster than he’d thought possible - safe in the knowledge that, for tonight, everyone in the castle would sleep with dreams protected from fear.

Chapter Text

McGonagall hadn’t been pleased to hear that she would have to seek out a new History of Magic teacher with no notice, nor that Harry’s connection to the Greek pantheon had once more kept him outside out of hours due to strange magic happenings. On the subject of Binns, once she’d got past the immediate stress of needing a replacement, she had seemed pained by the knowledge that he had never understood fully that he was dead. “It’s long past time that Cuthbert should have moved on.” She said eventually. “We were very lucky for the extra years that we had to share his wisdom,” even if most of said wisdom had been about the Goblin Wars and very little else, “but I am glad that he has now found his rest.”

Harry, sleep-deprived and also very much wishing that he hadn’t needed to make an appointment with the headmistress first thing on a Sunday morning, just nodded.

“Now go back to bed, Potter.” McGonagall said, shooing him out of her office. “You look like death warmed over.”

Harry couldn’t help the slightly inappropriate laugh he let out.

McGonagall’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion for a moment before she realised, clearly restraining herself from rolling her eyes with the iron will which had kept her as head of Gryffindor House for decades. “Potter, bed!”

Harry was hardly going to argue about that – the thought of his nice warm bed in the Gryffindor dorms was calling to him, and he was happy to answer.

-

Basilissa was, for the most part, a rather independent cat. For all that she had torn through the Magical Menagerie’s wards in order to make Harry take her home, she was generally rather content to go about her day separately to him. Often, this included napping on his bed, which he very much envied her for, or wandering about the castle, mixing with the other felines, and generally getting up to the kind of mischief which only cats and small children can. The exception to this was whenever she decided that Harry wasn’t paying her enough attention, and then she’d find him wherever he was and plop down on top of whatever he was doing. She’d only tried it in Potions the once, but the potion fumes had quickly driven her back out of the room.

Apparently, the extra time they’d spent in Harry’s bed this morning – him sleeping, and her watching over him like a fluffy sentinel – wasn’t sufficient today, because Basilissa had insisted on doing her best impression of a scarf. She was rather too large to be a good scarf, and Harry’s head was oddly hunched as he carried her down to lunch. Given that the tables were regularly covered with owls in the mornings due to the owl post, it would be rather hypocritical if other pets weren’t allowed at the tables as well. However, it was generally considered good manners to keep them off the table itself, so Harry attempted to set her majesty up on a warmed, transfigured pillow on the bench next to him. He hadn’t quite mastered the use of charms on transfigured objects, so the pillow retained and emitted heat in the same way that the parchment it was transfigured from would, but there wasn’t too much difference for Basilissa to complain about. She licked her paws and watched the rest of the hall beadily.

The House Elves were clearly paying attention, because not a moment later, a dish of cat food appeared on the bench next to Basilissa’s cushion. She mrrped happily and dug in as if Harry had been starving her. Harry shook his head, the laugh catching in his throat as an image danced through his head of his beloved Hedwig pecking contemptuously at the lumps he’d fished out of his soup for her, when they were both locked inside Dudley’s second bedroom over the summer. She’d never blamed Harry or tried to leave him, even when staying with him over the summer meant uncomfortable months cramped in her cage, unable to spread her wings or get enough food. It had been over a year since her death but the lack of her still bit at his insides with every flash of white in the sky and arrival of the morning post.

His thoughts were interrupted by Basilissa butting her head hard into his arm, demanding his full attention once more. Harry ran his fingers over her soft head, trying not to think of the difference between black fur and white feathers, and scratched her behind her ear until she was a purring lump of feline satisfaction. Basilissa was demanding in a way that Hedwig had never been, though possessed of the same kind of haughty dignity, but somehow the worst of the demands for attention always seemed to come when Harry was stuck in his head. Her food finished, she moved from her cushion onto his lap, plopping down with a proprietary kind of casualness. The warmth of her on his lap was comforting and somehow steadying. The feel of her, warm and surprisingly heavy, mixed with the sounds and smells of Hogwarts lunch and the familiar faces surrounding him, sank into Harry and seemed to melt the chill that had failed to disperse from his skin after the night’s events. Finally, he started to feel more like a person again, and less like one of Melinoe’s ghosts.

-

Fortunately, Harry was feeling himself again on time for quidditch practice. It was a nice break from all of Harry’s other projects – something familiar and uncomplicated. Although Ginny was a terror on the pitch, Harry had been inducted into the team under Oliver Wood, who Harry was absolutely willing to believe would have duelled Voldemort himself if the dark lord had tried to outlaw Quidditch. Comparatively, Ginny was rather mild (a thought which Harry would never repeat in her hearing, for fear of her reaction). While Ginny drilled them often on formations, plays, and legal to semi-legal moves, her main aim in this early part of the season seemed to be increasing their stamina. Quidditch was a highly active game, full of almost-constant movement (even if said movement was sitting down), and could go on for hours at a time. Harry, after over a year’s break and more weight loss than his healer would like, was really feeling the burn.

“Come on, you slowpokes!” Ginny yelled, twisting her broom around to look at the team straggling behind her, and then flipping back to lead them through another set of twenty laps around the pitch.

Harry dutifully leant forward over his broom and pushed it harder, even though his back and thighs ached, and his wrists were cramping from guiding the broomstick. Around him, the rest of the team followed, the Chasers just behind him, the Beaters lagging a little, and the Keeper and reserve taking up the rear. Harry resisted the urge to make eye contact with Ron, knowing full well that Ginny would somehow know and send them on an extra set of laps for it.

“Only ten more laps to go!” Ginny’s shout carried back.

Someone behind Harry groaned audibly, making him wince at the amateur mistake.

“Have it your way!” She called, “Let’s make that fifteen.”

Wisely, everyone was quiet as they kept up their high-speed laps of the pitch.

Afterwards, there was a certain amount of moaning and groaning in the locker room from the newer members of the team. “That can’t be normal.” The reserve Keeper, Blake Woodward was saying. “My legs feel like they were hit with a jelly-legs curse.”

Ron clapped him on the shoulder with a long-suffering sigh. “That’s Ginny for you. It’ll only get worse when the season starts properly.”

“That’s Quidditch for you.” Harry corrected. “At least there’s no 5am practice times.”

The new players looked at him in horror. “We’re not going to do that, right?” Antonius Lutterworth, who preferred to be called a much more sensible ‘Andy’, asked.

“Not anymore.” Harry laughed. While they all changed back into their robes and freshened up, he took great joy in telling the new players horror stories about the old quidditch days under Oliver Wood. It wasn’t hard, given his instructions for Harry’s first game were ‘catch the snitch or die trying’. By the end, the younger students were visibly glad to have Ginny as a captain and Ron had volunteered his own stories of things that had happened at quidditch games, even ones containing Fred and George both.

They met the girls outside the changing rooms and trooped back up to the castle aching, but in high spirits.

-

With the weather rapidly cooling and the skies getting darker earlier each evening, Harry dug into his books from Hecate with fresh urgency. He was all too aware that he would be expected in the Underworld over the winter holidays – though how Hecate knew his term dates was beyond him, since he could hardly imagine her writing to McGonagall and asking – and everything he read made him more aware of how much he didn’t know. There were literally thousands of years of gossip to catch up on, so he didn’t say something stupid; hundreds of deities he may or may not come across; separate rules for the Overworld and Underworld which sometimes coincided and other times contradicted each other; and, Harry thought, he might not end up using any of it if he just sat around in Hecate’s library while she tried to stuff him with enough knowledge not to embarrass her.

It was nerve-wracking to think about, but Harry rather enjoyed the openness he had with the Slytherins after their conversation about his coming immortality. After they’d gotten over the initial shock, they seemed more curious than anything else, peppering Harry with questions about his ascension and future pantheon. Somehow, it also seemed to have calmed down the worst of his detractors in Slytherin, possibly because of the confirmation they’d only have to put up with him for a couple of years longer. Harry didn’t have all the answers – actually, he had barely any of them, and most of the questions were things he hadn’t even considered – but sitting in the Slytherin common room while Blaise set up a betting ring on what Harry’s future domains might be managed to take a lot of the fear out of it.

It was Theodore Nott, however, who set the newer trend. Harry had been quizzed extensively on what Nott had done with the fire, how Harry had smelled his offering, and many of the more traditional families shared what their families did for worship. Not many of the old magical families were actually religious anymore, it seemed. While the Romans and Norse gods had a foothold on the country from their occupation, which themselves had routed out the Celtic gods, enough of the population had followed the rest of the country into Christianity during the Middle Ages, and many others simply believed in an abstract idea of magic as a higher power. There was a general idea that there used to be older magical traditions and religions, but no one could remember them anymore, so they were more of an archaeology project than a current religion. Many other religions had been brought into magical Britain from other countries, earlier than their muggle counterparts due to magical ease of travel, and had mixed in among the others. All this added up to produce a society who really didn’t care too much about separating out religious beliefs, despite their inflexibility and bigotry in other areas.

The Slytherins, who’d told Harry all of this and seemed quite happy to debate a topic with each other that wasn’t blood purity, had naturally wanted to get in on the action. Most of them seemed to have taken Nott’s words to heart on not deliberately getting the gods’ – any gods’ – attention, but there was a notable uptick in interest around different pantheons, and how you might follow them. The Slytherin trio, joined by Nott, kept any of the more reckless ideas in line, but the first time a Slytherin had dumped a little of their meal into one of the Great Hall’s braziers, Harry had almost choked. The scent came to him from across the Hall, too far for him to smell it normally, and he hadn’t known what they were doing until it hit him. He’d looked around, the feel of their magic tugging at him lightly, until he found a couple of fifth years, one with a plate and the other with a parchment and quill out, staring at him for his reaction. From there, it sort of became a thing.

Harry automatically wanted to stop them, because the idea of someone sacrificing something to him as a god was inherently mortifying, but he hadn’t known how to without offending someone, and then he wasn’t sure if he should. The Slytherins seemed to be having fun with their experiments, for one, and there was a certain feeling underlying the sacrifice. Harry wouldn’t have been able to find the words if he’d had to explain it out loud, because it was such a subtle but meaningful sliver of emotion attached to the offering. He knew that the students hadn’t meant to include it, but the impression had come to him anyway, and it took him a while of sitting outside Hogwarts’ wards thinking about it before he understood what it was – genuine thanks. He teased out the emotion in his memories, and almost didn’t know what to do with it, because once he knew, it was hard to ever forget the “thank you for caring, thank you for protection, thank you for being around, thank you for making Hogwarts safer again”. It made guilt curl up in his stomach because, between his other duties and projects, Harry hadn’t been able to work on looking after the younger Slytherins as much as he’d want to. But he knew, with the certainty he knew that he’d fight until his last breath for the safety of his friends, that the children of Slytherin were under his protection.

Under the awkwardness, there was also a tiny glow of selfish hope. Harry hadn’t brought up his impending immortality in order to gain worshippers (in fact, the thought made him squirm, like his skin had suddenly stretched too tight around him), but each offering brought with it a drop of power, a belief in him and his ability to look out for them, which he felt like a gleaming bronze-gold flare in his magic. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone because he knew that each droplet of divinity burned through his mortality ever faster, but Harry had to hope that the following he despaired about would be what made him a god rather than a spirit. Anything to come back to the people he loved and be there to protect them.

-

It was too much to hope that everything would go smoothly. In fact, very little had, though they were all working their best to keep Hogwarts running with as little trouble as possible. A large number of the students had settled into the school year fairly well, lulled by the familiar sites and motions of their schooling into a state where the memories of the war didn’t intrude too heavily on their day-to-day affairs. Children were resilient, the professors had said, though their eyes were sad. Others seemed to be actively resisting all attempts to reintegrate them with their peers. Harry wasn’t personally involved with any of that, given that they’d all agreed that his presence would be more of a hindrance than anything else, but he was aware that some of the other prefects had initiatives working on the various groups: students who’d lost family or friends, ones from pureblood supremacist families who’d suddenly had the tables turned on them, muggleborns who couldn’t trust the rest of the magical population anymore, students who clung to many and varied resentments. Parvati still wasn’t speaking to anyone but Fay Dunbar; Dennis wavered between fury and terrible quietness; students still glared at Harry with fierce bitterness for a wide range of reasons.

Still, Harry couldn’t help but be disappointed about the poison in his goblet. He wasn’t in the habit of checking his food and drinks for potions – though that may have to change at this rate – but the shimmer of magic in it was potent to his own oversensitive magic. Harry tilted the goblet from side to side, idly watching the tainted pumpkin juice move within. There was nothing visibly wrong with it, but he could feel the promise of death within like a fog of malice. It was surprisingly tempting to try it and see what it tasted like. Sighing, Harry picked up the goblet and, shooting Ron and Hermione meaningful looks which had his friends immediately dropping what they were doing and standing up, headed towards the headmistress’ office.

He explained along the way what was going on. Hermione quickly cast a stasis charm over the goblet, as well as an air bubble, so that none of the toxin could evaporate or degrade. Ron was fuming at his side, ears gone red with barely restrained fury. McGonagall, when they told her what had happened, wasn’t much better. She summoned Madam Pomphrey and Professor Slughorn to her office immediately, who poked around the goblet with deepening frowns.

“A highly toxic concoction.” Slughorn said, after running tests on the contaminated juice. Some of the tests, Harry had recognised from sixth year, when they had covered poisons, but others were much more advanced. “But also, imperfect.” He noted. “Whoever made this seems to have thrown just about every poisonous substance they could find into a cauldron and hoped for the best. Or the worst, perhaps.” He laughed at his own joke, though stopped quickly when no one else joined in, clearing his throat. “They certainly have some Potions experience – the sheen of Essence of Insanity is unmistakable and brewed adequately – but certainly not enough to have completed NEWTs. Any NEWT student would have been taught that a blended poison is only more effective when the ingredients do not counteract each other. The infusion of wormwood, which forms the basis of a rather nasty poison which was popular a few centuries ago, reacts rather oddly with the powdered snake fangs of the Black Vein Poison draught, and instead becomes a rather strong alcoholic drink.”

“And what is this all to mean, Horace?” McGonagall prompted, drawing Slughorn away from his impromptu lecture.

“Ah, yes.” The old professor said, smoothing down the front of his velvet robes as he drew himself upright once more. “That is to say that this is unprofessionally done – likely mixed by an amateur or student. It might well have done the job of killing Mr Potter, if he had been a little less wary, but certainly, it was not made by or purchased from any professional potioneer. Moreover, all ingredients, so far as I can identify, are common enough to be purchased from an apothecary or, in fact, stored in a student’s ingredient kit.”

 McGonagall nodded, looking saddened but unsurprised by the idea that it was very possible – probable, even – that one of the students had brewed the poison and slipped it into Harry’s drink.

“But how’d it get into Harry’s goblet?” Ron asked, apparently following along the same line of thought. “We sit in a different place every day. They could only have got it in if they somehow got past all of us, while we were sitting there, or if they had the Elves add it. And the Elves wouldn’t.”

Hermione’s expression darkened. “The Elves wouldn’t, of their own free will.”

They all exchanged glances. It was as good a starting point as any.

-

The House Elves had been appalled at the suggestion that one of them might have been forced into poisoning Harry. Apparently, his reputation as the defeater of Voldemort was still going strong in the Hogwarts kitchens. It might also have had something to do with the preserved wreath that hung on one wall, spotless and white, Harry’s death-cool magic like a sliver of moonlight in the bright, hustling warmth of the kitchens. Harry was pleased to see it – that the elves had accepted his acknowledgment for their deaths in the spirit it was given – though it grieved him to think that it was entirely possible that he was the only person who had done so.

None of the House Elves owned up to having been the one to add the poison to Harry’s goblet – and they’d confirmed that it was the goblet itself that was poisoned, not just the juice – but some probing questions from Hermione and McGonagall (who worked horrifyingly well together) eventually pointed everyone towards one of the younger kitchen elves, whose memory of the morning was fuzzy.

“Hi, Soppy.” Harry said to the young elf, who was wringing their pillowcase in their hands and crying. “You’re not in trouble and no one’s blaming you, we just want to find out what happened.”

Soppy, however, was inconsolable. “I’ve been a bad, bad elf, Mister Harry Potter, sir. I’ve hurt a student!” They broke into tears harder, long-fingered hands coming up to cover their face. “Soppy deserves to be given clothes!”

“No one was hurt.” Harry tried to soothe, though he felt distinctly out of his depth. “See, I’m still here. No harm was actually done. And whoever made you do this is the one who was trying to hurt me, not you.”

It took a little while, but soon enough Soppy was able to recount their day up to the point where everything got blurry. They were an elf primarily assigned to Ravenclaw Tower and the surrounding areas. They’d woken up in the early morning, delivered the fresh laundry to the Tower for the day, and had made sure that the last of the common room was cleared from the night before, and then had headed down to the kitchen to see if the morning group needed any help with the breakfast things. Except, Soppy couldn’t remember actually making it to the kitchen. Somewhere between Ravenclaw Tower and the kitchens, they’d fallen under someone’s spell. Soppy hadn’t even noticed coming out from under the spell’s direct control until the elves had been asked about anyone who had blank spots in their memories.

There was enough that they knew that Soppy had indeed been controlled, and the dark magic that still clung to them confirmed it. Harry, unexpectedly finding himself the best at detecting curses in the room, had led the investigation into that, and tentatively identified the curse as the imperius. From what he could gather, Soppy had been ordered to forget the encounter and the poison she’d added to Harry’s goblet, but the caster had been sloppy with their technique. The imperius hadn’t lacked willpower, but the casting had been rough at best. Unfortunately, this didn’t narrow their culprits down hugely, as pretty much everyone who had attended Hogwarts last year had some practice casting the Unforgiveables.

Still, they had some leads to follow. There was a chance that whoever had been so careless in their casting of the imperius curse would also have been reckless enough to not consider the possibility of witnesses in the form of the Hogwarts’ ghosts and portraits. If they were found quickly enough, they might also not have managed to clear their wands yet. McGonagall thanked the elves for their help and apologised to Soppy for the harm they had come to while under Hogwarts’ protection, promising the elf that they would look into who had cursed them.

McGonagall let them all floo back to her office through the kitchen fireplace – which was an experience that Harry would never have expected – and began giving orders to the portraits, who quickly vanished off in pursuit of information. “Terrible business.” She said unhappily. “Poison, of all things, in this school!”

“What’s going to happen now?” Harry asked. He knew what his friends were going to do – there was no stopping them from looking into who had tried to kill him, and he wouldn’t restrain them even if he could – but he wasn’t sure what McGonagall would be doing.

“Firstly, classes are cancelled for the day.” The headmistress stated, writing a note to that effect, duplicating it a few times, and sending them off as tiny paper bats which whipped out the door and into the halls. “The school will be going into lockdown – no one in, no one out – until the aurors have cleared us. From there, we will take the auror department’s recommendations about how to proceed.”

“That’s… a lot.” Harry said finally.

McGonagall looked at him sternly over the rim of her glasses. “This was a murder attempt, Potter. One which might well have succeeded. Of course there must be an investigation.”

Harry’s mouth twisted as he failed to find the words he wanted to express his thoughts on that. It sounded sensible when she said it like that, but if that was the case, why hadn’t there been proper investigations every other time someone tried to kill him in the past? Why had there been months of petrifications and no aurors brought in? He hadn’t thought it over much at the time – had only been aware in the vaguest sense that the magical world had any kind of law enforcement – but surely, that kind of thing should have brought an investigation in.

McGonagall must have read something like that on his face, because her lips turned down. “There have been some flaws in how Hogwarts has been run in the past.” She acknowledged. “Albus always was very suspicious of allowing the Ministry any influence in how Hogwarts was run – and we all know that it was with good reason – but it did sometimes go to the extent of making Hogwarts overly isolationist, and keeping to ourselves things that really should have been dealt with by our government. I cannot change how things were done in the past, but I can choose how I wish to run Hogwarts as its current Headmistress, and serious crimes committed on Hogwarts grounds are not actions which I will abide, ignore, brush off, or otherwise allow to fester by taking their inquiry onto myself rather than persons more qualified.”

Hermione nodded beside him, and when Harry turned, he saw that she looked pleased. They all had a rocky history with the Ministry, but he knew he wasn’t the only one who had increasingly wondered why Hogwarts was run the way it had been.

“I would brace yourself.” McGonagall said, as she paused by the fireplace. “More suited for this work, the aurors may be, but that doesn’t always mean that their investigations are efficient or pleasant to be a part of. As the intended victim, they will want to ask you a lot of questions.”

Harry grimaced. It was setting up to become a very long day indeed.

Chapter Text

The aurors finally let Harry go after grilling him on everything he’d done that day to how exactly he’d noticed the poison in his drink. Apparently, no one else knew exactly what he meant by the way the magic of the potion stuck out to him, at least without focusing very intently on it, which he hadn’t been doing with his breakfast. Eventually, however, they simply put it down to Harry Potter being Harry Potter. While his reputation was generally the bane of his existence (now Voldemort was dead and gone, and could no longer fulfil that role), sometimes it could be useful. They expected another attempt, given that this one had failed, and warned Harry to be on guard. Harry wasn’t sure he could have relaxed his guard even if he tried. They left him with the statement that there should be no announcement of what happened, nor should the details of the case be publicised, but he was free to tell his close friends at his discretion. After all, one of the aurors pointed out, it might be interesting to see how the people around him reacted to the failed attempt, and the more people watching out, the better.

Returning to Gryffindor Tower, Harry couldn’t keep the scowl off his face. He’d felt hunted at Hogwarts before, had had major threats against his life almost every year that he’d attended, but for the most part, they hadn’t been from other students. It threatened to feed the bitterness that still wallowed deep in his chest, resisting every time he tried to evict it. He’d fought for these students, died for them, and yet at least one of them wanted him dead. It was almost worse that there were so many potential culprits with their many and varied reasons – the Death Eater children and sympathisers, and the friends and relatives of loved ones who’d died were the most obvious groups that sprung to mind, but really, there could be any number of reasons. Grief and anger, mixed with typical teenage poor decision-making, was a cocktail for disaster, and Harry was a very public figure to pin blame on.

He'd been tempted to go to the Slytherin common room, since, by reputation, they were the most likely House to contain his poisoner, but his friends had wanted him back in the relative safety of their own common room for the day. It was clear that they were both feeling rather shaken up about this. Hermione was frowning at nothing as they walked, thoughts clearly miles away as she mumbled something rapidly under her breath. Ron, on the other hand, was hypervigilant, scanning the hallways around them and glaring whenever someone came too close. Very few did, and Harry supposed absently that the three of them were probably cutting a rather intimidating image right now.

“Dorm meeting?” Ron asked, as they near the Tower.

Harry nodded. His impulse was to refuse to draw anyone else into his problems, but that never worked out well for him. “Us, Ginny, and Neville?” He suggested.

“Fay as well.” Ron offered up, with a thoughtful expression. “She’ll want to know too.”

He hadn’t considered Fay Dunbar – still didn’t interact with her all that much outside of prefect meetings – but Ron was probably right that she’d want to be involved. She was a Gryffindor prefect after all. “Alright.” It felt odd to be bringing someone new in, but Fay was very level-headed, from what Harry had seen of her, and possibly that was what they needed more of.

Hermione headed straight up to the boys’ dorm when they got in, provoking some raised eyebrows and comments in the common room, but the rest of the room soon read Harry and Ron’s expressions, and clearly decided not to push their luck today. There were loud questions about whether they knew why classes had been cancelled – since they were the obvious ones missing and the usual suspects when trouble abounded – but Harry and Ron ignored them for the most part, quietly gathering the three they were looking for. Fay seemed surprised to be asked but came willingly enough.

“What’s this about?” She asked, once they were all in the dorm and the door had been warded with a barrage of spells by the three of them.

“Earlier today,” Harry began, “I found a potion in my drink. It was a poison.”

There were gasps from the three who hadn’t known, and Ginny’s fists clenched in anger.

“Slughorn said it was pretty potent – might well have killed me if I drank it – but that it was an amateur brew, more than likely made by a student.” Harry continued.

Fay, in particular, paled, less used than the others to the idea of people being actively out to kill Harry.

“The aurors, and the professors, are conducting an investigation at the moment, but they suspect that whoever it was might try again, given that this one didn’t work.”

Ginny was fuming, face flushed bright red. Neville didn’t look much better. Unlike Fay, they had no horror or disbelief left for threats on Harry’s life, but had skipped straight to anger.

“We’ll watch out for you.” Neville promised grimly. Ginny echoed him and Fay a moment later, if still a tad confused.

“Thanks, guys.” Harry smiled at them, though he wasn’t sure how convincing it was. “Basically, we just want more eyes out, whoever we can trust, to see if we can see who’s acting weird and catch any further attempts in the act.”

“I’ll talk to George.” Ginny said thoughtfully. “He hasn’t really been…making anything recently, but I have a feeling he might try and pull something off if it’s for you, Harry. I’m sure he can make something that detects potions.”

“And natural poisons.” Hermione interjected strongly. They all looked at her quizzically. “Well, Harry said that he caught the poison because it was magical, and he could sense the magic, but not all poisons are magical, so we don’t know if it would stick out the same way.” She explained.

“That’s a good point.” Harry agreed, feeling cold inside. He hadn’t even thought about that, assuming he’d be able to stop any further poisonings by feeling them before he touched them.

“Perhaps we’ve been too lax about Hogwarts’ security.” Neville said, looking angrily at the ground. “If people are brewing poisons within the wards, what good are they doing, really?”

“And using Unforgivables.” Ron pointed out, to the shock of the three who hadn’t been in the meeting earlier. “Someone used an imperius in the castle and no one got any kind of warning about it. If they can use it on an elf, they can use it on a person. And if they can use it on a person, they can use the killing curse as well. And even your shields, Harry, can’t stop a killing curse.”

Neville nodded slowly, taking that in. “There’s definitely something wrong with the wards then.”

“Teams, then?” Ginny asked, “Some of us should be guarding Harry, Neville can look into why the wards aren’t working properly, maybe we should stock up on antidotes and common cures as well. I’ll talk to George about something for detection, but we should probably have a look in the library and see what’s there too. Harry should probably be upping his shields, maybe placing some better wards around the places he’s normally in. And we need to find some way to catch whoever is trying to kill Harry, not just stop the attempts.”

Harry wanted to argue about being guarded, but there was a steely glint in Ginny’s eye which warned him against that course of action.

“Who do we trust to get involved?” Ron asked, “Because the more people on board, the better, but also the more obvious it is, and the more chance we pick someone who can’t be trusted.”

He raised a fair point. “The original DA.” Harry said as a starting point. “The ones who are still here at least, and, um, obviously not Dennis and the like.” He really, truly wished he didn’t have to say things like that.

Hermione nodded. “Most of our year prefects are covered by that, and the rest should be safe to involve, though I’d hesitate about the younger years – we simply don’t know them well enough. What about the Slytherins?”

Harry had to seriously consider that, even as Ron flatly denied them. “I think Blaise, Daphne, and Tracey would be fine.” He said, “I’m not just saying that because I like them, but all three have their own reasons for not having wanted the war to go in Voldemort’s favour, and I can’t see any way that they would benefit from having me dead.”

Ron grimaced, but accepted that, “Your call, mate.”

Hermione was more enthusiastic. “They are the best placed to find out if the culprit might be in Slytherin.”

Ginny nodded at that, though looked no happier than her brother about it.

“What can I do?” Fay asked. “I mean, I’m happy to be involved, but I don’t really understand what I’m doing here.”

Harry looked around at the others. “Could you maybe help us with the people we don’t know so well? Just, like, another pair of eyes out.”

“Sure.” She said, then paused. “You don’t mean, you know, Parvati, right? It wouldn’t have been her.”

“No.” Harry said, though he wasn’t completely sure he was telling the truth. “Just the people outside our normal group.” In truth, he hadn’t even considered Parvati as a real threat – still didn’t – but grief had driven people to stranger things.

“What are we telling people?” Ron asked. “I mean, everyone is out of classes this morning and probably everyone’s guessed that Harry’s at the bottom of it again.”

“We need to keep it vague.” Hermione mused. “Perhaps we can just say that something important came up and McGonagall wanted the professors’ input.”

Harry nodded. That seemed like it would work – their poisoner would probably know what that meant, but the uninvolved wouldn’t. If they were very lucky, it could cause someone to slip up.

“Let’s get to it then.” Ginny declared.

Looking around the room, Harry could see his friends’ expressions bright with determination and carefully controlled rage. Harry himself was feeling less vengeful, but just as determined – if Voldemort himself hadn’t managed to take Harry down, there was no way he was letting some amateur poisoner with an unknown agenda do him in. One way or another, even if he had to root through the student body and put up working wards himself, Harry was going to make Hogwarts properly safe.

-

They eased awkwardly back into school time. Harry’s Slytherin friends had been outraged to hear about the poisoning attempt, though perhaps less surprised than his friends from other houses. Apparently, there was at least one moderate poisoning per year in Slytherin (many more minor ones), though it was almost never serious – the price for getting caught was just too high. It was because of this that they had uneasily suggested that it was quite possible for the poisoner to be a Slytherin, since not only was there a House tradition of it, but everyone in the House knew that Harry was in possession of constant shields which blocked physical and spell attacks, so would have sought another method. With a rather scary look in her eye, Daphne had promised to get to the bottom of it. If anyone in Slytherin had been involved, not only would Daphne find them, but she would make sure they would wish until their dying day that they hadn’t.

On the other hand, Slytherin’s tendency for poisoning did come in handy, because most of the students knew some methods of detecting poisons in the food and drink, on surfaces, and even as airborne gases. They were more than happy to teach them to Harry, especially after he mentioned that he’d probably pass them on to the DA as well. Many of the students had enchanted artefacts, heirlooms, which served this purpose, and Harry had to wonder just how prevalent poisoning and spiking with potions was in the magical world. He’d known that the laws were surprisingly lax about unwillingly feeding someone else a potion – see: the love potion incident from sixth year – but the ease with which the topic was mentioned, as a natural hazard to be aware of in social gatherings and the workplace, was enough to turn Harry’s stomach.

He was still thinking about it while he worked in Herbology, transplanting a giant fairy deathcap into a larger pot, absently ignoring the illusionary snares which tried to grab his arms and avoiding the smaller real ones. If nothing else, it was clear that his attempted murderer wasn’t in seventh year Herbology – or likely sixth – because they’d have known then that Herbology was where the truly deadly poisons could be found. Almost nothing they’d touched this year wasn’t lethal under the right circumstances, though very useful in others. He potted it on, finishing with the soil and then giving it a good water. The giant fungus shook happily under the spray, producing a faint rainbow mist around it. Harry patted it gently, feeling it continue to squirm in delight, and then immediately went to wash the hallucinogenic slime off his dragonhide gloves.

“We have about a month left until the end of term.” Professor Sprout stated, after they’d all finished repotting the fairy deathcaps. “Your progress reports on the moly experiments have all been good, save from a few who know what they need to work on.” She cast a quick look at the students in question. “However, it is now time to think about writing up your final reports. At the start of our final week, you will all bring your moly plants carefully back to Greenhouse 7 and give a presentation to the rest of the class about your experiment and the results you have found. Anyone who is still having difficulty cycling their magic around themselves and through their moly plant should see me after class, and we will arrange extra time to work on it.”

Harry’s experiment was going reasonably well. He hadn’t killed any of the plants, which was a great start, and hadn’t accidentally killed anyone else with them either, which was an even better one. The one by the windowsill was growing happily as ever, soaked in the magic of the boys’ combined wards and the ambient magic of Gryffindor Tower. The sunlight moly flower was growing very large, though Harry had noted that it required more water than the other two to stay healthy. The moonlight moly, contrary to Harry’s fears, hadn’t wilted without enough light, but there was something different about it, that he hadn’t quite managed to put his finger on yet. At some point, he was going to have to sit down and throw spells at it until he could find out what. Still, he was feeling reasonably prepared to put a report together, even if he was dreading actually writing the thing, let alone presenting it in front of the class.

Outside the greenhouse, Basilissa was sat, licking her paw casually as if she had just happened to be where Harry was. She wouldn’t enter the greenhouse – there were far too many dangerous plants in there and she was a cat of good sense – but since the poisoning attempt, she’d barely left Harry’s side, waiting outside the classroom door for him when she couldn’t come with him. He wasn’t sure how she knew – didn’t want to ask either, for his own peace of mind – but he appreciated the sentiment. Similarly, Harry’s friends came to flank him as they walked back up towards the castle, moving around him until he was firmly at their centre. It was exasperating and somewhat stifling, but Harry tried not to argue about it when he saw how much more relaxed it made his friends to have him somewhere they considered protected.

They rarely took meals in the Great Hall nowadays, which was a shame, because the bustling of the Great Hall was one of the things Harry had come to really appreciate about Hogwarts, having seen it so dead and still. Instead, they would often eat in the kitchens, if they were in a small group, or take their food from there directly and find somewhere more private to sit. That didn’t stop everyone from sending a barrage of detection spells at Harry’s food and, after his prompting that he wasn’t the only one at risk, their own. McGonagall had given them all permission to eat wherever they liked, given the circumstances, and it really was more relaxing to eat in the prefects’ common room, or wherever they ended up, rather than constantly looking over their shoulders in the Great Hall.

Still, not even his friends’ probably rational concerns were enough to keep Harry grounded from the first quidditch match of the season. Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff promised an entertaining start to the quidditch season, and both teams had been practicing like mad. Partially, Harry justified to his friends that although a quidditch match was indeed one of the times when he was most vulnerable – which they’d seen by the various attacks on him over the years, and also because he had to remove the physical protection part of his shields so that they would not block bludgers – it was also one of the most public. If someone made some kind of attack on him, they would be surrounded by the majority of the student body, increasing the chances of people seeing something happening, and also with most of the staff in attendance. Moreover, since Harry’s friends were alert and on the lookout for suspicious behaviour, the quidditch game was probably one of the best times that they might catch someone. Also, Harry just really wanted to play quidditch again.

The topic had been debated back and forth, but eventually they had agreed on a plan. Harry was allowed to keep his wand on him during the game, with the understanding that it would only be drawn in an emergency and would constitute the end of the game. His friends, the DA members, and the prefects would be scattered throughout the crowd, and would be on the lookout for anything odd. Vector, McGonagall, and the other Heads of Houses were also aware of the situation, and would respond immediately to sparks in the sky by stopping the game, which Madam Hooch would also be looking for. Hermione, meanwhile, would be taking advantage of the majority of the student body being down on the quidditch pitch (and her own indifference to the game), to keep an eye on the castle and make sure that no one had the same idea. She would be taking the Marauders’ Map and the invisibility cloak to help her.

When the game day came, they were all buzzing with anticipation. It wasn’t that they were assuming something would happen, but rather that they’d collectively decided they’d rather be overprepared than taken by surprise again. They’d all had rather enough of only reacting. Harry, meanwhile, was enjoying the thrill of gameday nerves, adrenaline beginning to thrum in his veins. He’d missed the excitement of quidditch – the speed, competition, and sheer unpredictability which no practice session could properly emulate. Changed into his quidditch leathers, Harry deactivated the physical part of his shielding spell, before running a quick series of countercurses over his broom as well. It hadn’t left his trunk for more than an hour, but better safe than sorry.

They gathered in the tunnel under the quidditch stands, Ginny at their lead. Her red hair was tied up tightly in a bun to stop the flyaway hairs trailing, and she was showing Aneesha how to charm hers the same way. Their new players were looking particularly nervous, but even the old ones were shifting restlessly in place. Ginny looked back at them all as the announcer’s voice began booming around the field, scanning her eyes over each of her team members. “We’ve trained for this.” She said, projecting over the barely muffled racket of hundreds of enthusiastic children, “Ignore the crowd, do your best. If you make a mistake, you’ve made a mistake, just keep playing. Let’s go beat Hufflepuff!” She thrust her fist in the air and the team echoed her cheer.

Only a moment later and they were stepping out of the dim tunnel into the bright light of morning. The quidditch stands looked very different full, and the sea of movement around them was almost dizzying. Though it seemed to unnerve a couple of the others, it helped Harry settle back into the mindset of the game. Cool concentration crept over him, and Harry gave the opposing team a grin that might have held slightly too many teeth, if their double takes were anything to go by. Ginny and the Hufflepuff captain, Roper, shook hands, before Madam Hooch bade them to mount their broomsticks. Then, with the shrill peal of a whistle, they were off.

Harry only tracked the rest of the game in the vaguest of senses. He needed to know how his team were scoring, who remained in play, and the kind of moves the other team were making, but it would be a waste of his time to pay too close attention to the game. He’d gotten distracted like that a lot earlier on in his quidditch career, but now he knew that every goal he watched was vital time that he could be checking for the snitch or tracking the other seeker. He didn’t know this seeker, which was both surprising and unsurprising. Surprising, because Harry generally paid attention to other quidditch players and unsurprising because, outside of players he already knew, Harry didn’t know many people in other Houses, especially in lower years. He was slightly built, like most seekers, though Harry guessed he would be taller than him, and moved with speed, if not grace. Harry tried some feints around him and nodded to himself – definitely fast. Harry wouldn’t want to compete with him in a flat-out race but, he thought, as he flung himself through a hairpin turn which sent the bludger hit after him towards one of the Hufflepuff chasers, Harry might have the advantage on manoeuvrability.

He circled high above the pitch, working in descending loops to try and spot the elusive gleam of the golden snitch. It was always much harder during the actual games, when the air was filled with the fast-paced movements of two full teams, and the stands were a riot of colour and motion. More than one person had something on them that shone gold – irritatingly, often the Gryffindor supporters – which always drew Harry’s attention, before he realised what he’d seen. The other seeker didn’t seem to be having better luck either, following Harry from above at a small delay, as if that would keep Harry from realising that he had a tail.

Finally, he spotted it, hanging high in the air between the goalposts and the Ravenclaw section. Harry looked behind him, and saw his tail still following him, a few metres higher than Harry was. Harry didn’t want to tip him off, having seen the speed of the other seeker and knowing that a flat-out sprint wouldn’t be to his advantage when the Hufflepuff seeker was already closer. Harry rose higher in the air, keeping the snitch in the corner of his vision, but with the same moderate speed he had every time before, when he’d begun his searching loops again. It was a bit early, if the Hufflepuff had been watching his cycles closely, but hopefully, he hadn’t. Below him, there was a great commotion as someone was hit hard with a bludger, but Harry had no attention to spare for that now.

As soon as Harry had risen about ten metres, several above the Hufflepuff and also a few more in the direction of the Ravenclaw section, Harry leant down, gripped tight to his broomstick, and shot off with all the considerable speed the firebolt could give him. He was vaguely aware of the roar of the crowd, and of the announcer exclaiming that he’d seen the snitch, but his focus was on the small golden ball which immediately began darting away as soon as Harry was in pursuit. Behind him, he knew the Hufflepuff seeker wouldn’t be far away, so there was no room for mistakes. He tracked the ball and tried to cut it off by going to its right, so it was trapped against the side of the stand, but a well-hit bludger shattered his momentum, forcing him to swerve dangerously close to the side in order to dodge it. The snitch took advantage of Harry’s moment of inattention, to dodge to his right, flying back into open space. Harry pursued it single-mindedly, but his position was much more tenuous now.

From the corner of his eye, Harry could see the Hufflepuff seeker had gained on him, having made up the distance by flying through the middle, and thus being closer when the snitch had made a break for it back into the open air. The snitch plunged, swooping agilely through the players, forcing the two seekers to do the same. It was a brilliant confusion of whipping leathers, charging broomsticks, thrown balls, and obstructive limbs, before the shrieking noise of both incoming bludgers forced Harry to pull out, corkscrewing his broomstick upside down to dodge players and bludgers alike, as he made for empty space. A Hufflepuff beater wasn’t so lucky, being hit off her broomstick and down onto the sand, and the quaffle was dropped, before Ginny was swooping down to get it. Whipping his head around, Harry found the Hufflepuff seeker looking similarly paused, searching through the knot of chasers to no avail.

“They’ve lost the snitch! What a hit from Lutterworth there!”

Taking a moment to judge the movements of the players above and take note of the score – Gryffindor were up 30 to Hufflepuff’s 10, looks like they were both struggling to score – Harry chose his moment and dove back into the air, spiralling cleanly through the mass of players until he was in the free space above them once more.

No sign of the snitch. This time, Harry’s Hufflepuff tail followed closer, only a couple of broom lengths behind. Loath as he was to admit it, it wasn’t a bad play. As they’d already seen, Harry was better at spotting the snitch, but the other seeker was plenty fast enough to make up that difference if he caught onto Harry’s movements quickly enough. Well then, Harry decided, there was only one obvious course of action to take. He smiled to himself, even while scanning the air for a hint of the snitch – it wouldn’t do to miss it because Harry was too caught up in his scheming. For a further few minutes, Harry continued to circle at a steady pace, keeping his eyes peeled for the snitch but half his attention on the seeker behind him. He checked his first impulse to go, and then his second, before, on the third, seeing the other seeker’s momentary distraction with a point to Hufflepuff, Harry dove.  

Despite flying almost vertically, Harry deliberately slowed himself until he was sure that the other seeker was on his tail. Then, he accelerated, heading towards the ground with almost terrifying speed. The crowd was going wild, the announcer shouting, as Harry bobbed and weaved just enough to obscure the other seeker’s vision, while making it seem like he was chasing the ever-elusive snitch. The ground drew close, filling his vision as the noise around them became louder. A moment, another, a test of nerve between the seekers as they pointed straight towards the ground. With instinct more than calculated timing, Harry pulled hard on the handle of his broomstick, having to wrench the nose upwards before he impacted with the ground. His bristles dug a small channel in the sand before he was properly airborne again.

The other seeker wasn’t so lucky, having also pulled up but a moment too late, clearly less experienced with reckless dives than Harry himself. Harry had heard the impact and turned to see the other seeker lying metres away from his broomstick, trails of sand showing how he’d been thrown. He was moving, which kept Harry from feeling too guilty, and so Harry left him behind to return to his watching circles.

“A magnificent Wronski Feint from Harry Potter! Madam Pomphrey sure isn’t going to be pleased with him!”

Harry winced, acknowledging the point. Just because it was a legal play didn’t mean that the mediwitch wasn’t going to have choice words to say to him after this.

“Greene seems to be moving around okay.” The commentator said, which Harry was rather pleased to hear. “He’s been cleared for the air, but is this the end of the game for him? He’s not looking quite so fast on that broomstick now.”

That had been the hope. Well, that and that hopefully this would keep the other seeker, Greene, from tailing Harry quite so closely. Indeed, it seemed that Greene, covered in sand and flying awkwardly, was abandoning Harry altogether, going on his own search for the snitch. In the end, this was enough. Harry spotted the snitch some time later hovering near the bottom of the Gryffindor goalposts and dove towards it. Greene, hesitating now until he was sure Harry was actually after something, was too far behind to catch up. Closing his hand around the golden ball, Harry let out a whoop, echoed a moment later by his team and the Gryffindor section of the stands.

His team piled in around him as they collapsed off their brooms onto stiff, unsteady legs, bringing each other in for adrenaline-fuelled thumps on the back. The Hufflepuff team were less enthusiastic, clearly unhappy for the loss, but there was a reason their House was known for fair play. They came around as a group to shake the Gryffindor players’ hands, and Harry found himself seeking out Greene.

“No hard feelings?” He asked the boy, who, on closer inspection, had bruises visibly appearing in bright red-pinks. “It was a good game. You’re very fast.”

“Nah, Potter.” Greene said, taking his hand and shaking it a little tenderly. “Quidditch is quidditch. Maybe I’ll get you next time. You’re absolutely mad though; that was a ridiculous dive.”

Harry laughed loudly, still caught in the thrill of the chase. “Maybe next time, yeah.”

They all changed in record time, aching bodies buoyed by good spirits, and made it back quickly to the castle, accompanied by their celebrating housemates. Only meeting Hermione at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower made Harry remember that the others had been on alert for a threat to his life.

“Harry.” Hermione said, smile sitting on her face a little wrong. “I think we might have something.”

Chapter Text

While their fears that someone might use the quidditch game to make an attack had been unfounded, it seemed that Hermione had been wise to keep an eye on the castle during the match. Not everyone in Hogwarts attended every quidditch match – though many did, since they were one of the few organised entertainment events throughout the Hogwarts school year – so, it wasn’t uncommon for people to remain behind, especially if they were in the older years, studious, not all that interested in quidditch, or their House wasn’t playing. However, it was decidedly stranger for there to be meetings of fifteen strong held in out of the way classrooms during the match.

Hermione had noted down all the names involved (actually, she’d made a list of everyone in the castle during the game, including herself) to forward to the professors for further investigation. She hadn’t been able to recognise all the names, but a meeting with a couple of prefects from each House confirmed that most of the students involved were part of dark-aligned families. His friends had passed the list around, and tried to attach faces to names, but there were few that Harry knew personally. The only ones he recognised for sure were Millicent Bulstrode, whose cat’s fur had once interacted with their Polyjuice potion so badly, and Leon Harper, which was slightly disappointing. There were other, smaller meetings around the castle at the time, but this one was certainly the biggest. The names alone proved nothing – for all they knew, it was a quidditch-apathetic knitting circle – but it was a place to start.

Still, there wasn’t much more they could do about it. Officially, the aurors were leading the investigation, and the professors were the ones tasked with keeping an eye on the student body, so, having handed the gathered information over, there wasn’t anything further they were supposed to involve themselves in. Of course, this had never stopped them before and they certainly weren’t going to stop now, but it felt different now that they could be sure that the auror department actually were investigating, and that the professors were listening. Harry supposed they could get up to their old tricks of sneaking around various common rooms and eavesdropping – which was very tempting now he properly thought about it – but he now had friends in all those common rooms who could simply invite them in or do the eavesdropping for them. It was an oddly uneasy feeling to simply trust them to do information gathering without him.

-

The anticipation was almost the worst part of it. While they all waited on tenterhooks for someone to bring them news or for another attempt to happen, life ticked on as normal. McGonagall still taught them the added complexities of transfiguring enchanted objects, Slughorn moved on to modifying the properties of potions by changing their alchemical elements, Flitwick was hurrying them through a set of complicated enchantments so they could move on to the basics of charm creation, Sprout had them working on complicated climate control elements of the modern wixen greenhouse, and Barnaby was still driving them through his uninspired curriculum. Harry had wanted one year, just one, where he could focus on his classwork and exams, but once more he found himself distracted in class, mind caught up worrying about dangers that the average student knew nothing about.

Sitting in DADA was excruciating that Thursday, and it was only the first class of the day. Harry had woken up from uneasy dreams of churning rivers that howled as they fell into a pit so deep he couldn’t see the bottom, despite one of the rivers glowing like fire. It had put him on edge, which only worsened when they had gone to eat in the Great Hall, wanting to show their faces after almost a week of eating elsewhere. Their absence had been noted, and Harry had found the occupants of the Great Hall once more staring at him instead of eating their breakfasts. He knew, rationally, that most of them were just curious about what was going on – since clearly something was – but the knowledge that it could have been any one of them who’d tried to kill him made each gaze feel like a pointed weight pressing against his skin. He’d sat through his friends scanning his food and drink for potions and poisons before being able to eat any of it, and he couldn’t muster up any appetite for it after that reminder.

Barnaby’s own stare, from the moment Harry had stepped into the DADA classroom, had been the icing on the particularly tasteless cake. Harry had hoped that, since they’d all left the Hall early, they would have a few minutes to themselves, just him and his friends, before others started to arrive for class, but the professor had been uncharacteristically already seated at his desk when they came in, eyes alert on the door as if he’d been waiting for them. Perhaps he had.

“Mr Potter,” the professor began, tone sympathetic, “I heard about all that nasty business with the poison. It’s absolutely despicable what some people will stoop to. And after all you’ve done for all of us… Of course, I’m not surprised that you managed to prevent it.” There was an odd weight on the word. “I’m sure that these dark wizards, whoever they are, wouldn’t be able to take you down, but you do of course have the rest of the Hogwarts staff behind you, as well as myself.” The professor straightened up in his seat, making eye contact with Harry until he had to be the one who looked away, because Barnaby clearly wouldn’t. “I’m aware that we may have gotten off on the wrong foot somewhat, but I am an auror, and I would be happy to talk to you about further precautions you might be able to take or protections I would be able to give you.” There was something beseeching about his look that Harry didn’t know how to receive or answer.

“Er, thanks.” Harry said awkwardly, after the pause had stretched out a moment too long. “Um, I know the auror department are working on it and my friends are helping me add to my current shields.” He hoped the professor took the hint.

No such luck. “Still, I feel that it is my duty as the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, as an auror, and as a light wizard to ensure that you are as protected as you possibly can be within these walls.” Barnaby eyed Ron speculatively. “And perhaps your friends would also be relieved if you had more professional defences. I’m sure they have performed most admirably, but you are all still young yourselves.”

Ron stiffened next to him. If there was one thing that he hated – and that dug into his insecurities – it was being used as “Harry Potter’s friend” for some kind of access to Harry. That Barnaby thought he was better at looking after Harry than them was just further insult.

“That’s very kind, professor.” Hermione said coldly, from Harry’s other side. She only kept the barest traces of civility with the professor after their earlier clash. “However, we have more than enough experience keeping Harry safe, especially from unknown parties.”

Barnaby glared back at her, scowl darkening his features into something surprisingly ugly. “And yet, someone got poison past you and into Harry’s drink.”

“That was uncalled for.” Harry interjected, before either Ron or Hermione could heat the argument up further. Out of the corner of his eye, Ron was red with outrage. “Thank you for your offer, professor,” he said coolly, “but for now we will trust in the auror department’s abilities to handle the poisoner before they try anything else. Until then, I trust Hermione and Ron completely, since they’ve kept me alive for years now.”

Barnaby seemed somewhat mollified by the reference to the auror department, but he was clearly not pleased. Still, the professor settled down and, ignoring Hermione in particular, began setting up his materials for the lesson ahead.

Harry and his friends found their seats, exchanging speaking looks between themselves. Others started trickling in a minute or so later, all clearly surprised to see the professor waiting for them but picking up conversation anyway as they found their seats. No one took Barnaby very seriously, so there was little attempt to stay quiet in the time before class started, but Harry noticed that no one was commenting on tense atmosphere between the three of them and Barnaby, nor passing on the updates they often gave about how the investigation was going in other Houses.

Blaise, Daphne, and Tracey joined a little while after – generally preferring not to spend too much time inside the DADA classroom nor arrive late, given Barnaby’s increasingly obvious problem with Slytherins – followed by Theodore Nott not far behind. Since their talk in the Slytherin common room, Nott hadn’t spoken to Harry again but had stopped distancing himself from their group when Harry was nearby. He’d taken the desk by Tracey, rather than the one further back, where he had sometimes been joined by Millicent Bulstrode. Now, Bulstrode sat with Malfoy and Parkinson.

It opened a space between Harry's friends in Slytherin and those who decidedly weren't. Harry wished that the seating arrangements of his classmates were something he could afford to ignore still, but there was nothing quite as motivating as the knowledge that any one of his classmates could be actively trying to kill him at the moment. Their information network of friends, DA members, and trusted prefects had him absolutely swimming in trivia about who sat where, what this meant about their social groups, and what that might say about their potential beliefs and motives. While Harry found himself surrounded by his friends in as many classes as possible, it still made his skin itch to know there were three potentially hostile people sitting out of his line of sight, with unknown variables like Parvati scattered around the room.

The bad night's sleep, the staring in the hall, the odd confrontation with Barnaby, and Harry's inability to feel safe in any classroom pushed his mood from bad into terrible. Harry tried some of the calming exercises that Pompfrey and Healer Oswald had coached him through, but even focusing on the familiar friendly touch of the Hogwarts wards wasn't enough to bring Harry any kind of peace. His hand itched for his wand and his legs thrummed with a wish for movement. While his mind told him that it was time for class, and he should at least be pretending to listen to the professor, another part of him was screaming to either fight or run. Harry gritted his teeth as the urge to do something, anything rose in him.

Abruptly, everything felt so useless. Why was he wasting his time sat in a classroom listening to a man who couldn't teach him anything? Why was he attending school with people who wanted him dead? Why wasn't he spending this time actively searching for the culprit? Why had he ever believed that Hogwarts would be different now that Voldemort was gone? It seemed like nothing he did made a difference. No matter how many plots he foiled or dark wizards he exposed or even killed, there would always be enemies in Hogwarts. There would always be enemies in the magical world. The thoughts swirled through him as Barnaby droned on, until Harry felt like he was sitting in the middle of an invisible maelstrom. Both Ron and Hermione were shooting him concerned looks, but it wasn’t until Ron slipped him a note reading “Do you need to go?” that Harry even remembered that he could.

Harry packed his things together with a couple of quick flicks of his wand. He hadn’t made a fuss of it, but the professor’s eyes were always on him, and the man faltered in his speech.

“Excuse me, professor, but I need to leave.” Harry didn’t give the man a chance to object before walking out, ignoring the curiosity and concern from his friends and classmates. Frankly, that he’d even said anything at all was his nod towards courtesy.

He didn’t stop walking until he’d left the castle, his feet carrying him up and beyond the wards to his usual spot amid the heather. The Hogwarts wards fell off him like shedding a heavy winter cloak at the end of the day – a welcome weight, but a weight to carry, nonetheless. The weather had been dropping steadily over the two months they’d been at school, the last vestiges of summer giving way into early frosts. The plants around Harry were browned, but no less alive. Harry sat, not bothering to lay out his cloak first, and put his head in his hands as he tried to settle his turbulent thoughts and magic.

He tried to focus on the subtle but vibrant feeling of the plants all around him, filled with life and natural magic. Insects abounded in the foliage, though their numbers had been cut by the cold weather, and small animals darted around at a distance. Harry breathed slowly as he tracked the veins of a dying fern frond with his magic, feeling the life in its roots and the start of decay in the tip of its leaves. It was an exercise he’d improvised after the success of being able to cycle his magic properly through the quill, then the earrings and moly plant. The delicate touch needed to thread magic through a plant, with its own, small, natural magic, without hurting it or flooding it with too much of his own, had come to be a tricky but rewarding grounding technique. While he struggled for patience when his emotions were running high, there was something about the uncomplicated but beautiful feeling of natural magic that managed to pause him in his tracks.

Harry followed the fern into its roots, feeling its stores of energy to survive the winter, the easy absorption of water from the recent rains, and continued probing his magic into the earth itself. The soil was rich and full of life – the result of cycles of growth and decomposition on a timescale that Harry couldn’t even begin to comprehend. The magic of the soil was even quieter than that of non-magical plants – vast, stretched, huge, but slow, as if sleeping. Harry stopped, as his grip on the magic faltered and he could no longer feel the fern, but it had done its job, and he was less agitated once more. In thanks – a silly gesture perhaps, though it felt right – Harry pushed a little of his own magic into the fern, bolstering its energy for the coming winter.

Calmer now, though still not calm, Harry looked out over the familiar heathland. He wasn’t sure why this affecting him so badly when no other year had felt safe at Hogwarts either. Perhaps it was because he’d gotten his hopes up too much that something might have changed – that he might have changed it. He stood up abruptly, shaking leaves off his cloak, and started to walk further from the path. Stillness didn’t suit him today. Harry made his way through the dense plant life, avoiding the bright spots of small animals that flickered in his magical awareness, trying to find a way to settle himself. The anger, the fear, the frustration, they boiled inside of him even now. They made him want to curse – both verbally and magically. His magic and temper itched to lash out.

Still, Harry thought as he took a long, shuddering breath and tipped his head back to feel the breeze on his face, that wasn’t who he wanted to be. He could tear the school apart looking for the culprit – find someone to dig into Soppy’s mind and see if there was any memory remaining just out of reach of their attacker. He could send his network of friends out with truth potions to slip to others. He could press the weight and growing potency of his magic out around him like a cobra flaring its hood and see who would dare challenge him. He could call on the ghosts to haunt the inhabitants of the castle until every trace of danger to him was unearthed and uprooted. He could scream and rage and curse at his surroundings until he’d excised his rage in painful gashes on the face of the earth, and few would judge him harshly for it after everything. He could, he could so easily, but that’s not who he wanted to be.

Instead, Harry found himself walking the length of the wards, following the smooth stone of the wall beyond Hogwarts until it melted away into a purely magical barrier at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Harry paused at the start of the treeline, peering into the shaded forest. He hadn't been into the Forbidden Forest since his death. It was a funny thing to pause now, given that he had both survived it and not, but he couldn't help the heaviness in his limbs when he thought of setting foot in those woods again. He'd almost died in the Forest before, many times even - between Voldemort and the dead unicorn in first year, the acromantulae in second, Remus Lupin's werewolf form in third, seeing the dragons here in fourth, Grawp and leading Umbridge to the wrath of the centaurs in fifth, and chasing Snape and Malfoy out here after Dumbledore's death in sixth, it was a wonder that Voldemort and the clearing even made him pause now. He looked into the Forest and the Forest looked back, humming with a magic unknown to the mundane plants on the back hills.

In the end, it was curiosity that drove Harry onwards. He hadn't been able to feel magic like this when he'd last been in these woods, and the wild darkness of it called to him. Stepping into the woods was like entering the Hogwarts wards, though infinitely simpler and more complex. The magic of the Forest was an amalgam of every plant, fungus, and beast that lived there, vibrantly alive and rich in diversity, but lacking the structure and function of the wixen-made wards. The magic of the Forest had only one function and that was to thrive.

Although the Forest was dark, both shaded and in its nature, there was nothing cursed about it. It was dangerous certainly, but dangerous because it was wild. Harry picked his way through the undergrowth, running his hand along the rough bark of trees as he passed. He didn't know what to think about the fact that while the Hogwarts wards welcomed him with a cloak of light, joy, and warmth, it was the humid dim of the forest that felt like home. Around him, mundane animals and plants mixed with their magical counterparts, common magpies flitting between trees while a brilliant blue jobberknoll pecked insects from the ground a way to his right. Bowtruckles skittered around in wand-wood trees as he passed, while a hedgehog rustled through the fallen autumn leaves. This deep in the forest, to the side of the castle, it felt like no humans had ever tried to tame this place.

Harry followed the curve of the wards through the woods. There was no real distinction in the wildlife between the two sides, and even the magic of the wards felt blurry, as if the forest had confused the wards about where they ended. Despite that, they felt strong still - stronger perhaps, than where the wards remained unrooted in the open land of the valley. Rather than closing in, the forest seemed to open up the more Harry walked, spaces between the trees stretching so that the natural paths were wider and the canopy opened up. The undergrowth benefited, growing a little taller and more varied, but it was easy enough for Harry to make his way through, once he'd taken off his cloak and bundled it into his pocket to stop it snagging. Evidence of larger animals appeared in snatches of fur caught on branches and even the odd silver-lit hair of a unicorn.

Eventually, Harry came upon the rushing of a stream. It shouldn't have been a surprise since he knew that the hills behind Hogwarts must have a number of streams where rainwater ran off, but he'd never really wondered if they went through the Forest too. He supposed they must have done - the creatures had to drink too. The water was crystal clear and fast flowing, moving so much it was hard to see just how deep it ran. When Harry stopped to look, he could see some fish flitting about. Were there magical fish too? Another question he'd never considered before. Of course, there were magical creatures in the sea and freshwater - the Black Lake was evidence enough of that - but what about fish in particular? What would make magical fish magical? Could they fly? Sing? Camouflage? Hermione would know the real answer, probably, but it was fun to imagine.

The stream bent near the wards for about ten minutes of Harry's walk - ten minutes pleasantly punctuated by the sound of splashing. He'd considered stopping on its banks for a while, maybe following it further into the woods and seeing where it ended up, but the silent hum of the wards still kept his attention. He could always come back later - finish his impromptu inspection of the wards another time - but Harry knew that it would itch at the back of his mind like a splinter until he was done and could be convinced again that he was safe. The route of the water actually turned inside the wards, making Harry jump over to the other side with a little help from a featherlight charm on himself and a strong push off the bank, and was out of sight not long after. Without the stream, Harry's attention was once more on the greenery around him.

Neville could have told Harry a lot more about what he was seeing (and he wondered if the other man would appreciate a trip out here some time), but Harry himself was in his seventh year of Herbology, and could recognise many of the more common or dangerous magical plants around him. The odd questing vine or snapping flower made their attempts, but most seemed content to ignore him. His magic more or less settled, it seemed to harmonize with the deep and varied hum of the Forest, declaring him an almost-occupant, rather than an overt intruder.

Perhaps that was why, when he came upon the centaurs, they gripped their weapons but did not raise them. For a moment, they all looked at each other. There were four centaurs stood in the small clearing just inside the wards. Three women and a man, from what Harry could guess, who were clothed in a mixture of light drapes and armour. The woman in the front stepped forward, hooves thudding on the earth with powerful but delicate steps. Her hair and coat were the same rich red-brown, darker than the brown of her skin, and her long hair was plaited and bound with complex weaves and knots of cords around it. She wore a sword at her hip and a bow and arrows on her back, both large to fit her tall and muscled frame. She stopped a couple of metres away, still on the other side of the wards, sniffing the air and the snorting with a shake of her head. “Demigod.”

Harry wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be some kind of greeting or if she was just announcing it to the others. Either way, it was disturbing to be recognised by smell. “Godling, technically.” Harry replied after a pause. It was the more correct word for an ascending demigod.

She eyed him with slightly more interest, deep brown eyes with their horizontal pupils flicking over him. “And what is a godling doing in these woods?”

“Walking the wards.” Harry replied, gesturing to the barrier between them. “Making sure there are no holes.”

“I didn’t think the humans of the castle put their students in charge of maintaining their defensive magics.” The centaur said, with an unimpressed look down at his school robes.

“They haven’t.” Harry agreed. “But the castle is under my protection, and something is strange with the wards, so here I am.”

She watched him with unreadable eyes for a long moment. “Wixen are not allowed in these woods, but demigods and godlings… There are few places truly barred to your kind, should you be foolish enough to enter. For you, Harry Potter,” he should really stop being surprised that other magicals recognised him on sight too, “child born under prophecy, child of our gods, whose soul still taints our woods, we could no more keep you out than we could the rain.”

Harry didn’t know what to say to that: sorry I died in your Forest and the impression stuck? Because he wasn’t sorry. He’d do it again if he had to.

They held eye contact before the centaur snorted again and stomped a hoof. “Walk freely but carefully – this is one of the last refuges of the wild.”

Harry nodded, having felt the wild magic around him from the moment he entered the Forest, thicker the deeper he went. “I’m only checking the wards, not trying to make a mess.”

The centaur huffed, swished her tail, and turned back to her group, who began cantering away.

One, however, remained – a woman who seemed a great deal older than the others and whose hair and coat were greying. “We cannot keep out the rain, Harry Potter, not because we cannot summon the magic to do so nor because we cannot build a shelter to prevent it falling on our ground – we cannot keep out the rain because it brings life to the Forest. Go, walk in the cycle of life, death child, and bring rain.” She fixed him with one last stern look and darted speedily off into the woods, apparent age being no detriment to her agility.

Flummoxed, Harry tried for a moment to make sense of all that. At least, he apparently had permission to be in the Forest? Or they weren’t going to chase him out of it? He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to understand the whole rain business – whatever that meant had gone right over his head – but for how he’d focus on the bright side: he could continue his walk around the wards without achieving death via centaur.

He started walking again, treading softly through the undergrowth as he tumbled the centaurs’ words around in his mind. The magic of the Forest pressed around him as he went; thick, dark, and rich with life and decay, it mixed with the wisps of his own magic that crept out from his decentralised core. Dying leaves fell in his wake, a cloak of autumn reds and browns that went unseen as Harry continued his solitary patrol, lost in thought. The knuckles of his right hand traced the wards where he could walk beside it unimpeded and thought faded out amid the welcoming hum of Hogwarts’ protections and the joyful embrace of the woods. It was a long walk, taking most of the day, but it was a peaceful one and, more to the point, fruitful; during his walk, Harry thought he had found one of the holes.

Chapter Text

Harry had met up with his friends in Gryffindor Tower, where they all tended to return after afternoon Herbology classes to wash off the mud, venom, and other objectionable substances. The relief on their faces was clear to see. An unfortunate consequence of Harry’s decision to leave the school wards was that his friends had been unable to track him with the Marauders’ Map, and he hadn’t told anyone where he had gone. Harry apologised for worrying them but couldn’t promise that he would do any better next time – if he was close enough to blowing up that he walked out of class, he was probably too close to stop and tell his friends what he was doing. Still, as they pointed out, he could send them a message saying where he’d gone once he was calmed enough, which he agreed to as a reasonable compromise. It wasn’t like he wanted to be worrying his friends, nor his teachers. He wasn’t looking forward to his checkup with Madam Pomphrey on Saturday.

“I did find something, though.” Harry said, as they gathered in the boys’ dorm. He sat on his own bed, Basilissa curled up in his lap, while Hermione joined Ron on his, much to Ron’s blushing. Neville was inspecting his array of plants nearby.

“Oh?” Hermione asked, attention pricked.

“Mm.” Harry nodded. “Well, you know how there’s a wall for part of the wards? Like, the stone at the back and the big gates at the front from Hogsmeade. Something was bugging me about it, and I didn’t realise until I almost stepped on a mouse, and it bolted – straight through the wall. They don’t block animals or plants at all.”

Neville laid aside his watering can. “So, wildlife can get through?” He prompted Harry for more.

“Thing is,” Harry continued, “I reckon that that’s got something to do with animagi. I mean, Sirius got in. Skeeter kept getting in. If the wards aren’t working properly, and aren’t recognising animagi as people, then they can just walk straight in so long as they’re in animal form.”

“I mean, it’s possible, I guess, but it’s a bit of stretch, mate. D’you have any proof?” Ron asked.

“No.” Harry said, slightly disappointed. “Obviously can’t test it myself and don’t know any animagi apart from McGonagall. Well, and Rita Skeeter, I guess. But I have a strong feeling. The magic was weirdly wobbly.”

“Well, it’s worth following up on.” Neville said, surprising Harry a little. “What?” He asked, when he saw Harry’s look. “I trust your gut feelings about magic. You tend to be right, but either way, it’s a plausible explanation for a known problem and one that’s reasonably easy to test.” 

“Suppose this is the case,” Hermione said, thoughtfully, “it would once more suggest that there’s a further problem with the wards – not that they’re designed wrong, but that something is going wrong with the way they’re behaving.”

“Are we even sure about that?” Ron queried, dubious. It was a fair point – after all, they had never actually confirmed that there was a problem with the wards, only assumed there must be because they thought that there should have been something detecting dark spells and artefacts.

“Actually, yes.” Neville said. “I talked to Professor Sprout about it, and she said that, during the first war, the wards on the castle were super strict about reporting dark spells. There was apparently a big scandal when a seventh year Ravenclaw tried to imperius the Defence professor that year into changing their grade. Got expelled for it, of course.”

Hermione had turned to Neville with laser-focused eyes. “How interesting. That gives us a firm date and example when they were definitely performing. And we know that the wards weren’t picking up on dark artefacts for sure by our second year-”

“By the late sixties.” Harry interrupted, and they all turned to him. “When Voldemort applied for the Defence post and put the diadem in the Room of Requirement.”

“Wait, so, the wards were catching spells during the first war, but not cursed objects?” Ron scrunched his nose in confusion.

“Apparently so.” Hermione mused. “By our first year in Hogwarts, the wards had also degraded to the point that they didn’t notice Voldemort possessing Quirrell.”

Harry frowned. “Unless they did, but Dumbledore ignored it.”

“What do you mean, Harry?” Neville asked.

“Well,” Harry shuffled his feet uncomfortably, to the lazy complaints of his dozing cat. “I had to do a lot of thinking about it, right? After the whole…” he gestured at his forehead, where the scar remained, if now faded. “Were they defences against Voldemort stealing the stone or a trap for him? I mean,” he picked up speed, “we were first years. We got through the door with an alohamora. There are books on Cerberuses in the library. The only defence that had any chance of stopping Voldemort was the last one. I don’t know, it just seems a lot like bait instead of an actual protection.”

“Yes!” Hermione said, startling all of them with the volume of her exclamation. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. It was hard because I always admired Professor Dumbledore so much, but once I started thinking, I simply couldn’t stop.”

Ron nodded. “I mean, it was cool when we were twelve and all, but at some point you have to wonder what the point of a giant chess game was, unless Voldemort just happened to be really bad at chess, you know?”

It seemed that Neville was the only one who hadn’t considered any of this before, which was unsurprising since he hadn’t been there. “So, you think that Dumbledore knew and was trying to catch him?”

“It sort of makes sense.” Harry said. “I mean, it had been, what, ten years since everyone thought Voldemort died? Dumbledore knew he was coming back but hadn’t been able to find him. What better bait than Harry Potter and a method of immortality in the same castle?” Bitterness tried to coat his tone, but Harry fought to swallow it. No point dwelling on it now – the man who’d done it was already dead.

“And if Professor Dumbledore had been able to catch him,” Hermione continued, “he would have been able to prove to everyone at the Ministry that Voldemort wasn’t dead and was trying to come back. So that they couldn’t ignore it, well, rather like they did.”

They all paused to consider that. It made a terrible kind of sense.

“We don’t know for sure.” Harry said, eventually. “Maybe he knew, maybe he didn’t, maybe he knew something was wrong but not exactly what. Just thought it was worth bringing up as an option.”

“Anyway,” Neville said, “we know that McGonagall wouldn’t ignore it, so there’s definitely a problem, we’re just not sure when it started.”

“So, pretty much back to square one.” Ron sighed, and collapsed backwards on his bed, before squeaking when Hermione dragged his lanky frame closer to her so she could take his hand.

“It’s still something.” She said, running a thumb over his knuckles. “Something worth bringing to Professor McGonagall.”

“Is this what mystery solving is normally like for you lot?” Neville interjected suddenly. “It’s my first time in your usual whispering-plotting huddle.”

Ron shot up, protesting that they didn’t have a whispering-plotting huddle, while Harry laughed, and Hermione shook her head. “Besides,” Ron continued, strongly, “you were part of the DA with us, the original one.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t running it.” Neville pointed out, “And you absolutely do have a specific getting up to trouble huddle. The rest of us all got nervous when you three started doing it more because we knew something weird was going to happen.”

Harry snorted through his nose when Hermione joined in Ron’s protests against this. “Yeah, this is pretty much it.” He said to Neville, over the noise. “Once you’ve snuck out with us after curfew, then you’ve done it all.”

-

Sunday afternoon meant tea with Andromeda and Teddy. They didn’t manage to meet every week, since Harry was busy with schoolwork and Andromeda had her own social schedule, but they succeeded in meeting about every one in two. They’d initially stuck with tea at Andromeda’s house, but she claimed that all of them – herself, Teddy, and Harry included – needed to get out more, so they’d been making their way through magical establishments. Today, they were trying a magical café in Cornwall, with a view out to the sea.

“Last I heard,” Andromeda was saying, as she caught Harry up on his fortnightly dose of wixen gossip, “Pratchett was talking again about starting his own newspaper. Of course, he’s been saying that on and off for the last few decades, but this time it’s looking like he actually might. Molly said she saw him visiting Xenophilius Lovegood a few times in the last month, so perhaps he’ll even get as far as acquiring his own printing press this time.”

“That would be good.” Harry said, taking another chocolate-covered biscuit from the plate, “The Quibbler’s great and all, but no one takes it seriously. And otherwise, it’s just the Prophet and Witch Weekly.” He didn’t have to say what was wrong with the Daily Prophet. Andromeda Tonks, he’d come to discover, had even stronger opinions about their lack of journalistic integrity than Harry did. Witch Weekly, on the other hand, preferred to stick by its mandate as a collection of fluff pieces, celebrity news, useful charms, and the odd potion recipe – which could be very useful – but wasn’t much for news pieces.

“Indeed.” Andromeda agreed, nodding fiercely over her tea, “There’s been an opening for a new paper for decades now – and every now and again, someone tries to produce one – but the Prophet has always managed to maintain its monopoly. That Barnabus Cuffe has his fingers in too many cauldron cakes and is far too useful to his sponsors in printing anything they wish for the right amount of money.”

Harry blinked, “They’ve been stopping people making their own newspapers?”

“Mm.” Andromeda hummed, glancing over their surroundings, even though Harry had set up privacy charms before they’d even sat down, and he knew that Andromeda had cast her own. “Officially, no, of course not. Unofficially, potential competitors have always fallen into unforeseen troubles. Witch Weekly sticks quite firmly to celebrity gossip not because that’s all its founders want to talk about, but because that way, they have no trouble from the Prophet. The Quibbler, of course, is a laughingstock they’d never bother with. But another journal that attempted to report on daily news? Certain parties would be quite interested in persuading them otherwise.”

Harry frowned as he considered this. This kind of information was where his growing relationship with Andromeda was invaluable; Andromeda seemed to know everything that happened in every social circle of magical Britain – and a good bit about their overseas neighbours – for the last fifty years. “But Pratchett thinks he can do it now? What’s changed?”

“The war, of course.” Andromeda replied, sipping her tea. “The Prophet managed to maintain so much of its monopoly because the Ministry turned a blind eye, and the general public didn’t care enough to rally against it. People like Pratchett and his friends might have grumbled about the lack of real news, but it just wasn’t important enough that the average person would go out of their way to do something about it. However, over the course of the years immediately preceding the war and during it, the Prophet made some mistakes that they cannot easily return from. Most notably including the smear campaign against yourself and Albus for your attempts to alert people to the return of the Dark Lord, and their tremendously easy fall under the regime of the Death Eaters.”

Harry grimaced into his teacup.

“It was glossed over at the time, due to the immediate danger of the situation, but the revelation that the Dark Lord was indeed alive, as you and Albus had been claiming for a year, was not easily forgotten by the populace.” Andromeda continued. “There was a great deal of resentment among people who thought that perhaps, with another year of preparation by the Ministry and the general public, there might have been far fewer lost to the war. Certainly, among those who fell to the Dark Lord before the war officially broke out.” She took another sip from her cup, before refilling it. “Everyone has known for decades now that the Prophet wasn’t entirely reliable and that it preferred to print sensationalised gossip instead of the facts of a situation, but it seemed harmless enough until there had been potentially avoidable deaths because of it. The Prophet has done its best to continue as if nothing happened – which is what it has tried and succeeded in doing every other time it was hit by a scandal – but it has lost a great deal of trust.”

Harry swirled his own tea around his cup, as if the liquid held answers. Perhaps if he’d had a better divination teacher, it might have done. “So, now is a good time for a new paper?” He considered.

“Yes.” Andromeda nodded. “Possibly the best that there has been, or will be, for many decades.”

Harry hummed and changed the subject over to Teddy, who was just waking from an impromptu nap and had his nose wrinkled up as he did when about to start screaming, but the discussion lingered in his mind. He knew some people who might be interested in hearing it.

-

The motley group of Hermione, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Kevin Entwhistle had indeed been intrigued about the idea of an independent newspaper forming. While Hermione had largely been too busy, the two boys had apparently been keeping track of everything the Prophet and the Ministry had been producing about the war and the current aims of the government. None of them had previously considered that there might be others in magical Britain wanting or trying to produce their own paper, nor did they have the social history and knowledge that Andromeda dropped so casually over tea. This news seemed to reinvigorate something in the two, making their archiving project into something closer to an achievable goal. The reminder that there was a current journalist in the student body, in the person of one Luna Lovegood, and that their pureblood friends had already offered their help and contacts in derailing the Ministry’s propaganda, laid the foundations of a plan that had Harry grinning. He couldn’t promise his own time, since he had too much going on already – though he did tell them that they had the weight of his celebrity if they needed it – but by the light in Justin and Kevin’s eyes, they had this well in hand. Harry couldn’t wait to see what they came up with.

-

The Monday DA session was well-attended as usual. A couple of the sixth years that Harry had pinned as likely to drop out had, but more than he’d predicted had stayed. One had even sheepishly rejoined after a couple of weeks. Harry couldn’t deny that it was one of his favourite parts of the week. It wasn’t just that the topic was interesting, which it was, but there was something deeply satisfying about personally making sure that every participant had the skills and knowledge to look after themselves if they found themselves in trouble. Part of it was the lingering wish that there had been someone there for him, to coach him through every spell that he could use to stay alive just that crucial bit longer, to give other people the chance he hadn’t had. Sometimes, the unfairness of it clawed at him – here Harry was, teaching other people how to defend themselves with the skills he’d gained fighting and scraping desperately to stay alive – but Harry managed to push through the dark, bitter thing inside him long enough to teach and stay calm. In his better moments, it was a deep relief to know that whatever else happened, the other students would always be better prepared for it.

Already, they were a few months ahead of the sixth-year curriculum, dealing with the topics Harry himself had covered after the winter holidays in sixth year. While he worked with the sixth years (and less advanced seventh years) on casting the basic defensive spells wordlessly, the rest of the seventh years helped them and spent their time practicing silent casting more complicated spells. Technically, any spell could be cast silently – it was solely how well the caster could do it that was in question. Everyone had managed the basic protego charm and expelliarmus charm silently, which would form their very simplest defence, but while half the group worked on a silent stupefy, Harry had the joy of teaching the rest of them some of the protego variants he’d come across during his shielding research. Already, Daphne was having a lot of fun making Blaise practice jinxes against her reflective shield.

Across the room, Harry could see Hermione at a board, going over defence against magical creatures. It seemed that no one but Remus Lupin had even tried to teach them properly, as Hermione had reported back to Harry and Ron with resigned horror, so she had the unenviable job of trying to untangle all the misinformation, odd assumptions, and strange gaps the younger students had managed to amass about the course contents. She had a little trouble not criticising the Ministry (and exam) approved content but seemed to be doing an admirable job of balancing her own opinions about how their government treated magical creatures with the information they’d need for their exams. Already, there had been some interesting (and loud) debates cropping up from that side of the room.

Further over, Ron was animatedly showing the youngest of their groups how to cast a good finite incantatem. He’d vocally refused to teach any hexes and jinxes until his small pupils knew how to end and defend against them, but had bribed the younger years to stay on target by promising to teach them some of Fred and George’s famous prank spells once they’d proved they could make sure no one would get hurt with them. That had lit a fire under the third years old enough to remember the twins especially, though the reputation of the founders of Weasleys Wizard Wheezes preceded them enough that the rest were suitably motivated too. Harry thought that Fred would have been proud.

“Potter, duck!”

Harry turned back to his own group, throwing up a quick shield to catch a miscast hex that sizzled over his head before it hit the wall.

“Sorry, Potter.” Alice Tolipan, the caster of the hex in question said, sheepish grin on her face belying the apology. “Was trying to get Smith.”

Harry snorted. While he generally wouldn’t mind someone aiming a good hex at Zacharias Smith during practice, it wasn’t the first time one of Alice’s spells had been flung wide. “Back to accuracy practice we go then”. he told her, raising an eyebrow as she dramatically complained, and her yearmates told her it had been nice knowing her.

“Come on,” Harry said, “it’s not that bad.”

“It absolutely is that bad.” Alice replied, tone emphatic, “I thought my wrist was going to fall off last time.”

Harry looked at the wrist in question, lips quirking. “Looks attached to me.”

“Nooo.” She whined but got in position to cast at the target Harry set up against the wall. Alice complained the whole time, the rest of the group joining in occasionally until Harry threatened to make them all do it, but by the end, she was hitting within at least the largest circle every time.

For everyone else to be able to learn safely, with lower stakes, Harry would put up with an awful lot of whining.

-

He dreams of a young girl, dark haired and green eyed. She always talks in class and doodles all over her worksheets, but she’s eight, so her teachers hope she’ll grow out of it. She won’t. She’ll never be officially diagnosed, but her friends at Camp will one day tell her she has ADHD, that they all do, and things will make a little more sense for her. For today, she skips over the cracks in the pavement, holding the hand of a man who is covered by a mist to Harry’s sight – her father, as the dream tells him. Something growls down the street to her left, but she doesn’t look, knowing that if she pulls the Thing around her close enough and thinks really hard about not being noticed, the monster will leave her alone. She holds her dad’s hand tight for the rest of their way home, no longer skipping. He knows what this means and is looking around him carefully, even though his eyes can never seem to catch the things she sees. Lou Ellen will make it home safe today, but some day soon, she won’t. Harry reaches out, trying to push a ward, a shield, a warning, something towards her through the fragile connection of his dream, but it sputters out. She sees him though, green eyes widening in a face so like her mother’s, and opens her mouth to call for him, but Harry’s dream falls apart like mist melting in the morning sun.

-

Harry searched through the books Hecate had given him, looking for any mention of demigods. In theory, he’d known they existed, since he was apparently a legacy of one of Hecate’s demigod children even before she’d magically adopted him, but it had never really occurred to Harry that it might mean that he had half-siblings out there. The idea of siblings, family, was alien to him. Of course, Harry had Petunia and Dudley Dursley, who were somehow related to him despite being utterly different in both looks and attitude, but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had made it very clear to him early on that he wasn’t family in any way that mattered. He was nebulously aware that all the gods were related in some way, so he was sort of related to them and to an extent their children, but he wasn’t sure how that worked out in practical terms. Did he have lots of siblings? Cousins? How many demigods could there really be? The questions burned inside him as Harry rifled through the books.

There was little on demigods, which he supposed wasn’t all that surprising given that they were mostly about the gods themselves and their world in general. Sometimes, if a demigod was particularly famous, they’d be noted down under their godly parent’s information, names like Theseus, Perseus, and Achilles in little lists with their greatest achievements. Others seemed to be more like Harry, raised to godhood for their deeds, such as Heracles, whose name even Harry recognised, once he realised that he and Hercules were the same person. Harry read through the information he could find on these famous figures, noting with displeasure that they seemed to meet sticky ends more often than not, but he couldn’t find much about modern demigods, except for a vague mention of a Camp.

For the first time, Harry really considered how he might fit into this strange world of myth. He’d spent all his time thinking about the gods, the underworld and the overworld, and the strange rules they ran by. Mostly, he’d done so for the purpose of not getting into too much trouble, but also so he could figure out how to maintain his normal life as much as possible. But today, he’d found out that, somewhere out in the world, he had a little sister. A little sister with magic not quite like his own, who had to use it to hide from the magical creatures who sought her out to attack her. And Harry knew, without a shred of doubt in his soul, that he would dive headfirst into this strange, ancient world, if it meant looking after his newly found siblings. He’d never been an older brother before, but he found that he’d really like to try.

Chapter Text

The end of November came with a cold snap, a chill settling into the stone of the drafty castle which even the most stubborn of warming charms couldn’t fix completely. The armchairs around the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room were highly sought after, in a silent but competitive race of first come first served. In the Slytherin common room, there was no such undignified scrambling, but the students who best did warming charms on robes and seats were bribed with sweets and favours for their services. Harry, whose rather unwieldy amount of magic gave him an advantage in how powerfully he could cast these charms, experienced a great deal more popularity as this fact spread.

Winter was clearly on its way, as the sun set earlier and earlier. Some of Harry's friends became gloomier this time of year, missing the sun, and Hermione had updated their House's hot chocolate events to include sunshine charms (and suncream charms as well, because apparently those were important, and you weren't supposed to spend too much time in the sun without them). Harry, whose lumos solem enchantments were holding nicely in his moly cupboard, was generally the one called upon to get it set up properly, and he enjoyed the awe of the younger years when he did. It turned out that you really didn't have to do much to impress the younger years, so long as you cast something they didn't know how to do yet. Still, Harry had had a lot of fun teaching the first and second years how to cast their own lumos solem charms, as well as a few other fun variants he'd come across, and promised his young students that they'd learn how to fix their charms as enchantments in due time.

The extra dose of sunlight seemed to do them all good - arguments and general gloominess going down across the House - and the other prefects had shared its success within their own common rooms. It was something of a relief, as the prefect system was still under the pressure of trying to maintain the collective order of the student body, with no more readily apparent help from the staff. McGonagall was trying, she'd reported to Neville and Hermione, but getting anything new approved, even if it meant help for the students, was an exercise in futility. After all, the entire governing board was now under serious investigation, with more crimes than their financial fraud being dug up at every turn, and the Ministry Department for Education itself was implicated in more than one part of this for decades on end. In theory, this might have meant that McGonagall had more power to act without being curtailed by either of those bodies, but in practice, it meant that they were all stalling for time and refusing to act at all until the investigations had finished. It didn't help that a bout of pixie flu was going through the castle, filling up the hospital wing with the worst affected while everyone else sniffled their way through their classes.

Harry had been one of the few not affected, since he'd had his vaccine recently, which included the latest version, but children were not generally considered at risk of the worst symptoms of pixie flu, so most of the student body only had their basic vaccinations for it. As such, while it certainly wasn't going to kill anyone, there were certainly a lot of students feeling miserable. There had only been a couple of serious cases - muggleborns who hadn't had their magical vaccinations yet - but these had panicked the school briefly, wild rumours flying about a possible epidemic, until the prefects had been forced to intervene and tell their Houses that it was just the yearly flu. This had calmed most of them, but the muggle raised among the school had needed a little more convincing that the horrible blue-purple tint the flu gave people (similar to the colour of Cornish pixies, for which the disease had been named) wasn't serious, and was simply another example of the magical world being very odd indeed.

It was because of their focus on keeping the mood up despite the darkening days that Harry noticed that the same didn't happen to him. Sure, he liked good weather as much as the rest of them, but the dim mornings and gloomy evenings didn't seem to get him down in the same way they made Ron sluggish. If anything, Harry seemed more energetic as the days grew grim, as if his magic glowed brighter in the dark. He felt more vibrant, healthier. If he really thought about it, that had always been the case, though it hadn't been so obvious before. He'd always had trouble going to sleep in the evenings, still full of energy as if gaining a second wind once the sun went down. Most of his adventures, greatest magical feats, and most unbelievable escapes from danger had occurred after nightfall. His more recent excursions into death magic had all happened at night - powerful magics which had grown wild and half out of his control. Now, when his magic was so much stronger and purer, with the power of his impending divinity and without the muddying weight of Voldemort's screaming, mangled soul piece, Harry could actually feel his magic bloom brighter with the falling dusk and deepening of winter.

His adoptive mother was a dark goddess, an underworld goddess, and Harry understood that to the limited extent that he grasped any of the strange, overwhelming information about the other world of Greek mythology, but Harry hadn't been expecting this effect on himself. Especially given the fact that he now understood that it had always been the case. He didn't know how to feel about it once he'd noticed it, but eventually decided that it was worth experimenting with. At least his tendency for nightly wandering was finally explained.

Harry found his book on divine magic (which should have been safely in his trunk but had managed to wander over to his bedside table), pulled his invisibility cloak on, and checked the Map for any patrols. It was well past midnight, so there should be no prefects around, but sometimes the professors would do surprise patrols late at night (when they knew students were planning something or, he suspected, when they couldn’t sleep), and Mrs Norris was always out roaming the halls, looking for students to snitch on to Filch. The halls, as far as the Map showed, were deserted except for the ghosts, so Harry decided to head to the Astronomy Tower, where the view of the night sky would be the nicest.

As he got up to go, a dark shape wound around his ankles, near invisible in the gloom of the unlit dorms. Said shape meowed at him reprovingly.

“Sorry, your majesty.” Harry whispered to her, crouching down to stroke along her back. “Did you want to come with me then?”

She prrped her agreement, climbing onto his leg and up into his arms, forcing Harry to hold her before she fell.

He snorted, a little too loud in the silence of the dorms and looked around quickly to make sure no one had woken. Ron was snoring in his bed, the sound hidden by silencing wards, but Harry would know that expression anywhere, after staying in the same dorm for years. He felt a pang of guilt that he hadn’t seriously considered bringing Ron along with him, but his friend needed the sleep, and Harry… well, this was something that Harry wanted to figure out on his own first. The others in the dorm slept peacefully on. Seamus and Dean were both morning people and pretty much useless after 10pm, so they tended to get early nights. Neville sometimes kept an odd schedule, since some of the various plants he took in were nocturnal or required frequent tending, but he’d tried to avoid that for this year, not wanting his hobby plants to interfere with his final year classes or Head Boy duties. It should have felt lonely, being the only one awake in the dorm, but instead it was peaceful, and Harry only felt a powerful affection for the others.

He cast the charms to muffle his footsteps and dull his scent – Basilissa reminding him of the ever-present threat of Mrs Norris in the hallways – and left Gryffindor Tower as quietly as he could. The portrait of the Fat Lady, whose name had long been lost to time, swung shut behind him, with a sleepy murmur of confusion about the empty space. The walk to the Astronomy Tower wasn’t long; a familiar route that Harry had taken once a week for his first five years at Hogwarts. Despite five years of the subject, Harry wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been meant to learn in Astronomy, except star charts and the orbits of planets. Still, it held one of the nicest views in Hogwarts.

It was cold when Harry emerged onto the balcony, with just enough wind to take the temperature down into biting. The warming charms on his robes kept him from getting too cold, but the exposed skin, when he’d taken off the invisibility cloak, felt the sting of it immediately. Basilissa too complained about the night air, until Harry wrapped her up in the invisibility cloak, leaving the hood down so the shimmering fabric remained visible. Everything was washed out grey beneath the bright light of the moon, colours dimmed to almost nothing; grey stone, grey railings, grey telescopes overlooking grey grounds. The Forbidden Forest was an ominous silhouette in the distance, while the Black Lake lived up to its name, except for the brilliant reflections of the moon and stars on its waters. The night air was fresh and carried the scent of earlier rains. The world was sleeping while Harry felt more awake.

He found a spot by the railings, leaning against the wall, and cast softening and heating charms, until it was a comfortable place to sit. A slightly fiddly windbreak ward, and Harry was set for reading, without the pages of his book trying to flap around when he wasn’t holding them down. He’d thought he might have to cast a light charm – which would have been unfortunate, because it was practically advertising his position to anyone on the lookout for students out of bed – but the moonlight was bright enough to see by for Harry’s dark-adapted eyes.

The book described the magic of the gods in very vague terms. They were concepts crystallised into people; their very essences were made up of their essential domains. The primordials had come first, amorphous beings of incredible scale and power. Then came the titans, born of primordials and so that much closer to their nature than the gods. Kronos’ children came next, powerful still but more refined, more influenced by the beliefs of others and further separated from their basic concept. They were not born of a domain but came to hold one. These gods still stood for their domains, and reflected their domain’s character, but were more liable to change and act beyond those bounds. Their children, their children’s children, and all the many others who had later become gods, were separated further still, often gaining their domains for their deeds. There were benefits and drawbacks to each side: the further one was from the primordials, the more they were a person before they were a personification; the closer they were, the deeper they felt their domain and the more powerful they were in it. Zeus was the god of the heavens, but Ouranos was the heavens; Ouranos slept for aeons, while Zeus apparently slept with anyone and everyone that he found attractive.

Hecate, Harry’s ancestor and adoptive mother, was a titan, he remembered, which he supposed made him a demi-titan instead of demigod. He wasn’t sure how exactly he counted, given that he’d always been a legacy, then had been magically adopted as her child, and moreover, was well on his way to losing his mortal part. Still, it felt like it was an important distinction to make. All gods and titans had basic magical powers of small creation, teleportation, changing their form, and other common skills, but where gods had more power in their domain, a titan’s very being was woven with the essence of that domain. Hecate, the titan of magic, was magic made flesh. She had been magic since she was born and would always be. Her descendants, it followed, were more closely tied to the underlying currents of the divine world than other demigods.

It was a long way to say that yes, Harry had been right, and his magic was stronger in the dark. Apparently, this was the case for all Hecate’s children. As their divine mother reflected her dark aspect, and worked her own magic better at night, so it was for her children. A divine child always did better in their godly parent’s domain, but this was particularly true for demi-titans. It took a little time to understand why this was. After all, Harry had spent years casting his own magic in daylight, and certainly, the magical world didn’t wait for nightfall to start their own spellcasting. In fact, Harry fully believed that if he tried to suggest to them that their spells would be stronger at night, they’d tell him he was being ridiculous and that it was simply a silly stereotype. He had a feeling that, for them, they’d be right.

He only found the answer in another section, when he’d moved on and was trying to wrap his head around some more of the other divine theory. That section had been trying to explain how, sometimes, gods came in groups which complemented each other, sharing combined or contrasted powers. Apollo and Artemis were an obvious example – twins with the connected domains of the sun and the moon. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were another such trio – the big three gods with different but equal domains. However, some gods were connected along different lines. Artemis was contrasted with Apollo, but she was connected to Selene and Hecate, as a trio of moon goddesses. Selene was the full moon, the moon in the heavens; Artemis was the hunting moon, the moon on the earth; Hecate was the dark moon, the moon under the earth. It was here that Hecate gained her dark nature, and this the reason that she had decided to move into the underworld and become a chthonic goddess, since she could find the darkness she needed there.

For Harry, this meant that some degree of his own powers would always be influenced by his godly mother’s aspect, but that, as a demi-titan ascending from mortality, his own domain should be linked to his actions and achievements. Harry had known from the start that he would become an underworld god or spirit – Hecate, Thanatos, and Hades had all made that very clear, and he’d apparently sealed that deal when he took the golden apple from the king of the underworld – but it was useful to know that what he eventually came to embody for the rest of eternity (and wasn’t that an awful thought?) would be the result of his own actions. As Heracles was god of demigods for coming to be known as chief among them, and as Dionysus had been made god of wine for his invention of it, so too Harry would be given something which reflected him. For now, though, that was a long way off.

Instead, Harry turned back to the types of magic that Hecate’s magic listed as the simplest. The ones that demigods and even the weakest of spirits should be able to do with time and practice. Hecate was goddess of the Mist, and so mist manipulation, which apparently most demigods could do, should be fairly easy for child of Hecate. Of course, this required Harry to understand what the Mist was, other than the very vague explanation given of something that stopped mortals seeing anything from the divine world.

It wasn't clear from his reading whether the Mist was a naturally occurring phenomenon or an artificial construct, upheld by one deity in each pantheon. Hecate had said herself that the gods had never hidden themselves, it was the mortals who failed to see, but then why was there the Mist? Harry flipped through the pages, but whatever answers they held were hidden among other lumps of theory which he couldn't even begin to understand. Frustrated, he turned back to the spells. He didn't strictly need to know all the theory to make them work - gods know he brute-forced his way through all his other years at Hogwarts - but it might have made it easier.

The first aspect of the Mist appeared to be illusions. The Mist's main purpose appeared to be to conceal the supernatural, covering it with something which made sense to mortals. For monsters, this might gloss over their inhuman traits, making them appear to be mortal, or make them nigh on invisible. Unfortunately, the Mist was fickle and had a sense of humour - if someone didn't know how the manipulate the Mist to their advantage, the Mist would play tricks on them, producing an illusion that was viable and unlikely to melt a mortal mind, but would cause the unwary person trouble. For the gods, such manipulation was almost automatic, but for demigods, the Mist enjoyed the trouble it could cause.

Harry didn't even know where to start. After all, he'd never seen the Mist in action, nor felt its magic around him, so how could he even begin to manipulate it? He stretched out his own magical awareness, searching for some previously unfelt mist magic, but all he felt was the same old air. He tried coating his book in an illusion to make it look like a quidditch magazine, and it worked, but Harry could feel that it was his own magic doing it rather than the Mist. At least, he assumed he'd be able to feel the difference. He had to consider the possibility that his magic somehow was the Mist, or the Mist was just magic used in a specific way, but he didn't think that was the case, or all wixen were using the Mist for their magic. After all, Harry knew how his own magic compared to the feel of other people's, and while his was more powerful and tinged with his death, resurrection, and the molten gold of the apple, the essence of his magic was essentially the same as other wixen's. Wixen were blessed with magic, but they weren't all demigods, so they couldn't all be using the Mist. And if they had been using the Mist, Harry considered, there wouldn't be such a worry about exposing themselves to muggles or squads of Obliviators about to make muggles forget. Instead, the mortals would have seen something they considered normal and brushed it off. No, the Mist was something else, something specifically divine.

Still, there was something about that which was catching in Harry's mind, like he'd got all the pieces of the puzzle but hadn't quite put them together yet. He frowned out into the night, feeling like the worst child of Hecate to ever walk the earth. The others, apparently, picked this up as children by accident, and here he was, 18, and unable to grasp the smallest part of their inherited power. It felt like being 11 again, knowing now that he was a wizard but unable to do anything with it. He knew he had magic, because Hagrid had reminded him of all the strange incidents from when he was younger, but he hadn't known how to make them happen on purpose, even once he knew they had been magic.

In retrospect, Harry didn't know how he hadn't guessed that it was magic. After all, there are only so many explanations for suddenly appearing on the school roof, shrinking ugly jumpers to puppet size, growing his hair back overnight, turning his teacher's wig blue, and disappearing glass. He supposed that the Dursleys had always been very clear with him that there was no such thing as magic (the lie still burned), but surely he should have guessed? Why hadn't anyone guessed? After all, most of these had occurred around other people and there had been no immediate crack of Obliviators apparating in immediately afterwards. It was like they'd all simply managed to rationalize it away as something strange, but entirely possible. Harry had been climbing on the school building. The jumper shrank in the wash. Children's hair grows quickly.

Oh. Oh, Harry was an idiot. He smacked his forehead into his palm and let out a rough chuckle. No one had ever guessed it was magic because Harry didn't know it was magic, and as a legacy of Hecate, the Mist had acted around his magic and made it look like something vaguely plausible, right up until he knew it was magic, and suddenly Obliviators had to be sent out after he blew up his aunt.

So, the Mist must have acted around him. It had always been around him. Was the problem the other way around? Not that he had never felt the Mist, but that he had always felt the Mist, and accepted it as part of his normal surroundings. It was likely. After all, the Mist apparently covered the whole world, wherever the divine might overlap with the mundane - why would it not have been around Harry, either to hide him or hide things from him? It didn't yet solve his problem of how to feel it to start using it, but it was a place to begin.

What Harry could do, he realised, was compare something he knew to be divine with something he knew wasn't. His book, after all, was a self-updating book on divine magic gifted to him by his godly mother from her own library in her underworld temple. If there was anything which might give him a good feel for the divine, it might be that. Harry set the book on the floor in front of him, looking at how the moonlight lit the pages and made the ink of the text deepen into shadowy blobs, trying to feel it out. It was delicate, more so than anything else he'd done before this year. Thankfully, his practice following the paths inside plants helped, stopping him from simply battering at it with his own magic until something happened. The book felt like Hecate to the sense which went beyond any of his other senses. Its magic could not properly be described in colour, nor scent, not quite tangible to touch. Instead, it was an impression of moonlight, deep caves, torches lighting the night, doorways with keyholes, crossroads and choices, the words of the dead brought to the living, and all the scents and sounds that came along with these. He was sure, in that moment, that there was more which he was simply too inexperienced, too mortal, to comprehend.

He must have sat there for a good hour, still in the cold night and bright moon, threading his magic in careful probes to try and understand what he was sensing, before he caught the barest hint of a shimmer. Once he had, Harry finally understood why it was called the Mist. It was intangible, formless, and spread so thinly that it seemed invisible until you tried to see past it and every tiny particle acted together en masse to block your sight. The more Harry looked, the less he saw. The Mist mirrored his gaze at every turn, reflecting only what he expected to see except for when he could catch the merest glimmer of it in the corner of his vision.

It was beautiful in the way that all divine magic was beautiful - awesome in the way that all natural magic inspired awe. The Mist lit pearlescent in his peripheral vision, lustrous and complicated, like an array of microscopic lights that came together to form another image when looked at directly. It swirled and scattered at what seemed like random, a push-pull flow like river currents or tidal waves. It coated everything, lingering on every dust mote, swirling under silver moonlight, and painting Basilissa's fur in a galaxy of miniscule pigments. Harry's breath hitched as he twisted to try and catch glimpses of the Mist as it was before it resolved back into a clear image of the thing it coated.

Now that he had seen it, Harry didn't think he could ever unsee it. Was this vision the birthright of his half-siblings, blessed with powers over their mother's Mist? Or was this more what it was like for immortals, who themselves were more like an image of a person projected than an actual person? It was heart-breakingly lovely to see, and terrifyingly powerful. The awareness of it skittered under his skin like a tremor, raising goosebumps in its wake. Now he knew what he was looking for, Harry could see the way the Mist could reflect anything it liked, convince anyone of anything, slinking into their brains like it had always been there because it always had. He still had no idea how to control it but for now, that seemed like a good thing. It was too much for one night - perhaps too much to try messing with on his own. For tonight, it was enough (almost too much) simply to see the Mist as it was. Harry sat, watching iridescent wafts of glass-like light cover everything in a seamless stream of brilliant nothingness, accustoming himself to the formless brush of it against and through his magical awareness.

The moonlight painted his vigil in pale silvers and deep shadows, until the brush of dawn tinted the sky in the pale blue shades before sunrise. With the rising of the sun came the calling of birds in the forest and the scattering of the Mist. It faded from Harry's sight, even as he tried to look for it, until only the faintest shimmer remained, mostly hidden. It brought Harry back to awareness, making him feel his stiff, cold limbs and hear the bemused meows of his impatient cat. He cleared his throat, which was dry from hours of barely breathing, blinked heavy eyes, and got to his feet, bracing on the wall for the awful onset of pins and needles. Scooping Basilissa up - much to her surprise - Harry threw the invisibility cloak over himself.

The rays of the rising sun bathed the stone of the Astronomy Tower in honey-gold as Harry turned to leave, making him stagger with sudden tiredness. He rubbed his eyes as he walked the familiar way back to Gryffindor Tower, ruefully making plans to get a couple of hours sleep before classes started. He'd answered his first question of the night, and then another, but they'd only provoked more questions. Still, Harry thought as he stumbled into bed, he hoped this nocturnal thing wasn't going to get worse, because he was going to be useless in class today.

Chapter Text

The end of term was approaching, and with it there was a certain amount of relief. Their classwork was enough to wear anyone down, all of them feeling the strain of their NEWT year, but their added responsibilities and extracurricular projects had everyone feeling frazzled and in need of a break. Hermione had intended to stay in the castle over winter break, to be available for anyone who needed her, but Neville had finally managed to persuade her that he had it covered. Harry was pleased he had because Hermione may have thought that she hid her relief well, but it was obvious to everyone that she needed a couple of weeks away from Hogwarts. Ron was returning with her, both the two of them and Ginny planning to stay in the Burrow over the holidays.

Blaise, Daphne, and Tracey were all spending the holidays with their families, which left Slytherin without a final year prefect, but Quintus Tremblay from the sixth years and Selena Fawcett from Ravenclaw were set to remain. Harry didn’t envy them – it was the first year when many of the students’ relatives would be imprisoned or under investigation, others whose family members had died; there might be any number of students among all four Houses who weren’t sure where they were supposed to be returning.

Harry had felt oddly cut off from discussions of the holidays, one moment about to mention something they could do to Ron and Hermione, the next remembering that he was bound for the Underworld. He couldn’t help the miserable feeling that welled up whenever they discussed plans, or who had said they were coming over for Christmas. Even if he’d been stuck at Hogwarts on his own, he would still have been somewhere familiar around others – the Underworld didn’t have nearly such good postal service. He had all his gifts for people arranged already, which he would send with Ron and Hermione to deliver – they would in turn collect everyone’s gifts for him, and give them to him in the new year. Still, it had been a bitter thing to wrap Teddy’s new toys and know that he wouldn’t be able to spend any time with his infant godson over the break. Actually, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do his homework either. Hopefully, his professors would be understanding, given the circumstances.

One morning, in the first week of December, an owl landed in front of Harry’s breakfast, landing on silent wings. This wasn’t exactly unusual, as Harry had a few people who wrote to him – including Andromeda, from whom he was expecting a confirmation of their tea arrangement at the weekend – but Harry knew all his usual correspondents’ owls and he didn’t recognise this one. It was a beautiful owl, with glossy black feathers and odd green eyes. The owl looked at Harry haughtily, extending the leg the letter was attached to and clicking its beak when Harry didn’t act fast enough.

Harry levitated the letter, undoing the string with an easy flick of his wand, and ran over the usual mail-checking charms before he touched the dark envelope. There was no return address on the back, just a seal in the deepest of greens, so dark it looked black except for where it caught the light. Harry tilted it, trying to make out the embossed image. It took a few tries, tilting it this way and that, before he understood the design was a trio of keys. He’d done enough reading to know what that meant. Harry opened the letter more quickly, wondering what Hecate had sent him.

Dear Harry,

Your presence is expected in the Underworld on Friday 18^th December at dusk. A hellhound will be sent to collect you. Please refrain from destroying the poor thing – they reform soon enough but hold quite the grudge. When you arrive, report to the Throne Room to greet the King and Queen. I will await you there.

Your divine mother,

Lady Hecate

Her message was written in a shining bronze ink that reminded Harry of the metal accents in the Underworld palace. It was probably purposeful, he realised, running a finger over the tidy script. This letter was a lot more formal than the last one she’d sent, and it wouldn’t surprise Harry if outgoing messages from the Underworld were supposed to be colour coded. Unity, or something maybe. It took blinking to realise that this message wasn’t written in English either, letters spreading into looping Greek script before settling back into something Harry understood. He wondered when his mind adapted so thoroughly that he didn’t even register it as a foreign language at first.

Harry looked back up at the owl, which stared back unblinkingly. “Do I have to reply?” Harry asked it, trying not to feel ridiculous. Around him, his friends’ conversation paused from where they’d been having one of their rare meals in the Great Hall.

The owl looked from the opened letter to Harry himself and let out an ear-piercing shriek which rattled the tableware, causing the noise in the Hall to stutter to a stop. A moment later, it spread its inky black wings, trailing gusts of shadow, and with a flap, the owl dispersed into dark smoke, shot through with the odd green light before there was nothing left behind but the letter.

“A ‘no’, then.” Harry muttered to himself, placing the letter back on the table.

“What was that?” Ron asked, looking up from his plate of eggs and sausages.

“A reminder,” Harry said, showing him the curving Ancient Greek script on dark paper, “of where I’m meant to be going for the holidays.”

Ron eyed the letter with pursed lips. “Right, I get that.” He said, after a pause that dragged on a moment too long to be casual, “but did it have to scream so loud?”

Harry snorted. It had been a terrible screech. People were still watching them from around the room.

“If they’re anything like the stories,” Hermione chimed in, craning around Ron to look at the letter as well, “the gods all have a flair for the dramatic.”

“But their birds too?” Ron questioned, though the crinkling around his eyes said that he was just continuing this to provoke Hermione. “Can’t even get a nice, drama-free owl delivery these days?”

She huffed a laugh. “Especially their birds. Hey, Harry?”

He looked to her questioningly, attention dragged away from the letter sitting by his plate again.

“How many of the stories were about gods being birds? Or turning people into birds?” Hermione clearly knew but enjoyed winding Ron up as much as he did her.

“Or sending birds to spy on other people?” Harry finished for her. “Too many. Actually, too much turning into animals in general.” It had been one of the more disturbing things he’d read in the collection of myths Hermione had given him for his birthday.

Ron paled. “That wasn’t a, you know, was it?”

Harry snorted. “No.” It hadn’t felt like one at least, though he supposed it was technically possible. Then again, why would a god bother to deliver his letters? “Just a magic messenger, I think.”

“Yeah, that probably makes more sense.” Ron agreed quickly, slumping back over his breakfast. “No gods on the breakfast table. That should be a rule somewhere.”

Harry laughed at him but couldn’t help agreeing internally. The letter he tucked away in his pocket barely had any weight but seemed to weigh on his mind for the rest of the day.

-

“Have you thought about food?” Hermione asked Harry, while they were setting up the room of requirement for the Thursday DA meeting.

“Huh?”

“For the Underworld.” She clarified. “You read that far, right?”

“Oh, yes.” Harry made a face, remembering his first visit to the Underworld and the way that Hades and Hecate had laughed at him. “Visitors eating Underworld food means they can’t leave. Am I a visitor though?”

Hermione arched an eyebrow at him, as if asking how she’d possibly know more than him. “Well, you’re leaving again afterwards, aren’t you?”

“True.” He guessed it made more sense to consider him a visitor at this stage, and work with those rules. If it turned out later that he counted as an inhabitant, Hecate could let him know, but it was probably better to be cautious until he knew. “Do you think I can bring food with me? Like, in my trunk.”

Hermione finished setting up the tables and chairs in her section. She was planning on running her group through fourth year mock exams today, which seemed fiendish in Harry’s opinion. “I don’t know.” She replied, dragging Harry’s wavering attention back to their conversation. “Might be worth a try though. I don’t see another option, unless there’s something about the Underworld that stops you from needing to eat. The goddess of magic would have thought of it, right?”

Harry considered that, but he wasn’t particularly hopeful. Hecate, however helpful she had been, was still a goddess and not one who had ever been mortal. He doubted she’d ever had to consider food for survival reasons, rather than as an offering, something interesting to eat, or blending in with mortals in the Overworld. He conveyed his doubt.

Hermione bit her lip, tugging on a curl distractedly. “I don’t know then, Harry.” She looked seriously displeased not to have all the answers. “I suppose we just have to try packing some food and use every preservation charm we can find. I can ask the elves what they do.”

Harry nodded, tentatively pleased with that plan for a problem he hadn’t even considered before now. Worriedly, he wondered what other problems he simply didn’t know enough to even start solving.

People trickling in through the door put that train of thought on hold for now as Harry put a slightly shaky smile on his face and welcomed them in. Enough worrying for now – there was holiday homework to set.

-

Hermione started quizzing him on characters from Greek mythology over meals and in the common room, asking him for stories or parentage. It was nerve-wracking, but Harry had always had a better memory for stories rather than bits of trivia, so it helped somewhat to have to tell it all out. Ron, who had glanced over the mythology book, but hadn’t read it in depth, made an excellent listener, happy to hear it all over games of chess. He had a tendency to get names and stories confused, which made for very funny questions.

“So, let me get this straight,” Ron said, moving his bishop against his fifth-year opponent, who scowled, plot clearly foiled, “there’s some guy called Hercules.”

“Heracles, in Greek, but yes.” Hermione corrected.

“Heracles.” Ron rolled his eyes, but nudged Hermione’s side gently to show he was joking, “and he’s named after the, uh, queen of Olympus, right? But she hates him, because his dad is the king, her husband, and he cheated on her with a mortal woman by pretending to be her husband, which is all kinds of fucked up.”

“Yep.” Harry nodded, fishing through a packet of Bertie Botts’ Every Flavour Beans for the green ones, which Ron resolutely refused to eat, before offering his friend the packet.

“Okay.” Ron took a jellybean without looking, eyes on his opponent’s play. “Anyway, the queen-goddess wants revenge, so she makes the goddess of childbirth refuse to let Heracles’ mum give birth, and so his cousin or something is born first. But – ugh, turnip puree – his mum’s servant tells the childbirth-goddess that his mum already gave birth, so it’s no use, and so the goddess accidentally lets him be born. The goddess, or one of the other goddesses, gets mad and turns the servant into a weasel, who your new mum,” he gestured a distracted hand at Harry, “takes in ‘cause she felt sorry for her or something.”

“Then,” Ron continued, ruthlessly taking his opponent’s rook, “it gets worse, because his mum abandons him outside to die, but the owl goddess-”

Harry snorted and Hermione frowned, “Wisdom goddess.”

Ron rolled his eyes, “Owl goddess, who also happens to be the goddess of wisdom, along with some other stuff. She takes him to the queen goddess, who is the one trying to kill him, which seems like a really bad idea. But the queen goddess doesn’t even recognise him and so tries to, uh, feed him. Anyway, he bites or something – gums? Do baby gums hurt? – so she pushes him away, and the owl goddess takes him back, ‘cept now he’s all strong on goddess milk, which sounds so bad.”

He wasn’t wrong. Well, except for the biting part, but Ron’s recap was too funny to interrupt for just that.

“Anyway, he strangles some snakes as a baby, grows up, gets married, has kids, all that good stuff, but the queen goddess curses him with madness and makes him kill them all. And she’s the one who cursed him, but somehow, he’s in trouble for it and some oracle tells him to do whatever this king guy tells him to.” Ron made a face. For a wizard, with their various laws concerning the imperius curse and other controlling spells and potions, this would seem very odd indeed. “And the king keeps giving him impossible tasks, but he keeps doing them anyway.”

“How many tasks?”

“Er, it was ten, right?” Ron didn’t sound very convinced by his own answer.

Harry shrugged, offering Ron another jellybean. “It was supposed to be ten, but the king cheated, so it was twelve.”

Ron whistled lowly. “Sucks to be that guy. Can you imagine some random goddess hunting you down just because you were born, trying to kill you all the time, killing all your family, and then getting you sent on a bunch of impossible tasks or they’ll kill you too?”

Harry gave him the most deadpan look he could, waiting for Ron to look up from the chessboard in the sudden silence. It took a moment, but soon his friend’s head popped back up and Harry could almost see his mind tracking back over what he’d just said.

“Yeah, you probably can.” Ron chuckled, a little awkwardly. “’Cept that Voldemort’s not a goddess and all.”

There was a smack from beside Harry, which was the sound of Hermione’s forehead meeting her palm. “Honestly, Ronald.” Her voice emerged, slightly muffled.

Harry broke, snorting his own laughter. “Yeah, sucks to be that guy.”

-

Harry was well aware that sometimes moody teenagers sought out empty places so they could brood on their own – being a particular fan of this course of action himself – but it still didn’t prepare him for how many he had to seek out after curfew as the holidays neared. He had an evening patrol after curfew every few weeks, which he tended to share with one of his Slytherin friends, and for the most part, these were fairly uneventful. It turned out, to absolutely no one’s surprise, that it was only Harry and his friends who did ridiculous things like smuggle baby dragons out of the castle after curfew, and everyone else was just out for snacks, minor mischief, and truly appalling amounts of snogging. However, there was also a fair number of people who left their dorms because, for whatever reason, they couldn’t stand to be around their housemates any longer.

Harry understood – he went on walks himself at night for similar reasons, and he’d hate to be a hypocrite about it – but he also admitted, if somewhat reluctantly, that it wasn’t exactly a good sign for someone’s mental health. When he found them – often with the Map rather than happening across them – Harry usually tried to talk to them. Sometimes they took him up on it, sometimes they didn’t. Often, it was just that someone had gotten fed up or overwhelmed with their dormmates, perhaps had an argument, and had needed somewhere to go to cool off for a bit. As a prefect, Harry had to support walking away from a fight instead of escalating it, or at least that was the excuse he gave them when they asked if he was taking house points off. Most of the time, he just had to escort them back to their House dormitories, but for the bad fights, he had to go in and mediate or at least get their own House prefects to do so.

Other times, there were students out of bed because their emotions were too big, and they simply didn’t know what to do with them. With the winter holidays approaching, the students of Hogwarts were being pulled out from the comfortable seclusion of the castle and being forced to consider the wider state of the magical world again. For some, this meant being struck by grief again, jolted from their weekly routine of classes and familiar faces; for others, it was uncertainty about where they were going and who would be waiting for them; for others still, there was no home to go back to. For many, it would be the first holiday season since the worst of the war – since they had lost a friend or family member.

Orla Quirke, Harry thought, probably fell into the last category. It was the third time he’d found her recently, each time in a different out of the way room, and she was starting to no longer look surprised to see him.

“Hi, Orla.” Harry said, knocking on the door to the classroom and moving in a couple of steps, “Having a rough night?”

The Ravenclaw sniffed, burying her head of curly hair in her arms and otherwise refusing to acknowledge him. She’d been so worried, the first time, that he would get her in trouble and get her prefect badge taken away, but clearly, she’d become more confident about that over time.

Harry sighed, walking a little closer until he could sit on one of the desks near her window seat. The fifth year had told him all about it the second time he’d found her out at night. She’d been at Hogwarts last year, since her father was a pureblood and she had his family name, but her mother had been a half-blood on her own mother’s side. While Orla and her father had been safe, her mother had been made by the Death Eater-run Ministry to produce proof of her magical parentage. She hadn’t done so in time, since her family were a small family, not the kind of magical family who obsessed about family trees, and the Ministry were being unhelpful, and so she’d been carted off to Muggleborn Registration and never heard from again. Orla’s father had received a notification soon after of the annulment of his marriage.

They only found out what happened to Leah Quirke after the war, when internal Ministry investigations had found that one of the Death Eaters, who had felt that Orla’s father had married below his station, had deliberately hidden Leah Quirke’s records so that she was assumed Muggleborn and taken away to one of the Mudblood Relocation Camps. She hadn’t survived. Orla’s mother had been taken around Christmas, and now both she and her father struggled with the season. Along with her own grief and the stress of her OWL year, Orla didn’t know if she could stand being back home, where her father had fallen into depression, or if it was even fair of her to stay away.

“Have you been to the kitchens before?” Harry asked her, breaking the oppressive silence of the room.

For a moment, it looked like Orla would continue to ignore him, but in the end, she shook her head.

“Come on then.” Harry said, trying to keep his tone light. “I’ll show you where it is.”

Reluctantly, she followed him, and Harry led Orla down to the kitchens, chatting about any of the random things that came into his head. Some of it was silly stories of things he and his cohort had done over the years, a story or two about the bold Gryffindor first years and their determination to explore every corner of the castle, a little about Norberta, the dragon they’d smuggled out of Hogwarts for Hagrid, because he’d been thinking about it before.

“I’m not actually sure,” Harry said, tickling the pear on the tapestry, “that McGonagall knows that there really was a baby dragon, and it wasn’t just Malfoy making up rubbish to get us all in trouble.”

That surprised a slightly wet laugh out of Orla. “What happened to the dragon afterwards?” She asked, the first real reply she’d made since Harry started talking.

“Oh, Norberta?” Harry grinned, “She’s alright. The dragon handlers took her to a reserve in Romania, so she’s with a load of other dragons now.”

He led Orla into the kitchens, where a small crew of elves were cleaning the ovens, sorting stocks, and other useful tasks that were better done when there wasn't a rush for food occurring.

They looked around as Harry and Orla entered, large eyes widening. "Mr Harry Potter! And friend! What can wes be doing for yous?"

Harry grinned at them. "Hi, Torny." Harry said, having recognized the speaker from previous trips. "Orla's a little upset this evening, so we were wondering if there might be any hot chocolate available?" He knew the elves often kept some around for the students with nightmares.

"Of course! Sit! Sit!" Torny ushered them both to a small table, well away from where the other elves were still working.

As they sat, Harry turned back to Orla, "If you don't like hot chocolate, just say so, and they'll find something else."

"Hot chocolate is fine." Orla replied, though she looked uncomfortable. She waited until Torny had brought them both mugs of hot chocolate before looking after the elf. "I've, um, I've never met one of the Hogwarts house elves before. We don't have an elf at home, Dad didn't bring one and Mum," she stuttered, "Mum never wanted one. Couldn't stomach the idea of it."

Harry nodded. The Hogwarts elves may be treated better than other elves Harry knew of, but that wasn't enough to make him comfortable with the way that the magical world used them and ignored them, or worse. “Hermione’s been thinking on it for years now. She started by trying to knit them all hats, but that didn’t go down very well – can’t force freedom on someone who doesn’t want to be free. She was working on what protections they could have legally, but then, well.” The war happened, went unsaid but heard by both of them.

“Why don’t they want to be free?” Orla asked, sipping at her hot chocolate.

Harry shrugged. “You’d have to ask the elves. But it’s a bit of a sensitive topic for them, so they might not want to answer.”

Orla seemed to be turning that over in her head. “Makes sense, I guess. They don’t have to tell me just ‘cause I’m curious. But what about the ones who are treated badly? I’ve heard stories in the common room. Surely, they wouldn’t want to stay?”

“Some do, some don’t.” Harry replied, thinking of Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher, all elves in different bad positions and with different wants. “But I guess the thing isn’t about what we think is best for the elves, but what the elves think is best, and what we can do to make sure everyone respects that.” It was a hard pill to swallow, especially for someone like Hermione who saw problems and automatically wanted to fix them, and Harry could see Orla was the same type.

Turning her mug between her hands, Orla stared at the little table they sat at, tracing the wood grain absently with her eyes. “I still don’t get it, but maybe I’ll ask. Not tonight, though.”

“Not tonight.” Harry agreed, sipping some of his own hot chocolate. It was thick, warm, and wonderfully rich, feeling like it spread a little more heat through his cold veins every time he drank it. “She’s got a lot on at the moment, but I’m sure Hermione would be thrilled to see someone taking an interest. She’s probably still got the flyers for SPEW in her trunk somewhere.”

“Spew?” Orla asked, dubiously.

“S.P.E.W.” Harry explained. “Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare. She started it a couple of years back.”

“Huh.” Orla looked like she was actually considering it. “That’s cool.”

Harry left their conversation there, turning it to lighter topics such as the upcoming Ravenclaw vs Slytherin quidditch match, but his task had been accomplished – Orla had been thoroughly distracted. Once they’d both finished their hot chocolates, Harry escorted her back to Ravenclaw Tower.  

“Night, Orla.” Harry said, standing in the open doorway. “Try to get some sleep.”

“Night, Potter.” She looked embarrassed suddenly, as if just remembering that he was a prefect who’d caught her out after curfew. There seemed to be something else she wanted to say, but after a moment’s hesitation, she turned away and closed the common room door.

Harry checked the time with a quick charm and grimaced when he realised he’d stayed out beyond his patrol time and Blaise, tonight’s patrol partner, must have been wondering where he was. He headed back to the prefect’s common room to tick his patrol off, seeing Blaise had already done so for himself, and then finally back to his own common room for the night.

Chapter Text

Rainbow fractals of light bent around the shape of the flower’s petals as Harry inspected his control moly. His Mist-soaked vision showed the wafting currents of magic as he circled his magic around himself and through the moly flower, while he took measurements of the stem, flower, and roots, before noting the distribution of veins and leaves on the plant. Finally, Harry used a colour-matching charm (which Dean had shown him, from a magical painting book) to note the colours of the various parts of the moly. This one, potted near the window with Ron’s three and Neville’s, was the baseline to which he would compare the two in the cupboards. If Harry were a better artist, he’d try to draw the plant, but beyond the compulsory sketch, he knew that art wasn’t where his talents lay. Besides, he didn’t entirely trust his ability to see things clearly right now, given that his ability to see the Mist hadn’t faded.

He repeated the process with the other two plants in their respective cupboards. The one in sunlight had grown to almost double the size of the others, leaves broad but prone to shrivelling if he didn’t increase how much he watered it. The magic of this moly was warmer somehow, bolder, like the alchemical sunlight it had used to grow had been stored within, ready to be cracked open like a glowstick. The moonlight moly was smaller, but no less potent in its magic; changeable currents that promised either poison or cure threaded out of its petals in shy loops, death and salvation in every leaf. It had frustrated Harry for a long time that there was something off, changeable, about these two plants that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

He found his answer one evening, when he’d woken late that morning and had to rush out of the dorms without watering his plants. By the time he finally got the time to, after class, the sun had set in the early darkness of December days, and the plants he came back to were rather different to his magical senses. Where the sunlit moly had always seemed bolder, now the moonlight flower was brighter, its swirling magic more prominent. Somehow, instead of just feeding the plants with different alchemical light, Harry had managed to tie them into the day and night cycle. Perhaps it should have occurred to him sooner but given that the plants never actually left their cupboards and the lumos charms were constantly shining on them, Harry wasn’t entirely sure how the moly plants were keeping up with a cycle they never saw. It was certainly interesting, though, suggesting that moly plants reacted more to the magical properties of their surroundings, such as day and night, rather than their physical ones.

Harry noted his hypothesis down, chewing on his quill as he reached the end. He almost wished he had more time to test this theory – which he’d have to repeat every day to make sure, and still didn’t know how to measure (how did he say ‘it just feels stronger to me’ in a way that sounded academic?) – but the presentations were in the coming week. Still, there would be a good few days to test it. He sent a tentative poke of magic at the moonlight moly and felt the plant reverberate happily in a sense that wasn’t quite hearing, like the ringing of a brass bell but with no volume. After sunset, it was clear that this was the more powerful of the two plants, which was odd, since in daylight, Harry hadn’t noticed much of a difference between the two before. Perhaps there was another factor.

Ron clattering into the dorm and calling Harry to join them for dinner distracted him, but Harry kept it in the back of his mind, even as he followed his friends down to the kitchens.

-

Harry only managed to get a couple of bites into his cottage pie, before Susan Bones was knocking on the door of the empty classroom they’d commandeered. The conversation stuttered then stopped immediately, when they caught sight of her widened eyes and pale face. “Hi, Harry, everyone.” She greeted them. “Headmistress McGonagall is looking for you. They caught someone trying to curse a house elf to use some poison.”

Immediately, they were all on their feet, plates and conversation forgotten. “Where is she?” Harry asked, picking his winter cloak off a nearby desk.

“Her office, now.” Susan replied. “He was near the kitchens. Well, nearer our common room, to be honest, but I think he was aiming for the kitchens.”

“He?” Hermione questioned as they left. “Do you know who it was?”

Susan nodded, “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say, really, but you’ll see in a minute anyway. It was Goyle.”

“Goyle?” The corridor erupted with voices in various states of disbelief and disgust.

“I didn’t think he was able to make any kind of poison.” Ron said. “Not deliberately, at least.”

Harry snorted. He couldn’t say he disagreed.

“It does seem odd.” Hermione agreed. “I can see him attacking Harry and wanting to kill him, but poison? He doesn’t seem the type to think of that.”

Neville nodded, then let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “He and Crabbe were the only ones in the class worse than me at Potions.”

There were plenty of things they could theorise about, but there was almost no point when they’d soon reach the Headmistress’ office and hopefully get the answers there. Instead of joining in the rest of the conversation, Harry walked quietly, head wrapped up in his own thoughts. He couldn’t help but think that the others were right – it was weird that it was Goyle and much weirder that it was something vaguely complicated like poison, instead of a direct attack. Of course, Goyle had already tried that in the common room in the first week and it hadn’t worked, so maybe he’d decided to move on to something else. Still, he’d never seen Goyle make a plan for himself before. It just didn’t seem right.

Harry almost missed the gargoyle moving aside but brought himself back into the moment as the stairs spun and they reached the doorway at the top. The heavy wooden door was open, and within the room, Harry could see McGonagall at her desk, Goyle with his arms stuck to the chair he sat on, and a couple of aurors pacing back and forth before the fireplace.

McGonagall saw him first. “Ah, Potter. I thought you might want to hear this.” Her tone was steady but the expression in her eyes was dark. “Come, take a seat, and we’ll tell you what we know so far. And the rest of you, I suppose, if Mr Potter is alright with that?” 

Harry confirmed that he wanted his friends to stay and took a seat in one of the comfier chairs away from Goyle’s wooden one. His friends settled around him.

“I’m still not entirely sure that it’s appropriate to involve Mr Potter at this stage.” One of the aurors said, stepping away from the fireplace. His red robes were lit by the roaring flames behind him, but their professionalism was somewhat detracted from by the smudge of soot he’d missed on his left.

“Mr Potter,” McGonagall said, with the air of a woman who has had to repeat this far too many times, “is both an adult and the intended victim of this attempt. He shouldn’t be involved in the investigation, I agree, but he deserves to know when someone has tried to make an attack against him. And, with the auror office’s track record on this, I hardly know whether you would let him know at all.”

The auror looked offended. “What is that supposed to mean?”

McGonagall looked at him sternly over her rimmed glasses, “This investigation was handed over to the Department of Law Enforcement over a month ago, and we are yet to hear of any progress, nor the further information about defensive protocols we could enact in Hogwarts, which was promised. Forgive me if I have to doubt the efficiency of the auror departments’ future communications.”

“We have been working on it, professor. Er, headmistress.” The other auror said, clapping a hand on the first’s shoulder and staring him down until he gave in. “There was supposed to be a progress report sent by the start of the month. I’ll look into why it didn’t arrive.”

McGonagall sniffed but looked vaguely mollified. “Thank you, Miss Nelson. Perhaps, you can catch the students up on what they’ve missed.”

Auror Nelson sighed, but quailed under the gimlet eye of the headmistress, who, judging by their respective ages, was probably her old Transfiguration teacher. “At 18:21 this evening, the house elves Froppy and Clogged reported that a student had successfully placed an imperius curse upon the house elf Beesty, with the instructions to ‘put that in Potter’s drink. And his friends’ as well.’, accompanied by a potion vial. The house elf, Froppy, immediately froze the house elf Beesty, once Beesty was out of the student’s sight, while Clogged reported the situation to the headmistress. The headmistress apparated to the corridor mentioned and found Mr Goyle heading back to the Great Hall. The house elves and portraits confirmed that this was the student who had cast the curse, and the headmistress detained him and summoned auror representatives.”

Goyle was red-faced – likely with anger rather than embarrassment – but didn’t comment.

“Is it the same poison?” Hermione asked.

“We haven’t run tests yet.” Auror Nelson answered. “Headmistress McGonagall has volunteered the services of Potions Master Slughorn for initial testing, but we’re waiting to see if there is a Department Potions Master available at this time.”

Harry looked over at the potion vial, which was sat in a warded stand on the desk. He blinked through the wafting motes of the Mist through the wards to where they reflected in bright violet bursts as they hit the potion. It was all still too new to him to understand what that meant, but as he watched the Mist twirl in time with the currents of the magic around it, Harry could get a sense of the potential for death contained within, even though he wasn’t nearby. It seemed nothing like as strong as the previous one, though he couldn’t be 100% sure that wasn’t because he was a table away. Harry crossed over towards the potion vial, skirting around Goyle’s frozen figure, and poked at the vial with his magic. As he’d thought, it was the poison itself that was weaker, with the distance making no difference. It could probably kill a person, if they didn’t get some kind of antidote, but Harry wasn’t sure, feeling the golden fire of his own magic in his veins, that it could kill him.

“It’s not the same potion.” Harry said, before qualifying, “Fairly sure.” Just in case it was, but Goyle had mucked it up somewhere along the way. “It doesn’t feel as, uh, deadly.”

For that, he received the tired but indulgent looks of people who had heard too much of his nonsense to be surprised by what he came out with nowadays, the aurors notwithstanding.

Funnily enough, this seemed to be what offended Goyle into speaking. “It would of worked!” He protested, “How’s her potion any better than mine?”

Auror Nelson shook her head, before pulling out parchment. “Let the record state that Gregory Goyle, of his own volition, admitted that the potion in question is his own.” On a separate parchment, she wrote another note.

“I mean, it might have.” Harry shrugged, intending to needle Goyle further, “But only if I didn’t have an antidote or a bezoar to hand. And even then, I reckon I could have made it to the hospital wing on time.”

“What’s a bezoar?” Goyle asked.

Harry heard the sound of Hermione’s deep sigh behind him. “It’s a common cure to poisons.” Harry said quickly to ward off an incoming lecture about paying attention to basic safety information in class. “Which you probably should have known if you were planning to poison me. Why did you?”

“Because you should of died, Potter!” Goyle burst out. “We were going to win! We’d basically already won, and then scrawny Potty somehow kills the Dark Lord himself? It doesn’t make sense!”

“No, no, I get that bit.” Harry rolled his eyes, ignoring sounds of outrage behind him. “Why poison?”

“Cos it woulda worked.” Goyle looked at him as if he were stupid. “None of the curses were working, kept just bouncing off your stupid shields. But then they got pretty close with the potion – we knew it when the professors stopped school for a day.”

Harry thought back through the three months of term, wondering when people had been testing his shields with curses and how he hadn’t noticed them, until he realised that he had – he’d simply gotten used to people throwing spells at him in the corridor, and him and his friends finding them for detentions. It was sobering to realise that at least some of those hadn’t been schoolyard jinxes and prank spells, but potential attempts on his life.

“So, you were working with others?” McGonagall asked Goyle, lips pinched tight and a terrific scowl on her face.

“I wasn’t working with no one!” Goyle protested, seemingly also offended by this. “They mucked it up first time, so I knew I’d do better.”

The irony of this statement seemed lost on Goyle, who didn’t appear to have noticed that he was currently confessing his crimes in front of two auror witnesses.

“But you know who made the first attempt on Harry Potter’s life.” The first auror spoke eagerly, “Who was it?”

Too hard, too fast. Goyle clammed up, jaw jutted in a mulish set. “Like I would tell you.”

Auror Nelson sighed, easing the first auror, whose name Harry hadn’t caught, back behind her. “For your information, Mr Goyle, knowingly withholding information about the perpetrators of a crime during a legal investigation is a crime.”

“You can’t prove it.” Goyle said smugly. “You can’t prove I know anything about who did it.”

“Mr Goyle,” Auror Nelson said, looking deeply put-upon, “you admitted to knowing the culprits yourself, not five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, but not officially.” Goyle replied, looking absolutely certain about this.

Auror Nelson didn’t seem to know how to react to this, “We are Aurors from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Mr Goyle. As you were told at the start of this interview, any statements you make will be recorded and used as evidence at your trial.”

Goyle scowled. “But I didn’t make any statements!”

Auror Nelson seemed to give it up as a lost cause and turned back to the rest of the room. “Hopefully, we should be hearing from our Potions consultants soon. After we have done initial testing of the potion in situ, we shall risk moving it, and Mr Goyle, into Auror custody, awaiting further questioning. As the intended victim of the attack, Mr Potter,” she turned her dark eyes on him, “we will let you know the results and about the implication of further pre-meditated attacks on your person. Until then,” the auror looked then to the headmistress, “I would like to begin an unofficial discussion about improvements to Hogwarts’ internal safety, since the Department as a whole has yet to report back to you on it. While we wait for a Potions Master, I mean.”

McGonagall pursed her lips but nodded. “Very well, Auror Nelson.”

It was not long after that that Potions Master Shafiq came through the Floo and, after being appraised of the situation, began her testing on the potion vial. “You did well to summon me instead of bringing this through the Floo, Nelson.” The older woman floated the vial into the air where she spun it around with small motions of her long fingers, “The potion itself is inert enough – for a poison that is – but the vial is cursed to explode nastily when exposed to Floo fire. The glass shards aside, the poison would have been vapourised and trapped the unwary traveller in a cloud of poison for the duration of their journey. A nasty little trap.”

Harry looked over at Goyle, vaguely disturbed, and saw the others around him doing the same – he knew that Goyle was an odious excuse for a human being, but he’d sort of counted on Goyle not being intelligent enough to be an actual threat.

Goyle himself noticed the looks and gave a nasty one of his own back, though appeared somewhat disappointed that his trap had been figured out.

“Did you curse the vials yourself or have someone else do them?” The other auror asked Goyle.

Goyle leant back in his chair as far as his magical bonds would allow. “Doesn’t matter, does it?” He scowled at the two aurors, “Would of got you two blood traitors anyway.”

“Yes, well, thankfully, it didn’t.” Auror Nelson looked up from where she’d been witnessing Potions Master Shafiq’s investigations into the vial of poison, clearly having been paying more attention to Goyle still than it had appeared. “But whether you cursed the vials yourself, used them knowing they were cursed, or did not know about the curse, which seems unlikely all considered, may make some minor differences to your sentencing.”

Goyle huffed and crossed his arms belligerently. “Not saying anything.”

“Very well.” Auror Nelson didn’t seem to care much, though Harry suspected that she did. After all, given that they all knew there were other people involved in the attempts to kill Harry, it seemed worth knowing if there was someone else in the castle going around placing nasty curse traps and trying to catch aurors up in them too.

Potions Master Shafiq’s investigation was fairly long – not for the brewing and testing, but rather for all the documentation that she and the aurors had to fill out at every stage. She quickly confirmed that it was in no way the same poison as the first one – which had been remanded to Ministry custody when the first lot of aurors had shown up – and was significantly less deadly, as Harry had already felt from the vials. From what she could gather, it was an incorrectly brewed Seven Venoms potion, which, as one might have guessed from the name, used seven toxic venoms as a base to produce a fast-acting and difficult to counter poison. Unfortunately for Goyle, he was by and large the worst potioneer of their year and had burned the venoms so badly that they had denatured and formed a rather less toxic sludge.

Once Shafiq had finished documenting the poison, she was able to transfer it into a new, uncursed vial. “My part here is done.” The Potions Master announced. “The potion is safe to travel and documented in situ. The labs should be set up by now for further processing and eventual storage.”

Nelson nodded. “Excellent, thank you, Potions Master Shafiq. Auror Tre will accompany you back to the labs while I finish up here.”

Tre, which must have been the other auror’s name, moved away from his watch over Goyle and went over to the fireplace, while Shafiq put the potion inside a plain wooden box for transport. They stepped into the fire together, and thankfully, there was no great explosion of fumes.

Auror Nelson, meanwhile, took the old vial and placed it into a rather less plain box. This one was both lit up with powerful magics and coloured bright red, with a large sign saying ‘cursed item’ on the top. Harry hadn’t seen where she had pulled the box from, but figured it was an auror secret, likely somewhat like his own not-entirely-legal extended pockets.

From there, everything seemed to happen much faster. Auror Nelson secured the box and then officially brought Goyle in for questioning to the Ministry itself, McGonagall having already given him notice of his expulsion from Hogwarts. Harry was left with a warning to be careful, since there were very clearly conspirators still within the castle, and a promise that the aurors would be in touch to investigate further. It wasn’t entirely convincing, given that that was more or less what they’d said last time before vanishing for a month, but Harry supposed it was probably the best he was going to get.

Chapter Text

He wasn’t entirely sure how they got back to Gryffindor Tower, wrapped up in his thoughts as he was, but Harry had some vague memories of McGonagall furiously promising that the Heads of each House would be conducting dormitory inspections as soon as she could order them, to try and search out any further poisons. He wasn’t hopeful for that either, knowing how easy it was to hide things magically. After all, if it had taken the professors a year to find their Defence professor in a suitcase, what were the chances they’d find illicit potions?

His friends bundled themselves into the Eighth-Year boys’ dormitory, the heavy wooden door closing with a ping of magic, as the protective wards sealed across it.

“Everyone agreed that we’re all spending tonight up here?” Ron asked, expression grim.

There was a chorus of agreement. Harry hadn’t even noticed that they’d gathered Neville and Ginny along the way. The two were being whispered to furiously by Hermione.

“I don’t like the possibility that McGonagall’s search through the dorms might provoke a reaction.” Neville said, face troubled. “It feels a little too likely.”

Harry wasn’t sure what he thought. It was unnerving, of course, to think that someone might be coming after him in revenge for another foiled plot, but it was almost hard to take them seriously. After Voldemort and full-fledged Death Eaters, his fellow students were somewhat… lacklustre. The last two attempts hadn’t even gotten near his mouth. The others – the curses thrown against his shields – hadn’t even registered as more than a petty attempt at bullying. Still, that was almost the worst part about it – someone, multiple people even, had been trying to kill Harry for months now, and he hadn’t even known. It sent a shiver down his back, a tight feeling in the back of his throat.

Still, he nodded belatedly to Neville’s comment and allowed the others to continue scheming around him, noting down all the little bits of information that Goyle had let slip.

Vector came by an hour or so later, finishing up her sweep of the Gryffindor dorms with Professors Flitwick and Barnaby. They cast an array of dark magic detecting spells around the dorms, as well as spells specifically for toxic substances, hidden spaces, and anti-invisibility charms. Naturally, the moly flowers lit up like beacons as toxic substances, as well as a number of Neville’s other plants, but they were well-separated from the rest of the dorms, with appropriate warnings, and Vector, as their current Head of House, was already well aware of all Herbology projects kept in the dorms.

Barnaby, as the only one not a Head of House, was rather more alarmed than the other two professors, edging away from the glow that indicated the flowers’ highly lethal toxicity. He cast the professors incredulous looks, then swept the same over the students, expression aghast when he found that the ones ‘hidden’ in a cupboard were in fact Harry’s project and not a secret stash of lethal poison that one of the other boys was using to plot against him. It was curious considering that, as an ex-auror, Barnaby should have been well aware that the Auror Department required a NEWT in Herbology, and thus, should have himself taken Herbology and covered such toxic plants himself. One more clue in the mystery of Professor Barnaby’s incompetence, but Harry wasn’t really in the mood to appreciate it.

The professors asked each student to open their trunk and cast all their detection charms again. Harry, belatedly realising that his Underworld books were still in his trunk, found himself wondering if he’d have to give an awkward explanation in front of Barnaby, but thankfully Vector took his trunk herself, and only gave the books a tired look. She confiscated some hidden firewhiskey from Seamus, some muggle rum from Dean, a fanged frisbee from Ron – who insisted he’d confiscated it from someone a couple of years back and forgot to do anything with it – and made Neville promise to keep her updated on precisely which plants he was bringing into a shared dormitory, before checking their dorm off. It was the last to be searched in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw was already done. She had yet to reconvene with her colleagues, but told them that she would let Harry know if Sprout, Slughorn, and McGonagall had found anything relevant in the Hufflepuff or Slytherin dorms.

Harry nodded and thanked her, but truly wondered what the point was – after all, every pair of robes in his trunk had been charmed with the undetectable extension charm and, true to its name, had neither been detected nor their many and varied contents sensed. Ron, who Harry knew kept a basilisk fang in one sealed and warded pocket just in case, had set off no alarms, apart from the frisbee he’d forgotten about. Hermione likely carried even more dangerous and illicit items, from cursed books to her beaded bag full of supplies. The professors left with smiles and assurances, but Harry couldn’t be convinced when he knew just how flawed their detection methods were. He exchanged dark looks with Ron and Hermione, who had both brushed their pockets in telling moves. They were worried too.

Still, for tonight, they focused on adding a truly ridiculous number of protections to the dormitory, turning it into a miniature fortress. This kind of charmwork was too complex to be an everyday occurrence, time consuming in the extreme and draining on the magic to everyone who wasn’t Harry, but they all knew they’d sleep better with their wards raised high tonight.

-

Harry awoke sometime in the early morning to an odd sensation like scratching against his magic. He flexed it out, not casting any particular spell, but letting it soak across his surroundings to find the disturbance. There. There was something wrong in the bathroom. Harry sat up slowly inside his curtained-off bed, making sure his internal silencing charms were holding. He’d charmed his bed draperies to be see-through only one way, so that he could see out perfectly, while no one could see in. Harry scanned around the moonlit dorms, but there was nothing obvious amiss. It was Neville and Hermione’s shift to be on lookout, both sitting disillusioned, so only a vague shimmer could be seen when they moved. This did little to stop Harry seeing them, with the Mist shimmering over them. Hermione was watching the Marauders Map with careful eyes, jotting down any odd movements on a piece of parchment, while Neville cast small bursts of detection magic, searching out people, curses, and animals.

Harry sent a buzz of magic to them, like an underpowered stinging hex. Both their heads snapped upright, but they were clever enough to realise that he hadn’t called them out loud for a reason. Harry scribbled a note “Bathroom. Something trying to get through.”, disillusioned it temporarily, and sent the scrap of parchment flying through the air until it reached the two. Neville and Hermione exchanged looks, before both began casting detection spells of all sorts. Harry watched them through his curtains, adding his own detection charms to monitor the doors and windows while they were distracted.

Something lit up blue in the bathroom, just out of sight of what Harry could see from his bed. Soon something nudged at the edge of Harry’s wards. Recognising Hermione’s magic, he let it in, and a new note appeared.

“Vapourised potion.” Hermione’s spiky lettering spelled out. “Sleeping Draught - powerful. Contained. Play along?”

Harry considered it. “Yes.” He wrote back after a long pause. “Wake everyone. Then pretend to be asleep.”

He watched as they did so. Neville, still mostly invisible, woke Seamus and Dean, keeping their reactions hidden with silencing charms. Harry could see both take their wands from wherever they’d hidden them before. Hermione woke Ron easily, and Ginny, who was already disillusioned, with slightly more difficulty. The two witches took their places in a dark corner, pretending they’d never been there. Neville, meanwhile, took Hermione’s place at the desk, and leant his head on the table facing the door before letting the disillusionment charm wear off, as if he had failed to hold it when he had fallen asleep. There, he snapped a delicate quill as his hand hit the desk, as if by accident. Elsewhere in the castle, Harry knew there were alarms blaring.

Harry himself pulled his invisibility cloak on and slipped off his bed, leaving behind a transfigured pillow in a reasonable facsimile of his sleeping form. From his position to the side, he waited.

It was a long few minutes before anything happened, but their attention was all caught when a shadow blotted out the moonlight streaming through one of the dorm windows. There was silence in the dorm, except for their quiet breathing, until the glass began hissing and dribbling down as a potion was poured on it from the outside. Once the glass had been melted away, it was vanished with a quiet spell. The perpetrator was female, from her voice, though Harry couldn’t recognise it from her whisper. She wriggled through the narrow gap of the window, before falling to the floor with a thud that would have awoken all of them, had they not already been awake or unless they had been successfully potioned.

They’d argued, when planning, on when they should act. Ideally, they’d want to immobilise an enemy as soon as possible, so there was no chance that they could hurt anyone, but if they acted too fast, they had little proof of wrongdoing, except for breaking into the dorms. As such, they all stood by and let her look around the dorm.

The witch looked between the beds, ignoring Seamus and Dean, lingering slightly on Ron and Neville, before turning to Harry’s bed – the only one with curtains drawn. While she inspected the room, Harry watched her, trying to figure out who she was. Her face was covered with a scrap of cloth repurposed into a makeshift mask, so Harry couldn’t make out anything about her except for the pale skin of her forehead and dark-ish eyes. Her hair was covered by the hood of her cloak, which hung around her enough to disguise her shape. Average height, unknown face, unknown shape – she could have been almost anyone.

She stopped in front of Harry’s bed, dark wand sending detection spells at the bed hangings. She’d found some of his wards – the ones left purposefully obvious – and removed them with an ease which suggested that she was in one of the older years. Some of the spells Harry recognised from this year’s Defence classes, but that was no guarantee she was in his year; he, of all people, knew it was quite possible to read ahead in Defence.

Slowly, she worked her way through the wards with adequate skills, before peeling the curtains back and revealing the transfigured pillow. She regarded the fake-Harry for a moment, spinning her wand between her fingers. “Well,” her voice came out loud in the still of the dorm, “I suppose they do say if you want something done right, to do it yourself. Couldn’t happen to a better man, Potter. Looks like you and your merry band of mudbloods and blood traitors got cocky.” She pointed her wand at the fake body. “Avada kedavra!” A shot of green light left her wand and impacted the transfigured form.

The pillow, in no way animate, responded to the lethal spell by letting out a whoosh like a sadly deflating balloon and crumpled in on itself. In the same moment, Harry and the others were casting their own binding spells at his attempted murderer.

Despite her surprise, she managed to shield them all, except for Neville’s low-thrown leglocker. She moved clumsily but quickly, not bothering to use the countercurse for the leglocker before firing off spells in all directions. They might have done her any good if they hadn’t spent the entire evening preparing for this. Instead, her curses reflected off the protective wards around their beds and ricocheted back towards her. She dodged the first couple, but the third, a sickly yellow curse, and the fourth impacted hard, slamming her into the wall. Harry couldn’t tell what they did, but her scream of pain was unmistakable.

Hermione sent a barrage of binding spells, getting the intruder in a mass of ropes, but not managing to petrify her entirely. Neville took her wand with a well-shot disarming charm, while Ron thought ahead and cast a strong summoning charm targeted at potions. A collection of vials zipped his way, and Harry could only be grateful that she hadn’t had a chance to use them – after seeing the melted mess of the window, he didn’t want to know what they could have done. The intruder howled with fury, wiggling an arm through the ropes to try and snatch at the vials, before Hermione’s spells wrestled it back down. Ginny transfigured the ropes into steel chains as Hermione produced them, gradually weighing the unknown witch down to one knee. Seamus and Dean stayed back, maintaining shielding charms around the others while they tried to subdue the witch.

Suddenly, the intruder exploded into motion once more, darting forward and barrelling into Hermione and Ginny with a strength unseen thus far. Hermione was knocked over by the impact, but Ginny was solid muscle anchored by spite and sent the witch flying back with knockback jinx. She crashed into the wall and fell down, bowling over flowerpots as she went.

Harry expected her to rise and had his wand at the ready with a counter and was therefore surprised when she didn’t. She lay still – too still – with none of the fury and wild movement of a cornered animal that she had previously exhibited. There was a pause as everyone stopped to reassess, broken only by the wheezing sound that the witch was making.

Neville figured it out first. “The moly!” he shouted.

Harry’s eyes snaped to the rolling flowerpots, each containing a deceptively delicate white flower. The intruder must have brushed against one of them – or more – in her fall. Moly was fast-acting and lethal, burning magic as vicious as any blood-boiling curse. “How far out are the professors?” He asked, pulling off the cloak.

Ron checked the Map, where Neville had left it on the desk. “McGonagall’s in the common room, Vector’s right behind her.” He then did a double take at the Map. “This is Bulstrode!”

Harry cursed mentally – they should have thought to check the Map immediately to see who they were dealing with.

Ginny opened the dorm door to greet the professors, who came in with their wands drawn and faces set in icy glares. “We’ve got Bulstrode.” She said, before the professors had time to ask, “But she touched one of the plants.”

Harry remembered that Ginny wasn’t doing Herbology, and likely didn’t understand quite why they were all so concerned. “The moly.” He clarified quickly.

Vector paled rapidly. “Minerva, did you bring the antidote?”

The headmistress had not, cursing herself that she had left it in the pocket of her day robes.

“Do we have time to contact Filius? Pomona?” Vector asked her.

Harry half-listened to them as McGonagall sent off a hasty patronus to Sprout, while Vector sent another to Flitwick. He approached Bulstrode, where she still lay on the floor, gasping for air. Her hands, under the hefty chains, scrabbled weakly at her throat. He cast a spell to clear her airways, but there was nothing physical there. The magic of molys was so deadly because it was a purely magical attack with no physical component, which spread through the victim’s own magic. The only way to cure it was to use a similar magic to dispel the moly before it could finish spreading, almost like countering a curse. Bulstrode’s eyes teared as her hands fell limp, useless under the flower’s effects.

Moonlight caught the white petals of the moly plant nearest Harry, and he recognised it as his own control flower. Two of Ron’s were on their sides slightly further away and one of Neville’s flowerpots was cracked. Its magic glowed as serene and yet changeable as ever, and suddenly, Harry knew what he had to do. He reached out for it, coating his fingers in thick swirls of his magic and cycling it through the plant as they’d practised so many times. Plucking the flower, he hesitated a moment to check for the aching pins and needles that should flare up in his magic if he’d done it wrong, but feeling nothing occur, mashed the flower quickly between his fingers. Picked properly, the moly was now safe to handle. He pulled Bulstrode’s makeshift mask off, undoing the sticking charm on it, and pushed the pulp into her mouth. “Swallow!” He urged her, as she tried to push her head away, “Swallow it!”

Bulstrode wouldn’t, or couldn’t, swallow the flower, so Harry coaxed it into her stomach with a burst of magic which was more instinctual than an actual spell. It was hard to tell if it had worked. Her face was still sheet white and covered with a sheen of sweat, gasping breaths decreased to a laboured whine as if it were too much energy to pull air in.

After a moment, the Mist scattered in the corner of Harry’s vision, and Harry found himself turning, trying to catch sight of what he was half-seeing. He caught what looked like the edge of a dark feather, which the Mist tried to convince him was a trick of the eye, before it resolved back into shadow again. The room lightened minutely – slight enough that Harry thought that none of the others would have noticed – as one patch of shadow darker than the others receded.

Turning back to Millicent Bulstrode, Harry saw her breath evening, the faintest hint of colour returning to her cheeks. Quickly, he wrapped her up tighter in the enchanted chains, provoking an outcry from the professors.

“She should be fine.” Harry said tiredly, the adrenaline already starting to fade, “I figured moly, it acts like a curse, right? When it’s not picked properly. Or a powerful counter-curse, when it is. So, a whole properly picked moly against touching one wrong? The healing wins.” He wasn’t really sure what sense he was making. “And we didn’t have time to wait.”

McGonagall came forward quickly, rounding Bulstrode’s other side to cast a rapid series of spells on the bound witch’s form. She frowned at the results, cast again, and sat back on the nearest trunk (Ron’s, much to his dismay and embarrassment). “I don’t know who is luckier tonight, Mr Potter – you or Miss Bulstrode. Miss Bulstrode indeed appears to be quite stable and rapidly on the mend, thanks to your quick thinking. However,” she looked at him sternly over her glasses, “if you had not succeeded in your attempt, or if it had backfired, you might have been facing a nasty series of questions over your decisions to feed a dying woman a highly poisonous plant as an experimental cure.”

Harry nodded, not arguing. Frankly, given that Sprout and Flitwick still hadn’t arrived, he thought that there was no way Bulstrode would have made it without the moly he’d used on her, but it was also probably true that it would have made the whole mess a lot more complicated if she’d died from what he did. He sat back on the floor, ignoring Bulstrode’s glaring eyes, and picked a stray petal off his thumb.

Sometimes, when things happen and everything is in chaos, it’s the strangest thoughts that come to mind: for Harry, it was that he’d have to talk to Professor Sprout about his Herbology report, because this was going to make it a little awkward.

Chapter Text

Caught very much in the act, it did not take long for the investigating aurors to determine that Millicent Bulstrode had been the brewer of the original poison. She hadn’t been the best at Potions when she was younger, primarily due to a lack of effort, and hadn’t got into the NEWT class, but she had spent the summer before term staying with a Brewer uncle, who had tutored her until she was helpful enough around his business. Checks into spells cast through her wand showed that she was also the culprit behind the exploding potion vials curse, which cleared up one element, but she strongly protested that she had not been the one to imperius the house elf, only brewed the potion for them. Nor, she revealed, had it been her own idea. Her motives, like Goyle’s, were quite clear – her parents had fought and died for Voldemort and Bulstrode herself believed in his ideals. Harry, being the primary disruptor of their intended pureblood supremacist utopia, therefore needed to die as painfully as possible, and allow the blood supremacists to reassert the status quo in his absence.

It was all painfully mundane and frustratingly stupid until Bulstrode mentioned offhandedly that they’d been in a rush to kill Harry as soon as possible, before he became any more powerful. When questioned further on this, she clammed up, but she’d been shooting him fearful looks through the whole interrogation. The aurors didn’t seem to understand what this was supposed to mean, but when Harry looked to his friends, they were all watching him with dark and contemplative looks, and he knew they’d understood. Bulstrode, and whoever this other person or people she was working with were, had been trying to kill Harry before he ascended.

-

Term drew to an end in a rush of last-minute homework assignments, irritating numbers of unsolved problems, and increasingly restless teenagers. The younger years were particularly rambunctious in the final week, resulting in the Gryffindor common room becoming the unsuspecting victim of enormous quantities of colour-changing charms. Harry wasn’t sure who had started it off, having been in the Slytherin common room at the time, but by the time he returned in the evening, everything which wasn’t specifically warded against change, like the paintings, had been turned a random colour. The effect was truly eye-watering.

Neville had been less than pleased until he discovered that a simple finite reversed the change, and then he allowed it to carry on, so long as they turned it all back the next day. The third-years in particular had protested against changing the windows back, which had been done in a cascading rainbow of colours like brilliant stained glass. Seeing the effect in the morning, once the sun had risen, Harry found himself surprised to agree with them. The glass sparkled with a hundred hues, casting bright beams of coloured light across the common room. Perhaps it would be nice, he thought, to keep something pretty and silly, simply because they could.

The train was leaving at 10am, and Harry planned on seeing his friends off. Later, he would have his own pick up. They’d spent the evening before with Hermione fretting, Harry pacing, and Ron settling them down with exasperated eyerolls, so Harry knew that he was as ready as he could ever be to face the Underworld again, but he still didn’t feel ready. Nevertheless, Harry smiled at his friends over breakfast, hugged them all on the platform, waved to the members of the DA who were leaving, and generally tried to put on a show of calmness. He knew his friends weren’t convinced – they knew him too well for that – but others shouldn’t have noticed.

He found himself in the odd position of leaving the castle for the holidays but not taking the train. Those people who were staying for the holidays had mostly settled back down into whatever they were doing before while they pretended not to feel the fresh emptiness in the castle, but Harry found himself unable to do anything productive, far too aware of his approaching exit. Hecate had told him dusk, but it was winter in Scotland, so darkness came mid-afternoon. Time dragged as he sat outside, debating changing from his black school robes into something else for the tenth time.

The sun dipped below the horizon and the temperature began to fall, kept barely at bay by ample warming charms. The sky dimmed, turning dark quickly with the help of heavy rainclouds, and Harry gazed out at the Forbidden Forest as it turned from dark woodland to a murky blob in the distance. Behind him, Hogwarts lit the gloom with the warmth and light spilling out from thousands of enchanted candles, but even they could not touch the deep shadows that spilled out a monstrous dog of huge proportions.

Harry had never seen a dog so huge except for Fluffy. This one towered over him, as tall as a lorry, and when it howled, the nearby windows shook. Its eyes, yellow and luminous, fixed on him. “Woof!”

Harry didn’t speak hellhound, but its meaning was pretty clear. “I’m going with you, I guess?” He asked the giant dog, trying not to feel foolish. “Do I just stand by you or what?”

It lowered its head towards Harry, sniffing at him with its massive nose. Harry tried not to feel afraid of the sharp teeth so close to his body, but contrary to popular belief, he did possess some meagre degree of self-preservation. He held very still. After another hearty sniff, the hellhound collapsed onto the ground, lowering its back.

“You want me to ride?” Harry asked, already knowing the answer. He steeled himself – he’d ridden hippogriffs and thestrals before, how much weirder could a hellhound be? “Okay, give me a moment.”

He looked at the hellhound’s side. Even lying down, the monstrous dog’s back was as tall as a car. Its fur was thick enough that he couldn’t tell exactly where the fur stopped and the dog began, so he immediately cast out the thought of trying to climb up. Harry spun his wand between his hands for a moment before simply conjuring a ladder, sticking one end of it in the dirt, and clambering up onto the hellhound’s back. From there, it was as simple as banishing the ladder and trying to take a seat on the dog’s broad back. Not the most elegant thing he’d ever done, but he hoped that too many weren’t watching from the windows.

Harry looked back to check and found a smattering of silhouettes at the windows. They’d likely been summoned by the horrific howl the monster had let out. He wasn’t entirely sure what they were seeing, given that his books had said that mortals tended not to notice anything from the divine world, but they were certainly seeing something.

There was no more time to think about it, as the hellhound climbed to its feet with a slightly nauseating lurch. Quidditch may have been much wilder, but Harry decided that he very much preferred being in control of his own broom. Still, the hellhound cared little for Harry’s opinions and began a slow lope towards the thick shadows away from the castle which turned into a faster bound, and between one moment and the next, before Harry could even take a look back towards Hogwarts, they were charging through the freezing-burning shadows that had transported him from the Underworld last time.

After long moments of racing through the tearing, pitch-black winds, they emerged into the stillness of the Underworld. The hellhound slowed to a halt after only a few seconds and lowered itself to let Harry off. Harry eyed the distance and decided to simply jump, landing with a slight wobble but thankfully no pain. “Er, thanks.” He said to the hellhound. The hellhound seemed unimpressed, but ran away in a spray of dirt, leaving Harry alone to take in his surroundings.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Harry had to wince and close his eyes. While the massive caverns of the Underworld were as dim as he remembered them, the Mist was thicker than he’d ever seen it before. Things flickered in the corners of his vision, refusing to resolve when he turned to face them, and Harry had the dizzying feeling of standing on constantly shifting Mist. Nothing, from the floor beneath him to the ceilings high as skyscrapers above him, was made of anything but Mist. Layers upon layers of it, each seeming to show a different scene. Harry tried to swallow against the nausea that rose up when he tentatively opened his eyes again.

“Well, you’ve got yourself into a right pickle.” A woman’s voice came from behind Harry, and he only took a moment to recognise it as Hecate’s. “No, don’t look.” She said, as Harry began to turn towards her.

Harry listened to the faint rustling of fabric trying to judge where exactly she was until the pressure of her iron-cold magic pressed against his left arm. He still jumped when a cold hand pressed over his eyes. There was a rush of magic like a cooling balm before the goddess’ hand drew away again.

“Open your eyes now.” Hecate told him. “Do not look at me to start with. See if you can handle your surroundings first.”

Harry did as she said, cautiously looking out. It was much better. Although the Mist was still thick in his vision, it was now producing just the one landscape – the impossibly vast cavern that he had been expecting to see. “It’s okay now, thanks.” He said.

“Very well.” Hecate replied. “Turn to face me. If we’re both lucky, you won’t burn your eyes out at the sight of me.”

With that glowing display of optimism, Harry turned and found his adoptive mother standing at his side. Through the Mist, she was luminous. The inhuman stillness and smoothness that had made her look like a hyper-realistic statue to Harry last time was now lit from within by a silver glow that reminded Harry strongly of moonlight. Her human form was only loosely held together, flickering as the Mist orbited her like a cloud of asteroids around a planet, fleeting sights of other limbs appearing in glimpses. She arched an eyebrow at Harry’s lack of response, but he was too distracted by the other two faces above her shoulders, each facing away. The one that regarded him changed fluidly, sometimes a young girl, sometimes a grown woman, sometimes an elderly woman. The only things that stayed the same were her bright green eyes and the golden light that shone behind them.

After a long moment, in which Harry blinked and tried to comprehend what he was seeing, he finally regained enough of his thoughts to speak. “Er, yes, that’s much better, thank you.” Now that he could open his eyes again without feeling as if his brain was melting, he was struck by how awkward this was. What did he even say to the goddess who had magically adopted him after kidnapping him in his sleep to the Underworld for their first and only meeting?

Hecate simply nodded, scrutinising him with eyes that trailed golden light as she moved. “Well, you don’t appear to have done yourself any permanent damage, so I suppose we should be thankful for that.” She glanced over in the direction of Hades’ palace, which loomed on the horizon as a dark shadow, lit only dimly with bronze light. The path towards it, once Harry looked, was fairly obvious, since it was lit by a train of nymphs holding dim torches.

Some nymphs danced in place, others chatted with their sisters and skipped around, while others yet held so still that Harry would have thought them ornately carved torch stands if he hadn’t seen their moving sisters first. They wore floating dresses in shades of darkest green, which seemed to hang in the syrup-thick Underworld air a moment longer than they should, and jewellery of blackened bronze. As Hecate stepped towards them, their torches lit green with her own ghostly fire, piercing the gloom of the Underworld in a way that plain flames couldn’t seem to, and the nymphs lowered their heads as she passed. These lampades, Harry knew, were Hecate’s own attendants and followers.

Before Hecate had to prompt him, Harry joined her in walking towards the palace. They were moving away from the slowly winding waters of the river Styx, which pulsed thick with Mist when Harry looked back, and away from the human part of the Underworld to where the deities resided. Silence hung thick around them. Harry couldn’t figure out what to say – he’d had months to think up questions and cover the books she’d leant him but somehow hadn’t thought of how to start up a conversation. Hecate, of course, wasn’t helping him there.

Finally, as they neared the pomegranate grove, Harry found something to comment on. “Is that new?” He asked Hecate, indicating the droplets of golden light that were threaded through the tree branches like ornaments. “I don’t remember seeing it last time.”

Hecate hummed. “I suppose you were here in spring before. During winter, and our Lady’s stay in the Underworld, her Lord husband has the Palace and all her favourite places decorated with sunbeams collected from the world Above. All summer, my lampades take it in turns to collect a day of sunlight, so it can be strung up to welcome my Lady Persephone home.”

“Is it very different here in the winter then?” Harry asked, “Or does it sort of just change who’s around?”

“It’s very different.” Hecate confirmed. “You’ve read the books I gave you? Good. Then you know that our queen must spend half her time in the Overworld, and that our king is never happy about it. The months when she’s away can be a trial on everyone with our king’s temper, but the winter months are for celebration. You’re always more likely to find our king in a good mood while his wife is around. It was bad timing when I first brought you here that it was spring.”

Harry wondered how close he’d come to incineration – or some equally nasty way of dying – during his last visit, purely due to Hades’ apparent temper. “Should I be worrying about that?”

Hecate made a noncommittal noise. “Lord Hades isn’t a totally unreasonable god – better than most others, I personally believe – but like any, he can be wrathful. Mind your manners, don’t insult him, his wife, or his domain, and act appropriately, and you shouldn’t have any trouble. He has his own reasons to want you to ascend safely, and he’s fairly protective of any valuable member of his domain. Other gods shouldn’t bother you if you don’t bother them.”

Harry didn’t know if he wanted to question Hades’ motives nor what would or wouldn’t make Harry valuable in the future, so picked a safer topic. “About, er, manners.” He began, “I sort of read what’s suitable for gods in the books, but I’m, you know, not, so I don’t really know what to do.” It was somewhat surreal to even ask about it. It wasn’t like anyone else in Harry’s life had ever sat him down and told him about etiquette, unless he counted Aunt Petunia screaming at him.

Hecate seemed thoughtful as she ghosted along the path beside him, steps silent and not stirring up any dust in their wake. “As my child, but particularly as a future immortal, you should have a laxity that other mortals might not. But you must still refer to gods and goddesses, particularly the king and queen of our domain, as Lord and Lady, or it would be insulting. In the future, depending on whether you become a god or spirit, you might be able to drop that for other gods. Bow to the Lord and Lady this first time. Otherwise, just don’t be rude. I’ll tell you if you go wrong. Of course, if you have any intention of acting out, I’ll curse you myself, but I don’t believe that’s why you were asking.”

“No, just…trying not to get turned into a tree or a tadpole or something.” Harry finished lamely.

Hecate snorted. “Oh good, you did do your reading.”

-

This time, Harry was prepared for the quiet opulence of Hades’ palace and the number of undead guards around it, but he wasn’t sure that anything could truly prepare him for meeting the gods inside. The throne room itself was vastly changed from the last (and only) time that Harry had seen it. The black walls and pillars were strung with rich red fabrics and garlanded with strings of flowers which dripped with captured sunbeams and coated the cold air in sweet scents. The petals of the flowers looked dulled, like the perpetual gloom of the Underworld had leeched them of their colour, but where the droplets of sunshine fell, they were lent a fleeting saturation. Tapestries adorned walls which had previously been bare, colours muted but details exquisite. Where the bronze detailing faded into shadow as they reached Hades’ throne of skulls, they glimmered brilliantly around the blossoming corona of flowers which seated his wife. Here only, the flowers bloomed with the vibrancy of life, as if their goddess’ presence had returned the memory of it to them. Yet nothing could compare to the radiance of the goddess herself.

Persephone – for who else could she be? – was wreathed in brilliance. Hecate’s inner light, which had reminded Harry of moonlight, was positively faint in comparison to the golden glow that seemed barely contained under the goddess’ skin. Where the Underworld’s twilight muted colours or made them look fake and artificial, Persephone’s hues were strong and bold. Her skin was tanned and her hair a lustrous brown, bound loosely up with red ribbons that didn’t quite constrain her curls. Her dress, long and flowing, was the richest scarlet Harry had ever seen, embroidered flower meadows dancing under the light of the torches, even as she lounged back, not moving. She wore a crown, as her husband did, though hers was a mixture of antlers, flowers, and gleaming gemstones which should have looked ridiculous, but somehow didn’t. She studied Harry with dark and laughing eyes, which trailed the same golden light as Hecate’s.

Despite the goddess’ captivating luminescence, Harry’s attention snapped to Hades next to her almost immediately. He’d felt the aura of the Lord of the Dead last time he’d entered his Halls, but that didn’t offer any resistance against it. If anything, Harry’s growing sensitivity to magic left him more attuned to it, crushed under the terrible, compelling weight of Hades’ power. Hades, in his 20ft form, towered over Harry even as he sat. His throne should have looked like a Halloween decoration, but the seat of skulls, both human and not, couldn’t look anything but terrifying. The woven souls of Hades’ robes screamed silently, but somehow loudly enough to make Harry wince, while the crown of blackened bones whispered secrets just outside his range of hearing. This time, Harry could see clearly enough through the Mist to glimpse the fine threads of chain which fell from the crown and decorated Hades’ oil-slick hair with tiny beads of precious gems. He had not yet turned to face them, looking only at his wife, and Harry couldn’t help but be glad that he didn’t have to meet his eyes yet.

“I have brought my child, Harry Potter, to greet you, my Lord, my Lady.” Hecate’s voice sounded, cutting through the still of the moment.

Hades turned and Harry could feel the moment that the god glanced at him as if the attention of the very Underworld itself was on him, a pressure from all sides. Harry remembered his question about manners and bowed to the two. “Lord Hades, Lady Persephone.” He wasn’t sure he’d ever bowed to anyone before outside of a duel, but hopefully it was the thought that counted.

Hades continued to inspect him, bottomless eyes seeming to look straight through him. “The ascension progresses well enough.” The comment seemed directed at Hecate more than at him. “Though still muddied by his mortality, of course.”

Hecate nodded beside Harry, looking quite pleased. “Further than I’d expected by now. He almost burned his mind out seeing your domain too clearly.”

Harry gulped at the unpleasant reminder of the sickening, unfathomable layers of Mist that he’d seen earlier, quickly tossing the memory from his thoughts when his head started to ache with the strain of it.

Hades looked at Harry sharply. “Perhaps you had better spend some time with him to make sure he doesn’t. I’m sure my Lady wife will permit your absence from your duties during his stay.”

“Mm.” The lady in question hummed. “It would be a shame to raise a mortal halfway to divinity only to have him kill himself accidentally during the process.” Persephone laughed, a touch of dark humour in her tone. “No, Hecate, I can spare you for a few weeks. Or will it be longer?”

“Only a couple of weeks, my Lady.”

Persephone nodded at this then looked back to Harry. After a long stare, she brightened. “You’ve been growing flowers!”

Harry wondered how on earth she could tell. Was there an invisible neon sign lit up above his head when he used a deity’s domain? “Er, yes, my Lady.” What was he even supposed to say? “I do Herbology.”

“I can feel them tied to your magic.” The lady revealed. She ran a hand along the arm of her chair and the blossoming boughs shifted and changed until they flowered anew with different plants. Asphodel sprouted at her feet while a venomous tentacula vine weaved up the side of her throne, poppy heads blooming brilliantly on the armrest. Magical mushrooms of various kinds sprouted between arching branches, including the fairy deathcaps which had enjoyed being petted while trying to poison him, and a patch of small, white moly flowers sprouted near the goddess’ head. Many others poked their heads through wherever there was space. Harry recognised them as some of the plants he’d dealt with recently at school.

“What a lovely variety!” the goddess laughed. Her joy was infectious, setting the blossoms of the biting bluebells ringing with her laughter. “I love all flowers, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the most poisonous ones.” She trailed her fingers through the patch of moly, which all leaned into her touch. “You invoked a little of my blessing in the spring this year, and I must admit I tried to peek in to see who was growing so many Underworld flowers, but I couldn’t see you then, even if I could feel you. It is good to match a face to a soul’s imprint, Harry Potter, especially now I understand why yours was so very odd.”

“It’s good to meet you too, my Lady?” Harry tried to sound sincere, but mainly he was just a little overwhelmed by the attention. Hecate coughed over what was probably a laugh at his side and Harry could feel the weight of Hades’ piercing look on him.

Persephone just laughed at him again. It was not an entirely kind sound. She stood in a preternaturally graceful move and loomed high above him, clearly shorter than her husband, but Harry couldn’t guess by how much with Hades seated. She took Hades’ hand and entwined their fingers. “Come, my Husband. You’ve had your fun scaring Hecate’s boy long enough. I would dance.”

Immediately, Harry was forgotten. Hades was on his feet and leading his wife out of the huge doors within a moment, ordering one of his undead servants to have the musicians ready and in the fields. A blur of black robes and burning red dress, and the two were gone, with the doors swinging shut behind them.

“That went well enough.” Hecate said, almost startling Harry. “Proprieties must be taken when entering Lord Hades’ House, but it’s unlikely you’ll see much of them this visit. They do prefer spending the winters catching up for lost time.”

Harry had to admit that he was relieved. Without the crushing weight of Hades’ aura, he felt like he could finally think again. “Where will I be staying while I’m here?” He asked. “With you?”

Hecate nodded. “I’ve had a room in my temple prepared. We’ll go there now. Take my arm.” She offered her arm imperiously.

Harry took it and was abruptly pulled into the cold, tearing blackness that signalled transportation, before they emerged right outside Hecate’s temple.

It had the same vast and imposing proportions of Hades’ palace, obviously built for a goddess who preferred the same increased height as Hades and Persephone, even though she was currently shrunk to a human size. The huge cavern that held it was even dimmer than Harry remembered, lit only to a dim twilight by the flickering of hundreds of torches, and most of the lighting inside the temple appeared to come from the jewel-toned glimmering of the magic inside the glassy black stone it was built from, and from the idling river of fire which flowed inside and out of sight.

Hecate clicked her fingers and the torches lit in her signature eerie green, piercing the darkness far better than before but tinting everything with their colour, except for the goddess’ silver-lit skin and the golden glow from behind her eyes. They lit up the tall columns of the edifice, each carved as a lampad with a great brazier of green fire, casting their stone faces in deep shadow. Hecate flicked the doors open with a lazy swipe of her fingers and Harry rushed to enter after her.

“Temples in the Overworld are meant to serve as a god’s dwelling place, but often only in a symbolic sense.” Hecate began lecturing him unprompted. “They have inner rooms for a god’s benefit, and there are living rooms for the temple attendants, but few truly expect to find a god within, even in the days of our greatest worship. Most of the space is dedicated for use by worshippers. A god’s own temple, such as mine, is mostly for our own use.”

They walked slowly through the entrance hall as Hecate spoke, letting Harry get a better look at the temple than he had during his first visit. The left wall was covered in a stunning tapestry, which appeared to depict Hecate’s role in helping Demeter search for Persephone and some scenes of Hecate and Persephone in the Underworld. The right was a mural, showing a vast landscape of the Underworld, Hades’ palace depicted on the far left and the great plains of his domain spilling out across the rest of the wall. A patch of light flickered and Harry could see that the painting was moving, though it was too dark and too far away for him to see the details.

“My receiving room is through the door on the left.” Hecate indicated, sending a brief flare of light through the open door to illuminate a throne and seating around it. “On the right is my altar.” A second flare in the opposite direction showed said altar, heaped with offerings, surrounded by incense-burners, and decorated with a three-faced statue of the goddess herself. “Ahead are my living spaces.”

He followed her through the door at the far end, where a hallway split in three.

“The left leads to my spell-casting courtyard. It is the courtyard with the stone tree in the centre. You will know it when you see it. On the far side of the courtyard is my workroom, where I may often be found if you require me. You may not enter any of the rooms in that courtyard without my presence.” Her voice was stern. “There are less painful and stupid ways to die than getting disintegrated by one of my experiments.”   

Harry nodded quickly to show his agreement. He couldn’t lie, the warning simply made him more curious, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to start pushing boundaries with Hecate just yet.

Hecate’s eyes burned into him as if she could sense his curiosity, but she let it go. “The right courtyard has the fire pond, where the streamlets merge. Be careful not to fall off the bridge. The Phlegethon won’t kill you, but you might wish it had. My ingredient stores, observatory, and scrying room are there, and then the nymphs’ quarters further in. My attendants won’t trouble you, and I expect you to do the same or face my wrath.” As if she hadn’t threatened him, she continued, “Ahead lies the dining room and entertainment room. The kitchen is attached behind the dining room, and the wine stores.”

“How much food do you eat?” Harry found himself asking. “I mean, the books said that the gods eat mainly ambrosia and nectar, but there are also mentions of food, and you have a kitchen so…”

Hecate shrugged, but thankfully didn’t react like this was a stupid question. “We don’t strictly need anything, though it can become uncomfortable after a while. Going too long without ambrosia or nectar would be a trial. However, we do like to eat mortal foods. We enjoy the tastes as much as anyone. Feasting is common among the gods.”

Harry nodded. “And what should I do while I’m here? I’m guessing that Underworld food is out. I brought some in my trunk, but we didn’t know how well it would last considering, well,” he looked around him at the towering halls of black stone, “the Underworld and all.”

“You’re quite right that you will not be consuming anything from the Underworld.” Hecate agreed, shepherding him on through the corridor, past the entrance to the library, and finally to a room off a small courtyard. “Not unless you’d rather spend every remaining day of your ascension down here. We can go through what you’ve brought with you, but I doubt any mortal preservation charms would have been able to stave off the unfortunate effect of death magic on Overworld food. Don’t give me such a worried look.” Hecate spoke sharply, in reaction to whatever face Harry was making, “Of course I thought this through beforehand – I’m a goddess, not stupid. Ambrosia and nectar are not subject to the normal rules on Underworld food – being solely a divine substance, like the golden apple – so that is what you will eat. It will be good to test your tolerance of it.”

“Tolerance?” Harry asked, before remembering what he’d read about the godly food. “You mean how much I can eat before I burn up from the inside out?” He couldn’t keep a hint of incredulousness out of his tone.

“Yes.” Hecate replied, arching an eyebrow as if daring him to question her further. She opened the door they’d reached. “This is for you. Take half an hour to freshen up and then meet me at the library doors. I need to test how much you’ve learned.”

With that somewhat ominous pronouncement, the goddess vanished into a blur of shadows, taking the brighter green flames with her and leaving Harry alone in the gloom.

Chapter Text

Harry spent the first ten minutes or so looking around his room. It was spacious and yet fairly basic, with a bed, desk, wardrobe, and chair as the only furniture. They were all made of black wood, almost blending into the shadows, and Harry knew he’d be stubbing his toes a lot until he got a decent lumos charm sorted. The torches, held in bronze sconces mounted on the walls, did their best to illuminate the room, but their light proved weak against the gloom and the heat they gave off could barely be felt more than an inch away.

Once his eyes adjusted, Harry found a door on the other side of the room, past the desk and chair, which opened into an ensuite bathroom. This happily answered a question which Harry had very much been hoping not to have to ask Hecate. Aside from the thankfully working toilet (though it flushed with a wash of magic rather than water when he pulled the lever curiously), there was a bronze sink below a mirror sunk seamlessly into the wall, and a large pool for bathing carved straight into the black, stone floor. Harry wasn’t quite sure where the water was coming from, but decided it was probably better not to ask.

Entering the bedroom again, he caught sight of a notch in the wall, which had been hidden in the wardrobe’s long shadow. It was a deep curved arch, which went back about half a metre into the wall, and there was a wide hole at both the top and bottom. After more inspection, Harry finally recognised it as a very odd sort of fireplace. He looked for some way to turn it on – some warmth to chase out the bone-deep cold of the Underworld would be very much welcome – and found an uneven protrusion of stone at the top of the arch, which turned out to be a switch.

Yelping, Harry jumped back as a torrent of liquid fire poured down from the top, pooling in a small divot and then continuing to rush down through what was now shown to be the pipe. The light of the fire was brighter than all the torches put together, but still not as searingly brilliant as a river of fire should be. Upon approaching it cautiously, Harry found that the heat didn’t seem to spread as far as a normal fireplace should, but that nearby was wonderfully warm. He took a few minutes just to enjoy the feeling, not having realised just how cold he’d already become in the freezing air of the Underworld.

As much as he might have preferred to linger by the fireplace all day (was it day? How would he even begin to tell?), Harry had places to be and an adoptive mother with three faces to meet. He pulled his trunk from his pocket and enlarged it automatically, before pausing and realising with some relief that his magic came just as easily to him in the Underworld as it had above ground in Hogwarts. It had been a concern to him before – not knowing whether it would be changed or made strange by the effect of the Underworld – so it was a great reassurance to know that he still had his magic to fall back on here. A little more relaxed, Harry dug through his trunk for a fresh set of robes which wasn’t covered in hellhound fur.

As he lifted the fabrics out of the trunk, Harry had to grimace at the look of them. They too had been affected by the Underworld’s gloom, either leeched of their colour or made to look gaudy and wrong. He had better luck with dark tones, which simply looked almost black, or light colours which had been dimmed to faint pastels. The black robes, like the ones he was wearing, looked a dark grey – unable to compete with the richness of the Underworld’s shadows. Harry chose a navy robe and changed after giving his face a quick wash, before attempting to wrestle with his hair. It was a losing battle, as usual, but at least Harry felt like he’d made an effort.

This done, he still had fifteen minutes or so to wait. He could unpack of course, but Harry still felt uneasy with leaving his belongings elsewhere, rather than keeping them in one of his many extended pockets. After a minute of deliberation, Harry decided to unpack half of his things – those things that he could live without. He sorted his clothes into ones that looked garish in the darkness and those that were simply washed out, putting the latter away in the wardrobe. His toiletries, he put in the bathroom, and he had to snort at the contrast of his muggle toothbrush on the glassy stone. His books he kept in his trunk, but some parchment and a quill ended up on his desk, while his second-best cauldron and brewing stand went into an empty corner. Harry didn’t know how much free time he’d have, but he had Potions homework and was tentatively hopeful that he might actually get time to complete it.

Finally, time dragging so that each minute felt twice as long as it was, Harry headed for the library. He hadn’t paid much attention to the courtyard his room was in on the way through – somewhat distracted by his conversation with Hecate – and he looked up to see that it was uncovered in the centre. There were paths all along the outside of the square, covered by a roof supported by slender pillars, but the centre opened up so that the ceiling of the cavern was visible. The ceiling was far enough away that Harry couldn’t see much more than vague shapes, but there seemed to be something bright there, which, from a distance, almost looked like stars, though that was very much impossible.

In the centre of the courtyard was a fountain, surrounded by gravel made of the same sharp, likely volcanic rock the temple was built from. It seemed to be carved from one huge lump of dark opal, and magic flowed through it as if it were water – bright burbling streams of a colour Harry couldn’t define, which sparked instead of dripped. The urge to stay there and watch it was strong – and indeed there were a couple of benches surrounding the fountain – but Harry had to continue on the corridor he’d come through earlier.

“Good.” Hecate said as he walked up, opening the huge library door. “Sit, and we’ll discuss what you’ve been learning.”

The following conversation, which should more rightly be labelled an ‘interrogation’, lasted for what Harry estimated to be at least two hours. Hecate questioned him on everything he’d covered in her books – correcting him somewhat scornfully on things he’d misunderstood along the way – before launching straight into wizarding magic, and what she felt he should be able to do by this point. She was deeply unimpressed by Harry’s inability to cast the simplest of demigod spells but eventually clicked her tongue and declared that she’d simply have to fix that. Harry got the impression that she rather meant that she would fix him.

“It is curious, though,” Hecate seemed to be thinking out loud, “that you can clearly use some higher levels of divine magic but apparently can’t do the very basics. Of course, it was clear that your foray into funeral magics was mostly accidental, but the ability to see the Mist is one that very few of my children have ever gained. They all have some talent with manipulating it, but seeing one of the great inter-pantheon magics of the world… no.”

“Do you have many children?” Harry asked, seizing on the opportunity to ask one of the questions that had been haunting him.

“Hm?” Hecate seemed surprised to be asked. “Not many. I have a daughter, Circe, who prefers to live in the Overworld – her father’s influence, no doubt – and a granddaughter, Medea, who runs a nice magical business.”

It took Harry a moment to recognise the names, but he’d read about them as notable immortals in his book on Overworld gods. Both ran successful businesses – a hotel and spa for Circe, and a magical items store and procurement service by Medea. Still, it wasn’t quite the answer he’d been expecting. “What about demigod children?” The dream about Lou Ellen was still clear in his mind. “Do I have many half-siblings?”

“A few.” Hecate looked uninterested in the conversation, which turned something in Harry’s stomach cold as stone. “Mostly in the United States, of course. I don’t really keep track unless one is brought to my attention.”

 “Why not?” it slipped out before Harry could stop it or try to phrase it better.

Hecate blew out a breath, the first stirrings of irritation entering her expression. “There is little point when they die so soon. We’re not allowed to raise our demigod children, nor permitted to interfere with their fates, which is something our children rarely seem to understand. Instead, they resent our distance and their hardships, when they think that we could so easily fix them. It is difficult to truly love a child who lives for only the briefest of moments, after so many thousands of years of their siblings having died before them. Enough of this now.” She declared, tone sharp and uncompromising. “It is time for you to eat.”

Harry desperately wanted to push the conversation – to try and understand why Hecate seemed so dismissive of her children – but one look at the goddess’ face told him to let the questions be for now unless he wanted to spend an unspecified amount of time as a rodent.

Hecate brought him to the dining room, which had an odd collection of couches and chairs around a low table. The furnishings were bronze metal and black or dark green fabrics, except for the murals on the walls and ceiling, which combined to make a life-like depiction of a grassy field at night, under a moonlit sky.

Harry sat on one of the chairs, finding it surprisingly comfortable for how rigid it looked, and Hecate sat across from him. Her stony countenance didn’t invite conversation, and Harry didn’t want to press his luck enough to try.

As soon as they were both seated, a nymph entered from the kitchen, holding a platter in one hand. On it, there were two goblets, two shallow bowls, and a pitcher. The nymph laid a goblet and bowl before each of them silently, leaving the pitcher on the table between them. Looking in the bowl, Harry could see a small pile of golden squares, that could at first glance be mistaken for flapjacks, if only flapjacks were slightly metallic, fizzing with magic, and of a fudge-like texture. So really, not very much like flapjacks at all.

“They won’t bite.” Hecate said a little tetchily, eating some of her own ambrosia. She held it delicately between a finger and thumb and never seemed to drop any crumbs. She washed a mouthful down with a swallow of the shining liquid which must be ambrosia, some of her good humour seeming to return with every sip.

“Only maybe burn me up.” Harry replied but picked up one of the squares. After a moment to steel himself, he nibbled the edge of it, and was surprised to find that it was warm, tasting exactly like a freshly baked treacle tart. The warm feeling didn’t fade when he swallowed, instead feeling as though it was spreading through his body. It washed away the exhaustion of the day he hadn’t noticed building up until it was gone and soothed some of the ever-present cold. He took another bite, pleased when he felt only warm, instead of over-hot.

Hecate watched him carefully, sharp eyes seeming to track something that Harry couldn’t see. “Now the nectar.” She instructed, when she clearly felt he’d tarried over the ambrosia too long.

The carved bronze goblet felt heavy in Harry’s hand as he lifted it, even though he was used to unwieldy goblets from Hogwarts’ feasts. The liquid inside was shining and swirling in the dim light, thinner than hot chocolate but clearly thicker than water. He sipped it and was met with the taste of butterbeer, bringing him back to days out in Hogsmeade, gathered around a table with Ron and Hermione. Butterbeer was warm, and so felt the nectar he drank, but Harry couldn’t shake the feeling that the liquid was actually cold. Still, it was refreshing and delicious.

Hecate had him pause at two squares of ambrosia and half the goblet of nectar, checking his temperature, but the fever which marked over-consumption by demigods hadn’t set in. “Good.” She did indeed seem pleased. “I was unsure how divine your nature yet was, but you seem to have made excellent progress since the spring.”

“Should I eat more?” Harry asked, desperately trying to ignore the mention of how much he’d already changed.

Hecate raised an eyebrow. “Are you hungry?”

Harry considered it and found that he wasn’t. Although he’d only eaten two squares, which didn’t at all look like a full meal, they had sated his hunger and left him feeling energetic. “No.”

The goddess nodded, as if that were the answer she’d expected. “We will see how you fare eating it days in a row before pushing how much you can consume in one go.”  

On cue, the same nymph as before collected Harry’s half-full bowl of ambrosia and goblet of nectar, before replacing it with water. Harry was grateful, since he’d had nothing but the few mouthfuls of nectar to drink since he’d entered the Underworld and Hecate had had him talking a lot. Still, he paused before drinking any of it. “Is the water safe for me too?” He asked. He didn’t think Hecate would seek to trick him, but he had the impression that she might very much enjoy testing him throughout his visit.

Her eyes glittered with something cruel and amused, confirming this. “This one is.” She gestured laconically at his cup. “Conjured water is fine – feel free to conjure your own, you’re a wizard after all – but water from any of the rivers of the Underworld will do worse than curse you to remain Below.” She didn’t explain further but she didn’t need to, Harry’s memory conjuring up the descriptions of the Underworld’s rivers. The Lethe would only make him forget everything about himself, but if the Styx melted the soul on contact, he didn’t want to know what it would do if consumed. The other rivers… best not to think of it.

Sighing, Hecate abandoned her food and stood. “The night is young, and I have experiments to see to.” A book appeared in her hand in a flash of magic. In another, it was before Harry on the table. “This holds the basics of mystiokinesis. I usually gift it to whoever of my younger children is particularly gifted at magic. Perhaps a children’s book will help you get past whatever block it is that has you incapable of performing the simplest Mist magic. Come and find me when you have had some success or after three days, whichever is sooner. I have no wish to hold your hand through this.”

Harry swallowed the insulted anger that tried to rise up, just nodding stiffly.

Hecate didn’t seem to care and vanished into a patch of shadow, rather than through the door, leaving Harry alone in the dining room.

-

The next two days passed slowly. For the most part, Harry was alone in his part of Hecate’s temple, seeing only fleeting glimpses of Hecate’s attendants at a distance and none of the goddess herself. There was always a platter of nectar and ambrosia with his name on in the dining room, which was his best excuse to stop puzzling over the book and get out of his rooms, but he didn’t need it more than twice a day. It didn’t help that the Underworld was almost entirely nocturnal by Overworld standards – for those that ever needed sleep at least – and the reversed day-night cycle had Harry feeling tired and confused all the time as he tried to adjust.

Today, Harry was once more looking through the children’s magic book. He sat outside in his courtyard, often glancing up to watch the energetic fall of magic through the opal fountain, with his pages lit by the struggling light of a lumos maxima. The charm was pitiably weak, even though Harry knew he’d put a decent amount of power into it, but it did provide just enough light to read by. Still, being able to see the words didn’t mean that he could make sense of them.

The trouble was that the book seemed to suggest that their ability to control the Mist was natural and innate. It assumed that whatever child was supposed to receive this book had already been using Mist magic independently and it was now time for them to learn proper spells. Harry, though he could see the Mist, hadn’t ever used it deliberately, and didn’t even know how to go about doing so. Every time he tried, his own magic leapt to complete the spell instead.

After years of learning how to channel the magic inside himself into spells, it now seemed strange and alien to work magic using some external source. The Mist was both the power that bent the magic into shape, and the magic that was bent. Whenever Harry tried, he always ended up accidentally trying to force the Mist to obey his own magic; while Harry may have been more powerful than he generally liked to admit, this was very much like throwing cotton wool at a brick wall and expecting the wall to break.

Frustrated, Harry wondered how on earth he was supposed to manipulate a magic that he had no control over. Was he supposed to just ask it nicely? He snorted at his thought but decided that he might as well try – nothing else was working after all. Focusing on the feeling of the Mist in the air, Harry asked it to please show him the fountain in front of him as full of water instead of magic. For a moment, nothing happened, but then there was a shimmering in the Mist as hundreds of thousands of tiny particles shifted until they turned opaque and produced the image of a bubbling water fountain in front of him.

Harry was too tired and irritated to even feel triumphant. Somehow, the working Mist magic in front of him felt like it was mocking him. He sank his head into his hands, bent over on the bench so that he was almost parallel to the ground, and resisted the powerful urge to scream. He stayed there for a couple of minutes, refusing to react further. Once he’d taken a moment to work through this, Harry sat back up and looked tiredly at the image of the cheerfully bubbling fountain in front of him. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed it like scattering a cloud of steam, solid image dissolving into the usual thick film of the Underworld. Apparently, when Hecate said that her children could control the Mist, she was being more literal than he’d realised – he simply had to tell it what to do.

He watched the fountain burble magic with distant eyes, irritation fading as he calmed down. It might have taken him two days of fruitless effort to get here, but now that Harry understood how he was supposed to be able to use the Mist, he could actually get started on learning Mist magic. Suddenly, the children’s book looked less like a taunt and more like an opportunity. There was a whole new kind of magic to be learned, and Harry was just getting started.

Chapter Text

Now that Harry had figured out how to use the Mist, he could practice the spells Hecate wanted him to learn. He ran through each of the ones in the earlier chapters in quick succession, casting simple glamours over stationary objects and single items. Being able to see the Mist, it was clear if a spell had failed or was weakened. The failed attempts refused to hold a solid image or flickered like a loose net curtain in the wind, showing glimpses of the true form underneath. Once he'd cast them properly once and had a feel for how he was supposed to direct the Mist, Harry knew he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.

It surprised Harry how instinctually the magic came to him, despite both the book and Hecate herself claiming that this usually came naturally to her children. Now that he knew he could command the Mist – and wasn’t that a heady and horrifying thought, to be able to control this awe-inspiring piece of magic – he could feel how to bend the weave of its tapestry with a thought and a click of his fingers, rearranging the infinitesimally small threads of the perceived world and morphing them into a new image. He felt the smallest of tugs at his own magic when he did, but not at the magical core which he’d trained for years at Hogwarts, rather a sea of warmth in his gut that he’d never had reason to notice before. It felt vast and deep, but also new and unfamiliar as an untrained muscle.

These illusions were only the simplest workings of the Mist, creating a single image. Flicking through the further sections, Harry found that the exercises continued into creating illusions that tricked the other senses too, and ones of greater breadth and complexity. One section detailed the differences between illusions which would fool mortals, demigods, monsters, spirits, and gods. Other spells used the Mist to create illusions which were less physical, allowing manipulation of memories and dreams. Harry stopped reading there, already feeling uncomfortable with the thought. It was no worse, really, than Ministry Obliviators removing the memory of magic from unfortunate muggles (no worse than Hermione stealing her parents’ memories for their own protection), but somehow, knowing how to do it himself felt different.

Harry flipped back to the earlier sections again and worked on creating illusions that felt solid until there was a rush of deepest darkness throughout the Underworld as Nyx left her House in Tartarus to bring night to the Overworld. It was the only real way to track time in the Underworld, particularly as all the other denizens were either immortal or dead, so had no need for strict timekeeping. It was at this point in the night that Hecate could usually be found in her workroom, so Harry took his book and tried to remember which of the corridors led to her spellcasting courtyard.

Harry seemed to remember that it was the left corridor and only realised once he came to the fire pond that it had been the left one when he’d been facing the other way. He stopped short when he came through the entrance, seeing both the fiery pond and the nymphs that were gathered around it. They sat on benches near it, chatting, singing, and playing instruments, while one gathered a bucket of fire from the slow-flowing pond, some seemed to be somehow washing robes in the fire, and others still stood around the courtyard at intervals, holding their lit torches aloft. They all fell into eerie stillness when they saw Harry, voices petering out into nothingness, with only the pervasive crackle of the Phlegethon in the background.

“Um,” Harry dearly wished none of them had seen him, so he could have just backed away without the embarrassment, “is the spell-casting courtyard the other way?” He already knew the answer of course, but he didn’t know what else to say.

A few of the nymphs giggled, some nodded.

“Right.” Harry turned around as quickly as he could without actually running and headed back through the corridors until he came out the opposite side.

This was the courtyard he had expected to see. Hecate had described the centrepiece as a stone tree, but those words didn’t do justice to it. The tree was petrified, glittering strands of brightly coloured crystal twisting through exposed layers of fossilised vegetation. However, where this should have been simply the preserved remains of a long-dead plant, this tree was planted into the black soil with long roots and was topped with a dense coverage of leaves. It was tall, reaching so high above the roof that Harry had to strain to pick out the blooms of flowers from among the leaves. Each flower was dark and heavy-looking, with stiff and translucent petals. Only when the flickering of the torches hit them right did Harry see that they appeared to be made of crystal.

Harry walked around the tree, seeing how much broader the trunk was than him up close, and found where a branch had been cut off on the other side, exposing all the layers of glossy stone. He had an odd urge to climb the tree – to see how high he could get up on those thick stone branches and find out what the silver-black leaves looked like from above – but regretfully shook it off. He’d come here to talk to Hecate after all, not annoy her by acting like a child. So instead, he approached the thickly warded door inside the covered walkway and prodded carefully with his magic as a polite knock.

Hecate appeared after a few long, anxious minutes of waiting. Mist, both the normal and magical kind, flowed past her knees through the open door, brighter than it should be in the perpetual twilight. “Has it been three days?” Her oldest face asked.

“Two.” Harry answered. “But I’ve had some success.”

Hecate looked over her shoulder into her workroom and clicked her tongue. “Very well.” She said, turning back. “My workroom is no place for a mortal who wishes to be in possession of working eyes afterwards, so we shall eat and talk.” She led him back towards the dining room, though he knew the way by now. Her stride was long, being almost 20ft tall, making Harry do an undignified half-jog to keep up. “This is tiresome.” The goddess stated, “Should you truly have made progress with the Mist, we will have to work on your ability to travel through the shadows next. I can’t imagine having to walk everywhere.”

She made it sound like walking was a dirty thing meant for lesser people. Likely, to a goddess, it was. Still, Harry didn’t challenge the point when there was the promise of finding out how to do something cool.

Entering the dining room. Hecate waited until they were both seated and had been served before demanding that Harry show her what he’d learned.

With a sharp click of his fingers, Harry summoned an illusion of an apple on the table. He made it as opaque as he could, rosy red and solid to the touch.

Hecate picked it up, passing it between oversized hands that made it look like a large grape, before taking a bite. The Mist illusion couldn’t stand up to the stress of being cut in two and scattered back into iridescent fog. “The colour and the texture are good, but you forgot to add any weight, and the object produced is hollow.” Hecate gave her verdict. “Of course, it’s an illusion, not a true Mistform, so you don’t need it to have real substance, but an illusionary object should still give the impression of behaving the way a real one would. At least, to a mortal.”

“Still,” she took a long drink of nectar, “a decent improvement on nothing at all.”

Harry had prepared an explanation for her on how he’d figured out how to use the Mist, and the difference between that and his wizarding magic, but Hecate didn’t seem inclined to ask. Instead of talking, he bit into his first square of ambrosia of the day, letting the taste of treacle tart chase out the bitterness of feeling that he was failing some unknown standard.

“I suppose you may keep the book for now.” Hecate continued. “You cannot test some of the later ones on anyone here – better to use your mortal friends for that. Or enemies.” Her smile was sharp and indulgent, inviting him to laugh along at someone else’s expense.

“Thank you.” Harry said, though notably didn’t acknowledge her final words.

If she noticed, she didn’t react, continuing to lounge on the chaise longue.

They ate in silence a minute longer before something made Hecate’s head snap up. She smiled, bright and sincere in a way that Harry didn’t think he’d seen before. “It appears we will have some company.”

Before Harry could question it, voices and laughter echoed through the halls. A lampad hurried to the door in a rush of floating robes and opened it just in time to admit Persephone with her train of attendants.

“Hecate!” Persephone exclaimed in joyful delight, as if not expecting to find the goddess within her own home-temple. After days of gloom, she looked even more brilliant to Harry – the red of her dress more vibrant, the flowers growing in her hair more alive, and the glow under her skin lighting up the darkness like nothing else. Without the weighty press of her husband’s aura, it was easier to feel the heady darkness of Persephone’s own.

“My Lady.” Hecate greeted calmly, though the smile on her face hadn’t faded. She stood at the other goddess’ entrance and Harry belatedly did the same, though neither noticed.

“Ah, my friend, I know I said you could have your time off, but my husband is at the council meeting on Olympus, and I am so dreadfully bored.” Persephone collapsed onto the long couch near Hecate with a grace that made it seem choreographed. “What am I to do?”

Hecate sat as well, though didn’t return to lying down as she had done before. “Is there nothing good on Hephaestus TV?”

Persephone huffed, causing the violets in her hair to droop. “Only reality shows. There are only so many reruns of Heracles Busts Heads you can watch before it’s all a bit same-ish.”

Hecate nodded sagely. “What about your garden? There’s always work to do there.” She looked over, saw Harry still standing awkwardly, and motioned him down with a dismissive wave of her hand and rolled eyes.

“Hmm.” Persephone seemed more interested. “I suppose I haven’t looked at it recently. Ascalaphus has been hanging around the orchards again.”

“Again?” Hecate seemed surprised. “I thought he was still an owl?”

Persephone nodded. “Oh, he is. It’s quite funny watching him try to work.” She smirked cruel and dark. “If it’s his duty to report every tiny thing that happens in his orchard, he can keep his owl eyes to watch over it.” She stood, pulling her red shawl around her shoulders. “Perhaps you’re right and I should take a look in. You always have the best ideas, dear Hecate.”

Hecate stood, her long deep green dress flashing almost invisible runes as it shifted. “I assume I am to come with you, my Lady?”

Persephone’s bright laugh rang around the dim halls, echoing off the smooth stone. “Of course! And bring your godling too.” She added almost as an afterthought. “I doubt he has been able to appreciate my garden properly yet.”

Harry, who had been looking forward to the opportunity to maybe relax while Hecate was out, froze but didn’t bother arguing. It seemed to be a trait of the gods that they didn’t take any mortals’ opinions into consideration, even ones who were ascending. Hecate, who met his eye, didn’t seem best pleased either. Was their conversation too much time spent with him already? Or had she simply been looking forward to time spent out with Persephone? Regardless, Hecate didn’t deny Persephone either, simply shepherding Harry through a patch of oil-dark shadow.

They emerged on the other side of the pomegranate grove they had passed before on the way up to Hades’ palace. The copse of pomegranate trees grew relatively short, but thick and abundant with fruit. They filled the air with a tempting scent that Harry had to employ occlumency against, only feeling like he could breathe again once the alluring magic was pushed from his mind. The trees separated the path that wound through the other side from Persephone’s garden that now appeared in front of them.

Calling it a garden was somewhat misleading, Harry thought, as he looked over the acres of land that sprawled out before his eyes. There were great tracts of wildflowers that grew untamed on one side, while another section held meticulously tended topiaries. There were flower fields and wide lakes, long rows of grapevines that spilled into sandy swathes of succulents. Beyond a meadow of mixed grain and swaying lilies, there were the towering forms of huge trees and flowers of incredible scale that Harry had never seen before.

Persephone sighed as she walked forward, trailing her fingers carelessly through a thicket of thorns. She did not need to fear – no plant would ever dare hurt her. “I have every plant that has ever flowered here.” She told Harry, looking back with sharp eyes to make sure he was listening. “I have favourites of course, but every seedling is welcome in my garden, particularly those which have died out in the world Above. Which is more common than you might think.”

Harry, who had done seven years of Herbology and was friends with Neville to boot, had a fair idea about destroyed habitats and things going extinct. Still, he’d been exercising his self-preservation instincts recently and didn’t want to break his streak, so instead he asked, “Do you have an area for magical plants? Er, my Lady.”

“Of course!” the goddess looked delighted to be asked. “Several, in fact. I have some for your kind of magical plants as well as magical plants from our side. Well, not that all plants aren’t magical in some way.” She frowned, before shaking her head to dismiss the thought. “I even have some from other pantheons, but they don’t tend to grow very well down here.”

“Because the Underworld is too Greek?” Harry asked, genuinely curious.

“Not quite.” Persephone replied. “And yes, at the same time. Rather, it’s a little too dead and without their own pantheon magic to sustain it. Or the opposite, as all Underworlds occupy the same rough sort of faith-domain, so they could equally be growing in their own Underworld at the same time that they’re growing here, but their Underworld doesn’t grow plants, so then they really are rather dead.”

“I… see.” He didn’t. He really, really didn’t. “Um, thank you. My Lady.”

“Aren’t you precious?” Persephone laughed, setting the flowers trilling in waves around her. “Ah, Hecate, how funny to have a godling to show around. There hasn’t been one in so long!”

Persephone didn’t wait for a reply, jumping with a twirl of her full red skirts and bounding into the field of tulips beyond. “Come! Come!” She beckoned them, spinning in circles like a child playing in long grass, setting the flowers around her glowing bright with health and life. Her steps were light, her bare feet not breaking flower stems despite how she jumped about, though mud collected up to her ankles.

Hecate followed with ease, her own steps not seeming to impact the flowers either. Harry knew he wouldn’t be so lucky, and he didn’t want to find out what would happen if he trampled a goddess’ flowers, nor if he kept the Queen of the Underworld waiting. Hastily, he cast a featherweight charm on himself and his shoes, before trying an Imperturbable charm on his robes. It took slight adjustment, but soon he was hurrying after the two goddesses, without a trail of destruction in his wake. When she looked back, Harry could have sworn there was a momentary glint of disappointment in Persephone’s dark eyes, before they changed to approval.

Still, whatever thoughts the goddess may have had were soon hidden by the bright smile on her face. “There! Do you see?” She pointed to an area sectioned off by glittering stones, “That’s my herb garden. Your mother may use it whenever she likes, but for some reason she never seems to use them for potion ingredients.”

“The properties are much different for plants grown Below.” Hecate explained to Harry, “Very good for necromancy, excellent at poisons, fair for crop growth and preservation potions, not so much for anything involving life, light, or healing.”

Harry considered this. “Good for sleeping potions?” He guessed.

Hecate laughed darkly. “Excellent for them. The best ingredients you’ll ever find. One drop and you’ll never wake up again.”

Persephone smiled proudly, which was fair if she was the one who grew them. “Everything down here turns out a little deadly. It’s hard to tell sometimes – mortals are so fragile, it seems like just about anything kills them.” Her bright smile remained in place, tone light, as if she were relating a funny anecdote. “But sometimes I grow them that way deliberately. My poison garden flourishes down here!”

She led them into a section of the garden that radiated potential for death that blared alarms in Harry’s magical awareness even above the general din of being in the Underworld. He wrapped a bubblehead charm quickly around his face and strengthened his personal wards until he was sure that not even a stray speck of pollen could linger on his robes. Hecate, looking back at him, laughed but didn’t tell him he was being stupid or paranoid, so Harry took that as agreement that they were sensible preparations.

The poison garden sprawled loose and uncontained, completely uncaring of gardeners or unfortunate animals that might brush against them, because of course there were none. Persephone stepped through them with bare feet, cupping flowers in cherishing hands to make them bloom brighter and snatching berries off vines to snack on as she went. “Sometimes I wander poison gardens in the mortal world when I’m feeling homesick for the Underworld. There are a few really nice ones.” Persephone sighed. “Sun and life help the plants grow well, but they just don’t have the same taste. Of course,” she continued, darting off into the trees ahead and coming back with a yellow fruit, “you can say the same for fruit not tasting the same down here. Quince?” She offered to Harry, expression innocent.

“No thank you, my Lady.” Harry managed to reply, struggling to keep his voice even.

Persephone cackled gaily, dancing away with the fruit in her hand. “Too bad, too bad!” She bit into it with a taunting smile. “It’s good, if a little tart.”  

Admittedly, Harry was starting to get tired of nectar and ambrosia alone – for the texture, if not the taste – but a few days of the same texture wasn’t nearly enough to make him forget one of the first rules of the Underworld. He had the horrible feeling that the next couple of years were going to be full of this particular joke at his expense.

The quince eaten, Persephone dropped the large seeds into the soil at the edge of the poison garden, dug her hands into the dark earth to cover them, and blew out a breath soaked in divine magic. Within moments, a sprout appeared, questing green shoot breaking through the soil and opening up into small leaves which would never see the sun. “Life to death and death to life.” She declared, tracing a gentle finger along the underside of the first leaf. “From what my husband tells me, you know something about that, Harry Potter.”

Harry really didn’t like the idea that the gods were talking about him, even if it was inevitable.

“Returning to life from death yourself, then soothing the dead into rest and bringing life to blossoms in your grief.” Persephone continued without pause, voice more serious than he’d ever heard her. “When you were first here, your mother could have sworn that you might become a battlefield spirit – perhaps keep the keres in line – and my husband agreed. Melinoe, when she met you, disagreed, claiming you more like her. But now I see you and your spirit is far stronger and less settled than either would have me believe. So, Harry Potter, I wish to know: what is it that you have been doing that has your divinity growing and your domain in such great flux?”

Dread Persephone, Queen of the Dead, stared Harry down and dared him with eyes that burned with scarlet fire to tell her anything other than the absolute truth.

Chapter Text

Given the extent of Harry’s celebrity in the magical world, he’d somehow never found himself in the position of needing to explain to someone that an entire country of magical folk semi-worshipped him for the defeat of a dark lord. Usually, they already knew. Unsurprisingly, he was now finding that it was incredibly awkward to explain.

“Uh, so I killed the Dark Lord Voldemort – Tom Riddle.” He quickly clarified, wondering somewhere in the back of his mind what actual goddesses would make of Tom Riddle’s ridiculous anagram and delusions of grandeur. “And survived the killing curse. Because of that, I’m sort of famous in magical Britain.” Harry cringed even to say it. “And, er, it’s been pointed out to me that a nation of people who look up to me as their saviour or something probably counts as followers.” He stopped there, unsure what else to say.

Persephone watched him with a considering look in her eyes. “An active group of followers?” She spoke slowly, as if testing the weight of each word on her tongue, “Yes, that might account for some of it. Any true worshippers among them?”

“No.” Harry paused, “Well, I hope not, but maybe. There were some burnt offerings, but I think they were mainly testing to see if anything happened.”

“His birthplace has been enshrined for years, there are statues and paintings made in his image, and every adult and child in his country’s magical community knows his name as either their saviour or slayer of their undead liege lord.” Hecate supplied, her voice tinged with just a hint of mockery.

Harry wished for the dry earth of the Underworld to open up and swallow him whole. Surely, it would be better than staying for this conversation.

“Truly?” Persephone studied Harry. “He doesn’t seem like that much to me.”

Honestly, not being considered much by Persephone seemed like a good thing. Harry thought he would generally have been happier in life if people had seen him as not very important.

Hecate just nodded. “For a mortal, his magic is powerful, especially now that he has shed the majority of the old curses that were clinging to it.”

Harry jolted, not sure if he was surprised that Hecate had known about the curse damage and not bothered telling him or because she was saying it now.

The goddess continued, “And he is the bearer of Thanatos’ cursed items, of course. Those might be accelerating his ascension.”

“They’re cursed?” Harry asked, unable to keep himself from interrupting.

Hecate blinked, looking down at him from her towering height. “Of course they are. They are of the Underworld and whatsoever belongs to the Underworld is bound to return. Any mortal who holds them is shepherded towards death.” She said it as if it were all obvious, “Admittedly, we were rather confused why the Moirai allowed them to fall into human hands, but when you died with all three technically in your possession, we knew that the Fates had returned them to us.”

The information tumbled around in Harry’s head. Admittedly, some of it made far too much sense. The elder wand, the Deathstick, which was named far more accurately than any knew, was known best for the bloody trail which it had carved through history. The resurrection stone had lured Cadmus Peverell to his death even as he thought he was cheating death. Its allure had ensnared Dumbledore when even the elder wand couldn’t bring his end, then soothed Harry into walking to his own death. The cloak, though? That, Harry had always associated with safety and adventure, his father’s heirloom warming him with the tangible weight of a history he could previously only imagine – James Potter’s laughter caught in the strands of the cloak like hot air under a blanket. The cloak had always been there for him, except…except when it hadn’t. When Harry had been staring Death in the face, and the cloak was never there.

“Are they safe now?” Harry asked, feeling the weight of the ring on his finger, despite never having put it on.

“Safe?” Hecate laughed at him openly. “Never. But you have won their respect enough to use them, mastered your own death. Besides, you are of the Underworld too now. There’s no point luring you to a death you will never reach.”

Harry stopped breathing for a moment, lightheaded at the blunt words that spoke the truth of his situation. He didn’t have time to react – which, in retrospect, was probably for the best – before Persephone took his hand in one of hers, lifting it high to see the ring better. She traced over the black setting of the stone with a careful finger, before leaning down closer to smell it. Harry tried not to wonder when the last time he washed his hands was – surely not long, right?

“Yes.” Persephone said to Hecate, releasing Harry’s hand suddenly. “The influence of three divine tools, an active following, and powerful magic while still so young and malleable to others’ beliefs, perhaps that is enough to have him feeling so unsettled.” She didn’t sound entirely convinced, but the considerable weight of her attention slipped away from Harry and back to whatever it was that concerned ancient goddesses. “No matter. I suppose we’ll have our answers when your mortality finishes transforming. No time at all, really.”

Harry couldn’t help the sigh of relief that left him once she dropped the subject. He was pleased to not have to explain the way he’d allowed the acts of worship in Hogwarts to grow in the hopes that it would push his status further towards a future god than a spirit. While Hecate had never said he couldn’t do that, Harry had the impression that she might have opinions on him deliberately seeking divine power. And from the sound of it, it seemed that it might be working.

Persephone stepped away suddenly, Hecate following at some unknown cue. The goddesses led them away from the poison garden, which Harry couldn’t help feeling relieved about, to a meadow of wildflowers. The fields ran as far in either direction as Harry could see, mixing with the grey-ish grasses that grew patchy and forlorn across the Underworld realm.

Persephone clicked her fingers sharply and Harry saw a ripple through the Mist that made up the Underworld. At once, the earth stirred as skeletal hands breached the surface, and, with a terrible scratching and clawing, scrabbled their way through the dry dirt until heads emerged, then shoulders, and finally whole skeletons emerged from the soil, ready and awaiting their mistress’ orders. “Prepare for a meal.” Persephone instructed them. “Issue invites to anyone nearby.” And at once, the skeletons got to work.

It was eerie to watch them move. Only bone, they had no muscle to move them, nor tendons connecting joints together; it was only magic that piloted their bodies. If Harry focused, he could just make out the flicker of a spirit which guided a skeleton, mostly transparent and immaterial. The skeletons spoke together in the quiet chittering of teeth and dry clacking of fingerbones, which didn’t seem to relate to any human language. Harry wondered, while he watched them set up a table and chairs which appeared to have been dug directly out of the earth, whether these souls were being punished with what he could only assume was eternal servitude to the Underworld gods, or whether this was what the gods might consider a reward.

Persephone wove a flaxen table covering with a lazy wave of her fingers, roots trailing still into the earth, and let herself fall to the ground, caught by a soft bed of heather which rose to catch her. It flowered in soft whites and purples, reminding Harry of the fields behind Hogwarts. Her hair spilled out from its updo, trailing over the arm of her newly made couch and putting the vegetation and earth to shame with its richness. She stared up at the cave roof of the Underworld, eyes fixed on the faint glimmering of whatever it was that glowed on the stalactites that grew huge as skyscrapers high above them.

Hecate sat beside her, close to the arm of Persephone’s couch, and barely reacted when the other goddess caught her hand.

“Hecate, beautiful moon, will you not weave me a view of the sky? I find I miss the stars tonight.”

Hecate smiled, the most indulgent expression that Harry had ever seen on her face. “Of course, my Lady.” She clapped her hands and immediately the Mist bent to her will.

Harry tried to watch, to follow the working of her magic, but it bent in ways he simply couldn’t understand. The weave of her design flowed in and out of dimensions he could comprehend, before somehow constructing one colossal image. Soon, where the cavern ceiling should show the faint shadows of rocky growths, the night sky appeared.

It was clearer than almost any he’d seen before, even given that Hogwarts was in the Scottish Highlands, far away from and warded against light pollution. The sky was ignited by thousands of stars, glowing fierce and many hued against a backdrop of purest night. The milky way was a bold streak across the dark; the moon hung in splendour, a shining titan in a glorious chariot. As they stared up, the titaness sleepily lifted her head off a bent arm and waved lazily, before setting her silver head back on her luminous arm. Great horses drew her chariot across the impossibly vast expanse of the sky, kicking up stardust with each beat of their hooves which hung around the moon chariot in a faint rainbow glow.

Still, even as Harry watched this awe-inspiring sight, he could feel the wrongness of it. Though he could see the moon, he could not feel it. Its rays could not pierce the Underworld gloom, nor did he feel the alchemical moonlight he’d become accustomed to from his Herbology project. Stunning as it may have been, it was only an image.

Persephone, goddess as she was, must have felt it much stronger, because her beautiful face pinched until she pressed the palm of Hecate’s hand into her cheek. The silver light inside Hecate bloomed stronger in response and Persephone sighed, opening her eyes again to look at Selene in the sky. “Thank you, dear Hecate.”

Harry himself stood to the side, already feeling like he was intruding on this scene. It seemed like any wrong move could fracture its fragile serenity, and he didn’t want to be the one to pull two powerful goddesses from their moment. Around him, the nymphs appeared to think the same, for only the skeletons moved in their quiet, jerky ways while the lampades stood as statues, eerily still as only immortals could be.

Finally, after a small eternity, Persephone turned her cheek further into Hecate’s hand for moment before letting go. She sat up, laughing out into the oppressive silence. “Lovely dark moon, I’m so dull today! Let’s have some music!”  

The nymphs and skeletons were quick to obey, pulling instruments out of thin air and setting up a little way from the table. There were stringed instruments that sort of looked like smaller harps but clearly weren’t, a variety of pipes and flutes, things that might have been tambourines held by nymphs who’d passed their torches on to be carried by another, and an odd metal instrument that sounded like bells when struck. Harry could only watch as, within moments, the silent stillness of the Underworld was transformed into a flurry of movement and the sounds of many instruments combining into a pleasant harmony. As the melody flowed out, many of the nymphs, still holding their torches in one hand, began to dance, forming a circle of gliding dark robes and flashing bronze jewellery under green firelight. The nymphs twirled and stamped, kicking up dust and bronze mists, while some clacked clappers in complicated rhythms.

Persephone stood, her heather couch wilting behind her, and pulled Hecate in the direction of the dancing nymphs. Hecate gave her a wry smile but did not protest, allowing her queen to lead her into the centre of the largest circle and then they too began to spin.

There are no words to describe the way a goddess dances. No rendition in the world could convey the grace of their movements or the vibrancy of their beat upon the earth. To Harry, they shone glorious and luminescent under the false moon: scarlet red and green-black burning around each other like binary stars. The bronze mists that lingered close to the ground were swept up high in their wake, floating around them until it caught the light of their divinity and glittered like the air itself was made of precious metals. The nymphs danced around them in counter direction, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but always following a beat Harry could only half pick out in the rich melodies of the musicians.

Around where they stepped, the fields bloomed in joy, the Underworld itself ringing with the joy of its Queen, chasing out an oppressive sense of claustrophobia that Harry hadn’t noticed had been pushing at the edges of his awareness all day. Hecate’s magic pressed thickly too, sweeping dark and thick through the air, somehow syrup thick and sweet. She didn’t glow brighter, like Persephone did – rather, the light under her skin seemed to grow dimmer the more potent her magic became – but as the roiling mix of darkness, mist, and sweet flowers flowed through the air and reached Harry, he could have sworn that he felt a hint of moonlight contained within.

“There they go again.” A voice said beside Harry, and he startled badly, turning to find a goddess with dark hair and bright golden eyes. She wore a dress which might have been blue but was dulled to a faint grey in the gloom. She sighed, but seemed happy, watching the two with a gentle smile. “Your mother is the only one who can cheer up mine while my father is away. But how rude of me.” She turned to Harry, smile widening and setting deep crow’s feet around her eyes. “My name is Makaria, and you are of course, Harry Potter.”

It took Harry a couple of moments to place the name, but he soon remembered. Makaria was Hades’ and Persephone’s daughter, reputedly a gentle goddess, little known to mortals. “The goddess of good death?” he checked, not yet having met a deity who didn’t like to be recognised.

Makaria hummed noncommittally. “Good is subjective. But yes. I care for those who have lived good lives, died peacefully, and continue their afterlives in peace and happiness. Those who do not require the firmer hand of Thanatos to come willingly to the Underworld, nor leave strong regrets like those who walk in my sister’s train.”

Makaria looked very little like her sister, Melinoe, or at least she didn’t to Harry. Melinoe was a fearsome figure, wreathed in wailing spirits and chillingly other in her speech and appearance. Makaria seemed softer than Hecate or Persephone, with a smile on her face that didn’t cut or mock, and an easy way of speaking.

Perhaps it was this softness that led to Harry asking her whether he should expect every deity in the Underworld to have already heard of him.

Makaria answered this with a bright laugh, the first thing about her that reminded him of her mother. “Most of us.” She agreed with bright eyes. “After all, we haven’t added one to our number in such a long time – it’s the best gossip around!”

Even in the Underworld it seemed that Harry couldn’t escape everyone knowing of him before he’d ever met them. “What is the gossip saying?” He asked, curious.

“Hm, this and that.” Makaria eyed him speculatively. “At first, just that you were a legacy of Hecate, brought back to life during a quest and approved of for immortality after it. Most of us thought you’d end up assisting your mother in some way, but you have far more death in your essence than that.”

“Is this about the domain thing?”

“Yes.” Makaria nodded. “You understand that we gods are concepts, yes? We have personalities outside of them, but we are in many ways personifications of our domain. Humans and demigods are often confusing to us, because you are not built around a concept, but choose what things are meaningful to you. While your existence is tied around magic, I can feel death sitting just as close, as well as other things that are not so easily recognised to me – less close to my own domain.”

“Am I good death or bad death?” Harry asked, trying to distract himself from the chill that came with the idea of death being as tightly entwined in his soul as his magic.

“I don’t know.” Makaria said, ever-present smile falling from her face. “I had hoped that in talking to you, I might understand better. But I cannot judge if your own death was good or bad, nor which holds more weight in your soul. It’s like it’s all mixed up.” She sounded perturbed. After a moment, Makaria shook her head and smiled once more. “I don’t think I’ll want to talk to you again until you’ve ascended, and your domain is settled, but it was certainly interesting to meet you, Harry Potter. You’ll make things entertaining around here at any rate. For now, I will join our mothers in their dancing.”

Makaria left him, stepping through the circle of nymphs and reaching out to Persephone, who received her with a cry of delight. The three goddesses, towering above the nymphs, held each other’s hands as they twirled ever faster.

The thrum of their magics seemed to draw other gods, who trickled into the scene with flashes of light or sudden steps out of shadow. A shimmering god with a face that wouldn’t settle appeared at the table like he had always been there, holding a cup of wine loosely between his fingers. His aura cast a haze over everything, and Harry found himself blinking and having to look harder through the Mist. He was soon joined by another, who Harry initially thought to be Thanatos since their resemblance was uncanny, but the new god only had small wings on the back of his head, and laid his head down to sleep on the table in a way Harry couldn’t see Thanatos ever doing. Two more goddesses arrived, who watched the scene with the same sharp golden eyes, before finding their own places at the table.

Harry hung back. For one, the smells of the rich foods that covered the table were unnaturally tempting, calling out to him whenever his control over his mental magics slipped. For another, Harry had read enough about these deities that he wasn’t sure he wanted to meet them without Hecate at his back. Morpheus and Hypnos likely wouldn’t care too much about his presence, given that the second was sleeping and the first didn’t interfere too much in waking affairs. Nemesis, on the other hand, Harry was convinced had some kind of grudge against him, because goddess of balance or no, there was no way his luck was this bad through happenstance. As for her sister, Eris… well, Harry knew enough to stay clear.

Each god was surrounded by their entourage, nymphs and spirits who served them food and drink before melting back into the shadows or joining in the dancing. The music picked up around them, growing louder and fiercer as if to battle the muffling Underground air. The light of the green torches near Hecate mixed with the uncoloured flames held by nymphs further away, and shadows leapt in dizzying sequences as the lampades swooped and ran in their endless dance. The scent of wine mixed with the fragrance of the wildflowers as drinks were poured and drunk, rising thicker in the air as a new group of spirits with heads crowned in ivy appeared.

These women were wild. Their ivy garlands trailed as they spun and jumped, live snakes weaving around their shoulders never displaced, but sometimes dangling behind with their speed and tangling with others. Their faces held rapture that Harry had never seen before, manic smiles and fever-bright eyes and voices carrying in uninhibited shouts of joy. Their cheeks were flushed hot, sweat dripping even in the icy chill of the Underworld, and they never stopped moving for a moment. Dangerous, Harry’s mind whispered, and he couldn’t agree more.

“You should return to the temple.” A voice spoke at his side, and Harry turned to find someone his own size for a change – a lampad. Her green-black dress marked her as one of Hecate’s attendants. “The maenads find particular joy in making mortals dance until either their legs or their heart gives out.” She continued. “And Lord Dionysus isn’t here to stop them before they go too far.”

Frankly, Harry was relieved at the option of going back. Talking to Persephone alone had been enough stress for the day – he didn’t want to see what would happen if he had to interact with a whole host of gods. “I don’t know the way from here.”

The lampad nodded, as if she had suspected this. “If you come with me, I will lead you.”

Harry looked back once more at the surreal scene of luminous goddesses dancing in eternal twilight amid a sea of torch-bearing nymphs before following the lampad away from the light, into the waist-high field of grey-tinged wildflowers.

-

Chrysorrhoe, as she belatedly introduced herself, led Harry back through the maze of gardens and the pomegranate orchard to the wide path that led up to Hades’ palace. From there, it was the route Harry recognised he’d taken before with Hecate, to the enormous cave she’d made her home. It was a long walk, though Harry didn’t really feel proper exhaustion in the Underworld, but it was made easier by the chatter that Chrysorrhoe kept up along the way.

Apparently, the lampades had been told not to bother Harry while he was staying in Hecate’s temple – and him the opposite – but now they had an excuse to talk, Chrysorrhoe was eager to ask all the questions that she and her sisters had come up with. These mainly concerned the Overworld and what being mortal was like, which was a difficult question since Harry had little else to compare it to, but also, she asked about him. It seemed that the lampades knew little about him other than what the gossip circles had gathered: that he was an ascending godling from Hecate’s legacy.

“It’s so exciting!” Chrysorrhoe exclaimed, as they walked through the long pitch-black tunnel that marked the entrance to Hecate’s temple grounds. “Demigods have ascended in the Overworld, but not recently, and none here. You’re very mortal now still,” she looked apologetic, as if pointing out an embarrassing flaw, “but everyone wants to know what you’ll become and how you’ll fit in. After all, nothing really changes here ever.”

“So, what do you do?” Harry asked, moving the conversation along with probably less subtlety than he might have wanted.

Chrysorrhoe didn’t seem to mind. “Well, my sisters and I hold the torches and keep them lit, or no one would be able to see much of anything down here. Lady Hecate doesn’t really mind where we go, so long as we’re keeping our lights held up.” She showed him her flaming torch, made of ashen wood which never burned through, “It’s an honour to be one of the attendants in the temple. Lady Hecate oftens asks for extra hands in her work, and that’s much more interesting than just standing around. Sometimes, we even follow her to the Overworld!” She smiled brightly at this, dark eyes lit up and reflecting the fire of her torch. “Otherwise, hm… I suppose just what any goddess does. We weave, we sing, we dance and celebrate with the greater gods or serve at their parties. Some of us pick herbs or collect sunlight from the Overworld for a day; some of us maintain the temple or bring news to Lady Hecate from her worshippers.”

“Are there lots of parties?” Harry asked, “Like the one we just left?”

Chrysorrhoe laughed, throwing her head back and twirling on the spot with her mirth. “That was hardly a party! Only a little get-together. The real celebration will begin when Lord Hades returns from the meeting on Olympus.”

Harry wasn’t sure in which world a feast, live (undead?) music, and hundreds of dancing nymphs was a ‘little get-together’, but figured for now, he was better off not knowing.

“But yes.” Chrysorrhoe continued, taking mercy on him. “The King and Queen celebrate their love all winter. It’s very romantic.” She confessed, lowering her voice. “Though it does make a lot of work to do. Still, it’s better than summer when our Lord Hades is missing the Lady, and no one celebrates anything.”

They entered the temple, where the halls were darker than usual and seemed empty without the pulsing of their goddess’ magic through the walls. Abruptly, Harry couldn’t bear to go back to his dark, empty room and the book of spells he could never perform well enough for Hecate’s approval.

“Would I be disturbing you lot if maybe I joined you by the fire pond?” Harry asked, cringing internally. It felt like a few days on his own had somehow stripped him of all his social skills. “Just… company would be nice sometimes, and it’s been really interesting to hear what it’s like down here.”

Chrysorrhoe looked at him with assessing eyes, sterner than he’d seen on her face before, until the look cleared away and she smiled. “That would be nice. I’m sure everyone will behave.”

There was an undertone there that Harry couldn’t quite recognise, even though he knew it was there. “Okay?” it came out as more of a question than he’d intended it to.

The nymph laughed and nodded. “Some of the others have stayed behind. Come, I’ll introduce you!”

Harry followed, feeling a hint of hope for the first time that perhaps the next two weeks might not be so bad.

Chapter Text

Hecate did not return to her temple for four days. Not long after Harry had left on that first day, the entire Underworld had thrummed with its Lord’s homecoming, and Harry had felt the sweeping flood of power wash over him as the gathering had become what Chrysorrhoe called a real party. Even at a distance, music echoed through the earth, and the mingling magics of gods and spirits mixed until they were so intense that Harry could hardly sleep. The celebrants being the sleepless gods and their immortal attendants, there was no sign of them tiring nor wanting to end their fun, and so Harry tried to go on with his routine as normal, using Hecate’s unexpected absence to catch up on some of his homework and work further through the book of Mist spells.

It would have been bitterly lonely if not for the presence of Chrysorrhoe and the other nymphs. She had happily introduced him to some of her friends, and Harry had ended up spending as much of his time as possible in the fire pond courtyard, warmed by the flames and by company. They laughed at his parchment and quill, but told him the latest gossip brought from the Overworld by Melinoe’s ghosts; they showed him how they wove shadows into gossamer-thin fabric, and begged him to enchant rocks into silly figures to act out their stories. Crying with laughter, Kallimache directed his tap-dancing pears to display the routine Apollo had once made his Muses perform in front of the whole Olympian host centuries back, when the style was new. “It would not have been so bad,” she had to stop, words drowned out by her own giggles, “if they had not tried to play their instruments at the same time. Erato tripped on the train of Aphrodite’s dress and…” she toppled the pears like dominoes, the fruit landing in a messy heap of flailing limbs.

In return, Harry found himself telling them stories from Hogwarts, regaling them with the tale of the Weasley twins’ vendetta against Umbridge and the many pranks they’d inflicted near her. In particular, they liked stories with a slightly vindictive edge – how Fred and George pelting their professor’s head with snowballs turned out to mean, in hindsight, that they’d been hitting Voldemort’s face repeatedly while he couldn’t react; how Ginny’s awful Valentine’s poem to him in second year (which they mocked him for horribly) had probably been written with the help of the long-suffering aid of the diary horcrux. The lampades liked to poke fun at the mortal upstart with pretensions of immortality. They were an attentive audience – laughing when Harry described Neville’s mimbulus mimbletonia exploding with stinksap right as his crush came by, asking questions about what happened next, or who someone was – and Harry had to wonder just how bored some of them were. Perhaps, even with all the drama that seemed to happen in the pantheon, they’d heard too much about all the main characters throughout their millennia to make them much fun still to gossip about.

Perhaps most usefully to Harry, they were minor goddesses but not goddesses of magic; while they were well-practiced with using divine magics, it didn’t form as much of their being or identity as it did Hecate. This meant that their spells came a little less instinctually and so were that much easier to copy.

“What are you focussing so hard on?” Charikleia, a nymph with dark auburn hair asked, as Harry snapped his fingers to make apples out of the Mist over and over again. She was normally one of the more reserved of the nymphs who lingered in the courtyard, sewing shining glass beads for hours at a time in complex patterns onto rich red fabric which could only be intended for Persephone. He wasn’t sure she’d ever spoken to him directly before.

“I keep forgetting something.” Harry sighed, running his hand through his hair in frustration and likely making at least half of it stand on end. “I can usually make it look like an apple and feel like an apple, but I forget something – the wrong weight, or a lack of smell, or a weird taste.”

Charikleia gave him an odd look. “You don’t need to tell the Mist what an apple is like – it already knows. Just ask the Mist for an apple.”

And so Harry did, asking the Mist for a convincing illusion of an apple, rather than asking it for an illusion and specifying all the ways in which it should appear to be an apple. The apple he received was heavy and slightly damp, with a bruise on one side and a leaf still attached to the stem. It was indistinguishable, to his mostly-mortal senses, from a real one. Only when he focussed hard on looking through it with his Mist-soaked vision could he see the way that the Mist gathered densely into an object rather than coating a real one, and there was a subtle emptiness to the magic of it that he realised must have been the memory of life a real fruit would contain.

“Thank you.” He told Charikleia, once he’d finished screaming internally.

The nymph just nodded, directing her needle with a rapidity no mortal could match. “You’re too caught up in your mortal magics still.” She replied. “You’ll get nowhere with divine magic until you let their rules go.”

Harry nodded, trying to keep his frustration inside, as he wondered when he’d start understanding this magic, instead of just muddling through a little closer at a time. Guiltily, the thought struck him that perhaps he didn’t want to understand – after all, once he comprehended the ways of the divine and began to use their power, then he was tangibly closer to being one of them. He buried the thought under his Transfiguration textbook and began his holiday assignment.

-

Embarrassingly, it was Hecate herself who caught him at his next set of failed spells. The nymphs had declared laundry day and exiled Harry from the courtyard so that he was out of their way, and thus he’d gone to visit the petrified tree in Hecate’s spell-casting courtyard instead. It was just as breath-taking as before, and Harry had wasted more time than he cared to admit just looking at it. Still, it made Harry wonder how it grew, whether it counted as alive, dead, both, or neither, and actually, what about all the other plants in the Underworld too? After all, besides Persephone’s flowers, the Underworld had its own native flora, none of which had ever seen sunlight. This had led Harry to attempt the sunlight and moonlight charms that he’d become so familiar with.

They failed. They failed dismally. No amount of magic could induce the tiniest amount of sunlight or moonlight to come out the end of his wand. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been all that surprising, given that Harry was in the Underworld, but most of his wizarding magic had worked fine here. He tried focusing hard on the feel of the alchemical element, he tried pouring magic into it until he felt a little dizzy, but the most he got was a weak lumos charm like any of the others he’d cast before, completely lacking in sun or moon magic.

“Did you think that if I, a moon goddess, could not bring the light of the moon into the Underworld, then you could with your mortal magics?” Hecate’s voice sounded behind him, making Harry jump. There was something dark and offended in her tone which was mirrored in her face when Harry turned to look at her.

“No?” He back-pedalled quickly. “I was just wondering why it didn’t work.”

Hecate huffed, looking at him with derision. “Neither Selene and Helios nor Artemis and Apollo are welcome in the Underworld. They are Overworld deities who ride in the heavens or upon the earth. The only moon goddess here is me, and I am the darkness of the moon, not its light. Nor, even should I wish to bring light, is there a sky here to ride a chariot in. You might as well ask why there is no rain in Atlantis.”

Harry nodded, deciding that the wise move at this point was to keep his mouth shut.

“You have been working, I hope.” It wasn’t quite a question, more of a warning.

Harry was relieved to be able to answer ‘yes’. He showed her the apple he could summon from the Mist now.

Hecate turned it around in her hands, looking through it and then taking a bite. This time it didn’t dissipate but crunched between her teeth. “Better.” She said and squeezed the remainder hard in her fist until it burst into Mist. “Almost a proper Mistform. At least you haven’t been wasting all your time here. You should, with a little practice, be able to summon a Mistform weapon to your hand now. You’ll not likely have much trouble with monsters now – your scent is too off – but a Mistform weapon should work well enough like celestial bronze should you require it. What weapon do you use?”

Harry blinked at her, “Um, my wand?”

Hecate stared back at him with her head tilted in confusion. “Besides your magic, of course. Do you fight with a sword? Spear? Daggers?”

Increasingly, Harry was feeling like there was some kind of miscommunication here. “I don’t?” He tried. “I mean, I used the Sword of Gryffindor once, but I didn’t know how to use it properly. But we just fight with wands.”

Hecate looked as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “Just wands? You have no training in arms?”

“Uh, no.” Seeking to explain himself, Harry said. “It’s sort of illegal? I mean, muggles fight with guns and tanks and things I guess, but only the army and stuff are allowed those. No one uses swords. And um, there’s a bunch of knife crime in cities, but it’s, yeah, it’s a crime.”

Hecate looked poleaxed. “It’s not still normal to train boy children in swords? Are you sure?”

“No. Um, yes. I mean, it’s not normal and I am sure.” Harry hesitated to expound further, but figured he probably should, “It’s not even normal really to learn how to fight. There are martial arts classes in the muggle world, but they’re just hobbies really, and I haven’t seen anything like that in the magical world. There’s just duelling with wands.”

“Wands, he says.” Hecate raised a hand to her face, “Heavens above and Chaos below, he fights with a stick.” She blew out a long breath. “Well, at least I know now. We can fix this before anyone finds out. An immortal who fights with a stick…” Hecate looked absolutely mortified in a way that Harry didn’t know she could. Each of her three faces were cringing, exchanging side-eyes with each other. “Never mind, I’ll find you a trainer. Chiron would be ideal, but he’s rather tied up with his camp and you’d garner far too much attention there. Perhaps…”

Harry shuffled his feet, inexplicably embarrassed by his completely normal lacking education in weaponry.

“Child.” Hecate called his attention suddenly. “You will tell me everything about your education so far. I wish to know how many other gaps we must fill before you can pass yourself off as a vaguely civilised godling.”

The following conversation was one of the strangest in Harry’s life. Hecate was bemused by the knowledge that Hogwarts taught only magic, no arts or sciences. She was baffled by his primary education, what little he remembered of it, but pleased to know that he wasn’t completely illiterate or innumerate as she had begun to fear (how she thought he’d read the books she’d given him without being able to read was a question that Harry had to bite down hard on his tongue not to ask). She didn’t recognise the sports he’d played in primary school PE – even though even Harry knew that football and cricket were massive in the muggle world – and kept asking how good he was at javelin, discus throwing, archery, and other things he’d never touched. Harry had to admit he’d been a fast runner in primary school, but Hogwarts had no PE lessons, and that he knew only the basics of swimming from primary school classes at the local leisure centre. Quidditch, Hecate claimed, did not count. His literacy abilities were basic, pre-secondary school education, as was his maths; he played no instruments, knew almost nothing about history, spoke no foreign languages (outside of the Greek that came automatically and the Parseltongue that delighted Hecate), had never done geography, and only knew as much about science as the average 11 year old, plus whatever trivia he’d picked up from living in the muggle world.

Hecate massaged her forehead as if she had a headache. “Unbelievable. Mortals are even more foolish than I imagined, and magical folk so much more. Are they trying to stay stupid?” She summoned a goblet of nectar to her hand and took a long drink. Some of the tension bled from her faces and the oppressive shadows around them eased back a little as the goddess calmed. “I’m almost surprised you’re doing as well as you are if that is the state of your education.” She told Harry, looking over the rim of the goblet. “You’re clearly not an unintelligent boy, even if you are uneducated. We can work with that.”

It wasn’t quite a compliment, but Harry thought it was probably the best he was going to get from Hecate any time soon. It was almost nice – he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had said he was at all clever. “What do I need to do?”

Hecate pursed her lips. “You are in your exam year, correct?”

Harry nodded.

“Then, much as I’d like to start correcting the travesty that is your education, it is better to wait until you have finished those. I’ll leave you with the Mist magic book to work through in your own time, but anything further can wait until the holidays when you are here. It is only your physical abilities that cannot be postponed. I will not have my first immortal son die before his ascension because mortals were too foolish to teach their children how to fight a basic monster.”

If it were anyone else, Harry would have said that he could hear the faintest bit of concern in Hecate’s voice, but he knew better – Hecate had said herself that she couldn’t take the embarrassment of introducing such an ignorant son as her own.

“A trainer, then.” Hecate declared. She clapped her hands together and the Mist morphed and condensed into the form of a blond man in radiant golden armour. “This is Apsyrtos, a descendant of mine who should have joined his wife in immortality.” Something which might have been grief crossed the oldest of her faces, before it was quickly hidden in apathy again. “He was the finest of his peers in his own youth. May he keep you from the same fate. He will train you here in the Underworld and will join you in the Overworld if you summon him through your resurrection stone.”

Clearly deciding the conversation was over, Hecate vanished into shadow, leaving Harry alone with the spirit of Apsyrtos.

“Er, hello, I’m Harry.” He tried, when the sizing each other up had dragged on a moment too long.

The spirit nodded back, sad green eyes in a handsome face. “I am Prince Apsyrtos of Colchis. Not that that matters much anymore. My grandmother said I was to train you, but not in which ways?”

“Weapons, I think.” Harry replied. “I only know how to fight with magic.”

Apsyrtos studied Harry closer, eyes catching on his green eyes and dark hair. “You are a son of my grandmother?”

Harry nodded.

“Very well.” The dead spirit declared. “Perhaps I will have better luck with a male relative than a sister. At any rate, I am already dead and cannot be killed a second time. Let us see where you stand.”

And that is how Harry spent the remainder of his two weeks in the Underworld being beaten into the earth any time he wasn’t practising his magic.

-

Harry had never been more grateful for the healing properties of nectar and ambrosia than when his undead nephew got into the swing of Harry’s training. While Hogwarts’ vast grounds and hundreds of stairs gave Harry a reasonable amount of activity, and Quidditch had strengthened his muscles in arrangements that Apsyrtos found incredibly peculiar, the lack of any kind of cardio in his life since primary school was incredibly obvious. His wand arm was trained mostly in detail work, only carrying the weight of a stick, and the heaviest thing he usually dealt with was a magic-resistant cauldron.

Apsyrtos’ face, when he realised what he was dealing with, was both hilarious and vaguely embarrassing. Still, the spirit got to work with reasonable humour, and Harry began to enjoy his company, even as he cursed him out during the worst of the exercise. Apsyrtos, of course, gave as good as he got, insulting everything about the laziness of the modern world and wixen’s over-reliance on magic, while whacking Harry’s unguarded left with his wooden practice sword.

It came as a surprise to Harry to find that he had missed physical activity. His walks had been nice, but they didn’t compare to the buzzing in his limbs after a run, nor the way that it made his constantly loud thoughts finally quiet a little. While Apsyrtos’ training left him sore, exhausted, and sweaty despite the freezing chill of the Underworld, Harry found that his magic practice went easier, and his homework essays were less tiresome to focus on. Still, he learned his lesson in not writing his homework when too tired as he looked back over his Charms essay the next day and found an entire section written in Ancient Greek.

The nymphs had complained about the lack of his company at first, but Chrysorrhoe had invited herself to his sword training after the first few sessions, and soon he had a viewing gallery of bored lampades heckling him about his lousy footwork and flying like the wind in front of him in footraces.

With a full schedule and company, perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Harry lost track of time. He’d been vaguely aware that Christmas had passed and that the New Year was approaching, but no one really kept track of individual days in the Underworld, marked only by the cycle of the Primordial Nyx leaving her home in Tartarus and returning to it only for a few hours in deep winter. Apsyrtos was dead and the Underworld nymphs slept only when they wanted to, so Harry ended up pulled out of a daily routine and into the new habit of sleeping whenever he was tired and eating whenever he needed to heal, or his previous meal of ambrosia and nectar no longer sated him.

Thus, it came as something of a surprise when Hecate pulled him away from his Mist magic practice with Charikleia, who had become the most likely to help him with it rather than laugh at him, and told Harry to gather his things ahead of his departure from the Underworld.

Feeling wrong-footed, Harry did, returning to his room and using the packing charm which had amazed him so much the first time he’d seen Nymphadora Tonks cast it. With his cauldron in his trunk, books and clothes packed away, and toiletries removed from the bathroom, Harry’s room looked oddly empty again. He hadn’t realised how accustomed he’d become to it being filled with his belongings. Nor, he finally registered, how normal the atmosphere of the Underworld had become to him. Harry couldn’t remember when he’d stopped casting lumos charms whenever he entered his room.

Not wanting to keep Hecate waiting too long, Harry snapped himself out of it and rushed to say goodbye to whichever lampades were about in the courtyard, before finding his godly relative back in the entrance hall.

Hecate was inspecting the long mural that covered one side of the hall, gaze lingering on the image of bronze and dark stone which made up Hades’ palace. “It appears that the Lord and Lady are both within the palace at the moment.” She declared, making Harry jump as he hadn’t realised that she’d noticed his arrival. “I will take you to pay your respects before you leave.”

She eyed the door, scowled, and then put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, sweeping him through the tearing shadows until they emerged on the path outside Hades’ palace. “So much better than walking.” She didn’t allow them to pause, passing through the heavily carved bronze doors and through the palace until Harry was back where he had begun this visit, in the throne room.

The room was empty of anyone else for a moment, until Hades and Persephone phased through the shadows onto their thrones. Persephone smiled at Hecate, but Hades glowered darkly. “Leaving so soon?” The King of the Underworld gods asked, ostensibly to Harry but flicking his eyes back to Hecate. “He has only just arrived.”

“Time passes so quickly for mortals.” Hecate spoke, voice calm but words careful. “He will return again in a couple of months, once his school term breaks.”

Hades did not look mollified but did lean back, his shadows pulling back with him. “I suppose he is indeed still too mortal to stay here for much longer.”

“Grow your flowers well!” Persephone instructed Harry with a cheerful smile and too many teeth, “Perhaps, when I am in the Overworld, I will check in on them and see how you’ve done.”

Harry didn’t need Hecate’s unsubtle look to know that that was a threat and a warning. “I’ll do my best, my Lady.” He promised, internally pleased with how steady and calm his voice came out.

Hades scowled darker at the mention of Persephone returning to the Overworld, his power spreading thick and crushing across the room. Harry could barely breathe under its weight, and, in the corner of his eye, he saw Hecate still, her magic freezing around her. Nothing moved for a moment until Persephone touched her husband’s arm with a hand that feigned to be casual, breaking the tense moment.

“We will take our leave, my Lord, my Lady.” Hecate said, ushering Harry back with a hand on his shoulder. “And I look forward to returning to your service, my Lady Persephone.”

Persephone smiled radiantly at Hecate and waved as they left, while her husband sank back into the shadows behind him. Hecate led Harry back through the dimly lit hallways with her long stride not pausing to let Harry catch up.

“That could have gone worse.” Hecate said lightly, once they were outside the palace once more. “Our King doesn’t like any reminder of his Queen’s leaving.”

Harry took her word for it, still only barely able to draw in the Underworld air which trembled with its god’s anger. His instincts were heightened still, every atom of his body telling him to either fight or flee. It took longer than he’d have liked for him to pull his thoughts together. “Um, thank you for hosting me.” It came out more of a question, but Harry hoped Hecate put that down to the suffocating power they’d both just rapidly backed away from.

Hecate only hummed an acknowledgement, but he thought she seemed pleased. “Well, by my magic, I am your mother now. You will be welcome in my dwelling-temple until you have one of your own.” She looked over him with an assessing gaze, eyes catching on the metal bracelets which he tied his personal shield spells to. “A gift.” She said, tracing over them and transforming them into the same blackened bronze which furnished the Underworld. The one on his left wrist twisted and elongated until it formed the coils of a serpent with eyes of black opal, like the fountain in his courtyard. The right bracelet twined into thick branches and delicate leaves, inlaid with slivers of petrified rock, until it looked like the stone tree he admired so much. “No Underworld god or spirit should be seen without the riches of our King’s domain, it’s bad PR.” Hecate stated, with a quirk of her lips. “These should protect you also from the eyes of the Overworld gods. They’ll find you if they’re looking for you specifically, but a casual observer should gloss over you.”

“Thank you.” Harry said more sincerely, relieved to have help in avoiding their notice.

“Then I will see you soon, my child. Work hard, summon Apsyrtos and only Apsyrtos for your training, and for goodness’ sake, don’t kill any flowers.” Without waiting for a reply, Hecate swept her dark mists around him, tossing him into a void of shadows, and sending him back to the Overworld.

Only when Harry opened his eyes, feeling the odd warmth of the Overworld and brilliantly shining light above him, did he realise one crucial detail – it may have been the 2^nd of January, when he and the other students were supposed to travel back to Hogwarts, but he hadn’t yet felt Nyx return to the Underworld. Harry looked up into the gleaming spray of stars above him, silver moonlight almost burning his eyes with its brightness, and resisted the urge to curse. Behind him, Hogwarts towered grey-tinged but clear to his dark-adjusted eyes, and Harry sighed at the lack of candlelight coming through the windows. Harry began his walk back up to the castle in the middle of the night, and wondered what exactly he would be telling Vector and McGonagall in the morning.

Chapter Text

When Harry’s entrance through the front doors didn’t seem to set off any alarms, he decided to let McGonagall sleep in a little more – he didn’t think she’d give him detention for arriving too early, but she might well if he dared wake her up about it. Instead, he headed to the Room of Requirement, after belatedly realising that he didn’t know the password for the Gryffindor common room. Cloak over his head, Harry walked through the quiet corridors, marvelling at how well he could see in the dark, even without a lumos charm. The light of Selene’s chariot flowed through every window to the outside, coating everything in grey tones and dramatic shadows. Even further into the castle, where the moonlight shouldn’t have been able to reach, the murkiness seemed thin somehow – insubstantial after Harry’s time in true darkness.

The Room of Requirement opened into a room not unlike Harry’s bedroom in Hecate’s temple, except for the lack of a bed and a pile of books on the shelf which certainly didn’t belong to him. The ceiling was replaced with a charm like the one in the Great Hall, illuminating the space with the gentle shine of starlight. Even that was enough to make Harry blink a few times as he entered, but he soon adjusted and pulled out the rest of his holiday homework. If nothing else, at least he could use the time before anyone else was awake to get himself ready for the new term. Gods knew that all his professors had promised that things were only going to get harder as they got closer to their NEWTs.

Harry finished up his assigned Transfiguration reading as the dim blue before sunrise filled the sky and had mostly hammered out the plan for the next few DA sessions by the time that Eos’ chariot took to the air, trailing rose colours through the sky with every brush of her fingers against the clouds. When the sun – looking suspiciously like a sports car for the moment before it burned Harry’s eyes – crested the horizon, Harry gave up on getting more done there and headed for the library. His first order of business, it seemed, would be finding some way of tinting his glasses against the light, at least until he got used to it again.

The library, for all that it was well-stocked with everything a student might need, did not have a handy index to look up such thing as a spell for sunglasses, and nor was there Madam Pince at the desk at a time when students were supposed to be sleeping. Instead, Harry had to rifle through books of household charms until he finally found a dimming charm intended for glass. It didn’t surprise him at all to discover that it was originally intended to be used at Quidditch events, to better watch the match on sunny days. It took a few tries for Harry to cast it on his glasses – partially because his glasses were already enchanted and resistant to further tampering, and partially because he’d had to read the page while squinting – but soon he’d applied the charm as thick as it could go. With a sigh of relief, Harry put his newly smoky glasses on his nose and hoped that he’d readjust quickly. There was no way his dormmates weren’t going to mock him relentlessly for this.

Even with this done, it was only passing seven when Harry re-emerged from the library. He might be able to catch the headmistress on her way down to breakfast, but she didn’t always eat in the Great Hall, nor did she have an exact time schedule. Going to her office would have the same problems. After a moment’s thought, Harry resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead and headed towards the Owlery to write McGonagall a note. Sure, it felt a little odd to be sending her a letter while Harry was already in the castle, but Harry couldn’t help but think his old professor would appreciate some warning rather than him turning up out of the blue. Of course, he had considered pretending to arrive with the rest of the students, but that seemed like a plan his 12-year-old self might have come up with.

Her note came back very quickly; despite the hour, McGonagall must have already been up and working. Harry didn’t envy her. It invited him to join her in her office at his earliest convenience, and so, Harry did.

“Mr Potter.” McGonagall greeted him with a wry look. Her navy-blue robes were pristine and her hair immaculately neat as ever, but the almost-desperate grip on her cup of tea told him she was less awake than she might have liked to appear. “Of all the things I might have expected about your return to school, being early wasn’t one of them.”

Harry shrugged helplessly, unable to keep the grin off his face at the sound of the professor’s familiar fond scolding. “There was something of a time difference, I think.”

McGonagall hummed, the sound judging. “What’s done is done. I will mark your attendance now. But you are well?” Her cat-like stare was intent over the rim of her glasses. “What’s wrong with your eyes? Supposing, of course, that that is not a fashion statement.”

“I’m fine.” Harry replied truthfully. “Just, er, re-adjusting to the light. It was pretty dark there.”

McGonagall seemed like she wanted to ask further but stopped herself. “Very well. I trust you that will see Poppy should the situation not resolve itself.” She waited for Harry to agree before continuing. “In truth, I had wanted to talk to you before the term began on a number of matters, so this turn of events is somewhat fortuitous. Firstly, the case of Miss Millicent Bulstrode.”  

Harry’s head spun a little as he tried to reorient himself. His time in the Underworld, though not particularly long in the grand scheme of things, had been enough to make him forget almost entirely about the plot against him back in Hogwarts, and it took a moment to get his head back into it. It had simply felt so far away, when his daily schedule consisted of sitting by a pond of fire with lamp-bearing nymphs as he worked on Mist magic in his divine mother’s temple.

“She has been convicted of attempted murder, and conspiracy to murder in the case of the first poison, as well as use of illegal curses in an attempt to harm law enforcement personnel. The jury have sentenced her to ten years minimum in a low security area of Azkaban.” McGonagall’s lips pursed as she said Azkaban, though she didn’t comment further on it.

Harry himself didn’t know what to think and just nodded.

“Miss Bulstrode’s questioning, and that of Mr Goyle, has implicated a number of others in this conspiracy, though the Auror Department has yet to determine exactly who these people might be. It is very much unwelcome news,” McGonagall said, heat starting to fill her cheeks and her knuckles white around her teacup, “to know that multiple students are part of this disgusting affair, but I can assure you, Mr Potter, that we are all doing our very best to keep you and the general population of Hogwarts as safe as can be.”

Harry nodded back, face blank. He’d heard that before but couldn’t even summon up the energy to be disbelieving about it.

“As it stands, we are treating every attack on you as a serious one, regardless of the spells cast, so even if it’s simple prank spells in the corridor, I ask that you or your friends report them to me or Professor Vector.” She waited for him to nod. “This brings me onto a rather happier topic. Due to your group’s superb work with the goblins of Gringotts, with some prompting, the Heads of Houses and I were able to persuade the Head of the Department for Education to release Hogwarts’ intended annual budget to us, for immediate use in the school. We are lobbying still for the restitution of all previous money taken, but that will likely be the matter of years to iron out. Nevertheless, we now have enough to make some of the proposed changes.”

McGonagall looked almost giddy. “This will all be announced later for the whole school to hear, but I felt you should be one of the first to know that we have been able to fill a number of new posts starting this term. Each department will be split between teachers for different age groups – three for core subjects, two for electives; we have brought in a new Deputy Headmaster in an administrative role, a new Head of House for Slytherin since neither Professor Slughorn nor Professor Sinistra wished to continue, a fully licensed Healer for the Hospital Wing, as well as a Mediwizard and a pair of excellent Mind-Healers.”

“Wow.” Harry couldn’t imagine Hogwarts with so many professors. “Who’s teaching NEWT DADA?” He asked her, realising that they might be able to have a decent teacher for the second half of the year.

“Professor Barnaby.” No such luck. “He was peculiarly insistent.” McGonagall added, stirring her tea idly, but looking sharply at Harry. “He seems to have got a real bee in his bonnet about it. I have barely seen him without his lesson plans over this break. Perhaps he felt that, with only two years to teach, he might be able to do the subject justice. As the original professor, even if of only one term, it was hard to deny the request.”

Harry wasn’t any more convinced than McGonagall sounded, but he figured he might as well hope for the best – maybe Barnaby really would be better if they’d made him feel like he had something to prove.

They spoke a little more as McGonagall checked that Harry had been able to complete his holiday homework and confirmed that she would no longer be teaching NEWT Transfiguration, but soon she had preparations for the new term to be getting back to. “The password for the Gryffindor common room is Snargaluff.” She told him on his way out. “I believe Mr Longbottom chose it.”

As he left, Harry considered their conversation and suddenly realised that he’d never told Hecate that people at school were actively trying to kill him. Ah well, it probably wasn’t that important. It was mostly under control.

-

Back in the Gryffindor boys’ dormitory, Harry was at once confronted by a mistake he’d made.

“Meow!” The subject of said mistake yowled at him, glaring at him with affronted green eyes. She’d clearly made a nest of Harry’s pillow in his absence and had shed all over it, likely in some form of revenge.

“Ah.” He said, taking an involuntary step back as Basilissa’s tail twitched threateningly and she bared her little fangs. “I’m sorry?” He really was. Harry hadn’t even thought about the possibility of taking her with him to the Underworld – a decision that he stood by – but he also hadn’t explained why he was abandoning his concerningly intelligent cat to her face. “I had to go to the Underworld. I couldn’t take you with me!”

Basilissa simply glared harder before approaching him slowly, tension coiling through her frame as if she might attack at any moment. She sniffed at him, hissing at whatever it was she smelled on his robes, before walking haughtily back to his bed and proceeding to ignore him.

“She’s been a right menace while you were gone.” Neville said from his bed, making Harry jump. “Clawed up all your sheets until the house elves had to come and replace them. Then went for mine and Seamus’ until we told her you’d be back in a couple of weeks. Dean warded his curtains against her, so she shredded them for good measure too. I think she was worried.”

Harry felt even guiltier. “Hey, I’m sorry, girl.” He said softly, sitting down near her and stroking a finger over her head. “I should have told you that I was going. I won’t leave without telling you again.”

Basilissa didn’t turn around but also didn’t claw at his finger for the presumption of touching her, so Harry hoped that he was maybe going to be forgiven some time this month.

“Hang on, Harry?” Neville asked in surprise, blinking rapidly as if only just registering that Harry was there. “What are you doing back?” He peered up at Harry’s glasses. “And what are you wearing?”

Harry sighed and began his explanation for the first time of what he was sure would be many.

-

After Neville went down for breakfast, Harry found himself at a loss for what to do. He’d finished his preparations for term earlier, and the train wouldn’t arrive until much later, giving him most of the day free. The library didn’t appeal after a night spent working and he was too antsy to sit around in the common room chatting all day, especially as people would be asking questions about his holiday that he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. In the end, it was the want to move that gave Harry his answer – if Apsyrtos was supposed to still be training him, Harry needed to find somewhere that would work for them.

The obvious answer was the Room of Requirement. Apsyrtos, when he saw the space, agreed that it would work for sword training, but told Harry that it wouldn’t do for the running. “You need more distance than a room can provide, however improbably large this one might be.” The ghost declared. “It is also better to practice on uneven ground and inclines. Learning how to dodge roots and branches may make the difference of your life when you are running from a monster.”

Harry sometimes forgot that Apsyrtos, as a legacy demigod, might have had to deal with monsters while he was alive. As Harry had yet to encounter one and was tainted by the smell of his ongoing ascension, the threat of monsters almost didn’t seem real.

“This is your magical school?” Apsyrtos asked with a condescending sniff which showed Harry precisely how little he thought of Hogwarts’ educational value, “If you show me the grounds, I will decide what is best for your training.”

Harry could have dismissed the ghost with the resurrection stone and summoned him again once they were outside, but honestly, he didn’t think of it. Instead, he led Apsyrtos through the halls, occasionally answering the ghost’s questions about the architecture and decorations. Apsyrtos appreciated the suits of armour that stood empty along the corridors but pronounced them difficult to fight effectively in due to their weight, swore violently when a painting suddenly moved, doubted whether the Founders collectively had a scrap of good sense to rub together when he saw the moving staircases, and quietly pretended he wasn’t admiring the tapestries and enchantments that decorated the halls.

“This is a school, you say?” Apsyrtos asked, “It seems more fit for a palace, even if the style of architecture is decidedly odd.”

“Er, yeah.” Harry replied. “It’s kind of a castle, except not for royalty, I guess. I don’t know, they’ve got their own castles.”

“A new ghost?” Harry hadn’t noticed a group of ghosts gathering near them until Nearly Headless Nick spoke. By the way he was sent in front of them, he seemed to have been nominated for his previous acquaintance with Harry.

“Uh, no.” Harry looked between the two ghosts. He was so used to Apsyrtos’ presence and the way that it was absolutely unremarkable in the Underworld, that he hadn’t even considered that a strange ghost might raise some eyebrows in Hogwarts. “I mean, sort of? But also no. I summoned him, so he’ll be around, but he’s not here to stay.”

Nick looked distinctly uncomfortable at the mention of Harry summoning Apsyrtos, no doubt reminded of Harry’s connection to Melinoe coming and taking ghosts away on Halloween. Still, he rallied admirably. “Very well. And what is your name, good sir?” This, he addressed to Apsyrtos, who was taking in Nick’s fancy clothing and portly frame with some degree of judgement.

“I am Prince Apsyrtos of Colchis, son of Aeetes, grandson of Lord Helios and Lady Hecate.” He replied, drawn up with a kind of arrogance Harry rarely saw in him. “And who might you be?”

Nick glanced rapidly from Apsyrtos to Harry a few times, not replying. Harry watched him, confused, before Nick turned back to him. “Well?” He asked urgently, “What did he say?”

“Huh?”

“His spirit has not passed on.” Apsyrtos explained, judgemental eyes on the other ghost. “We are released from mortal incomprehension of other languages in the Underworld. He did not, it seems, speak my tongue in his lifetime, nor learn it during his undeath. Thus, I can understand his words, but he cannot understand mine.”

Harry had never wondered about how the Hogwarts ghosts all seemed to speak modern English and wasn’t sure what to do with the information that they’d seemingly learned it while ghosts. “Um, he is Prince Apsyrtos of Colchis.” He relayed the rest to Sir Nick, realising as he did that, with what he knew of Apsyrtos’ ancestry, he was more divine than human. Still, now wasn’t the time to ask the ghost about it.

Nick straightened himself up, puffing his chest out. “Ah! A royal visitor! Though, I can’t say I remember where Colchis might be. Very good. I am Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, ghost of Gryffindor House.” He looked back to Harry, swallowing visibly. “Will you, ah, will you be summoning many ghosts?”

“No.” Harry replied, to Sir Nick’s visible relief. “Just Apsyrtos. Probably.” He added as an afterthought, thinking that he might not be able to guarantee anything with all the strange events that seemed to dog him through life.

“Good, good, very good. Ah, good day then, good fellows. I’ll let you carry on.”

Harry and Apsyrtos both watched as the Gryffindor house ghost bravely ran away, followed rapidly by the cloud of eavesdropping ghosts who had hung back. Harry had an odd feeling of embarrassment on his behalf.

“The doors out are this way.” Harry said, breaking the silence before it got more awkward, and they continued to the grounds.

Outside, the day was mostly grey and miserable, with the sun trying but only occasionally managing to break through the cloud cover. The ground was covered with half-melted patches of snow that must have fallen a few days ago, and all but the evergreen trees were bare. Still, the vast hills, great lake, and the dark stripe of the Forbidden Forest made an arresting picture, and Harry didn’t notice he’d stopped to look until he realised that Apsyrtos had done the same.

The ghost was staring out with wide eyes, looking at the trees, the ground, the snow, before being drawn back each time to the sky. “It has been so very long since I saw the sun.” Apsyrtos said quietly. “I thought I never would again.”

Harry stood quietly, letting Apsyrtos take in their surroundings and regain his composure.

Eventually, the ghost rallied. “Well then, there is clearly more than enough space out here for you to run. At least twice a week to start with, I’d say. That’ll be enough to- What are those?” He asked, pointing down the hill to where Hagrid was leading the herd of thestrals out of the Forbidden Forest and adding harnesses to their gaunt frames.

“Those are thestrals.” Harry explained. “Magical creatures that can only be seen by those who have seen death.

“Did our King have an affair with the Lord of horses at some point after my death?” Apsyrtos asked, expression aghast. “I would have thought I might have heard of it, but there can surely be no other explanation.”

“I don’t think so.” Harry said, though now, somewhat unwillingly, he too was considering the possibility. “Um, I’m pretty sure they’re natural.” Of course, people would say the same about horses, so that wasn’t much help. “I mean, they’re probably from another pantheon or something.”

That seemed to settle Apsyrtos, and he looked at them with eyes which turned more assessing than horrified. “Of course, of course, a foolish thought. Perhaps this can be a good thing. They are related to death, you say?”

“Yeah, they’re usually seen as bad omens as well.” Harry wondered where Apsyrtos was going with this.

The ghost in question nodded, looking pleased. “Excellent. They seem well-trained.” He said, as he watched Hagrid slip the harnesses on one after the other, checking the thestrals’ hooves over as he did. “Once your swordsmanship is no longer so abysmal, we can devote some of that time to teach you to ride.” His voice was firm, and Harry knew that no amount of protesting would change the prince’s mind, too used to having his orders followed in life, and now given charge of Harry’s training in death.

“I’ve ridden one before.” Harry supplied, not actually too unhappy about the idea. There was something thrilling about flying that he didn’t think he’d ever get over. “And a hippogriff.”

Apsyrtos looked pleasantly surprised in a way that was almost insulting. “Good! Then-” His words cut out as the sun came out from clouds overhead, bathing them in heat that felt almost burning, even as the logical part of Harry’s mind knew that it was only weak winter sunlight. Apsyrtos’ form flickered, so much fainter in the sunlight that he was barely visible. The clouds moved again, and he solidified, an expression on his face that Harry was sure he wasn’t meant to see.

“Perhaps, we had better train during the night.” Apsyrtos spoke quietly, enthusiasm drained from his tone. “It is harder to maintain my form in the Overworld, even with the help of your ring. If you would allow me to rest until then?” He requested, and Harry let him go quickly.

He wondered what kind of grief it must be for a legacy of the sun titan, who shone like gold in his looks and armour, to wilt underneath the rays of the sun as a ghost.

He wondered what it meant for him, when the sun seemed to burn his eyes and his skin after only two weeks in the Underworld.

Harry went back to the Room of Requirement and ran through his sword drills on his own, determinedly not thinking about anything more for the next few hours.

-

“Harry!”

He looked up at the shout, searching through the flood of people entering through the portrait hole and unerringly finding the source. Ron’s lanky frame left him standing a head above most of the crowd, which he used to navigate through them rapidly. Harry stood as he approached and none too soon for as soon as Ron was within distance, he wrapped Harry up in bear hug. It was warm and tight and settled Harry back in the real world in a way that nothing else had managed.

“Christmas was so weird without you, mate. I’ve got all your gifts in my trunk and strict instructions from Mum to give you the food she saved for you.” Ron prattled on at a rapid pace, telling Harry all the messages that people had wanted to pass on to him, but his eyes were sharp, scanning over Harry as if looking for injuries, lingering over the darkened glasses.

“Harry!” A second cry sounded and soon he was almost knocked over by a flying projectile called Hermione. “We missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.” Harry responded, even though simple words could never sum up how badly he had longed for his friends while in the Underworld, even as he was relieved that they didn’t have to deal with mercurial gods and strange magics. It was the longest they’d been apart in a very long time.

He let out an oomph as another weight collided with his side.

“What?” Ginny said, from where she had latched on to him and Hermione both. “I thought this was the smothering Harry club meeting. He seemed to still have some air left in him, so I figured you two needed some help.” She squeezed around his ribs until he spluttered, before releasing him with a mischievous grin. “Alright, Harry? Good to see we still have our Seeker.”

Somehow, they ended up on one of the sofas near the fire, Harry squished between his friends as they told him about the baby dragon that had imprinted on Charlie like a duckling and refused to be parted with him, and the unholy fury that was Mrs Weasley upon unexpectedly hosting a baby dragon for Christmas lunch. In the middle of the common room, they didn’t ask Harry about his time in the Underworld and Harry had to admit his relief. Just for tonight, he could be normal. Tomorrow, he’d answer all their questions about the Underworld and seek his own answers about the ongoing investigations into his attackers. Tomorrow.

Chapter Text

“It sounds beautiful.” Hermione said, voice hushed as they whispered together in the Astronomy Tower. There was no real need to whisper, since it was late morning and there were no classes on Sunday to be missing, but something about the conversation invited whispering.

“It sounds terrifying.” Ron corrected, “I mean, alright, that tree and everything sounds nice, but the fire river and barmy gods?” He gave a theatrical shudder. “She – the flower lady – just showed you her poison garden and then started a picnic?”

Harry nodded. “Probably best not to call them ‘barmy’ though.” He said, though didn’t disagree with the sentiment. “Never know who’s listening, even if these should stop most of them.” He indicated his wrists, where the almost-black metal looped around them. The jewellery seemed much darker in the light of the Overworld, with only hints of warm bronze and the jewel tones of the petrified wood peeking through.

“Right useful that is.” Ron looked appreciatively at them. Harry knew that the idea of interacting with any gods unnerved him a lot more than it did Hermione. “How do you take them off though?”

“Er.” It hadn’t yet occurred to Harry to try. He was so used to wearing his warded bracelets that he’d never considered taking them off, only sent a quick waterproofing charm at them in the shower. “I don’t know.” He tugged uselessly at the coiled snake, trying to see if it joined or unwound somewhere. “Magic, I guess.”

“You said a lot of the Mist magic you learned was based on simply asking the Mist for what you wanted, yes?” Hermione checked, humming pensively when Harry nodded. “Well, have you considered that divine magic might be similar? You could try asking the cuffs to come off.” Her eyes were bright and curious, and Harry knew that there was no escaping without several rounds of experimentation.

“Ok, er, off?” Harry directed his attention at the coiled snake cuff. For a moment, he thought that nothing would happen, until the snake’s coils suddenly loosened, and it slid into his palm like a live snake – making Ron jump and skid backwards – before circling back into a solid bracelet in his hand. “On.” He tried, and it slithered in the reverse. “Huh. That’s useful.”

“Now show us an illusion!” Hermione demanded, almost bouncing in her seat with fascinated enthusiasm.

Harry grinned back at her, taking no offence, and clicked his fingers. An apple, his go to form, landed in his hand and he passed it over to her. Hermione held it, lifting it up to look closely, and performing a number of detection charms on it that Harry recognised, and a load of further ones that he didn’t.

“That’s so interesting!” She sliced the apple open with a flick of her wand. “Even on the inside, it’s returning all the correct results! If I hadn’t seen you make it, I wouldn’t have been able to tell at all that it’s not real.”

Ron, after shrugging to himself, stole one half from her hand and bit into it. “Tastes right too.”

“Ronald!” Hermione protested, rounding on him, “You don’t eat unknown magic!”

“It’s not unknown!” He argued back. “It’s Harry’s weird Mist thing.”

Harry snickered before they could digress further into their infamous bickering. “It’s fine. Shouldn’t do anything, it just won’t feed you.”

“Speaking of which,” the full force of Hermione’s attention was back on him again, “how did the food last in the Underworld? You didn’t mention.”

“Ah. Rotted immediately. Sort of.” Harry replied, nose scrunching as he thought back to the mess he’d found in the container in his trunk, “No mould or anything, it was just kind of… fossilised.”

“So, what did you eat?” Ron asked, aghast.

“Ambrosia and nectar. It’s actually pretty filling, and I didn’t have any of the, you know, burning up from the inside out with too much of it that apparently other demigods get.” Harry shrugged, “Tastes like your favourite food, so basically treacle tart every day.”

“You and treacle tart.” Ron shook his head, pretending to be disappointed. “Did you bring any back?”

“Er, no.” Harry realised. “Probably should have done. It was great for healing quickly after training.”

“Then what have you been eating?” Hermione asked, stern. “You weren’t at breakfast this morning or dinner last night, and Neville said he didn’t see you for breakfast or lunch yesterday.”

That… was a very good point. Harry hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding out until he was hungry again for a meal of ambrosia that he wouldn’t be getting.

“Harry James Potter!” Hermione read the answer in his expression, “The kitchens, now!”

He turned for help from Ron, but he was standing up even faster than Hermione, pulling on Harry’s arm. “Off we go. Can’t have you starving because you forgot that us mere mortals have to eat.”

Harry laughed as their scoldings got increasingly silly and light-hearted, but internally he couldn’t help but wonder how long he would have gone without remembering he needed to eat real food again. It made something in his stomach clench which certainly wasn’t hunger. The stew they got from the kitchens was good and filling, and a pleasant change from weeks of treacle tart, but oddly hollow without the rush of energy that came from divine foods. Harry resolved to ignore it and ate another roll.

-

“Welcome back, welcome back.” Slughorn clapped his hands together and looked around his NEWT Potions class with a beaming smile. “I marked your end of term assignments over the holidays, and I must say that I’m very pleased with how well you all performed.” He flicked his wand and parchments moved from a pile of his desk to each respective student. Harry looked curiously down at his and saw a big EE in Slughorn’s stylised calligraphy.

“Before we move on to our agenda for the term, there are a few – just a very few – common errors that I wish to go over.” Slughorn directed his chalk to write on the board, “Now then, if you see here on the alchemical chart, the properties of ingredients harvested in the half-moon in its waxing or waning cycle aren’t opposite but rather…”

Harry settled into his first class easier than he’d even imagined, Slughorn’s voice washing over him as the familiar sights and smells of the dungeons lulled him back into the mindset of notetaking.

-

The professors hadn’t been exaggerating when they’d said that they’d be stepping up the homework for the second term. The new Transfiguration professor, Professor Connelly, had assigned their first essay in the same breath that he introduced himself, announcing that he’d get to know them through their grasp of preserving charm effects throughout the transfiguration process. He seemed to be cut from the same no-nonsense cloth as McGonagall, which made for a surprisingly consistent classroom atmosphere. Likewise, Professor Sprout, who was usually the most laidback of their teachers, had announced that this term would be dedicated to quantity of plants and growing environments rather than a long project like last term. It was only the first day, and Harry could already see his free time dwindling.

Tuesday brought the biggest surprise. Professor Barnaby had started the class without any waffling and marched them through increasingly difficult detection charms like the headmistress was in the room with them waiting for a reason to sack him. When he knew what he was talking about – and he’d clearly done his reading – Barnaby was a surprisingly decent teacher, though Harry had no idea what urgency was prompting him to get his act together. The sudden intensity of the professor made Harry uneasy, wondering what threat he was missing that the professor wasn’t, but as the class drew to an end with no obvious explanation, he decided, only half-convincing himself, that perhaps they’d simply managed to hurt their professor’s pride with the DA.

“Ah, Mr Potter, a word if you would?” Professor Barnaby called, as Harry was packing up his things to leave.

“Er, sure.” Harry made eye contact with Ron and Hermione, before turning to the professor. The two were alert, and Harry knew they’d be waiting for him.

The rest of the class left normally, chatter picking up once they were in the hallway, though the DA members all looked at Ron and Hermione lingering before continuing on. Professor Barnaby glanced at Harry’s friends with what seemed to be a flash of discontent, but didn’t protest them staying. “I heard very odd rumours,” the professor began, “about the way you left Hogwarts this winter. Word among the students was that you rode a giant Grim away from the castle, and that afterwards, nobody could reach you.” He didn’t intone a question, but it was nonetheless clearly implied.

“Right, yes.” Somehow, this conversation wasn’t what Harry had been expecting, and he found himself oddly wrong-footed. “Well, something like that. I, uh, I was fine, just an odd species that can travel long distances.”

Professor Barnaby didn’t seem entirely convinced, which was fair considering that Harry wasn’t sure he’d even managed to convince himself with that one. “Without your friends?” He queried instead, “I was under the impression that they felt the need to follow you everywhere.” He gave a pointed look at where Ron and Hermione stood near him.

Both bristled. “I’m not sure that’s any of your concern, Professor.” Hermione said stiffly, hooking her arm into Harry’s. “Now, unless there is something about the Defence Against the Dark Arts class about which you need to speak to Harry, we need to be getting to Charms.”

The professor reddened slightly, his jaw clenching. “Just making sure that our Mr Potter was safe over the holidays. There are so many terrible people about these days. I heard what happened with that Bulstrode girl.”

“I was fine, Professor.” Harry replied, edging towards the door. “Thanks for asking. We really do need to get to Charms, though.”

“Very well. I’m happy to hear it.” Professor Barnaby said, though he certainly didn’t seem happy.

The three left quickly, and Harry almost sighed in relief as they got into the corridor. Something about that had been very odd.

“D’you reckon he’s still harping on about wanting to protect Harry better?” Ron asked, face still tense and upset. “Just because he’s finally worked out which end of his wand the spells come out doesn’t mean that he’s any better than the rest of us at looking after Harry! Like he could have done any of the things we’ve been through!”

Hermione cut off the rant that Ron was working himself up to by slipping her hand in his, which made Ron stutter on his complaints and turn red, fighting to keep the smile off his face.

“Doesn’t matter.” Ron said a moment later, a great deal calmer. “He can think he’s better than us all he likes – doesn’t make it true.”

“Maybe we might even get some decent Defence classes out of it.” Harry suggested, cautiously optimistic.

Hermione hummed her agreement, though otherwise stayed quiet, eyes fogged with thought.

-

“Harry!”

Harry turned at the shout, from where he’d been setting up targets in the Room of Requirement. These particular ones should move around once released, and he had to quickly catch the one he’d dropped in surprise.

Blaise came running up, followed at a more regular pace by Daphne and Tracey. “We’ve barely seen you since term started! How was your holiday?”

“Er, interesting.” Harry looked around, seeing others entering the Room in preparation for the first DA session of the year. “Tell you what – after the session, I’ll come to your common room. I reckon we have a lot to catch up on.”

“That’s an understatement if ever I heard one.” Daphne said, blond eyebrows raised in a perfectly sardonic look. “And we have some news of our own, regarding Millicent.”

Harry looked between their faces, but none of the three gave anything away about what this kind of information could be. Now he was curious enough that he wanted to postpone the DA meeting starting, but already some members of his group were approaching. “Later, then.”

For now, he had to corral his group of NEWT students into hitting mouse-sized moving targets with variable shields. Even though he was looking forward to the chaos of it, especially in the second half when the targets would suddenly flip into firing stunners back, part of his mind lingered on the promise of new information the whole way through.

-

“Things were interesting over the winter break.” Daphne started, voice hushed even though they were speaking under a muffling charm. “It was harder than normal getting news about what the auror department were up to, but something was definitely wrong with them. I heard, via some friends in the right places, that Headmistress McGonagall kept having to go in there to remind them that Millicent was part of a group, and that there are other members still in Hogwarts.”

“Wait, they weren’t investigating?” Harry asked, shocked.

“They convicted Millicent just fine.” Daphne replied, “But never seemed to get anywhere with looking into the rest. McGonagall reportedly brought that list that Granger made – the one during the quidditch match – to see if it was worth investigating, since Millicent had been one of them. Two days later, they’d forgotten it existed until she asked them about it.”

Harry frowned, “That’s definitely weird. Do you think there’s some kind of curse on the Auror Department?”

“That’s what we speculated.” Blaise jumped in, “I mean, it would make sense, wouldn’t it? If the Dark Lord’s people had left something to stop the aurors from catching them. Though, we couldn’t agree on why it wouldn’t have been taken down when they took over the Ministry.”

“I still say that it’s because they became the Ministry, so accidentally caught themselves in their own curse.” Tracey argued, face more animated than Harry had seen it before. “And then they were under the curse, so couldn’t put the pieces together to remove it.”

“And I say that curse terms don’t work like that!” This was obviously a long-debated subject between Tracey and Blaise. “They’re either too specific or-”

“Enough.” Daphne stopped them both. “You can continue your argument later. Preferably when neither Harry nor I are in the room. The point is, Harry, that we may not be able to rely on the Auror Department to investigate this properly.”

Harry laughed, though there was only dark humour in it. “Just like every other year then.”

“Mm.” Daphne nodded, though she didn’t look pleased about it. “But unlike every other year, you have us.”

“And we know Slytherin much better than any of the aurors do.” Blaise added. “Can’t speak for looking into the other Houses, but if there are more Slytherins involved in this, which seems unfortunately likely, we can be the ones to find them.”

Harry nodded, though wasn’t wholly comforted. It had been nice, for however little he really trusted it, to believe that the aurors might actually do their jobs and catch the people gunning for Harry’s head for once. “I’m guessing someone’s checked on Malfoy and Parkinson?”

“Naturally.” Blaise agreed. “Malfoy’s keeping his head down, which is a nice change. Apparently, the terms of his attendance are pretty strict, and it’s this or house arrest, so self-preservation won out over messing with you. And he was never one for killing anyway.”

Harry had to agree with that.

“Parkinson, on the other hand,” Blaise continued, “would like nothing more than your head stuffed and mounted on her wall, but she’s a coward, and not a particularly bright one at that.”  

“She’s been ranting about how she wished they succeeded, but we don’t think she’s actually involved.” Tracey said. "We've been asking around about the others, though." She added, "The ones who were in that meeting. It's sort of hard, because everyone knows we're your friends, but we know they're from the dark families and the supporters. We just don't know what they're doing in that group."

"We only need one person to slip up though." Daphne said, a sharp smile settling on her face, "And we will be there when they do."

With that particularly ominous statement, and a spark of relief in Harry's heart that he was on their good side, they left behind that conversation for now, until they had more certain information.

-

Harry's eyes adjusted to the light after a few days, much to his relief. As expected, once they knew it wasn't something serious, his housemates hadn't let it slide, asking him about his new fashion statement or mocking him for his days-long hangover. After he made the mistake of showing the curious third years which spell he'd used, he was followed around the castle for half a day by a stream of Gryffindors who'd tinted their glasses dark or, after realising they already knew the spell, with the colour changing charm they'd used on the common room windows. Harry had put up with the giggling group behind him good-naturedly, even when, much to his exasperation, lower years from the other Houses caught on and joined in.

Flitwick, upon coming across them, had not helped matters by laughing heartily and awarding points for excellent charm work and interhouse cooperation. Still, Harry had to admit that he was pleased to see some first to third year Slytherins in the group, laughing along like the children they were. He was pleased, more than anything, that even knowing who he was and what he'd done, they considered him safe enough to tease.

-

By the end of the first week, Basilissa had mostly forgiven him. This had taken many petting sessions, the exile of Harry from his own pillow, and a few snacks begged from the elves, but she was finally letting him leave the dorm without winding so tightly around his legs that Harry was scared to trip with every step. Instead, Harry had the dubious honour of being treated to a cat scarf, who sniffed suspiciously at everything before he picked it up and violently objected to potions ingredients on principle.

Today, Basilissa had found a nice patch of sunlight to lounge in near Harry's table in the library, where Harry had been joined by both his sets of friends, plus Neville and Luna. They'd all wandered their way into the library separately, to make a start on Professor Barnaby's frankly egregious essay on detecting dark curses on areas vs objects, and found themselves all around the same table for the first time.

Daphne and Hermione, as expected, got on like a house on fire once they'd gotten over their initial differences. Ron was discussing the assignment with Tracey, who was shy in larger groups still but was seemingly being brought out of her shell through Ron's easy chatter. Blaise, in a way that shouldn't have surprised Harry as much as it did, seemed to be really enjoying a conversation with Luna about the creatures she and her father liked to search for, with Neville chiming in about the magical plants of each terrain they'd visited. Basilissa's purr echoed through her chest as the sunlight sank into her jet-black fur and Harry, looking around at his mixed group of friends, had to agree.

-

Aside from the mountains of homework being heaped upon them, there had been nothing dramatic yet that term, which made it a surprise when Harry was called to McGonagall's office.

"Mr Potter, good, take a seat." She said, watching him over her cat-eye glasses. "It's nothing bad, don't you worry."

Harry took the seat across from her with some trepidation, not completely assuaged by her words - he was never summoned to this office for nothing.

McGonagall clicked her fingers, and a house elf obliged, a steaming pot of tea appearing with two teacups and a plate of biscuits. "Tea, Potter?"

Harry agreed. After all, it was British custom either side of the Statute of Secrecy to fix any kind of situation with a cup of tea, it would be rude not to. And he could never have too many cups of tea.

"What's this about then, professor?" Harry asked, after they'd both taken a sip of their tea.

McGonagall set her cup down on its saucer. "As you are well aware, we have several new members of staff this term. Among these is our new deputy headmaster, Mr Andrew Morrow, who is coming in as an administrative role. You may not have come across him yet." Here she waited until Harry shook his head, "Yes, well, he's had little contact with the student body as yet. But that is likely to change in the next couple of weeks. Beginning with our final year students and working down, Andrew will be working with our Heads of Houses to deliver career counselling with our students."

McGonagall looked at him with a studying gaze, something which might be sympathy or could be pity seeping in through the edges. "I wished to know if this was something you might be interested in, or whether you wished to be excused, given your circumstances. I understood that it might be a sensitive subject."

Harry didn't know what to think, so clung to his teacup like a lifeline. "Um, I don't know." He tried to get his thoughts together, "I mean, it sounds like a good idea, but I don't know if… how useful it would be to me."

"How long do you have left?" McGonagall asked. She hadn't pried before, hadn't asked anything about his situation that he didn't volunteer himself.

Harry swallowed against the lump that was suddenly blocking his throat, pulse thumping in his ears. "Two years." He told her, voice coming out quieter than he'd meant, but loud enough that he could see when she heard, her lips tightening in something that might have been grief. "If that. They said I'm ascending faster than they thought."

McGonagall nodded, lacing her fingers around her cup. "And I suppose you will be unable to continue an ordinary life afterwards?"

Harry shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I'm trying to set things up right to maybe, but." His voice broke in a way it hadn't for a couple of years, "No, probably not." It felt awful to say, a black pit in his chest as he admitted something he liked to ignore.

"So, likely not looking for a career." McGonagall brought them ruthlessly and mercifully back on topic, "But should you wish to, that would be long enough to pursue a further course of study, perhaps a Mastery. You would do excellently as a Defence Master, if that is something you wish to pursue. Of course, I understand if you would prefer to spend that time with friends and family instead."

"I don't think I want a careers meeting." Harry said, instead of responding to that.

McGonagall took pity on him and simply made a note of that, before pushing the plate of biscuits towards him. He took one. The taste of ginger cut through some of the fog in his head and so he took another.

"Very well, you will not be on the schedule." McGonagall agreed. "Perhaps, Mr Potter, it might do well to talk to your friends about this." She said not unsympathetically, "Hogwarts will always welcome you, but it cannot be your home forever. The world awaits you, and whatever part of it receives you will be very lucky indeed."

Chapter Text

Saturday found Harry beyond the wards, where only the winter flowers bloomed. Snowdrops bowed their white heads in small clumps in the shade of taller shrubs, spots of white amid the sea of brown. It had snowed on Friday, but only a wet kind that melted and refroze overnight into patches of slush and ice. Harry was careful to charm his cloak impervious before he sat down, as the squelching mud would be a pain to get out of the fabric otherwise. A robin, curious, flitted between shrubs to look at him, before deciding that Harry wasn’t doing anything likely to stir up worms and flew away.

January was the coldest of the winter months, but Harry was hardly fazed by the cool air – heating charms were a wonder, and this cold had nothing on the bone-deep freeze of the Underworld. Instead, it was refreshing – a breeze brushing against his face, cool air in his lungs, the smell of earth and plants and decay. They all reminded him he was alive and that the world around him was living too. This was not the Underworld, nor was it the artificially pristine Privet Drive, not even the magic-filled stone of Hogwarts.

It was good to get some time alone. It had been wonderful to see his friends and feel the warm glow of Hogwarts surround him, but eventually the common room began to feel stifling, and the dorm room not much better. Harry had become accustomed to a certain amount of time on his own and felt the loss of it keenly. Inside the castle, it felt like everyone was on top of each other all the time – shared dorms, shared classes, shared mealtimes, shared curfew, shared tables in a shared library, team practices for a sport watched by almost the whole school.

He breathed out and watched the ever-present swirls of Mist shimmer around the edges of the plant life. Outside of the castle, unobserved, Harry took the chance to practice some of the later spells in his Mist magic book. According to Hecate, Harry should now be able to summon a Mistform weapon. Mistforms were rather more complicated than the illusions he’d cast before now. Although these illusions had been able to fool the senses, they were composed of more or less nothing. He didn’t summon the same apple from the Mist, he created a new one each time, and each was nothing but a trick of magic. A Mistform, on the other hand, should be more permanent and more real.

In reading about Mistforms, Harry had begun to understand why they were so much more difficult to cast. Illusions were meant fool an onlooker into believing what the caster wanted them to see; Mistforms were meant to impose themselves upon reality. They were definite and permanent constructs, even up to the point of being a person complete with memories and personality. Harry was nowhere near ready to start summoning a Mistform like that, but Apsyrtos had challenged him to form his own sword, for when he was good enough with a blade to move away from their wooden training ones.

Sighing, Harry shuffled into a more comfortable position and put his hand out ready to start clicking – there was no way that he was getting this right first time, but hopefully, with practice, it wouldn’t take too many weeks.

-

“Hi there, Teddy-bear.” Harry spoke softly to the baby in his arms. He was using Sunday to visit Andromeda and Teddy, having not visited the first couple of weekends because Andromeda had picked up a nasty flu and refused to pass it on to him, and through him, the entire Hogwarts population.

Teddy was babbling happily at his godfather, who he hadn’t seen in weeks, and demonstrated his joy by repeatedly trying to take Harry’s glasses off.

“He’s crawling now.” Andromeda said, voice slightly hoarse from the flu but still audibly proud. “Well, more like slithering around on his stomach, but surprisingly fast with it. He loves his toy unicorn.”

“Is that right, Teddy? Do you like your Christmas present?” Harry asked the baby, who paused to think before babbling back incomprehensibly with some kind of answer.

“Well,” Andromeda said, smiling over her teacup, “he certainly likes trying to eat it, at least.” She nodded her head at a floppy stuffed unicorn on the table, which was already looking a little worse for wear. Flicking her wand, she levitated it towards Harry and immediately Teddy lit up, turning from Harry with arms outstretched towards it.

Harry placed Teddy down on his blanket and caught the unicorn from the air, bringing it to where Teddy was sitting. Rapidly, one of the unicorn’s legs was in Teddy’s mouth.

“Don’t worry.” Andromeda said, as Harry wondered if he should fish the poor toy’s leg out, “I’ve charmed that toy to Scotland and back. No risk of tearing, choking, or dirt.”

“Okay.” Harry stroked his hand through Teddy’s navy-blue hair, before leaving the boy to his gleeful munching. He sat back across from Andromeda, in the armchair that had slowly become his during their visits. “How are you feeling now?” He’d been concerned to hear that she was ill, especially since she was now alone except for Teddy.

“Pish, never you mind that, I’m quite fine.” Andromeda scoffed, with great exasperation which suggested that perhaps Harry hadn’t been the only person checking on her health. “It was just a cold.”

Harry knew that the healer she’d seen had declared it the yearly flu, rather than just a cold, as that was the reason she’d refused his visit, but didn’t push her on it. Some arguments just weren’t worth having.

“Now, tell me everything that happened for you, and I’ll catch you up on what’s been happening here.” Andromeda said, and Harry settled himself in for an excellent gossiping session.

-

“Ah, Mr Potter.” Professor Sprout greeted him at the doorway of Greenhouse Seven before their Monday afternoon class began. “A word, please. Nothing bad.”

Somehow, being told that it wasn’t anything bad didn’t manage to assuage the dread Harry always felt upon being pulled aside by a professor. Still, he let the rest of his classmates troop inwards, while he hung back with Professor Sprout.

The witch glanced around to make sure that no one was lagging behind, each tilt of her wide-brimmed hat sprinkling off soil which had become lodged there. The soil brought Harry’s eyes to where a leaf was stuck into the crumpled cone of the battered, brown hat, and Harry wondered, mostly against his will, whether it had fallen off or if something was growing up there.

“Minerva asked me to let you know whenever we would be dealing with any blood.” Professor Sprout said, her cheery voice lowered. “We’re starting on carnivorous carnations today, and I usually ask students to donate a little blood to their plant, to see how their carnations react to magical blood, but your condition means that that is likely a very bad idea indeed.”

Harry nodded. He wasn’t sure what these carnivorous carnations did, but if they had a noteworthy response to magical blood, he didn’t want to see what they did with the blood of an ascending godling.

“Now, I don’t want you to feel left out or to make a spectacle of you not participating, so I’m going to choose your plant to do the first demonstration myself.” Professor Sprout looked genuinely worried that he might be upset about not being able to join in, but Harry was more relieved that there wouldn’t be any potential disaster plants. “Otherwise, be careful to stand clear of the pots, because if they can get a nibble, they will.”

Harry agreed and headed into the greenhouse, finding his place along the long bench in the middle, with Ron and Hermione on either side and Neville across from them. At the sides of the room, were many pots of innocent looking flowers. These were white at the base of the petals and rimmed with red, with many layers of petals forming the crown of the flower. They had an odd, spicy scent which filled the whole greenhouse. Harry eyed them suspiciously.

“Good afternoon, class!” Professor Sprout called out as she came through the door. “Today, we’re starting our segment on carnivorous plants of the Mediterranean. I hope you’ve done your reading for last week, because we’re finished with reverse-seasonal plants and those always seem to come up on the NEWT exam. Now…”

Professor Sprout led them through the theory part of the lesson, introducing the carnivorous carnations, their native habitat, blooming cycle, and preferred diet. “They’ll eat just about anything.” She started, “But their favourite is always magical blood. Their greatest strength is in their ability to hide, and many an unwary witch or wizard has lost a hand or foot to their voracious appetite.”

Ron was starting to look a little green, but Neville, across from them was watching the plants with shining eyes, almost starstruck. “This looks like the Croatian cultivar!” He whispered over the table, catching Harry’s look. “They’re renowned for being extra vicious, and for being the best at hiding!”

“Right you are, Longbottom!” Professor Sprout continued cheerily, as if Neville had meant to announce that to the whole class. “Five points to Gryffindor for an excellent eye.”

Neville flushed, face pleased.

“As Mr Longbottom said, this is a particular variety of carnivorous carnation, which conceals itself expertly from the uninformed.” Professor Sprout took a pot from behind Harry and turned to the central table. “Move up a little, Potter.”

Harry gladly moved down closer to Ron and away from the dangerous plant.  

Sprout took something out from her pocket. It was a vial, and Harry would have known it was blood even without the iron smell that filled the air as she uncorked it. “This is pig’s blood.” She announced to the room. “If I do this…” she dribbled the blood over the flowers and into the soil. “Nothing.” The flowers sat unmoved. “If, however, I use a little of my own…” She pulled out a second vial with only a little bit of red liquid in and poured it out.

Immediately, the plant exploded into action, stems snaring out like tentacles towards her arm, coiling and grasping, becoming furious as the professor deftly evaded them. Worse was the strange buzzing sound coming from all over, and Harry tracked it to the flowerheads, where the petals blurred, spinning in their layers in many opposing directions like the world’s most horrifying blender.

“As you see,” Professor Sprout continued, speaking up over the awful whirring, “the petals are deceptively sharp, and will reduce anything that comes too close to a purée.”

A few more moments passed, while the class stared at the writhing plant, before dejected, the carnations settled back into their imitation of a harmless flower.

“There have been initiatives for centuries now to mark out patches of carnivorous carnations around their Mediterranean habitat.” Sprout continued, as if nothing had happened. “They’re cultivated for their uses in potions still, but most countries ask you to alert their aurors or equivalent should you come across an unmarked patch in the wild. The indicators usually look something like this.” She showed them all a series of placards, rimmed in glowing red and displaying what looked to be a human bleeding out over a patch of vaguely eldritch flowers.

“Now,” Sprout smiled cheerily at the room, “it’s your turn. Put on your dragonhide gloves and grab a pot each, very, very carefully. Once everyone has one, I’ll take you through their identifying traits, before you can all give the blood test a go.”

The class cast each other looks, but they were all in NEWT Herbology and had been dealing with deadly plants all last term, so quickly, everyone was up and taking a pot. Sprout shunted the demonstration one slightly in front of Harry, patting his shoulder with her thickly gloved hand.

After her lecture about the leaf shape and markings on the underside of the calyx, Sprout turned the lesson back to the blood reaction. “The blood test is the best way to know for sure if you’re dealing with a carnivorous carnation, rather than a benign variety. Prick your fingers, just a drop, and be ready to jump right back. Stay well out of range until it stops moving at all.”

They were all standing by now, and Professor Sprout nudged Harry out of the way so she could take over his pot again. “Ready? Go.”

There was an explosion of movement around the room as the flowers whirled into action and Harry’s classmates all leapt out of range. They all had a healthy respect for magical plants by now. Red-tipped petals buzzed in furious circles, like delicate rings of chainsaws.

A minute, then two, and finally some of the plants were giving up, coiling reluctantly back into their tubs while others stayed out, lashing backwards and forwards in the hope of capturing their prey.

“There are a lot of theories about why some of these carnations stay out while others retreat.” The professor continued, once about half of the plants had gone quiet. “Some say it’s to do with the strength of the plant, though all of these have been nursed and grown together from the same batch of seeds. Others say that they react to the strength of the magical blood, trying harder to catch a more powerful feast.”

Harry glanced around but couldn’t see any particular rhyme or reason among his classmates. Neville’s was still thrashing, as was Hannah Abbot’s, while Hermione and Ron were sitting before still flowers.

“It was fashionable, a few centuries back, to test young children’s blood on carnivorous carnations to see whether they were squibs.” Professor Sprout continued her lecture, “Poppycock, of course. It was notoriously unreliable, but there is a distinct preference for magical blood above muggle, and human blood over that of magical creatures.”

The lecture continued and Harry relaxed a little into his seat – it had gone fine; not even Hermione and Ron had noticed that Sprout had done his for him, and the flowers hadn’t gotten anywhere near him. Relieved, he began to make notes on the species’ preferred soil conditions as Sprout continued speaking, and how countries had historically used this to prevent their growth in muggle regions. The note-taking portion of the lesson continued until the end of class, not too long after.

“That was incredible!” Neville exclaimed, as they made their way towards the greenhouse exit. “I’ve never seen one in person. Gran absolutely refused to have one on the grounds!”

“Your Gran was quite right, Longbottom.” Professor Sprout commented, before any of them could reply. “They can spread awfully quickly and then removing them is a headache. It only takes one mistake to lose a limb.” The professor was behind her desk near the front, close to the door. “Longbottom, I was wondering if you’d like to stay a little longer to help me re-pot the tangling tansies. They’re getting a bit big-”

The rest of what she had to say was cut off by a commotion at the door. As they would find out later, a mouse had run over Justin Finch-Fletchley’s foot, which had startled him into yelping. His yelp had alarmed Susan Bones, who’d spun to see the problem, and her bag had caught on Dean Thomas, which had tripped him up. Seamus and Ron had both tried to catch Dean, but collided with each other, sending Seamus and Dean onto the ground and Ron onto the table. The table had tilted, spilling a few of the tubs onto the floor, and Seamus’ leg had swiped Hermione’s ankle. She’d reached for Harry, but accidentally whacked him hard on the nose, and as he tried to help her up, something wet and suspiciously red dripped out of his nose, right onto a slightly banged up carnation.

“BACK!” Sprout yelled, before anyone else had even had a chance to react or pick themselves up from the knot of limbs on the floor. “EVERYONE OUT!”

Her urgency rapidly made sense as the pot of carnations swelled in size. Ron moved first, pushing himself off the table with one arm while he pulled the other back from a whirring flowerhead, and shoved the group forward with no delicacy, getting everyone outside through sheer force and long arm-span.

“Weasley, what?!” Various indignant shouts were cut off as through the doorway, everyone could see Professor Sprout facing down carnations well over a metre tall.

The heads had swollen to triple their size, frilly petals shining like teeth as the plant made vicious attacks at the professor with darting heads and spiralling stems. She whacked any that got too close with a large set of shears, before seeming to give up on the peaceful option, and opened the shears to give the carnations a pre-emptive deadhead. Red sap spilled from the cut ends, making it a grisly scene, but the pot of carnations didn’t give up until they had lost every single head. Then, the plant wilted, red-trailing stems sinking back and blackening until they fell limp to the soil like a week-dead plant.

Sprout was breathing hard, her curly hair in even greater disarray than normal, under her sideways-tilted hat. “I think that will be a sheet of parchment from everyone about proper safety in moving around the greenhouse.” She declared, uncharacteristically annoyed. “I’ll be speaking to your Heads of Houses.” For that, she looked to Harry in particular, and her face softened a little, turning into something more like concern.

Even if his classmates had missed it, Harry knew that Sprout had seen that it was his blood that caused this problem. He wasn’t sure how much McGonagall had told the other Heads of Houses about his condition, but it was clear, at least to Professor Sprout, that there was something very wrong with Harry indeed, beyond a little blood magic sensitivity.

“Potter, see Madam Pomphrey for that nose.” She concluded. “It looks broken. Finnegan, Thomas, and Weasley too for those scrapes. Now off with you all – I have a greenhouse to put back to rights.”

Now the adrenaline had faded, Harry’s nose was very sore indeed, so he was happy to skip the group of chattering classmates to get to the Hospital Wing. Neither Ron nor Hermione said anything more than commenting on what an unlikely accident that whole affair had been, but from their questing glances, Harry knew that they’d also put together what happened. He didn’t want to talk about it, so they didn’t, but it hung in the air between them the whole way through the castle.

-

“I don’t think she’d react badly, Harry.” Hermione tried to reassure him. They were sat in the Room of Requirement, which had formed a small room with a big fireplace and three enormous beanbags. “Professor Sprout is just worried about you.”

“I know.” Harry replied, though it was half-hearted at best.

He’d received a message from the headmistress not long after he’d visited the hospital wing, saying that Professor Sprout had visited her after fixing up her greenhouse, out of concern for both whatever was going on with Harry himself and for the potential consequences on the more bloodthirsty plants of the term. Professor McGonagall had left it up to Harry to decide whether he wanted to explain anything to Professor Sprout, but had staunchly reaffirmed that he didn’t need to say anything he didn’t want to. The professors needed to know that he had some blood magic sensitivity for safety reasons, but they weren’t owed any explanations on why. If Harry didn’t want the professor to know about his history with blood magic nor his upcoming ascension – the divine power of which they’d decided was almost certainly the cause of the rampaging carnations – McGonagall would support him all the way.

“And basically everyone already knows. She’s probably already heard the rumours, even if she didn’t believe them.” Ron pointed out, sprawling out on his bright orange beanbag.

“I know.” Harry repeated. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure why he was hesitating on this. He hadn’t had nearly so much trouble telling his new Slytherin friends about his upcoming ascension, nor, through them, the rest of the school, but there was something difficult about telling his professor of seven years. If he really thought about it, it was probably that he didn’t want to face the possibility of her disbelief. “What am I supposed to say though: oops, I’m losing my mortality, and my blood is turning to ichor – sorry about the plants?”

“Harry,” Ron started, and his gaze was unusually fixed and sharp, habitual fidgeting stilled, “has anyone actually not believed you yet?”

“Huh?” Harry was jolted out of his spiralling thoughts.

Ron sat up properly. “I mean it – has anyone not believed you? I mean, me, Hermione, the family, we were always going to believe you because you’re Harry, but everyone else? Your Slytherin friends believed you, the lower years certainly do. There are people who sacrifice part of their meals to you in the Great Hall, and others who are trying to kill you before you become a proper god. They all thought you were special before, as the Chosen One; they already pretty much worshipped you after you beat Voldemort, or, you know, cursed your name. But if you think people can’t tell that you’re something more now, and are still growing, you’re dead wrong.”

Harry stopped for a minute, wracking his memory, trying to find anything that refuted that. “They can all tell? Even if I don’t say anything?”

“It’s…” Hermione cut herself off, looking frustrated at her uncharacteristic struggle for words. “You know how people look up to their heroes, but then they meet them up close and see they’re just human? Like Lockhart or even… even Professor Dumbledore. You’re not like that. I mean, of course, you act like the rest of us most of the time, but your magic carries so much weight that we feel it when you walk into the room.” Her voice became heated as she sped up. “The ghosts run away from you; the flowers in the Hall crane towards you when you pass by; you cast a soul magic protection over every one of the Hogwarts defenders and students that works still and affects people every single day. You survived the killing curse again, this time coming back from the dead like a risen saviour. You rode off for the holidays on the back of a giant hellhound.”

“Grim.” Ron interjected, making Hermione roll her eyes. “Most people think it was the Grim.”

“Harry,” Hermione’s voice was insistent, “even if you’d said nothing at all, people would know. You already had a base of followers; they already believed in you being something superhuman – telling them just gave them the right direction.”

Harry was quiet as he thought this over. Aside from his friends, and the lower years who liked to try testing him by dumping bits of food in the braziers, everyone else had been remarkably quiet about his ongoing ascension to a spirit or, hopefully, god. There hadn’t been anything like the rush of disbelief and scorn for his arrogance that he’d expected. This was because… they thought it made sense? “Have people been talking about this? About me?” Harry asked, a bit hoarse.

“Of course.” Ron replied, leaning back and crossing his arms. “They hardly ever stop.”

“Then why haven’t I heard anything?” Harry asked, confused.

Hermione sighed. “Because we asked them not to bother you too much about it, while you’re still adjusting to the idea of it.”

Harry wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “And they just listened to you? All of them?”

Here, Ron grinned. “Sure did. Side benefit of being Harry Potter’s best friends. They all listen to us about how sacrifices work, what you stand for, and stories about what you’ve done and everything. In return, they don’t bug you all the time about that kind of thing, and treat you like a person instead, because that’s how you want to be treated.” Ron shrugged, “I think some of them are still too nervous to approach you anyway, but a lot of people just respect that you want to be Harry while at school, not Harry-the-almost-a-god.”

Harry’s mind felt like it was scrambled as he went back over all the interactions that he’d had with Hogwarts students over the past term and a bit. He’d grown almost immune to the constant staring – mixed curiosity, hero-worship, and hatred – so much so that he hadn’t even noticed when a large number of them changed to something more positive. The sacrifices at meals (which he couldn’t fool himself were still a test, not after this long), the almost perfect attendance of the DA, the lower years that copied him… Even the increasing desperation of the attacks against him, they all painted a baffling image.

“Hang on.” Harry blinked rapidly, the strange but persuasive thought crystallising in his head. “The storytelling, the sacrifices… Ron, Hermione, have you been trying to start a cult about me?”

Hermione flushed darkly, “Well, you see…”

“Yes.” Ron replied, bold and unapologetic, “And I think we’re doing pretty well at it.”

Chapter Text

Harry looked between his best friends' faces, as if staring longer would produce a different answer. "Why?" He asked them, before immediately thinking better of it. After all, he had managed to come to his own conclusion that his following among the magical population of Britain and the student body in particular would support him gaining divine power and proper godhood. Hermione, who had read the same books as him long before he had, and likely more thoroughly, was bound to have come to the same answer. "No, wait, when? And with who?"

"Well, you're quite busy, Harry." Hermione said, and Ron nodded his agreement. "We are too of course, but you spend much of your weekends in the Hospital for Wing, out beyond the wards, or visiting Andromeda Tonks and Teddy. Add in the time you're in the Slytherin common room, and quidditch practices for me-"

"Which is a fair amount, even with Ginny being captain." Ron interjected.

"It adds up, is the point." Hermione continued as if Ron hadn't spoken. "We spend a fair amount of time around other people when you aren't there. It's not a problem." She quickly added. "We're not feeling neglected or anything, just there is time when we're not around you."

"Right." Harry thought over the previous term, realising quite how much time he'd spent away from his friends. "Okay, I get that bit now, but how did this even start?"

"Well, mate, it was like this..."

--

Hermione had been acting odd ever since Sunday lunch at the Burrow. Ron had decided to give her time to work through whatever was going on in her head, not wanting to push, but it had been almost a week now and she was currently stirring salt into her tea absentmindedly whilst staring blankly at the kitchen cupboards. It was time to intervene.

"What's bothering you?" Ron asked. He'd been running through ways to bring up her preoccupation more tactfully in his head, but nothing had seemed good enough and he was self-aware enough to know that tact wasn't always his strong suit.

"Hm?" Hermione startled, blinking slightly dazed brown eyes at him like she hadn't noticed him coming in. She probably hadn't. "Oh, nothing. Well, something. Just," she chewed on her lip for a moment, "I was thinking about what Fleur said at that lunch."

This didn't clear things up for Ron, who remembered Fleur saying many things.

His confusion must have shown because Hermione clarified: "About magical Britain essentially counting as Harry's followers. She's not wrong. And it got me thinking about what might happen to Harry."

Ron leant back against the counter, inviting her to continue with a raised eyebrow.

"If I'm right about what I read in Harry's books-"

"Which you probably are, as always." Ron couldn't help but add with a grin.

"If I'm right," Hermione rolled her eyes at him, but her irritation was belied by the small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Then apotheosis is a little bit more complicated than simply immortality."

"And for those of us who speak normal English, what's apothy-whatsit?"

"Becoming a god."

"Oh right. Why didn't you just say so?" Ron fought hard to smother his smirk, but knew he failed when she turned a quelling look on him. Teasing Hermione was just so fun and she made it so easy.

"You were saying, becoming a god is complicated? But isn't it already happening?" He dragged the conversation back on topic as his peace offering.

"Sort of." Hermione replied. "He's becoming immortal, but not every immortal is a god. Or at least, they're such minor gods, that they're not really counted as gods but spirits."

"What's the difference?" Ron asked.

Hermione frowned. "Power, it seems like, and how tied they are to a particular place. But it seems to vary so greatly. I've been trying to wrap my head around it. One nymph might be the Queen of the Seas, another might live in a pond; one mortal is made immortal as a god with the power to turn others immortal through his chalice, while another is immortal but subject to old age and turns into a grasshopper."

"A grasshopper?" Ron asked with interest. "Poor bloke. You'd at least want to be something more fun."

"Mm." Hermione agreed. "But it could be worse."

Ron found himself wanting to ask what the worse options were but reluctantly figured that was a conversation for another time.

"Anyway," Hermione continued. "I looked for others who had become gods, and it still varies so much. For demigods, one invented wine and is considered one of the twelve Olympians; another was made a god upon his death after completing his Labours, but you don't hear much about him as a god rather than a hero. They both have the same god as father and the second arguably enjoyed more fame than the former, but the former is vastly more powerful. So, then I tried looking into Harry's half-siblings to try and find a pattern there, and there are some but they're immortals - sorceresses or monsters really - not gods."

Hermione was getting visibly wound up by this point, so Ron steered her back on topic. "And so, what does that have to do with what Fleur said?"

"Well, what she said made me think - what if the difference is worship? The Queen of the Seas was a nymph to start with but then gained power after being worshipped as the Queen; the wine god had one of the most well-known cults, while Heracles, the hero, was well-known for his deeds, but not worshipped for them, at least that I know of."

"And what does this mean for Harry?" Ron could feel the outline of the idea coming together on his own, but he wanted to be sure that he and Hermione were thinking the same thing.

"Right now, he's a celebrity." Hermione said, "But Fleur is right that he is also a saviour. There's a fine line, I think, between hero worship and viewing them as something greater than the average person. I don't think he's realised it yet, how much many people look up to him, but I've seen, and I think you've seen, that it wouldn't be too hard to maybe push them over that line."

Ron considered that for a moment. "You know he wouldn't want that though." He said, instead of disagreeing. He too had seen the awe and near reverence with which some people regarded Harry. Harry himself may be wilfully blind to it, but his friends, his protectors, couldn't afford to be. It was discomforting to witness - the sheer intensity of their admiration for Harry without any regard for who he actually was as a person had long stripped Ron of any jealousy for Harry's fame which he hadn't already managed to root out himself.

"I know."

They shared a long look, Hermione conflicted and Ron questioning until she broke and said, "But I think it might be the best way. The more powerful the god, the freer they are to do what they like. Harry won't admit how terrified he is that he won't be able to come home or that he'll change too much to have a place here."

"He'll always have a place here." Ron blurted out, voice hard, unable to keep the thought contained.

Hermione sent him a soft look. "Of course he will. But we can't do anything about someone else, someone much more powerful keeping him away, unless..."

"Unless he's powerful too." Ron nodded, completing the sentence. "So, what do you want to do about it?"

Hermione dug a hand into her hair, which snagged almost immediately. "I don't know. Right now, I don't think Harry's in the right place to hear any of this."

She looked to him in question, and Ron nodded his agreement.

"So, maybe we don't have to do anything now. But perhaps in the future, we could consider..." She trailed off.

"Persuading the general public that they should worship Harry as a god so he can't disappear on us?"

Hermione snorted. "It sounds bad when you put it like that."

Ron grinned. "Well, we've already robbed Gringotts, rode a dragon, broke into the Ministry more than once, and killed a dark lord with him. We might as well start a cult at this point."

"It's not a cult!" Hermione's statement was half swallowed by her giggling.

"Not yet it isn’t." Ron replied, raising his eyebrows in a teasing look.

She shook her head, still smiling. "But yes, maybe in the future, if Harry decides to tell people what's happening, we could maybe move things in the right direction."

"Which is a cult." Ron clarified, for the joy of hearing Hermione laugh again. He always thought Hermione was pretty - ever since hormones kicked in and he dug his head out of his arse - but when she laughed like no one was watching, he thought she was beautiful.

"Honestly, Ronald." She responded, eyes bright. Whatever else she might have said was interrupted by her taking a sip of her tea and immediately spitting it back out with a horrified expression.

They didn't discuss it more, caught up in the laughter that had come so infrequently since the war, but the topic rested at the back of Ron's mind as he knew, without a shred of doubt, that they would do whatever it took to bring their best friend home.

--

"You were planning this back in summer?!" Harry asked, wondering how on earth he'd missed all this.

"Not planning, really." Ron replied with a shrug. "It just came up as an option."

Harry shook his head, still too shocked to know what he was feeling about this. "So, what made you start this...cult?" Now that he knew it actually existed, it was hard to make himself even say the word.

Ron and Hermione looked at each other.

"I think it began with the prefects' meeting on the train." Hermione said eventually. "We told everyone what happened during the battle and during Voldemort’s regime, and asked everyone to spread the story so we could stop the worst of the misinformation. The other prefects helped, but a lot of people still had questions."

"And none of them had the guts to track you down and ask you themselves." Ron added.

"Neville handled a lot of that." Hermione told Harry, to his surprise. "And he was very clear with everyone that no one was to give you any problems about it."

"He was a bit scary actually." Ron said, grinning at the memory of it, "Hilarious to watch at some points. Stared them down until they either listened or buggered off. The only one who was too stubborn to back off was Dennis."

They all grimaced at the memory.

"Anyway," Hermione continued quickly, "the prefects mostly handled it, but sometimes they didn't know the details themselves, so they sent anyone with questions to us. And once it was clear that we were open to answering questions..."

"They started asking more questions." Ron finished for her. "Did you know that no one had any clue what we were up to half the time?" He asked Harry, "Mad to think it, but most of them didn't even know that there was a bloody basilisk under the school."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I found out from the Slytherins."

"Huh. Well, once people found out that us getting house points at the end of the year wasn't just Dumbledore being a barmy old codger and playing favourites, I think they started liking us a bit more." Ron scratched his nose. "I guess without knowing why it kind of left a bad impression. And then you told the Slytherins about dying in the Forest and your protection over everyone, and that got out like fiendfyre, so we had to confirm that too."

"It's a fascinating piece of magic, Harry." Hermione commented. "But more importantly, it's easily demonstrable. Suddenly, the whole school had proof that you had protected them with your life. It's not a small thing to be aware of. It also kicked off questions about how you had come back to life again, which we couldn't answer without mentioning the horcruxes or your ascension. Your sacrificial protection, coming back to life, and defeating Voldemort... they all added up to a very distinct image of you as a saviour beyond normal human limits."

"Even with magic, some things aren't possible for wizards." Ron said. "Of course, we've known you were abnormal from the day we met you, but-"

Harry cut Ron off by trying to kick him in the shin, but his beanbag was deep and he couldn't get the leverage without sinking back into it again, so he mainly flailed a foot in his friend's direction.

"Boys." Hermione stopped them from an all-out kicking war with a sigh that pretended to be aggrieved. "Anyway, the real moment of change was when you told your Slytherin friends that you were becoming a god..."

--

Hermione wasn't the first to find out that Harry had gone public about his growing divinity. She wasn't the second, the third, or even in the top fifty.

"Is Potter dying?!"

The question snapped Hermione out of her Arithmancy homework and straight to Anne-Marie, one of the fifth-year prefects, who was now hovering anxiously beside Hermione’s table in the common room.

“What?” Hermione asked, far sharper than she’d intended to be. She took a breath and tried to moderate her tone. “What do you mean? Where did you hear that?” If she found out that Harry was off dying in some corner of the castle, she swore that she was never going to let him out of her sight again.

Anne-Marie quailed a little under her tone, a hand coming up to fiddle with her strawberry-blonde plait. “Um, just something people are saying. That something went wrong in the battle and now he’s not fully a wizard and can’t stay here.”

Hermione blew out a breath, relief soaking into her limbs as the panic drained, even while her mind spun with sketches of plans and ideas for how to handle this. “He’s not dying.” She said, trying to reassure Anne-Marie, who was ghostly pale and clearly keyed up with nervous energy.

It seemed to work as the other girl sagged back. “Of course. Just another rumour. I should have known.”

“Where did this come from?” Hermione pressed. It was far too close to the truth for comfort.

“From the Slytherins.” Anne-Marie answered. “Well, originally the Slytherins but I heard from Emma in Ravenclaw, who heard it from Inara in Hufflepuff. I’m not sure who she heard it from, but what they said is that Nott – Theodore Nott – confronted Potter in the Slytherin common room about Potter not coming back from the dead human, whatever that means. They said that Potter confirmed it, and that he’s becoming something else. People were saying he’s a god or demigod or something, but I think that’s just the way rumours are.”

Well, that changed things. If Harry himself had been the one to make it public, then there was no use in Hermione denying it. It looked like the cat was well and truly out of the bag for this one. She allowed herself a moment to consider different options before speaking again. “Harry isn’t dying,” she told Anne-Marie again, “but he is becoming something else. Do you know much about religion in the magical world?”

Anne-Marie shook her head. “I hadn’t thought about it before – is it different to the muggle world?”

Hermione nodded. “It’s apparently a bit more mixed here. Plenty of people believe in what we might consider pagan religions, though it seems to have fallen out of style a bit. In particular, they tend to agree that there is a goddess of magic.” Anne-Marie looked shocked and faintly appalled, but Hermione decided to continue. “As you may have heard, Harry did indeed die in the Battle and come back to life. As a result, he was approached by a goddess of magic, who told him that his death and protection over the rest of Hogwarts had affected his soul so much that he was closer to being one of them than a mortal. So, yes, Harry might not want it, but he is slowly changing to become a god.”

It was the first time Hermione had said it out loud to another person, and the moment was both thrilling and terrifying. She’d answered many questions recently about Harry – many things that others would consider impossible – but she’d never quite feared the response as much as now.

“But he can’t- There are no other Gods.” Anne-Marie shook her head, colour rushing to her face.

“Whether there is a God, a one God, we don’t know.” Hermione replied, seeing the problem, “That’s a matter of personal faith. But these other gods, or spirits, or personifications of concepts formed by magic, whatever you want to call them, they do exist. And the magical world has had enough encounters with them to still remember.”

“I- I can’t.” Anne-Marie ran off, and Hermione didn’t try to stop her. She’d let her have her own crisis of faith privately, but made a mental note to check in with her friends in a couple of days to make sure she was alright.

“Is it really true?” Someone said from behind her, making Hermione realise that the common room had become very, very quiet around her.

Hermione took a deep breath and settled herself in for a very long afternoon of not getting to complete her Arithmancy homework. “Yes. Harry is ascending as a god.” She didn’t suggest him becoming a spirit – if they were going to believe in him, then they should believe in him as a god.

The common room burst into questions and chatter, more than she could ever hope to answer, but thankfully her problems were halved by Ron clattering down the stairs from the dorms, summoned by Neville.

“Alright, you lot.” Ron called their attention, “We’re going to talk about this once, and then none of you are going to bother Harry with it, you hear me?”

They answered people’s questions for much of the next hour. Most simply wanted to know more about gods and how many there were, though Neville shot some of the more reckless down with stories of mortals offending the gods and getting cursed for their troubles. He’d clearly been doing some reading on this, and by the ninth story of someone trying to get the gods’ attention and being transformed into some kind of animal, plant, or monster permanently, Hermione thought that their housemates were finally getting an adequate picture of just how foolish it would be to use their newfound knowledge to seek a god’s attention. If this just happened to protect Harry while he was still mostly mortal and in the process of ascension, well, that was between her and her friends.

After they’d emphasised that Harry wasn’t anything divine before his death and resurrection (or at least, no more divine than a legacy who didn’t know about his godly heritage), it was shockingly easy to convince their housemates. They all knew him as the Chosen One, the vanquisher of the dark lord, whatever their political leanings made them think about that, and even living and studying around him wasn’t fully humanising when they could feel the electric chill of his magic in the air when he passed by. Hermione could even make out a tentative hope in some – a belief that maybe, soon, they would have an even more powerful protector looking out for them.

It would be so easy to take it a step further. And, when the thought came to tempt her, why shouldn’t they? They’d held off because they knew that Harry didn’t want the attention, and was uncomfortable with all the implications, but he had made his ongoing ascension public himself. She turned to Ron and saw the same thought written in his face.

“Are we doing this?” She asked, voice low.

Ron looked down at her from where he’d grown unfairly tall, determination settling in his blue eyes, a growing smile splitting his freckled cheeks. “Yeah, yeah I think we are.”

He sent off a firework from his wand, drawing all the eyes in the room again. “So, Harry’s becoming a god, we’ve all got that bit, yeah?”

There was a general chorus of assent around the room, which threatened to make Hermione giddy. About anyone else, they’d have had no chance convincing the other students that one of them was a god of all things. But Harry – lovely, oblivious, horrendously powerful Harry – he’d had their faith before they even knew it.

“Well, let’s talk a bit about Harry.” Ron said, leaning against a desk with his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle. He looked confident under the combined eyes of most of their House, relaxed in a way Hermione knew she never appeared. “Most of you have met the bloke, and some of you know that he doesn’t like his fame. He doesn’t think of himself as anyone particularly powerful – yeah, I know, stupid – not as any kind of hero, and definitely not as a god. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just Harry. The same guy who drinks too much tea and forgot to put on his left sock last Friday.”

He waited, as a round of snorts and giggles emerged at that image. “But we know better.” Ron’s tone was firm and compelling, in a way that had Hermione waiting in anticipation for what he said next, as if she was just another member of his audience. “Even when he’s trying to be normal, we know that Harry is special. We’ve all felt his soul’s magic, caused by his own death, protect us in the castle. We all know that he would die for us, because he already has, because even when everything is terrible and every idiot is blaming him, Harry loves us too much to not always do the right thing. And he’ll face monsters and dark lords and whatever his terrible luck throws at him, just to make sure everyone is safe, because the moron values everyone else more than himself.”

Hermione felt herself being swept up in the passion of Ron’s speech. Around her, others appeared the same.

“And we all know that, when he’s not being a broody bastard, he’s too nice to ever ask anything in return from any of you.” Ron looked around the room, making eye contact with each of his listeners, “But I’m not. I’m asking you, as one of Harry’s best friends, to do two things. First, he’s never hearing about this conversation from any of you, yeah? Because you’re going to treat him like he’s just Harry, the Gryffindor seeker and final year guy whose handwriting looks like he’s never picked up a quill before. You got me?”

There were nods around the room, though the atmosphere had noticeably tensed under the effect of Ron’s strangely intimidating tone.

“Good, ‘cause that’s all he wants to be, even if it’s not possible for him. And second, just think about Harry and what he’s done for all of you.” He looked over to where Hermione was watching him and gestured to her and then to Neville. “His friends, we’re all trying to support Harry in what he’s becoming. We’re going to need all the help we can get. You can help us too.”

As the murmuring grew and questions started flying once more, Hermione couldn't drag her eyes away from Ron, standing bold and immovable against the weight of public scrutiny. She hadn't known it was possible to love someone so much, but the fierce pride and admiration burning in her own chest was the proof. 

--

“The whole common room?” Harry peeked out from where he’d hidden his face in his hands when the mortification had grown too strong.

“Not all of them.” Ron replied, as if that made it so much better, “And not all at the same time. But they helped spread the word in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Neville took the notes on everyone who wanted to be actively involved-”

“Neville’s in on this?” Harry asked, aghast.

Ron gave him an odd look. “Of course he is. Anyway, he reached out to people about it, I mainly showed them how to do sacrifices and stuff, and Hermione’s been working with the group doing more research about worship and how that all is supposed to work.”

“It’s really interesting material, Harry.” Hermione said brightly, while Harry wanted a hole to open up beneath him and bury him in the earth’s core. “Some of the ancient cults were very mysterious, but we’ve been able to narrow down core aspects like temples or shrines, festivals, prayer, and sacrifice. Some of the keener sixth-year Ravenclaws wanted to try sacrificing an animal, but I think we managed to persuade them not to.”

Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Just how organised is this thing?”

“Well, it’s not exactly an official organisation or anything.” Hermione started, “We don’t have scheduled meetings or anything, it’s just that when you happen to be out of the castle, we might end up talking to a few people.”

“And those few people might happen to set up a shrine.” Ron continued for her, his good mood impervious to Harry’s horrified look. “And might happen to leave offerings there as well.”

“Harry,” Hermione called his attention, dragging him out from his spiralling thoughts, “I promised you once that I’d go with you anywhere and do whatever it takes to stay with you as your friend. That goes for both of us.” Both his friends shared warm looks between each other before turning back to him, pure, bloody-minded determination filling their expressions. “If gaining you a religious following is what it takes to make sure you can come home to us, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“Yeah, mate.” Ron grinned, “You might as well give up now because you’re never getting away from us. If we have to fight gods to stay with you, it’ll be hard as fuck, but we’ll be there and so will your other friends. Besides, leading a cult is sort of fun.”

“It is, though please don't jinx us like that, Ron.” Hermione almost begged him, expression pained. "I really don't want to fight a god."

Harry couldn't help but snort at that, even as he threatened to be crushed under the weight of his friends' awe-inspiring care for him. 

“Still," Hermione turned back to Harry, serious once again, "even if we stopped leading the group now, the ball is already rolling, Harry – others will keep going.”

As little as he wanted to, Harry acknowledged her point with a reluctant nod. It wasn’t like he’d stopped the younger Slytherins from their food sacrifices in the Great Hall when he’d seen them, choosing to stay quiet and let them continue for the power that it gained him. It may have been a little wider-spread than he’d realised, but the spirit was the same. He'd made his choice then and now had to live with the consequences. He didn't like it, but he could indeed live with it; if the price for being able to return to the Overworld when he liked was overwhelming embarrassment, so be it. 

Then, a terrible thought hit him. “Ugh, all that, and I still don’t know what to say to Professor Sprout.”

His friends just laughed at him, which he probably deserved.

Chapter Text

“If I understand correctly,” Apsyrtos said, punctuating his words with rapid sword strikes, “your closest friends led your existing following into something approaching proper organisation? Yes? I see.” He twisted the sword out of Harry’s grip with the effortless grace of many years’ training and held his own at Harry’s throat. “Good.”

“Good?” Harry asked, panting as he picked the sword back up. They’d been at this for an hour already and he was drenched in sweat.

“The worship, that is. Certainly not your sword form.”

Which was true but really hadn’t needed to be said out loud like that.

“Your stances are letting you down still.” Apsyrtos sheathed his Mist sword, mercifully allowing Harry to catch his breath. “Demigods should be revered. We certainly were in my time. After all, we are extensions of our divine parents in the mortal world, and to disrespect us is to invite their wrath. As an ascending godling, it is only right that your mortal companions recognise you.”

Sometimes, Harry almost forgot that his sword instructor was the ghost of a long-dead prince with more divine heritage than mortal, and other times, such as this moment, it was all too clear.

“I still think it’s a bit weird that they set up an altar.” Harry replied, refusing to give in on the point. “I’m not a god yet, so what am I supposed to do with it?” He’d wheedled its location out of Ron after their talk and had immediately felt his skin crawling at the sight of it. It had been easier to accept before, when he couldn’t see the offerings or smell the incense; easier to ignore when he hadn’t understood the way they watched him. “Besides, they’re my school mates. It just feels weird, like I’m taking advantage of them or something. Believing in me won’t do anything but disappoint them when they figure out I’m just Harry and only did everything I did because no one else would do it.”

Apsyrtos sighed in a way that Harry felt was overly long-suffering. “Heroes these days. Are you all like this, refusing rightful recognition for your deeds and divinity?”

That stopped Harry in his tracks, even though he knew that Apsyrtos had meant it as a throw away comment. “Uh, I don’t know, actually. I haven’t met any other demigods. Didn’t know I was one before I died.”

Apsyrtos frowned, circling closer with silent steps that never actually connected with the ground. “This modern world certainly is a strange one. To think that these things are not public knowledge, let alone a point of pride…” He shook his head. “Well, my time is long past. If you’re truly struggling with this,” he locked eyes with Harry, tone more serious, “then simply pay it no notice.”

“What?”

“You lived with it just fine while you didn’t know about your following – simply do what you were doing before.”

Harry considered this. He couldn’t deny what he’d learned and what he was now seeing around the castle, but who said that he actually had to respond to it? It was certainly simpler than trying to figure out how on earth he was supposed to act around the other students now he knew about his burgeoning cult.

“Moreover,” the ghost continued, “there is a fact about faith that the gods like to ignore but that you shouldn’t: faith is in the hands of the believers. Your people have chosen to follow you, and you should bear the weight of that responsibility with pride, not belittle it with embarrassment. You did not ask for this, nor for the hardships you had to endure on their behalf, but their faith now is not to burden you, but to honour you. I cannot say I have ever been in your position, but I was once a prince of my land, and I would never shame my soldiers for believing in my ability to lead them.”

Apsyrtos kept his eyes locked on Harry as he spoke, making sure that Harry was paying attention and understanding. “If you cannot bring yourself to accept the faith of your followers at this time, at least don’t do them the discourtesy of refusing it. Let them be. Besides, you seem to have more than enough to be focusing on in your education right now instead of worrying about this.”

Harry winced because it was true. “On that note, I need to get ready for class.” It wasn’t a lie, but also, he needed some time to mull over Apsyrtos’ words. His mostly light-hearted complaining had turned into something he wasn’t expecting.

Apsyrtos nodded, “Very well.” His form blinked out between one moment and the next, leaving Harry alone in the Room of Requirement in the early hours of the morning.

He was feeling battered and sore after a long session of being repeatedly hit with a surprisingly solid Mist-sword, but that took a backseat to the thoughts whirling around his head. Apsyrtos’ words had struck a chord in Harry, though he was still struggling to reconcile with his other feelings. Still, it had settled his resolve not to interfere with his growing following. So long as no one got hurt or got in his face about it, he was going to leave people be to whatever nonsense they cooked up next. He might not find himself worthy of their belief, might resent the circumstances that forced him to be the one to face Voldemort head on and come out victorious yet forever changed, but it was out of his hands now because faith was indeed in the hands of the believers. The thought was as freeing as it was terrifying.

-

“What does Necromancy mean?” Professor Barnaby asked, as he leant against his desk. His lessons had continued their break-neck, almost manic, pace and now at the end of January, they’d already finished their topic of detection charms and had looped back to the necromantic constructs that he’d skipped over so readily in first term. “We covered this earlier, but apparently some people didn’t think we did it in enough detail.” He said ‘detail’ as others might refer to a particularly nasty parasite.

No one spoke. There wasn’t much point engaging with Barnaby’s class when he was on his soapbox about the dangers of knowing too much about dark magic, which was most of the time.

“Legally, we class it differently to the other dark arts.” A deep sneer settled on Barnaby’s face, which Harry didn’t think he was even aware of. “It stands in a league of perversion of its own, apart from the rest of the scum. But what does the branch involve?”

Hermione raised her hand after a long moment, and the professor called upon her with a cold tone, which she, as usual, ignored. “Necromancy commonly refers to magic involving death, particularly the acts of speaking to the dead, animating dead bodies, or attempting a method involving undeath to become immortal. Really, it should be split into multiple fields, as necromancy properly refers to a method of divination by speaking to the dead.”

“Thank you for that tangent, Miss Granger.” Barnaby said, sounding bored, and Harry had to resist the urge to get up and punch him. It would have been far stronger if he didn’t know that Hermione wanted to deal with the professor’s attitude on her own – her plans were far more terrifying than his own on any day, and he wished her the best with her revenge.

“You’re quite welcome, professor.” She replied, as if she hadn’t heard the sarcasm in his tone.

Behind Harry, he could hear shuffling as their classmates sat up straighter, eyes and ears peeled for the possibility of another round of Barnaby vs Granger. Given that Hermione had won every round so far, a sensible person might think that their professor would stop making digs at her, but Barnaby had long shown himself to be lacking in any kind of common sense.

This time, Barnaby just sent her a look that was likely supposed to be withering but mostly looked constipated. “Necromancy is among the foulest of magics.” He looked over the class, eyes lingering on the Slytherins. “Only the very worst of criminals and dark wizards dabble in it. The goal of necromancy is, of course, to bring the dead back to life, breaking the natural order. This is impossible, but it hasn’t stopped the worst of our society from trying.”

Harry didn’t acknowledge the eyes that flitted to him from around the room.

“Various Dark Lords over the centuries have tried to pursue immortality, and while they failed, they often emerged with truly disgusting curses.” Barnaby continued. “Among these are necrotising curses, which quickly turn living tissue both dead and infectious, and so spread rapidly throughout the body. We covered detection charms for these last week. There is no counter curse for necrotising curses, as the counter would have to bring the dead flesh back to life. The only hope is to slow the spread or amputate the affected limb, if possible, before the curse reaches the rest of the body.”

For once, Harry was interested during one of Professor Barnaby’s classes. This sounded an awful lot like the curse that had withered Dumbledore’s hand.

“Similar curses can be placed on objects, which can cause near instant death by attacking some vital part of the victim’s body. Whether these are classed as necromancy or another form of dark magic depends on whether the effect can be healed in any way.” Barnaby explained. “Dark curses naturally resist healing, but certain skilled healers can draw out the curse magic enough to let the body heal on its own as well as it can. They can’t regrow a limb cut off with dark magic, but they can close up a wound. Many of my colleagues’ lives have been saved by curse healers at St Mungo’s.”

Harry clenched his left hand unconsciously at the thought of it. The words carved with Umbridge’s quill were no longer cursed, so they had started to fade but hadn’t gone away completely. Healer Oswald had removed masses of dark magic from his body, but even she couldn’t heal the marks of it entirely.

“Where ordinary curse magic can be removed, necrotising curses cannot.” Barnaby continued his lecture.

Ironically, Harry supposed this made the killing curse a regular dark curse, rather than a necromantic one, since its traces could be removed. Then again, there was the long-standing theory that the killing curse was a form of soul magic, which would explain it.

“Due to this,” Harry tuned back into Barnaby’s lecture, “all necromantic curses are illegal. As all curses should be.” The professor grumbled at the end.

Hermione raised her hand again.

“What now, Miss Granger?” The professor groused.

She lowered her hand. “All necrotising curses are illegal,” she stressed, “not all necromantic ones.”

“Oh?” The professor settled back against his desk. “This should be good. What necromancy do you know that is legal, Miss Granger?”

“Firstly,” Hermione began, her own tone sinking into the lecturing one that she used when teaching the OWL years in the DA, “while it is typically frowned upon, there exist many spells, potions, and rituals which call upon the dead in some fashion. Usually, these are for calling on ancestors for help or knowledge, or simply to trace your ancestry back, though the use of ancestral knucklebones in divination is widely known and still common. Haruspicy works in a similar fashion. Even mostly unrelated spells like priori incantato, or priori incantatum when it occurs as a phenomenon, can produce temporary ghostly forms of the victims killed by the owner of the wand.” She paused before continuing, “Even the legendary forms of the Deathly Hallows would be considered necromantic, especially the resurrection stone.”

Barnaby scoffed and made to interrupt, but Hermione spoke over him. “More particularly, I was referring to the charm used to create inferi, which is in no way illegal.”

Barnaby looked disturbed. “Of course it’s illegal! Inferi have been outlawed since the days of the Hogwarts Founders!”

“Inferi, yes.” Hermione agreed calmly, as if she was tutoring a particularly stubborn first year, “The charms to reanimate them are not. Each necromancer who uses inferi utilises their own complex mix of preservation and control spells, but the basic way to reanimate them remains legal, well-known, and not particularly difficult.”

“That’s preposterous!” Barnaby argued, “Only those well-versed in the darkest of dark arts know the steps to raise inferi.” He looked at Hermione with something approaching horror. “I should bring you into the Auror department myself just for the implication. You know this curse?”

“Charm, but yes.” Hermione corrected.

His face darkened. “And you’ve cast it?”

“Not on inferi, but yes, again.” Hermione remained outwardly serene, though Harry could see the light in her eyes that meant she was enjoying herself. He hoped she knew what she was doing provoking Barnaby this far.

Barnaby looked around the room, his eyes darting wildly.

“I’ve cast it too.” Susan Bones spoke out. She was grinning, as was Hannah Abbott next to her, who then seconded the statement. Padma Patil agreed, as did Anthony Goldstein, Mandy Brocklehurst, Harry’s Slytherin friends, and finally Ernie MacMillan.

Their professor stilled for a long moment, colour draining from his face and just as rapidly filling it again. “What in Merlin’s name have you been teaching them, Granger?” He spat, looking around the class and lingering on Harry, before glaring back at Hermione. “I knew you were up to no good. This is beyond me – I’m going to the Headmistress immediately. Don’t leave the castle. I’ll hopefully return with some colleagues.”

He swept out of the room and there was a moment of silence before half the class, the ones who were clearly in on the joke, started laughing.

“That was brilliant, Granger.” Anthony Goldstein said. “I’d give anything to be in McGonagall’s office when he gets there.”

“What’s the joke?” Ron asked, echoed by similar questions around the room.

Hermione turned back to him and Harry, a smirk tilting her lips. “It’s a basic warning that comes up in any introduction to magical first aid: the rennervate charm is excellent for waking the unconscious but should never be used on the dead – in context, meaning the newly deceased patient.” As she spoke, Harry had the vague memory of reading this somewhere in a textbook. “The charm works by temporarily reviving the nervous system, which, in a living person, jolts them awake, but has the unfortunate side effect of essentially piloting a corpse, since there is nothing to take over. It’s been used for centuries as the first step of making an inferius, but you won’t find anyone but the most paranoid who will call to outlaw a healing charm, especially since proper inferi require many more other spells to become a threat.”

“So, Barnaby’s going to storm up to McGonagall’s office yelling about you being a necromancer because of a healing charm we all learned in, what, fourth year?” Ron followed the train of thought and sniggered at the mental image. “McGonagall’s going to love that.”

“The best part, though,” Hermione explained, “is that it’s proof that he either hasn’t taken, or doesn’t remember, enough basic first aid to have qualified as an auror.”

Anthony took over, unable to contain his mirth, “And he’s going to tell it himself straight to the Headmistress!”

The rest of the class burst into laughter again.

“You know he thinks you’re a dark witch now, right?” Harry checked with Hermione. The professor had been off with her before, but Harry didn’t think there was any coming back from the blatant suspicion with which he’d regarded her right before he left, even if McGonagall was likely to set him straight on the revival charm.

Hermione nodded. “I’m not worried about him. Right now, he’s only damaging his own reputation, and I believe I can handle whatever retribution he might try to throw at me.”

“All hail our new Dark Lady Granger!” Hannah called out. “The dastardly user of healing charms!”

The room filled with laughter and chatter, but Harry couldn’t join in with their amusement. It was funny that she’d tricked the professor, of course, but Harry couldn’t help but think that Barnaby was a little more dangerous than he seemed. He dearly hoped that he was wrong.

-

After class, with Barnaby not returning before the end of the lesson, the three of them stopped by the kitchens for a snack and then made their way to the prefects’ common room.

“Does this mean you’re a necromancer?” Ron asked suddenly. “With, you know…” He looked pointedly at the ring on Harry’s finger, which he never put on but was somehow always there.

“Er.” Harry’s immediate reflex was to say no, but he had to stop and consider it. After all, he summoned a ghostly sword-teacher almost every day. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve never tried to, you know, bring anyone back from the dead.” As both a wizard and a child of Hecate, the thought was vaguely repulsive to him. “Just, sort of, talked to people who were already dead.”

“Your divine parent is a goddess of necromancy though, isn’t she?” Hermione pointed out. “Perhaps necromancy means something else to them, like the haruspicy I mentioned.”

Harry had no idea what haruspicy was, but thankfully Ron was on the same page and asked for him.

“It’s to do with reading the future from the entrails of sacrificed animals.” Hermione explained. “You can, of course, do the same with sacrificed humans, but unlike haruspicy, that is illegal. As far as I can tell, magically, it makes a kind of sense: the future of an animal sacrificed for a small glimpse into your own future. Equivalent exchange, with the understanding that an animal is worth less to death and magic than a person with a soul.”

Harry nodded, familiar with the concepts. It resonated with his understanding of both wizarding magic and divine magic in a way that resurrecting a person didn’t. “A life for a life, a future for a future.” Without equal sacrifice, no life could be brought back whole. Even his mother’s sacrificial protection, cast with her life, only kept Voldemort from killing him, rather than bringing Harry back from the dead.

“What about animals though?” Ron asked, thoughtful. “If they’re worth less and don’t have souls, could you bring them back with some kind of trade? Or, I don’t know, make them live much longer?”

This stumped both Harry and Hermione.

“Presumably.” Hermione replied, after a long moment in which she and Harry had stared at each other in case the other knew the answer. “But that’s the kind of experimentation that would get you in trouble.”

Ron nodded, accepting this as an answer and moving the conversation on to their weekly prefect patrols, which had been put up on the noticeboard.

Harry, though, stayed quiet, mulling the thought over. There was an idea, at the back of his mind, which he refused to think about or give a name to. Still, Hermione had been right – Hecate was indeed a goddess of necromancy, along with Melinoe, and he should probably find out what that actually meant for his pantheon. Thankfully, he had a self-updating book of divine magic somewhere in his trunk. It might be worth a read.

-

When they arrived in the Gryffindor common room, near curfew that evening, half the House was spectating a screaming match between two fifth years. As far as Harry could tell, someone had a crush on the same person as someone else, only one of them had told the person, and someone else thought that they shouldn’t have? Harry didn’t know, and honestly wasn’t sure that he wanted to. It was teenage relationship drama at its finest, and suddenly, Harry felt a kinship with the utterly done expression McGonagall had used to have whenever she’d been called in to deal with situations as Head of Gryffindor House.

Arguments in the common room were far from rare, but usually people took it somewhere more private, or the prefects got involved and broke it up. This time, however, it seemed that one of the people involved was a prefect, the sixth years were beginning their patrol, and Harry and his friends had been away. Ron and Hermione charged into the fray immediately, breaking up the argument and scolding the onlookers for doing nothing about the yelling, while Harry was caught up on what had happened by a couple of nervous third years.

There had been no spells cast, which was the only thing that saved the situation from devolving further, but it was still a mess to sort out, keeping the three of them busy for a half hour which Harry would really rather have used for pretty much anything else. The common room turned back to the usual mixture of chatter, games, and students doing homework soon afterwards, but Harry couldn’t help but wish that he was back at Grimmauld Place, with the blissful quiet of his own company, and perhaps that of his close friends. He was getting too old for teenage drama. Suddenly, the idea of one day leaving Hogwarts didn’t feel so bad.

Chapter Text

February began cold and dreary, but even that wasn’t enough to calm the quidditch fever which swept through the halls of Hogwarts. Ravenclaw and Slytherin were playing each other the first Saturday of the month and neither side were willing to let the other get ahead. Ravenclaw had already played against Hufflepuff at the end of the previous term, losing out to them only by a fine margin, and were determined to recoup their losses with Slytherin. The Slytherin team, on the other hand, had yet to play, but had decided to count this as a benefit since they got the chance to observe all their opponents’ tactics in advance. Harry, normally more or less welcomed in the Slytherin common room, had been kicked out more than once in fear that he might overhear their team’s planning sessions.

This was usually the point in time where the halls would be filled with Malfoy’s loud boasting and smug smile, as he gloated about his seeker skills and what was sure to be the newest broom of the year, ahead of the game day. This year, however, he was notably quiet, to the point where Harry had double checked with his friends that Malfoy was in fact still playing as their seeker. He was, though a quidditch ban had been discussed for him in the summer – apparently his place on the team was contingent on good behaviour.

It was odd, catching a glimpse of his platinum hair between classes without the usual vitriol following, but it was quite nice to not have to deal with his grandstanding. Not that Malfoy had many people to grandstand with – of his social circle, only Pansy Parkinson remained. Occasionally, Harry would see him with students from younger years, but after Millicent Bulstrode’s arrest, he seemed to have withdrawn into himself. Harry’s Slytherin friends were keeping an eye on him, along with the others they knew to have come from families with similar proclivities for dark magic and blood prejudice, but they only confirmed that he didn’t appear to be up to anything suspicious.

The same, sadly, could not be said for the group that met up during quidditch games. Hermione had taken the opportunity to make a similar list to last time of the people who remained in the castle during the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff match, and the group that met together had only grown. For this game, she and Neville were planning to listen in, under Harry’s cloak. Harry had badly wanted to go with her, had argued about it in the privacy of the Room of Requirement, but unfortunately, she was correct that it would look strange if Harry wasn’t at the match. After all, the quidditch teams always watched each other’s games – to heckle the players and pick apart their tactics if nothing else.

So, Harry sat with the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team and reserves, trying not to fidget as the Ravenclaw and Slytherin players filed onto the pitch. A light drizzle had just started up, which he knew would be hell on the inexperienced players. Malfoy stood to the side as the Captain and chaser, Carolus Higgs, shook hands with the Ravenclaw Captain and beater, Lucinda Lane. Both sized each other up. Many of the old team members had graduated or otherwise been unable to return to Hogwarts, so all the team compositions were new and difficult to account for. From the looks of it, Higgs was taking the tried-and-true intimidation tactic of squeezing Lane’s hand too tightly, but she was glaring him down with her other hand warningly raising her beater’s bat.

Madam Hooch broke their staring contest with a whistle and a few sharp words. “Brooms at the ready!” She ordered, and the two teams took their formations around her.

The whole stadium quieted, commentary absent while all eyes focused on the pitch. At this distance, all Harry could see was a splash of gold as the snitch was released and spiralled up into the vast expanse of the pitch.

“Begin!” Madam Hooch tossed the quaffle into the air and the pitch exploded with movement as the opposing chasers dived around them. A moment later and the bludgers were flying too, dark blurs against the grey skies. The crowd roared as Ravenclaw took possession and Ginny beside him began her narration of significant plays and dangerous players to the rest of the team around them. Her commentary was more technical than the official one from the announcer’s booth, but she had a better eye for the two teams’ moves than whoever was excitedly reporting on the game to the crowd. Harry listened to her with half an ear, his eyes fixed on trying to spot the snitch while tracking the two seekers through the air. As the Slytherin section cheered for a goal in Ravenclaw’s lowest hoop, he settled back into the thrill of a good match.

-

“I can’t believe Malfoy caught the snitch.” Ginny complained, as they all headed back towards the castle. The now pounding rain didn’t seem to be helping her irritation, churned-up mud squelching up to their ankles. “I thought for sure that Brunner had him beat.”

“Malfoy’s a git, but he’s not actually a terrible seeker.” Harry admitted, with some reluctance. “Brunner’s new to the team after all.”

Ginny huffed. “You can tell. It took her far too long to catch onto his dive. She’s dead fast though.”

“What about Higgs’ foul – what was that about?” Demelza Robbins piped up. “Hooch looked like she wanted to throttle him.”

“Seemed like he was going for a false stop.” Ginny explained, “Not technically a foul so long as he wasn’t still in the way when the opposing chaser came through, but he fucked up his timing. Or rather, Lane fucked it up for him with that bludger. Girl knows how to keep a grudge.”

“That was fantastic.” Ron agreed, laughing. “Did you see his face?”

“Before or after the bludger hit it?” Ginny grinned. It seemed that the reminder was doing wonders for her mood, though that quickly changed. “Oi, Peakes!” She yelled out, as the group headed through the main door. “You’re in your OWL years now, you should be able to vanish your fucking mud before traipsing it ‘round the halls. Clean that up!”

The aforementioned boy had left a trail of mud and rainwater in the couple of metres he’d walked ahead of them. Harry would have had a little more sympathy for his startled expression if Ginny hadn’t had to scold him about this already after multiple practice sessions. “Sorry.” Peakes said half-heartedly and removed the worst of it. A few lumps remained, but he’d made a decent effort for a fourth year.

Harry sighed and cleaned up the rest of it with his own charm, getting rid of the lingering muck that had accumulated with the re-entrance of hundreds of soaked quidditch spectators. A second charm dried the whole team off, for those who hadn’t cast proper water-proofing spells beforehand.

“Show off.” Ginny elbowed him, though her tone was teasing. “Ooh, actually, can you do a warming charm too? Yours are always the best.” This was echoed by the rest of the team.

Harry rolled his eyes but obliged.

“If you didn’t want to be the go-to charm guy, you shouldn’t be so bloody good at them.” Ron said, eyes bright and mischievous. “Look at me – no one bothers me for charms. Or Ginny.”

“That’s because your sister would hex them.” Harry replied.

“Too right, I would.” Ginny agreed cheerfully, to ribbing from the rest of the team. “And I can show you lot personally if you keep this up!”

Their nonsense continued all the way up to the common room, where they joined the rest of their House in discussing what Slytherin’s win meant for the quidditch season ahead. It took Harry a little while to extract himself subtly enough from the conversation for no one to note his absence, waylaid by his conscience demanding that he also offer warming and drying charms to the first and second years who hadn’t learned them yet. Finally, he managed to get up to the dorms, where Hermione and Neville were waiting.

“It’s less of a lead than we thought.” Hermione said, as soon as Harry came into view. She was sitting on Ron’s bed, scribbled-on parchment propped up on a large book. “I wrote down everything they said, as best I remember, but they didn’t seem to do much of anything but complain about the direction that the government is going in and how it might hurt their precious Pureblood decency.”

Harry looked quizzically at Neville, to see if he had more to add.

Neville nodded. “They talked a bit about Bulstrode, and any impact it might have on them, but the general consensus was that she and Crabbe were both idiots for trying anything. They don’t like you very much, but it doesn’t seem to be personal – just what you stand for.”

“What do I apparently stand for?” Harry asked, with some humour – it was always news to him whatever goals the general populace had deciding he was aiming for.

“The dilution of great bloodlines with filthy muggle blood, the banning of all dark magics, the infestation of muggle influences, and the subsequent collapse of all proper British society.” Hermione replied instead of Neville, eyes rolling so hard that Harry could almost hear them. “The usual pureblood supremacy tripe. None of them outright said that they wished Voldemort had won, even quieted someone who looked like he was going to say something along those lines, but it’s clear that the previous regime benefitted them more than this one and they resent the change.”

Harry frowned. “But are they actually doing anything about it? It sounded like you don’t think they were involved with Crabbe or Bulstrode.”

“We can’t find any connection between them and this group.” Neville said. He picked up two of the discarded parchments. “This list was for during the first game, and this,” he held up the second, “is the second. Bulstrode was at the first meeting but not the second. Crabbe never went. From what they said, it seems like they thought Bulstrode and Crabbe were both foolish, even if they didn’t necessarily disapprove. This lot don’t seem to have any particular plan other than meeting up and whining about how it’s unfair that their families might have to stop stealing land from muggles.”

Harry considered this. “So, they’re basically just a shitty politics club, yeah?”

“Yep.” Neville agreed. He didn’t look happy. “Nothing in the school rules against it – they’re not actually doing anything wrong.”

“Just complaining about how us mudbloods are lording their loss over them by pretending like we belong here.” Hermione muttered, her face dark. Whatever they’d been saying at the meeting had clearly got to her.  

 “So, it’s a group of hateful little shits that we should keep an eye on, but not the same group of hateful little shits that we think are behind any plots to murder me?” Harry summarised, pleased with himself when he saw Hermione’s lips twitch.

“Sounds about right.” Neville sighed, sitting back on his bed. “I’m going to talk to Professor McGonagall anyway – she’ll probably want to know that there’s such a group – but people are allowed their opinions so long as they don’t actually do anything against the rules because of them.”

Hermione nodded and took a deep breath, “Because if we tried to rule it out, we set a precedent for suppressing alternate opinions and politics, which never goes well.” She placed her parchment carefully down, even as the tightness of her posture screamed that she’d rather throw it. “It’s still rather awful to hear it from so many of our fellow students after everything that happened.”

Harry crossed over and sat down beside her. Hermione dropped her head onto his shoulder and let herself collapse into his side, a comfortingly warm weight even if her hair was now tickling his nose.

“Do you think it’ll ever get better?” Hermione’s voice was muffled from where she was pressing her face into his shoulder.

“Yeah.” Harry replied, then repeated it with more confidence. “Yeah, I do. Because we’re going to make it better. You, me, Ron, Neville, and all our friends, we’re going to make this stupid world better even if we have to drag it kicking and screaming.”

“And the cult.” Neville added, startling a laugh out of Hermione. “We can make it an entrance condition – no admittance to the cult of Harry for pureblood supremacists; promoting equal opportunities and reporting corruption counts as an act of worship, hexing people who use slurs is a tenet of our new faith.”

Neville was joking of course, as was Hermione who joined in with more and more far-fetched goals for the cult, but Harry considered it. After all, if you have a cult, shouldn’t you give it ideals to work towards? It was something to bear in mind at the very least.

-

Monday morning found Professor Slughorn waiting right outside the door to the potions lab, instead of behind the desk, where he was usually found. The professor was nodding to the students as they entered, wishing each of them a good morning and collecting their most recent essay, a particularly complex one on countering toxic concoctions by using opposite alchemical reactions, with a bright smile on his face but a hand worriedly fussing at the front clasp of his velvet robe.

“Mr Potter.” He said, trying for the same easy smile and failing. “Just the man I was waiting for. A quick word if you would. It won’t be more than a moment.”

Harry glanced at his friends, who lingered for a moment to meet his eyes in question, then carried on into the classroom when he nodded.

Slughorn waited until there was no one left in the corridor. “Right, well, you see, Minerva asked us all to let you know when a class might be using blood in our lesson.” Slughorn’s eyes were sharp and beady, curiosity obvious. “Pomona recently assured us that this was for a very good reason indeed.”

Harry grimaced at the memory of that particular mess and the awkward conversation that followed. This whole situation was giving him an unwelcome sense of déjà vu. “We’re using blood today, then?” He asked, instead of satisfying Slughorn’s blatant wish to know the gossip.

“Indeed, indeed.” Slughorn nodded, “We’re beginning our section on curse-breaking potions. The great benefit of the one that we will be brewing today is in the way that it can use just a few drops of magical blood to tune into wizarding magic, allowing it to essentially wash away magic added to an object, without damaging the object itself. It’s a little more complicated than that of course, but we’ll get into that in our lesson. It’s just, ah,” the empty hand fluttered over the ornate clasp of his robes again, “that this might present a problem for you.” He looked at Harry quizzically.

“Yes.” Harry replied quickly. He didn’t even want to know what his blood might do to something as reactive as a potion. “Definitely a bad idea.”

“Yes, quite.” Slughorn agreed, but the intrigue was still barely hidden in his voice. “I have a little thunderbird blood for you here.” He said, passing Harry a crystal vial with a few millilitres of blood in. “The potion has the most curious effect of warding against the magic of the creature the blood was taken from when applied to a magicless substance, all while looking exactly the same, no matter which type of blood was added. An ingenious brew, really. But, ah, actually,” he finally got to the point he seemed to have been winding up to, “I was wondering if you’d be willing to stay after class a few moments, to see what your own blood would do to the Abolitio Draught?”

Harry blinked, not having expected that. “Uh, I really don’t think that’s a good idea, professor.”

Slughorn didn’t look discouraged. “Come now, Harry, whatever is the matter with your blood can hardly be so reactive, can it? After all, blood curses and the like hardly influence most potion making. I should know – there was great debate about it between some of my peers in the sixties! Aren’t you curious to see what would happen with yours?”

Harry shook his head, bluntly refusing. Between the phoenix tears and basilisk venom caught in their eternal equilibrium, the sheer magical reactivity of his blood, and the way it was slowly but surely turning to ichor, it was a terrible plan all round, and he had no intention of blowing up the potions lab. Even if it hadn’t been such a bad idea, he didn’t like the way that Slughorn was looking at him like a rare potion ingredient to be chopped up and stored away.

“Very well.” Slughorn agreed, huffing out a breath through his nose. “It was worth a try at least. A good potioneer never stops being curious! It is the spirit of invention!”

Harry took the opportunity to move past him and into the relative safety of the potions lab, where this line of conversation couldn’t continue. He joined Ron and Hermione at their table, but had no time to tell them what had happened before Slughorn came back in and began the lesson. It was a good one, with interesting theory and an intricate brewing process, but not even the difficult task of wrangling slimy sea-slug spikes into exact thirds and folding them to the potion in 49 second intervals could quite make him forget Slughorn’s request. Whether it was a kind of prescience or his own common sense kicking in, Harry couldn’t shake the feeling that he had just dodged one hell of a bullet.

-

“He asked you to WHAT?!” Hermione hissed loudly, as they walked back up from the dungeons. “What was he thinking?”

“That someone has a secret and he wants to be in on it.” Ron suggested, from her other side. “Far as I can see, his whole social career is based on knowing everyone’s business and seeing if it benefits him to help them out a bit. It’s gotta be driving him mad that he doesn't know something important about Harry of all people.”

Harry grimaced and nodded. That sounded about right.

“Still, it was entirely irresponsible.” Hermione complained. “For all we know, it could have brought the whole castle down around us. Imagine if the venom had vapourised! That would kill anyone who breathed it in, especially now we don’t have Fawkes.”

For the first time, Harry wondered what had become of Dumbledore’s phoenix. After the headmaster’s death, there had been no sign of his fiery feathers, nor had his song rung out through the Hogwarts grounds since his final lament. Had the phoenix decided to explore the world or found a new person to stay with? Had he chosen to burn out and not be reborn anew? Was that even something that phoenixes could do, or was he trapped in immortality like Harry himself soon would be? It bothered Harry like a loose thread on a jumper, unresolved and easy to pick at, though ultimately not important enough to sit down and puzzle through.

Still, Harry’s mind wandered away from Hermione and Ron’s conversation, which had devolved into their habitual bicker-flirting, and he found his thoughts circling back to the phoenix again and again. Perhaps he had no right to seek out the phoenix – they’d only met in person a few times after all – but Fawkes’ tears ran through his veins and his tailfeather powered Harry’s wand, wrapped inextricably through his body and magic. There was a sort of symmetry in their lives that Harry could appreciate, in the endless cycle of life and death and life again, burning themselves out brightly to rise from the ashes anew. He couldn’t help but think that the endless stretch of years looming out in front of him might feel slightly less alien if he knew that somewhere in the world, there was Fawkes also.

He had no idea how someone might go about tracking down a phoenix, if it was even possible, and it was certainly not high up on his list of priorities, but some day, some time, when his responsibilities were settled and no deadlines cluttered his path, Harry thought that he might like to try finding out what happened to Fawkes, just for himself. The thought was strangely fascinating, oddly compelling, but for now Harry put it to the back of his mind as an interesting daydream, and refocused back into his very real school life.

Chapter Text

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Harry asked, once they’d all found their seats in the Room of Requirement’s comfy armchairs.

Daphne and Tracey traded looks. Blaise, sitting next to them, watched quietly, for once not taking the chance to speak.

“It’s mostly a good thing.” Daphne replied, taking the lead. “We didn’t want to get your hopes up before if it all came to nothing, but we’ve been looking into Millicent’s collaborators on our end as well.”

Immediately, Harry was interested. “What did you find?”

Daphne pulled a notebook out from her school robes. It was bound with black leather, untitled, and looked like any other random notebook that you might find lost around the school. Instantly, it put Harry’s hackles up. She placed it down on the coffee table between them.

“Many people,” Daphne began, “who do unsavoury dealings of some kind, keep a record of who they dealt with and for what, with the understanding that so long as the client keeps their silence, so will they.”

“Mutually assured destruction.” Harry nodded. “This is Bulstrode’s?” If so, it was by far the best lead they’d found yet.

“We hope so.” Daphne grimaced. “We haven’t been able to get past the curses to open it. There’s a nasty one which appears to incinerate the whole thing if any of the curses are tampered with. Very interesting, really. I had no idea Millicent had any talent with delicate curses like this.”

“She doesn’t.” Tracey spoke up. “Didn’t you see the hexwork on her trunk? Shoddy as anything. There’s no way that she cursed the notebook herself. Which means she either paid someone to curse it outside Hogwarts or they’re working with her.”

“How did you get this?” Harry asked, as he scanned over Bulstrode’s book with his own magic. “Didn’t the aurors take all her things?”

“Yes, but, well, they’re aurors.” Daphne replied, almost apologetically, “The old families have been hiding things from them for hundreds of years. I’m sure that maybe half the students in this school have some kind of hiding place for contraband. Usually, it’s firewhiskey, or hexbooks, or particular magazines, but the chances were good that Millicent both had a hiding place for something or other, and that the aurors wouldn’t have found it. So, the question was rather: would we find it?”

“Huh.” In retrospect, that made a lot of sense. “So, this was all that was in it?”

“Yes.” Daphne looked at the notebook as if it had personally offended her. “The only trouble is, we have no idea if this is her records book. It could easily be her diary, potion notes, or something else. And given that we only found this, there’s probably a second hiding place at least.”

“After all,” Blaise continued Daphne’s thought for Harry’s benefit, “we know now that she was brewing poisons, chances are that she was brewing other potions for money on the side, but we haven’t found any of them, let alone her actual brewing room.”

Harry hadn’t considered that Bulstrode would have needed somewhere private to brew in secret and a little stupid to not have done. “Where have you checked?” He asked, as he prodded the notebook with some of his subtler detection charms.

“Daphne and I checked the dorms.” Tracey said, “Blaise has been looking around the dungeons for a brewing room, but he hasn’t found anything yet. We weren’t getting anywhere with the dorm until Blaise told us that Millicent used to be shifty whenever he was near her wardrobe.” She shot Blaise a grateful look. “Then, we found it under there.”

“When were you in the girls’ dorms?” Harry asked Blaise, confused. “I thought the Slytherin girls’ dorms had a charm like the Gryffindor ones to keep guys out?”

The three froze, Daphne and Tracey turning to look at Blaise. Tracey’s expression was apologetic, eyes wide and startled.

“It’s no worry.” Blaise reassured Tracey, letting out a laugh that wasn’t quite sincere. Addressing Harry, he said, “I sort of forget that we didn’t know each other before this year. It’s not a secret, most of the Slytherins in our year and the one below know, but for the first few years, I was in the girls’ dormitory with Tracey, Daphne, Pansy, and Millicent before I moved to the boys’.”

Harry was confused but let Blaise finish since it seemed like he wasn’t done.

“Muggles, of all people, have a word for it, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is.” Blaise fiddled with the rings on his fingers, unusually tense, “Suffice to say that I was born with a girl’s body but later realised that I was a boy. I’d been aware that I was a little different for a while, but it sort of came to a head when the stairs to the dorms refused to let me up.” He laughed at the memory. “It’s not really talked about in ‘polite society’,” Blaise said the words sarcastically, as if quoting someone, “but potions have existed for centuries in order to work the change, and voila!” He indicated his very male form.

“Huh.” Harry had never heard about this in either the muggle world or the magical, but there existed far stranger concepts in both, and it made little difference to him except for knowing Blaise a bit better. “Fair enough, I guess. So, you saw her being shifty near the wardrobe – is there anywhere else where she hung around too long?”

Blaise stared at Harry searchingly for a moment longer, before snorting and saying, “Never change, Harry.” He shook his head. “No, Millicent was always a bit of a loner. Before this year, she tended to sit with Pansy, unless Pansy was mooning over Draco again, then she’d be with Crabbe and Goyle. More often than not, though, she tended to do her own thing, and we didn’t really track her.”

“This year, she wasn’t really spending much time in the dorms or common room.” Tracey added, “I thought she was in the library, but it seems not.”

Harry nodded, considering the information. “Okay, so our best bet seems to be breaking this notebook open, but in case we can’t do that or it’s not useful, we should be looking for her brewing room?” He checked with them to general agreement. Then, a thought came to him. “Did she know about this room?”

The trio froze, glancing at each other for confirmation. “She might have done.” Daphne answered, a frown tugging on her lips, “She didn’t come to any DA meeting, but she probably knew where it was. The question, though, is did she know how to work the room?”

It was something that Ron, Hermione, and Harry had agreed to hold back – they were the ones who went early and set up the Room of Requirement for the DA, so while most of the castle knew where the room was, there were decidedly fewer who knew how to open it.

“Well, one way to check.” He said, rising to his feet. The others copied him.

They left the room and let the door merge back into the blank wall. Pacing, Harry asked the Room of Requirement to show them Millicent Bulstrode’s brewing room. After his third loop, a door grew in the wall until it looked as though it had always been there, arched stone frame over a heavy wooden door. Harry pushed the door open and walked in.

Inside, there was a potions lab, but it was curiously empty. The room was dark and humid, lit only faintly by candles held in rusting sconces. A few cauldrons sat in stands along the side and a large pewter one was in the middle of the room. There were no stirring rods, knives, or other potion paraphernalia on the benches, and the ingredients rack was empty.

Harry’s friends entered behind him and looked around the room, lingering on the cauldrons and racks. Tracey took in a long breath and frowned. “It smells like the dungeons.”

Harry sniffed the air and had to agree. There was a certain damp, musty odour that lingered in all the rooms beneath the lake, no matter how hard the house elves tried to clean it out.

“What did you ask for outside?” Daphne asked him, sharp eyes scanning the room. “Did you ask for Millicent’s brewing room or to show her brewing room?”

There was an emphasis there that Harry wasn’t quite getting. “To show it.” He replied.

Daphne nodded like she’d been expecting that. “I think this isn’t her real room.” She explained. “I think the Room of Requirement is showing us what the room she used looks like.”

“Oh!” Harry understood what she was getting at. “So, the real room is somewhere in the dungeons?”

“Yes, I think so.” Daphne agreed. “I almost feel like I’ve seen this room before.”

Tracey nodded her head vigorously. “Yes! That’s what I was thinking when we came in.”

“Hmm.” Blaise seemed a little miffed that it really was a dungeon room and that he’d somehow missed it. “I might need your help to find it then.” He told the girls. “I could have sworn that I’ve looked in every room in the dungeons. I’ve found some weird things, but definitely no room like this.”

The two acceded to that easily. “We’ll leave the notebook to you, though, Harry.” Daphne said. “None of us were sure that we could get the curses off without setting anything off.”

“I can try.” He took the notebook from Daphne, who’d picked it up when they’d left the comfortable sitting room area. He was itching to start playing around with it, even though his conscience said that he should probably hand it over to the aurors as possible evidence. On the other hand, they didn’t seem to be doing a great job (nor even a passable one) with the investigation on his attempted poisoning, so he wasn’t sure that he could trust them to get best use out of. Perhaps, if he couldn’t crack the thing open, he’d hand it over…

“Are we off then?” Blaise asked, “I can show you two where I’ve been looking.”

Daphne looked indifferent but Tracey groaned at the thought of walking all around the dungeons. “Can we do it later, please? I did so many stairs earlier when I forgot my library book and I had to run to Charms – my thighs haven’t forgiven me yet.”

Daphne considered this. “We have time. It won’t be going anywhere in a couple of hours.”

“In that case,” Harry started but trailed off, unsure how to put his thoughts. “It’s just, well. It became sort of obvious that I don’t know you guys very well, even if we’re friends now. I mean, we talk a lot, but I don’t know when your birthdays are, or what your favourite colour is, or what you want to do after Hogwarts. So, if you’d like to…”

Blaise and Tracey looked somewhat bemused, but Daphne seemed delighted, a bright smile spreading across her face. “My birthday is on April 14^th, my favourite colour is green, and after Hogwarts, I want to be an Unspeakable!” She went to sit down and then frowned at their surroundings. “This sounds like fun, but let’s go back to the nicer room first.”

Tracey shrugged and agreed, followed by Blaise, and soon they were all sitting back into the Room’s ridiculously comfortable armchairs once more.

It wasn’t a very long conversation – they all had things they needed to be doing – but Harry learned that Daphne had wanted to be an Unspeakable since her father, who worked in the Ministry of Magic research committee, had mentioned them to her when she was 8, and she’d been so taken by the idea of a whole department dedicated to mysteries that it had stuck. She had no firm idea how she’d get into it, but she hoped to apply for a Ministry role in experimental charms and work her way into the Department sideways. She’d declared her favourite colour to be green ever since she knew what her surname meant, but this had been a long-fought battle with her high-society mother, who thought she looked much better in blue. She’d first met Tracey before Hogwarts at a Ministry family mixer, because Astoria had run off and Daphne had crashed into Tracey while trying to catch her. Daphne loved Astoria deeply, though sometimes she wondered how her sister wasn’t in Gryffindor, because she was by far the bolder of the two, and terrifically vocal about her beliefs against pureblood supremacy and muggle hunting, sometimes to the point of making enemies.

Tracey was a half-blood, whose parents both worked in the Ministry, in different departments. Her father worked in International Law and her mother, a muggleborn, worked in the Muggle-Worthy Excuse committee. She’d struggled to fit in because of this in her first couple of years, but Daphne, and then Blaise, had been firmly on her side, and eventually, the blood purists had given up. Her favourite colour was blue, though yellow was a close second, and her favourite subject was Arithmancy. She was working on a project for Astronomy about how Astronomy and Arithmancy could be combined to make more accurate predictions. Tracey had a much older brother, who’d graduated years ago, who’d tried to persuade her to attend Ilvermorny once the war started up, but the idea had been shot down by their father. Her birthday was near the end of June.

Blaise’s mother was Italian, though his father was French, so he spoke both at home in his father’s memory. He’d originally been slated to attend Beauxbatons, but his mother had apparently had a falling out with the local government, so he’d had to be enrolled in Hogwarts last minute. He was the oldest of their group, with his birthday at the end of February, but he always bemoaned that he was so close, only one day short, to being born on February 29^th and having an interesting birthday. He didn’t want to join the Ministry but nor was he interested in joining his mother’s divination business, so he’d left his NEWT options as open as possible for future careers. Despite all appearances, his grades were excellent across the board, so he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do except not being stuck in an office. His favourite colour was red, though he’d said it was purple when he was younger, so as to not offend any fellow Slytherin’s delicate sensibilities about House pride.

Blaise never mentioned the rumours of his mother being a Black Widow nor how his father died; Daphne only hinted obliquely about a personal mystery she was desperate to solve with the help of the Department of Mysteries; Tracey didn’t talk about why her father had wanted them to stay in magical Britain even after the war had broken out; but neither did Harry say anything about the Dursleys and their hatred of magic. Their friendship, as easy as it was, wasn’t yet deep enough for sharing that kind of vulnerability, but, Harry thought as he walked back to the Gryffindor common room, they were a lot closer to it than they’d been before.

-

Harry and Hermione poked at the notebook over the next week. Hermione had been similarly conflicted about holding back potentially useful evidence, but she too didn’t trust the auror department to make best use of it. The chances that it would be blown up, accidentally or otherwise, without the information inside becoming known were much too high. Instead, they decided to study it carefully and only start their curse-breaking once they were absolutely sure which curses exactly had been layered over the notebook.

By Thursday, they had sheaves of paper with spell diagrams sketched out in three dimensions – their best guesses of how the curses surrounded the notebooks.

“If we could just remove the anti-tampering ward…” Hermione was saying, for the fourth time that afternoon.

“But it’s layered under the first level of curses.” Harry repeated dully, for what was also the fourth time. “We’d need to remove three curse-wards simultaneously, and we’re the only two fast enough at it.”

Ron, sitting nearby them, looked up from his Potions homework. “Have either of you two done this week’s homework?” He asked them.

“Not yet.” Hermione frowned, glaring at the notebook, “This is more important right now.”

Harry agreed. “It’s not due until Monday, anyway.”

Ron watched them for a moment as whatever point he was trying to make clearly wasn’t getting through. “Right. Our homework.” He repeated. “Our homework on curse-breaking potions.”

Both Harry and Hermione froze, turning to blink at Ron in almost eerie unison.

“Ronald Weasley,” Hermione said, her voice faint, “I think I love you.” She whirled away from their mess of paper, planted a kiss on Ron’s lips, and darted off to her bag not a moment later, digging shoulder-deep through its extended space.

Ron stared after her, expression dazed. “She said…”

Harry snorted. “Of course it was about homework.” He shook his head. “Really, though, thanks for that. I don’t want to know how long it would have taken us to think of the potions.” Teasing, he added, “Still not getting a kiss from me for it though, mate.”

Ron laughed, his grin wide. “Are you sure?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Harry like peculiarly acrobatic ginger caterpillars, “Don’t you love me too, Harry? Harry!” Ron dropped his quill and leapt up from his seat, beginning to chase Harry around the room, “What is this betrayal? I thought you loved me!”

“Boys.” Hermione chuckled, as she turned around at the noise. “While I would never want to get in the way of your bromance, we do have work to do.” She dumped her books on the table.

Harry ducked under Ron’s out-stretched arm and found his seat again, while Ron was momentarily frozen, mouthing the word ‘bromance’ to himself with an incredulous expression, like he’d never heard it before. Perhaps, he hadn’t – Harry could never be sure which words had made their way into the magical world and which hadn’t.

“Bromance?!” Ron demanded, playfully scandalised. “What in Harry’s name is a bromance?”

Harry shuddered. “I am begging you to never say that again.”

“Come on,” Hermione called them back to task, “we have lots to read through. And Ron, since you’ve already started the homework, you can get us going on where to start.”

Ron slumped into his seat, eyeing his half-written essay. “Why did I do this to myself?” He muttered, before taking a deep breath, “Fine. The Abolitio Draught is the most basic form of curse-breaking potions, since it actually removes all added magic from an object, not just curses. So, it’s effective, but only if you don’t care that the object will have no other spells on it afterwards. To remove curses more specifically, other, usually more complicated potions have been created, which target spell structures distinct to curses. Examples of these are…”

As Ron spoke, it became increasingly clear that the topic of curse-breaking potions was both larger and more complicated than it had seemed in Slughorn’s lesson. Still, it looked to be a better option than hoping they could get the extra curse layer off quickly enough to get at the anti-tampering ward before it activated. They’d be brewing different versions of the next few weeks of Potions, and Harry was sure that all three of them would be paying avid attention.

-

While the plan to un-curse the notebook was on hold until they’d covered more of the Potions in class, there was still plenty to do. Their new Transfiguration teacher, Professor Connelly, had proved himself a harsh – if fair – marker, and Harry was currently wondering if it was possible for transfiguration charts to do him in before he reached immortality. It certainly felt like his brain would start dribbling out of his ears if he tried to stuff more memorisation into it. This was why he was greatly relieved when a Ravenclaw in his year approached him in the library.

“’Ello, Potter.” She greeted cheerfully, “You’re Lovegood’s friend, right?”

“Er, yes.” He agreed, clutching onto the lifeline of ‘anything but Transfiguration’. “What about her?”

The Ravenclaw, who he was tentatively identifying as Turpin, smiled, “She goes out to feed the thestrals sometimes, doesn’t she? I was wondering if she’d tell me where to go and what to feed them, but I can’t seem to find her.” Definitely-Turpin shrugged. “So, I thought I’d ask you whether you knew where she was or where the thestrals are. Since Hagrid is busy and all.”

“Um,” Harry blinked, his mind running slow after hours buried in a textbook, “I can check where she is and see if she’s interested. Just give me a few to pack up here.”

“Oh, you don’t need to take me there.” Turpin replied, her eyes flitting to his books, “I wouldn’t want to disturb your study.”

“No, nope.” Harry said, closing his book with a definitive thud, “Anything but this.”

Turpin laughed brightly and probably too loudly for the library. She looked around with a wince, “I’ll meet you outside the library, Potter.”

Harry bundled his things into his bags and drew the Marauders’ Map from his extended pocket. The well-worn parchment crinkled as he set it down, ink blooming to life after he spoke the set phrase. “Where are you?” He muttered as he scanned for Luna, before finding her name in a room just off the Great Hall. It was one he knew she used to snack in, since it was close to food but quiet. “Mischief managed.”

He met Turpin outside the library a moment later. “I don’t know if Luna will be up for it – she might have something on.” He warned her.

“That’s quite alright.” Turpin’s cheer was undeterred. “I’ll find them myself if I have to. It would just be easier with someone who knew the way.”

“Why are you looking for the thestrals?” Harry asked.

Turpin grinned. “Because they’re beautiful – I had no idea they looked like that. I meant to go find them all last term, but I was so busy and I kept forgetting. I’ve finally made time now. I really want to see what they’re like in their natural habitat.”

Turpin kept up more than her half of the conversation all the way down to the room that Luna could be found in, happily regaling Harry with everything she’d learned about thestrals from books.

“Let me ask her.” Harry said, as they reached the room.

“Sure.” Turpin agreed, staying by the door.

Inside the room, Luna was sitting cross-legged on a desk, sketching some kind of plant while she nibbled on a Cornish pasty. “Oh, hello, Harry.” She greeted him as he came in. “Did I forget a meetup today?”

“No.” He reassured her. “Um, I don’t know if you know Turpin from the year above you? She was wanting to know where you were in case you could point her to the thestral herd. She’s kind of fascinated with them and knew that you feed them sometimes.”

Luna hummed and looked down at her drawing. “I was meant to visit them tomorrow, but I suppose today works as well. I’ve never spoken to Lisa, but she always seemed nice.” She charmed the ink dry and began gathering her things.

Lisa, that was Turpin’s first name. Harry had the feeling he’d forgotten it before.

“Are you coming with us, Harry?” Luna asked him, voice serene but her eyes a little wider than usual. Harry wondered whether she was nervous.

“Yep.” He agreed, feeling that he’d given the right answer as her shoulders sagged, “I haven’t seen the thestrals in ages.”

“How lovely.” Luna replied, linking her arm with his, “A group trip. Hello, Lisa Turpin.” She said, as they exited the room.

“Hi, Lovegood!” Turpin was almost vibrating with excitement, “Are you free now? Did you say yes?”

“Mm.” Luna nodded. Nothing in her expression had changed, but Harry felt that something in her had relaxed in the face of Turpin’s visible enthusiasm.

“Great!” Turpin cheered, then paused. “Er, sorry. I get a little overenthusiastic sometimes.”

“That’s alright.” Luna soothed with a smile. “People used to say I liked my hobbies too much too.”

Turpin hummed uncertainly. “Just tell me if I get too loud. It sort of happens without me noticing.”

“The thestrals won’t mind.” Luna replied. “They don’t startle easily. And there are no other people out there to care except for the centaurs, and they usually stay away from the thestrals.”

Turpin still didn’t seem convinced, but the lure of asking more questions about thestrals soon overcame her, and the two talked about them all the way into the Forbidden Forest, only breaking for Luna to quickly retrieve their bucket of meat from behind Hagrid’s house.

Harry joined in where appropriate, but mostly he let the conversation wash over him as he breathed in the fresh wintery air and the warm-dark feel of the Forest’s magic. The thestral herd were usually found not too far inside the Forest, though this covered a vast stretch of land. This time, Harry could almost feel them on the edge of his awareness, a hint of death-touched magic brushing against his own. He led the way his magic called, and Luna followed him without protest until they reached a clearing full of the skeletal horses.

The thestrals looked to Harry as he entered and he looked back, admiring the uncanny twists of their protuberant bone structures and the delicate grace with which they stepped through the foliage. A young thestral ran up to sniff Harry, letting out a delighted braying growl, and rubbed its head into his hand. He scratched back, as he would Basilissa, and the young thestral shivered happily. The rest of the herd approached slowly, bending their heads down to snuffle at Harry’s hair and dragging the side of their beak-like mouths over his head in what was very clearly a welcome.

“Hello.” He greeted them, feeling their magic call to his and his to theirs and all of them to the wild darkness of the Forest.

“Wow.” He heard Turpin behind him and had to agree.

Harry brushed his hand against the scaly neck of a huge mare, somehow both warmer and cooler than he’d expected, and knew he’d be spending more time in the Forest.

Chapter Text

The week that careers counselling started was met with a mixture of anxious fretting, smug indifference, dubious planning, and a great deal more conversation about magical jobs than Harry had ever heard around Hogwarts before. It seemed like everywhere he went, there was someone talking about what they hoped to do after Hogwarts. Even in the dorms, Harry overheard Dean talking about his upcoming apprenticeship to a magical portrait painter and Seamus’ hope that he could find a job in demolitions. In the common room, even the lower years were getting involved, asking the upper years about the jobs available in the magical world. Though he wasn’t trying to pay attention, even Harry picked up some of the basics.

As a relatively small society, there were few large employers – predominantly, the Ministry and international companies such as broom manufacturers and Gringotts. Instead, companies tended to have less than twenty employees, with many wixen working alone to deliver some kind of service. Many of these were registered contractors with the Ministry, which allowed people to find a specialist from the Ministry’s list, while others relied on word of mouth. There was even a small section at the back of the Prophet, that Harry had previously ignored as uninteresting, which contained advertisements for services rendered or people seeking professionals to deal with a particular problem.

“It’s sort of a joke, though.” Ron explained over breakfast. “Old Doris has had a spot in the papers for the last thirty years now, Mum said, offering dream interpretations, but everyone knows she doesn’t have a lick of the sight. And Gladly’s Glaziers used to be doing well enough, but it was their windows in the Ministry that broke when we were in there, and they were supposed to be charmed unbreakable.” He pointed to the small square picture of a shining greenhouse in black and white, accompanied by a paragraph of text squeezed tightly into the borders of the small advert. “Now they say almost unbreakable. They didn’t use to have to use a spot in the Prophet to get customers, so they’re probably doing pretty badly.”

“What about you two?” Harry asked, finally giving voice to the question they’d all been dancing around for the last few days. “What do you plan to do after Hogwarts?”

Ron and Hermione traded looks, their expressions inscrutable to Harry.

Hermione capitulated first. “In an ideal world, I’d like to do a mastery, maybe more than one, and then go into research.” Her tone was vaguely wistful. “Realistically, I want to get into policymaking in the Ministry, perhaps the Wizengamot. I don’t think I could ever be content living in a society with such blatant prejudices without trying to change it, because they’re certainly not going to change themselves at this rate. Of course,” she trailed off, looking back to Harry, “if you need us, then we’ll of course stay with you.”

It was tempting to say yes, to grasp desperately at the option of his friends staying with him all the time until Harry’s own timer ran out. He even had Grimmauld Place to offer them – a place to stay for free, complete with food, amenities, and anything else his friends might need – but Harry could see the reluctance that lurked deep in his friends’ eyes, where they were trying to hide it.

“You can’t put your lives on hold for me.” Harry spoke eventually.

“We could.” Ron replied, seemingly just to be contrary. “But, well, we talked about it, and we don’t want to just mooch off you forever, you know? We’ll probably still be running your cult outside Hogwarts, but I don’t think that’s going to be full-time and, uh, it doesn’t exactly make any money.” Ron’s voice remained even, despite money still being a sensitive topic for him. “I still want to be an auror, even with all the rubbish we’ve been seeing from them recently. Maybe even because of all the rubbish. I want to catch criminals and make society better, and if my own colleagues are the criminals I have to catch, then I’ll do it and be glad of it.” He paused. “It’s just that, if things have to be flexible over the next few years, then alright, we can work with that.”

Harry nodded, though his chest still felt tight. It was all too easy to imagine Hermione in the Ministry, bulldozing through the red-tape and legal pitfalls of magical law with the sheer might of her intellect and stubborn righteousness. Similarly, he could see Ron in red auror robes, a bastion of morals and common sense in an otherwise faltering department. He could envisage how they’d work together – Hermione clearing up the loopholes for the rich woven into the law while Ron ensured that the law was enforced on everyone equally. It was his own place with them that he couldn’t picture.

“We’re quite serious that we’re happy to stay with you and help you figure things out, Harry.” Hermione insisted. “Nothing about our plans needs to happen immediately, and we know a lot of things are up in the air right now. It’s just that- I mean- The point is that nothing is going to stop us from being with you and helping you. Not even a job. We knew that you’d probably say we should do what we want to do without you holding us back – which you wouldn’t be, to be clear – and we wanted to reassure you that nothing about this would take us away from you. It’d be just like we have classes at different hours. But also, if you did want our help, we’d be very happy to stay with you and work through your ascension as it gets closer.”

Harry didn’t know what to think, so he tried to brush past it. “So, both in Ministry jobs, huh? They won’t know what hit them.”

Harry’s friends both eyed him dubiously but mercifully let him change the subject for now.

“Yeah.” Ron agreed. “I thought about maybe helping George out at the shop – he’s finally back there, not full-time though – but I can’t come up with these things like the twins do. Did.” His voice faltered on the word, before soldiering on. “So, all I could really do was help with stock and sales and stuff, which George already has employees for. I thought a little bit about Quidditch – I still reckon that you could fly for the Cannons, you know, Harry. That would be wicked. You’d turn their whole season around. – but I don’t think I’m quite up to professional standard. And being an auror sounds way more interesting. I reckon I’d get sick of quidditch after a bit, you know, and I don’t want to start hating it.”

Hermione nodded, looking approving. “And it’s easier to switch from being an auror to working in George’s shop, if you’d like to, than trying to become an auror after working in a shop.”

This was clearly a conversation that they’d had before.

“For me,” Hermione said, “we have momentum right now. As much as I’d like to study more – maybe even finish school in the muggle world and perhaps go to university – now is the best time to try and push the Ministry into something better. It’s been less than a year since the war ended and already, they’re stagnating, and nothing much improved in the first place. There are so many interesting projects being prepared, and I want to be there to see them through.”

“Projects?” Harry asked, clinging gratefully onto a topic that wasn’t his friends’ futures without him.

Hermione lit up. “You know that Justin Finch-Fletchley and Kevin Entwhistle got in touch with Pratchett about an independent newspaper?”

Harry nodded, having been the one who brought Andromeda’s suggestion to them.

“Well, Pratchett wasn’t sure that they could get a newspaper off the ground initially, but he does believe that they could start with publishing something else, like a book, and then forming a newspaper once they’ve gotten their names out and established themselves as trustworthy.” Hermione was visibly excited about this. “So, Justin and Kevin decided that, since their original aim was to dispel misinformation about the war and the Ministry’s role in it, they’d compile a collection of firsthand accounts of the war, from as many viewpoints as possible. Their selling point, they hope, would be to include your account and ours.”

Harry tilted his head, thinking it through. “Do you think it might work? Would anyone read it?”

Hermione nodded. “With an account from you? Without a doubt. The only people who’ve heard a full account about the war from your side are the people here at Hogwarts. Everyone would want to read what you have to say, even if they don’t like you. Maybe even especially if they don’t. Without your side?” She looked thoughtful. “Still, probably. Ron and I have already agreed to feature, but our names, of course, still aren’t as well-known as yours. Neville has already said he’ll write a piece as well, along with Kingsley, which should definitely raise some interest.”

Harry shrugged. “Yeah, alright. I mean, this was kind of what we were aiming for at the start of the year, just on a bigger scale.”

“Excellent.” Hermione looked thrilled. “I’ll let them know when I next see them.”

“You really think they can do it?” Harry asked. “I mean, it just sounds like a lot of work.”

“Yes, I do.” Hermione nodded firmly. “Kevin and Justin, they pretty much talk about nothing else. Both of them were running from Snatchers last year and they’re furious that the Ministry is trying to gloss over it by pretending that there’s some mystical allure of the dark arts which turned their upstanding citizens into murderers. Now they’re in touch with someone outside school who could make it happen, I don’t think there’s any stopping them.”

“And probably not many people who would try.” Ron added. “No one takes Pratchett seriously anymore because he’s always writing letters into the Prophet about journalistic integrity and nothing happens, so they won’t care what he’s up to. And Finch-Fletchley and Entwhistle are muggleborns.” There was no explanation necessary for why parts of the population wouldn’t give much attention to what they were doing. “It’s kind of brilliant, because they’ll keep ignoring them until it’s too late.”

Slowly, Harry felt his mood lifting again. The future loomed unpredictable, but sticking it to the Ministry? That, he could get behind.

-

Apsyrtos sighed in frustration as Harry’s Mistform sword shattered back into Mist when he blocked Apsyrtos’ swing. He lowered his own ghostly sword with a frown. “This is getting nowhere today. You are too distracted to hold your sword’s form, but I do not want to return to the wooden ones. Are you sure you couldn’t find a magical blade?”

Harry too was frustrated. Most days now he could summon a sword from the Mist and use that for their practices, but today, he kept thinking about his friends and the future. “Other than Gryffindor’s sword, no.” They’d mutually decided that a blade with basilisk venom was too dangerous to use during their spars – not for Apsyrtos, who was already dead, but in case Harry nicked himself and upset the careful equilibrium of venom and tears in his blood. “I could always transfigure something out of normal metal?”

Apsyrtos grimaced. “Only as a last resort. Ordinary weaponry holds up ill against divine metals in the first place, but mortal weapons will never sit comfortably in a child of Hecate’s hand. You need something magical.”

“So, back to the Mist, until I can get something from the Underworld.” Harry sighed, preparing himself to try and fight back the distracting thoughts once more.

“Unless you happen to have monster parts lying around to use instead, yes.” Apsyrtos replied, readying himself with his washed-out sword again.

Harry paused. “Actually…”

-

“The entrance to this hidden chamber,” Apsyrtos began as they approached Myrtle’s bathroom, “why is it in a ladies’ toilet?”

Harry had no good answer for him and said as much. Either someone had made a very strange choice, or it was coincidence that the bathroom was built around the Chamber’s entrance when bathrooms were added to Hogwarts.

“I see.” Apsyrtos replied, sounding very much like he didn’t, but also didn’t want to question it further.

“Here we are.” Harry said, casting a quick notice-me-not charm over himself before they entered the bathroom.

It was empty as usual, but there was no water on the floor or moaning from the pipes. With a start, Harry remembered that this wasn’t Myrtle’s bathroom anymore, because she’d moved on to the afterlife. Without her, the bathroom suddenly felt emptier, and Harry really didn’t want to linger.

“Open.” Harry spoke to the little snake carving and the sinks opened up to reveal the long drop down into the Chamber’s tunnels. A rush of smell came with it – damp and stone and snakeskin – and it was this which made Harry finally admit to himself that he was somewhat unnerved returning to the Chamber where he nearly died against the gigantic snake. “It’s a long drop down.” He turned back to Apsyrtos, “but it shouldn’t bother you since, you’re, uh.”

“Dead.” Apsyrtos filled in for him evenly. “One of the few perks of such.”  

“Uh, yeah.” Harry agreed, unsure what else to say. He busied himself by casting impervious charms on all his robes to reject muck and a strong locking charm on the entrance door to prevent anyone coming in while the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was open. “In we go then, I guess.” He let himself have only a moment of hesitation before leaping into the dark hole.

Second time around, with no pressing quest to save anyone’s life, Harry could admit that the fall downwards along the inside of the pipe was sort of fun, in a slightly disgusting way. He’d never been on a rollercoaster or a water slide, but he had to imagine that this was something like that, if a bit darker and full of slime of questionable origin. Soon enough, it spat him out at the end, onto the pile of dead rat bones.

Apsyrtos followed not a moment after, looking around himself in curiosity and blatant disgust. “And you say one of your school founders built this?” He stared pointedly at the gloomy tunnels, with their dripping ceilings, ankle-deep water, collection of old bones, and slimy moss growing across the walls. “I must say, the man had a very strange taste in decorations.”

Harry thought about pointing out that it probably hadn’t always looked like this, but it was funnier to let Apsyrtos believe that it was all by design. “Wait until you see the giant statue of his face.” Was what he said instead.

They approached the Chamber quickly, only pausing to look where Hermione and Ron had clearly moved away part of the collapsed tunnel to get through during the battle and then again where one of the rolls of shed snakeskin loomed huge and strangely unrotted.

“A great beast indeed.” Apsyrtos murmured, looking up at the shed skin. “I should like to see the body itself.”

Through the second door, they came to the Chamber, complete with an ugly statue of Slytherin’s face and a massive basilisk corpse. The flesh had mostly rotted away after years of decomposition, but the scales remained, the skin sagging loose around the skeletal remains. The basilisk’s fangs were exposed still, one missing and one broken, in an eternal grimace of pain.

“Oh gods.” Apsyrtos swore. “You killed this as a child?”

Harry nodded grimly. “It was kill it or be killed.”

“Often the way with monsters.” Apsyrtos agreed, though his voice was faint. “This was truly a mighty deed.”

Harry didn’t reply but approached the basilisk corpse. As he neared, he could feel the magic of the serpent’s fangs, promising death even from beyond the grave.

“It’s odd to see a dead monster.” Apsyrtos commented, floating right over to it. He inspected the teeth and where Fawkes had clawed the basilisk’s eyes out, before scanning over its body. “Our monsters dissolve into dust when they are killed before reforming in Tartarus.” The air grew a degree cooler as Apsyrtos said the name, and the ghost somehow paled further. “Best not to speak its name, yes.”

“What did you mean by having monster parts then?” Harry asked, confused.

“Monsters often drop spoils when defeated.” Apsyrtos explained. “A part of them which might be useful or simply a trophy. I had thought your basilisk would be the same, but your magical world seems to operate on very different rules.”

“Huh.” Harry shook his head to clear his thoughts, “Anyway, would any of this be useful?”

“Oh, yes.” Apsyrtos’ eyes focused now that they were back on topic. “The fangs of course would be excellent blades for you once sharpened and shaped. For now, though, they run the same risk as that sword of yours. Until then, one of the straighter bones would work nicely, and the snakeskin would make excellent sheathes. Perhaps even armour, should that interest you.”

Harry wasn’t sure how to feel about using parts of the basilisk as weapons. It felt odd to use the creature that nearly killed him.

Apsyrtos must have seen the thoughts on his face because he spoke. “It would be a fine weapon for you in many ways. You use a phoenix feather in your wand, yes? The same phoenix whose tears are in your veins? That is meaningful, symbolic, in a way that divine magic enjoys. To use the bones and fangs of an enemy who brought you near death, and whose venom persists in you even now, to visit death upon your own enemies? That too would give your weapons a divine weight.”

Harry nodded, convinced by the argument, but still not entirely sure how he felt about it. There was a certain satisfaction, he supposed, in using the basilisk for his own purposes, but he couldn’t imagine using basilisk venom on anyone else after feeling the burn of it himself. Still, Apsyrtos had said that they’d use bones instead of fangs for now. “Why do I even need a weapon?” He asked eventually. It had been something he’d wondered about on and off since Hecate had demanded he learn and not embarrass her. “I have my wand and my magic.”

Apsyrtos made a strange face, even as he used his ghostly sword to hack laboriously through the tough skin of the basilisk until he could chop through a massive bit of bone. “It is hard to explain, I suppose.” He said, lopping about a metre of bone off. “For me, it goes without saying, but I understand that society has changed a lot in the many years since my death. The gods, meanwhile, have existed before me and since me, and have thus adjusted to the current era while also holding onto some vestiges of the past. You hear it in their speech, how they slip between registers, languages, and turns of phrase. They are one era and all of them, all mixed up.” He handed Harry the bone. “Shape it into a sword with your magic.”

Harry began morphing the basilisk bone, curiously resistant, into the shape of a sword while Apsyrtos continued.

“The dead are similar to the gods in that way, since everyone ends up dead eventually. We mix and mingle between eras, status, and country, without the barrier of languages between us. Yet, each one of us still holds many of the values and norms of the society we came from inside ourselves. In my society, a man, a demigod such as you should be trained in weaponry. To not do so would be foolish or cowardly, or perhaps mean that you were too poor for a proper education. For a female demigod, hmm, they should perhaps know the knife, to defend themselves, but they were not sent on quests for the gods, the same way we were. Huntresses of the moon goddess were the exception of course. I do not know what the demigods of the present are like, but I can speak for my own past.”

Apsyrtos’ face darkened. “My sister, Medea,” and oh, that was a name Harry recognised from his reading, “is a sorceress, well-known for her magic. It does not mean she couldn’t use a weapon, but she prefers to use her magic even now in the Underworld. Sorceresses, either for their means or their deeds, did not tend to have good reputations. In part, I recognise now that it was because they challenged the order of our society, but it is a deep-seated mistrust that lingers still of sorceresses who fight their battles with magic.”

“So, fighting with magic would make me look like a sorceress?” Harry asked, with some disbelief. “But I’m a man. And magic is much more useful than a sword.”

Apsyrtos shrugged. “Whether it is right or not, using only magic would make you appear both untrustworthy, weak, and womanly. Your mother can get away with fighting mainly with her torches and magic because she is a woman, but she still has her knives. Even then, she is not the most trusted of the titanesses. The other goddesses who fight have their own weapons. You, however, would be subject to ridicule for it, since it would be considered tricks instead of strength.”

Harry found himself oddly offended. “Womanly? For magic? Why does that make it sound like there’s something wrong with being a woman anyway?” He could almost feel Hermione and Ginny standing over his shoulders, frothing with rage.

Apsyrtos raised a hand in a pacifying gesture. “I am only telling you what others would think. There is still a certain divide among the Olympian gods which the modern world may have hoped to leave behind them. Besides, there is another, likely better, reason for using weaponry.”

Harry reluctantly let him continue.

“Divine magic and your own people’s magic interact oddly.” Apsyrtos explained. “It is one of the reasons why there are not many demigods among your people. Mortal magic does not affect the gods to any noticeable degree – which would be trouble for you when you have ascended – and has variable effect on demigods and monsters. Demigods are bolstered by their parents’ blood, which might make them resistant to some magics while still vulnerable to others. Though I can’t think why you’d be casting on a demigod, the point is made because it is similar for monsters. They are soaked, instead, in the divine magic of the Pit and the Earth. Where a spell might fail on a monster or might succeed, an arrow in a divine metal will always work, unless the monster is specifically resistant, like the Nemean Lion. Such makes a good sword more reliable in a battle where every moment counts. For you, specifically, it is important that you have a weapon which could harm a god – since they will not take you seriously otherwise – and that you have enough skill to demonstrate that you’ve been educated.”

“Divine magics still work on gods, though?” Harry checked. “If I used them instead of wizarding magic?”

“Yes, though depending on the power of the spell, caster, and target.” Apsyrtos confirmed. “But I do believe that, as you are finding out, divine magic is much different to your mortal magic.”

Harry considered everything that Apsyrtos had said. “Fine, then. I’ll learn how to use a sword but I’m never going to stop using my magic, no matter what anyone says.” Not when he’d finally started to like it again. “I’m a wizard and proud of it,” which was so nearly true by now, “and maybe they could use a little shaking up in their society.” Wryly, he added, “I’m told I’m good at that.”

“Very well.” Apsyrtos said, eyeing the completed sword which was held, long forgotten, in Harry’s hand. “I wish you luck in your chaos-causing. After, of course, I finish training you.” He took the sword from Harry, “A little rough, but serviceable for now.”

Harry took it back, moving towards the exit, but Apsyrtos stayed for a moment, looking at the basilisk.

The ghost reached into the corpse and chopped off a rib, long and curved, and turned it over in his hands. “Strong and flexible.” Apsyrtos declared. “I’ve been meaning to start you on the bow, but did not have the equipment. This will do nicely.” He glided on insubstantial feet towards Harry and the exit. “Once you have the basics of hitting a stationary target, then your horse-riding lessons can begin. I’m curious indeed about whether these thestrals will be able to hold my form.”

Harry led the way back up, internally groaning about trying to fit extra lessons into his already packed schedule, but he too was looking forward to learning how to ride the thestrals properly. It only occurred to him much later that Apsyrtos had managed to take his mind completely off the conversation with Ron and Hermione.

Chapter Text

Luna’s birthday celebration was a quiet thing. She hadn’t let any of her friends do the party planning but had instead calmly informed them a week or so beforehand that they would be attending a picnic near the Black Lake that Saturday morning, so that they could all watch the sunrise together over breakfast. Harry and Neville had practically had to drag Ron from the warm comfort of his bed to be there on time, but none of them could deny that it was a special feeling to gather together in the pre-dawn light, with ample servings of tea, toast, and chocolate cake.

As the eastern sky lit from blue into a vibrant orange, Ron was half asleep on Harry’s shoulder, Hermione having pushed him off hers when his over-grown fringe started dipping perilously close to her mug of tea, while Ginny dug into her third slice of chocolate cake. Luna and Lisa were making a game of predicting where the Giant Squid’s tentacles would emerge from next, as Neville sat quietly, listening to them both with a small smile on his face.

They stayed out there for hours, accompanied only by each other and the trilling birdsong of early morning, until the sun rose fully in the sky and burned the mists away.

-

“So,” Harry began, facing his DA group, “as you know, we finished the Sixth-Year syllabus a few weeks back, and we’ve made pretty good headway into the Seventh.”

His group looked pretty proud of themselves, which they deserved to be – he’d been pushing them hard all last term, but they’d all risen to the occasion and learned well. Even the other final years, who’d covered this content before, had worked hard, and as a result, showed great improvement in their practical casting as well as their theoretical foundations.

“Hermione and Ron are reporting the same from their groups.” He continued. “Ron’s onto the Third-Year stuff for all of them, while Hermione is starting the Fifth with her OWL group. We were planning to finish the course content first, but we’re all confident that we can cover our final year syllabus in less than a term. So, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute, we decided that we’re going to take a break from the course content and start a project on a spell that I know a lot of you have been looking forward to – the patronus charm.”

Harry’s Slytherin friends looked jubilant while the sixth years broke out in loud whispering.

Harry caught a few people’s eyes, “Now, people who were part of the original DA, you probably already have this spell down, yes?” Most nodded, though a few looked unsure or embarrassed. “If you don’t, or you want to make sure, feel free to join in the practice session. The rest of you, I’d like it if you’d help out. We’re joining up all the OWL and NEWT year groups for this one, so we’re going to need all the hands we can get at the start.”

Truthfully, Harry had no idea how Ron was managing with three year groups to teach, and the lowest ones at that, but by all accounts, Ron seemed to be doing an excellent job of it. Professor Flitwick had been in raptures about their increased control in Charms. Combining the OWL and NEWT DA groups would bring them to around the same numbers as Ron’s group, which was sure to be a bit of a mess until they got themselves settled again.

“Is that okay with everyone?” Harry asked them.

There was a pause before Hannah spoke up. “Er, Harry. I don’t mind helping out a bit – it’s just that, well, it took some of us ages to learn – are we going to be doing anything else as well in the meantime?” Her concern was echoed by some of the others around her.

Harry grinned. “I am so glad you asked, Hannah. Wouldn’t want anyone getting bored.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his extended pocket and duplicated it multiple times. “This is a list of books, spells, and potions put together by me, Hermione, and Ron. None of these are on the syllabus, but they’re all useful. Some of them, we took from the information we got about auror training; some of them are from Ron’s brother, the cursebreaker; the rest are just interesting things we found. Your job, those of you who already know the patronus charm, is to pick one or more of these, write a short report on it to share with the others, and then help anyone who’s interested in it to learn it. Sound good?”

Hannah, and the others who had worried about not doing much while the patronus lessons were going on, now looked worried for a different reason. Susan took the sheet offered to her and looked through it, one ginger eyebrow rising higher and higher. The other papers were handed around, shuffled between people and copied until there were enough of them.

“You’re absolutely bonkers, Potter.” Anthony Goldstein said, as he finished reading his own sheet. “But alright. I’d have said trying to cover a year’s syllabus in a term or casting a corporeal patronus would be bonkers too, and yet here we are. We might as well give it a go.”

“That’s what we like to hear.” Harry replied, injecting his voice with a cheer that he didn’t quite feel. He hadn’t been entirely sure of essentially assigning a homework project to the DA members, but they all seemed to be taking it with good grace. The reading and spells on the list were specifically picked to be challenging, but he’d tried everything on the list himself and thought that they weren’t anything the others would truly struggle with. “Now, if we could have two groups of people – those who are confident with the patronus charm and those who aren’t – we’ll wait for Hermione to finish giving her talk, and then we’ll begin.”

Blaise, Daphne, and Tracey mixed into the second group, accompanied by Theodore Nott, who’d wordlessly begun attending this term as if he’d always been there. Fay joined them, along with Mandy, Lisa, Su Li, and Mark Walker, who Harry didn’t know very well. The sixth years were almost all in this group, apart from Alice Tolipan, Zacharias Smith, Luna, and Ginny.

From Hermione’s year groups, as they joined him on the far side of the Room of Requirement, it was only Maisie Reynolds and Nigel Wolpert who joined the group confident in their ability to cast the charm. Dennis, if he’d been attending, would also have been in that group, and the thought left a bitter taste on Harry’s tongue before he was able to dispel it.

It took a couple of minutes for everyone to quieten down from their excited conversations, but soon Harry could begin the lesson. “Alright, hello, everyone. So, today is our first session on the patronus charm, and before we get to any casting, we’re going to talk about it a bit, so feel free to take a seat.” He summoned a chair for himself, along with a board that the Room handily provided. The DA members followed his lead, taking for themselves a mixture of chairs, beanbags, and cushions.

“First things first,” Harry spoke, already feeling himself settle into the now-familiar flow of a lecture. “Why do we care so much about teaching the patronus charm that we’re willing to spend months of our time and yours on it? Well, the short answer is that it’s the only defence against dementors and lethifolds. During the war, this was particularly important because, as most of you should know, the dementors abandoned their posts at Azkaban to follow Voldemort.” The compulsory shudder rippled around the group. “Although he’s dead and his side is mostly disbanded, the dementors are still free. The current government doesn’t trust them with guarding Azkaban – which is definitely sensible – but it means that their agreement with the Ministry is broken, and they are no longer under the Ministry’s control.”

“Wait, so they’re just loose?” Tsiala Meyer exclaimed, sitting forward abruptly.

“Yes.” Harry confirmed with a grimace. “The Ministry fumbled it badly with them and didn’t even realise they were unaccounted for until a few weeks had passed after the battle. Their talks with the dementors were still up in the air until last week, when the Ministry informed them that they would not be receiving their old posts back as Azkaban’s guards. Since then, the dementors have been under no one’s control. The Ministry have been trying to make up for it by sending aurors after them, but well, that department is still struggling in all areas at the moment. Besides, a patronus charm can’t kill a dementor, only drive them back, so they’re reactive at best.”

“I’m not sure how many might have caught it,” Hermione added, “but there was a story about this in the Prophet last week. It was on the ninth page, or something ridiculous, but it was an opinion piece criticising the Ministry for not doing more to contain them. Of course, it was pushed so far back because the focus of the piece was on how the Ministry continues to alienate the Muggle government by allowing parts of our world – such as dementors and the depression caused by their spawning – to continue to harming citizens of muggle Britain.”

Most of the group looked horrified, so clearly this was news to them.

“How isn’t this a headline?” Mandy Brocklehurst asked, pale and panicked. “Why doesn’t everyone know that the dementors are still loose?”

Hermione sighed heavily. “For the same reason they managed to cause so many problems in the first place – too many people in the government with too much pride to admit that they made mistakes, and a tendency to stick their heads in the sand and hope that it won’t affect them.”

“So, feel free to spread the word.” Harry continued. “But, this is why everyone is getting a crash course in the patronus charm – we want all of you to be able to defend yourselves and people around you before the end of term. Are we ready to begin?”

The group looked back, scared but determined.

Harry nodded and continued his lesson. “Great. So, dementors are amortal beings, which means they aren’t exactly born and can’t be killed. We still don’t know where they came from, though there are plenty of theories which we don’t have time to get into. What this means for us, is that the only way to stop a dementor is to trap them, make an agreement with them, or use the patronus charm to fend them off. We will be focusing on the patronus charm. Some of you may know the theory of the patronus charm, some won’t, and some of you have even heard it from me already.” There were a couple of chuckles from the Slytherin contingent, “For now, we’ll go over the basics, as if you all know nothing. The patronus charm is a powerful defensive spell…”

Harry continued his lecture, stressing the emotional component of the spell and only briefly touching on the pronunciation in a way that he knew was very different to all written records about the charm. To their credit, most of the DA members paid attention, even among those who could already cast a patronus. The possibility of happening upon a dementor outside the castle seemed to have lit a fire under them.

“Any questions?” Harry asked, his voice starting to become a little worn.

A hand shot in the air. “Can we see yours again?” Nigel asked.

Harry stopped still. Not even Ron and Hermione had seen his new patronus, though he’d told them it had changed. Hermione looked up, alarmed, and seemed to be about to come to his aid, but Harry found his voice a moment later. “Yeah, alright.” He said, giving Hermione a slight nod to let her know it was okay. “Though, you should know that the shape has changed.”

This sent a round of shock through the original DA members, who’d been so used to seeing his stag during their lessons. They watched him with wide eyes. Susan looked like she might cry.

“Expecto patronum.” It came out close to a whisper, a soft summoning of his spirit guardian, echoed by the ghostly tapping of gentle hooves against the floor. His silver thestral emerged from the glowing cloud of light, a much larger form than the stag had been. Where the stag had charged upon entry, eager to defend, the thestral stayed by his side, sheltering Harry under one huge, incorporeal wing. It turned its head, seeing no danger around, and snuffled its muzzle into Harry’s shoulder, rubbing its cheek over his head in blatant affection. The magic was warm to the touch, like being bathed in heated air.

“What is that?” Someone asked, though Harry didn’t catch who.

“A thestral.” Lisa’s voice was awed. “They’re beautiful in real life too.”

“Expecto patronum.” Hermione’s voice sounded, and a playful otter swum into the air, dragging people’s attention away.

The others caught on fast, and Ginny’s stampeding mare trotted up to his thestral, so similar and yet so different, while Luna’s hare flew above them in excited leaps. Seamus’ fox darted after the hare, but Ernie’s boar was content to watch them run. Dean’s dog stayed by his side, tail wagging furiously; Susan’s kite circled far above them; Neville’s hedgehog took shape in a tiny flurry of spikes, investigated by Anthony’s jay and Hannah’s ever-curious magpie. Animals, glowing silver with warmth and positivity flowing off them, circled the group, who watched wide-eyed at the spectacle.

Gradually, the playing patronuses faded away, back into formless mist and then into nothing, until the world hung heavy for a moment with their absence, colder, dimmer, and less joyful.

“And those are corporeal patronuses.” Harry spoke into the silence. “Now, it’s your turn to try.”

-

“I can’t wait until the day I never have to do another bit of homework again.” Ron groused, sliding his essay out of the way to lie his head on the table. “We have five essays this week! Five! What are any of us actually going to do in the future that needs us to write so many essays?”

“Learning to read on a subject and form a critical response is a very important life skill.” Hermione replied mildly, moving a bit of Ron’s shaggy hair off her textbook. “As is learning how to prioritise tasks. And you do know that you’re going to have things to read and practice during your auror training, right?”

“Ugh.” Ron groaned into the table. Harry patted him on the back in solidarity. “But at least it will be useful things. This, transfiguring items enchanted with an advanced hover charm variation into a shape over a half heavier or three times more vicious? I listened to the lesson, I did the spell – why does it need an essay?”

“Homework is good for repetition, helping students remember the topic properly. It also allows the teacher to assess how well the students have understood a topic.” This was a conversation that the two of them had had many times over. At this point, Hermione barely slowed down in writing her own essay, even as she debated with Ron.

“It’s a waste of time, is what it is.” Ron grumbled, turning his head so his cheek was now on the table instead of his forehead. “If I listen in class and learn it, then have to do it all again in homework, what’s the point? I might as well have not been in class and used that time for something better. School should stay in school time, not in relaxation time.”

Hermione now looked interested. “So, how do you relate that to work? Do you think it will be different?”

“Well,” Ron sat up now, leaning back in his seat and stretching his long legs out, accidentally kicking Harry in the process. “Sorry, mate. The way I see it, I work for a certain number of hours and then I go home and have nothing to do with work for the rest of the day. If I have to do prep work, then it should be something that’s actually needed for what happens during the workday, and doing necessary training should be counted as part of my working hours. I don’t mind practicing spells at home until I get them right ‘cause those things take time, and it’s down to me to be sure I’m performing properly, but if it’s something I need to learn, it should be in training time.”

Harry thought that sounded pretty good, but he wasn’t sure whether jobs would actually be like that. The only real example he had in his life was Uncle Vernon, who left for work and came home at the same time every day on weekdays and resolutely refused to answer the phone on weekends. But even Uncle Vernon had to host work dinners and go to networking events in his free time. Harry had certainly heard him grumble about it enough.

“I’m not entirely sure that’s realistic.” Hermione posited. “Many jobs require people to work outside of their technical working hours. Our professors, for example, prepare our lessons and mark our essays outside lesson time. Or, as an auror, you might be called in for an emergency or kept longer for it. Would you refuse to do overtime because it’s not in your contract?”

Ron frowned. “It depends if it was really an emergency or not. See, the thing is, I figure, if you start off taking all that overtime, bringing your job home to work on overnight, and being on call all the time for problems, people are always going to keep asking you to do more things. If you always work overtime, then they go ‘well, Ron’s got it covered, why bother hiring the other person this place needs to keep work hours normal?’ and emergencies stop being real emergencies, but small problems that anyone else could have fixed, but why go to them when you’re always up for it?”

Hermione had stopped writing her essay and was listening to Ron with a thoughtful expression. Harry himself was keen to hear what else Ron had to say on this – it was clear that this was something he’d put a surprising amount of thought into.

Ron tapped his quill against his fingers, staring down at the table as he tried to get his thoughts in order. “Thing is, yeah, I grew up watching this in Dad. He works overtime every day and has done as long as I can remember. He works harder than pretty much anyone, but he never gets a pay rise or a promotion from it because he’s too useful where he is. And Dad likes his job, so he’s never going to argue about it or ask why his colleagues are earning way more than him, but the rest of us have to get by with second-hand things and never knowing if we have enough money saved if something goes wrong.”

Harry wanted to reach out, to comfort Ron somehow, but held himself back so Ron could continue.

“The same happened with Percy.” It was odd to hear Ron talk about Percy. He’d been brought back into the Weasley fold, but things were still a little awkward, despite everyone trying to heal the gap. “He was furious with Dad for it, but then he went and did the same thing but in a different way. He lived for his job and nothing else, so of course they screwed him over for it.”

The quill snapped in Ron’s tightening fingers, and he cursed, quickly mopping up the splatter of ink. The ink cleared, Ron finally looked up at the two of them. “I don’t want to live for my job. I know I need a job, ‘cause of money and generally being useful and stuff, and it would be nice to be an auror and catch dark wizards, but I don’t want to be ‘Ron the Auror’. I want to be ‘Ron, Harry’s friend and Hermione’s boyfriend and Weasley family member’ and actually live my life. ‘Cause there’s got to be more to life than grades and essays and salaries and dark wizards.”

Harry found his words stuck in his throat, caught up in the flow of Ron’s tirade. He looked over to Hermione to see how she was reacting, and saw her leant back in her own chair, chewing on the end of her quill, eyes unfocused in thought. “Then, I suppose we’ve been asking the question wrong.” She mused, speaking slowly as if still mulling over the words. “What do you want to do after Hogwarts?”

Tension bled out of Ron’s frame as he relaxed into something more natural, a smile brightening his face for the first time this conversation. “I want to go for Sunday lunch at the Burrow but not live there all the time because it gets a bit much. I want to go to Cannons games and maybe join a local amateur league, or a chess club, or something. I want enough money for a nice place of my own and savings for emergencies, and maybe enough to go visit Bill or Charlie on holiday. I want an owl that isn’t Pig, because everyone knows Ginny’s his favourite and it feels kind of mean to separate them. Also, a really comfy sofa that’s long enough to fit me. And, of course, I want you two around because Harry’s my best friend and I, I love you, Hermione, and I want to spend every day with you.”

Hermione flushed darkly. “I’d like that too, being with you. I'd like to get to know your family better, and to try and make peace with mine. I want to make a difference in the magical world, but I think you're right, I want a life outside of that too." She shot him a teasing look. "Except for the Cannons games – you can take Harry for that!”

“Hey!” Harry objected, more for being volunteered for something than for any real problems watching the Chudley Cannons continue their impressive losing streak. He turned to Ron. “You wouldn’t watch just the Cannons, though, right? The qualifiers for the new World Cup are coming up too.”

“Duh, Ireland’s hosting.” Ron replied. “Everyone’ll be going to the finals, but the second round of qualifying onward will be in Dublin too. Getting portkeys will be easy.”

Ron caught Harry up on the specifics of how the Quidditch World Cup was hosted and the many, many matches before the finals, and Harry found himself making plans with Ron to attend England’s first match in August before he knew it. A set date, a plan after Hogwarts, but finally one that didn't feel like a deadline.

Chapter Text

March brought with it a rise in temperature and a seemingly endless stream of rainclouds. Ron’s birthday party, only a day after Blaise’s, had included a quidditch game among their friends, but they’d had to call it off early when the rain began lashing down too hard for them to see across the pitch. Though soaked to the bone, none of them had been any less cheerful for it. The event was a bright spot amid dreary grey days, which all jumbled up into an indeterminate mixture of schoolwork, magic practice, and weapons training. The next interesting thing came a week into March, when they finally finished their Potions unit on curse-breaking potions.

“Are we ready?” Hermione asked, making sure the drooping sleeves of her robes were tied back firmly with ribbons for perhaps the fourth time in the last ten minutes. “I still think we could wait and research further options.”

Ron rolled his eyes across from her. “What other options? We’ve been through every book in the library on the topic, including the restricted section. If we spend any more time in there, I think Pince will throw us out, signed passes or not.” He gestured at the array of cauldrons in front of them. “We’ve brewed them all three times and checked for interactions between them. Let’s just bloody do it or give up on the damn notebook now.”

Harry eyed the notebook in question. It sat innocently in a circle of cauldrons of all different sizes, cover pristine despite the number of detection charms they’d thrown at it over the last few weeks. Now, only a preservation charm was left. “Ron’s right.” He agreed. “I think this is as good as it’s going to get.”

Hermione huffed but didn’t disagree. Harry knew that she didn’t really want to wait, or she wouldn’t have been there with them, in front of their prepared potions – this was just fretting. “On three then?” She spoke, picking up a pinch of ground quartz, the last ingredient of the potion in front of her.

Harry nodded, bringing out his wand as Ron took hold of the notebook.

“One, two, THREE.”

The three of them exploded into carefully coordinated motion. Harry stripped the preservation charm from the notebook as Hermione dropped the quartz into the cauldron and stirred fast anticlockwise. The moment she made the eighth turn, the milky potion turned crystal clear, and Ron dropped the notebook in, careful not to let a drop of the potion touch his fingers. They watched and waited, eyes fixed on the potion, until the liquid started taking on a rusty red tint. Then, Ron lifted the cauldron as Hermione stepped around to the next, much larger one, and Ron began to spill the rusty potion into the second cauldron.

As the cauldron tipped, Harry’s hand darted in and caught the notebook, before it could fall in with the rest of the cauldron’s contents. They all looked, eyes sharp, to see if the rust-red potion had been contaminated by Harry’s touch, but no other colour appeared, and so they moved on. Harry lay the notebook down on an absorbent cloth, dabbing carefully to get the worst of the wet off. In the corner of his eye, Hermione mixed the two potions in careful intervals, her wand sending chimes to track the beats of three. On the twenty-first of these, Ron scraped in a sliver of nundu horn with a silver knife before sprinkling individual heads of knotweed flowers until Hermione instructed him to stop.

All three watched as the two potions mixed, red-brown being slowly folded into murky green, until the mixture began hardened, going dough-like and then like wet cement.

“More moon-dew!” Hermione called, and Harry passed the bottle to Ron, who pulled out the dropper carefully dripped the liquid in a single drop at a time until the now clay coloured potion stopped hardening.

Harry took his cue, taking the notebook off the cloth and dropping it down into the potion. Immediately, the mixture began to fizz, huge bubbles breaking on the surface and releasing noxious gases. Ron was prepared for this, his wand already in hand and casting a charm which siphoned the gases away. Hermione watched over the potion, stirring as the colour changed to keep the opacity even, while Harry moved to the next cauldron in preparation.

This one was much smaller than the second cauldron and bronze where the others had been pewter. Harry started the fire under it with a wordless wave of his wand, watching sharply as the black liquid began to swirl, despite the constant urge to check on how the other potion was doing. This one had to reach simmering before it was ready to be used but became progressively weaker if it began to boil in earnest, which came much faster than might be expected. They’d practiced the timing for this repeatedly, so Harry simply had to trust that everything was handled on Ron and Hermione’s side.

“Ready!” Ron called, his hand appearing in Harry’s peripheral vision as he placed a tray down between them just as larger bubbles began appearing in Harry’s cauldron.

“Go!” Harry responded, lifting the small bronze cauldron off the fire.

Hermione levitated the book, still caked in thick brownish potion, onto the tray, and Harry wasted no time tipping about half of his runny black potion on top of it. When the tray was filled about halfway, Ron grabbed the book with metal tongs and flipped it, so that Harry’s potion covered the back completely too. Everywhere the black potion met the brown one, there were sparks, small and yellow-white. They watched with bated breath as the sparks grew fiercer and the black potion began to evaporate, until there was only the book coated on every side with a writhing mess of sparks. It crackled audibly, filling the air with a smell like burnt grass.

After a tense wait of a minute or two, the sparks dimmed noticeably to the same rust-red shade as the first potion had been. Harry breathed a sigh of relief, hearing Ron and Hermione do the same across the table from him. It was working.

“Last one.” Hermione said, a note of excitement in her tone now, though her attention was still fixed firmly on the sparking book.

Harry took the final potion, this one prepared fully and needing no more ingredients or heat and waited for the signal.

The sparks began to die out, surviving only in patches, until the very last winked out with a slight pop. Immediately, smoke started to come from the corners of the pages and Harry rushed to dump the last potion over the book, submerging the lot in thin, greyish gunk. They waited for a moment, barely breathing, before Ron took the tongs again to take the notebook out. The grey potion fell away like water off oilskin, and he set it down on the absorbent cloth in the middle of the table.

Harry sent a detection charm and whooped loudly at the result. “All clear!”

At once, Hermione sent a paper-safe drying charm at the book, leaving the pages only slightly crinkled with water damage. Tentatively, she picked it up, and, checking that Ron and Harry were ready, opened it up. The notebook fell open, revealing pages of notes in black ink and blocky handwriting, as easily as if the thing hadn’t been curse-warded to the Pit and back ten minutes earlier.

The three crowded around it as Hermione flicked quickly through the pages, until a list appeared of potions, names, dates, and prices. They scanned down as one until they reached October 1998 and a series of potions all attributed to one name.

“Eloise Midgen?!”

Weeks of planning had boiled down to a relatively simple but deceptively intricate plan: one potion to attune to the magic of the person who had left their wards on the book; a second to target only curses by that person; the third, to burn away the marked magic; and the fourth, to wash away the now exposed wards, which would quickly have burned the book up once someone had managed to break through the curses. They’d all speculated, as they researched and planned, on what the book might contain, but nowhere in this had Eloise Midgen’s name come up. And yet, there it was, written precisely in Millicent Bulstrode’s blocky handwriting, next to ‘Experimental concoction: Essence of Insanity, Black Vein Poison, Consumptive Fever Draught’.

Harry internally cursed about his relatively small social group as he tried to recall everything he knew about Eloise Midgen. She was a Hufflepuff in his year, one of the few who didn’t take DADA, and all he really remembered about her was that she used to have a terrible case of acne and once accidentally cut her nose off trying to fix it. From the looks on Ron’s and Hermione’s faces, they didn’t seem to have much information on her either.

“Any idea why Midgen would…?” He trailed off and no one answered.

“There are more entries after that.” Hermione said, breaking the silence they’d fallen into.

Harry looked down at the rows of ink again, “Baddock and Pritchard? I know those names, I think.”

“We’ve taken enough points off ‘em.” Ron was scowling down at the book. “Those fourth-year arseholes in Slytherin who keep throwing jinxes in the corridors.”

Now Harry remembered them. The two were in and out of detention for trying to set up nasty jinx-traps around the school. If they had an ounce of subtlety between them, the two might have caused some trouble, but as it was, they usually got caught before anything happened.

“What did they want with a Corrosion Concoction, though?” Hermione murmured, clearly more to herself than directed to either of them.

“Dunno.” Ron replied. “But now we’ve got the names, we can take it to McGonagall, right?”

Hermione hummed noncommittally, looking up from the rows of names and potions to meet Harry’s eyes.

He grimaced. “We probably should. But maybe we can copy out all the information first, just in case.”

This spurred the three of them to action: Hermione immediately duplicated the notebook’s contents into a plain one, before layering her own wards over the top of it; Harry copied just the names and potions, from beginning to end, before trying to match the names up to the lists they held of students in each year and House; Ron, ever the most practical, started cleaning up the mess of cauldrons, potions, ingredients, and notes that they’d left on the table.

A half hour later, Harry had finished matching potions to names. The list was extensive, covering three years’ worth of dealing potions, though the vast majority were from the first term of this year, after she’d taken lessons from her uncle. Most of the potions had nothing to do with him, and some were completely harmless, but others made Harry feel sick.

“We need to take this to McGonagall anyway.” He said, making Ron and Hermione look up from where they each held a copy of the full notebook. “She’s been in business for years.”

Hermione looked similarly pale. She read much faster than Harry, so he could only imagine what she’d found reading through more of the text. She nodded.

“Let’s go then.” Ron said, jumping to his feet with visible enthusiasm to stop reading and start doing something. He’d piled the cauldrons up, and all Harry had to do was shrink them and sweep them into one of his pockets.

The three made their way to the Headmistress’ office, already knowing that she was going to be furious.

-

By the time the aurors left the castle, night had fallen, and everyone was both tired and irritated. The aurors had made a stink about evidence not being brought to them immediately and were offended at the rebuttal that almost all the useful investigation into those trying to harm Harry had been done within Hogwarts, rather than the utter lack of it coming from the faltering Auror Department. Then, they proved the trio’s point by dithering over whether Bulstrode’s ledger of deals counted as evidence, as anyone could have written it and made up the whole lot, refusing the possibility of questioning any of the names involved. Eventually, McGonagall was spitting mad and so fed up with the lot of them that she flooed Kingsley Shacklebolt directly, and had him take both the book and the aurors away. The acting Minister, probably wisely, had done so quickly.

The fallout appeared in the morning papers. One of the aurors on the scene had immediately gone to his good friend and superior, Caroline Midgen, and told her that spurious accusations were being laid at the feet of her daughter. Auror Midgen had then pronounced the whole thing as a nonsense attack on her political career, incinerated the book, and filed the report as a hoax by mischief-makers, co-signed by her own superior, Adalbert Higgs. This would have gone unnoticed if Kingsley hadn’t taken a personal interest in the case being wrapped up quickly, and happened to have been returning to ask about the department’s next steps. He’d managed to stun Higgs and the three junior aurors in the office at the time, but Midgen managed to get away, helped by other traitors within the department. For now, the entirety of the DMLE was in chaos as they struggled to weed out the many and varied factions who had infiltrated the aurors, with too much going on to chase after Midgen.

Within Hogwarts, Eloise had vanished in the night, somehow warned by someone outside, but not before leaving an array of nasty curses around her bed, the dungeons near the Hufflepuff common room, and some of the stairs, which left little doubt about who had put the curse-wards on Bulstrode’s notebook.

Only Luna, happily spreading honey over her buttered toast, didn’t seem surprised by what everyone else around them was reading in the paper. “Why would I be surprised?” She asked when questioned about it. “Daddy and I have been writing about the Rotfang Conspiracy for years.”

That, of course, provoked far more questions than it answered.

-

Harry found himself at the top of the Astronomy Tower when it all became too much. The constant corruption in the Ministry, buried in layer after layer of people who were exploiting the system for their own benefits; the disorder and real crimes within Hogwarts, which had run wild and lawless for decades under over-worked professors; enemies upon enemies for reasons he didn’t even know, who he’d never even met. He’d had to escape McGonagall’s frantic attempts to take control, aided by a new network of fellow staff, but hampered by the many, many years of neglect which had allowed the situation to become so bad. Part of him demanded that he help, but the tearing heaviness in his chest, which grew with every bit of proof they uncovered, held him back.

“I don’t think I want to stay here.” Harry whispered like a confession, as he felt the warmth of someone else sit beside him. “In the magical world, yes, and with all of you, but not here.”

Ron’s lanky legs hung over the edge of the tower as he joined Harry in leaning against the railings. “You don’t have to stay here, mate.” Ron spoke. “Charlie lives in Romania, but that doesn’t make him any less family.” He nudged Harry with his shoulder, wordlessly saying that Harry was included in that too. “Term’s nearly over, then it’s just one more and you’re done here for good.”

They both looked out over the Hogwarts grounds, still and quiet despite the turmoil raging within the castle.

“They don’t deserve you.” Ron’s voice came after a long moment, harder than before. “And you deserve better than to be stuck here trying to fix everyone’s problems.”

Harry snorted. “Then who will?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Ron replied. “People can deal with their own problems – you aren’t responsible for any of it. ‘Sides, me and Hermione are going to be here, and we want to be fixing the Ministry.” He seemed to struggle for words for a moment. “This, Britain, is my home and I want to be part of sorting it out, but it doesn’t mean it has to be yours. There’s other places, other things to do, and we’ve barely seen any of it. Just send us postcards and come home for family lunch when you can, and leave all of this nonsense behind.”

Harry didn’t reply, leaning his cheek against the cool metal of the railing. Ron didn’t pressure him too, leaning further forward and letting the cool air ruffle his ginger fringe.

“I still want to help people.” Harry said eventually. “Just not be involved in all of…this.”

“There’s loads of ways you can do that, though.” Ron turned his head to face him. “People everywhere need healers, and someone to fix their plumbing, or someone to scare off a magical creature that keeps coming into their village, or someone to go round up all of those bloody dementors and figure out what to do with them. Leaving wouldn’t mean you can’t help people, just that you’re also looking after yourself.”

Harry closed his eyes, breathing in against the cool wind washing over his face, and considered Ron’s words. “I like mysteries and I like solving problems, just not with politics and corruption and stuff.” His conviction strengthened as he spoke. “I like protecting people, but I don’t like attacking them, and I don’t trust the Ministry or anyone else about who they’d try and send me at. I like exploring and getting into a bit of trouble but coming back afterwards to you and the others.”

Ron didn’t comment, his silence attentive and letting Harry get his thoughts out.

“I guess,” Harry continued, “I want to go around finding problems and fixing them, but I don’t want to work for anyone or deal with the people who hate me just for being Harry Potter. I want to practice my magic, both kinds, and get a feel for what I like most.” He snorted. “And maybe go after those dementors. Like, an auror or an unspeakable, but not part of the Ministry. I want to…” his voice trailed off before he thought of something, the idea lighting up a passion in him that he hadn’t noticed draining away over the course of the term. “I want to become an animagus.” He declared. “Like Sirius and my dad.”

Ron’s eyebrows shot up at that, before a grin came over his face. “Yeah, that would be pretty awesome.” The grin faded into something more serious after a moment. “So, do it. You can do all that. You don’t need to stay here babysitting the Ministry in case they churn out another Dark Lord. You have money and a house – you don’t need to work for anyone. Just,” he shrugged, “do what you want. We’ve got it from here.”

Harry’s breath caught as he thought of a future like that – beholden to no one, going where he wanted and fixing any problems he came across along the way, just because he wanted to, not because the world threw the expectation of it upon his shoulders.

“But, Harry?” Ron called his attention. “Come back to us whenever you want to; call us if you need us, or want us, and we’ll always come. And, uh, remember that not everyone is like this. There’s lots of good people too, they’re just not the loud ones. You have a lot of friends.” His grin came back. “And the cult you don’t like to think about, who are rabid to be let at the people attacking you.”

Harry snorted, having indeed momentarily forgotten about the cult. “Yeah.” He said. “Yeah, I think I’ll do that.”

“Good.” Ron replied. “Now, can we go in, because my arse is freezing here.”

Harry choked on a surprised laugh. “Can’t be having that.” He climbed to his feet, shaking out stiff limbs. He was a little cold too, but not enough to really bother him. It rarely did nowadays. “So, what do think about becoming an animagus? You in?”

Ron huffed as they left the Tower. “That’s a stupid question if ever I heard one. Course I’m in. And no way Hermione won’t be when she hears.”

Harry agreed, already picturing the delighted fever in Hermione’s eyes at being thrown into a new and exciting project. A fun one, just for them.

“Probably Gin too.” Ron added begrudgingly. “She might actually kill me if she found out we’d become animagi without her.”

“And Neville and Luna?” Harry suggested. “Who else?”

“Your Slytherin friends, maybe.” Ron proposed without pause. “Merlin knows Greengrass would get a kick out of it.”

Harry grinned – she absolutely would.

They continued throwing out names, getting sillier and sillier with their suggestions, all the way back to the Gryffindor common room.

Chapter Text

McGonagall, with the help of the additional staff at her back, blew through the school like a thunderstorm. Bulstrode’s notebook, after they’d handed her one of the copies, contained enough detail to have everyone involved questioned. After a week, there were three expulsions, a handful of suspensions, and so many detentions that they had to be split between full classrooms. Not all of these were to do with any plot against Harry, in fact the majority weren’t, but the confirmation that there had been multiple plots ongoing was unpleasant.

Malcolm Baddock and Graham Pritchard were two of the expelled students, who had initially worked with Eloise Midgen and Millicent Bulstrode to poison Harry’s pumpkin juice but had decided to make their own attempt once that plan had failed. They’d intended to trap Harry and kill him with a highly corrosive potion but had so far failed to find any way to get past his shields even if they had managed to trap him with their somewhat lacking repertoire of jinxes. The pair were either confident or foolish enough to have written down their plan as notes, which were found in their bags. Their motive was just as foolish – they believed that Harry’s death would weaken the light side, allowing the dark to rule. Never mind that the so-called Dark Lord was dead and that the light side was mostly Ministry propaganda.

Questioning of Eloise Midgen’s friends led the investigators to Owen Cauldwell and Emma Dobbs, a Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw in the same year as Baddock and Pritchard, who’d noticed what the two were up to and decided to join in instead of reporting them. This group of fourth years hadn’t been smart enough to avoid being seen together, so inevitably, the final member of their circle, Gryffindor’s Connor Boyce, was brought in for questioning too. Harry knew all of their faces from giving them detentions in the corridor for throwing hexes, but it was still disappointing to know that they’d legitimately been hoping to kill him, rather than just hex him a little. Professor Sprout, who’d seen this group forming and had been tentatively optimistic about inter-House friendships following the war, was deeply upset.

In the background, the Auror Department crumbled and was reforged, though Harry remained cynical about the effectiveness of any kind of Ministry-led anti-corruption effort. He tried to stay as clear of the investigations as he could, letting his friends update him on the headlines while not asking for the details. Still, little bits of information came to him in his dreams, spectral lips slipping secrets into his sleeping ears. The whispers told him that Boyce’s aunt had died in the Battle and that Dobbs’ cousin had been in Gringotts when the three escaped on the dragon, and that Voldemort had slain everyone in the foyer as a result. Harry didn’t bother confirming this with his friends – he already knew that whatever the whispers said was true. After all, he had buried Felicia Robards née Boyce himself, in the field where the Ministry had abandoned the unclaimed Death Eater corpses. He’d recognise her voice anywhere, the apathetic tone of a spirit in the afterlife, and the dead couldn’t lie to him any longer.

The unpleasant happenings inside the castle prompted Harry outside of it. The Forbidden Forest was not a place for human worries, and Harry found himself spending more of his free time in there, exploring the streams, ponds, and clearings that the Forest hid from casual trespassers. Ron and Hermione always offered to come with him, but they were busy people with many projects, and they didn’t seem to be able to relax in the Forest the way that Harry did, looking over their shoulders with every snapped twig. Neville came a time or two, interested in what plants lay deep inside the woods, and made sketches of what he found, but most of his free time was devoted to the greenhouses. Luna was his main companion, always happy to spend an afternoon chasing a stream to find how far it went, but even she wasn’t welcomed in the woods the same way he was.

Where the Forest tolerated Luna for kindness to the thestrals and fascination with its occupants, the great trees sheltered Harry with budding boughs, wrapping warmth around him and bringing night early with their shade. Wherever he sat, mushrooms would begin to grow, some mundane and some magical, until he could almost trace his steps by the fungi left in his wake. Under the canopies, it was always darker than a spring day should be, even through the filter of leaves and branches, and Apsyrtos could walk comfortably away from the sun.

The day had finally arrived for their lessons on horse-riding, though it was a bit of a stretch to call a thestral a horse. Apsyrtos seemed far more nervous about this than Harry was, but then Harry had already ridden a thestral before. Although they looked as if their ridged spines and skeletal limbs should make for a very unpleasant seat, the flat of their back below the joints of their wings was reasonably smooth. Their wingbeats weren’t strong enough to dislodge an adequately careful rider either, since much of their lift seemed to be down to magic. Otherwise, there was very little chance of their wings managing to lift huge horse-like creatures in the air.

Apsyrtos at his back, Harry approached the main thestral herd. They knew him well enough by now to be unsurprised by his presence, though none seemed to be able to resist the urge to rub their beaks against his hair and make the whole lot stick up in ridiculous tufts. There was no point trying to flatten it, even if Apsyrtos’ barely stifled laughter made him want to try.

“Apsyrtos is teaching me how to ride properly.” Harry told the herd, indicating the ghost lingering behind him. “Would any of you be interested?”

He was never entirely sure how intelligent thestrals were. They made no attempt to communicate with Harry when he visited, but they always seemed to understand him. Their white eyes were strangely watchful; their huffs of breath seemed to betray emotion.

A tall mare approached, towering over Harry. Her gait was proud, sharp hooves digging through the undergrowth in nimble steps. She stepped beside him, before lowering herself to the ground and moving her wings out of the way so he could climb on.

“Thank you.” Harry said as he did. Her scaly skin was cold and dry beneath his hands, as thestrals always were. She stood once more, bearing Harry’s weight easily, and trotted a few steps forward towards Apsyrtos.

The ghost was watching with wide eyes. He’d seen the thestrals with Harry before, but Harry knew that the ancient demigod struggled to see them as anything but tamed monsters. Winged horses, he had no trouble with, but the scales, carnivorous diet, and death magic seemed to throw him off somewhat.

“Very well.” Apsyrtos gulped as one of the steadier mares approached him. Harry knew this one – she was older than most of the herd and very even-tempered. She would be a good fit for Apsyrtos’ nerves. After a moment, the ghost climbed on her back, making a noise of surprise when he didn’t pass through the thestral, as he’d been concerned he might. “Good, I suppose.” He muttered to himself, and Harry pretended not to have heard, giving the ghost a moment to rally himself.

“Then let us start.” He called to Harry, once he had finished settling himself. “We should stay on the forest floor for now, while you practice your archery. Once you show improvement with that, then perhaps we can move to flight.”

Harry brought his basilisk bone bow out of his extended pocket, along with a quiver of transfigured arrows. Already, he could feel that it was going to be much more difficult to balance without holding on with his arms, but if quidditch had prepared him for one thing, it was that. “Ready!” He called, as much to his thestral as to Apsyrtos, and the two set off at a comfortable pace.

Apsyrtos led, by far the more confident horseman and rapidly growing more comfortable with a thestral steed. The two thestrals knew the area well, easily dodging rabbit holes and dense shrubs as they gradually picked up speed. They weren’t going in any particular direction, but the Forest stretched for miles all around, so there was plenty of it to get properly lost in. They whipped through an endless sea of trees, path made easy by the short undergrowth of early spring.

With some time, Harry relaxed into the rhythm of his thestrals’ steps. The ride was a lot joltier on the ground than in the sky, but he was quick to adapt.

Seeing Harry’s improvement, Apsyrtos called them to a halt by a stream, allowing the two thestrals to drink as they spoke. “We’ve practiced on moving targets in that room of yours, but it is one thing to hit a moving target when you are stationary and quite another when you are both moving. Now, we shall slow down, and you will lead the way. Locate creatures as we go and attempt to hunt them.”

Harry hadn’t been sure, initially, about the idea of aiming at and killing real creatures, especially only for his own target practice. His magic protested the senseless loss of life, the idea of hunting for sport leaving him uneasy, but in the end that was one of the reasons that they were using thestrals, rather than seeking out horses – thestrals were carnivorous and would usually be spending their time hunting their own food. Whatever Harry managed to kill, if he even succeeded in hitting anything, would be food to repay his thestral’s spent energy.

An hour later brought him to a grand total of nothing. His aim was good, trained by spellcasting, while quidditch had boosted his reflexes and spatial awareness, but he wasn’t used to the complex surroundings of a forest nor how quickly prey would dart away at the sound of a thestral’s hooves. Harry had long revised his hopes of starting to cull the acromantula infestation in the western part of the forest and was instead becoming increasingly concerned that he might not even be able to get a rabbit or a pigeon. He’d managed to clip a particularly slow deer, but only while summoning his stray arrow back towards him.

Eventually, the sun began to set, light no longer reaching the forest floor. The thestrals’ hooves were as sure as ever, seemingly unaffected by the waning light, but Apsyrtos called a halt to their practice anyway. “You’ve done well enough, but I do not think more time spent on this today will help. Do you wish to return to the castle, or would you rather stay and ride for a while?”

Harry looked out into the darkening forest and then at the two thestrals, to see if either wished to make their opinions known. They stared back impassively. “I’d like to ride a bit longer.” He replied, tucking the bow and arrows back into his pocket.

“Very well.” Apsyrtos nodded, then a smile stole across his face. “Then perhaps a race?”

The two thestrals eyed each other with pleased anticipation, shuffling hooves and wings as they readied themselves.

“Where to?” Harry asked.

“Does it matter?” Apsyrtos queried in return.

Harry huffed a laugh. “I guess not. Alright then, a race to wherever.”

“Then, go!”

Both thestrals exploded into motion, hooves pounding against the forest floor as they practically flew through the trees. Apsyrtos’ thestral drew briefly ahead as Harry’s had to swerve around a pond, but soon they were catching up, Harry bent low to hold on tight and call encouragements into her ear. The woods darkened as they raced, shades of green and brown muddying to blacks and greys as they charged deeper into the Forest, mocking each other and laughing as one of them drew ahead and the other caught up. Their thestrals made odd clacking whinnies as they went, tossing their heads and howling with joy at the sheer, visceral thrill of running at top speed for the fun of it.

Apsyrtos cackled loudly, almost falling off, when Harry had to frantically duck under a branch that the ghost simply went through. Harry, emerging with twigs in his hair but thankfully without a solid bruise on his head, swore after him, promising revenge, though of which type he wasn’t exactly sure. He couldn’t even pretend to glare properly when the cool March air was whipping through his hair, cold against his cheeks and stinging his eyes with the thestrals’ speed.

They chased each other through the woods – thestrals, godling, and ghost united briefly in a singular love of speed – as the singing of the birds quietened until only the odd owl hooted in irritation as they blasted past.

Eventually, they moved into more open forest, deer paths becoming clearings until they left the last copse of trees behind them and emerged into grassland. Overhead, the moon was rising, casting the world in silver light and deep shadows. Harry looked around, but didn’t recognise the area. They weren’t on the Hogwarts side of the Forest at least. To the left, there was a small stone wall, which might once have been a building, while the right was only open hills. They slowed, thestrals falling to a trot and stretching out their wings in the open space.

“Harry.” Apsyrtos called his attention, voice low.

Harry looked over, and the ghost tipped his head over to the far left, where a fox could just be made out, sniffing for something in the carpet of bluebells against the crumbling stone. It took Harry a moment to realise what Apsyrtos meant before he silently drew the bow and arrows from his pocket. The fox was too busy with its own hunt to notice the predator watching it.

Harry nudged his thestral forward with his leg and she went, gait slowed and almost silent, stalking their prey as they got into a better position. He brought the bow up, smooth bone almost warm in his hand, and let the arrow fly with a muffled thwip. It struck in the grass, to the side of the fox, which yelped and darted away into the treeline.

Apsyrtos tsked, coming up beside Harry. “Perhaps more work on your aim first.”

Harry watched the patch of grass and bluebells for a moment longer. “Maybe.” Then, suddenly, a cry came from the greenery and a small figure came running out, shorter than a house elf and far more vicious, an arrow through its hat. “Or maybe not.”

The creature ran at them, red eyes glowing in the darkness and disproportionately large claws flexed and threatening to tear them to pieces. It howled from a mouth of broken, half-rotted teeth – a sound of inarticulate rage.

The noise sent Apsyrtos’ thestral skittering away.

“What in the gods’ name is that?” Apsyrtos asked, trying to regain control of the spooked thestral, who stopped flapping once she realised what the enemy was.

Harry’s thestral only backed up a few steps, trusting Harry to deal with the threat.

Harry drew one of the few basilisk bone arrows from the quiver and aimed once more. It flew only for a moment before impacting through the creature’s head. It fell down, hat falling off. The sudden silence felt shocking in the still of the evening. Harry spun awkwardly on the thestral’s back before jumping off and heading over towards the body.

“It’s a redcap.” He explained, pointing towards the fallen hat with a foot. “We interrupted its hunt.”

Apsyrtos dismounted with an ease Harry had to envy, looking cautiously over at the body as if he’d forgotten that he was dead and it couldn’t hurt him anyway. “It is like a tiny man.” He exclaimed, sounding shocked. “Only squatter and far uglier. It is not some kind of person? Like the elves you showed me at your school?”

Harry shook his head and levitated the pointed hat, arrow through it and all. “They’re closer to gnomes than house elves – basic intelligence, but they can’t be reasoned with. Magical creatures who will kill and eat anything they can, but they prefer humans when possible. Usually,” Harry continued grimly, “they prefer to go for little children. Easier to catch and can’t fight them off with magic.” He set a lumos to hang in the air above the hat, revealing it to be a red-brown rather than the black it appeared under moonlight, “Before they eat, they dip their hats in the blood of whatever they killed and wear it as a trophy. I felt the magic as soon as I looked that way.”

“Gods.” Apsyrtos swore, looking closer at the layers and layers of stained on blood. “Do these monsters attack mortal children too or only your folk?”

“Muggles too.” Harry confirmed. “But the Ministry keeps an eye on known redcap areas and puts muggle-repelling charms on them. Or, at least, my textbooks say they’re supposed to.” He grimaced, looking over the stone wall and treeline where there was a distinct lack of wards of any kind, despite the evident redcap population and the fact that it led directly into the Forbidden Forest. “Either the Ministry has been too busy to keep up with monitoring redcaps or they never tried that hard in the first place if there weren’t magical families nearby.”

That said, Harry placed a muggle-repelling charm of his own, anchoring it into the stone of the ruined building with the enchantment techniques he’d learned in Charms this year. “They tend to pop up in ruins.” Harry explained to Apsyrtos as he went. “Don’t know if something about the ruins forms them or if they’re attracted to places which have died off – magical creatures are weird like that. Either way, they like places where a lot of people have died. The bloodier the deaths, the better.”

Harry could almost feel it himself as he looked at the ruined walls, moonlight making the stone cast vast, inky shadows against the grey backdrop of plants. A blink and there was suddenly a full building there, another and it was burning, before it was simply the ruins once more, with no sign of what Harry had just seen. He turned away, trying to ignore the echoes of the screaming which had accompanied the fire.

A wet crunch broke Harry from whatever that had been, and he turned back to see his thestral swallow the dead redcap almost whole, leaving only the head with the arrow in.

“You guys eat these, then?” He asked, mostly rhetorically, before summoning back the bone arrow and cleaning the gore off.

The thestral tossed the head up by the hair and caught it in her beak, biting down with another crunch that rang loud in the quiet night. She swallowed, looking content.

“Are you leaving the rest of the population here?” Apsyrtos asked, climbing back onto his own thestral. “Should you not clear out the rest of the monster nest?”

Harry pulled a face. “Sort of depends if there’s anyone nearby.” He explained. “They’re natural creatures and all, so it’s iffy if we should wipe them out just for existing, but if they’ve been attacking hikers and stuff, they need to go. Risk to the Statute of Secrecy and all. And a group of them getting too large isn’t good for anyone.”

Apsyrtos seemed discontented. “The monsters of your land are very strange. Some are quite wondrous, but others, like these, would have been hunted down by our army or a passing demigod hero if we had word that they preyed on children.”

Harry shrugged. “Well, if there are any other demigods here, I don’t know about them. But we can check if there are people living nearby.”

Apsyrtos looked at him quizzically.

Harry grinned. “Now to my class: flying lessons!”

The thestrals stretched out their great leathery wings and beat down fiercely as they began to gallop. Soon, they were aloft in the night air, gaining height as the pair of thestrals spiralled upwards towards the stars.

Harry looked down over the side of his thestral and saw the vague shapes of the valleys and the forest going off into the distance, Hogwarts shining out like a beacon far away on the other side of the trees. Below them, there was no light for miles, only Hogsmeade even further than Hogwarts. Harry hadn’t given much thought to where geographically Hogwarts was (other than, of course, being in Scotland) but he supposed it must be in some kind of National Park to be so far away from the ever-growing sprawl of human settlements.

“No lights!” He called to Apsyrtos, shouting over the wind.

Apsyrtos, despite being a ghost, looked like he very much wished to be back and safely on the ground, rather than relying on a skeletal horse’s improbable wings to keep them in the air. He didn’t reply to Harry, clutching onto his thestral for dear life.

Harry laughed at his expression but directed his thestral to land again.

“I can’t see any houses.” He said, once they were both down on the ground again. “Nor any roads, for that matter. I’m not sure what exactly they’ve done to keep Hogwarts hidden, but I think it must extend well past the wards.”

“So, we leave the redcaps.” Apsyrtos frowned, clearly uneasy with leaving what he saw as a monster nest untouched.

Harry tilted his hand so-so. “If they’re not attacking people, then they’re part of the nature here.” He dismounted his thestral, a little less ungainly than the time before. “But if they’re part of the nature, then they have predators.” He stroked his thestral’s neck, feeling her heartbeat against his hand in the big blood vessels of her neck. She huffed in a way he swore was amused. “Are you girls hungry?”

She released an odd chittering howl before charging away, into the air, and divebombing the inside of the ruins like a fox leaping into a rabbit hole. A moment later, Apsyrtos’ thestral joined her, the two greatly pleased with their evening snack.

Apsyrtos watched with wide eyes as the two friendly equines who’d enjoyed the race through the woods showed themselves as the predators they were. “That is…” he let the moment drag out, punctuated by the thestrals’ howls and the snapping of bones. “Quite something.” He finished.

They let the thestrals continue their feasting for a while, Harry setting up a sign with a red hat near the ruins while Apsyrtos tried to talk over the crunching sounds. Eventually, the two thestrals left, satisfied with their hunt. Harry could see some movement within the ruins, so it clearly hadn’t been too much of a massacre, but you wouldn’t believe it by the smug look on his thestral’s face.

“Good hunting?” He asked her as she sauntered up.

She huffed in his face.

Harry couldn’t help but laugh. “You know, you’d probably like my cat.” And Hedwig, he didn’t say.

She chirped in interest.

“Yeah, she’s like you, really smart. Rips apart wards when she doesn’t like them.” Harry snorted at the memory. “I know that she knows that I won’t eat the rats and mice she kills and leaves in my shoes, so at this point I think she’s just doing it to prove she’s a mighty huntress. That, or I annoyed her about something.”

The thestral stomped her hoof, staring at him with white eyes that should have been blank but became easier to read the more time he spent around the creatures.

“You’re a better huntress?” Harry translated. “Er, I’ll be honest, you two can compete between yourselves. I’m clearly out of the running here.”

The huntress snorted in a way which implied ‘obviously’.

He laughed, beginning to speak, but was interrupted by a shout: “Fellow hunters!”

Harry looked to the right and found a stream of lightly glowing ghosts charging towards them. Each either held their head in their hands or were throwing them in some kind of complicated game. At the head of them, a headless figure upon a ghostly horse.

“How good to meet other ghosts upon a hunt! It has been… oh.” The voice, coming from slightly behind the figure, where it was being juggled between two other riders, cut off as Sir Patrick, leader of the Headless Hunt, realised who he had come upon. “Well, one ghost!” He exclaimed, trying to keep up the enthusiasm, “and ah, the famous fellow nowadays. Who just happens to seem awfully like a ghost from a distance.” Sir Patrick rallied himself once more, obviously disconcerted by whatever it was that the ghosts felt in Harry’s presence. “I am Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore, leader of this group, the Headless Hunt. What about you, good man? I have never seen you before in these parts and I know every ghost from here to Essex!”

Apsyrtos looked to Harry, who shrugged. “I am Apsyrtos, former Prince of Colchis.”

“I say.” Sir Patrick exclaimed, catching his head and placing it back on his neck, secured by the ruff. “I must say I don’t recognise the name of this ‘Colchis’ – is it close?”

“No.”  Apsyrtos replied simply, though Harry could see the grief that came with admitting such aloud. “Seas away and another time.”

“What on earth are you doing here then?” Sir Patrick asked, shock overcoming his manners.

“Accompanying young Harry.” Apsyrtos answered, starting to look irritated with the questions. “Now, if you would excuse us, we were going to continue our ride.”

“Towards Hogwarts?” Sir Patrick asked eagerly. “We were heading there too when we spotted you. It’s so very exciting to meet a new ghost – or an old one, I suppose – we almost lost our heads!”

A round of laughter went through the Headless Hunt, who began juggling their decapitated heads or otherwise playing games with them in a morbidly impressive display.

Apsyrtos didn’t appear particularly impressed.

“We were going to fly back.” Harry interrupted.

The gathering fell quiet with his words. Sir Patrick looked begrudgingly back at Harry, as if not seeing him meant that Harry wasn’t there. “I see. Well, happy hunting!” He turned his group around, galloping off faster than any of them, putting as much distance between them and Harry as possible.

“What do I feel like to ghosts?” Harry asked after a long moment while they both watched the group flee.

Apsyrtos turned back to Harry, expression contemplative. “Somewhat like your divine mother. Mostly, like death. Nothing terrifies the ones who have run from death’s hand more than to feel the chill of death upon you and, worse, the power to back it up.” He explained. “It has been growing in the months I’ve known you.”

“Huh.” Harry didn’t really know what to say to that. “Well, I guess it’s good for making nosy ghosts go away.”

Apsyrtos couldn’t stop his laugh. “Indeed. Now, we should return to the castle. It is late already.”

They flew back towards Hogwarts, making much better time in the air. Harry enjoyed it all the way, but if a ghost could go green, then Apsyrtos had.

“Again another day?” Harry asked his thestral, at the edge of the Forest.  

She dipped her head and huffed happily. The other thestral, Apsyrtos’ gentler mare, shook her head tiredly.

“Alright, thanks for the run!” Harry said, scratching both behind their pointed ears. “I’ll see you soon, Huntress!”

The newly dubbed Huntress preened and set off back into the woods, melting into the Forbidden Forest’s shadows.

“They are a curious breed but quite excellent mounts.” Apsyrtos commented, watching the two depart. “When they stay on the ground, that is.”

Harry just laughed at him, tired from all the exercise but buoyed by the thrill of flying. He couldn’t wait for the next time.

-

Perhaps it was because of their talk that, in the following days, Harry noticed some of the Hogwarts ghosts acting stranger around him than usual. Some of them hung nearby him, muttering quietly to each other in small groups but never approaching him. After a few days of this, it was Sir Nick who eventually approached Harry when he was on his own, walking back from the library.

“Ah, Harry!” He exclaimed, as if they’d just happened to bump into one another. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

“Can I help with anything?” Harry asked, looking at the tremor in Sir Nick’s hand and the nervous fidgeting of the Fat Friar behind him.

“Well, that is, yes.” Sir Nick blustered for a moment. “Could we have a word in a private room perhaps?”

“Sure.”

Harry followed the two ghosts into an empty classroom, curious what all this was about.

Sir Nick tried to settle himself to look as if he were sitting in one of the chairs, but he missed and ended up an inch or two into it. “I am not sure how much you know about us ghosts and our relationship with Hogwarts, Harry.” Sir Nick started, “But most of us pay attention to the rough goings-on within the castle. Nothing private, of course,” he defended them quickly, “but there is precious little to gossip about which isn’t student or staff drama around Hogwarts. The Defence position has been granting us entertainment for years.”

The Fat Friar coughed, and Sir Nick started. “Ah, my apologies, I am straying from my topic. My point is that something like the attempted murder of a celebrity and student such as yourself, Harry, is something that all but the most reclusive of us were aware of. That, and the nature of your growing power.”

Harry wondered where this was going.

Sir Nick continued, “Now, I will give a little more context: to be permitted inside the school, we ghosts have a long-standing agreement with the Headmasters, and with the school itself, that in return for a home here, we will give the living their privacy and not harass them, not interfere with the day-to-day running of the students and staff, and help the Hogwarts community to the best of our abilities in an emergency. We are not professors, to call out students sneaking out after curfew, but we are to be witnesses of serious injuries or crime that occur in our presence.”

Sir Nick drew in a deep breath – reflex, despite hundreds of years of being dead. “We come to you for your particular help: we believe that the Bloody Baron has broken his vows to Hogwarts and not reported his witnessing of the use of the imperius curse on the house elf Soppy, and we would request your aid to prove it.”

Well then, Harry thought, looking between the two House ghosts, it seemed that he was going to have to get started on necromancy a little earlier than he’d planned.

Chapter Text

While part of Harry wanted to go haring off to dig through his books from Hecate, the more sensible part of him pointed out that he should probably speak with McGonagall first. Banishing ghosts from her castle without first running it past her or involving her in the investigation seemed like bad form.

When Harry approached her office with a pair of ghosts in tow, Harry could have sworn he heard a heartfelt sigh from the other side of the door before she bid him enter.

“Mr Potter.” McGonagall watched him over the rim of her cat-eye glasses, a tired look already settling into the lines around her eyes. “Sir Nicholas, Brother Geoffrey.” She greeted the ghosts. “What brings the three of you to my office today?”

“Headmistress.” The Fat Friar, whose name Harry had never heard before now, nodded back. He turned expectantly to Sir Nick and Harry.

“A grave matter, Headmistress, if you will pardon the pun.” Sir Nick started.

Immediately, McGonagall looked like she was wishing this meeting had never started.

“It concerns the Bloody Baron.” Sir Nick continued. “Brother Geoffrey and I have reason to believe he has broken his agreement with Hogwarts, to report attacks on its residents.” He went on to explain their theory that the Baron had seen who imperiused Soppy the house elf.

McGonagall straightened. “A serious accusation. What evidence have you to support this claim?”

Sir Nick wrung his hands. “Only the portraits’ words, Headmistress, as well as gaps in our own sweep of the castle.” McGonagall’s mouth flattened and he quickly continued. “But that’s why we approached young Harry Potter. Given his, ah, nature, we believe he should be able to question the Baron and have him answer.”

Professor McGonagall looked troubled. “As you well know, the word of portraits generally cannot be held as reliable.” She ignored the noises of protest from the portraits of Headmasters before her. “While a briefly convincing facsimile of the person depicted, they do not hold enough reasoning ability to remember events for more than a few weeks at a time. Even then, they are often muddled. How certain are you that the Baron was a witness to these events? To go off the word of a portrait and be mistaken would cause grave offense.”

“If we are wrong, then we shall apologise to the Baron for doubting his character.” The Friar, Brother Geoffrey spoke, voice solemn but unshaken. “But many among our number have found his actions to be…erratic, following the events of All Hallows’ Eve.”

McGonagall looked to Harry, “And you, Mr Potter? This questioning appears to hinge upon your ability to compel the Baron to answer you truthfully – do you trust your ability to do so?”

Harry thought about it, before nodding. “I have a couple of things to check first, but I think so.” All his instincts, the parts of his magic that were transforming into the power of a chthonic deity, said ‘yes’, though he wasn’t quite sure how to do so.

“Very well.” McGonagall agreed, her eyes lingering on Harry with an emotion that he couldn’t quite read, “I expect to be kept informed regarding the proceedings and to be told the time and place of any official questioning. I will be attending as Headmistress of this school. Now, is there anything else I can help you with?”

The two ghosts excused themselves quickly, muttering to each other as they slipped through the wall.

Harry too turned to go before he thought of something else. “Actually, Professor, could I have a pass to the Restricted Section?”

McGonagall reached into her desk and filled out not one slip but three. “Where one of you goes, the other two might as well have permission to follow, given that the three of you will do it anyway.” She handed them over, showing where she’d written the names ‘Hermione Granger’ and ‘Ronald Weasley’ on the other passes. “Please try not to burn my school down. And, Potter?” She called his attention back, tone softer, less sure, than before, “I must give you my profound apologies that once again you find yourself in the position of working to keep Hogwarts safe rather than the reverse. I deeply regret that you have not been able to find the safety and security at Hogwarts that every student deserves.”

 Harry didn’t know what to say to that, so just nodded and left with a ‘thanks, Professor’ for the passes. He refused to think about the choking feeling in his chest that rose at McGonagall’s apology.

-

She never prays to heaven,

invokes no divine power with suppliant hymn,

knows nothing of the sacrificial entrails; she

delights in setting funereal fires on the altars,

scattering incense snatched from a burning pyre.

The gods grant every horror at the first cry

of her voice, dreading a second incantation.

Living spirits, still in control of their bodies,

she buries in the grave, and while the fates still

owe them years, death strikes against their will;

or reversing the rite she brings back the dead

from the tomb, their corpses escaping to life.

She snatches the charred bones and smoking

ashes of children from the midst of the pyre,

and the very torches from their parents’ hands;

She gathers the fragments of the funeral bier,

and the fluttering grave-clothes turned to ash,

and the cinders that reek of the corpse. And if

the dead are sealed in a sarcophagus, that dries

the internal moisture, absorbs the corruption

of the marrow-bones, and stiffens the corpse,

then she vents her anger eagerly on its limbs,

thrusting her fingers deep in the eye-sockets,

scooping out the solidified eyeballs in delight,

gnawing the yellowed nails on withered hands.

“Hermione, what am I reading?” Harry pushed the book she’d passed to him far away from him on their shared table, queasiness not helped by the oily feel of its cover.

“Hm?” Hermione looked up from her own book and blinked at the one in front of Harry for a moment before the question registered. She glanced through the pages Harry had been on. “Oh, this is from Lucan’s Pharsalia. I recognised her name on the index and thought it might be useful. Erictho was real then?” She asked, mostly rhetorically as she skipped through the chapter. “This calls her the best, or perhaps worst, pre-wanded necromancer, so I suppose there must be better magical records of her. I don’t think we can trust Lucan to be accurate about the details of her magic, but he does talk an awful lot about Ancient Thessalian necromancy.”

Ron shuddered from Hermione’s other side. “Bill used to tell us stories about her until Mum made him stop. ‘Go to sleep or the Hag will find you awake at night and eat your bones.’ ‘Don’t wander off or the Hag will snatch you and eat you.’ Always with the eating.”

“She was a hag?” Hermione asked, tilting her head curiously. “The book refers to her as a witch.”

“Er, dunno, actually.” Ron replied, after thinking for a second, “I mean, we always called her a hag and hags eat children, so maybe.”

Harry closed A History of the Darkest Art with a satisfying thud, interrupting their conversation. “I don’t think we’re finding anything useful in there.”

He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but as he’d skimmed ahead, most of the quoted passages seemed more gory than informative. The text around it only described the witch’s infamy and her known interactions with the Roman soon-to-be-Empire. Even if her rituals worked, which Harry had a sinking suspicion they did, Erictho’s brand of necromancy wasn’t one he was willing to try.

Hermione opened her mouth to disagree and then closed it again, expression thoughtful. “Erictho’s section was about reanimating the dead and speaking to them, but I suppose it’s probably different for ghosts. There was also a bit about creating her own ghosts, but I don’t think it went into any detail.”

Ron groaned. “Of course, the one useful bit is barely mentioned.” He’d been getting increasingly restless with their reading binge in the Restricted Section of the library. “Harry, why do we even need this? Can’t you just…?” He made a motion with his hand as if spinning a ring on the other hand.

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. “I mean, probably. But then what? I can probably make him show up and I can probably make him tell the truth, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with him afterwards. Mel- the Queen of Ghosts said I should be able to send ghosts on, but I have no idea how. Ghosts are basically untouchable.”

“And you think that you’re going to be able to find out how in a school library?” Ron challenged. “No, but listen: sure, this is the Restricted Section, and it’s got a bunch of information about curses and illegal potions and stuff, but do you think that any Headmaster would leave a practical guide to necromancy lying around here? The closest we’ve found is a ward to stop ghosts entering a place and a mention that the Hogwarts Headmaster can kick a ghost out of the castle. That’s all we actually need. So long as you can question him, McGonagall can kick him out.”

Harry grimaced because Ron was right. He’d already realised that he could summon the Bloody Baron through the resurrection stone and thereby have some control over him, but he’d been delaying because he wanted some way of banishing the ghost himself, if he was indeed guilty. It felt like it should be his responsibility, even when rationally he knew that McGonagall was entirely capable of doing it herself and probably had the right to do so given that she was the current Headmistress of Hogwarts.

Ron huffed at the look on Harry’s face, leaning back in his uncomfortable chair. “Right, let’s walk this through. Can you summon the Bloody Baron and keep him there? Yes or no?”

“Probably, yes.” Harry answered reluctantly.

“And can you force him to answer your questions and tell the truth?” Ron asked.

“I think so.” After all, none of the ghosts he’d summoned when burying the dead after the Battle had even tried to lie to him, many of whom had hated him in life.

“Great.” Ron said, climbing to his feet and starting to put their piles of books onto the reshelving trolley. “Then we’re done here. No need to keep looking at things that are just making all of us miserable.”

After a long moment, Hermione looked apologetically at Harry and handed her own book, Collected Theories on the Formation of Ghostly Imprints: 4^th Edition, over to Ron.

Harry surrendered his own book readily enough, quietly relieved not to have to read any more of Erictho’s awful rituals, but eyed the piles of unread books with some discontent. Surely, there was something concrete he could use in case things went wrong – something that didn’t involve desecrating corpses and forcing their spirits back into them. Something that didn’t make the user a cursed being, loathed by mortals and the Overworld gods alike.

“Mate,” Ron got his attention again, “I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now, but I can make a pretty good guess. Whatever that was,” he waved a hand in the direction of A History of the Darkest Art, “isn’t you. That’s a bunch of evil old buggers using necromancy to hurt other people. Forget about them; they’re nothing to do with this. What can your magic do?”

Harry frowned but finally started thinking with the magic that shrouded his shoulders in an icy touch rather than the safer wizarding magic that centred in his chest. “I don’t know.” He replied. “That’s sort of the problem. I don’t think I’ll know until I try and then it’s too late. What if I get lost in it again? Like when I visited the graves? It just feels like it would be safer to have a failsafe option with normal magic.” The divine magic had only grown since he had last used it, barely kept at bay by his own tight control. Already, he could feel it itching to spread.

Ron shrugged. “What, and grow some more flowers? Cast a big patronus? It doesn’t matter. Like, okay, it’s big scary death magic, but it’s your magic, at the end of the day. You wouldn’t hurt us.” And Ron said it with such confidence that even Harry had to believe him.

-

They met on a clear night under the light of the half-moon. Professor McGonagall sat in her seat at the high table, which looked even more like a throne with the table that usually covered it put away for the night. On either side of her were the four Heads of Houses, washed out grey in the moonlight. Sir Nick and Brother Geoffrey floated to the left of the living professors, trailing feet tangling in the twisting stalks of flowers, while Ron, Hermione, and Neville stood to their right. Harry, veiled in his cloak and only visible because he willed it, blew out a long breath and let the death magic flow through him.

Once, twice, thrice the Master of the Hallows spun his ring, the stone unduly warm against the cold of the smooth metal band. Immediately, the hall was filled with the silver glow of ghostly forms. For a moment, there was uproar – hundreds of ghosts calling out in surprise and alarm – until they fell into silence as Harry stepped forward. None of them could see his face, shadowed in the liquid glimmer of the cloak, but Harry knew that each one was viscerally, spiritually aware of just who stood in front of them.

He ran a thumb over the warm stone. “Baron, come forward.” His voice echoed unnaturally in the still of the room, drawing flinches from the assembly of ghosts.

There was silence for a long moment, like the very night was holding its breath, before the clanking of chains sounded, followed by the grinding drag of their weight against the flagstones. The way parted for the Bloody Baron, his fellow ghosts shying away from him as if they might be infected by his association, a ring of shadow opening up around him. The Bloody Baron, most feared of the Hogwarts ghosts, was alone as he faced Harry in front of the room.

“Necromancer.” He sneered at Harry. “What foul deed do you call me for?”

If he was hoping to appal their witnesses or Harry himself with this address, his hope was for nothing. Harry watched him steadily with unseen eyes, lingering on the blood that stained his robes and sword, wondering how much of it was Helena’s.

“Your own.” Harry replied. Now, on the last day of winter, under the subtle spell of silver moonlight, he could taste the Baron’s malice upon the air. There was no doubt left in his mind that the Baron was indeed guilty of failing to report a crime, nor that it was the only time he had done so. A hundred voices, murmuring secrets from beyond their eternal resting places, dripped confessions into his ears.

“What is that supposed to mean?” The Baron scoffed, fear turning him bold. “I have done no-” His voice cut off, choking on nothing. The Baron’s hands flew to his throat, fear bright in his translucent eyes as survival instinct took control, despite it having been many centuries since his last true breath.

Harry stepped forward on silent feet, illuminated by the pale flowers that shone brighter as he brushed against them. “Don’t lie to me.” He said softly, an order made no less inviolable by the evenness of his tone. The front row of ghosts pulled back as he approached. “It won’t work.”

The Baron glared, his light dimming in anger, rage twisting his features into something ugly. “I do not submit to the authority of a boy still in his teenage years playing at being a god because he has some power with the Dark Arts! You have no right to draw me into whatever farce this is meant to be.”

Harry hummed, unaffected by the Baron’s vitriol. “You answer to the gods of the dead and to your vows to your host.” The heady air of death magic smoothed his emotions and calmed his mind, even as Harry could feel the fear emanating from the undead. “This castle and its inhabitants are under my protection, and so you answer to me.”

The Baron scoffed and made to move – whether to run away or attack him, Harry didn’t know, because he froze him in place immediately with a negligent flick of the elder wand.

“What dark sorcery is this?” The Baron turned to the high table, where the Heads of Houses and Headmistress watched on, vague silhouettes against the moonlight streaming through the large windows behind them. “Are you going to allow this mockery to continue?”

“Yes.” McGonagall stated, voice clear and firm. “If you were certain of your own innocence, Baron, I imagine this meeting would have started in a very different way. Potter, proceed.”

Harry stepped between the Bloody Baron’s view of the high table, forcing the ghost to look back at him. “Did you witness the use of the imperius curse on the house elf, Soppy? Answer.” His voice rang out with a heaviness that wasn’t human, like the deep-echoing reverberation of thunder.

“Yes.” The word was ripped out of the Baron’s throat, even as he visibly tried to fight it. “What are you doing to me? How dare you-”

“How dare you break your oath to Hogwarts!? This is our home!” Sir Nick cried out from his side of the high table. He quailed quickly when Harry turned his head to look at him, face featureless under the cloak. Sir Nick stepped back once more, readjusting his perilously wobbling head.

“Why did you fail to report these actions? Answer.” Harry’s voice struck the bound ghost.

“They were planning to kill you.” The Baron growled out, unable to swallow the confession down. “I wanted them to succeed.”

Harry tilted his head, considering that. “You understand that I am a student of Hogwarts and am therefore included in your oath to report serious crimes against students of Hogwarts? Answer.”

“Yes.”

“Then why break your oath? Answer.”

The Baron glared furiously, but impotently, at Harry’s cloaked form. “Because you took Helena from me.”

Harry’s steps took a meandering path around the space between them, almost in the same circles that Helena Ravenclaw had paced on the night when she’d asked his help to finally move on the afterlife. “Helena Ravenclaw requested my aid to move on.” The flowers she’d touched took on a blue tint as he remembered their conversation, an afterimage of her form hanging in the air for brief moments before they were simple dust motes once more. “As was her right.” Harry added, stopping to look directly at the Baron, dragging the ghost’s attention away from where he stared at where the image of Helena had been like a starving man at a banquet. “When I brought the goddess Melinoe to the castle to lead away any ghosts who wished to go to the afterlife, Helena joined her voluntarily. You know this because you were also there.”

The Bloody Baron bared his teeth at Harry, enraged beyond words or reason.

“I couldn’t have taken Helena away from you,” Harry continued, voice so cold that frost began to drape itself in delicate fractals over the parts of the cloak that touched him, “because Helena Ravenclaw never belonged to you. She made her own choices and my role in this was to help her achieve them.”

“I loved her!” The Baron shouted out, straining against the chains that bound him tight.

“You killed her.” Harry corrected. “And then yourself, so that she could not escape you even in death. But I’m no longer interested in your reasoning. Who cast the imperius curse on Soppy the house elf? Answer.”

“Malcolm Baddock.” The Baron answered unwillingly. “You don’t know anything about us! I-”

“I don’t care.” Harry stated simply. “Helena is at peace, and you will face whatever retribution awaits you for your actions in the afterlife, either today or whenever you lose your grip on the living world.” He could tell that his equanimity in the face of the Baron’s hatred scared him more than anything before. “Did you know of this plot before you witnessed Malcolm Baddock use the imperius curse on Soppy? Answer.”

“Yes. I…” The Baron bit off the rest of his sentence, spiteful victory gleaming briefly in his eyes.

Harry just stared at him, letting his presence weigh down on the ghost until he buckled.

“I knew for over five weeks beforehand.” The ghost gasped out, panting for air that he didn’t truly need. “I witnessed Millicent Bulstrode meet with Midgen, the Hufflepuff girl.”

That was the first real surprise of the night. “What did you do when you saw this meeting? Answer.” Harry commanded.

Uselessly, the Bloody Baron tried to fight the order once more. “Helped them.” He admitted through gritted teeth. “Showed Millicent Bulstrode a hidden room in the dungeons to brew her poisons in.”

“Where is this room? Answer.”

“Behind the tapestry of the Selkie in the third corridor from the Slytherin common room, when her hair is moved from across her eyes.”

That was interesting. Harry knew that the room wasn’t marked on the Marauders’ Map. He turned to the high table, absently silencing the ghost who tried to yell. “Headmistress, do you have any further questions for the Baron?”

“Yes.” McGonagall’s voice was tight with her fury. “Has he broken his oaths to Hogwarts before?”

The Baron, unsilenced, refused to answer for all of the few seconds it took for Harry to command him to respond truthfully to her. “Yes.” was torn from his throat.

“Tell her.” Harry commanded, and the litany of the Bloody Baron’s many, many offences against the sanctuary Hogwarts provided him began.

It was a long accounting, not least because the Baron had been in Hogwarts since the time of the Founders. He’d used his position to scare anyone he didn’t like, dead or alive, and had taken particular pleasure in picking on the isolated and vulnerable. He looked over the lines of the old and powerful families, respecting only them, ignoring any crimes committed by them in his presence and pointing them towards less easily detectable curses and victims who wouldn’t be able to fight back. For his own amusement, he enjoyed it whenever the students broke out into violence, and often tried to provoke them by means of cruel gossip. The ghosts hadn’t been safe either, particularly not Myrtle, who he’d found easy to bully at her young age, and Helena, who he’d stalked for centuries, knowing full well that his presence and obsession distressed her.

When finally his voice stopped, the moon had drifted further across the sky and McGonagall was almost shaking with fury. Harry, anchored in the chthonic magic which spread from him to fill the hall, felt none of the tiredness that should have accompanied the time spent.

“You are banished from Hogwarts.” She spoke into the silence that followed, standing up to glare at the Bloody Baron and then out further, over the assembly of ghosts who hung contained in the great hall by Harry’s power. “By word as Headmistress, any ghost who has broken their vow to Hogwarts may no longer find sanctuary within its halls or grounds.”

Harry felt the ripple of magic swell through the room, passing over some ghosts while latching onto others like intangible knots in an invisible weave. These, he knew through magic alone to be the banished.

“Do as you will with them, Potter.” McGonagall finished.

Before this night, Harry hadn’t known how to forcefully remove ghosts from the living world. Here, now, encompassed in the icy surety of his own divine magic, the way was clear. His magic leapt to the task like it had been longing to. Perhaps it truly had been yearning to fix the aberrations on the dual faces of life and death that were the ghosts, unable to tell him so before Harry opened himself to its will. It grasped the banished ghosts with icy fingers, ripping the threads of false life from their desperate clasps and opening the way to death.

Death pooled in inky shadows, dark pools which shone with the oil-slick refractions of Thanatos’ feathers for only a moment before the ghost was gone and the patch of deepest darkness with it. Each path to the afterlife was opened with a key that smelled like moonlight and funereal incense, tugging the dead deep down despite their wretched clawing to stay in the living world.

To mortal eyes, they were there one moment and gone the next, but Harry stood at the crossroads between life and death watching the ghosts’ final descent. It wasn’t hard to hold the way open – in fact, it was almost too easy. After all, whatever was dead would return to death; whatever belonged to the Underworld, would always return to the Underworld, one way or another. Even, or perhaps especially, Harry himself.

In the span of moments, the population of ghosts had dropped by a third. Soon, only the Bloody Baron remained, and that was only because Harry had willed it to be so. This soul, mired in centuries of malice, deserved Harry’s special attention. He met the Baron on the fine path between life and death, surrounded by the glittering fog of the Mist which separated different layers of reality, took his wretched soul in hand, and plunged it through into the Underworld.

“A special delivery.” He whispered into the great caverns below him, and knew he’d been heard when the great, shrieking laugh of a Fury rang out, spilling out through Harry’s open path into the Overworld around him. A clawed hand snatched the miserable soul away, and Harry stood once more, opening his eyes back out into the living world.

Fog hung in the air, where the deathly chill of the Underworld had spread through Harry’s magic, riming his cloak, the flower and flagstone floor, and the empty tables with a thin coating of frost. As he moved, turning to face the head table, slim sheets of ice fell from the folds of his cloak, shattering against the ground with tinkling notes that sounded loud against the still night.

“They’re gone.” Harry’s voice was rough, like waking from a long sleep, though he’d been between the realms of life and death for less than a second.

His words broke the heavy silence that had fallen. “Thank you, Potter.” McGonagall said, missing only the one beat. She looked over the terrified but unmoving ghosts who remained. “Hogwarts remains home to all those who do not abuse the privilege. See that we never need to have this discussion again.”

Lost in the riptide of his magic, it was all too easy for Harry to make that statement true – tying the ghosts into the wards by their oaths to Hogwarts, so that malicious infractions would see them immediately banished. He didn’t regret it, even as he saw McGonagall shoot him a sharp look, clearly feeling something from her connection to the Hogwarts wards.

“Very well.” She declared, tiredness finally seeping into her posture, “You are all dismissed.”

The ghosts, no longer constrained by Harry’s magic, vanished in an instant, leaving only the living in the great hall as the first signs of dawn began to appear on the edge of the horizon. The professors collected their things and his friends moved from their seats, but Harry barely heard McGonagall’s tired proclamation that they would have a meeting to discuss the night’s events tomorrow, nor Ron’s joke about overdramatic necromancers, or Neville’s quiet questioning if he was okay. Still under the liquid cool of the invisibility cloak, death magic brushing his cheeks, Harry watched the world be reborn in the first light of spring.

Chapter Text

Spring came in the stirring of growth across the earth, a rippling sigh as life was released from the captive grasp of Demeter at the return of her daughter. There was nothing so dramatic as a sudden profusion of flowers (it seemed that only Harry was unskilled enough with his divine magic as to cause that) but each budding leaf thrilled with the song of rebirth. The twittering of birds sounded clearer, the sky looked a shade brighter, and every raindrop pounded the earth with potential, even as Hades' misery leaked into the Overworld as the last, dying frosts of spring

Harry wasn't surprised when he saw no sign of Persephone - after all, she was at the start of her busiest season and was sure to have plenty to do, not least pacifying her powerful mother that she had indeed returned from the Underworld. After a week had passed, he was starting to think that he might get away without a visit from the goddess before he was summoned to the Underworld for the holidays.

Truth be told, he was rather relieved about that. Following the Baron’s trial, there was more than enough for Harry to do, not even counting that it was the final week of term. Professor McGonagall had announced to the school at breakfast the next day that the Bloody Baron, and roughly a third of the Hogwarts ghosts, had been found guilty of breaking their vows to Hogwarts, and had thus been removed. Though no one ever said explicitly that Harry was the one who had done so, he felt the weight of the school’s attention on him. After all, who else could have banished almost a hundred ghosts in one night?

The attention was the last thing he wanted, especially as he was still working through the implications of what had happened that night. Harry had known that things would get strange the moment he decided to go with the flow of his divine magic, but now, in the light of day, it was hard to comprehend the way that he had opened a path between the Overworld and Underworld. In the moment, it had made the clearest of sense. Unravelling the ghosts’ grip on life had been as easy as breathing; stepping onto the path between life and death was like treading the well-known route from Gryffindor Tower to the great hall. Harry swallowed down the immediate fear that rose with the proof of his divine power, grown stronger and more wilful, and tried to hold onto the spark of wonder it provoked.

It helped that McGonagall resolutely refused to talk about how Harry had achieved what he had, perhaps seeing something in his eyes which persuaded her not to raise the topic, and instead focused on how to deal with the continuing repercussions of the Baron’s actions. His influence over Slytherin House had run unchecked for centuries, and with the information they now knew, it was all too easy to understand how Slytherin House had transformed from a place of the resourceful and ambitious into ripe pickings for Voldemort and dark lords before.

With the Baron’s unwillingly given information about the secret room in the dungeons, McGonagall had found Bulstrode’s brewing room as well as her stock of already-brewed potions, along with a sheaf of parchments with plans on how to destroy Harry, his friends, his influence, and finally the rest of the muggleborns and ‘blood traitors’ in the school. Some of these plans, she reported once she’d worked through the lot of them with Slughorn, would have done little more than expose the plotters, but others could have caused mass casualties among the Hogwarts students. Eloise Midgen’s extensive annotations to Bulstrode’s plans revealed far more about the woman than she might have wanted, as she referenced ongoing efforts inside the Ministry to remove officials they didn’t like through judicious use of curses and false rumours. Hopefully, this had been mostly rooted out of the DMLE by now, but they still couldn’t be sure.

Outside the ongoing investigation, term was drawing to an end as the Easter holidays approached. Harry hadn’t heard anything from Hecate, but he assumed that he was meant to be spending the holidays in the Underworld once more. He had to resist the temptation to lock himself away for a week and cram as much Mist magic practice in as possible, vaguely concerned that his abilities wouldn’t match up to Hecate’s expectations. He wasn’t quite sure how he was meant to be getting there, but at worst, he would just catch up with his friends at the Burrow a day later. A not-so-small part of him hoped that that would be the case.

Hogwarts was going to be unusually full for the two weeks of the Easter holidays. Outside the castle, dementors were still loose. There had been minimal acknowledgement about them in the Prophet, but several students had received letters from home telling them about known dementor sightings. Of the DA, many of the fifth to final years had managed to form small clouds of shining patronus mist, but the lower years were typically producing little more than vapour. Those few who had managed to cast a steady shield, and the two seventh years who had succeeded in casting a corporeal patronus (to much applause and no small amount of envy from the rest of the DA), would be accompanying the greater part of the original DA in returning home, to make sure their families and neighbours could be protected in case of an emergency. The rest of the school’s population had been advised to remain in Hogwarts, within the castle’s wards and under McGonagall’s formidable protection. Only those who were confident in their homes’ wards or had a talented magical family member were taking the risk to leave.

After the last of the students had left for Hogsmeade station, Harry milled around awkwardly in the atrium before the great hall. He had his trunk in his pocket – though without the food he’d tried to bring the first time around – and waited for any kind of signal. An hour or so later, he was sitting with his friends in the hall, picking at the snacks laid out on the tables. Daphne was carrying the bulk of the conversation, engaging Tracey in a conversation about enchantments on telescopes. Blaise had been summoned home for the holidays, his mother strangely certain that they wouldn’t encounter any dementors, and the group felt odd without him. Luna and Neville were also home, with their family members. Ron and Hermione’s absence, more than anything, felt like a bleeding hole in Harry’s world.

Ron and Ginny had always been planning to be home during this holiday. The twins’ birthday was on the 1^st of April, during the holiday, and it would be the first time that the Weasleys would be passing it without Fred. However upbeat the family had been trying to stay, they would need each other more than ever on that day. Bill and Charlie would both be returning, as would Percy, and they would stay for week. Hermione had agonised for a time over whether her presence would help and whether she’d be needed at Hogwarts but eventually came to the conclusion that she couldn’t bear to leave Ron alone with this. Harry wished, with a helplessness that burned hard in his chest like bitter fire, that he could be with them.

Dusk fell, noticeably later now that it had been a few weeks ago, and no Hellhound howled outside, nor did anything melt out of the growing shadows. Harry wanted to relax, to hope that he had been forgotten or left to do as he willed, but knew that it was probably in vain. He stayed in the hall after the dinner crowd melted away back to the common rooms, waving off his friends when they offered to stay with him. Finally, as the light fully drained from the sky, Harry felt an odd sensation in his magic, almost like a tugging. He grimaced and stood to follow it.

Every step outside the castle brought Harry further into the aura of power that he would recognise anywhere. The world was tinted sharper and yet, at the same time, felt less real the closer he got. Harry opened the door to Greenhouse 7, which should definitely have been locked in the absence of Professor Sprout, and entered. Inside, he was greeted by the smell of soil and greenery, floral scents billowing out of the door with the rush of warm air.

"You made it." Persephone said, not looking up from where she was aerating the soil under a particularly vicious patch of fanged geraniums. "Good, I was starting to believe I would have to come into the castle and fetch you."

The goddess was transformed from when he had last seen her in the Underworld. Her hair, still rich and abundant dark curls, had lightened with streaks of golden-brown, like it had been bleached under the sun. It matched the golden luminance of her divinity and the circlet of gold and flowers that crowned her head, lacking the white bone of her Underworld one. Still, the flowers were punctuated by delicately carved jewels, numerous enough to make her head glitter under the greenhouse lights, that lingered as a reminder of her husband's domain. More shockingly, her red dress, the one bright colour of the Underworld, was now a profusion of spring green and early flowers. The hem dragged in the dirt by her feet as she moved on to another pot, but it never came away dirty.

"Hello." Harry said a little stupidly, realising somewhat too late that he could have used all his time of waiting around to figure out how he was supposed to greet the Queen of his future (current?) realm. "Er, my Lady." He tacked on the end, to an amused twitch of her lips.

"Hello, Harry." There was definitely mockery in her tone, though it didn't seem entirely mean-spirited. "What a lovely collection of greenhouses these are. It has been too long since I left the mortal region of America, I think, if I have missed such a dedicated gardener." She ran a finger around the rim of a carnivorous carnation, which shuddered under her touch instead of moving to attack. "Yes, a great deal of love."

"Ah!" She reached out and swiped a pot sectioned away from the others, near the back. "Did this little one manage to take a nibble?" Persephone laughed at Harry, tickling the carnations with teasing fingers. "It's still bloated on your blood." She tutted at him. "It's not good to overfeed them."

Harry opened his mouth to protest that it hadn't exactly been intended but shut it again as Persephone continued her running commentary while she explored the greenhouse.

"These are well cared for." She hummed appreciatively, ruffling her fingers through a small buddleja.

The magical species looked similar to the muggle one at first glance, but the tiny purple flowers showed their difference when they detached from the stem at the goddess' touch, flitting through her fingers and landing on her arms, as if they couldn't bear to be even centimetres away from the goddess' touch. Anyone else would have been overcome by the sheer quantity of hallucinogenic powder dropped by their wings, but Persephone didn't appear to notice or care. After all, flowers would never hurt her. "Shoo, my darlings." She brushed the tiny false-butterflies off.

"A different gardener." The goddess then mused, leaning down to stare at what appeared to be a small lemon tree, but was bound to be much more dangerous. With a jolt, Harry realised it was one of Neville's projects. "Such devotion. Perhaps I should meet this young botanist."

Harry wasn't able to entirely hide his alarm, and Persephone picked up on it like a shark scenting blood in the water. "Oh, you know this one, do you? One of your friends?" Her smile was a little too toothy, sharp enough to cut. "Relax, little Harry." The goddess laughed when he didn't find the right words in time. "I have no interest in seeking out schoolchildren. Aside from you, of course. This botanist, I shall simply send my blessing. Well, perhaps until they're older." She couldn't seem to resist the urge to tease him as Harry’s magic sparked in worry at the idea of deadly Persephone approaching Neville.

“Um, not to offend or anything, but what are you doing here, my Lady?” Harry asked her, already feeling a bit frazzled.

“I go where I please.” Persephone reprimanded him lightly, “But you are correct that I have a reason or two to be here. Other than just checking in our newest little godling.” She patted his head like he was a small animal, dropping little bits of soil into his hair that he knew would be a nightmare to get out. “Have you grown?” She exclaimed, delighted.

Harry wasn’t entirely sure. He’d been a bit busy with everything going on this term, and it had slipped his mind that he might be expecting a growth spurt after his potions finished filling out the various nutritional deficiencies he’d been missing since childhood. “Er, maybe?”

Persephone cooed, a sound that shouldn’t have come out of a human-looking throat, and clasped her hands together. “Mortals change so fast it’s hard to tell the age of you young ones! I had thought you were full grown. Will you grow more?” She sounded oddly fascinated.

“I don’t know.” Harry managed to reply, though he was feeling distinctly like a small animal under the attention of a mad scientist. “Some guys keep growing after 18, but I don’t know if I’m one of them.” It wasn’t like he could ask his dad when he’d stopped getting taller. Or rather, he could, but it would mean summoning him from beyond death, and that seemed rude somehow.

“Hmm.” Persephone made a small, interested noise. He could almost see her wondering if planting him in some soil might help. “Well, never mind. Once you’ve ascended, you can be whatever height you like.” She tilted her head, consideration on her face. “Though if you go above 50ft, people might think you’re pretentious.”

Harry, quite truthfully, reassured Persephone that he had no intention of making his regular height over 50ft and that he’d be quite pleased just to reach 6’.

“A little boring, but I suppose you do still have a mortal mind.” She declared. “Now, I did come for a reason. Where is it?” Persephone spun suddenly and walked further into the greenhouse, where Professor Sprout stored the deadliest of her plants. “Here we go!” She opened a cupboard with enchantments inside and fished out two rather familiar moly flowers. Persephone tossed the pots at Harry, seemingly uncaring whether he caught them in time not to receive a deadly dose of their poisonous magic.

Thankfully, he did manage, catching them with quidditch-honed dexterity. He shuffled them into a comfortable position, circling his magic through the plants with the technique that Professor Sprout had taught them. The flowers perked up, though whether that was in recognition of his magic or Persephone’s was anyone’s guess. Well, Persephone could probably guess, being the goddess of flowers and all, but… Harry was getting distracted and barely managed to make sense of what Persephone was saying.

“It’s a curious little experiment.” The goddess said, “And I wish to do one of my own. Take those with you to my garden in the Underworld and try to transplant them. Do be careful, because I won’t be there to fix any mistakes until after the autumn equinox.”

Harry couldn’t figure out what made his moly plants special enough to be planted in Persephone’s own garden, but it was entirely possible that she was just messing with him. Still, he knew better than to argue with the Queen of the Dead, even if she smiled and petted flowers now in the Overworld.

The goddess’ painted lips twitched into a smirk, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Come along, now. I’ve visited the other patches of asphodels you grew, but I want to see the ones inside your castle.” In a blink, she was outside the greenhouse door, looking expectantly at Harry.

They made their way up to Hogwarts under a clear sky. The stars were always more brilliant above Hogwarts than wherever else Harry saw them, but tonight they twinkled radiantly, as if they were trying to impress the goddess of spring. Persephone ambled up the hill towards the castle at an easy pace, sometimes twirling her long skirts for the fun of it or reaching out to catch a moth. Wherever the hem of her skirts hit the ground, the grass grew higher than the ones around; thick patches of moss grew in her footprints. Harry knew that Persephone could walk through greenery without leaving a trace, so the echoes of her passage must have been intentional.  

Inside, Harry made eye contact with a horrified ghost, who, after managing to tear his eyes away from dread Persephone, looked at Harry beseechingly, as if asking that he could please stop bringing terrifying goddesses into the castle. Harry sympathised but knew he could make no promises. The ghost vanished.

“Dear Hecate told me you’d managed to scare some ghosts!” Persephone laughed, as if Harry were the one who’d scared the ghost away. “Sweet Melinoe was very pleased. She sent word to your mother at once! What on earth did they do to provoke your rage, little Harry?”

Harry was really, really hoping that the nickname wouldn’t stick. He also wasn’t sure what to think about pleasing Melinoe of all goddesses. “Uh, they broke their vows to Hogwarts and hurt, or covered for other people hurting, students.”

“Oh dear.” Persephone’s face darkened. Shadows began to drip from under her long curls, pooling in her wake. “Breaking guest-host rights is not a thing to be taken lightly. I do hope you acted to correct this.” Her eyes, deepened to pure black, promised repercussions if he hadn’t.

“Yes.” Harry felt the piercing weight of her attention, no longer jovial. “My Lady.” It lightened a little. “I sent them all on to the afterlife. The worst one, I gave to one of the Furies. And then tied their oaths with the wards, so they’d be kicked out if they broke them.”

Abruptly, Persephone was laughing again, a vision of merriment that contrasted the dark queen who’d just been questioning him. “Very good. You’ve been learning fast!”

At her signal, Harry opened the door to the great hall. It wasn’t yet curfew, but it was close, so the hall was thankfully empty of students.

Professor Vector was sitting alone at the high table, a pile of parchments next to her, and froze when she saw who had entered. “I’ll give you some privacy.” The witch declared after a courteous nod of greeting, sweeping her parchments off the table. One dropped, but even a former Gryffindor wasn’t foolhardy enough to go back for it after successfully escaping an encounter with a goddess.

Persephone watched her go with jewel-bright eyes, laughing again once the door was closed. “So polite!” Her attention was soon taken by the meadow of flowers around them. She jumped between steppingstones of paved floor in a pattern known only to her, before bending to pluck a handful of them. The broken stems grew back at once. The goddess seemed to inspect the flowers, holding them close to her face, smelling them, stroking them from the wide-open flowers at the bottom to the closed buds at the top.

Harry followed Persephone some way into the hall, watching on as the goddess’ handful of flowers trailed tiny spots of silver light up against the pull of gravity. Around him, the flowers were more luminous, petals more radiantly perfect, though not as obviously so as when he was lost in his divine magic only a week ago.

“Do you know how you grew these, little Harry?” Persephone asked, voice calm now.

It seemed that the nickname would be sticking. Harry bit down on his groan. “Not really.” He answered. “They sort of just…flowered, when I was giving the dead payment for the Ferryman.”

“Hm.” Persephone twirled the flowers between her fingers until somehow, they twisted into a flower crown. She set it upon her head, replacing the suddenly vanished circlet. The pale lustre of the flowers was bright against her dark hair, but nothing in the face of the goddess’ internal golden brilliance. “It’s a matter of exchange, you see. All things must be equal. You paid the Ferryman with gold, but in excess with your grief.” She explained, “The Underworld and Overworld, we hold all things in balance. Life from death or death from life, it is all the same and all connected – one coin, two faces; mirror realms acting in synchrony, separated only by Mist.”

A coin appeared in Persephone’s hand, flicked upwards, but disappeared as it touched her hand, because the side it fell on didn’t matter. “Then enters a young spirit, transitioning between mortality and immortality, the Overworld and the Underworld, drenched full in the hopes and fears, love and hate, blessing and curses of his people’s souls. The cloak of life clings to his bones while death’s cloak goes over his head, as he walks to bring the love of the living to the souls of the dead. Life and death in such perfect symmetry that for a moment, the Mist, his mother’s domain, thins.”

Persephone looked over the vast hall of flowers. “Mortal money for Underworld wealth, their fee was paid and they entered their afterlife, but you dripped your love and anger and grief with every dropped coin and the Halls of the Dead had to repay you. Your mother,” she turned to look back at Harry, “is not only the goddess of the Mist. Her domains also include liminal spaces – the spaces between, the spaces that aren’t. The hair-fine line between life and death which is neither and both. These flowers,” she gestured around them, “are not alive, because they cannot die. They are a pale mirror of the Underworld in the world Above, crossing through both and rooted in neither, sustained only by the finest of threads.”

“How?” Harry asked, when Persephone trailed off. “Does that mean they’ll live forever?”

“No.” The goddess shook her head. “Not that they are truly living anyway. But they exist through the love of others you acted on behalf of when you made the trade, and which the Underworld had to offer back. So long as there are those among the living who love the dead whose graves you visited, the asphodels will remain, and with them, the echo of the dead.”

“The echo?” Persephone hadn’t mentioned that before, he didn’t think.

“The echo of their love in return.” The goddess answered. She ran a gentle finger over the glow that came off the asphodels. “While the flowers bloom, the grief of the living will be softened, because their loved ones are never truly apart from them. Have you not noticed this?”

Harry opened his mouth to say no, but hadn’t he? It wasn’t that people weren’t grieving, because almost all of them were, but there was less of the all-encompassing, crushing grief that they’d seen in the first few weeks after the Battle. It wasn’t that they didn’t miss the dead in every breath, every missed letter, every glaring absence in their midst, but also…they continued to live. They’d struggled, because they were teenagers freshly out of a traumatic situation with minimal support, but they’d done it with far less disaster than they might have done. He’d heard Ron and Ginny whispering together as they left, planning a prank on the morning of the 1^st in Fred’s honour. It felt significant in a way he could never put into words.

“It didn’t stop people wanting revenge.” He offered, eventually.

Persephone shrugged. “Little will. It is in mortal nature, as well as divine. Some people use their love to fuel their hate. You’d know something about that, I think.”

Harry grimaced but it was true. His reaction to Voldemort was proof enough.

The goddess adjusted her new white flower crown. “I’ve seen enough.” Persephone declared. “I should probably deliver you to your mother now. She was expecting you some hours ago.”

“Wait!” Harry shouted, not that he was sure what exactly he was wanting to wait for, but it was too late regardless. As he had opened the path between life and death for the banished ghosts, Persephone gathered a pool of shadows beneath his feet. A cheery wave was all Harry saw of her before he was plummeting through the tearing cold of the shadows into the Underworld.

Chapter Text

Harry tumbled through the shadows in a vague direction of 'downwards' before coming to an inelegant stop a few feet above the ground. He stuck the landing just about but had to take a few quick steps to not fall face first onto the black marble of Hecate’s floor.

Blinking as he adjusted to the darkness, Harry found himself in the entrance hall of Hecate’s dwelling-temple. The familiar black stone shot through with glittering magic had given Harry enough light to see by when he had last been here, but he was still grateful for the torches that flared brighter to illuminate the room. He was slightly less grateful for the giggling nymphs that held them, not even trying to hide that they were laughing at him.

"Er, hi!" Harry looked around himself. No Hecate. He'd thought he'd end up on the path up to the palace again, probably with Hecate, but apparently not. On the other hand, he recognised some of the nymphs and they were definitely less stressful to talk to. "How are you all?"

Chrysorrhoe grinned at him, teeth glinting under the flickering light of her torch. "All the better for seeing your entrance. Did the Queen have to push you through? You're quite late."

Harry huffed, though he took it in the good humour with which it was said. "She opened it under my feet."

The nymphs cackled, a wilder sound than the laughter that Harry heard at Hogwarts.

"Come on, then." Chrysorrhoe beckoned him. "Go get cleaned up and then your mother is expecting you for a meal."

Harry followed her through the temple. He didn't need the guide, remembered well enough the layout of Hecate’s temple, but it was nice to catch up with Chrysorrhoe. Away from the other nymphs, she had plenty of gossip to share. One nymph had fallen in the Lethe, and they were trying to petition Hypnos to help her get her memory back; two lampades had been caught neglecting their duties to go on dates, and Hecate had cursed them unable to see with the firelight for a long week which they had spent bumping into everything. Charikleia, he found out, had finished the dress for Persephone that she'd been working on for three years, and was devastated to have completed it a week too late, with Persephone already returned to the Overworld. Still, six months was little to the immortal gods, so she'd simply taken the opportunity to start working on matching jewellery.

Arriving at his courtyard, Harry passed the magic fountain and entered his room. It looked untouched since he had last been there. It might well have been. He put his flowerpots down, dug a change of clothes out of his trunk - a navy blue that looked nicer in the Underworld gloom than the washed-out grey his school robes had become - and tried futilely to flatten his hair. Before he left, he switched in his fireplace and let out a deep breath when the rushing river of fire's warmth washed over him. It was probably just his faulty memory, but Harry could have sworn that the Underworld was even colder than before.

Chrysorrhoe was still waiting outside when Harry emerged, frozen in place as only an immortal could be. When she saw Harry, she began to move once more, but he couldn't shake the image of her as an eerily lifelike statue for a long moment.

"Before we reach your mother," Chrysorrhoe started, leaning towards him and whispering in a conspiratorial tone, "what was that with the ghost? We've only heard rumours."

Harry rubbed his neck awkwardly. It was one thing to have done something that felt right to him in the Overworld, surrounded by friends and the warmth of Hogwarts, and quite another to be explaining it to minor goddesses of the Underworld. "So, you know how I go to a magic school?"

Chrysorrhoe nodded, looking delighted to be getting the gossip first.

"Well, we have a load of magical ghosts in the castle." Harry explained. "Basically, they agree not to mess with the students or teachers, and in return, they get to stay."

"Guest-host rules." The lampad nodded, slowly steering them away from Harry's courtyard. "One broke them?" She sounded playfully scandalised.

"More than one." Harry grimaced. "But yeah, basically two of the other ghosts reported the Baron for not reporting a murder plot he saw in the castle, and we held a sort of trial to see if he actually was guilty. And he was - more than we even guessed - so, I sent all the other ghosts who'd broken the rules to the afterlife and handed the Baron off myself."

"Murder plots?" Chrysorrhoe questioned. "Is that normal for a mortal school?"

"Er, I don't think so." Harry answered, "But, I have to admit, I'm not the best example. There's always someone trying to kill me."

"Wait, was the plot against you?" The playful air quickly washed away from Chrysorrhoe.

Harry shrugged. "Yeah. They usually are. They made a few attempts, but we always caught them before they got too far."

"Why are mortals trying to kill you?"

He wasn't sure whether Chrysorrhoe was upset about the fact that he might have died or offended at the idea of mortals attacking a godling.

"An excellent question." Hecate’s voice rang threefold from further down the corridor, though the goddess was nowhere in sight. "Stop dawdling and join me in the dining room. It seems we have much to talk about."

Hecate was seated on a chaise longue when they entered. Her face wasn't one Harry recognised - still black-haired and green-eyed but with stronger features and a much deeper skin tone than when he’d last seen her - but she was undeniably Hecate, nonetheless. Even if she hadn’t had two other faces turned half away from them over her shoulders, the iron and moonlight taste of her magic left no room for guessing.

“Harry.” She greeted, looking him over. “You are looking well. Take a seat and then you can start explaining to me why you have multiple sets of mortals trying to kill you.”

Harry sat and found a small plate of ambrosia in front of him, a half-filled cup of nectar to the side. “It’s mainly just leftover from the war.” He replied. “I killed Voldemort, so all his supporters are mad at me. The auror department has been a mess, so not everyone was arrested, and we’re still finding unmarked followers everywhere.” He took a sip of nectar, which tasted like his favourite breakfast tea this time. “So, at school, the followers were trying to poison me in revenge.”

Hecate tilted her head slowly. “Killing you will not bring their so-called Dark Lord back, but I suppose that I do not expect rationality from mortals, let alone their adolescents.”

Harry had to fight to keep the irritation off his face. He strongly suspected that he and Hecate had very different ideas of ‘rationality’.

“Did they come close?” Hecate asked after another moment. Her tone was neutral, but her eyes were piercing.

“Not really.” Harry answered, shrugging. “I mean, they got the poison in my drink, but I noticed it before drinking. One of them broke into my dorm to kill me, but we were waiting for her and captured her. They had more plans, some of which were nasty, but they got caught before they could do them.”

Hecate drummed her long nails on the table. “Amateurs, then.” She still didn’t sound pleased. “We would have noticed your soul slipping from the Overworld had they succeeded, and would, at this point, be able to finish your transition to immortality, but it would be a shame to cut your ascension short and limit your power to its current levels. Especially for something as mundane as mortal poison.”

Harry’s eyes widened involuntarily. That was new information. Still, it was something to question Hecate about more thoroughly later. For now, he had another question. “We?” He asked, “Are you watching me in the Overworld?”

The goddess leaned back, taking her chalice of ambrosia with her. “Thanatos, Lord Hades, myself, we all track your soul with a small part of our attention. Enough to react to the presence of an Overworld god, at least, or your death. You’re hardly interesting enough day to day to watch more than that.” She swallowed a mouthful of ambrosia, though it didn’t seem to bring her any joy. “Though it seems your life may have been a little more exciting than I expected.”

Hecate traced the index finger of her free hand around the ring of condensation that her chalice had left on the flat stone table between them. “I find that I don’t like the idea of mortals plotting against you.” She stated flatly. “Nor that you did not raise this before.”

“I’m fine.” Harry responded quickly. “It’s not anything I can’t handle.”

“Nonetheless.” Hecate spoke slowly, voice darkened with anger. “You are my son by magic, by my own domain. My first immortal son. I will not have your power curtailed by the petty whims of mortals. Handle this quickly or I will feel the need to get involved personally.”

It was, without doubt, a threat. Harry wasn’t used to others making threats on his behalf. Even as alarm spiked within him, he couldn’t help the tiny ribbon of wonder that snaked through his thoughts at the idea of someone – Hecate – being the one to shelter him from harm. Still, unleashing an angry Hecate on Hogwarts was a horrifying thought.

“It’s almost sorted.” He wasn’t sure which of them he was trying to persuade. “They’ve pretty much all been arrested and expelled at this point.” Harry shrugged somewhat half-heartedly. “There are probably more people out in the wider magical world who want to try something, but they can’t get into Hogwarts easily, and I don’t really plan to stick around after I graduate.”

“Oh?” Hecate allowed him to move the conversation on, though her eyes remained sharp and unforgetting. “What is it that you’re planning for after your schooling, then?”

“Er.” Harry suddenly realised the flaw in his vague plans that was not knowing how much time he’d be spending in the Underworld. “If I’m not here, I’d like to do some travelling. Work on capturing the loose dementors, try and meet up with Fawkes the phoenix, that kind of thing.”

“Dementors.” Hecate spat, voice dark and furious. “Unnatural creatures. The reigning gods of your isles should never have allowed their creation.”

Harry blinked. “Something made them?” He thought back over her statement. “Or someone?”

Hecate nodded, placing her empty cup of nectar back onto the table with a resounding clang. “If we knew who, we would have dragged their soul to the Fields of Torment long ago. They are abominations.” Her purple-stained lips flattened into a narrow line, hiding her snarling teeth. “Yes, that seems a worthy quest. You will stay in the Underworld from the end of your term until a diet of nectar and ambrosia becomes uncomfortable, then return to the Overworld until you have dealt with the abominations.”  Her tone brooked no arguments.

That worked surprisingly well for Harry. He'd been prepared to try and bargain for more of his time spent in the Overworld with Hecate, but given that he had no idea what to do with the dementors, it seemed that he would have far more time than he'd feared to spend with his friends. Then again, he didn't know how long it would be before the ambrosia and nectar started to burn him instead of healing him.

"Do you know what they are?" Harry changed tracks before Hecate could rescind the quest. "The dementors, that is. I mean, you said that someone made them, and we classify them as amortal beings, but we don't really know how they work."

Hecate frowned. "They are unnatural, as I stated. If they related at all to our own pantheon, perhaps I could tell you more, but they are twisted beyond recognition. All we know is that they were once part of another pantheon or deity's sphere of influence, so we, as gods, cannot touch them." A sharp smile flittered across her lips. "A partially ascended demigod, however? You, and your weaker cousins, may challenge anyone you wish. There is a reason that demigods are our heroes."

That explained a lot and absolutely nothing at all. At the very least, it was an avenue of research that Harry could look into once he decided to focus fully on the dementor problem.

"Eat." Hecate ordered, with the casual imperiousness of a goddess in her own temple. "After you have eaten, I will check how your education has been progressing."

Honestly, it wasn't a hardship. The food at Hogwarts remained excellent as ever, but there was something hollow about the taste after becoming used to ambrosia. Biting into a golden square, Harry let the taste of freshly baked treacle tart melt in his mouth.

“By the way,” Harry started, after his first mouthful. “Why did Persephone send me straight here instead of to the palace first?”

The moment he spoke, the chill in the air grew sharp, descending from icy stillness into something truly bitter.

Hecate froze for a moment, ambrosia halfway to her lips. “Spring.” She replied, as if it was all the explanation needed. Her eyes were wide, pointed.

The glacial air felt like blades in his throat until Harry washed it down with a warming sip of nectar. He quickly promised himself to not bring up the topic again – at least never until Autumn.

As they continued to eat in silence, Harry’s breath slowly stopped misting in the air in front of him, and both he and Hecate relaxed as the weight of the kingdom’s wrath fell away from them. Without that pressure, the quiet turned comfortable, and Harry could again enjoy the literally divine taste of the ambrosia and nectar. If he dragged it out a little to delay being whacked about by Apsyrtos' sword, well, who could blame him?

-

"Acceptable." Hecate declared, after what felt like hours of sparring, archery, and demonstrations of magic. "I'm not sure you'll ever be a great swordsman, but with continued practice, you can hold your own. Your archery, on the other hand, is quite good for a beginner. Would you agree?" She addressed Apsyrtos, who had been summoned to test Harry's progress.

Apsyrtos nodded. "Yes, Lady Hecate. His aim is good and his reaction time fast, but he lacks the strength yet for proper sword play."

Hecate nodded. "I'm pleased with you both."

This seemed to mean more to Apsyrtos than Harry, as the ghost quite literally glowed with his pride. It wasn't that Harry wasn't pleased to hear Hecate acknowledge his progress and practice, but it came as more a relief than anything else. He'd been worrying about her expectations for weeks.

"Your grasp on Mist magic is becoming much more instinctual." The goddess continued. "For now, just continue to practice detail work and larger scale spells, and I'll give you further books to work through. Your death magic…”

Harry froze, almost missing Hecate’s next words at the shock of it being spoken out loud. It shouldn’t have been a surprise – she was a goddess of necromancy after all – but some part of his mind had managed to forget about it after all the sparring and Mist magic.

“…you seem to have real talent with.” Hecate eyed him thoughtfully, with a small, proud smile on her face.

Harry couldn’t help the somewhat ironic thought that she was one of very few individuals who would share such a feeling. Still, it managed to reach a part of him he’d thought long withered away – the simple, impossible want for a parent to be proud of him, even when it was something he wasn't sure he was proud of himself.

“When you give into your instincts, of course.” Hecate qualified. “Yes, when you let your magic flow as it wills, it is rather artful. None of my children have had the power or the correct mindset to step onto the path between life and death and emerge again at will. The way you intuitively knew to wear your cloak – to keep your anchor between yourself and death…. Yes, Harry, if you allow yourself, you will go very far.”

A breath rushed out of his lungs without permission. The confirmation of what he was, of what he could do, was as damning as it was freeing. “How do I control it?” Harry asked, “Each time I’ve used it, I’ve lost control to the magic. And nothing really bad happened, but I don’t like to not be in control of my body. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Hecate hummed a little sadly. “Still so scared of your magic. I had hoped that you were past this when I felt how your magic had improved over the winter holidays.” She tutted. “Never mind, you have an eternity to learn. Harry, you are a demi-titan, a godling, soon to be a god in your own right, if your ascension is not cut abruptly off. You are your magic and your magic is you. The only magic that will act against your wishes is that parasite at the back of your mind which tries to convince you that you should hate your magic – yourself.”

Harry grimaced. His weekly sessions in the infirmary had noted that his suppression sickness had faded somewhat, but never, ever went away. He was still prone to spikes of it, which twisted his thoughts darker with the help of the remaining horcrux residue lingering in his mind. It was something he was aware of, but knowing something logically rarely made it easier to recognise it emotionally.

“I’m working on that.” Was all he managed to say on that topic, and Hecate nodded back. Well, she was the goddess of magic – she could probably tell. “Still, I can’t keep just…letting go. There must be a way to do it properly which isn’t, er, murder and threatening the gods or something.”

Hecate mouthed his last few words in disbelief. “What in our King’s name have you been reading?”

“Er, Erictho.”

Apparently, just her name was explanation enough; Hecate looked enlightened. “She was a pure mortal, you know? No divine heritage but managed to tap so deeply into the gruesome side of death that the magic of the Underworld couldn’t help but resonate with her. Still, the gore, the obscene, the reviled, those were her art, not yours. You embody a very different kind. Should you wish to control your magic, you must learn to do it deliberately, and I would be very pleased to teach you.”

Here, somehow, felt like a turning point – a crossroads offered under Hecate’s domain. Harry had done a lot of reading about Hecate and had found some of the more interesting things she’d written about herself and her domain; these came back to him now. The reason why Hecate’s crossroads were so distinct from the domain of Janus’ doors was that Janus only offered two options. Posed a question by his adoptive mother in her own temple, Harry felt the crossroads sweeping out around them, half Mist manifestation and half imagination, offering two paths ahead but always, always one back. Hecate would allow retreat from the choice, because that was a choice in itself. In some ways, that made it easier, in others, harder.

Harry put a foot on his chosen road as he firmed his resolve and nodded at the Lady of Three Ways, feeling his magic shift a tone closer to Hecate’s symphony. “Yes, I want to learn death magic.”

Hecate beamed, her divinity incandescent around her. “Excellent. We should-” she broke off, bright smile collapsing. “You’re only here for two weeks after all. Not enough time at all. I can give you a book to start with, but we shall have to wait for the summer, when we have more time for work.” She sighed as if the reminder had drained all enthusiasm out of her. “Besides, I did have a plan for what we would cover, should your training with Apsyrtos have been satisfactory.”

Harry looked to her curiously.

“Shadow travel.” Hecate told him, with a flat look that dared him to argue. “I refuse to send hellhounds every time I need you for something or chauffeur you around. By the end of the fortnight, I expect you to be able to travel back to your mortal school yourself.”

“What if I can’t?” Harry asked, feeling the trap in her words already.

Hecate raised an eyebrow imperiously, though the glint in her jewel-green eyes told Harry that she was finding this funny. “Well, I won’t be taking you. So, you’d better learn fast if you want to get back on time.”

“Of course.” Harry muttered. He didn’t know why he’d ever expected anything else. As helpful as Hecate could be, she seemed unable or unwilling to resist the same slightly cruel humour that appeared to characterize Underworld gods.

Hecate’s smile gained teeth for just a moment before she masked it in serenity again.

Harry sighed and prepared for a long two weeks of smacking face-first into walls.

Chapter Text

Shadow travel was both far easier than apparition and far harder, because it required a certain degree of mental flexibility in order to be used. Where apparition focused on thinking clearly about your destination and your own body parts, shadow travel was built upon the idea that every shadow, whether in the Overworld or Underworld, Diagon Alley or the Empire State Building, was connected. On the one hand, that meant that once Harry had figured out how to step into shadows rather than slamming into walls, he could go anywhere he liked. On the other hand, it meant that Harry had tried to travel from his room to the corridor outside but found himself emerging in a pitch-black cave.

Harry waited for a moment, to see if his eyes could adjust to the dark, but after a minute it became clear that there was simply no light with which to see. He flicked a silent lumos maxima and blinked as a dim light came to hang in the air above him. If he hadn’t been able to tell that he was still in the Underworld by the icy air and general oppressive stillness, the weakness of the light charm would have given it away. The lumos light barely lit the cavern in which he was standing in a dull greyscale, though it should have been reflecting brilliantly from what were either giant crystals or volcanic rocks littered around the space.

Harry walked up to the nearest one, casting a second, stronger lumos from the tip of his wand. So close, the light pierced the crystalline structure and scattered dim refractions across the floor. The massive crystals were a pale white-blue, taller than Harry was himself. He couldn’t make out where they ended above him, nor how deep this cavern went. Far above, when he craned his head back, there was something glinting in the distance. Immediately, Harry cast a shield above his head against physical damage, horribly aware that a tower of crystal larger, and likely far heavier, than himself might fall at any moment. Unfortunately, this meant that the lumos on the end of his wand had to be dismissed, and Harry was once again stuck mostly blind in the thin grey light of his original spell.

He took a second to breathe in the cold, humid air of the cave and try to decide what he was going to do. Theoretically, he could try jumping in the nearest shadow – of which there were many – and try to head back to Hecate’s temple. The only problem was that he clearly had no idea how to direct himself through the shadows, and not knowing where he was now, there was a pretty good chance that he’d end up in another random location, which might be more dangerous than this one. The Underworld, after all, was not meant for the living. Hopefully, Hecate would fish him out if he landed somewhere that might kill him instantly, but Harry didn’t want to rely on both her paying attention and deciding that leaving him there wasn’t more amusing.

With that in mind, Harry decided to try and get a vague idea where he was. Clearly, he was underground, but that meant very little in the Underworld, much of which was contained in cave systems and subterranean temples. Still, there was air and sort of a path through the middle of the crystals, so perhaps there was a way out. Besides, he couldn’t deny the part of him that simply wanted to explore this strange crystal cave he’d found himself in before he tried seriously to escape.

First, the light problem. Clicking his fingers, Harry flexed his will on the Mist and produced a somewhat solid wooden torch. Another, and it was lit. However, the flames seemed insubstantial, almost like flickering tissue paper instead of real fire, and the orange light they gave out barely reached further than the hovering lumos maxima. It was nothing like the radiance of the flames the lampades held, nor the piercing green light of Hecate’s own torches. Harry frowned and dismissed his pale imitation.

This time, when he clicked his fingers, he poured his divine magic in and opened his eyes to find that he was wreathed by a backdrop of flames. Hovering in the air behind him was a loose ring of untethered fire, burning in the air as happily as on a lump of dry wood. At first, it reminded him of Hecate’s green flames, but as he looked closer, Harry saw that the colour had a definite cool tint, almost blue, with silver-white flickering at the edges. Occasionally, a splash of gold sparkled in a way that would look metallic on anything else but shouldn’t have been possible in a fire. He watched the circle for a moment, before turning back to the cavern.

His pale blue flames didn’t have the power of Hecate’s against the Underworld gloom, but they were far better than the lumos light. The cavern came into full view for the first time, displaying a dizzying array of towering crystals growing as far and as high as Harry could see. Their scintillating surfaces bounced light around the vast cavern, painting the space in their various hues. Some of the crystal structures grew straight up or down, but many others tilted at angles that would make exploring off the loose path difficult or straight up impossible, if Harry didn’t want to cut through the crystals.

Behind him, a path led off through the forest of crystals until it went around a bend and he could no longer see it; ahead, the path continued straight on a slight incline until the light of his flames couldn’t reach it. He walked up the slope, fire following him.

The crunch of his shoes against chips of crystal and his even breaths were the only sounds that accompanied Harry on the upwards path. Nothing moved in the gigantic columns of rock, and the cavern was utterly silent except for the echo of Harry’s own movements. It was unnerving enough that Harry couldn’t completely relax, even as the towers around him shifted colours and patterns, the only bright colours in the Underworld at this time of year.

Eventually, the far wall appeared, and in it, a door. Harry passed through and had to stop at the sight. The grotto he’d entered was encased on all sides by colossal growths of amethyst. The sides of the cave from the floor and the ceiling were entirely made of deep purple crystal, growing out in small geometric spikes. The rough stone of the path continued around the righthand side, but on the left gave way to a standing pool of water, a brilliant pale blue against whitened rock. Growing from this, where it had never seen the sun, another petrified tree was growing. This one was decidedly smaller than the one in Hecate’s temple, and a much lighter jade colour to that one’s darkened opal hues. At the top of the tree, where leaves grew against all odds, they were tinted lilac to match the surrounding amethyst on the underside and a deeper wine colour on top. There was no wind to flutter the leaves, but the flickering firelight managed to give them the impression of moving.

Encouragingly, there was also a set of stairs on the far side of the room, leading up to an entrance set about halfway up the wall. Once Harry had his fill of looking around this room, he continued on through it, though fervently wishing he’d thought to pack a camera of some kind for his friends. Though, as he thought about it, he somewhat doubted that a camera would be able to catch much at all. Even if the strange sort of dimensional faith domain aspect of the Underworld were able to transfer onto film or digitally, it would still probably look like a dark blur to anyone not adapted to the Underworld’s dimness.

These thoughts distracted him enough that he almost tripped over a trailing strand of ivy. This was surprising enough to draw Harry’s attention back to his surroundings. On closer inspection, the ivy, though beautiful, lacked any life. It was instead the most beautifully wrought gemstone Harry had ever seen – an entire seam of some green stone carved to perfection that it imitated life in every sense but the most important. Around him, a forest bloomed beautiful but fake. A bird took flight from one branch to another, flexing bronze wings. Insects scuttled in jade grass with obsidian shells. A breeze, clearly magical, rustled the paper-thin sheets of gemstone that made up each leaf, but it filled the air with crystalline tinkling instead of whispering leaves. It was uncanny in a way which surpassed impressive and went straight to unnerving. Harry hurried through the room, hyper-aware with every step of the lack of life around him that made the experience ring hollow. He hadn’t realised how much of the earth’s growth and decay he’d grown used to feeling until he was in this forest room.

Beyond, Harry squeezed himself to the side, avoiding the spray of a great waterfall. It tumbled down from high above him and fell far below, a churning dark pit that even his flames couldn’t illuminate. The river wasn’t the Phlegethon, for obvious reasons, and Harry could feel that it wasn’t the Styx, but he didn’t consider curiosity a good enough excuse to risk coming into contact with whichever river it was. All the waters did something nasty, and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out what this one this did. He circled carefully around the wall, following the path up and up as it spiralled around the cascading waters. For a moment, he feared that he’d have to work out some way to pass safely through the waters, as the path led straight into the waterfall, but once he reached the top, a narrow passage opened up into the cave wall behind it.

Here, the floor gave way to glassy obsidian, polished to a mirror finish. Bronze joined the obsidian on the walls and ceilings as bright details in a masterpiece of carvings. Humans, gods, monsters, centaurs, satyrs, nymphs, animals… Whatever existed in the Overworld seemed to have a place on these walls as they formed a long corridor that stretched for what seemed like miles. It was this glossy rock and hints of metal that finally gave away where Harry was. The only other place he’d seen so perfectly carved was Hades’ palace, and that was very much not where he wanted to be right now.

Harry had been planning to find his way to the surface and get his bearings from there, but now he had a general idea where he was, he was doubting that this would be a good plan. From everything Hecate and the nymphs had told him, Hades was better undisturbed in early spring without due cause. They hadn’t said what happened to people who didn’t have good reason to interrupt the god of the Underworld, but Harry was absolutely willing to not test that. Trying to think of the relative positionings of the palace and Hecate’s temple, Harry walked into shadow behind a pillar and aimed for the shady spot behind his bedroom door that no number of light charms seemed to solve.

Second time unlucky. Harry rubbed his nose, unsurprised to see it dripping red. Or rather, he assumed it was red since his flames were still giving off a teal-silver light that made it look black. A look around showed him that he’d managed to walk through the shadow fine, but he’d emerged facing the wrong direction and his momentum had sent him straight into a wall. At least it was a wall he recognised – shot through with glittering jewel-tone lights as was – so he knew he was somewhere in Hecate’s temple.

Some wandering around later, he finally recognised a wall hanging and realised he’d found himself in the corridors off to the right past the library, where he’d never had reason to go before. From there, it wasn’t hard to get back to the area he knew well. Surprisingly tired out by the shadow travel, Harry barely managed to grab a square of ambrosia and wash the blood off his face before he passed out in his bed.

-

The next week brought the regular denizens of the Underworld much amusement as Harry appeared at random and often inconvenient places. The lampades had clearly been warned, as they showed no reaction to Harry turning up unexpectedly other than scattered laughter at his missteps, but he wasn’t so lucky with the other Underworld immortals. On the second day, Harry managed to deeply offend Hades’ gardener when he emerged halfway up a fruit tree and knocked the owl off a branch when gravity took hold once more. A couple of security ghouls had been unfortunate casualties of a similarly awkward entrance into the shadow of a stalactite above the winding trains of ghostly entrants to the Underworld. They reformed after a moment, but Harry still felt a bit bad for squashing them flat.

Still, the most embarrassing entrance, hands down, was when he somehow appeared under the table of Hecate’s dining room while she was hosting a meal with a group of other deities. For the first few seconds after he’d arrived, Harry had held the barest traces of hope that he could escape without them noticing, but that had quickly vanished when she’d turned the petrified wood of the table clear just to raise an unimpressed eyebrow. He’d fallen back into the shadows to avoid having to do an awkward shimmy out, still catching the sound of laughter before the ripping darkness consumed him again.

Finally, though, as the week came to an end, Harry started to get the hang of it. It was less, he realised, thinking of two places and trying to travel between them, and more mentally superimposing them on top of each other, and stepping from the darkness of one straight into the other. The effort of doing so winded him, far more than when he’d been travelling through the darkness essentially at random, but it was much faster, and more importantly, accurate. With a couple more days of practice, he was coming out more or less exactly where he meant to, much to his relief and the dismay of his nymph friends.

“It was the funniest thing we’ve seen down here for centuries!” Kallimache complained, to a chorus of agreement. “Even watching Sisyphus push that rock gets old after a while. It was fun trying to guess where you’d pop out next. I had a drachma on one of the other temples and Chrysorrhoe was sure it would take you the full two weeks to get any good at it!”

They were clustered in the nymphs’ courtyard, where the Phlegethon pooled in a brilliant pond of fire. Hades’ misery continued to leak into the air, and the Underworld was bone-chillingly cold wherever the fire’s warmth didn’t touch. This led Harry and the lampades to use the courtyard whenever possible. While he was ostensibly doing his homework, they were grouped around completing various tasks or simply relaxing in seats near the river of fire.

Harry grinned at them, not at all apologetic for spoiling their fun. “Probably shouldn’t have bet against me then.”

Kallimache booed him but couldn’t argue against that. “Ah well, it was good while it lasted.” She still looked wistful for the excitement. Harry wondered how much of that was playful and how much was a serious wish for more entertainment than the Underworld could provide.

They lapsed into silence for a long moment before Kallimache broke it again. “Harry, Lady Hecate says that your education is truly abysmal. Actually, she said an awful lot more than that, but I’m not sure how much of it I can repeat.” She shot him a conspiratorial smile. “But safe to say, it was bad. Does that mean that you haven’t heard the Iliad?”

“Uh, no.” Harry replied, drawing the attention of most of the nymphs in the courtyard. “I’ve heard of it but never read it.”

Charikleia tsked, looking up from the gold she was coaxing into artful twists, “Read? No. If you have never heard it, then you must hear it sung.”

This must have been the result Kallimache had been hoping for, as her smile stretched wide across her face, an eager light in her dark eyes as she watched Charikleia pack her jewellery away.

In fact, all around the courtyard, lampades were whispering, shuffling in to sit closer, and a few running out only return a minute or so later with groups of more nymphs. One brought Charikleia a lyre, all polished bone and carved with scenes of battle, which sounded clear, sweet notes when she plucked the strings. Others gathered pillows for the nymphs to sit on, as they packed in all the available space around Charikleia, until there was only room to stand near the doorway entrances.

Only when the sound of rustling cloth and whispering had stopped did Charikleia begin to sing. “Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Achilles…”

And Harry felt the Mist swirl with the weight of the nymph’s song as the story came to life with her voice. He sat back and let it wash through him, capturing him in the flow of the epic.

-

Arguably, it would have been good to know beforehand that the Iliad, properly sung, took over half a day to finish, but that wasn’t the kind of thing that the lampades would think to tell him and Harry couldn’t find it in himself to be upset about it in retrospect. His mortal needs were dampened to an almost concerning degree in the Underworld, and his usually variable attention span had been enraptured completely in the magic of Charikleia’s singing. Only when the last notes finished resonating in the courtyard did Harry stir enough to realise that it was an unusually long amount of time for him to sit comfortably. The nymphs didn’t seem to think anything of it, simply rousing themselves to applaud Charikleia and ask Harry what he thought, but it lingered at the back of his mind that his body and mind seemed a lot further along the transition to immortality than he’d realised – that perhaps, he retained some of his human habits more out of routine than real need.

Luckily, he didn’t have time to think too much on it, as the nymphs all debated among themselves what Charikleia should perform when she next found the time and inclination. The argument was fierce, and Harry found himself laughing helplessly as two lampades insulted each other (hopefully) light-heartedly from opposite sides of the river. It was broken up not long later by Hecate herself, coming to see what all the commotion was about, but the good mood persisted in the temple for the rest of Harry’s visit.

Chapter Text

Hecate stood before Harry, towering over him at about 8 or 9ft. Her central figure faced him with a mischievous glint in her eyes, while her other faces were turned away, backlighting each other with aloft green torches. “It is the last day of your holiday time. I hope you have spent the last two weeks wisely.”

Harry liked to think he had. His shadow travel around the Underworld had increased in precision and speed while decreasing how much energy it pulled from him. He’d even had enough time to finish his holiday homework and learn a little more about daily life (un-life?) in the Underworld. The working shadow travel had ended up giving him a lot more free time, once he no longer had to walk to water his moly plants at the edge of Persephone’s garden. “I’m pretty sure I can do it.”

The goddess nodded, before a smile split her face. “If not, I’m certain that we shall have something entertaining to watch.”

Harry didn’t bother to respond, other than a flat stare. He was pretty sure that she and the nymphs had been playing up their amusement specifically because they knew that it annoyed him. Her widening smile all but confirmed it.

“Will you be leaving now, then?” Hecate asked, eyes flicking to the extended pocket of his robes, which contained his re-packed trunk.

“I had a couple of questions that I forgot to ask last time.” Truthfully, Harry had barely remembered to ask this time either. The questions which had been so fresh in his head at the start of his visit to the Underworld had been solidly muffled by repeated falls into deep shadow and hard walls. It was almost disturbing how easy it was to forget the rhythms and cares of the Overworld when enveloped in the still of the Underworld. Perhaps, that was deliberate.

“Go on then.” Hecate snapped and her favourite chaise longue, the one she always sat on in the dining room, materialised in Harry’s courtyard. She made herself comfortable.

“Er, I have a cat.” Harry started. Immediately, it sounded stupid to him, so he continued quickly. “I’m not actually sure what she is, but she’s at least part cat.” Here, Hecate’s eyebrow ticked up in mild interest. “Is there any way that I can bring her with me safely, or should I leave her in the Overworld?”

Hecate hummed, her eyes looking oddly absent. “Black cat, green eyes?” She waited until Harry confirmed that then went silent for a moment. “Oh, hmm.”

Harry had rather been expecting a more definite answer, something along the lines of ‘of course you can’t bring a cat into the Underworld and expect it to live, you foolish boy’, so his nerves ratcheted up as Hecate continued to sit in deep thought. He wiped the nervous sweat off his hands, wondering how on earth (or in fact, below it), he was managing to sweat in such icy chill.

“Should be fine.” Hecate stated, and suddenly it was like she was more real – that she was somehow more her. Her eyes were again jewel-sharp and jewel-bright. “Normally, a pantheon’s creatures could not enter another pantheons’ afterlife, but this one is not full-blooded, and its spirit is rather bound to yours already.”

Harry bit his tongue to keep back his curiosity about how Hecate had known that while sitting in her temple, and what precisely Basilissa was, at least until his original question was answered. “So, bringing her with me wouldn’t, you know, kill her?”

Hecate shrugged a slim shoulder. It was always an odd look, with another shoulder at an angle behind it. “Most creatures, it would, of course, but you appear to have chosen a familiar well.” She surveyed him with visible scepticism. “Or she chose you well.”

Harry wanted to object, but it was entirely true, and he didn’t want to risk interrupting Hecate and not getting the rest of the explanation.

“All cats are a little magical.” Hecate continued. “Black cats a bit more so than the rest, but they flirt with the line between life and death, where yours can actively slip between them. Probably, for now, with more talent than you can.” That was a little galling. “Your familiar’s ancestors were soul-stealers, after all.”

Harry’s eyes widened involuntarily. He knew this one from DADA. “Cat sith?”

“Indeed.” Hecate sighed. “Pests, usually. To deities, at least. I imagine mortals may have more trouble with them.”

“So, has she been eating…?” Harry couldn’t bring himself to say it, not out of squeamishness, but because he just couldn’t relate the idea of a soul-stealer to the lump of surprisingly heavy fluff that liked to nap around his neck.

“Oh, heavens, no.” Hecate waved his concerns away with a dismissive gesture. “Even a full-blooded cat sith could only steal souls from the recently deceased at the height of their faith-system’s power. Yours simply has an affinity for death and soul magics. Rather, I imagine, the reason she liked you.”

Harry relaxed the muscles that had clenched up involuntarily. It explained rather a lot. Both in the reason why she’d approached him when the other cats hadn’t, and in her proclivity for tearing and eating through magic she didn’t like. He couldn’t wait to tell Hannah that she’d actually been right.

“What have you called her?” Hecate enquired, looking far more invested in this conversation than Harry might have imagined.

“Basilissa.”

Hecate snorted loudly, mirth spilling out of her with a rush of divine magic that caused the torches around them to blaze in their eerie green. “Such is the way of cats.” She laughed. “I have never met a cat or cat deity who isn’t convinced that they are wholly superior to all others.”

There was something fond in her voice, and Harry was reminded that cats were most associated in the Greek pantheon with Artemis and Hecate. There was a joke there too, that could be made about that, but Harry chose the safer option for the sake of his remaining sanity and uncursed form. “Then I’ll bring her with me next time I’m here.”

“My nymphs will be delighted.”

Harry could already picture it. He wondered how much petting Basilissa would endure before she decided on violence.

“Now what else?” Hecate interrupted his daydreaming.

Harry took a deep breath, the biting air making his lungs burn. It wasn’t a question he wanted to ask, but one which he had to. “How long do I have left?” He forced the words out, failing to keep his tone casual.

Hecate blinked slowly from where she lounged on her reclining sofa. “It’s hard to say.” She answered, after the question had hung in the air between them for a weighted moment. “You will not get the full three years; I think you know this already.” She paused until Harry nodded stiffly. “On the one hand, the more divine power you gain, the faster you burn through that remaining mortality. On the other, the greater your eventual power, the more growing into it you require. You are tied soul deep to the same mortals who exult your impending divinity. It is a fine line you are treading.”

Harry went to interrupt, but Hecate shot him down with a stern glare. “I am answering your question as best I can with your basic appreciation of divine magics.” Green fire leapt in her eyes, torches brought to life instead of the reflection of those around them. “Apotheosis is not a simple topic, even for a goddess of magic. It should not be within this calendar year, if that satisfies your questions.”

It didn’t really, but Harry knew that it was the best he’d be getting. He couldn’t help the way that relief sagged through him, the muscles in his back almost cramping as the tension he’d held in them for too long seeped out. “Okay. Okay, thank you.”

That seemed to mollify Hecate somewhat, but her lips were still pursed, displeasure slipping out in the iron taste of her magic around them. “Is that all?”

Harry considered not asking his final question, all too aware that she was already annoyed, but he knew it would weigh down on his conscience all through his third term if he didn’t. “So, I know that you said that the gods can’t help your demigod children.” He started, and immediately Hecate’s magic was oppressive, curling visibly in the air between them. “But I’m not a god yet. Can I meet my-” it was so strange to say it out loud, the syllables sitting oddly on his tongue like a new spell, “my siblings?”

Hecate sucked in a harsh breath, clicking her tongue angrily. Still, her gaze was contemplative. “I can’t stop you from seeking out my mortal children.” She said, “Or rather, I could, but I am not obligated to by our ancient laws. Instead, I shall give you a warning.” The shadows around her face deepened, “Demigods are cursed to be hunted by monsters throughout their lives, but their earliest years are shielded by their youthful lack of power and their ignorance of their true natures. Telling my younger children of our relation will put them in immediate danger – telling the elders, who have already found their way to relative safety in the centaur’s training camp, will immediately draw attention to you. I will be deeply angered if your curiosity brings harm to either you or them.”

Harry swallowed. “I understand. I’ll be careful.”

Hecate watched him with something wild in her too-bright eyes. “I don’t think you do. But I am a goddess of choices, and as such I must allow all my children to make their own, even the ones that reek of catastrophe.” She was standing in a blink, only inches away from Harry, bending to cup his face in her overlarge hands. “The tapestry of the Fates is threaded through with the cruel knots of heroes, twisted, tormented, and cut short in their attempts to better the world.” Her hands burned cold with dark moonlight, sinking deep under his skin. “I will not have your immortality ripped from you by the paranoia of the Olympian gods, nor my other children exposed to more of their scrutiny.”

Harry stilled, not removing his head from her firm grip even as his body screamed at him to back away from the enraged goddess before him. He knew, as sure as she did, that any attempt to run would be thwarted before it even began. It felt like standing with his head gripped in a dragon’s maw, except that his magic would be useless and the dragon in question was his magically adoptive, immortal mother. The simile fell apart from there, but the odd thought was enough for him to regain some of his calm.

“I’ll be careful.” He repeated. “I promise.”

“I’ll be watching.” Hecate replied, equal threat, promise, and assurance of what protection she could provide. “Now, I think you had better go.” She told him, standing straight again. Her hands lingered a moment longer, one brushing his fringe out of his eyes, where it was starting to grow too long. “Before I decide to keep you here, safe, until your ascension finishes.”

As her hands dropped away, Harry took a step back, unsettled. “I’ll be back at the end of term.”

Hecate nodded. “Yes, you will.” It was an order, rather than an agreement.

Harry melted back into the shadows behind him, thinking somewhat desperately of going home before Hecate’s mercurial moods changed again.

-

He’d been distracted enough leaving that Harry wasn’t overly surprised when the shadows spat him back out in his bedroom at Grimmauld Place instead of Hogwarts. Another time, he might have contemplated the significance of his subconscious mind considering this house home rather than the castle he’d loved, but Harry was far more distracted by the bludger of tiredness that seemed to have slammed into him.

He staggered on entry, barely managing the few steps to his comfortable armchair. Slumped down, with his head tilted back on its cool leather, Harry tried to catch his breath. The journey through the shadows had been much rougher than his trips around the Underworld. Whether that was the effect of the powerful Underworld darkness or simply the result of passing from one realm to another, Harry didn’t know, and he certainly wasn’t in any kind of condition to go about testing it.

“Master Harry has returned.” Kreacher’s raspy voice greeted him. “Pale as death, his master is, but Kreacher knows it is fitting for his master.”

“Hi, Kreacher.” Harry panted, closing his eyes in an attempt to stop his head spinning, but quickly opening them again when that made it worse.

Kreacher frowned ferociously at him. “Master Harry has not been taking care of himself.”

“I’m fine, Kreacher.” Harry resisted rolling his eyes, in part because he wasn’t sure if that would be what pushed his nausea over the edge. “Just tired. Shadow travelled back from the Underworld for the first time.”

Kreacher did not seem at all convinced. “Master Harry will be having tea.” He declared and popped out of the room before Harry could argue.

It took Harry a few minutes before he felt capable of lifting his head and sitting up straighter. The world was no longer spinning around him, but it was horribly bright to his dark-adapted eyes once more, which wasn’t helping the lingering sickness. The glass darkening charm was at least familiar now, and Harry dimmed the magical light from the sconces as low as they can go.

A tray with a pot of tea, milk, sugar, and finger foods appeared in front of Harry, and he readily poured a cup out for himself. It had been far too long since he last had a good cuppa. Certainly, it had only been two weeks, and the taste of nectar changed as he began craving hot tea more and more, but there was nothing like a real cup of tea to settle his nerves. The finger foods, he was less convinced by, but the tea sat well in his stomach, washing away the nausea, and soon he found himself digging in. Nothing in the mortal world had the depth of flavour and magic that ambrosia held, but it was a relief to have the variety of tastes and textures once more.

After he’d eaten his fill, Harry was feeling much better. Exhaustion still lingered in his bones, his extremities still feeling oddly insubstantial, but with a clearer mind, Harry was now convinced that it was the difficulty of shadow travelling between realms which had drained him rather than the relative thinness of Overworld shadows. It was just as well, because he’d long missed the Hogwarts Express, if he’d been intending to take that, and he didn’t actually have an apparition license. He supposed he could floo into Hogsmeade, but Harry still preferred to avoid the floo if possible – it always seemed to dump as much soot on him as it possibly could.

With this in mind, and the afternoon only just starting, Harry took off his boots, summoned one of the few fictional books he’d bought, and poured another cup of tea. Hogwarts term would start again in the evening, and with it the worries and responsibilities of Harry Potter, Vanquisher of Voldemort, until term ended once more and he’d be Hecate’s adopted son, the ascending godling. For this afternoon, back from the Underworld, he was determined to be just Harry. His bourbon biscuits had never tasted sweeter.

-

Several hours and the surprising realisation that Harry enjoyed curse-breaking fiction later, he was testing the shadows of his bedroom. The Overworld shadows seemed weak and shallow to Harry’s magical senses, which made them harder to enter, but, as he tested moving from one room to another, far easier to walk through. The sky was starting to darken outside, and Harry knew he couldn’t delay anymore, so bidding goodbye to Kreacher, he stepped into the dark behind his wardrobe and walked out into the final year boys’ dormitory.

“WHAT THE-. What the fuck, Harry?” Seamus swore, having risen to his feet from his bed, wand clutched in his hand and tie half on. “Gave me a fucking heart attack, you did.”

Harry, feeling the good humour of a nice afternoon to himself and perhaps too much time recently spent with bored nymphs, pretended that nothing abnormal had happened. “Hi, Seamus. How was your holiday?”

Seamus lowered his wand but looked between Harry and the bare patch of wall he’d emerged from. “Is this going to be a thing?” He asked suspiciously. “Have you found a secret passage or something?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.” Harry turned away, grinning to himself as he brought his trunk out of his pocket and started to put away some of his school things. “Just walked in here.”

Seamus groaned, flopping back on his bed dramatically. “It’s going to be a thing. Dean, Dean, tell me that we’re not going to have to deal with Harry jumping out of walls all term. I don’t think my nerves can take it. I’m going to fail my NEWTs and it’s all going to be his fault. And then Mam’s going to get mad and try to hit him with a stinging hex and she’s going to lose, and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Dean, who’d been mostly hidden behind Seamus from Harry’s perspective, snorted. “You can’t blame Harry for you failing your NEWTs months before you even take them. Blame him after whatever happens at the end of the year happens. No offence, mate.” He addressed the end to Harry.

Harry himself was surprised into laughter. “Good to see you too. And happy birthday for yesterday.” He looked around the otherwise empty dorm, then at the time. “Hang on, why are you here already? You went home for the holidays, right?”

“Thanks, and yeah, we did.” Dean responded. “We missed the train this morning so we apparated to Hogsmeade instead and walked up.”

Seamus grabbed his pillow and clutched it over his face, groaning into it.

“That sounds like a story.” Harry moved his stack of homework from his bed to his bedside table and sat down to listen.

“It was all Seamus’ fault.” Dean started, with a wicked grin.

Immediately, Seamus threw the pillow towards him and sat up, turning to face Harry. “Don’t listen to a fecking word out his mouth! He’s a liar! It wasn’t my fault – it was that copper with a stick up his arse.”

Harry settled in, grinning already. “Alright, what happened?”

Seamus stole his pillow back from Dean before Dean could throw it. “So, it was Dean’s birthday party yesterday, right? And his family was doing a barbecue, taking advantage of the nice weather – which I still think was a bad idea, ‘cause it was pissing it down with rain the night before and everything was all wet. Anyway, it was nice and all, spent some time with his family. Now, me and some of the lads, we thought maybe we could get in a game of football while we’re all together. Took off for the park. Dean’s cousins are all older, so it’s all good, we bring some of the beers with us. Play a couple of games of footie. Now, some interfering old bastard with nothing better to do has apparently called up the cops, telling them some lads are getting all disorderly in the park.” Here, Seamus scowled heavily, “Copper shows up to break things up and sees it’s just a game of footie, but the fucker doesn’t want to have wasted his time, so he goes round checking how old everyone is.”

Harry could already see where this was going. While Dean looked his age, Seamus’ face was still pretty round and he couldn’t grow more than sparse patches of beard, leaving his appearance a nebulous sort of ‘teenage’.

“Anway, Dean’s cousins are all fine, got their drivers’ licenses, and Dean’s got his provisional. Now, I flooed into Diagon in the morning and apparated over, so I ain’t got anything with me.” Seamus continued. “Copper absolutely refuses to believe I don’t have any sort of ID on me and starts railing on about underage drinking and shit. Told him I was in Scotland, got the train down for my best mate’s party – why would I bring my fecking birth certificate? So, Dean gets a great idea.”

Here, Dean winced. “To be fair, it solved our first problem.”

Seamus shook his head. “Dean’s great idea, right, is to say he thinks I had my driver’s license in my bag. I didn’t even have a bag. He runs back to his house, leaving me alone with this arsehole who won’t stop having a go about underage drinking. Anyway, Dean comes back about five minutes later, with my ‘driver’s license’.” The quotation marks were audible. “That turns out to be my apparition license, which he apparated to the Leaky and flooed my Mam for, with a confundus charm on it.”

Dean rubbed between his eyes, not making eye contact with Seamus. “It seemed like a good idea at the time, okay?”

Seamus sighed. “Yeah, so did I until the aurors showed up.”

“What?” Harry hadn’t expected that turn of events.

“Yeah.” Dean grimaced. “Turns out, the Ministry monitors the police, and there are alarms that go off when active magic is cast on a police officer. I think they said it was on the hat or something.”

“So now,” Seamus took over the story, “we have to explain to the aurors that we weren’t muggle-baiting or anything, I just don’t have any valid muggle ID and some copper with a stick up his arse won’t budge on seeing some.”

“What happened?”

“Well, they accepted it eventually.” Seamus replied. “Let us off with a warning not to cast magic on muggle law enforcement. But then they had to obliviate the guy because they showed up in full robes and all, talking about magic.”

Harry let his face fall into his palm, ignoring the pinching of his glasses against his nose. Every time he thought that the DMLE couldn’t get more incompetent, it proved him wrong. “Hang on,” he said after a moment, looking back up at them curiously, “that was yesterday, right? What does that have to do with missing the train today?”

“Paperwork.” Dean said at the same time as Seamus replied, “A fecking stupid meeting.”

“We had to give a proper statement in the morning at the Ministry.” Dean continued, “Even though we’d already talked to the aurors yesterday. They were running late, so we missed the train.”

“I’m never working for the Ministry.” Seamus declared, as if he were swearing an oath. “Absolute fecking messes. Don’t know their arse from their elbow.”

Dean agreed and Harry found himself doing so as well. The more he heard about them, the more certain Harry was that he wanted minimal contact with their magical government. He wondered, absently, if other countries’ governments were as messy as the British ones or better. It seemed a low bar to clear, but, somewhat cynically, Harry thought that he wouldn’t be all that surprised.

Their exciting anecdote exchanged, Seamus and Dean moved on to talking about the rest of their holidays, forgetting to ask Harry about how he’d appeared in the dorms. Harry wondered if it would be in bad taste to jump out of shadows and shout ‘boo!’ every so often. With a little private glee, Harry noted the idea down for the DA – constant vigilance after all.

-

Basilissa found him in the dorms about an hour later, slinking into the room without any sign of the door opening. Once inside, she stopped as she saw him before charging at him to yowl her displeasure about his absence. Given the way she leapt from the floor to his lap, before climbing onto his shoulder, this was impressively loud.

“I did warn you I was going this time.” Harry defended himself to his cat, trying not to wonder just how much cat sith ancestry she had. Plausible deniability meant she probably still counted as a suitable pet in Hogwarts, right? “And you can come with me next time. I checked.”

These seemed to be the magic words as Basilissa stopped yowling directly into his ear and instead allowed him to make up for his desertion with scratches under her chin.

Harry just laughed at her dramatics, a warmth filling him as it sunk in fully that he wasn’t going to have to leave her behind again. “Yeah, I missed you too.”

-

As the evening fell in truth, Harry stood at Hogwarts’ main entrance, watching the thestral-drawn carriages crest the hill up to the castle. Students poured into the castle, some heading straight to the great hall, others lingering to find friends. The thestrals, well-trained and rewarded for their efforts with treats from Hagrid, kept a steady pace in their loops up and down the hill. Only Huntress, keen and mischievous, came and nuzzled her beak over Harry’s head before returning to the track.

Hermione, Ron, and Neville were the last to arrive as before, holding a truly improbable quantity of lost property for the house elves to take and sort. They placed them down at the entrance and, between one moment and the next, Harry was engulfed in a hug. Hermione’s hair was in his mouth again, tickling his nose and threatening to make him sneeze, while Ron’s surprisingly sharp chin dug into his head, long arms wrapped around them both. Harry wouldn’t change a thing.

Chapter Text

DEMENTOR SIGHTINGS ACROSS THE EAST OF ENGLAND

Only the latest blunder from Shacklebolt’s ramshackle Ministry

By Rita Skeeter

The reader may be forgiven for confusing this headline for one written almost two years previous, at the start of the Second War with the Dark Lord Voldemort. Instead, it is my great disappointment that I must inform my readers that the Ministry of Magic, led by the unelected figure of Kingsley Shacklebolt, has made no progress in handling the dementor problem that is holding our country hostage. As many of us remember, the wardens of Azkaban abandoned their post to follow the Dark Lord, and thus, the DMLE made the controversial decision that the dementors would not be given their positions back again, triggering the beginning of the dementors’ free spree of terror across the British Isles. Now, dear reader, we must ask ourselves and our Ministry why these soul-sucking fiends remain at large almost a year after the historic fall of the Dark Lord Voldemort at the hands of our very own Saviour, Harry Potter?

For months now, magical citizens across Britain have been weathering the risk of dementor attacks outside of warded zones, leaving much of our population scared to leave their homes. This threat has disproportionately affected those in the East of England and Scotland, where residents have been reporting a massive increase in dementor presence. Ethel Henries, 71, was quoted by this intrepid reporter saying that “our 60+ quidditch league is more or less shut down. You can’t throw a quaffle without hitting a dementor up there. It’s bad enough that they’re trying to get into our homes and making the muggles suspicious, but cancelling quidditch practice is just a step too far.”

The sky outside Mrs Henries’ house in Norfolk was dark indeed. Now, I would never let my readers stay uninformed by shying away from a difficult investigation, but I will admit to being very nervous at the sight of black cloaks flitting about in thick grey clouds. Even under the Henries’ family house’s wards, the air was unseasonably cold, and it was hard to find any joy outside Ethel’s emergency box of Honeydukes’ chocolate. Summoning my courage, I managed to make it into Robert Gorse’s house further down the road, where he was able to fill me in with a more complete picture of living in these dark times.

Robert, I learned, has not visited Diagon Alley since the dementors started attacking, fearing for his life. A respected member of the Department for International Relations, Robert was able to fill me in about the Ministry response to the dementor threat from an insiders’ perspective.

“It’s terrible, is what it is.” Robert confided to me, “We trust the Auror Department to protect our country from dementors and the like, but whenever we try and call them out on it, they keep insisting that dementors are supposed to come under the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures anyway! Who ever heard such poppycock? Their response has been incredibly slow. What are they even getting all that funding for if they can’t find a way to kill the dementors? It can’t be that hard. And now we’re getting flack in my department too because the Norwegians are complaining about dementors coming out of the North Sea and the ICW thinks that dementors are risking the Statute of Secrecy. It’s all rubbish of course – muggles can’t even see dementors, they don’t know all those people have been Kissed!”

It seems these are dark times indeed, and many questions are raised about the efficacy of our current government. Interim Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt gave an address on Wednesday about the Ministry response to the ongoing dementor threat, claiming that “the Auror Department are responding to massively increased number of floo calls as quickly as possible, and all Aurors who were not previously patronus-capable are undergoing training.” while also stating that “dementor experts in the DRCMC are working hard to find methods of containing dementors.” But this reporter has seen very little result from either of these Ministry projects, suggesting that this is another in a long stream of so-called ‘reforms’ in the DMLE that has so far only seemed to eject long-respected members of our community from their roles to make way for less-experienced individuals more amenable to Shacklebolt’s progressive politics.

With our Auror Department slow, gutted of many of its best members, and refusing to take responsibility for their role in ending this crisis, the road to safety appears unclear at best. But it’s not all doom and gloom: your favourite investigative journalist has heard rumours that private defence contractors and warders will soon be offered bounties for the successful deflection, suppression, or destruction of dementors. Currently, there is no known method of permanently destroying a dementor, but perhaps we can remain hopeful. When asked about killing dementors, an Unspeakable I managed to track down and ask only laughed rather rudely. “Yeah, good luck with that one.” They said, “You’d need to be Potter or someone to pull that off.”

This begs a very interesting and pertinent question: what will Harry Potter do about the dementor threat? And why hasn’t he acted yet?

For more on the dementor threat, see page 4.

For personal accounts, see page 6.

-

Harry finished reading the articles that Ron and Hermione had collected from the Prophet over the Easter holidays and took a much-needed sip of tea. They’d taken a few days to ease back into the swing of term, but the two had told him that there were things he’d want to know. Even taking into account Skeeter’s usual sensationalism and tenuous grasp of facts, it didn’t paint a pleasant picture.

“If anything, it’s worse.” Ron replied, answering Harry’s unasked question. “Dad’s working overtime. Well” he grimaced, “more overtime. The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes is running the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee ragged, so they pulled in the rest of the muggle-facing departments to help out. Dementors can’t usually get past wards, but there’s nothing stopping them attacking muggles now. Dad said he heard that the muggle Minister is furious.”

“Understandably so.” Hermione commented, tone remarkably level for how visibly she was seething, “They’re magical creatures that are invisible to their whole population, and there’s nothing that any of them can do to stop a dementor without magic. It’s just rampant slaughter! We’re incredibly lucky that dementors don’t feed more often.”

A sick feeling coiled in Harry’s gut. At once, he felt the restlessness that had plagued him during his fifth and sixth years at Hogwarts, stuck uselessly in the castle while the rest of the country suffered outside. “What are they doing? What can we do?”

“Well, the bit about the bounties is true.” Ron said, shuffling through the stack of newspaper articles until he found Skeeter’s. “It’s not set up yet, but Dad’s mentioned it and Percy’s on some kind of committee about it. Trying to help, you know?” He looked proud when Harry glanced over, so it seemed, hopefully, that Percy’s return to the Ministry wasn’t reopening wounds in the family. “But the real problem is what you do with a dementor afterwards. A patronus will send ‘em away, right? But what then? They just go and attack someone who can’t cast a patronus. That’s what George is trying to work on.”

“George is working again?” Harry interjected, surprised.

“Yeah.” Ron shrugged a shoulder. “Seems to have lit a bit of a fire under him, but…” He trailed off.

Harry didn’t need the rest of the answer to understand – George went through odd patches of motivation before stuttering and never finishing the project, retreating back into himself. Fred’s death was still a gaping wound for all the Weasleys.

“Do you think we could…?” Harry stopped his own question in his tracks. “But we don’t know how to kill them.”

Hermione nodded grimly. “Other countries have dementors, of course, and they all have their various ways of managing them, but the existence of Azkaban as a safe place for them has left us with a dementor population that vastly outnumbers theirs.”

“They bury them, right?” Harry checked, vaguely remembering from his prior research into dementors. “Try and trap them.”

“Mm.” Hermione agreed. “Most of them have some way of moving them once they’re underground to some better warded area, but archaeologists, builders, miners and such still sometimes come across a buried dementor. There’s actually a lot of speculation about the impact that they’ve had on folklore-” She visibly brought her thoughts back under control with a shake of her head. “The main problems are that they are later dug up and unleashed or that the dementors themselves can claw their way out.”

It was a visceral and unsettling image that appeared in Harry’s mind. For a moment, he could almost see the uncannily long and brutally sharp fingers of a dementor scraping tirelessly against rock, grinding rasp after grinding rasp, until they broke through. A dementor didn’t need to sleep nor breathe, and it could not die even by the crushing weight of the earth. It was only ever contained, not defeated. The unnaturalness of it sent a shiver down his spine.

“We’ll find a way.” Harry promised himself and the others.

Ron nodded back to him, complete faith in his eyes. “And until then, we teach the DA.”

That settled something in Harry – gave him a solid focus to ease his restlessness, a practical way to help.

“And at some point,” Ron started, slyly glancing over at Hermione, “we might even revise for our NEWTs.”

Harry dropped his head onto the table, completely missing Hermione’s response. “NEWTs. How did I forget our NEWTs?” The reminder was something of a shock, bringing him back from half-baked ideas of going out dementor-hunting at night while the rest of the castle slept.

“I really don’t know, mate.” Ron replied. “It’s not like every single professor hasn’t started their class with ‘in your NEWTs term…’ or ‘as you all know, you have your exams at the end of term…’ or anything.”

Harry groaned into the table, playing up his despair to hear Ron laugh. He couldn’t, in good conscience, ignore his final exams to go and fight creatures he was only as adept as the next patronus-caster at dealing with. And yet, he couldn’t stay away when he might be the one who could make a difference, however egotistical the thought felt. He kept his face down on the table as Ron ruffled his hair into a probably appalling mess, trying to work out what to do.

-

Daphne was the first of Harry’s newer friends to achieve a corporeal patronus. The silver duck paddled through the air around them, winking back into mist as Daphne broke down in laughter, before being resummoned twice as bright. “It’s Astoria!” She explained, barely getting the words out past her giggles.

Astoria blushed, turning from her own patronus practice. “You don’t need to tell them-!”

“I do!” Daphne interrupted, a brilliant grin splitting her face. She looked back to Harry and the others who were watching the sisters. “When we were little,” she started, “before Hogwarts, Astoria used to follow me everywhere.”

The girl in question groaned, covering her face with a hand. “There wasn’t anyone else to play with!”

“Everywhere.” Daphne emphasised, “Until our parents started calling her my little duckling.” She looked up to the paddling duck, something soft in her eyes. “It stuck, and none of our relatives will let her forget it.”

Astoria, vivacious and bolder than her older sister, chased Daphne around the room with a series of stinging hexes until Daphne promised not to reveal anything else about little Astoria to the group. Still, when Astoria mastered the charm a couple of sessions later, her patronus looked suspiciously similar to Daphne’s.

-

Blaise was the last of the final year students attending the DA still to be stuck on an incorporeal patronus. Since the term started again, he’d seemed off, even as he laughed and joked around in the Slytherin common room. Harry, who had more experience than he’d have liked to in pretending to be happy, could see that something was weighing Blaise down. As more and more sixth years achieved the transition from incorporeal to corporeal, Harry finally had the excuse to sit Blaise down and try to get to the bottom of it.

“So, do you want to talk about it?” He asked, when they were the only two left in the Room of Requirement. Harry had asked Blaise to stay behind for a moment, and the other man had agreed readily enough, but Harry could see the tension that had crept into his frame.

“Talk about what?” Blaise’s tone was perfectly nonchalant, a study in casual for anyone who didn’t know him better than that.

Harry did know better, so didn’t both replying, only watching Blaise steadily.

After a long pause, Blaise blew out a sharp breath. “Alright, fine.” He dragged a comfy chair over from where it had conveniently appeared and collapsed back into it. The lack of added flair only convinced Harry that he was right about this being a necessary conversation. “I thought we’d begun teaching you about being subtle, but apparently not.”

Harry ignored Blaise’s grumbling, finding his own seat.

They sat in silence for a moment longer. “You know what my mum does, right?” Blaise’s voice broke the still of the room, quieter but far more genuine than before.

“Sort of.” Harry answered. Blaise was fairly tight-lipped about her, so Harry didn’t know much. It both was and wasn’t a surprise that she was the topic of this conversation. “She has a divination business of some sort, right?”

Blaise scoffed a laugh. “Yeah, that’s the nice way to put it.” He picked at the fabric of the chair, determinedly not looking in Harry’s direction. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours about her. Daphne and Tracey try to keep anyone from talking about it when I’m around, but there are only so many ways in which you can get a string of wealthy, conveniently dead ex-husbands.”

Harry nodded. He’d heard talk, but Daphne had made it very plain early on in their friendship that it wasn’t something he should ask Blaise about. He couldn’t deny that he was curious to finally get some questions answered.

“Most people ask me how she hasn’t been arrested yet.” Blaise continued, voice dull. “And the easy answer is that she hasn’t actually done anything illegal.” He paused for a moment, drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair. “My mother has never killed anyone. She is a very powerful seer.” He explained, finally looking towards Harry. “She uses her talent with divination to find rich, single men who will suffer strange accidents or early deaths, then marries them. They die, she gets the money, she moves on to the next one. Since she doesn’t actually hurt them and they marry her of their own free will, law enforcement have nothing to charge her with.”

Harry blinked as he processed that. It explained a lot about how Giulia Zabini maintained the implausible position of a well-known black widow.

“It’s also how she knows things like that we’d be perfectly safe from dementors over Easter.” Blaise continued, before Harry time to properly mull that over. “They didn’t affect her or me, and that’s all she cares about.” Bitterness crept in around the end of his sentence. “My mother loves me.” He made eye contact with Harry, emphasising the words. “She looks out for me. She just doesn’t care for anyone else.” He sighed, twisting around in his purple armchair until his legs were dangling over one arm. “That’s nothing new. I’ve known that for a long time.”

Harry waited while he expected Blaise to continue, but after a long minute of silence, it became clear that he wouldn’t. “So, what changed?”

“Nothing.” Blaise shrugged uncomfortably, “Me, maybe. She’s always raised me the same way – stay neutral, stay amicable, but don’t get involved in anything that could drag you down. Look out for yourself and never fight someone else’s battles.” He looked away from Harry. “And that’s what I did. Sat out the war, keeping my head down, eyes on my homework, until I could run away from it all back to Italy for the holidays. Daphne was fine and her parents always had Tracey’s back, so I didn’t really need to care what happened next. I was probably going to leave the country anyway.”

He tipped his head to smile at Harry, a wretched gash on a mouth that was usually laughing. “And then I get to know you – Harry fucking Potter himself.”

“My middle name’s James, actually.” Harry couldn’t stop his mouth running before his brain caught up.

Blaise snorted, some of the tension draining from him. “Yeah, it’s a lot easier not to care if you die when I don’t know your stupid jokes. Now,” some animation came back into his voice, “don’t get big-headed here, it’s not all about you.” He warned, half-joking. “Some of it’s just growing up, and thinking about what I’m going to do after Hogwarts, and what the girls are doing… but, yeah. I don’t know. I went back home and met my mum’s new husband who is going to die in a stupid potions accident after mixing spearmint in with his peppermint, and knowing I’m safe behind her wards and safe because she’d never allow dementors to actually get near me. But,” he shrugged again, “she doesn’t care enough to tell him he’s mixed up his potions ingredients already, or if the rest of the country gets their souls sucked out.”

Harry sucked in a breath. “She tells you how they’re going to die?” He couldn’t even imagine how he’d feel about that.

“Not usually.” Blaise replied. “But I couldn’t help asking. I don’t know. I saw the guy and he was nice, bit dull maybe, but he asked how classes were going and if Hogwarts was keeping us safe enough with the dementors on the loose, and his socks weren’t matching, and I just had to know. Because, he was just some guy, and there’s nothing wrong with him, but my mum’s going to let him die because she gets the inheritance.”

“Can she change her visions?” Harry asked, “Like, prevent the thing from happening?” He knew he was scrambling to find a possible excuse.

Blaise scoffed. “Of course. She’s a seer, not a prophet, and even those don’t always come true.” He tipped his head back to stare at the arches on the ceiling. “She just doesn’t.”

“Are you going to tell him? Do you want to?” Harry tried to keep his voice neutral, though he didn’t think he was succeeding.

“Yes, no, I don’t know.” Blaise tutted, seeming irritated with his own non-answer. “I know I should, but it’s going to make everything complicated with my mum.” He huffed a wry laugh. “As if complicated is a good enough reason to let a man die. I just…” He sighed. “I think I’ve known for a long while now that not caring about anything was the easy way to get through life but not, perhaps, the right way. And so, now I don’t know what I’m doing or what I actually do care about. And, it all sort of comes to a head when I try and cast a patronus, because it makes me think about the dementors but also because it’s kind of hard to have happy thoughts right now.”

Harry went to reply, but Blaise kept talking. “Her Sight is so strong. She could have used it to help so many people, but she just uses it for us. And then I’m in your defence group, which you set up to help other students actually learn something, working on the patronus charm to try and keep everyone safe, and… Yeah, I don’t know where I’m going with this. Just. You literally went and died for your side in a battle that wasn’t really yours, and that really should put me off caring too much, but you light up like you’ve won the fucking lottery every time you see your friends. And I wonder if that’s what it’s like to actually live.”

Blaise’s words hung in the air for a moment.

“I mean, I would tell the guy.” Harry said, after he’d wracked his brains for something profound to say and come up completely empty. “Can’t do anything about the others, but this one…” It obviously sat wrong with him what Giulia Zabini did and was doing, but this definitely wasn’t the time to get into that.

Blaise huffed. “Yeah, this one.” Despite that, he didn’t move. Then, he sighed and swivelled himself into an upright position again.

“I don’t really know what else to tell you.” Harry admitted, after the silence had dragged on. “You know that I think helping people is important. I think it’s good that you’re starting to care about other people. And, I’m sure that it’s pretty confusing to figure out. Probably one of the mind healers can help?” After he said it, he realised that Blaise might be offended, but the man in question was already barking out a laugh.

“Yeah.” Blaise agreed, a grin that finally felt real edging onto his face. “You’re entirely the wrong person for figuring out what to do with a whole new set of morals, with your whole saviour-martyr-god thing going on. I’ll stick with a realistic set for normal human beings.”

Harry snorted.

Silence fell again, but this time is was more comfortable.

“Thanks for listening, I guess.” Blaise said, rising to his feet. “I’ll let you know when I’ve written to the new husband. Fuck, I don’t even remember his name.” He laughed at himself, but it fell flat. “I’m going to do it, but, I… afterwards, I don’t think I’m going to want to talk about any of this for a good while. So, please don’t ask me.”

He left immediately afterwards, leaving Harry alone in the Room of Requirement to think about their conversation. Harry leant back into the headrest, closing his eyes and trying not to think too hard about evil and when non-interference becomes enabling. The longer he stayed in the magical world, the more horrible things he found to exist. He just had to try and remember that the good things existed too.

Chapter Text

Harry dreamed of a boy and a girl, young teenagers, ragged. The boy, blond and sure-footed, gripped a golf club as he trod through a footpath that seemed to always make way for him. The girl, younger, with bright blue eyes peeking out behind a mass of shaggy black hair, clutched her knife as if it were the only thing between her and certain death. It wasn’t far from the truth. Constantly looking over her shoulder, she was the first to notice movement in the woods behind them. Harry tried to grip onto the fabric of the dream, tried to watch over the children as something bore down upon them rapidly, but Morpheus’ pull was stronger, and the dream slid inexorably out of Harry’s grasp like sand through his fingers. He woke at once, heart pounding, with the knowledge that somewhere out in the world, two demigods were fighting for their lives.

He sat, gasping for air, trying to settle the trembling of adrenaline in his limbs that demanded he run to their aid, and with one shaking hand, Harry scrubbed over his eyes. In the dim light of early morning, he had to admit to himself that he didn’t know how he’d be able to help anyway. With the connection of the dream shattered, Harry had no idea where they were, nor any clue of where to start looking. The image of the woods was already fading, and trying to shadow travel or apparate to an unknown place was a sure way to splinch himself or fall out of entirely the wrong shadow half the world away. The certainty that he couldn’t help only made him feel worse. His cat was absent from her usual place on his bed, and Harry found himself desperately wishing she were there to distract him as his thoughts continued to spiral.

Neither of the two were his half-siblings, Harry knew with the same inexplicable sureness that told him that they were demigods, so he wasn’t sure why his dreams had brought him to them. It hadn’t been as clear as his dream of Lou Ellen, whose past and future had seemed to merge for him as he’d watched her hide from a monster, nor had he been as present as he had been for Melanie’s death. Though, he acknowledged, he still wasn’t sure how he’d dreamed of them either.

Twenty minutes later, after a shower and change, Harry asked Apsyrtos about it under the deep shadows of the Forbidden Forest.

The ghost grimaced. “I must admit that I didn’t know very many fellow demigods in my time, except, of course, for my relatives. So, I cannot tell you if it is a trait common to all demigods, but my sister and I both experienced dreams somewhat like you described.” Apsyrtos frowned at the memory. “Sometimes, they were warnings – enemies we had yet to encounter. Other times, they were glimpses into the past, for reasons we did not yet know but later understood. Often, they did not make sense until the predicted event had already come to pass.” His light seemed to dim. “Until only as a spirit can you know that you dreamt of betrayal.”

“So, they’re important, these dreams?” Harry asked, once Apsyrtos’ silence had dragged on long enough that it became clear he wasn’t going to volunteer any more information.

“Important? Perhaps.” Apsyrtos shrugged a shoulder, uncharacteristically casual in his remembered grief. “Important to you, probably. Though, I cannot say how dreams differ for a godling like you rather than a demigod.”

It wasn’t an answer that Harry wanted to hear, but one he had half-expected; he was too familiar with the threads of fate in his life not to notice them twisting around him now.

“What about the monsters?” He asked, instead of continuing that train of thoughts. “Do you know why they hunt demigods? Or how I could help? Hecate told me the gods can’t interfere to help them, which sounds…” Harry trailed off, unable to find a polite way to put it. “But I’m not a god yet, so technically, I’m allowed.”

“Ah.” Apsyrtos stopped walking. “It is not a happy tale. Many of our relatives have great skill with magic. Many do wonderful things with it – some do dreadful.”

A pit grew in Harry’s stomach at Apsyrtos’ words.

“It was a half-sister of yours, Lamia, who cast the curse that let monsters smell demigods.” Apsyrtos explained, face grim. “As many of your siblings are, she was both beautiful and powerful – a combination which attracted the attention of the king of the gods. And with his attention, his wife’s ire. The queen of the gods cursed her, and so, in revenge, Lamia cursed all of us, that the queen might know the loss of her family too. Of course,” Apsyrtos laughed with little real humour, “that was somewhat misplaced, as the goddess of marriage typically resents all demigods born out of wedlock. Ever since, monsters have been able to smell demigods – the more powerful, the more noticeable – and use it to track down their favoured prey.”

Harry felt sick. He’d known parts of the information before – dribbles of knowledge dropped casually by Hecate – but he hadn’t quite seen how it all fitted together. “So, these kids,” young, younger than any who’d been in the Battle for Hogwarts, “they’re being hunted down all the time, then? Why didn’t the gods just break the curse?”

Apsyrtos nodded. “All demigods are sought after by monsters. Though most, it must be said, do not carry a scent strong enough for many monsters to find them. Even your young sister – Ellen?”

“Lou Ellen.” Harry murmured. The name of a girl he’d never met, but who lingered permanently in his mind, in the unfamiliar and confusing category of ‘family’.

“Lou Ellen,” Apsyrtos continued, “can avoid the notice of a monster only a short distance away with the flimsiest of control over her power. When demigods are older and more powerful, they are usually trained well enough to dispatch those that seek them out. After all, all demigods are welcomed at Chiron’s camp to learn how to protect themselves, should they know where to find it. It is only the strongest of demigods who are pursued in the same way as the two in your dream.”

He paused there, before grimacing again. “The truly unlucky, though, are those who do not understand what is happening nor how to defeat their enemy. Most gods tell the mortal parent what they are and where to find the trainer of heroes, but some do not. Of these,” he admitted, “there are far too many who do not find help.” Apsyrtos closed his eyes, looking pained. “A watchful godly parent might drop a weapon of celestial bronze for their child to find or give a hero a quest to retrieve them. But another, who did not even care to tell their mortal partner…” He shook his head. “There is no law, only the inscrutable conscience of a god, that requires them to aid or watch over their children.”

The forest darkened with Harry’s anger, morning birds falling quiet as his magic set the leaves to quivering. His breath misted in air that had previously been mild and breezy. He didn’t notice in his distraction. “They just abandon them?” Harry exclaimed, appalled. He knew that his own adoptive mother, Hecate, barely interacted with her children more than to send the most talented among them a spellbook, but he’d thought… He didn’t know what he’d thought, but it wasn’t that some of the demigods didn’t have any way of knowing that they were demigods, nor where to find safety. “They can’t-”

“They can.” Apsyrtos didn’t seem angry at all, only tired. “They’re gods, Harry. They can do what they like, so long as it doesn’t break one of their own laws. Who is going to tell them ‘no’?” He watched Harry for a long moment, letting him digest that particularly unpalatable statement.

“You’ve hit upon a question that most demigods find themselves asking eventually – why don’t the gods do more for their children?” Apsyrtos sighed. “I’ve spent many, many years in Elysium, talking with other demigods and sharing stories. Very few had peaceful deaths, and most were ones that their godly parent could have prevented.” He met Harry’s frown with a steady, resigned expression. “The trouble is, aside from the laws preventing excessive interference – and only a god knows what that means – there is the impossibility of making the gods care for their mortal children, should they not wish to.”

Harry forced himself to nod, even though outrage burned hot inside him. It was all he could do to stop himself from falling into the nearest shadow and demanding answers out of Hecate now. Only the instinctual fear of what might happen to him if he entered the Underworld uninvited, in the middle of spring, held him back. “What if I broke the curse, though?” He asked, trying to focus on what he could change.

Apsyrtos laughed at him, which had Harry stiffening in offense. “Apologies, Harry.” He soothed, once he’d regained some of his composure. “It is a kind thought indeed, but perhaps I did not explain well enough. Lamia is not dead – she is a monster now, and thus immortal in that strange way of theirs. No matter how many times she is killed, her curse will persist as divine magic, bound tighter still by the oaths of vengeance it was cast with.” Apsyrtos’ gaze was sympathetic now. “I understand, I really do, but you do not yet have the power to contest an immortal, nor the skill to unravel one’s curse. And once you do have the power, you will not have the freedom to fight it without breaking those divine laws.”

“So, what can I do?” Harry asked, pacing around the clearing. “I can’t do nothing. I just can’t.”

“I’d never expect you to.” Apsyrtos smiled at Harry, “If I have learned one thing from being here with you, it is that you are a compassionate man, Harry Potter. My suggestion, which I believe you have already realised for yourself, is to focus on what you can do. You cannot change the gods nor the curse, but if you can find the demigods without drawing the attention of the Overworld immortals, you can do anything.”

Harry stilled. In essence, it was what he’d already talked to Hecate about doing, when he’d only wanted to meet and perhaps help his mortal siblings. All that had changed was that he now better understood the danger that some demigods faced, having seen it personally in his dreams. “Okay.” He said, “Okay, I can work with that.”

Already, Harry’s mind was spinning with possibilities. His first instinct was to travel straight to the US, where he knew Olympus and most of the gods were based, but he managed to restrain it with hard-won impulse control. After all, once there, he had no idea how to go about finding demigod children, nor how to keep himself from gaining the Overworld gods’ attention. Actually, he didn’t even know where Chiron’s camp was supposed to be. There was so much to think of. He could-

“But first.” Apsyrtos interrupted Harry’s spiralling thoughts. “You must focus on your own mortal life.”

Harry went to argue with this, but Apsyrtos spoke over him with the stubbornest expression Harry had ever seen on him. “If you fail your magic exams because of this, do you think your mother will allow your attempts to aid the demigod children?”  

Apsyrtos had a point and they both knew it. Hecate had been utterly uncompromising about any part of Harry’s education, and, as a goddess, a titan, Harry doubted she’d have any difficulty enforcing her will.

“No.” Apsyrtos concluded aloud. “I cannot speak for a goddess’ reaction, even our own ancestor, but I likewise cannot imagine that she would let that go without punishment, which would almost certainly be preventing you from fulfilling the goals that distracted you in the first place. Besides which,” he continued, “you have already received a quest from her, which must, unfortunately, be the priority for similar reasons.”

Harry cursed. He hadn’t even thought about how that might interfere with his plans.

“So, work hard.” Apsyrtos’ voice was soothing and steady, wisdom born from many centuries of mingling with the other dead. “Learn as much as you can, complete your exams and then quest to the best possible extent, and then go with a plan. Give her no reason to object.”

Harry breathed in deeply through his nose and let out a long, shuddering breath. He did this a few times and then a few more, until the fury and despair melted back into something he could use. He thought of Lou Ellen, of the two unknown demigods, and hoped with a fervour verging on prayer that they would still be there, be alive, until he could find his way to them.

He reopened his eyes to find Apsyrtos watching him, his ghostly form the only light in the deep shadows under the forest’s canopy. Harry forced himself to untense, and the shade slowly gave way to the thin light of early morning once more.

Apsyrtos nodded, seemingly finding what he was looking for in Harry’s face. “Come, it is hours yet until your schoolmates wake and we have archery practice to be doing. I believe a ride with your thestral friend would do you good.”

“What are we hunting?” Harry managed to ask, though his heart still wasn’t in it. Apsyrtos had selected something for him to target in each of their most recent lessons – either food for Huntress or, on occasion, particular plants.

“Acromantula.” Apsyrtos replied with a sharp smile. “I never did like spiders, and as creatures go, these are certainly monsters.”

Harry raised an eyebrow but couldn’t find any reason to object. After all, well-meaning or otherwise, Hagrid had introduced an invasive species with no natural predators into the woods. The fact that Harry held a grudge against them was entirely coincidental, he was sure. Fighting them with only his bow and arrows would be challenging, as they were generally did far less damage than his spells.

In the end, a ride through the dim forest on Huntress’ back, pursuing or being chased by giant man-eating spiders, was exactly what Harry needed to vent a little of his frustration with monsters, the gods, and his own inability to help. By the time the sun had burned away the morning mists and Harry’s schoolmates were dragging themselves from their warm beds in preparation for another day of classes, Harry had calmed enough to meet his friends for breakfast. Less restless, less wrathful, less impatient now, but never enough to forget.

-

The third term of his final year brought Harry something that he hadn’t yet dealt with at Hogwarts – term projects that were required for his final grade. Of the subjects he was taking, only Potions and Charms had these, and Harry was relieved that Transfiguration wasn’t one of them, because he was starting to feel swamped already. His discussion with Apsyrtos in mind, Harry had thrown himself head first into revision for his NEWT exams, and while he was sure it would pay off in the future (and Hermione was already visibly less stressed about his and Ron’s academic performance), it meant that he had less time than he might have liked to spend on all his various projects outside his normal homework.

The term projects were both along the same lines. in Potions, they had to either develop a new variation of an already existing potion and explain their reason for doing so or create an entirely new potion; in Charms, they were advised to create a new spell for full credit or to make an interesting and/or useful version of a known spell for partial credit. For both, their professors explained, they would be graded on the final product and the quality of written methodology they submitted about it. To make matters even more complicated, they could choose to work alone or in groups up to three, but a group would have to produce better work and clear proof of everyone’s contributions.

Once Harry had stopped panicking at the idea of it, the task seemed a little more doable. Seven years of theory and practice in both classes left a decent student with a fairly firm basis in both subjects. While they’d never actually delved into spell or potion creation, they’d covered the reasons why they worked in great detail.

Spell creation, as Flitwick told them, wasn’t actually all that hard. So long as a person had a fair idea of what they wanted the spell to do, all it took was a basic idea, a roughly accurate sequence of standard wand movements to achieve that effect, and a word or two which cemented that intention and became the name the spell was known by. The difficulty was in fitting these together well enough that the spell didn’t take an exorbitant amount of magic to cast, and in controlling the effects enough to get repeatable and functional results. Moreover, a good part of the trouble was in understanding what you wanted the spell to do well enough to make it actually work – a spell to make fire cold wasn’t the same as a spell which made the user feel the fire as if it were cold, while actually it continued to burn them.

Potion creation, on the other hand, depended on the combination of an incredible number of variables in the form of ingredients, preparation, and conditions. The trouble wasn’t solely in the interactions between ingredients for a given effect, but also in figuring out which ingredients were needed in the first place. Millennia of magical people and centuries of organised research had led to a huge collection of ingredient properties and known interactions, but there were still many more still unknown and unaccounted for. On balance, Harry found he was very much dreading the Potions assignment over the Charms one.

 “So, we’re working together, right?” Ron asked, as they left the dungeons.

Harry was about to agree automatically when he stopped himself. Would it be better for each of them to work alone? Did Hermione even want to work with them? He looked towards her and found her frozen in place, face pensive.

“Ooor,” Ron dragged out the word, glancing between the two of them, “are we not?”

“I’m up for working together.” Harry replied, after a moment of thought. “But what if we don’t want to make the same charm or potion?”

Ron looked at him like he was daft. “That’s why we’d talk about it first. Do you know what you want to make?”

“Er, no.” Harry responded. “Maybe. I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it yet.”

Ron nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know either. But I figure that when we work together, we always do better. I know some things, Hermione knows other things, and you chuck it together and it somehow works.”

That, Harry couldn’t argue with. Neither, it seemed, could Hermione, as she agreed a moment later, on the firm condition that the two of them didn’t leave her with all the research. Harry winced internally – knowing that even a few years ago, he might have been tempted to leave the research gathering to her, even if he joined in on the practical part. Still, both he and Ron had grown up a lot since their earlier years at Hogwarts.

“Yeah of course.” Ron replied. “So long as we don’t spend our whole time in the library planning, and actually try things out sometimes.” He raised his eyebrows in pointed question at Hermione, who blushed at being reminded of her own bad studying habit.

That agreed, and before they even got to lunch, they were a team. As they ate, brainstorming ideas around mouthfuls of soup and sandwiches, a cautious sense of optimism came over Harry. Working together, he was sure that they could achieve much more than he could have done on his own. And Harry had an awful lot of problems to solve that a charm or potion might be able to help with.

-

A few days later, Harry was buried in a pile of textbooks in the Slytherin common room with Tracey and Daphne, when he became aware that something was wrong. It was an odd feeling, a strange awareness that wiggled its way into his brain and left him unable to focus on his Herbology homework. He looked around cautiously. The common room was as it always was – half full, not too loud, and filled with younger years relaxing while exam years hunched over parchment. There was no one watching him, apart from the odd glance when he looked at them, and no wands were pointed in his direction.

He might have been tempted to dismiss it as paranoia, which continued to strike at odd moments, but he’d been practicing occlumency for long enough now to start distinguishing between his own rational and trauma-induced responses. Sure enough, he cleared his mind with a swift burst of magic, and the feeling not only wasn’t swept away, but was amplified by the new clarity. It rang in his head like a clarion call, insistent and with a hint of desperation. Harry’s instincts had always been good, and he decided to trust them in this.

“I’ve got to go.” He announced to the others, jolting the two from their work. “Something’s wrong. I don’t know what.”

“What? Harry?” Daphne asked, but Harry was already bolting from the room, wand in hand.

Left, right, left again, Harry followed the faint thread that he could only just feel vibrating at the edge of his mind. He was aware this could be a trap, but the urgency he felt building inside him demanded that he answer the call anyway. If nothing else, he was reasonably sure that he could escape an attack – Seamus and Dean had seen it, but only Ron and Hermione knew how his shadow travel worked. His feet carried him deep into the dungeons, past the regularly used rooms and into Hogwarts veritable labyrinth of corridors.

Turning a corner, Harry heard screaming ahead, shouts of what might have been his own name drowned out by a wordless wail of terror. There, in the corridor, was a scene that could be from one of his nightmares: a dementor floated above the still body of a child, one more held in its dreadful grasp as another battered it with useless jinxes.

Harry didn’t stop to question how a dementor had made it into the Hogwarts dungeons unstopped by the wards and unnoticed by anyone else. Immediately, he was sending a brightly glowing thestral at the cloaked figure. The patronus charged on swift hooves, greeting the dementor with its vicious beak. The dementor staggered, dropping the child, and Harry breathed out a sigh of relief at its strange response. Stepping between the dementor and the first years, Harry prepared to cast the boggart-banishing charm.

If he’d had a moment more to think about it, Harry probably could have guessed that a boggart would no longer appear as a dementor to him. After all, he’d been able to cast the patronus charm for years, had ensured that as many of his fellow students as possible could also do so, and had come across many other dreadful things in the time since he had last met a boggart. But in this moment, Harry froze as the boggart shifted into an unexpected shape.

In front of Harry, his mirror image lounged on a long, plush sofa, eating ambrosia from a plate of black stone. Harry the god, for that’s what he certainly was, looked back indifferently. Wreathed by a ring of teal fire and crowned with a twisting circlet of phoenix feathers and snake fangs, Harry almost missed the unnatural perfection of his counterparts’ features in the neatly curling hair, skin smooth as marble, and lack of glasses. He held eye contact, frozen, with ones backlit by a boggart’s shallow facsimile of golden divinity as his friends’ voices screamed for help around them and his counterpart continued to eat. On the floor, next to the unconscious first year, the bodies of Lou Ellen and the two unknown demigods lay torn to pieces.

“Riddikulus.” It was rage and not any real form of levelheadedness that had Harry casting the spell. His counterpart’s bite of ambrosia turned into a canary cream, and soon a giant canary took his place. The bodies on the floor were replaced with piles of yellow feathers as the huge canary squawked indignantly about his transformation. Harry couldn’t quite summon up the humour to laugh, but he was more than capable of shoving the canary-boggart back into the cupboard behind it with a perhaps excessively powered charm.

“A boggart, a boggart, a boggart.” Cornelia’s voice summoned Harry from his thoughts, bringing him back to the situation at hand and the first years he recognised. She was crying, arms wrapped around herself where the dementor-boggart had dropped her. “Stupid! Should have known it was a boggart!”

Kareena was shaking Elliot vigorously, who remained unconscious on the floor. “He’s not waking up!”

“Hey.” Harry crouched down by her. “Stop that, you might hurt him.” He cast a couple of basic detection charms at Elliot, which returned very little wrong other than some bruises. Luckily, boggarts didn’t have enough power to mimic a dementor’s kiss, though they could easily knock a first year out with the reduced effect. Harry summoned his thestral patronus again and sent it to Madam Pomphrey, telling her quickly that three first years had come across a boggart as a dementor, one unconscious and two distressed.

Making a quick decision, Harry stood and levitated Elliot’s still form. “I’ll be right back.” He promised the two girls. A moment later and he was falling into shadows. Harry hadn’t practiced bringing another person through shadow travel with him – and probably shouldn’t have tried it for the first time with an unwell mortal – but it brought them both directly to the hospital wing.

Madam Pomphrey, with his patronus still floating in front of her, jumped, but immediately took charge. “Set him down on the bed there.” She indicated the nearest and started rattling off spells the moment the boy was set down. After perhaps half a minute of this, she relaxed. “Nothing too troubling.” She told Harry, “He seems to have fainted from the fear and draining feeling, but he’ll be right as rain once he wakes up and has a little chocolate. Just something of a fright.”

Harry let out a breath, relieved. “Should I bring the other two here?”

Madam Pomphrey gave a sharp nod. “I’d like to look them over, if they’re distressed.”

Without a moment’s pause, Harry melted back into the shadow of her potions cabinet, catching only a glimpse of her startled expression before he was back in the dungeons.

Kareena was crying too when he joined the girls in the corridor and leapt at Harry as soon as she saw him. Harry froze for a moment, unsure for a moment how to comfort crying first years, but decided to do what he would have wanted from a vaguely trusted older student at her age and hugged her back. “Elliot’s alright.” He tried to keep his voice soothing. “He just fainted and he’s with Madam Pomphrey now.”

She cried harder into his side, and Harry wondered somewhat desperately what he’d said wrong this time.

“You’re both okay.” He tried. “It was just a boggart. They’re scary, but they can’t really hurt you.”

Cornelia sobbed. “I should have known it was a boggart.” Her voice was muffled by her arm and broken up wetly. “We had a boggart at home.”

Harry opened up an arm and Cornelia dived in for a hug too. “It’s okay.” He repeated this a few times as the two proceeded to cover his robes in snot. “You weren’t expecting a boggart here, and they do a really good job of acting like dementors. They make it really hard to think.”

He stayed there, saying anything he thought might be comforting and ending up telling them about how he first learned the patronus charm, until the worst of the shock and crying began to wear off. “Alright, are we up for the walk to the hospital wing?” He asked them, “We can meet up with Elliot there.”

Kareena wiped her face on her sleeve, streaking it with snot, and Harry took the opportunity to use a cleaning charm on both his robe and hers. Cornelia hiccoughed a few times, but nodded tentatively.

Harry fished the Marauders Map out of one extended pocket and got his bearings, before leading them out the quickest way to the hospital wing, and through as many hidden passages as possible to keep them distracted and away from curious looks.

“I can’t believe you actually came.” Cornelia murmured, a couple of corridors away from the hospital wing.

“What?” Harry asked, momentarily confused.

“They said you protect all of us.” Cornelia replied, looking up at him with wide, awe-struck eyes. “So, I called and called for you and you actually came.”

Chapter Text

Harry couldn’t for the life of him remember what exactly he replied to Cornelia in that moment, his mind whirling through the implications, but whatever it was must have been vaguely reassuring because they reached the hospital wing without more tears. His ears were still ringing when they opened the door, but the girls’ reunion with Elliot was enough to provide a very welcome distraction. After handing the two off, with a promise to Madam Pomphrey to tell the new lower years Defence professor where the boggart was, Harry legged it into the nearest unobserved shadow and tumbled through, making Ron and Hermione both jump from where they were sat in a shady corner of the library.

“What’s wrong?” Ron asked, lowering his wand but not putting it away.

“Um.” Harry suddenly realised that this probably looked like an emergency to his friends and forced himself to calm down. “Not a problem as such.” Tension visibly drained from the two of them, and Harry winced apologetically for scaring them. In a much calmer tone, he explained what had happened.

“Fascinating.” Hermione murmured, tapping her wand against her lips like she would a quill; it had Ron grimacing and reaching out to gently extract it from her grasp. “I wonder if it was a function of your protective magic, an early form of prayer, both, or neither.”

Harry hadn’t actually considered that his protective magic might have been involved and felt a little foolish for not thinking of it.

“More importantly” Ron continued for her, after Hermione began scribbling down notes, “glad that you got to the firsties alright.”

“Yeah.” Harry sagged into a chair opposite them. Now it was over, and the adrenaline had faded from his limbs, the vision of horror that had been a dementor standing over three first years came back to haunt him. He scrubbed a hand over his face, as if he could rub the image free from his eyes. “What does a boggart even do if it manages…” He trailed off, not wanting to finish that thought.

Ron shifted uncomfortably. “Nothing good. ‘Least, that’s what Mum’s friends always said. Haven’t actually heard of anyone who got knocked out by their boggart, though.”

“It might well become more likely.” Hermione frowned, jotting a note down on some spare parchment. “It’s worth bringing up to the Heads of Houses, at least. Given current affairs, it’s hardly surprising that many of the younger years might fear dementors.”

Harry frowned, knowing Hermione was right. He stood again to the quizzical looks of his friends. “I only put a basic locking charm on the cupboard before. I’ll go lock it better now or take it to the staffroom.”

“Good idea.” Ron said, slightly too quickly. Hermione nodded enthusiastically, eyes bright once more.

Harry, previously ready to leave, raised an eyebrow at his friends’ odd behaviour. At face value, he could believe that they agreed it was a good plan to deal with the boggart at once, before anyone else came near it, but there was an odd intensity with which they were eyeing each other. “Did I interrupt something?” He asked them, flicking his gaze between the two of them to watch for their reactions.

Hermione flushed darkly. “No! No, nothing like that! Honestly, Harry.”

Ron, on the other hand, just laughed into his sleeve.  

“Really?” Harry didn’t even try to keep the suspicion from his tone.

Hermione buried her face in a hand as Ron’s laughter turned to an odd snorting huff, badly muffled for the library.

“Only a bit of cult work, mate.” Ron replied, once he’d caught his breath. “And, since you haven’t really wanted to know about that, we haven’t been sharing.”

“Sure.” Harry still wasn’t entirely sure he believed Ron, but his friend was certainly right about what would cause Harry to drop a topic. “I’ll, er, leave you to it then.”

He strode into the nearest patch of shadows, by a badly lit bookcase, but looked back at the last moment. Hermione and Ron were watching him like hawks, both sat up straight and almost trembling with anticipation. It was a surprisingly intimidating scene. As Harry stepped back out on the other side of the castle, he decided, for the sake of his own mental wellbeing, that he absolutely did not want to know.

-

The cupboard containing the boggart was relatively easy to transport, needing only a hover charm to lift it behind Harry. Getting it handed off to a member of staff proved to be the hard part.

“What on earth were you doing to be coming across wild boggarts?” Professor Barnaby asked, with a frightful scowl. “And where were your friends in this?”

Harry’s jaw tightened with the venom barely disguised in the man’s words as he spoke of his friends. “As I said before,” Harry repeated, voice hard, “it was some first years who found it. I was near the Slytherin common room and heard them calling for help.” This had the advantage of being true while also telling only part of the story, but Harry had zero intention of telling his least favourite current professor the whole truth. “Ron and Hermione were working in the library, but I was with some Slytherin friends.”

Barnaby somehow managed to look even more displeased. “Near the Slytherin common room, eh? I doubt that was a coincidence. Perhaps a trap for other students getting too close.”

“That-” Harry cut himself off, taking a deep breath. There was no point arguing with Professor Barnaby. The only things less flexible that his Ministry-approved curriculum were his prejudices. “Anyway, I’ve got to be going, Professor. I’ll just drop this off here.”  He floated the cupboard in just past the staffroom door, next to the professor.

Barnaby received the cupboard with bad grace. “You should be careful, Mr Potter.” He warned, voice dark. “You’re a good young man, and there are far too many people around you who are trying to take advantage of that.”

Harry chose to leave instead of arguing with the human equivalent of an impervious charm; nothing he said would get through to Barnaby anyway.

-

April drew to a close with a mixture of pouring rain and brief spells of sunshine. Classes passed as they always did, a familiar series of essays and reading punctuated by the odd bit of wandwork. Even then, half-drowned in homework, projects, and his own research, Harry could feel the atmosphere of the school changing as May approached. None of them were immune to it. May 2^nd marked the end of the first year after the war had been won, and with it, the loss of students, staff, family, and friends.

It was a difficult situation all round. Many, especially among the younger years and those outside Hogwarts, wanted to celebrate the anniversary of the war’s end. Logically speaking, Harry couldn’t blame them. After all, it was the end of a difficult few years of fear and turmoil, and the anniversary for them marked a time of victory and hope for the future. But logic did little for the savage ache that erupted in his chest every time he thought of those lost in the Battle, and throughout the years before. For them, others argued, they should have a more solemn event.

For Harry himself, the start of May didn’t only recall the terror, loss, and frantic determination of the Battle, but also the ending of his own life at Voldemort’s wand hand, the abrupt, bewildering freedom of a life now free of him, and, a few days later, the beginning of his ascent to divinity. One year of his predicted three was gone already, and he knew that hoping for the full three was now pointless with so much of his mortality burnt through. All in all, it left him contemplative and irritable, much like many of his schoolmates who’d lost friends and family in during the war.

It didn’t help that the Ministry seemed to be making the most tone-deaf decisions that they possibly could. When Harry had read in the papers that the coming national holiday, marking Voldemort’s defeat and the Battle of Hogwarts, was being called Harry Potter Day, it had taken both Ron and Hermione to wrestle him back into his seat instead of charging into the Ministry and demanding to know which idiot chose that. They hadn’t disagreed with the morality of this plan, of course – they simply thought that they could work out a better one.

After writing to Kingsley, who apologised for replying a week later and blamed it on the excessive work involved in trying to hold the Ministry together, Harry found out that the interim Minister had in fact objected to the name on Harry’s behalf (and on behalf of everyone else involved in the war), but that he’d had to compromise to keep the Wizengamot from deciding to host the anniversary ball in Hogwarts of all places. Harry couldn’t argue that that would have been somehow even more tasteless but likewise couldn’t help the fury that licked through him every time ‘Harry Potter Day’ was mentioned.

The naming escalated the situation inside Hogwarts as well. There were a considerable number of students who disliked the name for making it all about Harry (which he hardly disagreed with, but it made it somewhat awkward), while others, notably the more fanatic among his burgeoning cult, had grown more and more vocal about their support and quasi-worshipful actions towards him following the rumours surrounding the boggart encounter. It had sparked more than a few arguments, Harry knew, and there had been another Dennis incident.

Harry took off his glasses to rub between his eyes as he thought about it. Ron and Hermione hadn’t given him all the details, knowing far too well that they would only haunt Harry, but he’d heard enough to know that the story of Harry coming to save the three first years was what had driven Dennis Creevey to blow up once more, rage fuelled higher by the anniversary of his brother’s death in battle being named only for Harry. It was an impossible thing for Dennis to stomach, Harry surmised, that he might have been drawn to the aid of three first years facing what most adult wixen considered an inconvenient pest at worst, when he hadn’t been there to save Colin’s life. It went without saying that if Harry had been able to save Colin then, of course he would have done. But that was never good enough excuse for Dennis. Something had occurred between him and some of Harry’s followers, regarding the small shrine to him in one of the courtyards, but Ron and Hermione had handled it quickly and competently enough that Harry himself had never become involved. Still, it weighed on him, even as he left the castle on Friday night.

Harry apparated across the country, a loud crack announcing his presence in front of a well-kept house with a flowering front garden. Knocking on the door, he was greeted by a smiling Andromeda.

“Come on in.” She welcomed him, “You’re the first to arrive, so you can watch Teddy while I finish putting the food out.”

Harry’s relationship with Andromeda had grown steadily over the course of a year of afternoon teas and shared love for Teddy. Even if they hadn’t had the care of the little boy between them, Harry liked to think that they were friends at this point. The casual way she left him to greet Teddy while she set out plates of finger food, instead of hosting carefully for him in the way she had when they were first coming to know each other, seemed to indicate her agreement.

Harry picked up Teddy with exaggerated cheer, whirling him around (but not too fast – he’d learned his lesson about that before), and brought him in for a hug. “You’re getting so big, Teddy!”

Teddy shrieked his own delight at the familiar face, shouting what Andromeda and Harry believed to be his closest approximation of Harry’s name spoken through a clumsy mouth that kept accidentally being reshaped by the little metamorphmagus.

Harry winced at the volume in his ear but held onto Teddy until he was seated on the floor, near where Teddy had been playing. “Now, I hear that today is a very special day.” He told Teddy, mock-solemnly. The little boy stared back, green eyes wide. “And that someone is turning one today. I have no idea who that could be.”

Teddy was of course rather too young to understand what Harry was saying to him, but he had still mastered Andromeda’s sceptical expression.

Harry cracked under it, laughing. “Yes, it’s you! Happy birthday, Teddy!” He dove in to tickle Teddy’s stomach, causing a new series of giggles and squealing.

As a slow stream of people entered Andromeda’s comfortable home, they each wished Teddy a happy birthday and left a gift on a side table. Teddy was too little to understand the concept of a birthday, but he certainly knew that something special was going on and that it was all very exciting. When he saw a familiar face, mostly among Andromeda’s small circle of close friends, Teddy became very excited, but as the house began to fill up, he started getting shy, sticking close to Harry and Andromeda. With Andromeda hosting the party and greeting the guests, that left Harry to keep Teddy calm and reasonably happy in the face of his first party.

This was not at all helped by all the people who wanted to talk to Harry. Many of the guests were former members of the Order of the Phoenix, who had known Tonks and Remus, and while Harry knew some of them, he hadn’t really been an Order member, so he only vaguely knew their names or faces from the mass of funerals that had blended into each other. They, on the other hand, knew an awful lot about Harry Potter, even if they didn’t really know him, which made their conversations both awkward and plentiful. If Harry had dared to hope that hiding away in Hogwarts for a year, instead of joining the faltering Auror Department, might have kept the public interest off him, he would have been bitterly disappointed. There was far too much thanking him for his service in killing Voldemort and wondering about his future plans for a one-year-old’s birthday party. Only the presence of the Weasley family, a little late as usual, was enough to offset Harry’s growing discomfort.

A chime rang through the room, cast with Andromeda’s meticulous spellwork sometime after the finger food had been grazed at and the drinks consumed. “Before we bring out the cake, I would like to thank everyone for attending.” Her voice pierced the room, bringing the couple of lingering conversations effortlessly to quiet. “One year ago today, my grandson, Teddy, was born to my daughter, Nymphadora, and her husband, Remus. We lost them only days later.” Andromeda’s voice remained steady, her eyes dry. “In this year, Teddy has grown with the love of all of us - me, his godfather, and all the many friends who have stepped in to help him grow into the happy little boy he is now. Nymphadora and Remus cannot be here today, but I know that they would be so pleased and proud of this community around us. So, today we celebrate also for them.”

Harry wasn’t sure who raised the cheer for that first, but it went around the room with a clinking of glasses which distracted everyone enough to let Andromeda make her escape to the kitchen, where the cake waited.

“How do you manage to do things like this?” Harry asked Mrs Weasley, in a quiet moment when Mr Weasley had taken Teddy over to the sofa, “You know, celebrate things, even when you miss them so much?”

Mrs Weasley smiled at him sadly and pulled Harry in for a hug. It was soft and warm and everything he’d longed for as a child. “Because we’ve done this before, my dear. The first war was only 18 years ago or so, which was a very long time ago for you, but some of us are a little older.” Her eyes were bright, but she dabbed them with a handkerchief and continued, “We all learned to keep going, to keep finding reasons to smile, because we’ll never stop missing them. Little Teddy deserves love and smiles and birthday parties he won’t remember, even though we all miss his parents.”

Harry looked over at Teddy, perched happily in Arthur’s lap, banging together the two rubber ducks he’d brought him. Harry’s heart hurt with affection at the image. Teddy’s hair switched to match Arthur’s greying-ginger as he watched, and he couldn’t help but choke on a laugh at the unexpected look.

“See, it’s alright to find things to be happy about.” Molly watched the two with a beaming smile, though her voice remained soft and kind as she spoke to Harry. “Those we lost wanted a better world for us, and we can’t let our own grief get in the way of that.”

Harry turned and hugged her again. He couldn’t find the words to tell her how much he’d needed someone to help him through his own messy feelings, instead of always being the one to help others.

“Hush, it’s alright.” Molly shushed him, as Harry tried to say so, “That’s what family is for.”

The cake was brought out then, interrupting their conversation with a loud and mostly off-key rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’, and Harry made sure not to linger on their talk until the party was over and Andromeda kicked them all out to let Teddy get some sorely needed rest and quiet.

He took a napkin with him and laid a little slice of cake at their gravesite, behind the church not too far along the lane from Andromeda’s house. Harry placed the cake between ever-flowering stalks of asphodels and told Remus and Tonks just how much their son was loved.

-

It started with members of the original DA approaching Harry later Friday evening, asking him what they were doing for a memorial on the 2^nd of May. Rapidly, he became aware that, despite whatever the Ministry’s plan might be and regardless of what McGonagall had decided for Hogwarts, his peers were still looking to him for what to do. Part of Harry still wanted to argue that this wasn’t up to him, and he knew that his friends would back him on this if he wanted them to, but for their various reasons, his classmates had come to him for help, and Harry could hardly refuse them that.

“Well, the Ministry’s hosting their ball in the evening and we’re all invited.” Harry grimaced. He’d been asked for make a speech, and would honestly have avoided it entirely if Ron hadn’t rightly pointed out that it was a good chance to get his own views on the war out there, instead of letting the Ministry speak for him. “And McGonagall’s got that memorial service in the afternoon and then an early feast.”

“Though, it’s strictly voluntary.” Hermione put in automatically, as she’d been spreading the message on the Headmistress’ behalf since it was announced.

Harry nodded to acknowledge her, “Right. So, I reckon that maybe a good time for us would be Saturday night, since Sunday is so busy. And we fought in the night, so the day pretty much works as well.” He wanted to shrug, wanted to brush off the awkwardness, but the topic was too serious. Pretending to be casual about it would feel disloyal to the time and thought he’d put into it. “Maybe group up, do something, talk about them until it’s morning again.”

The group he was talking to made scattered noises of agreement.

“Like a vigil?” Justin asked.

“Er,” Harry wasn’t sure how to point out that he didn’t know what a vigil was.

“Yes, in a way.” Hermione replied for him. “But not a formal event.”

“I like that.” Susan commented. “Remember them in the night when we fought, then celebrate in the day that we won and are getting better.” Her words cut through the small crowd. Susan was a solid and dependable presence, and had always used her own experiences of grief, earlier in the war than most others, to help everyone else through theirs. Her approval counted for a lot.

“Yeah.” Harry agreed. She’d put his thoughts into words much better than he could have.

Ron clapped a hand on his shoulder, warm and comforting. “Alright then, you lot. Spread the word. Anyone’s invited who will behave themselves. And we’re going to need people to help organise.”

Soon, the original DA were swarming around them in a busy knot of preparations and discussion, putting the plans together as a group. Messengers were being sent out to grab other people and pull them in, making sure that everyone had a chance to get involved. At the centre of the chaos, Harry’s breath hitched as the Mist swirled in echo of the chthonic magic that pulled gently at every participant, weaving them into a vast tapestry of ritual power. Remembrance was a ritual as old as humanity had lived, and together, tomorrow, they would perform its mysteries.

Chapter Text

When evening fell on Saturday 1^st May, the Room of Requirement was as packed as Harry had ever seen it. Most of the school’s students were there, along with many of their professors, though he knew that not everyone would be staying the night. The room was warm and bright, with large windows facing out into the dusk, stars peeking through gaps in the clouds. As well as the crowd of people, there were objects scattered about – some in neat rows or piles, others left wherever their owners had left them – with tables along one wall, stacks of comfy beanbag seats and floormats, and enough cushions to cover everyone several times over. Along a plain wall, with rows of stands below, was a small sea of pictures.

Neville called everyone’s attention with a charm that sounded like a series of ringing chimes that gradually grew louder until there was quiet. “Thank you, everyone, for coming tonight. We’ll begin in just a few moments.” He took a deep breath, looking over the crowd. “Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the end of the second war with the Dark Lord Voldemort.” Even now, there were many flinches. “It will be a time of celebration that the war is over and that there won’t be more losses to it. But for the many of us who lost friends and family during the war, it is also a time to remember them – to remember the cost of war.” He paused, letting the words hang in the air for a moment. “The plan for tonight is as follows: we’ll start with the remembrances for the students who died in the Battle, then the professors, and then onto those who died at other points during Voldemort’s rule. Anyone’s free to contribute and everyone’s free to leave at any point and come back if they want to.”

Neville continued to lay out the plan for the night, but Harry, who knew it well already, found himself zoning out of it. They’d had to work hard all day to get everything set up, as well as deciding what exactly they’d be doing. There would probably end up being mistakes – things that went wrong, things that they’d later wish they’d included – but there was only so much that they could manage at short notice. One of things that they’d agreed, with some contention on the topic, was that Harry would not be the one to lead the proceedings. Cult status and divine domain aside, they needed someone a little more neutral to encourage everyone’s involvement. Besides which, Harry’s friends had been very clear that it was his night to grieve as well.

The first and main order of the night was to share stories about the ones they’d lost. It was in a mostly random order, based on who had signed up first to talk about their lost loved one, but they would go through all of them.

-

“… decided he wanted to go into broom development.” Ernie Macmillan said about Luca Caruso. “He couldn’t stand quidditch, but his mum was on the British broom-racing team, and he picked it up from her. He always thought that the bristles on the Cleansweeps were inefficient and that the Nimbuses weren’t made from sturdy enough wood, so he was saving up to get his own Firebolt. I’ve never met anyone who cared that much about broom oil but in third year…”

-

“So, we all remember that time every other chair in the common room was purple and no one could fix it for a week?” Mandy Brocklehurst received a variety of noises of agreements from her housemates. “Well, that was Stephen. He made me promise never to tell anyone of you because he’d never live it down, but, well. And it’s too good a story not to share. You see, we were up late because we’d left our Charms homework – the colour changing charm – to the last minute again, and Stephen gets the great idea that we should pool our stashes of sweets for motivation. Anyway, I forgot to mention that I’d picked up a set of acid pops, he sticks one in his mouth and starts practicing the charm, but it goes through his tongue halfway through the spell. He panics, tries to catch it with his wand hand, and suddenly everything is purple. So, of course, now we’re both panicking because we thought that we were going to get in so much trouble, and we spent the rest of the night trying to turn everything back. Only, we weren’t very good at it, and we made such a mess of trying to un-charm the chairs that even the house elves couldn’t put them right.”

“I’d wondered what had happened.” Flitwick volunteered with a smile, “It’s remarkably strong – I still have to spell those ones back to blue every year since.”

-

“Er, this was Brad’s favourite cake.” Joshua Chambers held up a huge red and blue monstrosity. “I asked his mum for it yesterday and Duncan iced it. Basically, Brad’s brother is a year older, and their birthdays are a couple of days apart, so his mum used to combine the cakes, but they always wanted different colours and kept arguing until she got fed up and told them they could decorate it themselves. It came out as this awful brown-purple colour.” He passed a copy of a photograph around, which showed two grumpy young boys, a horribly iced cake, and an incredible mess around it.

Hermione took the picture at the end and projected a much larger version of it onto the blank space above the rows of pictures and stands.

“It sort of became tradition, and they’d compete make their side look worse without spoiling the taste.” Joshua handed the photos straight off to Hermione this time, and kept talking as she flipped through which she displayed on the walls, showing a series of unappetising birthday cakes and steadily older boys. A young Joshua, their neighbour, started appearing at the edges of them. “Duncan, his brother, won last year, ‘cause he turned 17 and could use magic to make his side worse, so Brad was looking forward to the summer holidays, when he was 17, to get his revenge.”

Everyone got a little slice of cake to try. It was victoria sponge under the thick layer of icing. Harry didn’t think he was imagining the taste of love and grief that clung to his tongue when the sugar had melted away.

-

“Sally Ann was a pretty quiet dormmate.” Hannah spoke from the front. “You’d think that would’ve been a good thing, but no, she was a menace! Every time, you think you’re alone in the dorm and then, bam! There she is! Right behind you and you have no idea how long she’d been there!”

“Well, she was quiet most of the time.” Megan, another of their dormmates added, “Apart from that one period of about three months in fourth year where she got this one song by the Weird Sisters stuck in her head and would not stop belting it out.”

All the final year Hufflepuff girls looked at each other in commiseration.

“So,” Hannah continued for Megan, dragging out the enchanted record player, “we wanted to make you all listen to it too.”

-

“Morag loved that her grandparents hated her name.” Lisa sat by Morag McDougal’s pictures. “They tried to call her Isobel – her middle name – instead, but she absolutely refused to answer, had a lot of fun with it. Wouldn’t answer to nicknames either, which caused problems in first year, because Terry here,” she pointed him out in their wide semicircle, causing him to groan at the story being brought up, “couldn’t remember her name and was too embarrassed to ask. He knew it started with an ‘m’, so he kept calling her ‘Em’, until eventually she snapped and yelled at him, and he finally admitted that he didn’t remember her name.”

Their group all laughed at Terry, who smiled and shook his head in the manner of someone who’d been the butt of this joke many times before.

“One of the stubbornest people I’ve ever met.” Lisa continued. “But also, one of the best. She was a pureblood, from one of the oldest lines in Scotland; she’d have been fine if the war went the other way. But not everyone would have been and that wasn’t good enough for her. Going down fighting was exactly how she wanted to go.” Lisa, stopped, swallowing for a moment to try and clear her throat. “I just still wish she hadn’t.”

-

“I don’t even know where to start with Anselm.” Quintus Tremblay’s voice was quiet. “Probably, not many of you knew him very well. He didn’t talk much to others outside Slytherin, but I suppose he didn’t talk much in general. He played the violin, got really good at it. He was embarrassed about it in first year and thought that we’d all mock him, so he used to practice in one of the dungeon classrooms, every Tuesday and Friday. After he-, afterwards, I found the violin.”  Quintus cut himself off, moving quickly over to Anselm’s stand. There, he lay the violin case down with gentle care that juxtaposed his quick turn away and angry stride from the room.

-

Parvati had brought a box with her and, in silence, separated the contents into piles under Lily Moon’s and Lavender Brown’s pictures. Photographs, birthday cards, letters, and drawings displayed next to wonky friendship bracelets, matching earrings, and half dried-up nail varnishes. Lavender Brown’s favourite pink hair ribbon draped haphazardly over the ear of a soft toy rabbit, opposite a sequined scrunchie that glittered in a way which must have been a charm.

She turned to leave, and for a moment it seemed like she wasn’t going to say anything, but then Parvati stopped at the last minute and stepped back into the space between the seating and the picture wall. “They were really brave.” Her voice was rough, half-choked in the way of someone actively fighting down tears. “All anyone ever says is how nice they were, how friendly and fun. And they were all of that, but Lily and Lavender were really brave. They never met a challenge they didn’t try to meet and, when it mattered, they were always there.” She turned back to the stands, reaching out to touch the hair ribbon but pulling her fingers back at the last moment. “They knew they weren’t the strongest or the smartest or the whatever, but they went into the Battle because they were brave and because it mattered.”

Her piece said, and her voice cracking in the way that many of the previous speakers had, Parvati picked her way quickly through the rows of beanbags and cushions to the door.

Fay took over for her, showing a picture of the four of them on holiday with Lavender’s family, and all Harry could see was the pink ribbon in Lavender’s hair and the scrunchie on Lily’s wrist.

-

The stories continued well into the night. Fifty people had died in the Battle from their side, and each was a person with family, friends, dreams, and stories to be told. It was easy to know that intellectually, but the reality didn’t quite sink in until you’d eaten a piece of someone’s homemade cake, heard their silly in-jokes, or seen a pair of glasses you vaguely recognised sitting by a black and white picture. It ached to be reminded of the loss, in a way that scratched at Harry’s insides and only fed the flame of anger that lingered there still, but that was what the night was for – to remember all that the war had taken from them.

The house elves had sent their own display of mourning – along with the food and drinks on the side for the duration of the vigil, there were platters for each of the students and former students who’d died in the war, containing their favourite foods and drinks. Fred’s, when Harry couldn’t stop himself from looking, had a bowl of sweets that seemed innocent, but Harry would bet every knut in his vault that they were confiscated prank sweets. As the speakers for each of the fifty finished, a plate would appear by the stands, though the elves never showed themselves. The rest, they left for the mourners to share.

It was a strange kind of grief to find out, a year after his death, that Colin’s favourite sweets were raspberry jam tarts and that he’d once hexed his friend Ethan for eating the last of them. Stranger still to take one from the prepared tray of them, kept warm as if fresh from the oven, and wonder what he was on about, because the apricot ones were clearly better. Ethan laughed about the story, flopping his hands around his head as he described the donkey ears Colin had given him, even as he filled in awkwardly for Dennis, who’d refused to join them that evening.

Colin had one of the largest collections on his stand, due to the sheer number of pictures he’d taken and given out during his years at Hogwarts. Hermione projected some of them as Colin’s friends talked about his early attempts to make the film-developing potion, and how they’d ended up with him dousing their whole dorm in the potion after a small explosion, staining the bedframes and earning himself a week of detentions. Colin’s first photographs were stills of Diagon Alley, the Hogwarts Express, and finally Hogwarts itself. They were shaky and inexpert, but somehow still managed to capture his sense of wonder. Soon, they showed Hogwarts in termtime and its inhabitants, with the upper two years pointing out each other’s younger counterparts caught in pictures. Harry himself appeared fairly often, small and scrawny and usually with a scowl, but sometimes caught unaware in casual moments with his friends.

The photos changed, began to move; the shots became better focussed and of interesting scenes rather than the excited clicks of a tourist fearing that the magic would disappear if he took his eyes off it for a moment. There was one baffling shot of the Hogwarts staircases from the top, showing their spinning cycles and many layers. Ethan revealed that they’d snuck brooms from Madam Hooch’s stores to fly up first thing in the morning, when there was just enough light to take the shot, and dangled Colin off his broom to get the right angle. A photo of the original DA in session showed a late patronus lesson – a bright hare, a horse, two dogs, and half a fish in shot above a row of grinning students. The photos ended after Colin’s fifth year, Dumbledore’s funeral depicted in dramatic lighting and finally, a photo of a letter warning him that it wouldn’t be safe to return to Hogwarts the next year.

There were very few pictures of Colin himself.

-

The next to hit Harry hard was Fred’s. Ron and Ginny took charge of this one. They’d written to George the day before and received a large box of supplies by breakfast. They lit up the room with a small armoury of indoor fireworks, brilliant flashes of gold and silver mixing with all colours of the rainbow. Some combined into flying dragons, charging hippogriffs, a small swarm of pixies, and one particularly disgruntled gnome, and the air was filled with fizzes, bangs, wails, and all manner of improbable noises. When the smoke cleared and the room started to settle down again, Ron and Ginny emerged from the launching point of the fireworks covered in a spray of brightly coloured powders.

“Can’t believe he got us again.” Ginny said, as her spellwork utterly failed to remove any of the powder.

“I can.” Ron grumbled, but he was smiling. “We handed the opportunity right to him.”

Harry laughed at their appearance, and doubly so when Ginny’s cleaning charms eventually caused the powder to start glowing, but that too was with relief; George had done precious little joking around in the last year, and they all knew that this was what Fred would have wanted.

-

The only person Harry was one of the main speakers for, aside from contributing stories when he could, was Remus Lupin. As a former professor, he was still well-remembered among the oldest three years. It was still known by them that Remus was a werewolf, even if the younger years seemed surprised to hear it, so Harry couldn’t have hidden that even if he’d wanted to. But, he hadn’t wanted to. He spoke about how Remus had been bitten as a child and how Dumbledore had given him the opportunity to go to Hogwarts even when it wasn’t allowed. He told them that Remus’ friends had found out, and instead of outing him, became animagi in secret to accompany him on the full moon. He took some joy in revealing to the students that Remus was the reason the Shrieking Shack was thought to be haunted – he hoped that if Remus, Sirius, and his parents could hear him somehow, they were laughing about one last excellent prank.

He described Remus’ patronus lessons, how he’d patiently taught Harry how to ward off dementors, and how that had saved his life, until they’d come full circle and Harry had begun to teach others. He mentioned how careful Remus was, how he struggled to find a place in the magical world due to prejudices but never gave into anger because of it. Finally, Harry told them about Tonks, how they’d married, and that they had a child born just days before the Battle. How they’d dropped everything and left their son an orphan not because they didn’t love him, but because this was their one chance to tip the scales and make a difference.

Once his voice was hoarse and his nose stuffy, Harry sank back into a beanbag, into Ron’s warm hug from the side. He half-heard people talking about one of the best DADA professors they’d ever had but focused more on the cup of hot chocolate Hermione offered, with bobbing marshmallows threatening to escape over the rim. The heat soothed his throat, even as the taste of chocolate reminded him more of the last of the marauders.

When all was said and done – when McGonagall had spoken for the two professors, Camelia Sigan and Severus Snape, and for the fallen members of the Order that the student body didn’t know – it was in the early hours of the morning. It had been a fraught and emotional night the whole way through. Many people had chosen to leave – some for time alone, the younger years encouraged to go to sleep if they were struggling – but a good number had remained among the older years.

At some point, the lighting in the room had dimmed, leaving the majority of the candles lit around the photos of the dead. The candles, lit by any students who wished to pay their respects, bobbed and swayed in an almost liquid stream across the wall. Smoke rose from them, smelling pleasantly of beeswax, and fogged the room with a hazy veil. It created a space that felt strangely intimate, despite the number of people present.

Harry watched the candlelight until the flames left dark trails in his vision, letting the low rumble of voices around him lull him into a quieter state. Where the smoke hung, he could see it doubled in Mist, which flowed around the room in vague glimmers of light; it grew bronze as it approached each stand, as if the Underworld’s own fog was flowing up from underneath. Around the room, everywhere someone told a story of a fallen friend, their breath stirred the Mist, droplets of chthonic magic exhaled with every breath. The longer the night drew on, the thicker it grew, pooling around Harry’s ankles and clinging to his robes.

No one else could see it, Harry knew, but he thought that perhaps they all felt it. After the speeches, the volume never spiked, the conversation never creeping above the respectful murmur it had fallen into. People moved around easily enough, exchanging groups with a fluidity that seemed just a touch unnatural – teenage awkwardness soothed by tiredness and shared grief. He breathed in the candle smoke, bronzed fog, and swirling Mist, and felt it strengthen with every exhale. It was stronger, Harry knew, not because of anything he was doing, but simply because he was there.

It would be easy for Harry to do something. The dead hung close tonight, the veil between the Overworld and Underworld thin enough for him to brush his fingertips through, if he so wished it. The resurrection stone was warm against his skin, as if heated by the candles, and promised that the vestiges of their lost loved ones were only a thought away. Harry didn’t give into it, even as he mourned with the others. There were right ways and wrong ways to remember the dead, and ripping them from their afterlife was almost always the latter. Instead, he let the impulse wash away, turning his attention back to the opposite side of the room, where a smaller collection of candles marked those lost on the opposite side of the Battle.

It had been a contentious topic when it had been raised in the planning stages. On the one hand, they had friends and relatives among the student body; on the other hand, they’d died actively attacking the rest of it. The compromise had been a quiet and safe area to mourn them on the other side of the room, but without the same speeches in front of all the rest. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was all they’d been able to agree in the time given. There were still people milling around there. Draco Malfoy had stayed only long enough to light a candle under Vincent Crabbe’s name before leaving again, but Leon Harper was still sat by a picture of his sister; others gathered in small groups. Harry tried not to watch too hard, giving them their privacy when he felt that his attention was unwanted, but kept an eye out to ensure that everything stayed civil.

He needn’t have worried. The final hours of the night passed in a hazy fog of stories and smoke – long, draining, but warmed by something more profound than the heat of the fireplaces. As the sky finally began to lighten, Neville gave the closing speech to a calm and sleepy-eyed room. It was a good one, Harry knew, about remembering their loved ones and building on their loss to make the world a better place, but he couldn't have quoted a word of it afterwards. Instead, he watched the bronze fog disperse as everyone trickled out of the room, sticking only on their robes and skin, until the room had nearly emptied, except for his friends and a few people who had stayed to mourn in the quiet.

“That went well, I thought.” Neville said, coming over to where Harry was still sat.

“Yeah.” Ron agreed. His eyes were red from crying earlier, but now they were watering only from his great series of yawns. “It was a good speech, mate. Seemed to go down well. And no one was…” He trailed off, doing odd hand motions that somehow conveyed ‘acting out or making an unpleasant scene’.

“Are you okay, Harry?” Hermione stopped levitating the beanbag seats, mats, and cushions into neat piles by the wall, looking down at him worriedly where he still sat with a cup of tea. At her words, Ron and Neville looked down as well.

“Yeah.” Harry shook the stupor from his thoughts. “I will be.” He frowned. “Just… doesn’t feel done, somehow.”

Hermione pursed her lips worriedly, but Ron nodded calmly. “Whatever you need to do, go for it.”

Uncertainly, Harry stood, stomping his feet to get the blood flowing again. He had an idea what he still had to do, but he’d been putting off the thought of it. “Do you…” He looked to the two of them. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Always, mate.”

“Wherever you go.”

Ron’s words were a vow and Hermione’s a promise, sealed in a lingering mix of love and death magic.

Harry led them in silence out the front door of the castle, where he’d once sneaked out under his cloak. They walked down the grassy hill, morning dew wetting their ankles, and into the dark of the forest, where the grey light of early morning hadn’t yet reached. Harry stepped with sure feet until he came to a familiar clearing, where he’d once died and returned. There was no sign of where he’d fallen in the physical world – no great marker to say ‘Harry Potter died here!’ – but the air felt denser, more packed with magic which sang out with a familiar tone.

Wordlessly, he turned away, and this time, Ron and Hermione were there to greet him. Their faces were solemn, eyes locked on the place Harry had been looking at, but when they saw him move, they both smiled and reached out to him, and Harry remembered what he’d returned to life for. Ron’s arm went over his shoulder, and Hermione tucked her arm in his, and if they held a little too firmly, as if fearing he might vanish from them, Harry had enough tact not to mention it.

Their silence continued back up to the castle, until they reached the great hall. Inside, Harry’s breath caught as the asphodels glowed brightly under the rising sun, utterly luminous with the outpoured magic of love for the lost. Harry stepped between patches of flowers, thicker and more resplendent than ever, until he came to the stone he’d carved for Voldemort.

A year on, it was hard to say what Harry thought of him. He’d hated him for as long as he’d known of him, feared him, sometimes pitied him. Now, all that struck Harry was that Voldemort wasn’t there – had been brought in his entirety to the Underworld a full year ago – and no longer had any say in how Harry chose to live his life. Harry had grown beyond being Voldemort’s enemy and was becoming something far greater and truer to himself. Today wasn’t about Voldemort, it was about their lost friends and family, and about hope for the future.

“We should go to bed.” Harry broke the silence himself. “There’s time to get some sleep in and I think we’ll need it for the day ahead.”

Ron blew out a breath. “You’re telling me. I can’t believe you talked me into going to that Ministry thing.”

“You talked yourself into it.” Hermione disagreed with him, unable to resist poking at Ron. “You said that you couldn’t let Harry make a fool of himself all on his own at the Ministry and someone had to be there to mock the politicians with him.”

“Okay,” Ron replied heatedly, “but it’s not like I’m wrong.”

“I didn’t say you were.” Hermione retorted. “Just that Harry didn’t talk you into anything.”

Harry shook his head, letting their familiar bickering wash over him while they walked to the dorms, tiredness finally settling into his limbs. Not too long later, as he fell into his bed (and got a cat sith wrapped around his face for his troubles), the sun finally rose above the horizon and bathed the castle in the golden tones of sunrise. On the seventh floor, a room full of candles at last fell dark, and the magic slipped slowly from air, settling amid the stones of the castle and pulling even the most distraught and overtired of its occupants into a restful sleep.