Chapter Text
5 years after Battle of Hogwarts
His hands shiver as he holds his wand close to his body. Harry Potter, the Saviour or nowadays simply auror Potter, kneels behind a bush. He brushes a wild lock out of his face and silently curses himself for always putting of the cutting. The only reason why he never cuts it is because it'll grow back the next day.
Harry shakes his head and pushes all the useless thoughts back to concentrate. He has to wait for the sign he and his partner made up a long while ago.
A long whistle rings through the night. Harry rushes out of his hideout and jumps into action.
Several dark figures hastily leave the building, stumbling over each other just to escape through the night. His eyes find his first prey. He quickly casts a silent expulso and it hits one of them. The person flies through the air, but Harry is already running after another person.
He has to hurry. On his way, he silently casts spells towards other running silhouettes. Someone starts to run behind him. His instincts tell him all he needs to know. A red spell flies towards him.
Instead of jumping out of the way, he ignores it, trusting in Ron's protection. Just as predicted, Ron casts a protego and follows Harry. They jump over a fence, trying to catch the main character of this mission. Their breaths are fast, but controlled.
Months of auror training and the fighting in an actual war has paid off. While Ron is half a foot behind him, Harry runs ahead, casting spell after spell.
Suddenly, bright lights blind him. He blinks heavily. Instead of stopping, he continues and fights through this white blindness. His eyes fixate on a large tree branch. He knows what he must do.
A quick breaking spell causes the branch to crush onto the fleeing person. The person is quick to free himself, but Harry and Ron are quicker. They surround him, casting spells to keep him locked up in a square until backup arrives.
"Reveal yourself.", Harry orders. The person looks around in a panicked matter, but he ignores it.
"Reveal yourself." Ron doesn't have the same patience as him. He opens his side of the barriers and stuns him. Harry looks at him with a dark expression, but he ignores him.
Ron pulls the hood down and reveals the face of the criminal. The man under the hood has a basic face that looks rather ordinary and innocent, but they know better than to underestimate him.
This man is responsible for the death of no more than 20 people and he plans even more murders.
Before Harry can shun Ron for breaking the barrier, the backup troop arrives to clean up. They share a glance. Somehow the backup troop is always late.
In the five years of practicing to be an auror, in which he spent three years in the field, the backup has not once been there when the action was at it's peak. They're supposed to arrive in the middle of the mission to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
"It's a talent on its own.", Ron whispers with a grinning face, but Harry's just annoyed. He can't help, but feel highly bothered by their presence. Especially because they love to brag about their position even though they only clean up the mess.
The head emerges from the troop and walks towards them. "Leave the talking to me.", Ron orders, but his partner has other plans. Harry steps forward and stops the other man.
"MacMillar.", he greets him curtly, already fed up with a conversation that hasn't even started yet.
"Auror Potter, great to see your mission was a success again. I'm always content when I'm assigned as your backup. We feel very assured to have you as our front man."
"Pleasure.", he snarls. "Grab the Potionist and throw him into a high security cellar."
MacMillar nods and tips his head, before leaving the partners to themselves. He tries to force the shivers away, but the conversation with Auror Potter always leave him uneasy.
It doesn't take long until all the stunned and captured wizards are securely brought back to the ministry cellars where they will await their punishments. Only when every last person is in custody of the ministry, does Harry relax.
He tips his head back and sighs heavily. The pressure and adrenaline from the fight slowly leave him. He puts his wand into the invisible wand holder on his forearm and turns towards his partner.
Ron who knows his partner like himself, takes the lead and walks through the cleaning officers. It's like a ritual for them. After every mission, they walk through the scene to make sure that everything is taken care off. In addition, they use a pensive afterwards to analyze what could have been avoided and what worked well. That way they are sure to avoid certain mistakes in the future.
It doesn't take them long to finish their ritual. Quicker than anticipated, Ron turns towards Harry and asks:" 'you alright, mate?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. You?"
"Fine, but I'm so tired. I'm glad, I'll be able to relax tomorrow. Days off are the best."
"I'm jealous. I wish I had the day off." Ron scrunches his face up and looks at his partner with pity. When Harry notices, he waves the worries away.
"Relax, I'm fine. Let's head back. I want to go home, so I'd like write the report sooner rather than later."
Ron nods. "Alright, is it alright if I appartate home directly? I'm sure 'Mione is already pacing at home like an impatient cat."
He grins at the comparison and nods. "It's fine, go along. I'll see you tomorrow or something."
They hug quickly, before leaving towards two different destinations. Harry aparates into his office.
He always feels grateful that he discovered a spell allowing him to directly aparate to his office without anyone detecting or even realising it.
His fame is quite uncomfortable, so he quickly realised that he did not want to be bothered by curious witches and wizards every morning.
He takes a seat behind his desk and pushes away the mountain of files. He might not be a bad student or a lazy person, but his organisation skills are lacking.
Some of the files, laying on his desk, are months old and he simply can't be bothered to read them. He, of course, reads the headline to indicate whether itst an important case or not, but further than that? That's not going to happen.
Now that he's in the secure confinements of the office that he shares with Ron Weasley, his best friend and field partner, he starts to gently massage his right hand. It's still shivering and after having a constant tremor for almost five years now, he assumes that it simply won't go away.
His hands don't hurt, at least not physically, but there's a ghost of a past pain. Madam Pomfrey explained that it might be because of the several exposures to the cruciatus curse at a young age. She babbled something about damaged nerves and phantom pain, but at that time he had different problems.
Harry takes a feather into his hand and starts to write a report about the mission. It's standard procedure as every mission is to be documented and safely kept in the department of mysteries. Just the thought about that department makes his heart race in an uncomfortable way, but he forces himself to continue writing the stupid report instead of tumbling into another panic attack about his losses.
While writing, he reminisces about the mission. The whole point of tonight was to capture a splitter sect of Voldemort's. They had been firstly noticed after having killed a dozen people. It is a group of ten to twenty people who believe killing to be the true way towards peace.
The only resemblance with Voldemort is the usage of dark curses and artefacts. Oh and the killing muggles part, but apparently they aren't blood purists. They just think that killing muggles during rituals will make them invincible and restore peace or something.
If Harry is honest with himself, he doesn't care about their reasoning. The only thing he cares about are the numbers of dead people.
This group is insane and dangerous which underlines the importance of today's mission. He notes how someone informed them about their hideout and how Ron and he constructed a plan.
After all the background information are established, he quickly finishes the report, puts his signature at the bottom of it and sends it to the law department with a quick spell.
He lies his glasses on the table and rubs his eyes. A sudden tiredness washes over him, but he fights the desire to sleep. He has yet to go home. His eyes flicker over the unopened files and a strange kind of guilt engulfs him. He should be able to maintain order on his desk.
As he rejects the idea of going to sleep just to suffer from nightmares, he pulls the files towards him and starts the tedious work of reading through them. His eyes flutter every few seconds, but Harry is adamant about not going to sleep.
Before he can grab another file, a strict voice rings through the room.
"Go to sleep, Harry.", a paper bird twitters in Hermione's voice. "I'll know if you don't."
Harry sighs heavily and looks at the bird as it burns. There's a small mountain of ashes in the corner of his desk and it shows how often Harry gets messages like this.
He takes it as a sign, pushes himself off the desk and aparates into an empty alleyway next to his flat.
With a few steps, he reaches the front door and stumbles inside. He doesn't bother turning on the light, but casts a silent and wandless lumos that illuminates the one room apartment.
Strange shadows move on the walls as the lumpy ball floats in front of him. He clumsily puts off his shoes and throws himself onto the bed. He can't be bothered to change his clothes or to go through his nonexistent skin care routine.
He quickly falls asleep, but not without being bothered by heart clenching nightmares.