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When Harry Potter, hero, husband, father, reaches thirty years of age something shifts inside him. No, not shifts, deepens, matures. Helping, no, saving people has always been his driving force, his reason for being, even when they don't want saving. He could not save his parents, and yes, he knows it's ridiculous to charge himself with failure there, but some folds of the mind and heart sit too deep for cold rationality to reach. By thirty he understands what drives him, but almost everyone else is astounded when one day he announces he's quitting the profession of Auror in favour of retraining to be a Healer.
“But ‘Arry, what's gotten inta ya? Yer love bein’ an auror.” says Hagrid over their weekly firewhisky at either the Three Broomsticks or the Hog's Head.
Harry twists his glass, moving it anti-clockwise, his eyes fixed on the ring of moisture it leaves behind on the wooden table top. “Yeah I do, but Hagrid, don't you see? It's not enough. What I want to do is save people from the thing attacking them. As an auror I sometimes prevent things from occurring in the first place, but usually I arrive afterwards and go after the culprit, leaving the actual victim to flounder. Leaving them dead on the ground. I hate that. I hate feeling like all I do is kill and destroy. I've done enough of both.”
The big man who has always been a young boy's rock, takes a moment to think, his great eyebrows squeezing together. “Hmm, I get it. I do, ‘Arry. But some people are goin’ ta be disappointed. Healing is not as flashy as goin’ around catchin’ dark wizards. They’ll say ya ain’t bein’ true to yerself.”
“Hagrid, by now you ought to know that I couldn't care less what most people think.”
“I s’pose dueling He-…I s’pose dueling Voldemort can do that to a lad.”
“Hahaha!”
So with his wife's blessing and his friends' understanding, he sets off on the long road to learning how to mend and not only break, wishing all the while he had paid more attention in school. Hermione, of course, is more than willing to assist him, especially with lectures about how though no one would ever dare prevent the Harry Potter from doing whatever he liked, that doesn’t mean he should do so much as even consider for one second skimping on his studies.
“I’ll hex you so hard you’ll think you’re the Minister for Magic, Harry.”
“Cheers Hermione.”
The pair knock champagne flutes, and laugh.
🧹🚑🧹
Years later Harry Potter, chief emergency healer at St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, is finishing up some paperwork in his office when a call comes through, the magical bracelet around his wrist buzzing, demanding that he report for duty in the emergency apparition bay. His line of work is much like the Muggle air ambulance services that carry physicians on board, except much quicker. Throwing his quill down he leaps to his feet, accios his travel kit, then runs out the door, his white robe flapping behind him. As he knew it would this job gives him all the old satisfaction of being an auror, combined with a much greater sense of accomplishment. Here is drama and danger, excitement and a sense of having changed the world with each successful mission.
No day is the same, and when he arrives at the room, his colleagues speed walking along after him, the brief is as unexpected as always.
“Avalanche at Hogsmeade.” The guide says, the dedicated apparition expert who will be transporting the team. It is always like this, the details are kept relevant to a healer, something that is sometimes irritating to Harry, as more information could often help. Help his curiosity especially. If he wants more, he'll have to pry, assuming he has time.
“Is dark magic suspected?” he asks.
“No. Reports are saying students remaining at Hogwarts for Christmas attempted a dangerous snow multiplication spell.”
Of course. If he hadn't been under constant attack back then, that might have been something he would have participated in with the Weasley twins.
The group of healers and mediwizards pop out on the outskirts of the settlement, right into the middle of white chaos. Locals, both Hogsmeade and Hogwarts inhabitants, run around hoovering, melting, vanishing and otherwise removing snow from where it lies, drowning the high street.
Mediwizards rush over wherever a survivor is revealed, and Harry has to beat down the temptation to attack the snow instead of taking the less obviously glorious route.
Just as he finishes fitting an oxygen bubble around a victim's head, feminine screams from further down the street attract his attention. A woman trying to save her mother. No one famous as far as he knows, no one he recognises. Just an ordinary witch. An ordinary witch with pitch black eyes and matching sclera. An ordinary witch with rainbow butterfly wings sticking out of her back. But Harry trained and studied so hard (amazing and delighting Hermione in the process) that not even these unusual features can make his focus on duty waver. As fast as he used to be on a broom and as powerful and decisive as he was while an auror, the former Chosen One runs over, leaping over a straggling arm of the avalanche, landing marvelously, magicking snow off the stricken woman in the same move.
“Here, take a deep breath. It's okay.” he says, applying another oxygen bubble, which provides both air and warmth to a victim. The woman, identical to her daughter for unusual, definitely fae features, jerks a hand, her creepy eyes widening upon focusing on him.
“Harry? Are you Harry Potter? Surely not?”
‘Yes. Yes, it’s me.”