Chapter Text
Harry supposed that he hadn’t given that much thought to what the world would look like after the war had ended. After all, it had seemed so improbable that he should live through it, let alone be able to find and destroy the horcruxes and kill Voldemort. That the wizarding world should still exist beyond this moment had seemed difficult to imagine. Still, whatever vague thoughts or hopes he may have had, he certainly wouldn’t have expected it to be the disaster that it was. True, Voldemort was dead, and many of his followers killed along with him, but in his wake he had left a path of destruction and chaos. Hogwarts was in ruins and would be needing extensive repairs. Not to mention the problem of the surviving giants, who had been left rather confused and angry on the school grounds after the death eaters that led them there had all taken flight, both literally and figuratively. Once they had all been restrained it seemed in poor taste to kill them, and rather impossible to house them in Azkaban, but leading them back to the mountains was quite the challenge to organize as well. Not to mention that it was next to impossible to pass any legislation or sort out a committee on these things, what with half of the ministry needing to be fired, fined, or face some sort of infraction for their involvement in the anti muggle legislation under Voldemort’s regime. Figuring out who had been coerced, and who had directly involved in atrocities was turning out to be something of a nightmare for Kingsley, who had been appointed interim minister until an election could be held. Then there was the matter of freeing innocent muggleborn witches and wizards from Azkaban, and drawing funds to provide them with new wands, theirs having been snapped in two, which was another headache, even with a reluctant Ollivander agreeing to return to business. The captured death eaters needed to be tried and taken to Azkaban, and those on the run needed to be tracked down and arrested. And in between all of this – the trials, the rebuilding, and the legislation – were the funerals. So many had died that day at Hogwarts, and so many more had died in the months leading up to it, or disappeared, never to return, that the few wizarding funeral parlors in Great Britain found themselves well past maximum capacity.
Harry, who wanted nothing more than to rest and to be left alone, found himself constantly occupied. He was perpetually being called into the ministry to testify at some trial or another, having witnessed so much firsthand. He also felt compelled to attend each memorial service, even for the students that he had not known, or had only known vaguely. After all, he reasoned, it was because of him that they had been fighting that day - because of him that their lives had been cut so short. There were days when Harry attended three memorial services, back to back, only to return to Grimmauld place exhausted, catching a few short hours of sleep before the next service.
Harry felt desperately uncomfortable at each service, suddenly surrounded by the wizarding public, many of whom only seemed to attend at all so that they could have the chance to gawk at him.
“I told you he’d be here, didn’t I!”
“He’s a right hero, that Potter – saved all our skins”
“Well, not all of them, look at poor Creevey in his casket, he certainly didn’t save him.”
“Hush!”
“No, you’re quite right, he didn’t. Don’t see why he had to show up to Hogwarts in the first place and put you lot in danger. It’s a miracle any of you survived!”
“They survived because of Potter! He’s the reason any of us are still standing!”
“If you ask me, he’s nearly as bad as you-know-who, involving a bunch of school children in a fight. He ought to be ashamed of himself”
“He’s a child himself!”
Harry would cower miserably in the corner, pulling his robes up to hide the flush growing along his neck, sick with anger, shame, and grief.
Rita Skeeter and her brethren followed him shamelessly, snapping photographs outside the ministry each time he arrived for a hearing. “Can you spare us your thoughts on the Dolores Umbridge trial?” “Any thoughts about the sentencing of Lucius Malfoy? Six months in Azkaban seems a bit excessive to me, what do you think Mr. Potter?” “Is it true that you testified on behalf of the young Draco Malfoy and his mother?” “How do you feel about the ministry abolishing the practice of dementors at Azkaban?” “Any ideas on the whereabouts of the death eaters still at large?”
Harry, who never did more that shrug or occasionally glower, would still often be quoted in the Daily Prophet quite liberally by Skeeter, his scowling photograph storming across the front page.
Meanwhile, much of Harry’s support system seemed to have vanished. Hagrid was off, having been appointed by Kingsley to lead the expedition to return the giants (and flanked by some rather intimidated young aurors whose job it was to ensure minimal bloodshed and havoc). Hermione was off to Australia to track down her parents and try to restore their memories. Ginny, though happy to see Harry again, rather awkwardly informed him a few days after the battle, when Harry had tried to kiss her, that, “I’m really very sorry Harry but I started seeing someone else while you were gone, please don’t be mad, it just happened, no one meant for it to, you know…but I don’t regret that it happened, I really do love him, and I hope that you and I can still be friends.” And Harry, more awkward still, assured her that, “no its fine, brilliant, happy for you. Really, very happy. You deserve it, happy, I mean to be happy.” It was hard to tell whose face had turned a more luminous shade of red, and both had bolted away from one another rather quickly. Meanwhile, Ron was nearly always owling Hermione, or bustling about the Burrow trying to keep busy, and to distract Mrs. Weasley and George, both of whom had become especially withdrawn after Fred’s death.
Harry found himself avoiding the Burrow, between things with Ginny and the guilt he felt over causing the Weasley family so much suffering, he found himself coming up with excuses each time he was invited to dinner, preferring to spend nights alone at Grimmauld place.
…
While each moment felt agonizingly long and painful, the summer itself seemed to go by rapidly, rather like magic. It took Harry by surprise to receive a letter by owl one warm morning with a list of books to purchase for his 8th year at Hogwarts.
Staring at the letter, rather dumbfounded, Harry figured that he had better reach out to Ron about this. After a moment of hesitation, he Floo’d to the Weasley’s grate.
“Harry! Come to visit us at last” Mrs. Weasley smiled warmly, “you’ve missed my suppers nearly every night this week!”
“Sorry Mrs. Weasley, it’s been, er, a busy time. Is Ron in?”
“He’s puttering around in the garden with George doing some de-gnoming, shall I call him in?”
“Er, no, that’s all right, I’ll go find him.”
Wiping soot off his face Harry made his way out to the garden, which seemed to have grown nearly triple in size under the weight of Ron’s need to keep busy.
“All right there Harry?” George called, looking up. “Come to save me from Ron’s mad scheme to rid the world of gnomes have you?”
“Harry!” Ron smiled, shaking off a rather persistent gnome that was currently gnawing away at his finger, “I take it you got your letter this morning!”
Harry nodded. “I did – I didn’t know that Hogwarts offered an 8th year, I thought we were meant to stop at 7?”
Ron nodded glumly, “We were, but the ministry - or more likely McGonagall - felt that students who’d been interrupted in their final year ought to have the chance to return and finish their education. I suspect Hermione petitioned her to about it, although of course she swears she didn’t. You’re going though, aren’t you?”
Harry paused, having not gotten that far in considering the matter. “I don’t know, are you?”
At this Hermione came crashing out into the garden. “Harry!” she shouted, nearly barreling him over as she leapt to embrace him.
“Careful Hermione, he might still want to use those limbs you’re squeezing off!” George warned playfully.
“Hermione! When did you get back?”
“Just last night, I tried to call you over floo but Kreacher answered and said that ‘Master Potter is NOT to be disturbed’” Hermione pantomimed in a high little voice.
Harry forced a laugh, “yeah, that sounds like him.”
“You’ll have received McGonagall’s letter I expect?”
Harry nodded, “I did, threw me for a bit of a loop. I hadn’t really considered, going back, you know.”
Hermione’s eyes sharpened, then softened nearly immediately, and her voice trembled a bit as she spoke. “Yes, I know Harry. It’s hard for me too, to picture going back there. But it’s so important that we finish our educations. We can’t let Voldemort rob us of our futures, not after everything else he took from us.”
Ron, sensing that Hermione was on the verge of tears, wrapped an arm around her. “Course not, Harry will be there with us, won’t you Harry?”
Harry, found himself nodding, rather resenting it as he did so. Why not. One more year at Hogwarts.
…
Buying schoolbooks themselves was something of a nightmare. Harry (and Ron and Hermione) had very nearly been banned from Gringotts after robbing a vault and escaping with a full grown dragon only a few months prior, and it had only been at Kingsley’s insistence that the Goblins had allowed them in (with a fully armored set of goblin guards crowding them at each side and poking them rather harshly in the ribs with their wands). Diagon alley was another obstacle, with fans and reporters alike thronging the trio, snapping pictures and asking for autographs and their take on Hogwarts offering an 8th year. After the first store on their list, Hermione had suggested miserably that perhaps they ought to take Mrs. Weasley up on her offer to do their shopping, as it seemed unlikely that they would be able to get anything done. Harry, torn between panic from the crowds and a heavy guilt at asking anything more of Mrs. Weasley, sullenly agreed with her.
And so, before he knew it, Harry was back on the Hogwarts Express, trunk neatly packed by an insistent Kreacher.
“Who else do you think is coming back?” Ron asked, craning his neck around as they loaded themselves into a compartment.
“Well,” Hermione paused, “Ginny told me that Neville is returning, since he spent half the year hiding out in the room of requirement and failed most of his exams. Seamus too, and a few others like them.”
Ron glowered. “Neville, that back stabber, the nerve of him to return.”
“He isn’t a back stabber Ron,” Harry sighed, “I told you I don’t mind that him and Gin are dating. Really, I don’t. We wouldn’t have lasted anyway.”
“And” Hermione carried on briskly, pretending that she hadn’t heard either of them, “Dean will be coming back, since he spent the whole year on the run from snatchers. Then there are three Ravenclaws whose parents sent them into hiding, a few other muggle born students from Hufflepuff, and then Malfoy of course.”
“Malfoy!” Ron shouted in shock, “there’s no way he’d come back to Hogwarts! They wouldn’t let him!”
“Well Ron, of course he’s got to come back. He spent the past year at home serving Voldemort, he’s completely neglected his education. And he was found at the trials to not be responsible for his actions, Harry testified for him himself, didn’t you Harry?”
“Err…well he didn’t seem to want to do any of the stuff that he did, even if he is a prat. More like he had to, what with Voldemort camping out in his living room”
Ron scoffed “I still can’t believe you actually did that Harry. And even if he isn’t festering in Azkaban where he belongs there’s no way that McGonagall invited him back,”
Hermione paused, considering. “Well he did let the death eaters in during sixth year, its true she may have expelled him, but I think McGonagall is trying to be a bit more high minded than that.”
“He should be expelled after what he did to you!” Ron shouted, this time aiming his glare at Hermione.
“He didn’t do anything to me Ron, that was all Bellatrix’s work” Hermione huffed.
“He’s definitely coming back” said Harry quietly.
“Why do you say that?” “How can you be sure Harry?”
“Because, I saw him on the train platform with his mum. She’s missing a hand these days apparently”
“Missing a HAND?” Ron shouted. “Where exactly did it go?”
Hermione’s eyebrows rose in shock, “I heard there was some trouble at the Manor – the death eater’s weren’t too happy with her involvement in the battle and once that got out in the papers things got a bit nasty, but I didn’t realize anyone had actually been hurt by it!”
“Good” Ron glowered.
Harry looked stunned. He had assumed she might have mishandled a dark object, but to learn she’d been hurt by death eaters hadn’t even occurred to him. “What did the papers say? And how did the death eater’s even find out she’d been involved?”
Hermione gave him a soft look. “Well Harry,” she hedged “you know the daily prophet printed everything you’d said at the Malfoy’s trial – it was front page news.” Harry’s face darkened, he hadn’t touched the prophet since the war, couldn’t bear to look at the faces of those he’d let down, but now he wished he had. “Anyway” Hermione carried on quickly, like ripping off a band aid, “A few of the death eaters that haven’t been caught yet came to the manor. Greyback was one of them. I guess he tried to attack Malfoy but his mother stepped in at the last minute to stop him, and got bit instead.”
Ron snorted. “So does that mean she’s turned? A wolf and a ferret, who would have thought.”
“Ronald!” Shouted Hermione, “It’s not funny! And besides, Greyback got away after all that. The ministry has been in an uproar trying to track him down.”
The two began to argue, but Harry was already lost in thought, his mind heavy with the guilt of yet another family he’d managed to hurt.
…
The start of term was off to a rough launch. Many of the returning students found themselves shocked to suddenly notice the thestrals pulling the carriages, with some of them becoming weepy at the sight when the realization first hit them. Hagrid was still abroad, and it was a rather somber Filch that ushered the first-year students across the lake.
The castle itself seemed unfamiliar – entire new patches of wall trying rather desperately to blend into the old, and half the portraits missing. But worse than the glaring reminder of what the new walls meant, was the shock of seeing spaces that had held the bodies of those they’d lost.
Harry felt as though his mind was filled with static from a muggle television, each spot he glanced at reminding him of another loss that he was responsible for, another death that he had caused by luring Voldemort to Hogwarts. This was where Lupins body had laid alongside Tonks, and that spot over there was where Lavender had been killed, that spot there was where Fred had spoken his last few words. The static turned up, crackling loudly at each reminder, while Harry’s vision seemed to dim. He hardly made it through the dinner, not seeming to notice any of McGonagall’s speech, or the pointed stares from other students. It wasn’t until Ron had nudged him that Harry even realized that the meal had ended, and that it was time to head up to Gryffindor tower.
That night wasn’t much better. Harry noticed that Ron, Dean, and Neville had all quietly spelled their bed curtains silent, which meant that he wasn’t the only one to get nightmares. Even with the stillness of the room it was ages before Harry could sleep.
“It’s harder than I thought, being back here” Ron remarked at breakfast the next morning. “I know what you mean,” Hermione agreed. “When I was off in Australia I was so busy, I don’t think everything had hit me quite yet. But being back here – you can’t avoid it.” Harry stared at his untouched toast, the static in his brain crackling loudly.
…
The thing was, Harry knew he ought to talk about how he was feeling with Ron and Hermione, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. It wasn’t just the grief of everyone he had lost, a list that seemed impossibly long to begin with, but the little seed of guilt that had been growing – flourishing really – since that summer. His parents were dead because they had tried to protect him. Sirius was dead because Harry was too stupid to understand the difference between dreams and reality. The Weasley family was shattered because they had tried to protect Harry, because they had followed him into battle. So many students from Hogwarts – some of them whose names he didn’t even know – were dead, injured, or grieving – because Harry had brought the battle there. Snatchers and death eaters alike had killed people because Harry wasn’t clever enough to figure things out sooner, to discover and destroy the horcruxes in time. All that time wasted, tromping around the forest, while people were dying. All of it, Harry reasoned, because of him. He couldn’t look at a single corner of the castle without seeing evidence of his culpability, his incompetence, his failure of everyone touched by his existence. Even Malfoy, his quiet, pained face, those thin, drawn shoulders – his suffering was at Harry’s hands. If Harry hadn’t been so vocal about his innocence he would never have been targeted after the war.
They hadn’t been back in the castle for even a week and Harry had already missed half his classes, spelling his curtains shut so that he could lay in bed, staring blankly up above. The one thought that played, over and over in his head, was the prophecy that had started it all – that had set Harry on this path of suffering - “either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.” What if it wasn’t just a prophecy, but a curse? What if it meant that whoever survived couldn’t die? Voldemort had already been on the path to live forever, slicing his soul into pieces. What if Harry’s return from death meant that he, too, was cursed to live forever. This really would be a curse, Harry reasoned. To never have peace. To never get to see his parents - or Sirius or Lupin or Dumbledore or Tonks, or any of them - again. Harry became obsessed with the thought of dying. The desperate relief that it would bring him, and the fear that he might never be able to get it. The more that Harry thought on it, the more unbearable the pain of being alive became. Harry’s thoughts became consumed with the idea of the relief that death would bring – the end to his guilt, his pain, all of it. Pity the living, Dumbledore had said, and Harry thought he finally understood him.
It was this thought, and a rather large bottle of firewhiskey, that brought Harry to the Astronomy tower late one night. The pain of being alive had simply become unbearable, and it was with a great breath of relief that he stepped out of the tower window, ready to be at peace.