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The end of the war went like this;
Harry had a nap and a sandwich. The Weasleys prepared to bury their son and brother. Andromeda Tonks buried her daughter and son in law. The Creeveys sent Harry a letter thanking him for his friendship with Colin. Severus Snape was buried in Godric's Hollow, neither a Death Eater or a War Hero.
Harry, in the months that followed, attended memorials, gave interviews and attended event after event, on autopilot. Doing exactly what was expected of him, and completely empty.
People in the streets cried at the sight of him, and whispered, and reached out to touch his clothes and hands. Saviour.
The Auror department caught every Death Eater. Harry spoke at multiple trials, fear having burned him hollow enough to not feel, as he explained and gave testimony, in great detail, of the truly horrid and traumatic events of the months prior, only to return back to an empty and dark Grimmauld place, to drink himself unconscious only to wake hours later, sweating and screaming.
Ron and Hermione visited.
Kreacher made Harry eat.
He tried to visit his Godson, but his eyes would well up and his chin would quiver whenever Teddy's large brown eyes turned innocently on him. Not quite old enough to understand. On Harry's third visit, five months after the war, a windy October afternoon, the baby changed his hair to black with pink tips and Harry had sobbed snottily while clutching a quiet Teddy to his chest.
Andromeda had fire-called Hermione and Ron to come and get him, and two days later Harry was sitting outside a Mind Healer's office in St. Mungos, unsure if he had agreed to it, or if Hermione had just decided it was going to happen. He gathered it was probably the latter but couldn’t find it in himself to care. He tried to care about that too. But he was empty.
*
The thing about trauma is, no matter how good one is at hiding it, the body keeps the score.
When Harry first started seeing Healer Miller, he merely looked tired, a little worn, and skinny. He had put the thinness down to a lack of food in the Horcrux Hunt, the tiredness down to nightmares, and the worn-ness down to constant social engagements, not to mention the constant hounding he received from the press and public.
In the weeks that followed, when Harry was truly alone, his body changed.
Harry got sick.
His body caved in on itself, collapsing into sallow skin stretched over fragile bones; hands constantly cold and shaking. His mind caved in too. He lost his appetite, he couldn’t sleep, he could do nothing but stare into his past, and relive everything that had happened. A simple lumos reminding him of the brightness of a patronus in the darkness of the Forest of Dean, of the glowing white of, well, of Kings Cross. The crack of Kreacher apparating throwing him straight back into Shell Cottage, Dobby’s blood on his hands, that small voice and those big eyes, always on Harry, open and still. The sounds, the smells, the sights. Even the smallest of things, the smell of the sky before snowfall, was enough to cast him far, far away from London.
His mind ran in circles, spiralling around the war; the destruction; the death. It seemed fitting, he would think, staring down at his hands, that after using everyone up, taking so much from them, watching them die bloody, that he would be used up too. His own destruction. His own downfall.
Down. Down. Down.
When Ginny and George found him, on the drawing-room floor of Grimmauld place, he was blissfully unconscious.
*
St. Mungos had a ward, put together after the first war, the one that claimed his parents, for trauma cases. It had expanded rather significantly, since May.
Harry had his own room.
The Healers took his shoelaces and his wand, just for a bit.
He saw his healer every day at first.
After a few months, he was able to go home, but he had meetings every week. Ron and Hermione came and visited him every day, and eventually, after a while, they moved in to Grimmauld place. Harry liked having them there; the noise of Ron yelling at the wireless during Cannons games, the scratch of Hermione’s quill as she studied, dinners together, conversations and comfortable silences, Hermione practising her diagnostic spells on him, Ron asking for advice on Charlie’s birthday present. Simple things.
He still had nightmares. It was inevitable.
But when he did, someone was there, urging him awake, pushing his sweaty hair from his face, holding a glass of water to his cracked lips.
And in the morning, Harry would cook for them. They would smile at him, never worried, just knowing. A new day, that’s what the dawn was, what breakfast was, the symbol for a new day. For moving forward.
*
“What do you want to talk about today Harry?”
He shrugged; there wasn’t much left to talk about, three years on, “Maybe,” he paused for a moment, unsure of how to broach the subject, “Maybe I should look at getting a job?”
Healer Miller raised her eyebrows, “Why the sudden interest?”
Harry shrugged, “Boredom,” he replied, “Boredom and maybe it’s not so good for me to be spending so much time alone, with nothing to do.” While Ron and Hermione are working.
She smiled at him, “I think you’ve had plenty to do Harry, but do you have any ideas as to what you would like to do as a career?”
Harry took that as a positive sign, but when it came down to it, the only thing he had ever thought about doing was defeating dark wizards, and he had already done that, enough for a lifetime. He shook his head.
“I only ever thought about being an Auror,” he said, “And I don’t want to do that anymore.”
She smiled again, the kind of reassuring smile that made Harry feel like it was okay to be as messy as he was, “Well, think about it now,” she gestured to him, and leaned back to pick up her still steaming coffee mug. It had taken him months to work out if was merely a stasis charm, keeping their cups warm.
He shrugged, “I don’t even know where to begin.”
She took a thoughtful sip, set the cup down, and leaned forward, eyes blazing.
“Start with what you like.”
*
Ron’s turn to cook dinner meant pasta, in large bowls, while they sprawled across the drawing room floor with the remnants of a game of exploding snap flitted around them. The exploding snap was new; Harry and Hermione had only just stopped flinching. Ron claimed that living with Fred and George had made him immune to small explosions, but he still choked a little on his brother’s name.
“So,” Ron said, through a mouthful of tomato and mince, “What do you like to do mate?”
Hermione scowled at him, “Must you talk with your mouth full?”
Ron made a show of swallowing his food. Harry smirked into his bowl while Hermione rolled her eyes. She turned her attention back to Harry and raised an expectant eyebrow.
“Uh,” he mumbled, suddenly lost with both sets of eyes on him, “I like to cook?”
Hermione snorted, “So you want to be a chef?”
“No,” Harry replied, “But you asked me what I like to do. I also like to get drunk and dance, I like cleaning my kitchen, I like to sleep, and I also like sex, but I can’t make a career out of those things either.”
Hermione screwed her nose up in distaste while Ron openly laughed, screwed up food threatening to spray over Harry, who was grinning.
“I mean, maybe you could also look into things you were good at?” Hermione intoned, shooting Ron another disapproving look.
He shrugged, “Like what?”
She and Ron exchanged a glance, “Harry, when was the last time you got on your broom?”
Ron answered the question for him, “It was too long ago. And believe me, Hermione and I were at all those games. You were really good.”
Harry blushed and grinned, “You were on the team too, you git, and you were a good keeper.”
“Yeah, but I already have a job.”
Harry waved his fork around in concession before plunging it back into his bowl and emerging with a rather large, cheese-filled meatball. He put the whole thing in his mouth and chewed slowly, giving himself time to think.
Harry did like quidditch; he was good at it, a fair flyer. But it had been so long since he had played anything other than three-a-side in the backyard at the Burrow, and there was no denying that Ginny’s abilities now far outstripped his own. He liked quidditch, but he didn’t think he was ready to dedicate his life to it.
He swallowed his meatball, “No, not quidditch.”
“What subjects did you like then Harry?” Hermione asked, “You were very good at Defence, and you got decent marks in Charms and Transfiguration.”
Hogwarts seemed so long ago, but he thought back. Flitwick expected more of him than he expected of himself, so Harry applied himself, but Charms were a necessity for survival in the wizarding world. Sink or swim. So, he was decent, but his heart wasn’t really in it. McGonagall was his Head of House, and not meeting her expectations was just rife with the type of disappointment Harry never wanted to face; besides, at least Transfiguration was interesting. But the theory had always left him confused. Making a career out of something he barely understood seemed counterproductive.
And defence; Harry was good at defence. Very good. Maybe it was in his blood. Or maybe he had just never had a choice. But making a career out of that just left him with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
“I only took subjects necessary for being an Auror,” Harry said through his mouthful, “Because McGonagall outlined the requirements.”
Hermione tapped her chin for a second, “Maybe,” she began, an idea forming in her eyes, “You could request a meeting with McGonagall and see what she can suggest?”
Harry grinned.
*
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall
Headmaster’s Tower
Hogwarts Castle
Highlands, Scotland,
Great Britain
June 29 2002
Dear Headmistress
I am aware that you have a busy schedule, however, I was wondering if you may have an hour free one evening to give me some advice regarding my career options.
A few years ago, I expressed an interest in being an Auror and you were able to outline to me the prerequisites surrounding my NEWTs. I am unsure if you have been made aware of my predicament over the last few years, but I am now looking at entering the workforce, and am desperate need of advice. You gave me good advice once. I’m hoping you’ll be able to do it again.
Yours sincerely,
Harry James Potter.
Mr Harry James Potter
12 Grimmauld Place
London, England
Great Britain
June 31, 2002
Dear Mr Potter,
I am available for an hour at 7pm on Friday July 10th. The school will be empty, and we will be preparing for the new school year to start. You will be able to enter via a direct floo to my office.
It’s good to hear from you Mr Potter.
Kind Regards,
Minerva McGonagall
*
Healer Miller handed Harry a steaming mug of too-sweet tea and sat down heavily in the slightly cracked upholstery of her office armchair, “Harry,” she smiled at him, “That really was a brilliant idea.”
Harry smiled sheepishly, he could feel the heat rising in his cheeks and neck, “It was Hermione’s idea really.”
“Well then, Miss Granger continues to be a good influence.”
Harry nodded, and they sat in silence for a few moments, inhaling steam from their mugs as they sipped.
“Harry,” the healer began, “Does Professor McGonagall know…” she trailed off and raised an eyebrow.
Harry shook his head, “No, she doesn’t know. At least, I don’t think she does. Dumbledore only informed Snape, and I think it’s because he had a part to play too.”
He didn’t like talking about it, the roles that Dumbledore and Severus had in his prophecy. It had cost them both, soundly. Their lives in fact. And, unlike people who fought in the war for themselves, and their loved ones, Harry was still having a hard time convincing himself that they hadn’t died for him. The more Harry thought about it, which is why he tried not to, the angrier he was. Dumbledore had known, the whole time, about everything. He knew where it would start, and who knew how it needed to end, and he hadn’t sort to warn Harry at all. Dumbledore was prepared to give everything for The Greater Good, but he had never asked Harry if he was. He had never asked Snape either, but Harry had a feeling that the love Severus had felt for Lily had, over the years, become his only reason for survival. He was obsessed with killing the man that had murdered the woman he loved.
It was what he had first talked about with Healer Miller; the idea that everyone who died in the war, the people he had loved so desperately, had died for him. It wasn’t worth it, not to Harry. He had tried to talk about it with Ron and Hermione when the war was still fresh, and all Hermione had managed to do was tell him it wasn’t his fault, and that people had to make sacrifices and choices to survive. Ron had reminded him he had never asked for a war. But it wasn’t what Harry wanted; it was his fault somehow. He had been sure of it.
Healer Miller, Harry knew now, didn’t think it was his fault either. But her tactics had said otherwise, “Well Mr Potter,” she said, holding a clipboard in front of her, “If you think it is your fault then it must be.”
He had only managed to stare at her with his mouth open. Blaming Harry for the deaths of his friends and loved ones had had a profound effect; he had defended their acts as individuals, their choices, effectively cutting off his role in their murders. She’d smiled at him, while he breathed heavily like he had run a marathon, lost in the memories.
Now, Harry had a sincere respect for the healer who had spent long hours with him while he raged, and cried, and grieved, and came to terms with the war. But Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape? They were still a sore spot.
Discussing them, and the rest of the war, with Professor McGonagall, seemed like opening a fresh can of worms to him. Healer Miller didn’t seem to agree.
“You know she’s going to ask, don’t you?”
“No, she won’t.”
The Healer raised an eyebrow, again, “What makes you so sure?”
Harry heaved a sigh, “Because she doesn’t ask questions unless she has to. It’s always been like that. And this time it’s just career advice, nothing else.”
The look she gave Harry suggested otherwise.
“I think you need to be prepared Harry. She will ask, and you will have to make a choice.”
He sighed, “Don’t I always?”
*
Professor McGonagall’s office was much the same as Professor Dumbledore’s had been; books still lined the walls and a heavy wooden desk sat at the back of the room, high on its stone dais, and stacked with papers. The Sorting Hat sat on the top shelf of the bookcase behind the desk and leered down at Harry, while the portraits of former Headmasters snoozing in their frames continued to be a familiar sight. But there were changes too; two squashy armchairs sat on the hearthrug with a small, ornate wooden tea table between them, a tea set steaming on top. Harry could faintly smell ginger, something that he had begun to associate with this professor somewhere around the fifth year. A heavy tartan shawl was draped over the back of the chair behind the desk, and the room was marginally lighter than it had once been.
Harry found he preferred it this way. It was warmer, somehow, than it had been.
“Mr Potter.”
He heard Professor McGonagall before he saw her, ascending the stairs to her office. She looked older than Harry remembered, still severe. But her eyes were alight with the same warmth as the study. A small smile tugged on the corners of her lips.
“Hello Professor,” he couldn’t help his grin.
She gestured to the two armchairs, “I hope you don’t mind if we sit in front of the fire. I’ve been on my feet all day and you know how this castle gets draughty after dark. I’m afraid these old bones feel the cold more than they used to.”
She sank into one of the chairs and began pouring out the tea, lumping sugar into Harry’s, and keeping the milk scarce. He wondered when she had learned how he took his tea.
“I looked after you for six years Potter.”
Harry stared at her blankly, wondering if his old transfiguration professor was also a legilimens. It would have certainly explained her exasperation with him over the years. She heaved a sigh.
“You, my dear boy, are a lion; a Gryffindor. But when you first got here,” she smiled ruefully, “You were nothing more than a cub.”
She turned to face him then, eyes bright, “I was there the night you were dropped at your aunt and uncle’s house, did you know that?”
Harry shook his head.
“I don’t suppose you would,” she murmured, mostly to herself, “I had been watching them all day, and they were the worst sort of muggles imaginable. But Albus was sure that was the place you needed to be.”
Her voice shook slightly, and Harry was worried for a moment that his old Head of House might cry. She took a deep breath to fortify herself and continued.
“I trusted him, so I left you there. But when I saw you again, so underfed and wearing those ghastly clothes,” she trailed off, “I knew you hadn’t been taken care of. You didn’t even know about magic for Godric’s sake!”
She smiled at him, “You will have to forgive your old teacher Harry; it is my duty to care for all students, but like the other Heads, I always had an issue with being overprotective of my own.”
Harry stared at her, “Overprotective… of me Professor?”
“Especially you Potter,” her voice held a laugh that she dared not release, “But you were always so hellbent on rash decisions, and you had some of the worst luck I have ever seen.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he laughed.
The corner of her mouth quirked up, “Would you like a list of your worst decisions or your bad luck first Potter? Let me think; there was the mountain troll, Hagrid’s ghastly three-headed dog, Professor Quirrell, the Chamber of Secrets, chasing after Sirius Black, Dumbledore’s Army, need I go on?”
Harry laughed uncomfortably but Professor McGonagall continued, and Harry had the distinct impression she was pushing for something.
“The Triwizard Cup, Mad-Eye Moody, the issue with your connection to Voldemort, Professor Dumbledore’s death, the death of your godfather, and the fact you disappeared for a year and arrived back at the school in time to play dead,” she finished.
Harry flinched. McGonagall stared. They sat in silence.
“You wrote me a letter asking for advice Harry, but I’m not sure I can give it now. Not unless I know what happened.”
He took a deep breath; Healer Miller had been right, of course. He could give the watered-down events as he’d given to the Daily Prophet or he could tell her nothing. Or, he could tell her the truth. Because here, next to him, was a woman who had risked everything not for him, but for her home. It just happened to be his too.
Her eyes softened, and she looked at him with a warmth that reminded him of ginger newts and the Gryffindor common room.
“What did you mean I was merely a cub Professor?”
She blinked at him, weighing her answer on her tongue, “The lions protect the pack Mr Potter,” she said, “And you were a cub. Defenceless. It was my job to protect you. To stand in when I had to,” she said, “There were so many times when I just didn’t know what Albus was doing with you. He treated you like a man, but you were only a boy. Sometimes,” she leaned over the arm of the chair to whisper conspiratorially, “I wanted to hex him.”
Harry tried to stop his eyes welling up.
“Well Professor,” his voice shook, “Let me tell you about what was meant to be my seventh year.”
And he did; Harry talked for an hour and a half. He explained his connection to Voldemort, and the horcruxes. The mission laid out by Dumbledore and night he died, how he already knew he was dying, how he already knew Harry would have to die too. He told her about the Forest of Dean, of losing and finding Ron again, of Hermione’s resilience and determination in the face of sure disaster. He told her of Malfoy Manor, and the horrors he had seen there. He told her of how he had gone into the Forbidden Forest to die, and in his death, met with Dumbledore. He explained the story of the Deathly Hallows, and how Ignotus Peverell was the third son, Harry’s ancestor, and how he, Harry Potter from Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, was the Master of Death and former horcrux of Lord Voldemort; cursed to live twice. And Albus Dumbledore had known the whole time.
Then, at last, Harry described what the end of the war had brought him, what the damage the war itself had caused. He explained his time in St Mungo’s hospital. He explained the nightmares, and the night Ginny and George found him, passed out on his drawing room floor because he hadn’t slept in 10 days. He told her of the hypervigilance and the paranoia. And he told her of the small things too; he still hadn’t cleaned out Sirius’ bedroom, and they had only just begun playing exploding snap again, and he didn’t like bright lights, and certain shades of green.
He confessed to breaking apart at the end of the war, to believing wholeheartedly, and with extreme guilt, that all those deaths were his fault. He knew now of course that it wasn’t the case, but the guilt still sat on him, sometimes so crushing he could barely remember to breathe.
Professor McGonagall listened to the whole thing in silence, clutching her teacup in her hands, and participating in the conversation only through liberal use of her eyebrows. She did not gasp, she did not interrupt, she merely sat and listened while Harry poured his heart out.
When he was done, and they had reverted into heavy silence again, Minerva merely stared into the flickering flames of the fire in the grate. She stood, walked to her desk and with a flick of her want, the bottom draw flung open and a decanter of amber liquid flew out and over to the tea set. She flicked her wand again and a substantial splash of Firewhiskey landed in her cup, and then Harry’s.
“Drink up Harry,” she said.
The decanter recapped itself and flew back into the desk drawer.
From there, she stalked over to the wall of portraits and prodded the frame on the far left.
“Albus,” she barked, “Wake up.”
The portrait stirred and Albus Dumbledore grunted into wakefulness. It was odd, seeing his likeness like this. Harry had not seen his old Headmaster since his brief stint with death and felt no desire to see him again anytime soon.
“Yes Minerva?” Dumbledore’s quiet voice replied.
She held her wand up and took a threatening step towards the portrait; the Dumbledore inside the frame looked first taken aback and then quite startled.
“You,” she blustered, “I ought to wipe your portrait clean!” she gestured to Harry, “Mr Potter had just come to see me and informed me of your role in his death?!”
Dumbledore looked sheepish, “Minerva, you know I can-”
“I don’t want to hear it Albus Dumbledore! You bred this boy like a lamb for slaughter! You turned him into a soldier before his seventeenth birthday! You gave him no clues as to where on Earth he was meant to go, let alone what he was meant to do, and I don’t care about a bloody prophecy Albus, he was just a boy!” McGonagall stopped to take a deep breath, before continuing on with her tirade, “You turned him into the Master of sodding Death just, so Voldemort wouldn’t get your wand?! Are you eleven?! And do you not think we could have been spared so many losses if we had all known about this blood prophecy? We could have worked together Albus!”
Harry had never seen his professor like this, red-faced and furious, but he wanted to throw his arms around her, and bury his face in her shoulder. He wanted to whisper thank you over and over again. Professor McGonagall was not his mother, she never would be. Not like Lily, and not in the way Molly Weasley had been to him all these years. But this woman, yelling at a portrait, at that moment was the first person to have ever been so angry, so indignant on Harry’s behalf, for everything he had been put through.
Ron and Hermione had just accepted it with the type of withdrawal one would expect from people trying to piece together some semblance of a life; they didn’t want to go over every fine detail with him again. And Molly and Arthur had not understood, really, what Harry was telling them when he said he had died in the forest that night. Aside from them, no one else knew. No one else needed to.
Except for the four parents whose love had shrouded him all the way into that grove.
Maybe one day he would tell Teddy, just so he could know what his father’s love would feel like.
But for now, Harry’s eyes welled up and spilled over, because finally someone had heard him. Someone was vindicating him. Someone was angry for him.
“- he was a child! You stopped caring about the students at this school long before the war took off because you were always so focused on this awful prophecy! The Greater Good is no reason to prime a fifteen-year-old boy for war!”
“MInerva that is hardly fair!”
“You want to talk to me, or Harry about fair Albus?!”
Harry cleared his throat, “Uh, Professor?” he tried, tentatively.
Both the portrait and the woman turned to him, “Yes?” they asked, in unison.
“It’s over now,” he focused on Professor McGonagall, “It’s done. And I really need your help finding a job.”
She gaped at him, eyes hard and flaming, and then, before Harry could blink the tears properly from his eyes, already aware of the few streaming down his cheeks, she was in front of him, wrapping him in a tight hug.
A few seconds passed before Harry could unstiffen enough to return it, and when he did the tidal wave of feeling seemed to crash over him again. He did as he had wanted; buried his face in her neck and breathed thankyou over and over. She held on tight.
“Right,” she said, somewhat breathlessly, after they had finally managed to settle down and back into their chairs, “Career advice.”
“Yeah, I was hopin-”
“Have you ever thought about teaching Harry?”
Harry blinked, “Uh, no,” he replied, truthfully.
She looked at him over the top of her glasses, “Well, Professor Ringland is our current Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. She’s looking to lessen her workload, so to speak, over the coming year, and was only recently asking me if she could hire a teaching assistant.”
Harry stared at her blankly, mouth slightly agape.
“There is a small course you will need to sit before the job is yours. It starts on Monday morning at the Ministry’s Auror Training and Defence Centre. After that you will be required to interview with Professor Ringland, and should she accept you as her teaching assistant, I imagine you will be taking some of her junior classes. So, what do you say Mr Potter?”
Harry closed his jaw with an audible click and tried to weigh the pros and cons like Healer Miller had attempted to teach him. He wasn’t very good at it, which became obvious when he couldn’t think of any cons other than, “Professor, I didn’t sit my NEWTs?”
She grinned at him, a whole smile that lit up her face, “Hence the training Potter,” she explained as if it was obvious, “So I take it that is your only objection? Wonderful, teachers and assistants are required back on school grounds by the 18th of August. I expect you will contact Professor Ringland on your own, however, I will let her know to expect your owl.”
She stood, not giving Harry a chance to think about the offer any further. Harry could see it then, the headfirst mentality of his old Head of House, the recklessness that made her so very Gryffindor. The lion who protect the pack; protected the cubs. The teacher who gave her students every opportunity to succeed in life, even, Harry decided, long after they weren’t her students anymore. She was taking a risk on him, he knew that. But like any true Gryffindor, she couldn’t even see it.
He wrapped her in his arms again, tightly, silently promising that the risk was going to be worth it, and kissed her cheek, “It’s good to see you, Professor.”
She blushed a little and pushed him off, “You too, Professor Potter.”