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Chapter Text

Hermione had managed to find a good hiding spot, close enough to the two wizards at the centre of this war, but still far enough away that she hopefully wouldn’t be caught up in their duel. From her hiding spot behind yet another tree, she saw the smirk on that nose-less face and felt her spine turn to ice. He’s up to something. I don’t know what yet, but he thinks he has one over on Harry.

Desperately Hermione looked around for anything that might be out of place; anything that might affect Harry. On the third pass, she noticed the grass behind Harry moving. Her boyfriend was so preoccupied with the curses the Dark Lord was casting that he had no attention to spare for his rear.

Hermione’s wand came up, tracking the movement as she ran through her repertoire of spells, trying to decide which was most appropriate in this situation. Her thoughts were stopped dead when the head of a giant snake raised up out of the grass, rearing back to strike and sink its fangs in Harry’s back.

Months of training coalesced into a single, clear moment of action. Her wand snapped forward, training itself on a distant, moving target as it had so many times in her classes with Harry, instincts taking over control of her body and making the adjustments she had had to think about carefully at the beginning of the year.

“Diffindo!” Hermione was almost surprised to hear her own voice. The arc of steel-blue light jumped from her wand and seemed to move towards its target in slow motion. Hermione couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink, couldn’t look away from the race that was now happening between her spell and the snake’s fangs to see which would kill first.

Resolution came when the fangs were a hair’s breadth away from Harry’s back: Hermione’s spell struck first, nicking Harry’s back as it sliced through the snake’s body just under its head. Harry threw himself to one side, clearly feeling the cut on his back, just as a cloud of putrid black smoke erupted from the snake with bone-chilling scream.

Hermione froze. Snakes don’t scream. Especially not after you cut their heads off. Harry, what did you have me do?

She could see that Harry wasn’t surprised by what had happened from the way a smirk broke out on his face once he realised what had happened. “Damn, Riddle. Even your pet’s creepy. At least someone got rid of it.”

Voldemort let out a wordless howl of rage. “You filthy brat! You have no conception of what just happened. I will make sure that you follow my- my familiar into the void.”

“You sure about that, Riddle?”

“You have become arrogant, Harry Potter. I will show you what you might have been able to gain from summoning a fae if you hadn’t been so weak!” Voldemort stretched out a hand, palm facing Harry and breathed out.

The wind picked up around them and the temperature plummeted. Harry didn’t wait around and launched himself straight for the trees where Hermione was hiding. Voldemort turned to keep his arm pointed at Harry as the storm built and built.

Harry sprinted for the trees. As soon as he passed the first one he called out “Hermione!”

Surprised, Hermione pulled the hood of the cloak from her head. “Harry!”

Harry dove for her even as the wind built to a tortured shriek around them. “Kneel!” Harry screamed, his hand slapping the ground at her feet.

Hermione curled up into a crouch, balancing on the balls of her feet. She heard a rushing sound around her, punctuated with loud cracks, as the world went dark.

Looking up, Hermione saw a basket of tree roots forming a dome around her and Harry. Reaching out and grabbing his wrist, Hermione managed to pant out “Harry, what are you doing?”

“Had to keep you safe,” Harry responded, just as out of breath, if not more so. “That prick isn’t going to take the loss of his snake well.”

“Snake? Harry, it screamed. Snakes don’t scream.”

“I’ll explain afterwards. For now, just know that you’ve made it possible for that madman to be killed,” Harry told her, taking a few deep breaths. He suddenly grinned. “Your call if you want people drooling over you after we finish the bastard.”

“Harry, focus.”

“Right.” He placed a hand on the roots surrounding them, only to jerk it back quickly. Several more roots grew up around them. “He’s still going.”

“What do we do?”

“We do nothing. You need to get back to the castle. Riddle knows you’re out here now and he clearly has enough power to attack a broad area, so invisibility isn’t going to help much.”

“What about you, hmm?” Hermione demanded. “I suppose you’re going to insist that you have to stay and fight while I run off somewhere?”

“Well, I am the only other person with fae powers here,” Harry said with a slightly rueful smile.

“Damn it, Harry. I can help.”

“You have. I told you, you made him mortal. If I kill him it should stick this time.”

Mortal? He wasn’t before? No. Don’t get distracted. “I meant that I can fight with you.”

Harry looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Hermione… Riddle’s gone after you before more or less for shits and giggles. Now you’ve recovered from something he intended to be permanent and he does not take that well. On top of that he knows we care for each other and wants to exploit that.”

“But-”

“Hermione, be honest with me. Can you hold off Lord Voldemort? Cause I know I can barely get myself out of a fight with him alive.”

Hermione hesitated for a moment, but ended up giving the honest answer. “You're my teacher. I don’t think I’m quite up to your level yet, so no. I couldn’t hold him off.”

Harry pulled her into a hug. “That’s not a bad thing, Hermione. The only reason I’ve been able to survive him so far is that I’ve gotten stupidly lucky.”

“Hey,” Hermione muttered, nudging Harry with her head as that was the only way she could get him to draw back and look at her. “You’re going to win this.”

“I’m going to do my best.”

“No. You’re going to win this. If you’re going to make me leave you here, you’ll damn well listen to me complain about it later while you teach me to be just as good as you are at this stuff.”

Harry let out a half-hearted laugh. “How could I refuse? I guess I’ll-”

A loud crack resounded through their shelter and several cracks could be seen spreading rapidly through the roots.

“Get down!”

Hermione felt Harry yank her around and dive on top of her, pressing her down into the sickly-sweet decay on the forest floor. A moment later the world exploded around them and a howling arctic wind bit into any exposed bit of flesh. Hermione couldn’t tell what was going with Harry covering her, but before she could push him off his weight lifted.

She felt a hand tugging at her arm. “Go! Run!” Harry yelled in her ear, giving Hermione a slight push to get her moving. Hermione stumbled over a strange fence and managed several steps before the urge to look over her shoulder to make sure that Harry was unhurt became overwhelming.

She saw him standing in the middle of a blizzard, the jagged shards of what had been their shelter surrounding him. She could see several cuts on his body, though none of them appeared to be bleeding particularly badly. Just past Harry she could see a dark shadow moving through the swirling snow and ice. As the shadow came closer Hermione could see red eyes set in a bone-white face piercing the white storm.

She tried to raise her wand, but her arm refused to respond. She tried to step up next to Harry, but her legs were rooted to the frozen ground. Faced with the nightmare that had stolen her memories a year ago, Hermione discovered that her body wanted no part of this confrontation.

“Hermione! GO!” Harry shouted again.

Hermione hated that her body turned out to be perfectly willing to run away. Freezing tears traced down her cheeks as her feet pumped faster than they ever had before. She knew that Harry had wanted to take on his enemy alone, but she couldn’t stop the fear that was gripping her heart with a chill the wind around her couldn’t match. Please, Harry. Live.

:-:-:-:-:

Sure that Hermione was running away, Harry turned his full attention to his enemy. He didn’t like the way Riddle was smirking at him.

“Having her run away again, Harry? Do you really think that you can protect her from her fate as an inferior creature?”

“Dunno, Riddle. I happen to think she’s considerably better to have around than you,” Harry snarked back, trying to buy himself some time to summon vines that could constrict the Dark Lord’s movement.

Unfortunately, the cocky bastard would not stand still, stalking around Harry like a predator. “I am curious, Harry, what shield did you use to stop my attack just now? Even our nation’s aurors could not do as much.”

“One of life’s little mysteries, I guess,” Harry retorted, moving to keep Riddle in view.

“Tsk, tsk, young man,” Riddle tutted gleefully. “You know that won’t do as an answer. Must I draw it from your mind directly?”

“Sure, come on in,” Harry challenged with a smirk, hoping Riddle wouldn’t actually call his bluff.

“My, my… confident aren’t we?” Riddle mocked. Harry ignored it for the time being as he couldn’t feel an accompanying assault on his mental shields. “Still, if you will not tell me, perhaps you’ll show me.”

Harry flung his arms up, calling up a new shelter of roots just as a howling blizzard whipped towards him. The scream of the storm subsided a lot quicker than it had before, though the loud cracks around him told Harry that it had been more than enough to shatter his protection once again.

As the roots crumbled away, Harry got to see his enemy’s face twisted into an angry snarl. “How is this possible?” Riddle hissed out, almost slipping into Parseltongue in his rage. “How did you have enough left to offer the fae that they would give you such power after you had already paid for the little mudblood’s healing?”

Rather than reply, Harry summoned more roots with a clench of his fist, ensnaring the finally stationary Dark Lord.

Rage sparked in Voldemort’s red eyes and an arctic blast swirled around him. “It’s useless, Harry,” the Dark Lord purred, his voice sounding in control once more. “I should have seen it before, but you didn’t have enough left to offer up did you? You can only play around with some Herbology and watch it wither away before the might of winter!”

At Riddle’s final cry the tornado of ice burst outwards. Harry quickly raised a wall of woven roots in front of himself to catch the blast, following up with a series of sharp, spear-like shoots that shot up out of the ground like lances beyond the wall, hoping to catch Riddle off guard.

As the wall in front of him crumbled like every other shelter had, Harry could see that Riddle’s smirk was firmly back in place. The Dark Lord was standing in a clear circle in the middle of what looked like a bamboo thicket. Riddle’s smirk grew more pronounced as he reached out and crushed a frostbitten plant with his hand. “I told you, Harry, it’s useless. You were not willing to go far enough.”

With a wave of Riddle’s hand the rest of the frozen stalks around him shattered into haphazard ruins. “I have told you before that I am the greatest wizard to ever grace Hogwarts’ grounds and now you know why. It is because I can and will go further than lesser, weaker wizards. My will is beyond you, and so my powers grow beyond yours.”

“You know what they say about power, right? That if you have it, you won’t have to tell people?” Harry shot back.

Riddle just cocked a non-existent eyebrow. “That only works if your interlocutors understand what power is, Harry. Why don’t I teach you what that old muggle-lover cannot?”

A moment later Harry felt Voldemort’s mind slam into his own. He began desperately throwing up decoy memories, even as he tried to continue the fight.

“Ahem, pay attention, my student,” Riddle said gleefully. “You, like every other inadequate monkey with a stick that calls itself a wizard, think that being more powerful is a case of having access to more magic. In this interpretation, I am more powerful than you.”

As Riddle talked, the assault on Harry’s mind continued unceasingly. Harry was having trouble keeping up his defences while the Dark Lord pontificated. Don’t pay attention. He’s just trying to distract you.

“Five points to Gryffindor, Mr. Potter,” Riddle said, his smirk widening. “You are on the path to wisdom. You see, it is not my superior magical reserves that make me more powerful than you. What makes me more powerful is my will and my understanding of myself, my obstacles and the world around me. That brings us rather neatly to today’s class exercise. I have the willpower and focus required to talk and plumb your mind for the knowledge I want. You will either find the reserves to withstand me and listen or you will become distracted and I will take what I wish.”

“Go fuck yourself with the broom you rode in on,” Harry growled back.

“That will not do, Mr. Potter. Five points from Gryffindor,” Riddle remonstrated lightly. “You should really see this as a win-win. Once I discover what transpired when you performed your second Dark ritual of the past twelve months I will be able to give you some pointers. If you keep me out, you will matriculate from my class.” The Dark Lord threw his head back and laughed happily at his own joke.

Harry tried to look around the battlefield for anything he could use to break Riddle’s concentration or any ally that might be able to help, but found nothing.

“Yes! Yes, excellent, Harry Potter,” Riddle crowed. “That is the proper instinct. Instinct by itself is not yet enough though. You still lack will.”

Harry doubled down on showing Riddle games of wizard’s chess and meals in the Great Hall as he tried to ignore whatever the madman was on about.

“Completely ignoring a distraction is unwise, Mr. Potter. It might yet become a danger; and it now ends our exercise. Crucio!”

Harry felt Riddle abruptly cut their connection before his memories were torn from his consciousness and all he knew was pain.

When the pain disappeared, Harry became aware of the taste of dirt in his mouth and cold grit pressing into every part of his face, irritating his eyes under their lids.

Before he could blink the sensation away, Harry felt the presence of another mind on his and cursed as he scrambled to rally his shaken mental defences. It was difficult to know what to protect and even more difficult to remember how, but habit caused him to throw up anything he could to keep Riddle from seeing what Harry knew about the prophecy and the horcruxes.

The Dark Lord’s furious burrowing into the depths of Harry’s memory was unrelenting. Far too soon, Harry could see himself running angrily into the forest in his mind’s eye. With a desperate mental heave, Harry threw Riddle out of the memory, only to find himself walking through the Forest instead of running, Hermione by his side looking anxious.

The scene wavered and Harry found himself kneeling before the Oak King, Hermione lying unconscious on the ground next to him.

“The memories of the one next to me have been taken and her mind sealed. I wish to restore her,” Harry heard his own voice say.

“You cannot afford both, Child of Man. For the price you can pay, I can unlock her mind or restore her memories,” came the Oak King’s answer.

Harry tried desperately to pull out of the memory, but was unable to wrest control of it from Riddle.

“Then unlock her mind. Hermione will take care of the rest herself,” Harry’s voice said in his memory.

“Very well. Understand, the price you must pay is that which you value most.”

“Anything!”

“Hmm… That which you value most appears not to be an object. In exchange for freeing her mind, you must pay with your bond to this Child.”

Abruptly, Harry felt Riddle’s vice like hold on the memory disappear. Memories of his friendship with Hermione over the years spilled into his mind and for a split second Harry felt as if the breath had been driven from his lungs.

With more effort than it had ever taken before, Harry managed to open his eyes and focus. Next to him he could hear Riddle’s tortured scream, those red eyes vacant and staring at nothing, somewhere in the sky.

Harry forced his body to move. He tried to summon roots to catch Riddle, but couldn’t focus enough to produce more than a slight wriggle under the soil, as the Cruciatus aftershocks ravaged his body and mind.

Damn it, Potter, do something! Harry screamed at himself in his mind. He managed to force his legs underneath his body and leveraged himself up, shaky as a new-born deer. Harry tried to look for his wand, but wherever it had been thrown by his Cruciatus induced fit remained a mystery.

The screams across from him began to lower in volume and Harry could see that Riddle’s hands were coming up to hold his head.

He’s recovering already?! Now! I have to act now!

In a desperate attempt to gain some control over the situation, Harry lunged for the Dark Lord, whose eyes were scrunched closed in a tight grimace in a clear attempt to focus on ordering his thoughts through the pain. Harry had wanted to pin Riddle’s arms to his sides in order to restrict his ability to throw around blizzards at will, but the teen’s body still wasn’t entirely working properly.

Instead of catching hold of Riddle, Harry lurched into him, knocking the Dark Lord off balance. In what seemed like slow motion, Riddle’s black cloaked form toppled over, his arms flinging out in an attempt to recover his balance.

To Harry’s great surprise, Riddle didn’t hit the ground. Instead a shattered spike of frozen root exploded out of his chest, splattering both their faces with gore.

Both wizards blinked at the sight of a crooked spear jutting forth from the Dark Lord’s breast, their battered minds unable to process the sight.

“H-how-“ Riddle’s face was contorted with pain and confusion. He tried to move and only succeeded in lurching a few inches further down the shaft, causing him to grip it and hold himself in place.

Harry’s attention was drawn from the dying Dark Lord in front of him to the man’s shadow on the ground below his enemy’s nearly horizontal body. It was swirling and roiling in a way that Harry didn’t trust in the slightest.

I will not fall after coming this far he thought, steadying himself as best he could into a dueling stance despite the protesting of his pained body. As he watched, the shadow suddenly exploded upwards like a geyser, pouring out around Riddle’s body, until it resolved itself into an almost humanoid form next to the suffering wizard.

Harry’s first thought was of the Oak King, except that rather than a misty blue-green, this figure seemed to be made of a deep, endless black. It’s eyes were a bright red and instead of the Oak King’s gentle boughs, this figure’s silhouette was punctuated by long, sharp thorns. The Holly King his mind supplied numbly.

“Useless!” the fae screamed out in a voice like a howling winter wind. “All my power and you lose to a sapling!”

“Please…” Riddle gurgled, one hand releasing the shattered spear and reaching for the figure. “Please…”

“You wish more of my power? You have yet to pay the price for what you have squandered, Broken One. I am come to collect.”

The shadow’s hand shot out to grip Riddle’s extended forearm. Harry felt grimly vindicated when Riddle began to scream in dreadful agony. His vindication turned to horror when, in the distance he could here equally agonised screams coming from the battlefield. Through the trees he saw Death Eaters dropping, one by one, screaming just as their master was doing. Most of those affected were gripping their forearms in the same place where the Holly King had a hold of Riddle.

Harry was just wondering whether he shouldn’t do something when the Holly King withdrew his hand. Harry felt, rather than saw, something ethereal follow the fae’s hand and come to rest in its palm. He wasn’t given long to ponder the mystery as those unearthly red eyes focused on him.

“You have cost me, Oaken Warrior,” the being seethed. “That debt will not be allowed to stand!”

“What debt, O Holly King?” another voice boomed out from what felt like within Harry’s skull. Before he could react, Harry’s scar erupted in pain and a familiar blue-green mist began to swirl around him, entirely filling his vision so that the luminescent colour became all that he could see. Other colours began to fill in at the sides of Harry’s vision and he realised that he was looking at a glowing green back.

The Oak King stepped away from Harry to take up position across from his eternal enemy. “The debt you speak of is your own poor choice.”

“The debt lies where I say it does and I will collect!”

“If you can,” the Oak King smirked. “With as much power as you have given that mortal, you will not be my equal for a long time; and I deny your claim on my Champion.”

The Holly King’s eyes glowed and he threw his head back to howl his rage at the skies. Harry immediately noticed that the fae creature’s voice didn’t have anywhere near the power it had had before the Oak King showed up. A closer look revealed that the Holly King’s figure was being torn away like a cloud of smoke in the wind. Within seconds even the echoes of his wrath were gone.

The Oak King turned and fixed his eerie blue eyes on Harry, who gulped and knelt as best he could. “Hail the Oak King.”

“You have done well, my Champion. You have proven yourself worthy of your task as my Avatar.”

“With all due respect, Majesty, it is not a task I ever want to have to fulfil again.”

A deep, melodic, bass laugh met Harry’s words. “Well spoken, my Champion. This world was not meant for our battles, nor was your kind ever meant to carry our power.”

The scent of fresh grass and heather told Harry what was coming before he even felt the touch of warm wood on top of his head. A moment later he felt deflated, less than he had been a moment before. At the same time, the pain and exhaustion he had been able to hold off began to rush back in.

He was vaguely aware of the Oak King speaking above him, even as he toppled over. “You have already received your reward for this victory; indeed, to achieve this victory.” The familiar scent surrounded him yet again. “Your reward you have had, but you have shown that you are worthy to receive my blessing.”

A wave of warmth, like a particularly comfortable sunbeam, washed over Harry, carrying him into oblivion.

:-:-:-:-:

Harry woke up feeling oddly light. When his nose alerted him to the fact that he appeared to be lying in the Hospital Wing, his confusion only increased. If I’m in here, shouldn’t I be feeling… worse? Blinking open his eyes, Harry tried to reach for his glasses only to discover that his arm was trapped.

A quick inspection revealed the problem. There was a head of curls lying awkwardly across his arm that he didn’t need his glasses to recognise. Hermione must have fallen asleep while she was sitting next to my bed. A wave of tenderness swept through his chest and Harry’s free arm came up to brush at Hermione’s hair.

After that first touch, Harry found that his hand would not leave Hermione’s face, but stayed there, cupping her cheek, as he drank in her presence. A thought occurred to him as they lay there. She’s safe. Riddle can’t hurt her anymore.

It was momentous, overwhelming even. I can try to be a normal boyfriend for her without having to worry whether loving her is going to bring a war down on her head.

A soft, mewling, moan drew Harry from his wonder and focused his attention on the way Hermione’s face scrunched up in an involuntary protest against the coming of wakefulness. She let out a little sniff and rubbed her nose back and forth on his sleeve as if to get rid of an itch. Harry felt the way the movement caused his hand to rub along her face where he was cupping it. He also felt the moment Hermione froze as she apparently became aware of that particular sensation.

Her head shot up and her eyes snapped open and locked onto his. Harry could only think that she looked lovely with her hair standing up all over the place from the way she’d slept.

“Harry?”

“Hey,” he smiled, trying to project reassurance.

“Oh, Harry!” Hermione dove forward and grabbed him in a tight hug that Harry was only too happy to return. Before he could properly settle into the hug though, Hermione drew back slightly and pressed her lips to his in a demanding kiss. Harry felt like worry, relief, reassurance and, above all, love whispered back and forth between their lips, mingling with their shared breath.

When Hermione finally drew back from the kiss, Harry noticed that her body had found its way into his bed and that she was straddling his hips. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Potter,” she commanded in a soft voice, her eyes studying his with a small smile.

“I don’t know,” Harry teased, “if this is what I get to wake up to…”

Hermione let out a soft laugh and kissed him again before settling down with her head on his collar bone. They lay in silence for a while, enjoying just being together.

“Harry?”

“Hmm?”

“I really do mean it, you know? I never want to have to think that you might die again. Not for another eighty years at least.” She pressed her face harder into his shoulder as if she were hiding from the very idea of him dying young.

Harry tightened his arms around his girlfriend. “I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m not leaving you.” He luxuriated in the fact that, for the first time in his life, his destiny was his own and that promise was in his power to keep. And I fully intend to keep it.

:-:-:-:-:

Harry and Hermione were given most of a morning to savour their reunion and then a stream of visitors that absolutely had to see Harry began trickling in. It began with Madam Pomfrey who insisted on scanning every inch of him with diagnostic charms. 

By the end of her inspection the healer looked almost offended. “Well, Mr. Potter, I believe I can safely say that I have never seen you this healthy,” she sniffed. “Even your scars have disappeared.”

Harry glanced down at the back of his hand and stilled when he noticed that the words that had been carved in there for more than a year had disappeared. What about- 

Unable to finish the thought and desperate to know if he should, Harry’s hand flew up to his forehead, feeling around for the familiar ridges of the scar that had made him famous. A small hand caught his scrabbling one and pulled it down to replace it with a pair of warm lips.

“Yes, Harry, that one’s gone too,” Hermione smiled at him, caressing his cheek.

If I ever need to cast another Patronus this feeling would be perfect… The thought was odd enough to jolt Harry out of his reverie and answer Hermione’s smile with a grin of his own just before he caught her lips with his.

A throat clearing next to him caused Harry to pull back reluctantly so that he could give Madam Pomfrey an appropriately disgruntled scowl. It froze on his face when he saw that the healer had made her exit sometime while he had been pleasurably distracted. Instead his Headmaster and Head of House were standing next to the bed.

Next to him, Harry heard a slightly high-pitched eep and knew that Hermione had noticed their teachers too. 

“Um… welcome?”

“Why thank you, Harry. Most kind,” Dumbledore said, his voice bubbling with barely concealed mirth. “Would you mind if we took a seat?”

“Of course not, sir,” Harry answered, barely managing to suppress an eyeroll. 

As the teachers conjured a pair of chairs to sit on, Hermione quickly lowered herself onto the one she had woken up on earlier and began compulsively smoothing Harry’s blankets as if she was trying to erase any evidence of what had just happened. Harry thought it was adorable and quickly turned away again so she wouldn’t catch him smiling sappily at her.

Unfortunately that brought him right back into Dumbledore’s knowing twinkle. Trying to avoid that as well, he shifted his focus on to Professor McGonagall. “Are you alright, Professor?” he blurted out in concern. Her hair was snow white and raw marks that looked like they might scar were carved into her cheeks, exactly where the ghostly war paint had been.

“I am as well as can be expected, Mr. Potter,” she responded with a kind smile that left Harry floundering for the proper expression to respond with. “If nothing else, I may hopefully serve as a reminder to the young about the price magic can exact.”

“Professor? What do you mean?” Hermione asked, curiosity and awe vying for control of her voice. 

“I used Dark Magic, Miss Granger. Such arts invariably carry a heavy toll.”

Harry could see the doubt in Hermione’s eyes and knew the question that must be burning inside of her. Apparently McGonagall could read it just as easily as she continued. “It was an extraordinarily perilous situation, Miss Granger. While I would never teach a student such magics, I believed it to be necessary for the protection of Hogwarts and her students.”

Harry remembered the way the old woman had practically seethed with vengeance before casting that spell, but decided not to comment on it. “We definitely wouldn’t have won without it, ma’am.”

“Indeed not,” Dumbledore agreed proudly, causing McGonagall to look bashfull for a second before mastering herself again. “In fact, there was such a plethora of rare and ancient magics worked during that battle that the Department of Mysteries is quite nearly twitching with a desire to ask us hour upon hour of questions.”

Harry dropped his head back into the pillow with a groan. “I’d honestly rather never think of it again.”

Dumbledore chuckled quietly. “Yes, that is wholly understandable, my boy, and quite beyond the realm of the possible. Behind the Unspeakables wait the journalists wishing to tell your story and the politicians wishing to tell the public that you are wholly in support of their leadership..”

“Are you trying to kill my will to live?” Harry demanded, shooting the old man a weak glare. 

“Not at all, my boy. As your teacher, I merely wish to prepare you for what you will face.”

“Bull. You’re enjoying this entirely too much,” Harry groused. 

Dumbledore broke out into a full belly laugh at that, though Hermione and Professor McGonagall didn’t look nearly as amused. “I am caught with my hand in the biscuit tin, it would seem,” Dumbledore managed between guffaws. “If it makes you feel any better, it is unlikely that there will be many lawyers trying to force you to pay damages to their pureblood clients for disabilities sustained in the battle. The obvious downside to which is that, while we might fob off some lawyers, it only adds to the questions the Department of Mysteries has for us, since it is unclear why everyone with a Dark Mark has been left in a state we can only compare to the effects of a Dementor’s Kiss.”

“What?! Why would that make me feel better?!”

“Hmph. For all his misplaced levity, the Headmaster was not wrong about the overarching point, Potter,” Professor McGonagall broke in. “Any grace we have received so far is due to our injuries and the fact that the Ministry has not wholly put itself back together.”

“It may actually please you to know that certain events, the precise nature of which I dare not disclose until Mr. Weasley has properly regaled you with his heroics, have resulted in a vote of no-confidence in Cornelius, the instatement of Madam Bones as Interim Minister and the public announcement of a renewed investigation of Sirius’ guilt,” Dumbledore added, still grinning like a Weasley twin with another firework up his sleeve.

Harry blinked as he tried to digest that tangle of words. Ron must have found Pettigrew! “Maybe talking to the Ministry won’t be as bad as it could have been.”

“Quite so, my boy. Quite so.”

They talked some more with their teachers after that, though not of anything that might matter too much. Eventually both Professors stood up and excused themselves. Before the door could close behind them, four figures slipped in. 

“Ron!” Harry called out, happy to see his best friend. “You lot came!”

“Yeah, well, we figured that you’d finally stopped lazing about when Pomfrey refused to let us in because the Headmaster was busy in here,” Ron said, not sounding quite as flippant as he probably thought he had. He gripped Harry’s shoulder gently. “Good to see you with your eyes open for a change.”

“Good to see you too, mate,” Harry said, briefly gripping Ron’s forearm as understanding passed between them. “Did everything go okay? No one got hurt?”

Three groans met his question. 

“Please, Harry, don’t get him started,” Ginny said in a long-suffering tone of voice. “I don’t know that I could take another rendition of the Legend of Ronald Weasley.”

“He’s told it non-stop to anyone who can’t get away fast enough,” Neville added.

“It has scared off a lot of the Crumple-Horned Snorcacks,” Luna said awkwardly, like she’d rather not get involved.

Harry looked from one to the other before looking back at Ron who was blushing bright scarlet. 

“I wasn’t that bad,” Ron muttered defensively.

“Mate, that’s the first time I’ve heard Luna have a go at anyone. You must have been.”

“It-... it was getting to be a bit much, Ronald. Even the House Elves run away from you now,” Hermione said tentatively.

“Fine! Everyone pile on Ron Weasley again. Not like I fought off Pettigrew, Snape and a dozen Death Eaters or anything!”

“Whoa! That sounds amazing Ron,” Harry said, honestly impressed. “You’ll have to hang back after this lot leave and tell the story properly.”

“Properly means including Flitwick this time,” Ginny warned.

Ron grabbed a pillow off a free bed and chased his sister who had raced off as soon as she had seen him move. Harry watched the two siblings get in a pillow fight, feeling lighter than he had in years. 

A small hand slipped into his own. “They really shouldn’t do that in a hospital,” Hermione said with a rueful grin that told Harry she wouldn’t be the one to break this up. 

“I don’t see why not. It’s making me feel a lot better to see Ginny wallop Ron,” Harry answered cheekily drawing a chuckle from his girlfriend. 

Madam Pomfrey broke up the pillow fight a lot sooner than Harry felt was necessary, but it did bring the two Weasleys back to his bedside (after many promises to the Hogwarts Healer that they wouldn’t cause such a ruckus ever again). He spent a long afternoon just basking in his friends’ presence. 

The group eventually relented and allowed Ron to tell his story though Neville insisted that this was only so that they would be present to correct any exaggerations.

Ron huffed. “You’re just jealous.”

“Well, I’m curious,” Harry interjected before the conversation could get derailed. “What happened?”

“Right,” Ron began, perking up at having an attentive audience, “after you gave me the map, I took up position in the Great Hall near where Flitwick was running things. I kept cycling through the passages, trying to keep an eye out and all. In the end, they didn’t appear anywhere near a secret passage, but showed up on the seventh floor out of nowhere! I heard a rumour that that stinking ferret did something to let them in. He turned out to be a Death Eater! Had the mark and everything!”

Ron sounded nearly gleeful, but Harry could only feel his stomach sinking. “How could we have missed that Malfoy was up to something like that?” I knew the Slytherins were up to something, but I ignored it. Should I have done something different?

“Seriously?” Ron demanded. “You’ve been running around all year doing Merlin-knows-what with Dumbledore, teaching Hermione, taking classes, practicing quidditch, doing some stupidly mental amount of training on top of that… when exactly were you going to pay attention to Malfoy in all of that?!”

“Ron’s right,” Ginny said, in solid agreement with her sibling for a change. “And just in case you’re thinking of running off again: exams have been canceled, the last matches of the Quidditch Cup have been canceled and they’re not going to award the House Cup this year. There is nothing you have to go and do, so bloody well rest and recover for once.”

“Exactly!” Neville exclaimed.

“You really should, Harry,” Luna added.

Harry blinked at his friends and then looked at his girlfriend. “I may not have known you for as long, Harry, but long enough to know that I may need to sit on you to keep you in that bed. See to it that it doesn’t come to that.”

“We really need to work on your threats,” Harry muttered through the heat in his cheeks as he tried to ignore the grins from his roommates and Ginny’s scowl. “You were saying, Ron?”

“Huh? Oh, right! Right. So, I see them up on the seventh floor. I walk over to Flitwick and I tell him ‘you need to come with me. Now!”

“Actually he stammered a lot more than that,” Neville interrupted. “To be fair: fierce as Flitwick was looking, anyone would have.”

“Oi! I’m telling the story!” Ron snapped. “Anyway, I led us, that is: Flitwick, Sinistra, Vector, Nev, Luna and Ginny, up to the third floor where we set up an ambush for them. They came creeping down the corridor only a few minutes after we set up. All of ‘em were wearing their masks and the black robes, so we knew they weren’t there to hand out Chocolate Frogs and Quidditch collectibles. When I gave the signal we launched our attack! We got a few of them, but not enough! It turned into a series of duels. Flitwick kept the Greaseball busy, Vector and Sinistra were trying to deal with this big brute that never even used his wand, Nev was beating the snot out of Malfoy and the girls were doing really well against this dumpy little witch that was firing off some real nasty spells.”

Ron fell silent and Harry knew what his mate was waiting for. “What about you?”

“Well, I’d seen this one little one in the front change into a rat as soon as he saw a glimmer of a spell. I wasn’t about to let that snivelling coward get away from me after what he did to Sirius and your parents and taking advantage of my family all those years. I couldn’t figure out how to change him back so I tried to make him do it himself. I levitated him off the ground so he couldn’t scurry off down any convenient cracks. He wriggled around for a bit, but figured out soon enough that he wasn’t going to get away from me like that.”

Harry risked a quick glance at the others and saw that they were all looking a little glassy-eyed and thoroughly bored.

“Anyway, Scabbers changed back into Pettigrew and he tried to get his wand out, but I was too quick for him! I dropped him right on his face! It made this really loud crunching sound and I think it broke his nose. Then I stunned him, disarmed him and tied him up! Once I’d taken care of him I went to help Flitwick kick Snape’s arse. I only managed to fire off an Impediment Jinx when all of them toppled over at once and started screaming their heads off.”

“Flitwick asked me to take the others and make sure there were no more intruders while the teachers took care of locking them up somewhere. I can’t wait to see Malfoy’s trial!” That last bit was added with sheer relish.

Harry shook his head with fond indulgence, until he remembered something Dumbledore had said earlier. Everyone with a Dark Mark is a soulless husk. That means there is no more Malfoy to face a trial.

The thought made Harry want to curl up into a ball. He might have hated the little, blonde prick, but somehow it still came as a blow that any of his classmates had died in this war, or worse.

Above him he heard Hermione’s voice say: “I think we’ve tired him out too much. We should let him rest.”

Harry numbly accepted the goodbyes from his friends and a kiss from Hermione before giving into that urge to make himself as small as possible under the covers. I thought we’d won. I thought I’d feel good if I managed to win, but- I just don’t…

He fell asleep with his thoughts still churning like a storm-tossed sea.

:-:-:-:-:

Over the next few days, Harry found himself attending interview after interview after funeral. Everywhere he went, people looked at him wide-eyed. It was like they were unsure whether they should approach him or keep their distance and it wore on him more than he had expected.

The only two people who he felt he could talk to were Hermione and Dumbledore, or Albus as the old man had once again insisted Harry call him. Talking to Hermione somehow managed to soothe any and all anxiety he had for a time at least and Albus had decades of experience with much of what Harry was going through. Harry sometimes thought that he was receiving yet another unofficial class from the old man. Defence Against Nosy Busybodies felt like a good name if he’d ever have to give it one.

The school year was brought to an early close after the battle. Between parents desperate to see their children, students who were thoroughly overexcited and damage to the castle, Albus and the Board of Governors decided that keeping the students at the castle would not serve any real purpose.

Harry was a little disappointed to hear that he would not be able to stay at Hogwarts for another summer and reluctantly traveled to Grimmauld Place.

The move into his new house was nowhere near as bad as he had feared. Between them, Mrs. Weasley and Kreacher had managed to thoroughly clean the place. Kreacher had even moved the portrait of Walburga Balck up to the attic so that she wouldn’t bother his new Master.

If the previous summer had been one of uncommon freedom for Harry and Hedwig, this one shot past that in very short order. With the threat of Riddle finally gone, Harry was free to not only spend his summer as he pleased, but he was able to visit both Ron and Hermione.

He hoped that Hermione was right and that he had made a good first impression on her parents. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they didn’t quite trust anything Hermione brought home from the magical world and it reminded him uncomfortably of the Dursleys’ need to be normal, thank you very much.

Above all, Harry couldn’t help feeling lost. Now that fate was no longer hanging over his head, he realised that he had never managed to think of a life beyond Hogwarts. When he had confided in Hermione about the gaping chasm that seemed to have opened up in his future, she had come through with an absolute mountain of pamphlets and books on possible careers. He hadn’t managed to choose one yet, but looking through them with Hermione made him feel better about the whole thing. It also gave him a thrill whenever one of them would tentatively mention any plans for the future that included the other.

All of it somehow added up to a summer that flew past faster than any other before it had, but by the end of it he felt a lot steadier than he ever had before. For once there was nothing that seemed poised to knock him off his feet (except for maybe Hermione when she’d seen the badges he’d received with his Hogwarts letter, but he didn’t think that counted).

Who knows? Maybe I’ll have a normal life one of these days. It might not even be the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me, Harry thought as he walked out of the front door of Grimmauld Place on the First of September, to meet his friends at the station. I’ll just take it one day at a time.

:-:-:-:-:

Six months later

“Come in!”

Harry pushed the door open and stepped inside. “You wanted to see me, Headmaster?”

“I thought we had agreed that you could call me ‘Albus’?” the elder wizard asked with a smile as the younger lowered himself into a chair with a shrug.

“Your message made it sound like you needed the Head Boy.” Harry had been doing his best ever since the start of the school year to act respectfully when he was fulfilling the duties Dumbledore and McGonagall had given him. Not that I don’t respect him otherwise, but how am I supposed to convince other students to be respectful when I’m using professors’ first names? Better to keep the whole thing separated. “I take it you’ve called me in here for something else?”

“Hmm, there is some overlap now that I think about,” Albus mused with that twinkle in his eye. That it disappeared and the Headmaster got serious, warned Harry that he wasn’t just being taken for a ride. “The Department of Mysteries believe that they have uncovered why all the Death Eaters lost their souls on the day you defeated Tom.”

“Oh?” Harry could feel all his senses sharpening. This question had haunted him for the past half-year. He had to know if this was something he’d caused because he hadn’t been able to properly use the fae powers he’d borrowed from the Oak King.

“To ‘cut to the chase’ as I heard a student say, this is not something you could have prevented, my boy. The fault lies with the Dark Marks.”

“Thank the stars!” Harry breathed out, sinking against the backrest in relief. He forced himself to cut his relief short and focus on the conversation at hand; time enough to collapse later. “What happened?”

“The Unspeakables believe that they have uncovered exactly what the Dark Mark was when I… provided some information on the readings they were getting.”

“That doesn’t sound good, Albus.”

“I suppose it isn’t,” the old man agreed tiredly. “You are, I believe, familiar with the Protean Charm?”

“The DA provided a rather convincing demonstration back in fifth year.”

“Precisely. Well, the Dark Mark was a perversion of that charm; one that I believe only Tom could have conceived of: he combined it with the Horcrux ritual.”

“Fuck!” Harry hissed out. “Will we never be rid of those damn things?”

“They weren’t quite horcruxes, Harry. I would personally speculate that Tom wanted immortality to be his and would have never shared it with those he considered underlings. No, as far as we can ascertain, Death Eater initiates would perform an altered version of the horcrux ritual and, after tearing their soul with the murder of an innocent, place that part of their soul in their Dark Marks. Since the Mark was, in essence, a part of the witch or wizard, they never gained immortality; well, not without their master upholding the Mark’s integrity at any rate.”

“That’s… disgusting,” Harry said with feeling. Then something else occurred to him. “From what you taught me about these things that means that there should have been a way for Death Eaters to quit: sincere and honest remorse.”

Albus looked pained for a moment. “Yes, and I believe that you have found yet another of my mistakes. I should never have trusted Snape. All I can say in my own defence is that his remorse was well-feigned.”

“I told you to stop apologizing for that sort of thing, Albus,” Harry said, waving the apology off. It wasn’t really meant for him anyway. “I think I can guess the rest of what happened. From what I remember of our coins, the Protean Charm has a Master and however many Clients. I don’t think I’d be particularly going out on a limb here and saying that Riddle’s own Mark was the Master?”

“Precisely,” Dumbledore agreed, gathering himself. “The Ministry now suspects that, when the Holly King took Tom’s soul as payment in lieu of the creation of an eternal winter, that link will have pulled the rest of them with him.”

Harry was quiet for a moment as he tried to work his way through this revelation. “I guess there really was nothing I could do to stop this then…”

“I’m afraid not, my boy,” Albus commiserated gently. “Tom could have likely used the Dark Mark to end any Death Eater’s life, painfully, regardless of anything we might have tried.” The old man paused for a minute and tugged at his beard. “There is a reason I’m telling you this right before you head out to Hogsmeade with our lovely Ms. Granger though.”

“Albus?”

“This research has been conducted in strictest secrecy, so-“

“The town’s going to be crawling with reporters, isn’t it?” Harry groaned out in dismay.

“Aberforth informs me that it already is,” Dumbledore nodded. “They will not have been told about what exactly the Dark Magic involved was, I was rather insistent that it be left out of the Minister’s briefing and Croaker agreed with me, but they will know something and, knowing little, will want to know more-“

“They’ll swarm me as soon as I set foot in the town!”

“They have been warned not to bother you while you are carrying out your duties, and I believe that most will respect the influence you and I wield sufficiently that they will heed that warning. I am also convinced that the members of our estimable fourth estate will be looking for a moment when you might be considered to not be carrying out those duties; a ready argument for which will be presented to them if your aptitude for distracting Ms. Granger from her tasks asserts itself.”

Harry’s cheeks began to burn and he got the idea that the Headmaster was quietly enjoying the discomfort his student was in. I think that may also have been the real warning here: don’t get Hermione caught up in a media storm this close to her N.E.W.T.s… the castle might not survive.

“I think I understand, Albus. Was there anything else?”

“No, no. In fact, I think it’s time you headed downstairs to enjoy more distracting company for breakfast.”

“You have a nasty mind, old man.”

Dumbledore just chortled as he led the way out of his office and towards the Great Hall. As they walked, they discussed Harry’s upcoming NEWT exams, a suitably formal subject, to keep up the veneer of a student-teacher relationship they had honestly outgrown. Various groups of students either ducked out of the way or stood and stared as the two wizards passed. It could just have been a result of the Headmaster and Head Boy being authority figures and no student having a truly clean conscience.

Unfortunately, Harry was mostly sure that it would have something to do with the lyrical way the press had been writing about him for the past six months. It had been very difficult to miss the parallels that the Prophet had been drawing between him and Dumbledore ever since Voldemort had died; especially since Hermione delighted in bringing it up whenever she felt he was getting too caught up in his memories of the war.

Thinking of Hermione, both as the friend she had been and the lover she now was, put a small smile on Harry’s face. I had no idea what I was getting into when I left that ramshackle hut with Hagrid. The wizarding world might have its problems, but what society doesn’t? Even if I’d completely understood all the pain and problems I’d be facing, I think I would have followed Hagrid out that door for the rest of what I’ve found here.

A throat clearing brought Harry back to the present to find Dumbledore looking at him. “You seem quite lost in thought, Harry.”

“Just thinking about the ways my life has changed since Hagrid finally managed to get that letter to me.”

“Hmm, and are you content with its progress?”

The two wizards had walked into the Great Hall and Harry’s eyes zeroed in on a head of bushy hair, sitting at Gryffindor table. When she turned to find him looking, Hermione beamed out a smile that settled the matter beyond a doubt for Harry. “Yeah, I think I am.”

“Go to her, Harry. To be able to spend time with our loved ones is the reward of peace.”

Harry didn’t answer, already heading over to where she was sitting. Sliding onto the bench next to her, he felt her bump his shoulder with hers and kiss his cheek. “Talking about the weighty matters that fill the lives of legendary wizards again?” Hermione asked teasingly.

Harry spared a look at the Head Table where Dumbledore was taking his place next to McGonagall, “I’ll tell you later,” he murmured with a wink. “Right now, I have more important things to do.”

“Oh, really?” Hermione asked with an eyebrow raised in challenge.

“Yeah.” He captured her lips in a chaste kiss. “Good morning.”

Hermione’s happy smile seemed even brighter to him and she settled her weight comfortably against his side. Yeah, content might be underselling how I feel right now he thought happily as he started in on his breakfast one-handed, leaving future problems for the future.

The End