Beyond the Gathering Storm

by AlbusSeverusGryffindor

Summary: 19 year old Harry Potter thought his battles were over when he defeated Voldemort two years ago. But he was wrong, deadly wrong.

Author's Note: This story is set after the final chapter but before the epilogue of Deathly Hallows. I do not own Harry Potter. Wish I did. Enjoy.

Prologue: Godric's Hollow Again

" The world seems not the same

Though I know nothing has changed

It's all my state of mind

I can't leave it all behind

I have to stand up to be stronger"

PALE- Within Temptation

The sky above him was a deep coralian blue with a scattering of white clouds set high in it and the wind that caressed his hair held the warmth and promise of summer. The birds around the cemetery gates were making a joyful noise as if celebrating the Light's recent great victory over the Dark. Even the entire world felt as if a long spell of darkness had finally ended and everything around the young man seemed bright and new because of that. The slanting sun rained down on the pale youth, bathing him in it's warm rays of light, picking out the lighting shaped scar on the man's forhead whenever the dancing wind lifted his fringe from it.

Seventeen year old Harry Potter noticed none of these things, all of his thought and sight concentrated upon the white marble grave marker before him. There was a wreath of red Christmas roses at the stone's foot that looked as fresh as it had on that Christmas eve night when he and Hermione had visited this grave and she had conjured it in response to his silent wish to have something to leave them. That had been in a time of extreme danger and darkness for him and everyone around him but now everything was at peace. Everything it seemed except the heart of the one who had brought about that peace. The heart of Harry Potter was in turmoil and full of guilt at the lives that had been so brutally cut short because of his own inaction. If only he had given himself up when Voldemort had first demanded it of him then maybe all those deaths could have been avoided. If only he had been able to locate and destroy all the Horcruxes faster then maybe the final battle would have been elsewhere and all those student wouldn't have been caught up in it.

The wind continued to play with his messy black hair and tugged on the dark robes and cloak that he wore, though he noticed it not at all. His pale face was pensive and his bright green eyes were awash in tears that fell from his eyes and blurred his vision as he stared at the place where his parents were laying at rest. He wished, as he had done all those months ago, that he was laying in the grave with them totally unaware that a brutal war had been fought. Instead he continued to live, to suffer because of who he was. Even after all of the times he'd been nearly killed in his short life and even after he'd allowed himself to be killed by his foe he still, against all odds, lived. He looked down at his parent's names on the stone again, tracing each letter of their names with a trembling finger. His eyes lingered on the date of their deaths and his eyes misted over again as pain, sorrow and loneliness rose in his heart. Maybe he shouldn't have returned here. His grief over everything that had happened was still to raw but he'd felt drawn here today and he felt the need to talk to them despite the fact that they would not hear him again.

"I finished what you started that night sixteen years ago. Voldemort is truly gone now." His voice was barely above a whisper and full of a mixture of emotions and longing. " He will never again bring harm to those I love or anyone else."

A mere two weeks previous Harry had finally confronted the now mortal Voldemort under the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall at Hogwarts and it was there, using the Expelliamus spell as he had done in the graveyard three years previous, that he had defeated the most feared Dark Lord in a century. With only that simple and unorthodox spell the threat that Harry and millions of others both magical and muggle had lived under was gone and Harry's life was for the first time free of his almost constant tormentor. It was a freedom that he had despaired ever having in his life and one that he was lucky to be alive to enjoy. And yet he'd been unable to enjoy the newly created peace at all. His heart was to full of pain and sorrow to allow for any joy or relief to be present within it.

The last few weeks had been rough. With all the funerals, speeches, interviews and everyone wanting to see, touch or talk to him, Harry barely had a moment to himself. What he really wanted was to be left alone and no one seemed to understand that apart from his close friends who could see the strain he was under. He needed his own time to grieve over lost friends and to try to come to terms with everything that had happened in the last year. Finally, after a particularly trying funeral wherein several of the mourners had thrown themselves at him demanding to know why he still lived while their child was dead, he had slipped on his Invisibility Cloak, fled the Burrow's protective embrace and had come here to try to calm himself. At least here he could be alone and no one would think to bother him since it was his parents final resting place.

Harry closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the breeze drying the tears that were still running down his face. Images flashed across his eyelids, bright and clear as photographs. The faces of those who died, the smell and sights of that final and terrible battle, the fear that he'd felt when he made that seemingly long walk to what he thought was his own destined death. Words of the speech he had given at a ceremony at Hogwarts echoed in his head: " I...we survived this time of darkness because of the sacrifices made by those who gave their lives to protect those around them. Their lives continue to burn in our hearts because they were willing to give their lives to a cause that they and we believed in. We must never forget them nor the sacrifices that were made to restore the peace. Let what we build here stand as a testament to their bravery and honor."

He opened his eyes and looked around him, not really seeing anything. The warmth and beauty of the day did nothing to relieve the aching numbness of his heart, a cold numbness that had begun when Dobby had been slain in his rescue of Harry and the others from Malfoy Manor and had continued to spread as others around him had fallen. All those lives sacrificed because of him, because he was the one in need of protection, because he was the 'Chosen One' whose life was far more important than any of theirs, because he and he alone was the one destined to vanquish Voldemort. All their deaths were his fault. If he had only surrendered himself sooner then...No!
He had to stop blaming himself for everything. This was war and in war people died. None of it was his fault. The blame lay with Voldemort and Voldemort alone. He had not, after all, been the one who had pointed his wand at them with the intent to kill. He had not forced them to die for him like they were so much cannon fodder. They had all done so willingly and of their own volition, just as he had done in the forest that night. But still they had died for him and he could never forgive himself for that. Never.

He shook his head to clear these thoughts from his mind before they could torment him farther. Instead, he pulled out an official looking envelope with the seal of the Minister for Magic on it. He stared down at the address on it his face blank and his eyes unreadable. The information contained within it felt like a great weight on his heart. Kingsley Shaklebolt had wasted no time in informing Harry of his desire that the young war hero join the reshuffled Auror Department sans training and Harry had no idea how he felt about it.

On the one hand it had always been his dream to join the Aurors despite the fact that it was a Death Eater disguised as 'Mad-Eye' Moody that had first pointed him toward that career. It was all he had ever wanted to be, the one job he'd actually felt reasonably sure he could do well. But that was before the Second War. He wondered now if he would be able to handle the stress of it after all that had happened in the last year. Would he be able to deal with more fighting? Would he be able to handle more deaths around him? Was it perhaps better for him to find a nice, quiet career maybe teaching Defense at Hogwarts or working at Weasley Wizard Wheezes? Something quiet with minimal dangers that would keep his memories of the war and all he'd lost in check.

He knelt before his parent's grave, irresolute, his tired, red rimmed eyes flicking from the address on the letter to the names on the gravestone and back again. Finally, with an air of resolution, he made his choice. He was a warrior, a hero, after all and he'd been one for far too long to cast that role aside now. His 'people saving thing' was to ingrained in him now to leave it all behind. He smiled for the first time in ages and gave a nod to the grave before turning on the spot and vanishing to face his choice: a choice that would take him into the unknown and into more darkness and danger than ever Voldemort had devised.