A/N: Written as a Drabble for the Houses Competition Year 4, Round 6 with the theme, Unexpected Life.
House: Slytherin
Year: 7
Category: Drabble
Prompt: [Object] School Desk
Words: 517 (Before A/N)
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"James Charlus Potter, Sirius Orion Black III, Remus John Lupin and Peter Pettigrew class of '78" he said out loud as he traced the names he knew so well.
"Harry, my boy, what are you doing here?" he heard someone asked from the doorway.
He was in the Transfiguration Classroom.
He was the one tasked to clean the place up.
After the Battle of Hogwarts, he and his friends, Hermione and Ron, promised that they would help rebuild the castle.
Now, after more than three months of rebuilding and rehabilitation, Hogwarts would be open for the incoming school year tomorrow, September 1st.
It still feels just like yesterday for him when everything happened – but he promised.
He promised.
'It's the least I could do,' he thought before he gathered what remains of his Gryffindor courage and turned to face his old Head of House and now Headmistress of Hogwarts, Minerva McGonnagall.
"Just looking around, Professor," he heard himself say, with a deadpan voice because, 'Well, it's more than what he could do, to be honest,' he reasoned with himself as he watched his old professor walk towards her old post, behind the professor's desk and sat before gesturing him to do the same.
He naturally picked his old seat, which, he recently found out, is the same desk he found his father's and the other marauders' names etched at.
Three tables from the front, on the right side, closer to the door.
Hermione used to sit on his right and Ron on his left.
'I never knew he sat here too,' he thought, with a pang of longing in his chest.
His musings were cut off, however, when he heard his old professor clear her throat.
"If there's one thing I know for sure, and I know a lot, is that Messrs. Potter, Black, Lupin and even Pettigrew would have been so proud of you," he heard the older man said, and then he was taken back to that time again in the Forbidden Forest, when he saw his parents, Remus and Sirius telling him that they'd stay with him until the very end, and the 'almost' unmistakable sigh of relief he heard when he saw Peter Pettigrew strangle himself to death – like even he was happy, that at least he did something for him.
He turned away from his professor as he tried to control his breath – his eyes landed on those names again, his hands tracing the name Potter over and over, before finally turning towards the elderly woman again and giving her one of his truest smiles.
Tired, but more true than what he's shown to anyone in a long while.
It took him no less than a heartbeat after that to give her a reason to smile herself as he said, "Thank you, Professor," and stood up, nodded at the woman, and strode towards the door, smiling to himself as he found another thing that must be done.
He needs Hermione and Ron again, one last time, for Hogwarts, to write their names on that old school desk.
Closer to them.
Closer still.
Always.