After tying up the last few ends in the Headmaster's office Harry made his way not to the Great Hall, but to the Hospital Wing. The white walls, white sheets, and sterile white floors made Harry smile ruefully, it had been more than a year since he had last seen the too-familiar room. Too-familiar because Harry had been in the Hospital Wing at least once every school year, but more often it was two, three, or even four times in a year that he was there.
Sure every trip the Hospital Wing hadn't been for him, there had been trips for all of his friends as well. Second year Ron and Harry had made a number of trips to visit Hermione when she was petrified, of course he had also been there after getting his bones vanished, and for a quick check-up after the incident in the Chamber of Secrets.
But he had somehow missed being stuck in the perfectly immaculate and sterile Wing during the year that he had been on the run with his two best friends. In fact he had missed it as much as he had missed Quidditch, and the Gryffindor Common Room. But as Harry looked around he noticed one thing had changed since he had last seen the room.
It wasn't the injured who had fought in the battle only yesterday, and it wasn't the shattered windows on one wall, no what Harry noticed was that above one of the beds, there was a plaque. There was no one in the bed, even though it was halfway down the wing, and all the other beds on the Wing had been filled with patients who were suffering through Madame Pomfrey's care.
The bed was just as sterile, and just as white as all the others. The floor under it, the wall behind it, and the ceiling above it were just as pristinely white. But the plaque above the headboard of the bed was gold on a dark wood of some kind. Harry read it and smiled widely.
It read:
Reserved for Harry Potter
As Harry was looking at it Madame Pomfrey came up behind Harry.
"That's the bed you occupied every time you got into trouble and got yourself injured. I put the plaque up last year, because I sort of expected you to be carried in here and there were enough students injured last year that some almost took your bed," Madame Pomfrey explained calmly. Harry just smiled.
"It's nice to be remembered for something completely un-amazing," Harry commented.
"No, it is amazing, you set the record for most times setting foot into the Hospital Wing as a student," Madame Pomfrey contradicted.
"Well, maybe. But it isn't something like surviving a killing curse or rebounding another one of Voldemort, and killing him. Those get written in history books, and I don't want that fame. The fame of being injured and visting injured friends the most times in the history of the school, that I can live with," Harry told the aging Medi-Witch.
"Mr. Harry Potter, I think this bed should stay reserved for you, what do you think?" Pomfrey asked without responding to Harry's statement against fame.
"I think that would be nice. Maybe someday Ron and Hermione's kids, or maybe even my own will get to see it, and know that I'm remembered for more than just amazing feats even I wonder how I pulled off," Harry told her getting a little sentimental.
"You'll always have a bed reserved here, just remember that," Pomfrey told him gently and Harry nodded.
Harry left a moment later having seen the Hospital Wing as he had remembered it, or maybe a little better. Harry turned, left, and never saw Madame Pomfrey again. By the time Harry had returned to the school Madame Pomfrey had retired and been replaced by Penelope Clearwater, Percy's one-time girlfriend. Penelope was a good Medi-Witch and perfectly capable, but Harry always missed Madame Poppy Pomfrey.