This story was written for the Fifth Round of the Seventh Season of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. I'm writing as the Seeker for the Tutshill Tornados.
My task this round is as follows:
SEEKER: (7-Polytype Dimension) Incorporate the theme of 7 within your story (you can take this in any way you like — seven objects of importance, the meaning behind the number, etc)
Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the world J.K. Rowling has created. It's all hers, from Diagon Alley to Hogwarts to all the people living there.
Thanks to my team for betaing!
Seven Years
Word Count: 1086
Ignores Cursed Child
At the age of seven, Harry Potter was a lowly Muggle orphan living in the cupboard under the stairs of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's home in Little Whinging, Surrey. He amounted to nothing and was, as he was told on a daily basis by his relatives, a waste of space.
Each and every day was a fight to be acknowledged by his only remaining family, a fight for food scraps left by his cousin Dudley, and a fight to prove that he did, in fact, amount to something.
By the age of seventeen, Harry Potter stood before death and returned to defeat the darkest wizard the world had ever seen. From the moment he discovered he was a wizard, his fate was intricately woven and essentially sealed.
He spent nearly seven years fighting for his life from the likes of his peers, Death Eaters, and the Dark Lord Voldemort himself. His days were filled with fighting to always be one step ahead of a man who was literally a part of him. In the fight of his life, he stood victorious.
By the age of twenty seven, Harry Potter's career as an Auror was in full-swing. He was at the top of his game, but the 'unwitting' Chosen One was simply tired of fighting.
Harry sat down in the Headmistress' office. McGonagall, his once Head of House sat in the ornate chair that was once filled by none other than Albus Dumbledore.
The office remained mostly the same as it did when it belonged to the late wizard but the organized clutter and sense of wistfulness had gone with him. McGonagall keep everything sparse, only have what she deemed the essentials out in the open. No little knick-knacks save a golden snitch seated comfortably on a bronze stand. The office still felt warm and inviting, although there was no space for bollocks.
It was very on brand for his former Head of House.
"You're still at the Auror's Office?" Headmistress McGonagall asked, though Harry was sure she already knew the answer. She charmed the tea set to pour itself for him and he graciously accepted. "And how is that going?" The way she asked it made him think she already knew what he was going to say but he played along anyway.
"It's going as well as it can be," he admitted. "Crime is down, morale is up, we have captured and detained all known Death Eaters and affiliates. Loose ends have been tied in that regard," he said. That being the wizarding war he spearheaded his entire adolescent life.
"But it could be better?" She raised an eyebrow at him and he knew she could read him like a book, she always could.
"Of course it could be better." Harry frowned. But how? He was solving case after case, he was always given first dibs on new material at the Ministry, he was in the closest, most discreet and secretive circles. How could it be any better than that? He was only twenty-seven years old and he was still at the top of his game.
"The grass is always greener on the other side," McGonagall eluded, using one of the Muggle phrases that had infiltrated the wizarding community since the end of the Second Great Wizarding War and the movement to eradicate prejudice towards Muggles and Muggle-Borns.
"But even then the lawn is still fed," Harry said, his face downcast. "I just feel like-" he paused, collecting his thoughts. "Even then I feel as though I'm just not getting what I wanted out of it." He had been the hero his whole life. The Chosen One. Harry spent his entire childhood into early adulthood knowing that he would eventually face his death at the hands of the wizard who killed his parents and countless others in the quest for power and immortality. Saving people was all Harry knew, so being an Auror was the obvious choice. But now it didn't feel so obvious.
"You must know what you want," Mistress McGonagall said. "Then you can make plans to pursue it."
"You make it sound so easy," Harry said.
McGonagall smiled. "That is because it is quite simple, Mister Potter."
Harry furrowed his brow. McGonagall always had a way of knowing things before anyone else. A skill that only Albus Dumbledore himself possessed more in spades.
"I want to make a difference," Harry admitted. "I've done that." He almost laughed. The only reaction other than mourning that can come as a result of witnessing and subsequently fighting against the mass murder and genocide of a group of people. "But it still doesn't feel as though it is enough. Does that make sense?" Harry asked. "I still feel as though I haven't done enough. I feel as though there is still more to do. I have a whole life to live, I want to spend it doing more."
McGonagall grinned as she sat back in her chair. "I understand exactly what you are telling me," she said. She gazed across the room, making eye contact with certain portraits pointedly before continuing.
"You aren't the first to come to me regarding this position, Harry." The twinkle in McGonagall's eye was so similar to the one that always seemed to spark in Dumbledore's that he was almost taken aback.
"I don't believe I know what you're talking about, Professor." Harry narrowed his eyes.
She smiled, giving herself away. "You didn't come to talk to me only about your life, Mister Potter. I have suspected you would come here to ask me for this position for some time now. I suspected it would be sooner but you always were sudden." Her eyes were warm when they met him and he realized he understood what she was talking about.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts position. A coveted and cursed position, unable to be held for more than a year by any professor since before Harry himself was a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"If there is anytime to make a big change in your life, it is during your 27th year. Those are lucky times. You wouldn't want to waste it," McGonagall continued while standing and showing him to the door.
Harry Potter had spent his entire life fighting, from before he realized he was a wizard and for every moment after. He was a natural born fighter, but that didn't mean he had to fight forever. He had twenty-seven years of knowledge to give.