Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Harry Potter, May 3, 1998

It was the morning after the battle. For the first time in his life, Harry Potter was free from the threat of Voldemort. That wasn't to say that there weren't a horde of Death Eaters that wanted his head on a silver platter (perhaps engraved with green snakes, just for irony) but Tom Riddle himself was no longer determined to kill him.

Because Tom Riddle was dead. So why did Harry feel more incarcerated than ever? Shouldn't he feel some sort of liberation, some sort of giddy relief at the fact that he no longer had to worry about killing Voldemort? The war was over, and for that Harry was unmistakably grateful, but the deaths of those around him were like bindings. He was imprisoned in his grief – his godson, Teddy Lupin, was now an orphan because the last Marauder, the last connection Harry had to his father, and the Auror Nymphadora Tonks were dead. George was now unfathomably alone. Colin and Dennis Creevey had died a death more noble and heroic than most adults could ever hope to achieve, as befitted true Gryffindors.

None of it should have happened. Keeping his head down, Harry backed out of the room without looking to see where he was going. He needed to escape it all – the sobs of those finding the bodies of their loved ones, the moans of pain from the wounded, the frantic shouts of people trying to locate missing friends. . .

His feet were carrying him in a random direction without conscious thought on his part, having walked these corridors countless times in the last seven years. Those seven years had changed so much for him. Harry walked past a crooked painting that covered a passageway they had often used as a shortcut to Charms. Harry remembered when he, Ron, and Hermione discovered it –

"Ron, we're going to be late for Charms and it's only the first week!" Hermione said in annoyance.

"Well, maybe if your bloody cat hadn't scared Scabbers we'd be on time!" Ron retorted angrily.

"Don't be stupid –" Hermione threw her hands up, hitting a painting with one hand and knocking the fat textbook Harry had been trying to stuff in his bag out of his hands with the other. "Oh, sorry, Harry . . . where'd it go?"

She was looking around in confusion; the book seemed to have disappeared. "Well now look what you've done!" said Ron. "Really, it's your fault if we're late, so don't –"

"My fault!" Hermione interrupted.

"Shut up, both of you," Harry said loudly, looking closely at the painting. "Look, it's been knocked askew." He pointed at the painting, which was now almost horizontal.

Ron looked at it dubiously. "A secret passageway?" he asked. "Do you think it's another fake one with a dead end, or do you think it actually leads somewhere useful?"

"Either way, we're already going to be late," Harry pointed out. "So it doesn't really matter if we try it out or not, does it?"

Hermione reached through the hole and retrieved Harry's book. "Well, come on, then," she said impatiently.

Ron was now staring at the old man in the painting curiously. "Harry, I think he's mute. He's been mouthing horrible curses at me for the past minute!" He looked delighted. "He's teaching me new vocabulary. I've finally got more insults to cleverly hide in my potions essays!"

Harry grinned and crawled into the hole. "Saying 'And the dried lacewing must be measure very carefully, as it tends to get caught in greasy things, such as long unwashed hair' isn't cleverly hiding anything, Ron."

Hermione, who was still furious from the previous Potions lesson, which had involved forty points docked from Gryffindor by the end of the lesson because her hair was "distracting Mr. Malfoy and therefore the reason his potion exploded all over Lavender," snorted and said, "Who knows? Maybe it'll improve Ron's potions grade if it looks like a Slytherin wrote it. After all, Goyle said in class the other day that he knew an excellent homemade shampoo solution for Snape to try. Apparently it used jasmine – kill two birds with one stone; Snape's hair and the horrible smell."

"I don't think Goyle can write," Harry said truthfully, remembering the Polyjuice incident the previous year and Malfoy saying I didn't know you could read in surprise.

They reached a door, and Ron opened it, hitting Pansy Parkinson in the face. "Oops," he said cheerfully, and they went on their way to class, feeling immensely happier.

They arrived a minute early.

Swallowing painfully, Harry turned away and walked on forcefully. Everywhere he looked, there was another memory – Ron and Harry frantically making up ridiculous stories for their divination homework while Hermione pretended not to be amused, the time Hermione hexed a Slytherin seventh year for tripping Neville, the time Hermione punched Malfoy, the time Ron hid behind a pillar in their fourth year out of shame at his horrid dress robes . . .

"You seem to be drowning twice," Hermione said helpfully.

"Oh, am I?" Ron asked, frowning. "I'd better change one of them to getting trampled by a rampaging hippogriff."

The time Snape scolded them for neglecting to study for a Potions exam:

"I refuse to have to listen to your inane chatter, Mr. Potter," Snape spat out through clenched teeth. "The Polyjuice potion is a very high-level potion that requires more studying than your tiny brain has ever been put through. Even Miss Granger would be hard-pressed to pass the exam about it, let alone brewing it."

Ron snickered, and Snape's eyebrow (which managed to look as greasy as the rest of his hair) twitched upwards. "Detention, Mr. Weasley. Five points will be taken from Gryffindor when you fail to pass the exam. Only a very talented wizard could brew the potion at your age. I wouldn't expect you to accomplish it."

As he turned sharply and strode off to yell at Neville, Harry leaned over to Ron. "Do you think it would finally finish him off if we told him we did it in second year?"

The time fake-Moody turned Malfoy into a ferret . . .

Harry shivered slightly before realizing with some surprise that he was in an empty room – empty save for the mirror in front of him. His eyes widened in recognition – it was the Mirror of Erised. Was his greatest desire still the same? he wondered. After all, he had changed a lot since his first year.

He stepped forward and stared into the mirror, his eyes filling with wistful longing as he gazed at the image it depicted.

Ron stood with his hands in his pockets, leaning against lazily against the wall. Hermione was perched on an armchair in front of the fireplace, in front of Ron, with her robes discarded, her shirt unbuttoned at the top, and her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, displaying her tanned, unscarred left forearm. They both looked casual and euphoric.

All of Gryffindor House was surrounding them, and the Quidditch Team was chanting Harry's name – they had won the Cup! And under his captaincy! Harry recognized this scene – he caught Ginny in his arms and kissed her, hard, the sense of euphoria spreading.

He could hear the catcalls and whistles from his fellow Housemates as he pulled away and Ron gave him a half-shrug, half-grin. The Gryffindors brought out the firewhiskey and butterbeer as the sweets Fred, George, and Lee Jordan had smuggled in were spread out, and moments later the party was in full swing.

And then suddenly, Sirius was standing there, his head thrown back in wild laughter, and Remus was beside him, looking more relaxed than Harry had ever seen him during the course of the war. Moody was glaring disapprovingly at the utter lack of vigilance in the room, and Tonks was laughing with Molly and Arthur, having turned her hair bright scarlet and gold in celebration (Harry couldn't help but notice that the tips were yellow and black, the Hufflepuff traitor).

Colin Creevey ran about the room, snapping pictures with his camera, and Dennis bounded up to Harry and excitedly asked for his autograph – and that was when Harry understood. His parents weren't here because they were a representation of what he wanted most when he was eleven – a family who loved him; to get to know the people who had died for him.

Now, he had a family who loved him and had been willing to die for him, and he for them, and all he wanted was to see them happy and whole and as unmarred by the war as they were in this moment. He wanted to see them as they were before the war had ravaged them and forced them all to become older than they should have been – before Hermione was tortured, Ron lost his brother, George lost his ear, Fred lost his life, Colin and Dennis lost their futures, Remus and Tonks lost the chance to be a family and raise their son, Sirius lost the chance to truly spend time with his godson, Molly's family was ripped apart and battered, Arthur was attacked, and so much more . . .

Harry felt a tear trace its way down his face, and he reached out, running his fingers over the image in the mirror. And then his shoulders straightened. His family was upstairs, and someday he would join those he had lost, but for now, he needed to be with those he still had.

At seventeen, he was able to do what he couldn't at eleven.

He turned his back on the mirror and he didn't look back.