Disclaimer: Not my characters-I mean, they're real, right? Can't own them if they're real!
Eighth year. The Boy Who Lived lived again, defeated Voldemort, endured every ceremony and every funeral and every single goddamned "celebration," turned down the position of Minister of Magic (Seriously?!), and finally, eventually, fought through the other side of the chaos that was post-War Magical Britain in an effort to make a normal life for himself, only to end up here.
Hogwarts.
Eighth year.
At least he didn't have to sit at his house table this year. Would his knees even fit underneath it anymore? Harry and the other eighth years (Eighth years. EIGHTH YEARS!) had their own table at the far end of the house tables, and their table was round. They had their own dormitory in their own tower in the castle, and their dormitory had private rooms. Thank Merlin for small favors. Harry was sure that his own room would not be the only one warded to high heaven against letting any sound of the shrieking nightmares within escape, much less its sleepwalking, wand-wielding shrieker.
Actually, Harry wasn't sure that he wasn't the only one who destroyed furniture with his wand while sleepwalking through nightmares of the War, but he hoped he wasn't. If you're going to be crazy, might as well be crazy with company.
Although… did the company really have to be at Hogwarts? Hogwarts, where every hallway had to be magically scrubbed free of blood (and it's true, you know. You can never *really* get all the blood out), where every turn revealed the location of a former tragedy, where the tiny little eleven-year-old Ravenclaws were right now swinging their feet exactly above the spot where the bodies of Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin had been laid, as they listened to Headmistress McGonagall's welcome speech.
he first-year Gryffindors were sitting over the body of Fred Weasley.
"No," Harry corrected himself. "Not Fred. Just … where Fred once was." His mind healer was very insistent about accuracy in language.
Harry didn't know what mind healers the other eighth years had (but he knew that they had them; mind healing was required for all school-age combatants, and highly recommended for the rest of the general magical population), but he knew that regardless, they all looked as ragged and worn-out as he knew that he did. Ron and Hermione looked the best, cleaving to each other as they did, but Hermione's eyes were tired and Ron, who had always loved his food, was gaunt, and he was pretty clearly wearing one of Fred's sweaters. Neville and Luna stuck together, too, although mainly what they did, it seemed, was watch each other's backs against invisible enemies; they sat close but turned away from each other, near hands lightly touching, and their eyes roamed constantly. Just constantly.
Draco Malfoy, however, looked the worst; he'd probably give Harry a run for his money for the Appearing to be Most Traumatized award. He was well groomed (the mind healers were very insistent on maintaining one's proper grooming; appearing for a session unshowered or in stained clothing was worth an automatic transfer to "in-house healing"), but he looked nothing like the former nemesis whom Harry had once so loved to hate so passionately. His hair was practically shaven. His clothes, what Harry could see of them underneath the school robes, were Muggle. His eyes were old.
At least his paleness was in character.
Harry tried to look at the younger, eager students across the room, listening attentively to the speech (not even Hermione was listening at his table), and feel happy for them, but all he felt was tired.
"Intensive Eighth Year" was what it was officially called; the idea was to bring back all the students who had been seventh years last year; even the students who'd been able to attend had mostly just learned about suffering and fear. These eighth years had an intense schedule, and it was hoped that they would be able to take their NEWTs and graduate by Christmas. The second through seventh years also had an accelerated schedule, also to make up for the entire last year's lost learning. Only the first years were going to have a completely normal Hogwarts experience this year, and as the class schedules were passed out on the first school morning, those first years were the subject of a lot of quiet envy. Such excitement in those kids' eyes, as they received schedules packed with brand-new classes and clutched brand-new wands in sweaty, nervous hands; even the ones who'd had their families murdered, or who were themselves tortured by Death Eaters, looked like they belonged to an entirely different world from the students who bore the "combatant" label.
At least Harry didn't have to take Defense against the Dark Arts this final semester, he thought, taking a look at his schedule, then scrubbing one hand across his tired eyes, wrapping up a bacon sandwich to stuff in his book bag (he also figured that he wasn't the only one whom a year of privation had turned into a food hoarder) and heading out with the other eighth years to their small group classes. He, Hermione, Ron, and Neville had been awarded their NEWTs in DADA with the utmost pomp in an emotionally gutting and utterly humiliating ceremony a couple of months ago. In the end, Harry had only consented to attend that ceremony because of the promise of that NEWT, and when the ceremony had also turned out to include the honorary Hogwarts graduation of every dead non-Death Eater student in his grade, complete with the reading of every dead student's name and the awarding of a diploma to every dead student's grief-stricken family… well, at least he didn't have to take Defense against the Dark Arts this final semester. There was always that to hold onto.
It turned out that bacon sandwich came in handy, as did all the snacks that, yes, it turned out that every other eighth year had sneaked away with (No fewer than four apples rolled out of Hermione's bag at one point, and other than the sound causing Hannah Abbott to briefly leap to her feet with wand drawn, there was no reaction, even from the professors, to this clear defiance of the All Food Must Remain within the Great Hall rule). Whether they'd spent the past year suffering in Hogwarts or outside of it, none of the eighth years were much used to studying lately, or to sitting still for long hours, or to acting normal in the company of others, to be quite frank.
The eighth years, trying to sit still and study and look normal, or whatever they thought they remembered that normal might look like, all sat inside the large classroom that had been set aside for their sole use this year. They were meant to work through much of the material independently, although certain times were set aside for demonstrations and practical work with the professors, and there were several retired professors, Ministry officials, and employees of the many relevant fields who had also volunteered to be on hand in shifts to tutor the students. It was, it didn't take long for Harry to admit, listening to an actual potion master explain to him, using short words that he could understand, some ignorant little question that he'd had that he was sure would have been worth at least twenty minutes of shame in Snape's classroom, not a bad way to learn.
"Don't think about Snape," Harry chided himself in a manner that his mind healer would NOT approve of, and, after writing down the potion master's explanation and reading through it again to make sure he understood it, pulled out his Transfiguration textbook instead.
After a couple of hours of this study, switching subjects whenever he felt weary, asking questions whenever he didn't understand something, watching a demonstration of Proper Techniques of Self-Levitation just for fun, Harry felt himself almost actually settle in, and when he looked up again from his textbooks and saw that another entire hour had passed without the unwelcome intrusion of an awful memory, he thought that there might actually be some benefits to this studying business. Unobtrusively, he passed the last half of his bacon sandwich over to Hermione, who just as unobtrusively, just as she'd done with an apple and a scone already, set it at just the perfect angle next to Ron's book that he picked it up without noticing what he was doing and began to eat it, attention entirely upon what he was studying. Hermione spared Harry a small smile, and in return, Harry felt himself do something that he couldn't remember doing since sixth year in this same classroom.
He smiled back.