A/N: This is the prologue to my story, "Moonlight and Shadows". It follows right after HPDH, and it's totally compatible. This part may be a little boring, but I think it's pretty pertinent... so you should read it. This is a HP/DM fic, so if that bothers you... leave now. All characters and plot prior to this piece of fanfiction belong to JK Rowling, the one... the only... the great... yeah.

Enjoy :) If you see any glaring errors, just tell me and I'll fix it!

Moonlight and Shadows: Prologue

Harry, with the battle fought and won, and with his whole life still ahead of him, still felt he had to live on edge, because he never knew when another ex-Death Eater would try to make a comeback. And besides that... he still believed sometimes that his scar hurt, and that he still had a war to fight... and that he shouldn't really be happy.

He had every reason to be celebrating like every other wizard alive. They'd been celebrating for the past week, and they would probably continue for the next month... if not the next year. Harry and those closest friends who had fought most valiantly during the final battle still could not believe that they had so little to fear. They felt like hiding, they felt exposed and in danger still. And most of all, they felt utterly unready to face any celebration.

Some had accepted Harry's triumph immediately and were ready to move on. They realized that there was no real fear in their lives, and they were the ones at the heart of any celebrating.

For most of three or four days after the final battle, Harry didn't talk to anyone. It was impossible that anything but great loss came out of the war, in his eyes. So many people died, so many of those that he felt were his last chance at family– like Lupin. In fact, Harry realized that towards the end, he had wanted to regard everyone as family. Who else but family would be so thoroughly defending him and what he was doing?

Harry was distinctly apathetic toward everything. The only time he wasn't apathetic was when he felt ashamed and angry for feeling apathetic.

Most of Harry's friends had decided to stay with him in Hogsmeade for the week after the battle. Almost immediately, everyone had looked to Harry as if asking, "what now?" Harry was unable to respond to any feeling he had except for a reverence for the dead. So the first thing that came to mind was to hold a vigil there, at the castle, where so many had inhaled their last victorious breath. Everyone thought it was a perfect idea. Within hours, the papers knew and all kinds of people were showing up from every direction, just like they had for Dumbledore's funeral.

But this time, they all looked to Harry. He had no interest in saying any words of wisdom, or in saying any words at all, so Professor McGonagall took it upon herself to inform everyone that they could pay their respects to anyone in any way they felt was appropriate. Unfortunately, most people wanted to pay their respects to Harry. And Harry soon found out that "paying their respects" really meant bombarding him with questions and praise and all sorts of apologies for not believing in him all along.

Harry mostly kept out of the way, and he found himself visiting the forest several times, and standing right where he had been killed by Voldemort. He relived time and time again his conversation with Dumbledore, and mused that it was one of the most magical things that had ever happened to him, even though wands and spells and brooms weren't at all involved. He thought over Snape's memories and what they really meant every year that he sat glaring up at Snape's greasy evil nose, wondering what had ever happened to Snape to make him so bitter, or just why the hell he hated Harry so much.

He found, however, that his moody, apathetic façade really meant nothing to those around him, and no one understood that it was his way of mourning, or that he had quite enough to be musing over.

The Weasleys, the Longbottoms, the Lovegoods, Hermione, Dean, and Seamus all stayed in Hogsmeade. Some, like Lavender and the Patils, wanted to stay inside the castle– it was indeed more peaceful that ever it had been during school times. The Malfoys, to Harry's surprise, also booked rooms in Hogsmeade to stay near the vigil for the dead. Rumor (because of course there was still an outlet for rumours around Hogwarts) stated that Draco Malfoy's parents had lightly insisted that they leave soon after the war, but apparently Draco refused and told them they could leave, but he wouldn't budge.

Only Harry knew that Malfoy's parents would never leave him for the same reason Lily Potter wouldn't leave Harry. He had heard Narcissa Malfoy's terrified voice when she asked Harry if Draco was still alive, and he knew she had done everything to protect him since Dumbledore's death. Harry registered their similarity, but he didn't care much about it. Like having Draco's wand, it didn't matter unless it was useful.

Harry took his invisibility cloak wherever he went, so that if he needed to make a quick escape from too much attention, he could use it to skulk off to the forest. At the end of every day, he would return to his hotel room to wait for Ginny. She needed the company of her family very much at this point, and Harry didn't mind at all.

He found very soon that he was scared of when the subject of their future might come up. He hadn't been in one place for more than a few weeks for the past year, and he liked it like that. But he knew she would want to settle down with him; she had been waiting for that since the end of Harry's 6th year. Would he ever want to stop roaming to just be with her and live quietly? He had never lived quietly. Even with Voldemort gone, he didn't see why that should be any different.