Prompt: Your character discovers an old book of drawings / sketches.
It was two years after the battle when Hermione finally snapped. She apparated directly into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, causing its occupant to drop a teapot and smash several teacups.
"Harry James Potter! That's it!"
The man in question, despite the second degree burns forming on his legs, did his best to ignore the intruder. It wouldn't be the first, nor the last, time that she had unceremoniously interrupted his Sunday morning to chastise him for some imagined – or not-so-imagined – wrong. He found two new cups in a cupboard that had long-since lost it's door, and set about using the left over boiling water to make coffee.
"Milk and sugar, Mione?" he asked, nonchalantly, as if she hadn't rudely barged in, broken his possessions, and caused him a great deal of pain.
Hermione's huff of annoyance was roundly ignored, a cup of coffee pressed into her hands... and immediately slammed down on the kitchen table, where the steaming contents splashed over the sides and onto the stained, pockmarked wood. Maybe it hadn't been wise to provide her another weapon.
"I am not here for a drink, Harry!"
Harry didn't look up. He set about wiping up the spilled drinks and shattered china by hand, if only to have a reason to avoid her.
"I am getting married in two months, Harry, and you promised Ron he could use this house for his bachelor party."
Harry looked up then, confused. "Yeah...?"
Hermione crossed her arms and slammed her heeled boot down in frustration. The ancient wooden floor gave way beneath it, leaving a jagged hole.
"That!" she shrieked. "That is exactly what I'm talking about!"
Harry regarded her cautiously, before casting a wandless reparo at the crack. "There. It's fixed."
Hermione's mug hit the wall, shattering beyond repair, the hot coffee adding to the myriad of unidentifiable stains on the ageing wallpaper.
"You have three hours. Three hours to go room by room, pack anything you want to keep, and to get out of here. Then Fleur, Ginny, and I are going to rip this place apart and rebuild it until it is fit for human habitation."
Harry's head flew up, his mouth opened to argue, but Hermione had hit him with a silencing charm before he had uttered a single syllable.
"Two hours and fifty-nine minutes, Mr Potter."
Two hours and fifty-nine minutes later found Harry in a cramped but comfortable room in Ron and Hermione's house. He'd packed his own things, not that he had much, and gone room to room picking up anything that looked like it might have personal or sentimental value. Nearly every member of the Order had lived in Grimmauld at some point, and things were sure to have been left behind. With any luck, he'd be able to take the time he would spend locked out of his own home to identify the owners and repatriate the items to them. Or, he thought, sombrely, at least give them to a family member. Too many of the Order had died for him to hope many of the owners would still be alive to receive their belongings.
Harry un-shrunk the boxes and sorted through the contents one by one. Old muggle band tshirts that had once belonged to Tonks and a handful of books on 'dark' creatures that were once Remus' were packaged up and sent by owl to Andromeda; Teddy would appreciate having them when he was old enough to start asking about his parents. Several Extendable Ears and a myriad of experimental potions and products were sent to the Burrow in the hopes that George would appreciate them as much now as he and Fred had back then. A couple of tartan blankets and some Scotch that could only have been Professor McGonagall's were now on their way to Hogwarts. Some books on dragons were returned to Charlie in Romania, and a notebook written in French was sent to Shell Cottage. Books pertaining to potentially-mythical plants and beasts were returned to Luna, a massive herbology text returned to Neville, and a photo album full of red-haired children returned to Mrs Weasley – after Harry made copies of the most embarrassing photos of Ron, of course. Anything of Sirius' was set aside to be repacked; those things would return to Grimmauld Place with Harry, where they belonged. All that remained were a few unidentified items – some clothes that could have belonged to Remus, perhaps, or Arthur, or Bill. Some books that didn't look like they had been part of the Black Family library, but had nothing to identify who they had belonged to. And a black leather notebook.
Harry hadn't minded looking at Fleur's notebook; he couldn't read French, so her secrets – if that's what they were – had been safe. But this notebook would almost definitely be in English, and its author may still be alive.
Hesitantly, he ran a finger over the cover, half-expecting to feel some kind of defensive wards in place. There was a faint tingle of magic – something soft, gentle, inviting – but nothing like the repelling wards he had placed on his own diaries. And certainly nothing dark or dangerous. Taking a deep breath, he slowly lifted the leather cover. His shaking fingers nearly dropped the book when he saw the first page, his breath leaving him in a sharp gasp.
It was a beautiful – hauntingly beautiful – charcoal sketch. So detailed, so precise, that despite it being in monochrome, you could almost see the auburn hair, the pink cheeks, the sparkling green eyes. Lily, the artist had written, 1976.
Harry's first thought is that this sketchbook must be his dad's. Or perhaps Sirius' or Remus'. But something in the drawing, something hidden beneath the wide smile and bright eyes, spoke of loss. A kind of melancholy his dad had never seemed to possess, and that had only caught up to his godfather after the end of the First War. After Azkaban. Perhaps Remus, then.
Harry flipped through the next few pages, seeing sketches of plants, of creatures, of Hogwarts and the Black Lake. That made sense, he supposed. His mum had been at Hogwarts in 1976, so the artist probably had been, too. The drawings of the familiar castle carried the same feeling Harry had felt – still felt – when he thought of the school: home. The next sketch, though, hit him harder than even the image of his mum.
Backlit by an enormous full moon, a werewolf and a giant dog. Remus and Sirius, Harry realised, as he felt tears prick his eyes and his fingers hovered over the image, not daring to touch it lest he somehow smudge the charcoal lines on aged parchment. He scrutinised every line, every stroke, every detail, committing it to memory, allowing the grief to rise up and consume him before it settled back into the dull ache in his heart. Maybe, one day, he would find a way to frame a duplicate of this for Teddy. Teddy had plenty of photos of his father as a man, but he deserved to know all of Remus – to see him as the wolf, as Moony. Remus had been brave and kind and loyal to the end, and the wolf was a part of that, not apart from it.
But Remus would not have drawn this. Remus would have never drawn the wolf, could never have drawn the wolf. Not like this.
Harry was so caught up, so captivated in the drawings that showed the lives of those he has loved and lost, that he never thought to turn to the back cover. He saw the sketches of Lily, of Moony and Padfoot, of the potions classroom looking much like it had in his sixth year, of the castle and the Black Lake and Hogsmeade. But he never saw the small, cramped handwriting on the inside of the back cover. Property of the H.B.P.