Aftermath

After nearly sixteen years of anticipation, one of the most powerful wizards of all time by the name of Tom Riddle was killed. "Who could possibly abolish someone so notorious?" those who live under rocks may ask. Not an abominable sorcerer or a horrifying creature, but a seventeen-year-old boy.

Harry Potter strolled through the door of the Three Broomsticks two minutes early for our meeting. He gave a firm handshake and spoke with the eloquence of someone twice his age. After ordering a butterbeer, a personal favorite of his, he politely asked me not to use my Quick-Quotes Quill, as he mentioned an unpleasant past experience with one. His eyes informed me to ask no further questions on the manner.

Harry imagined this was what journalist Anabelle Chadwick scribbled into her notepad as he sat smack-dab in the center of the Three Broomsticks vertical to her. Although this was bliss compared to Rita Skeeter's muckrakes, Harry had never been fond of interviews.

"Did your experience as a Gryffindor influence your ability to complete the task of defeating the Dark Lord?" Anabelle asked him. She had not yet approached the juicier questions; she still had to get him comfortable.

Harry cleared his throat. "I suppose so. When I was a second year, the sword of Gryffindor appeared to me and saved my life. It would do the same for any Gryffindor." Harry paused, realizing how invalid his response was. He continued, as if he was reading from a script, "Gryffindor taught me how to be brave in even the most terrifying of situations. That helped in the end."

The moment of pause that Anabelle took to scribble in her notepad seemed infinite. Harry looked around the pub, pretending not to be phased by the stares and whispers surrounding them.

"What or whom do you have to thank for your triumph and success?"

"Er, I have a lot of people to thank, I suppose. All of my teachers at Hogwarts literally taught me everything that I know, er, and my friends motivated me to never give up." The question was very vague, so, feeling guilty to have forgotten specifics, he added, "My friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, were probably the most important people on my journey."

"Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger were the two who joined you, is that correct?"

"Yes," Harry replied.

"Specifically, how did they add to your triumph?"

Harry smiled a bit. His friends meant more to him than anything in the world. "My friends are brilliant, I really can't even put their skills into words." Wracking his brain for a moment, he responded, "Ron has been my best friend since I stepped onto the Hogwarts Express during my first year. His logic and strategy have always been useful. He has always supported me. He has stuck by me through thick and thin." Harry purposely "forgot" to mention Ron's abandonment on the horcrux hunt and Ron's jealousy during the Triwizard Tournament, but Harry supposed some things were better left unsaid.

"And Ms. Granger?"

"Hermione is… truly brilliant. She was the top of our class and somewhat of a teachers' pet, but she isn't just one-dimensional. She's very quick on the spot and good at solving things, which was essential in the long run."

Harry's thoughts filled with memories of his friends. He thought of summers at the Burrow, where they played Quidditch on the Weasleys' lawn and stayed up late, discussing Hogwarts and their young lives. He thought of nights in the common room, pretending that they were looking at Hermione's homework to "check their answers" when they were actually copying her responses word for word and playing Exploding Snap after everyone had left for bed. He thought of classes, watching Hermione take rigorous notes while Harry tried to muffle Ron's snores with coughs.

Anabelle took a sip of her sparkling pumpkin juice and licked the liquid from her lips before parting them to ask the next question. "What exactly did this process entail?"

All of Harry's memories cleared themselves from his head. Memories of drinking Polyjuice Potion, casting Unforgivable Curses, and living with the burden that everyone was dying for him, filled their places.

"Well, it was a long, grueling process."

"The readers would love to hear about it, Mr. Potter," Anabelle persisted, politely.

"Harry," he corrected her.

Such a modest boy.

"Right. Well, please share, Harry."

Harry relived each harsh reality that he had faced the year before. However, he held in everything that could potentially cause trouble. "Ron, Hermione, and I left with a task to destroy all of Voldemort's horcruxes. A horcrux is something that someone can put a piece of their soul into, so that when the person is killed, they don't actually die. Er… but I'm sure you know that.Anyway, we traveled endlessly, trying to find and destroy them."

Anabelle did not look satisfied by his brief response. "Harry, we all want to know details. What made the voyage so difficult? Who stood in your way? How did you manage to find all of these horcruxes?"

Harry felt uncomfortable. Sharing too much information would either get him thrown into Azkaban or cause even more unnecessary admiration amongst the wizard world. It was a lose-lose situation.

"The long periods of time and persistence made the task difficult. The Death Eaters and Snatchers stood in our way, of course. And… what was the last question again?"

"How-"

"Oh right, how we found them. We thought of places that meant a lot to Voldemort and searched hard. There is really no other explanation, Anabelle. If you want to find out more, then I apologize, because there really isn't much more to it than that," Harry explained. He knew he was being stubborn, but he felt that he had no other choice.

Anabelle shot him a very false grin before clearing her throat and continuing. "Where did the Dark Lord place these items?"

Harry gazed at Anabelle. Her young, clear face looked a bit concerned, perhaps because he was not being as upfront as she thought he would be.

"Anabelle, if you're going to talk about him, call him Voldemort. You sound like one of them when you refer to him as the Dark Lord," Harry clarified.

"Alright, Harry," Anabelle replied, shortly but sweetly.

The boy uses the Dark Lord's name frequently, potentially suggesting a rebellious, careless side to him.

The idea of this quote made Harry pause. "Er, yes, the question. Some were in random locations, but most of them were at Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts?" Anabelle tilted her head. "Isn't Hogwarts considered one of the most guarded places in the wizarding world?"

"Yes, and that's why they were placed there."

Anabelle nodded slowly. "Do you think you'll go back to Hogwarts in the fall? You still have one more year to go."

Harry looked away. To be honest, he hadn't even thought about whether or not he would go back. Everything would be completely different, but Hogwarts was his first true home.

"I'm not sure yet. I'll decide soon, I'm sure," he replied, a bit quietly.

"Elaborate on how those years were."

Harry's face lightened up again. His Hogwarts years would be his most cherished in the long run. "Hogwarts was spectacular. Not only did I learn loads, but I met a bunch of interesting people there."

"Like whom?"

"Well, all of my friends, some teachers who have taught me well, and…" His voice broke off.

"And…?" Anabelle urged him.

"Professor Dumbledore…" Harry murmured.

Anabelle's face appeared somewhat satisfied. It was clear that she had finally got her story.

"Were you close with Dumbledore?"

Harry nodded slowly. "He was my role model."

Anabelle scribbled into her notebook. "He was murdered, yes?"

Harry shook his head. "No. It was his time to go."

Anabelle choked on her drink. "Excuse me?"

"He was going to die anyway." He stopped himself abruptly. "I've said enough."

Anabelle tapped her quill in irritation. "Harry, I—"

Harry started to get out of his seat. The knowledge of Snape's disloyalty to the Death Eaters and loyalty to Dumbledore was to be confidential, even if both of them were dead.

"I'm sorry, Anabelle, but if you're trying to get this type of information out of me, I'm not ready to share it."

"But—"

"Listen!" Harry interrupted. "When I'm ready, I'll write to you."

Anabelle's eyes lit up. "Would you eventually be interested in, say, a biography? The Daily Prophet wouldn't be involved, not to worry." The idea sounded like it would only benefit her, but Harry played along.

Harry chuckled. "I'm talking years, Anabelle." Seeing the excited expression on her face, he added, "I'll have to get back to you on that one."

With a polite goodbye, Harry departed the Three Broomsticks. As he walked out, he noticed that the pub was completely silent. Everyone's eyes were glued to him, watching his every movement. This spooked Harry a bit, but he brushed it off and hastily exited.

Harry was at ease, in a light T-shirt and jeans, walking in the mid-May air. He glanced down at his shoes, black Converse trainers, which were tattered from the battle. The last time he looked at them, he was approaching the forest, where the Death Eaters patiently waited as he walked to his death.

Looking around, he noticed that the shops in Diagon Alley were starting to become their normal selves again. Flourish and Blotts had booming business, which was abnormal for mid-May. Eeylops Owl Emporium displayed young, rejuvenated owls.

The sight of this gave Harry a pang in his chest as he remembered his good friend, Hedwig. She had always been by his side, whether she was sitting in her cage, "listening" to him speak, nipping his finger when he was doing something that she disapproved of, or promptly sending letters back and forth. Directing his attention to something else, anything else, he dropped the subject from his mind.

Even Ollivander's was reopened, but still a bit under-the-weather, as the owner himself had just barely come out of hiding. It was sparsely populated, due to the fact that wand business was most popular during the late summer months.

He felt his own wand in his pocket. It had followed him through thick and thin. He had sent it to get fixed right when the battle ended, allowing him to continue to use the thing that had saved him from dementors, endless tasks during the Triwizard Tournament, and dark wizards over the years.

He reflected on the day with Hagrid in Diagon Alley for the first time after leaving the Dursleys', when his wand found him. It was the moment he realized that he was, without a doubt, a wizard.

Unexpectedly, a few drops of rain began to fall from the sky, onto his forehead. The sky remained clear and blue, but little bits of rain fell unmercifully, as if the sky was crying on him.

Small children and their parents ran for cover under awnings and inside shops, but Harry continued to walk, unaffected by the weather change.

He watched his feet step through puddles, sending small splashes of water to the fabric on his shoes. He felt the dampness of the ground squish against the bottom of his feet.

Looking up, he saw one shop that had not yet been reestablished since the end of the war. Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes was dark and abandoned. All of the shop's color seemed to be drained from it since the last time Harry had seen it.

Strangely, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes was one of the last shops to close on account of the increasing dark magic following Dumbledore's death. Harry thought, for sure, that it would be one of the first ones opened.

Harry suddenly became overwhelmed with emotions. Fred's death during the battle took a big toll on the Weasley family, particularly George. It would be a miracle if the shop reopened at all.

The rain subsided a bit, causing more people to come outdoors.

"It's him! The boy who lived!"

After seven years of hearing that name on a daily basis, Harry Potter had grown immune to it. Part of him wanted to cheek, "I've got a name, you know." The other, somewhat egotistical, side wanted to address himself as "the boy who lived again." But every time, he shut his mouth and smiled for another photo-op.

He seldom went to heavily populated areas anymore, as a commotion almost always resulted. Photographers swarmed him like mosquitoes on a damp summer night. With every flash that went off, he winced.

Brilliant, he would think to himself. I'll be seeing spots for a week and I'll look like an arse on the cover of the Prophet.

Rambunctious fans, especially witches, were star struck as Harry agreed to sign scraps of parchment or pose for pictures with them. Ginny, in particular, found this to be quite amusing.

The publicity did not seem to phase Harry at all. The reporters who called him a "miracle boy" seemed to have the same effect as those who called him "a complete fraud." In public, he held his head high and took the fans with a grain of salt.

In private, on the contrary, Harry was hiding things that no reporters or photographers knew. What lay beyond every photograph, smile, and publicity stunt was unknown by most.

His eyes were red from crying himself to sleep every night. His thoughts consisted of regret for allowing so many friends to die for him during the Battle at Hogwarts. His scar had not hurt since Voldemort's fall, but he would have chosen physical pain over what he was feeling emotionally in a heartbeat. He had trouble opening up, leaving him with conclusions that he was alone through this….

Harry continued to have nightmares.

••••••••••••••••••••

Readers,

This is my first attempt at a Rowling-length story. The first chapter is a bit dull, but I assure you, the plot will get more enticing as time progresses. Also, contrary to this chapter, the story ismostly from the perception of Ron and Hermione.

Keep reading and please review!

-Lexi