-I dub thee: Snuffles-

Updates will probably be few and far between, sorry kids. I hope I keep up to standards when I do update.

Not all stories in this will be to everyone's liking but that's what happens when you shove a bunch of things, that have little relevance to each other, together.

Disclaimer: I make no claim to the Harry Potter series or franchise. This story is only written for entertainment purposes.

The smell of death and smoke still lingered in the air.

His eyes roved the desolate horizon. A light breeze lifted the hair at his brow as he absorbed the woebegone landscape. Sadness settled in his heart. It weighed down on him, as just heavy as the sky and just as ever-present. The scars that tore the surface of the familiar scenery felt like cuts across his own heart. They pained him just as much as the gashes on his skin, just as much as the bruise on his chest. He found himself digging his nails into his palms; the pain didn't bother him in the slightest.

Pain. Physical pain. He could deal with that. He had always dealt with that. Physical pain was there, then it wasn't. It would come, often linger for a while, but eventually it would leave. Sometimes he would yearn for it. It would cleanse him, distract him at the very least. It always drew his attention away from the other hurt. Of course, it went away, it always did.

But the other hurt never went away. It never left. Forever insistent. It had always been there. From the beginning, he had felt its cold grip on his heart. The emotional pain. It something that he could never rid himself of. It was something that, no matter what, wouldn't heal. He despised the pain, he hated how it would control him. But the pain, he knew, made him human. If he didn't feel it, he would be just as bad as the one who had caused it.

But this level of emotional pain was one he thought he would never have to feel. It left him so thoroughly shocked that he felt short of breath. The grounds, the forest, the castle. All of them damaged. All of them tainted. Never the same again. The castle had taken a beating. Rubble collected around it like dust. Many trees lining the edge of the forbidden forest had been uprooted, most likely ripped out by giants. It seemed as though some spells had gone astray and what was left of the fires still smouldered. Though all the dead had been removed, the ground was still littered with the remnants of death. Blood and all sorts of other horrid things were strewn about.

War was much more horrifying in real life than you would ever see in the movies and vastly more disgusting. The smell was gag-inducing, but he managed to resist the urge. This had been his home. The only one he could remember having. He stood at the crumbling steps of the castle, gauging the extent of the damage.

Though he didn't want to see the rest, but he knew that he would have to. He made his way down the grassy slopes of the grounds. Each patch of bloodstained grass felt like a rusty dagger piercing his heart. Each uprooted or smouldering tree brought fleeting flashbacks of the previous night. He saw displaced chunks of grass and dirt everywhere.

He passed the lake, which was no better than the shore around it. If anything it was worse because no-one had bothered to remove the bodies from it. As he watched, the Giant Squid desperately made waves to attempt to push back the contaminated water. It was an increasingly futile struggle as the contaminants continued spread their taint over the water. Despite his absorption in his own self-pity Harry felt sympathetic towards the poor creature. He felt the need to help.

He started by removing what he could from the lake, which, in itself, was an arduous and repugnant task. He tried to force himself into a state of apathy towards the things he summoned out but it was very difficult. He rested most of the contaminants on the bank, not sure what else to do with them. After that he didn't know what to do. Should he vanish the tainted water? Was there something he could do to filter the water? Or should he somehow contain the polluted water before it could spread any further? What could he do?

He knew that most of those options would require copious amounts of energy, energy that he just didn't possess at that time. He was exhausted, after all. Months and months of running and hiding were finally catching up to him. He knew that he couldn't possibly achieve such a feat of magic then. Summoning all those things out of the lake had been taxing enough, he just didn't have the capacity for those things in his exhausted state.

Unable to aid in any way, he flopped to the ground and lay there, allowing his self-pity to make a triumphant return now that he had no proper task to focus on. Half formulated thoughts floated through his head without any identifiable connection between them. Only the deafening crack of apparation was enough to startle him out of his wallowing.

Looking down a bulbous snout-like nose at him was a scrawny creature with a large disproportionate head and large bat-like ears. The small creature looked down at him with concern, then it croaked with a voice rather like a bullfrog. "Master should not be out here. Master should still be asleep," it said, somewhat reproachfully.

"Kreature … what?" Harry said in a voice thick with befuddlement. He hadn't seen his house-elf since the 'Final Battle' the previous night and even that had only been a brief glimpse. He didn't know why Kreature was there; Harry was positive he hadn't called Kreature. The elf looked down at Harry with a look that was all too familiar to Harry: exasperation. People always looked at Harry like that, for some reason. "Kreature's master is very stupid, sometimes," he muttered to himself, as per his usual habit.

"Master is tired and injured," the house-elf then stated, pointing to one of the cuts that ran along Harry's arm, "If master does not wish to sleep then he should go to the hospital wing to get his injures checked."

But Harry shook his sadly and sat up. "Madam Pomfrey has enough to deal with without me adding to her problems. They're not that bad anyway," he said with a dismissive shake of his head, then proceeded to address a sudden thought. "Kreature," he asked, "is there anything you can do for this?"

Kreature looked towards the lake that Harry was pointing at. He frowned as he assessed the situation. He glanced back at his master, "Kreature will need help," was his simple reply. There was a sharp crack as Kreature disapparated. Harry had to only wait 30 seconds before Kreature came back, this time with helpers.

The four house-elves arranged themselves around the edge of the lake and Harry could only watch as they raised their hands in unison. As they did so, the contaminants seemed to simply lift off the water and dissipated into thin air. "Thanks," Harry said, addressing all four. Three house-elves wearing tea-towels branded with the Hogwarts crest bowed/curtsied, without replying, and disapparated away. Kreature, however, stayed behind. He crossed his arms and glared at his master with a look that was highly reminiscent of the one Molly Weasley often gave to her children. One that almost had Harry cowering away from him.

"Will master go to the hospital wing now?" Kreature asked with a raised eyebrow, though it sounded more like an order to Harry. The raven-haired man raised his hands in surrender and said, "Alright, alright. I'm go …" Trailing off, he frown at something behind his servant. He cocked his head slightly to the side in confusion. He heard something, and as he was sure they should have been the only ones out there, this put him on high alert. He rose from the ground and drew his wand silently, pointing it over Kreature's shoulder. Kreature, however, didn't seemed worried at all. In fact, he approached the source of the sound fearlessly. Emboldened very little by Kreature's lack of fear, Harry followed Kreature until he could actually identify what the sound was.

Whimpering.

It was unusually loud in the silence of the empty morning. It seemed to be coming all the way from the edge of the Forbidden forest. His house-elf scampered over the the ground in a odd creeping fashion, sort of like a monkey. Harry wondered what happened to make him like that, as he had never really seen him run, except the night before. Maybe he had always ran like that? Or was it old age? Or could it possibly be a recent development? He'd have to ask later because he didn't really want his elf dying on him, especially now that they were on such good terms.

Kreature stopped. He stood before one of the uprooted trees of the Forbidden forest, waiting for Harry to catch up. The whimpering actually seemed to be getting quieter, whether it was from their presence or other reasons, Harry couldn't tell. The pathetic noises appeared to be coming from under the trunk of a tree. The house-elf looked up at his master questioningly. Harry, who had returned his wand it's home of his pocket long ago, nodded. Kreature stretched out his hands and slowly lifted them upwards, the tree trunk followed the same path and floated up off the ground. Still following Kreature's hands, the uprooted tree floated to the side and found a home on the ground again.

Under where the uprooted tree trunk had been was a small crater, where they found a small quivering ball of black fur. The whimpering was very soft now. Curiously, Harry kneeled next to the small crater and stretched a hand towards the quivering ball. It didn't even react to his touch. He picked it up and put it in his lap. It was a very skinny, very dirty, black puppy. One round brown eye opened and peeked up at him. The little creature looked quite small and miserable in his lap. That little brown eye tugged at his heartstrings and he soon found himself standing with the puppy clutched closely to his chest.

Harry looked at his house-elf and said, "Are the kitchens repaired?"

The elf only nodded in reply.

"Okay," Harry said, "let's get this little one fixed up."

"He's not there, is he?"

She found that she didn't require an answer because one look at his face confirmed her fears. She collapsed onto a chair and stared into the sooty fireplace. From behind her shaking hands, she murmured, "But where could he be? He wouldn't willingly abandon us so soon after … everything. But what if- what if the death eaters somehow got to him?" She raised her widened eyes to her boyfriend as her voice simultaneously rose in hysteria.

Ron perched himself on the armrest of her chair and said, "C'mon Hermione, calm down. The fat lady wouldn't have let any in and besides, even if she did she would have told us. They wouldn't be organised enough to do anything to Harry after the final battle." Ron pried the witch's hands away from her face gently and pulled her up.

He had decided that, ultimately, dwelling on everything that had happened would not help anyone that he would operate normally until there was time to mourn. He would put other's feelings before his own. Thus calming down Hermione was his first priority.

"He probably just went for a walk. You know he likes to wander sometimes. But if you're really worried we can go look for him, okay?" He said, now resting his hands on her shoulders. Ron knew that Hermione had a good basis for her fears, considering all the time they had spent on the run. And, even though he didn't show it, he feared for the fate of his best mate. He knew how bad his girlfriend got when she was worried, though, so he kept a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Her tense stance only eased a little.

"Shouldn't we tell someone we're going?" Asked Hermione, throwing a sidelong glance at him as they climbed out of the Fat Lady's portrait. Ron grimaced at the very thought.

"Not mum," he replied with a jerky shake of his head, "maybe Bill or Dad. They wouldn't overreact like mum would."

"Overreact about what?" Inquired a voice behind them. They both whirled around and, out of habit, drew their wands. To their intense relief it was only Bill, who, by an odd coincidence, was the very person they needed. Hermione looked at Ron and raised her eyebrows, indicating that it was his duty to tell Bill.

"Well, it's just that … Harry's missing. We think he's fine," Ron explained hurriedly, "he does like to go off on his own a lot but we thought it best to find him … you know, just so we know where he is. And we thought that someone should at least know that we're looking for him."

Bill considered them for a moment, then nodded. He turned and bent over a large chunk of stone that had be blasted out of the wall but was still mainly intact. He studied it and the hole in the wall. With a sly glance out of the corner of his eye at them he said, "I'm going to assume that mother-dearest does not need to hear of this quite yet."

Ron looked slightly relieved as he answered, "That would be preferable." Turning their backs on him, Hermione could not help but tease him a little. "Preferable huh? Where'd you learn such big word?" She asked. Ron appeared to take it in his stride because he almost managed to grin and said, "I guess I've just been hanging around you too much."

Hermione blinked. Normally he would have been embarrassed or shot a withering comment back. Her Ron was really growing up. Once they reached the strangely deserted entrance hall Hermione asked, "Where do we look first?"

Not missing a beat, Ron said, "The kitchens."

"That's where you'd be but we're talking about Harry here," she said, very much aware of Ron's relationship with food.

"Well if he was in any sane frame of mind he would have gone there first," Ron replied.

Their eyes met. Both were doubtful that Harry was in any sane sort of mind when he had taken his 'walk'. But, with a kind of knowingly-blind optimism, they went to the kitchens. It was a weak hope that he would be there, or perhaps something else guided them there. That day, a lot of things seemed to happen coincidently to help them. Maybe it was just luck.

The two ex-students had soon made their way to the kitchen. Hermione reached a finger to tickle a pear, featured in a painting along the wall. It giggled, though it was bit more feeble than normal. Apparently even the paintings were feeling the strains of the final battle. Though the door swung open, just the same.

The kitchens seemed to be abandoned, except for two people sitting on one of the counter-tops. Well, a human and a house-elf, actually. "Harry!" cried Hermione in actual surprise, after all, they hadn't really thought he would be there. Harry looked up. He didn't smile but his eyes held a dim twinkle, as though, despite everything, he'd found something to be happy about. They both moved towards them and as they did so they heard a sound that was quite odd in the echoing silence of the Hogwarts kitchens: yapping.

Sitting on the counter next to Harry and in front of Kreature, who stood with his arms crossed on the floor, watching, was a little black puppy. The puppy was cheerfully lapping up a bowl of milk.

"Harry, where did you find it?" Asked Hermione.

"'It' is actually a him and I found him outside the castle," Harry answered, watching the animal drink.

"You going to keep it?" said Ron after a short silence, broken only by the sound of a puppy's slurping.

"Well, I don't think he has an owner. When I found him he was cold, dirty and hungry. I don't think anyone owns him. He had no collar, after all."

"Yes, well, you'd better come back with us or else people will worry." Said Hermione briskly, her anxiety making her impatient. Harry reluctantly agreed, not really wanting to leave the serenity of the empty kitchen but not wanting to cause much fuss either. Kreature decided that his master was in good hands and went to see if his help was needed elsewhere. As they exited through the painting of fruit, Ron asked, "What are you going to call him?"

Harry thought about it for a moment.

"Snuffles," he decided, glancing down at the animal in his arms, "in honour of Sirius."

"I think he would like that," replied Ron, gently.

For now, the world did not seem so dark for Harry. Sometimes, good things can come out of the bad, if you bother stick around to see it. Though the appearance of the little creature only made the darkness a shade lighter, it was still something.

Slightly edited version.

Read and review, because I love to hear your opinions,

Bob.