All characters belong to J K Rowling.
This is my first fanfic. Please leave comments, honest but nice are best :)
Stopping at the gates, Harry looked up at the castle. He smiled, and walked up the grounds past Hagrid's hut and the lake to Hogwarts. His appointment with the headmaster, professor McGonagall, was in half an hour, and barring peeves, he was reasonably sure that he would make it up on time.
Thanks to the cold that had set in, he met almost no students on his way up to the headmasters office, and those that he did meet, could only stop and stare as he passed in the corridor. He had gotten used to notice in the past, but after last summer, the attention had gotten to a ridiculous point. He spent most of his time in the ministry, tracking down the wands that were stolen, or else at the burrow, where the Weasleys insisted he stay.
At last he reached the gargoyles guarding the entrance and noticed that they had been restored, but seemed to recognize him, because they swung open before he could even utter the password. He stepped onto the spiral staircase and rather thought ironically that every time that he entered the headmasters office seemed burned into his memory.
The last time he entered the office it had been with Ron and Hermione, and he had been ready to leave it all behind. Now, he was back. Not at school, for all three of them had decided that they didn't wasn't to return and complete the final year, for there was enough to do without going back to school. With Kingsley as minister, Harry found himself in the ministry more than ever, working to repair Voldemorts damage.
The spiral staircase reached the landing, and Harry stepped forwards and knocked on the door.
"Enter" it was McGonagall's voice, and he opened the door and walked in, looking around. Each headmaster had changed the office somewhat; though beyond an increase in tartan decorations, the office remained the same since Dumbledore's day. Snape, it seemed, had not changed it in his short time as headmaster.
"Ah, Potter. I got you letter. You said you had something important to tell me that you did not want to write?" she looked up from the desk at which she sat enthroned in the large chair and surrounded by paperwork.
"Yes," said Harry, and taking a deep breath, he said "it's about horcruxes" and with that he sat in the chair that she had indicated, the same chair that he had sat in when he had come to learn about horcruxes. Now he was telling professor McGonagall all about the last two years, his tasks set by Dumbledore, and about Tom Riddle and his horcruxes.
It felt distinctly odd, sitting in the headmaster's office and telling someone else about them, answering professor McGonagall's questions, voicing thoughts that had been similar to his own in retrospect.
Finally, they were sitting in silence, when the dinner bell rang and Harry jumped slightly, surprised at how much time had passed. He had promised Ginny that he would sit with her at dinner if he stayed long enough.
"Go have some food, Harry" McGonagall said, an understanding look on her face, then added in a half exasperated tone "no doubt the news that you're here has travelled all around the school. Your friends will want to see you."
He nodded, and when McGonagall also stood up, he accompanied her to the Great Hall. Most students were still coming down, and there was quite a stir as Harry walked alongside McGonagall through the crowd.
Once in the great hall, he looked around, and spotted Luna at the Gryffindor table and with a nod to McGonagall went to join her, noticing that Ginny was a bit late in coming down.
No more had he sat down and nodded to Luna, when Ginny slipped into the seat beside him and the rest of the DA that were still in school joined them. Once dinner started, however, Harry found himself talking as much about the ministry's efforts and so busy asking questions about Hogwarts that he almost forgot to eat. It was only when Ginny pointedly asked if he wanted potatoes with this half cold steak that he realized that he was ravenous, and for a while they all ate in silence.
Once the meal was over, and most were preparing to leave, Harry realized that he had to walk down to the gate again to disaparate, and as he stood up and the DA followed him into the entrance hall to say goodbye, most of the school watched. Promising to come back and visit another time, he left with Ginny, walking hand in hand down the lane.
They walked in silence for most of it, unhampered by the necessity to talk and enjoying the fact that they were alone together. Finally before the gate, they stopped and stood together for a while. He smiled at her, and with a kiss and a promise to write, he left the grounds, walking towards Hogsmede. When he had reached the street, he turned and was forced through that compressing darkness to feel his feel hit firm ground and smell of Mrs Weasleys cooking. Entering the house through the back door, he found Mrs Weasley in the kitchen, pots and pans streaming and Ron and Hermione sitting at the table, talking.
"-even so, it was an obvious violation of the standards on imported magical animals, even when those evil gits were in charge. I can't wait- oh, hi Harry!" Hermione had turned as he closed the door to the house behind him and hung his cloak on the peg.
"How did she take it?" Ron asked, having been part of the three week long discussion to let McGonagall in on the truth.
"Well. She seemed rather overwhelmed for a minute or two, but then she just went back to being McGonagall." He smiled, and Hermione shifted the papers on the table to give him room. Turning to Mrs Weasley, he asked what was for supper.
"Just something basic, dears." Harry could smell the fried chicken, and smiled appreciatively. Ever since living in a tent with almost no food, he found he could not resist the warmth of the kitchen. Mrs Weasley had known this when she asked Harry to move in to the burrow during cooking. He had been given Bill's room, bill having now moved the last of his possessions in to the house he shared with Fleur. It seemed that so soon after his fight with Riddle, everything seemed just to fall into place and life just seemed to move on. He had gotten a place in the burrow, Hermione was staying with them (her parents had opted to stay in Australia until the end of the year), and Mr and Mrs Weasley had insisted that both he and Hermione call them by their first name.
Taking a deep breath he started to give all the news on Hogwarts that he had gathered, down to the suspiciously nice treatment peeves had been giving the students for the last week, and all their attempts to find out what he was up to.
The next morning the three of them prepared to set off to the ministry, sneaking past Molly's room so as to not wake her up.
Once in the garden, they turned as one and reappeared from the crushing darkness in the hall of the ministry. Looking around, he saw the crowd, and hoped it was enough to shield him from notice. He walked rather fast past the golden statues, in the centre of the hall. George on a prank had transformed the golden wizard into a direct replica of Harry, and despite Harry's most earnest protests, there it remained.
Squeezing into the elevator, he ignored the wizard who complained loudly at 'young upstarts' and waved at Percy, who nodded back.
Harry ignored the pompous wizard until he started complaining loudly, whereupon he turned, and smiled at the man, who stuttered into silence at seeing his face. At the level of the department of magical law Hermione got off, giving Harry an amused look before disappearing into the crowd. Harry and Ron continued to the department of mysteries where they were volunteers in helping return the wands to the flood of muggleborn. Arriving at the office, they entered and picked up the boxes of wands that were stored there, entering the hall that used to contain the prophesies and now was a clear space with several tables, where in the end, they had organized all the wands by length.
Then they started the long and tedious process of handing out wands for the people to try. Harry felt a small surge of triumph every time that a wand rejoined its master, and the looks of renewed hope were fulfilling. Then there were those whose wands had been destroyed or used in some experiments and were broken. These stood for hours before being sent in groups to several different wand makers (Olivanders being one) and getting a new one issued.
At the end of the day, Harry was exhausted. Putting away the wands that hadn't been taken away, he rejoined Ron to head out again. They both had to stop at Hermione's desk every day to drag her away from her work, which she found a lot more satisfying than Harry and Ron found theirs. She was hip deep in papers and deep in discussion on some finer point of fines and the repercussions of splinching when they came to drag her away. They got stuck, however, on the way out into the hall to dissaparate because of an argument two witches were having that was drawing most of the attention. Harry bowed his head and headed through the crowed. He had learnt better than to try to interfere with these eruptions, because the last time the prophet had held headlines that the ministry was coming apart from the inside and Harry was the only thing keeping it together. He tried valiantly these days to stay out of the spotlight. When he had wanted to go with Ginny to get her things for her last year at school the reporters had almost had a fit at the sight of him in diagon alley, and pictures of him and Ginny holding hands plastered the news and magazines for a week. Mr Weasley has almost chocked when he opened the newspaper the next day to the headline 'Potter in Love?' with a picture of his daughter and Harry in a close embrace with a lengthy following article.
They had almost gotten through when a memo that had managed to dodge the crowd bumped into Harry.
It was from Daxley, an auror that wanted to talk about the 'prince curses' as Harry had opted to call them. Telling Ron and Hermione about it, he sent them on homewards and began to force his way back to the elevators. As soon as Ron and Hermione were out of sight, however, someone grabbed Harry roughly and forced him into a fireplace, saying '27 Rupert's Lodge' and Harry's last sight was of the crowd with their backs to him as he disappeared.
When he stopped spinning, he only had a fleeting glimpse of a dirty wooden room before someone cried "stupefy" and he blacked out.
When he came to, he was bound hand and foot, lying on the ground. Opening his eyes, he saw three people sitting in robes in the hut, watching him. With a sinking feeling, he recognized McNair, a deatheater. He didn't recognize the other two, but he knew that they, too, could only be deatheaters.
"Looks like Potters awake." One said. Harry tried to move, but they pointed their wands at him.
"Sorry, Potter, but you won't be leaving here alive." McNair sneered. "The longer you live depends on how much you talk."
Taking a deep breath Harry said "I won't be talking to scum like you." He then took a chance and said, "Besides, avada kedavra doesn't work on me"
He could tell it had worked. They glanced at each other, then one smiled a thin smile "Oh, don't worry. There are plenty of ways to kill you. Avada kedavra may be fast, but it doesn't give us the satisfaction. Like this. Crucio!"
Harry felt the pain sear through his body and knew he was screaming. It went on longer and longer until Harry couldn't even formulate a thought, couldn't breathe, couldn't even scream. Then it lifted, and Harry lay in a daze.
"What did you think of that, Potter?" one cried, "not impervious to that, are you?" he felt the foot kick his side, his face, felt the wands slash open wounds on his body.
He didn't think it could get worse, then he heard above him, the cry again "Crucio!" and the pain was back. They continued their ruthless beatings, Harry only recognizing his arm as broken when one stepped on it.
Finally, they left, laughing.
"If you're still alive at nightfall, we'll come back" they cried, leaving him on the floor to die alone.
