After The Battle
Chapter 1
It was two days after the battle, and Harry was lying in his bed, wide awake in the boy's dormitories in Gryffindor tower where he was all alone. He guessed that everyone was at breakfast already. He could not sleep, for every time he closed his eyes he remembered the battle so clearly. He had come so close to death, then in the end defeated Lord Voldemort, and caused many other people to die as well. `It`s all my fault` thought Harry. My entire fault for letting those people fight and risk their lives for me. He remembered seeing Ginny with that girl in the hall, and how it took him so much strength to leave and go to Voldemort. And after Voldemort was defeated, how everyone was filled with joy, but could not forget how many lives were lost in the making. When he saw Ginny sitting down, her head on Mrs Weasley's shoulder in the Great Hall, Harry knowing that he had time to talk to her and explain to her what he, Ron and Hermione were searching for.
Harry had not talked to anyone since he had come up to the dormitories other than Ron and Hermione. They had moments of happiness of the knowing that Voldemort was gone for good, laughs at what they put up with during their quest and tears at thinking of all the people who had died. Lupin, Tonks, Fred, Colin Creevy, Snape and many more had risked their lives and had died in the end.
Harry got up, and with his wand (now his original holly and phoenix feather wand) he changed into a new set of robes. He looked into the mirror beside his bed and saw his body full of cuts and scrapes. He took out the bottle labelled Essence of Dittany, the one Hermione carried with her in her beaded bag. He dabbed it on the cuts and they vanished in seconds.
Once he was all cleaned up Harry headed for the Great Hall. As he walked down to the Great Hall, he stopped to notice how destroyed the castle really was. Walls were torn down, rooms destroyed, and all of Hogwarts was unrecognisable at the disaster of it all. He kept walking all to the Great Hall and when he got there, Harry noticed that it was more packed than usual. He looked around and spotted a group of red heads, sitting in a group, all mourning about the loss of their son or brother. Harry was about to turn back, not wanting to disturb them when he had caused all this to happen, when Ron spotted him and signalled for him to come over. Harry came over to where they were sitting and saw amongst the group of Weasley's Fleur, who was sitting with Bill, and Hermione sitting near Ron. Harry spotted Ginny at once, and saw her smiling at Harry, the same smile he saw on her face last year at Hogwarts when they were going out. When he returned the smile she turned away quickly, hiding her face as he saw tears streak down her face. She walked away, out of the Great Hall, out into the school grounds. He said goodbye to the Weasley family and Hermione and followed her into the fresh air, into the school grounds.