Harry became an auror because he didn't know what else to do. For as long as he had been apart of the wizarding world, his only purpose had been to fight Voldemort. Neither can live while the other survives, Harry remembered, and realized that he had no idea how to live. His only plan for after the war had been to become an auror. It was a dream he invented at age fifteen, before the war ripped apart his world, before Sirius had died. After, he hadn't thought the possibility of survival was high enough to dream of anything better.
Hermione had suggested, begged even, for him to go back to Hogwarts. She told him countless times, how valuable an education would be. "I thought it was your home, Harry," she would say, her eyes pleading for him to reconsider. Harry couldn't find the words to explain to her why he could never go back. She was right, Hogwarts was, and always would be, his home. But it was also the place of his childhood, short though it was. Harry had not been a child for a long time. And now that he had left, he found it impossible to push himself back inside that shell. His robes seemed far too small now, though he had not grown much in the year he was away. The last of his innocence was gone and Harry was too tired to pretend anymore.
For months after the war, Harry floated. He barely stopped, working hours to fix the damage of the final battle. He flitted from project to project, trying to help on every one. He knew his friends were lying to make him feel better, it was his fault. Every death, every family ripped apart, was because of him. If he had been faster, smarter, if he had figured out the clues sooner, had left to find the horcruxes right away like he had planned. If he had given himself up right away, who knows how many people would have lived.
He couldn't look Mrs. Weasley in the eyes.
The rebuilding didn't last forever, even with swarms of people who seemed more devoted to getting him to rest than to fixing the castle. You earned it, the would say, all with the same line across their forehead, as if worried for him. Harry couldn't look at them either when he insisted he was fine. As the repairs to the school finished and Diagon Alley slowly brightened, Harry began to worry. He had been so busy building, he had not thought of what he would do when he was no longer needed there either.
When Kingsley offered him a place on the force, Harry was relieved. His decision was made for him. Living in a world of peace was unknown and terrifying. Fighting Dark wizards was something Harry knew how to do. He accepted immediately. His friends told him to wait, insisting that he ought to think it over, or at least let himself rest first. Harry shook them off, not knowing how to explain he couldn't.
The routine quickly became familiar and Harry's fears began to fade. He settled down with himself, sure of his place again. From time to time, Harry caught Ginny or Hermione or even Ron, looking at him with concern in their eyes. He would smile, and insist he was fine, then change the subject, not quite relaxing until he saw them soften their brow and he was sure they had let it go.
He rose through the ranks with a determination driven by his need to have something, anything, to fill his mind. If Harry sat still for too long he would begin to remember. The hours at his desk grew longer and longer until Ginny would have to come and pick him up, finding him hunched over a desk on a long silent floor, everyone else having gone home hours ago. He would startle, hand going to his wand, before realizing it was her. Every time, he apologized. For losing track of the time. For getting caught up in his work. For forgetting their date. Again. Once, he tried to break up with her, insisting that she deserved better, that he was no good for her. But Ginny had grabbed his hand firmly and told him she was not making the same mistake twice.
After that he tried harder. He asked Hermione to come get him when she went home, to make sure that he didn't stay longer than he meant. She had been glad to help, relieved that he was willing to spend time with his friends again, and before long it was tradition to get tea, or when a case had been rough on either of the them, a drink, on the way home.
It was in this fashion that Harry limped forward, alternating in losing himself in his job and in Ginny. For a long while it seemed to work, until Harry realized that the war had ended three years ago and he hadn't stopped fighting yet.
The realization came while he was sitting in the garden with Ginny after a dinner with the Weasleys. Harry had been trying to force himself to relax for hours. His girlfriend was going back to Wales in the morning, but he couldn't make himself enjoy their time together. He had dreamed of the Battle the night before and now every noise seemed to be a Death Eater lurking in the bush.
Calm down, he told himself, the war is over. He stilled, muscles drawing tight and stiff. The war is over.
The thought ran through his head like a chant. The war is over. The war is over. The war is over….you can relax.
The war had been over for three years and he hadn't allowed himself to process what that meant.
Two weeks later, Harry went to Kingsley's office and asked for his vacation time. In two and a half years, he hadn't taken more than a few days, all on required medical leave. He had over three months saved up. Kingsley told him to take as many as he needed.
The first week and a half he spent in his apartment, drifting around from room to room, unsure of what to do with himself. For the next, he ventured outside, wandering the streets of muggle London, a place he realized he had never really been. After he had completed a tour of every landmark and icon, Harry went to Wales.
Ginny spent most of the day training and Harry didn't mind. He sat high in the bleachers, wrapped in the muggle jumper he had charmed with the Holyhead Harpies logo. For hours, he stayed, watching the team and admiring Ginny's skill as she flew from one end of the field to the other, sinking the quaffle almost every time. In the evening, he and Ginny would walk together, exploring the small village nearby. Eventually, they became regular enough that the shopkeepers knew their names.
Harry meet the other Harpies, who were more interested in his thoughts on the league than in how he defeated Voldemort, for which he was relieved. When he mentioned it Ginny shrugged, and explained that it was harder to be impressed by someone when you knew they owned more than three pairs of Quidditch themed socks.
At the start, they didn't talk about anything much deeper than that. Harry asked about practice, the team, if she'd heard from Charlie recently. Ginny went along with it, letting Harry avoid whatever was bothering him. She could tell there was something. Harry wouldn't willing leave work if there wasn't something. But, she didn't ask and Harry was relieved. For a few weeks.
It was on a quiet night when they were alone in the apartment that he broke. Ginny was sitting on the couch, flipping through the Quibbler with her shoulder on ice from where she had strained it at practice that afternoon. Harry was setting down the mug of tea he made her when it happened. All at once and without a warning, he began to talk. Months, years of secrets and thoughts came pouring out. Jagged and unorganized and stumbling, he told her everything, the words breaking in formations that held no meaning, one story overlapping the next. He knew he wasn't making sense, but it seemed like his body had decided to quit holding onto it all and he couldn't stop. It was only when a small freckled hand covered his own that Harry realized he was shaking.
He looked up and was startled to see that Ginny's concerned face was distorted by water. He hadn't realized he was crying either. In a soothing voice, Ginny told him to slow down, to breath. She slid slowly to the floor, the coffee table still between them, and stroked his hand lightly, never looking away, the crease above her eyes deep in worry. Harry obeyed, drawing shaking gasps as he struggled to regain control. When he managed to do so enough, Ginny spoke again, telling him to start from the beginning.
And he did, slowly, in short, jerking sentences. He told her about teachers that didn't listen and pushed his concerns aside. He told her about realizing that he was the only one that could do anything, and about eventually just skipping the process of going to an adult. He knew they couldn't, wouldn't help. For hours, he hardly moved as he spoke, his voice growing hoarse as he told her about hearing the last words of his parents and the conflict he felt every time a dementor approached him. Through it all, Ginny sat quietly, asking only minimal questions, allowing him to go at his own pace. And when his head began to droop in exhaustion, she stopped him for the first time and gently insisted that they had time to talk tomorrow, and as many days after as he needed. They went to bed, he curled under her arm, at peace for the first time in years.
The process went more slowly over the next few weeks. Harry spoke still, but with less fever than that night. Bit by bit, he told her everything about his years at Hogwarts. About all the pain and fear he had brushed over when telling stories before. Ginny listened, sometimes in rage, sometimes in tears, but always silently, allowing Harry to speak. She knew that if he was stopped, he may never start again. And when he reached his limit for the day, Ginny was always there with strong arms and gentle hugs and words to sooth his damaged heart.
At the end of his three months Harry flued Kingsley, nervous to ask for more time. And before Harry could even open his mouth, the minister insisted that he take at least another month before promptly sending him on his way, refusing Harry the chance to say a word.
When Harry finally ran out of his years at Hogwarts and finished telling Ginny about the horcruxes and last year of the war, he began to talk about the Dursleys. For the first time, he told someone the depth of their mistreatment, about the weeks locked in his cupboard, the lack of food, and the way Petunia would swing her pots and pans at him, and only sometimes missing. Harry, in a faraway voice, told her that what he wanted most was to make sure that no child ever feels the way he did. As if they were a freak for something they could not control. And gently, because that was the way she did everything around him then, Ginny asked him why he couldn't.
You know, she told him, there is no branch of the ministry set up to help children like you described. Why not make one?
Harry owled Hermione that night. Three days later, he was preparing to make the trip back to London. Ginny waved away his regrets and hesitations, insisting that seeing the passion back in his eyes was enough and that it was her job, as someone who loved him, to be there when he needed it. He thanked her for the support she had given him and with a kiss, he was gone in a plume of green flame.
The next weeks were spent hunched over Ron and Hermione's kitchen table, wading through legal documents and law books. The sight of his two friends, abandoning their own projects and duties to help him reminded Harry of being back at Hogwarts and his days of battling Voldemort. With a jolt, he realized he was taking over their lives again. But Ron and Hermione would hear none of that.
Hermione insisted that this subject was dear to her, and she always was prepared to help fight injustice. As well as help a friend, she had added pointedly.
Ron shrugged and stated that he had felt it was time to move on from the joke shop for a while now, and had just found the perfect project to devote his time to.
When they brought their proposal to Kingsley on Harry's first day back, the minister sat in silence for a long moment. He studied the plan carefully, then each of their faces in turn. In the end, it was the determination shining proudly from Harry's eyes that convinced him. Kingsley hadn't realized until that moment how long it had been missing. He gave his approval and before the day's end, Harry and Ron were splitting a cubicle in the corner of the auror's floor. They weren't official yet, they still needed the council to approve, but there was still a lot of work to be done.
The word caught like wildfire, Harry Potter is founding a new ministry branch for the protection of wizarding children. For the first time he could remember, Harry was proud of being in the Prophet. After that there was no way the council could refuse.
A surprising amount of support began to pour in, from muggleborns who had never felt they fit at home, to purebloods who understood what it was like to have the pressure of a thousand years of family history riding on their shoulders. While it was Mrs. Figg who reminded Harry of the prejudice that squibs still face, and the lack of legislation to protect them. And it was over tea that Neville made sure Harry had notes on forcing magic out of children who hadn't yet shown any signs.
Getting his project off the ground was hard, and sometimes, during the late nights, Harry felt it was impossible. But then he would look up, and see Ron curled over his own paperwork in the corner. With the assurance that he was not alone, Harry would return to his books, smiling slightly.
Slowly, with an agonizing amount of work, progress was made. Their department was officially instated by a near unanimous vote, and the party at the Burrow lasted until sunrise. When their first law was passed, Ron and Harry cracked open a bottle of firewhiskey in their new office, calling over the first batch of new recruits to celebrate with them. And when Harry saved his first child from a home where she had been labeled a freak for her use of magic, Ginny was ready to hold him while he cried.
Slowly, he learned how to move on.
It was six years after the Battle, when he was holding his newborn son in his arms, that Harry realized the war was over, even for him.
A/N:
Thank you TortoisetheStoryteller for letting me know my text was messed up!
I've never really been happy with the explanation that Harry became an auror. It felt like he was trapped fighting in a war he never asked for. I thought that if Harry did end up working for the ministry, it might be something like this.
Also, I'm sorry for the choppy writing, it was meant to convey Harry's confused emotions and thoughts as well as a feeling of skipping through time. I hope it worked. No one else read this before posting so it's very possible I failed.