AN: Hey guys! I had an idea for a Harry Potter Fic and I thought I'd try it out. Here's the first chapter. I think this will end up quite long so we'll see. I'd absolutely love any feedback. Constructive Criticism is always welcome but please no flames. I hope you enjoy it!

Peace

McFudge

Harry was so exhausted after The Battle of Hogwarts that he climbed up to dormitory, collapsed onto his four-poster bed and slept for the next 20 hours. When he awoke, he found Neville, Ron, Seamus, and Dean in the dormitory, still out. Harry was pleasantly surprised at how restful his sleep was. He had been expecting to be plagued by horrifying nightmares and would have to relive the past two days in his head, but he got lucky for once. Harry figured he'd have to deal with the nightmares soon, but he was just glad that he didn't have to deal with it at the moment.

Harry decided to leave his dormitory and go in search of food. Thankfully Kreacher had managed to find him some clean robes. Harry hoped that Hermione would still have the beaded bag, but Harry had his wand, invisibility cloak and the Maurader's Map, and everything else could be replaced. He meandered down to the common room, where Harry found many older witches and wizards collapsed on conjured cots on the floor. He figured the people who were not students were in no state to go home so crashed in the common rooms of their old houses. Harry was glad to see Hermione sitting in one of the chairs by the fire, looking at something in her lap.

Luckily Gryffindor tower had not obtained too much damage and it was still useable as living quarters. There were probably other students and people crashed in classrooms, as not all the dormitories had gotten quite so lucky.

Upon hearing Harry enter the room, Hermione looked up and met his eyes. She quietly got up and maneuvered around the sleeping forms to join Harry. The 2 of them made their way to the portrait hole, where the Fat Lady had fled and her portrait was hanging open.

The two of them walked in silent companionship, dodging the rubble that filled the Hogwarts halls. Most of the structure of the building was intact, but some walls were missing or had major holes in them. Harry and Hermione spotted a few spots where things were very obviously being held together with magic. The cool morning air coming in through the walls sent a chill through the silent and deserted halls.

Once they got closer to the Great Hall, they started to hear noises and the castle seemed less eerie. Harry and Hermione entered the halls and stopped to grab toast and fruit from a table in the corner before joining McGonagall and the rest of the teaching staff and adults who had came to help. There were no Weasleys present, but Harry assumed they were too overcome with grief to be able to deal with all that was necessary to get the castle back to working order.

There was a great flurry of activity present in the great hall that was not found elsewhere in the castle. The hospital wing had been demolished so the injured were being treated in the great hall. Madam Pomfrey was supervising many healers who had come from Saint Mungos to help. Some people were being cured right there, but others had to be taken to St. Mungos for better care.

The dead had been taken to chambers off the hall, the death eater far away from their friends, at last unable to harm anyone. There was a lot to take care of in the next few days, and Hermione figured that she, Harry, Ron, Neville, Ginny and many other DA members would be heavily involved in the recovery process, if for no other purpose than to give people hope. Yes, the forces of evil had been vanquished, but they were still a long way from ok, and there would be a lot of healing that would need to happen before the wizarding society would be back on its feet. After the pair had stood there for a bit, McGonagall realized that they were there and called out,

"Potter! Granger! Would you be able to provide us with another opinion?"

"Sure professor," Hermione volunteered. The two of them moved to McGonagall's side ready to throw themselves into work in an effort to forget all the inner ghosts and demons they would have to face and fight.

McGonagall looked at them with an expression that could only be called pride. "How are you two holding up?"

"Quite well Professor," Harry replied, uncomfortable with McGonagall's sudden interest in his mental health. He was not used to McGonagall being sentimental and to be perfectly honest, it made him a tad uncomfortable to be asked personal questions by his stern, no-nonsense professor.

At that, McGonagall gave him a piercing look. "Potter I don't think that statement is quite true."

"You're right professor, but I mean no offense by this but I really don't want to talk to you about it. I will talk to people, but I can't talk to you." Harry was so not ready to deal with everything. There was so much that had happened in the past year that he would rather forget. Plus he had just saved the Wizarding World again and he would have everyone's eyes on him. And all Harry wanted to do was hide and that would be very hard.

McGonagall looked slightly taken aback, but also slightly relieved, as she really wasn't good at the whole feelings thing. She didn't want to talk either.

"Well moving on then. We have been scrambling around trying to take care of everything. Many people are injured, many are dead and everyone else is grieving. We must also rebuild the castle, take care of the death eaters locked in the dungeons. There are also many issues to be dealt with that don't directly pertain to our school such as the ministry of magic and Azkaban. Also, we must determine what do with the school next year as many students did not receive a full year of education this past year and those who were here did not receive satisfactory education."

Hermione was perpetually the brightest witch of the age. She began to babble to McGonagall and the two of them walked off. Harry hung back and wandered over towards Kingsley. They were discussing plans to repair Hogwarts.

As Hermione talked to McGonagall she kept up her usual over-intelligent, well thought out banter. She clung to how she always acted, to try and make things normal. She needed to do this to retain her sanity and strength. Hermione was determined to stay strong, there would be many people who needed somebody to lean on, and she intended to be that person. The Weasleys in particular would need help, especially Ron. Hermione would be there for him. She didn't understand why it was so important to her to comfort Ron and she wasn't really sure that she wanted to understand her strong feelings.

Hermione finished spurting ideas to McGonagall and joined Harry by Kingsley. They helped organize recovery efforts until Ron and Ginny showed up in the door. Then the two of them excused themselves from the group and joined the siblings in the entryway. The four of them exited the castle and walked down to the lake, trying to comfort each other in this hard time and get on to the road to recovery.