Rowena Potter sat in the Great Hall, excitement palpable in the murmurs of the students around her. It was May 2nd, and in honor of the thousandth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, Professor Malfoy, the headmaster, was having them watch the ancient video from Harry Potter's funeral. Her best friend Rhys Finnegan sat beside her, chattering endlessly as usual.
"It's strange, isn't it, to think that Harry Potter went to school here. I tried to ask Professor Binns about him once, but he said he doesn't teach to get to know students. You think he'd care more, now that he's teaching us things like the Second Wizarding War, but oh well. Nearly Headless Nick won't shut up about his 500th Death Day party, if you ask him about Harry. He seems to know most about him of anyone here. He was Gryffindor, just like us. I wonder which dorm he slept in, which room. Maybe I sleep in the same bed as Harry used to!"
Rowena rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure they've changed the beds in the last thousand years. Honestly, Rhys. How can you believe half the things you read about him anyway? They say he fought a three-headed dog when he was only twelve- the same age as we are! Is that something you buy?"
He averted his eyes. "Well, no, I suppose not. But some of it has to be true, or we wouldn't have such wonderful stories today. I mean, we know he defeated that Voldemort guy when he was only seventeen, but a lot of stories say that he fought face-to-face with him every year. That's gotta be exaggeration."
"I definitely agree with you there," she said. She hated to admit it, especially since there was no real way of knowing how much pictures had been doctored, or if they were just made to look a thousand years old or something, but she liked to think she looked something like Harry with her disheveled black hair and green eyes. They shared a last name, after all, and it was strange to have black hair when most wizards were redheads, but nonetheless, the likelihood was just too small.
With a quick flick of the wrist, Professor Malfoy dimmed the candlelight and directed the students' attention to the wall where the ancient film was projecting. Nine hundred years hadn't been kind to the tape, and the color seemed faded, the sound imperfect. Rowena had spent the whole week playing down this event as just another day in history class, no better than if Professor Binns were the one speaking. But as she watched the old woman walk onto the stage in the video, the quality hardly even mattered. Rowena felt like she was there.
By the end of Ginny's speech, Rowena's face was streaked with tears. She'd always wondered what it would be like to grow up during those Dark Times, and here was Ginny Potter, practically in the room with her, talking about the glimmer of hope that Harry really had lived, how she fell in love with him. Rowena was well-read for twelve, but she found herself aghast at how much she'd forgotten. Even a thousand years ago, people were still people- ones who fell in love, and hoped, and fought. Here in this room, a thousand years ago today, a boy the same age as Rowena's brother Arthur stood up to a wizard for the last time. She supposed that even then, Harry Potter was a legend of sorts. But it wasn't the same after sixteen years as it was after a thousand, and as Ginny gave a first-hand account of the Battle of Hogwarts, Rowena thought about the names and facts that she had, in all honesty, just memorized rote for tests. Harry Potter didn't kill Voldemort on purpose; he attempted to disarm him and Voldemort's own Killing Curse rebounded. It never frightened her, because everyone knew the ending. "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Forest" was the last chapter in The Tale of Beedle the Bard, after all. But he hadn't known the ending at the time- faced with the most powerful wizard alive whose only goal was to kill him, Harry still refused to murder. Why weren't people brave like that anymore?
On the screen, Ginny was saying, "But to me, to his family, to the wizarding community around the world, he will always be the Boy Who Lived." The applause on the screen was hidden beneath the applause from in the Great Hall, nine hundred years later. Rowena joined the others on their feet, screaming for the best history lesson they ever had.
Walking back to the Gryffindor Tower, Rowena took her time, looking at all the portraits lining the hallway. On the fifth floor, she finally found the one she was looking for. A redheaded witch was zooming around a Quidditch pitch, not paying the Hogwarts halls any attention.
"Ginny! Do you have a minute?"
The portrait set down her broom and walked closer to the frame, until it was just her head and shoulders. She looked little like the bent old woman Rowena had just seen in the video. In fact, she seemed a lot more like Genevieve Scamander than anyone else.
"Oh, hello there. Not many people take the chance to visit my portrait. Do I know you?"
"Not really. I haven't been by here before. I'm Rowena Potter."
"I should've known. You look so much like Harry. But I'd say you have James's lips."
"James? Who's that?"
A smile crept over the lips of the portrait. "James Sirius Potter is my son."
"Thanks, Ginny. I just wanted to be sure."
Alone in the washroom in Gryffindor Tower, Rowena looked into the mirror, and said to her reflection, "I, Rowena Luna Potter, am a descendant of the famous Harry Potter."
A/N: I don't own anything you recognize. By this point, our English is probably unrecognizable to the students, but I didn't want to make an attempt at it. As to my head canon: Rowena is right about her ancestry. Professor Malfoy is the descendant of Rose and Scorpius. Rhys is related to Seamus. Genevieve Scamander is related both to the Weasleys and Luna and Rolf.
