Our Choices that Define

Harry and Ginny were chatting, passing a quaffle through the hole in the wall.

"But Harry, then you are just making a strangely large space that doesn't serve any real purpose. If you just fix the hole, then you have another bedroom."

Harry caught the quaffle absentmindedly, looking around the space. "You have to use more imagination, Ginny. I'm thinking this spot can be used as a sort play area for Teddy, or a reading space, or just another area to relax in." Harry tossed her the quaffle. "Look behind you, you see how small that window is? Why bother putting one in, honestly. I think they took the whole house of Black thing a little too literally."

Ginny looked back at the window, the quaffle resting on her hip, her face contemplative. "So you're saying that you want to not only knock down the rest of this wall, but knock down a lot of the outside wall and make a bigger window?" Ginny stepped back, looking around the room. "It would certainly open things up, to the point that is strangely hard to imagine." Ginny shrugged, tossing the ball back. "But you certainly what have to get a professional in here for that. Or Bill at the very least."

Harry felt mildly offended. "Why?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Because you don't know what you're doing?"

Harry tossed the ball back. "I can learn."

Ginny caught the ball by her fingertips, looking at him with a confused look on her face. "Harry, what are you doing?"

Harry now looked confused, too. He shrugged and raised his eyebrows, gesturing around the room, as though to say, "I'm talking to my girlfriend and tossing a quaffle through a hole I made while smashing the portrait of hated non-relative, obviously."

Ginny smiled, shaking her head, throwing the ball softly. "No, I mean, why are you suddenly interested in becoming a temporary construction wizard? Why aren't you in auror training?"

Ginny had finally asked what had been on the Weasleys', actually the whole wizarding world's, minds for the last three months. What is Harry Potter doing, and what will he do next?

Harry frowned, twirling the quaffle in between his fingers. "I just want things to calm down a little before I did that."

Ginny stepped closer until she was leaning against the wall by the hole. "Want what to calm down?"

Harry shrugged, leaning against the wall on the other side of the hole. "You know, the whole Harry Potter thing."

Ginny raised an eyebrow, smiling. "Harry, you can't possibly be thinking that this is going to blow over, right? You are now officially, irrevocably, in the history books."

Harry sighed. "Yes, I know. It isn't exactly like I'm expecting for people to completely forget about me or anything, but right now things are a little…"

Ginny's smile changed into something softer, almost a little apologetic. "Intense. Things are a little intense. Harry...They are thinking of building a statue of you, you know, for the atrium in the Ministry."

Harry blanched. "No...Absolutely not. I refuse, I seriously refuse. See, this is what I'm talking about! How I'm a supposed to start as a rookie auror when I have a bloody statue of myself in my work place!"

Ginny reached forward, putting a calming hand on his shoulder. "They aren't going to do it, Harry. Have you forgotten who the Minister is? Dad said that Kingsley couldn't stop laughing, imagining the look on your face at that suggestion. The point wasn't to scare you, I'm just pointing out that that was a serious suggestion. Your fame isn't going to go away any time soon, so you shouldn't wait for it to."

Harry took a calming breath, looking over at her. "Though I don't like it, I have actually gotten more or less use to being famous. I know how this goes. I do something, everyone has an opinion of a while, the newspapers make up things because they don't have anything else to do, everyone doesn't like me for a while, then everyone moves on."

Ginny hesitated. "You...what do you mean everyone moves on?"

Harry frowned at her question. "I mean, everyone stops talking about me eventually. Even at Hogwarts, which of full of gossiping teenagers, I wasn't talked about constantly, you know. People get bored."

Ginny's face paled slightly, her mouth opening and closing a few times.

Harry frowned further. "What?"

"W-Well, uh, you see, rather than people no longer talking about you, you just seemed to get use to it as the school year went on."

Harry shook his head, "No, really, it's hard to miss, you know, people glancing at you, whispering behind their hands. It does eventually stop."

Ginny swallowed, nodding to herself once, and squared her shoulders. "It never stopped, Harry."

Harry opened his mouth angrily.

Ginny shook her head firmly. "You were always talked about. If it was nice or mean gossip, that changed all the time, but you were always part of the gossip, always. I would know, I mean, I have a lot of friends, generally they are good people, but they talked about you all the time. When I started dating you, oh, it was a little scary, actually. People, random people I didn't know at all, would come up and ask the most ridiculous questions. I wasn't joking about the question about the hippogriff tattoo on your chest, you know. And Harry, this was during sixth year, when you were secretly doing a lot, but it didn't look like you were doing anything to the outside crowd. No one thought you were a crazy liar anymore, and you weren't a Triwizard champion, you weren't being chased down by what we thought was a mass murderer, you were just a regular post-OWLs student and quidditch captain, and you know, Harry Potter, so people still, always, always, always talked about you, always."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, a little overwhelmed, but Ginny held up her hand and took a deep breath. "So that was in your sixth year, our most normal year, and now you have defeated bleeding V-Voldemort, Harry. It's just...It's just not realistic to expect that this is going to die down anytime soon. Or at all. In fact, the more you hide, the more curious people get. You can't just redo this house forever, putting your future on hold, waiting to not be famous."

Harry leaned forward, hitting his head against the wall with a thunk. "I don't want to be famous."

Ginny laughed lightly, rubbing the back of his neck, putting her face close to his. "Then you shouldn't have saved us all."

Harry looked over at her, frowning, cautious. "You don't think of me like that, do you. Like some puffed up hero?"

Ginny's smile, already kind, grew somehow softer, her eyes impossibly warm. "I hate to break it to you, Harry, but yes, I do think of you as a hero. My hero, in particular, but everybody else's hero, too. I just also happen to think of you as the guy who loves my mum's treacle tart, who can't do dust cleaning spells to save his life and who is definitely good at quidditch, almost as good as me, but not quite." Ginny moved her hand from his neck to his cheek, her palm warm, her fingers a little cool. "These things aren't as separate as you think."

Harry was finding the spell to remove wallpaper very satisfying. Although Ginny's doubt at his abilities to responsibly dismantle his house offended him at the time, he did find that the idea of trying to knock down more of the walls slightly intimidating. So instead he was trying to get rid of the rotting wallpaper. He had three sides of the living room done. At the Dursley's taking down the wallpaper had been a thankless (obviously) and exhausting task. Sometimes he would get a few feet at a time but mostly he would pull and then chip at the glue, then pull and chip, pull and chip. But with magic, the paper came down in sheets, all at once. It was very nice.

Harry threw out the piles of wallpaper, then looked thoughtfully at the the fourth wall of the living room before deciding to leave it for later. He sprawled out on the couch and with a flick of his wand, turned on the WWN.

"And that's why, if you're ever in doubt, try the no mess, easy to apply, non-scented Wizard's Wonder Wipes." A cheery jingle followed the advertisement, the whole commercial sounding like it was coming from the nineteen-forties. Harry wondered why every part of the wizarding world seemed suck at various points in the past.

"And we are back. We have finished setting up our system in the atrium of the Ministry and are just waiting for the Minister to start his speech. There has been wild speculation of what the speech is about…" There was a quiet tapping sound and a small cough. "Ah ha, it looks like he is ready, let's all listen, wizards and witches!"

A new voice, lower and less enthusiastic than the announcer, spoke clearly. "Good afternoon all, today's announcement should be fairly short but exciting, so let's all welcome Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic."

The echo-y sound of applause in the atrium filled Harry's living room, followed by the deep, smooth baritone of Kingsley's voice. "Good afternoon. I just wanted to make a brief announcement of what the new statute and water feature in the atrium is going to be. I have here a mock up what it should look like."

There was a swishing sound of material moving and then a steady rise of voices, all talking excitedly. The announcer spoke, quickly and quietly, sounding excited. "For all you curious people at home, Minister Shacklebolt has pulled away a curtain that was covering a ten foot tall painting of what will be the main feature of our Ministry's atrium, and let me tell you all, it is stunning."

Harry sat up, feeling nervous. It wouldn't actually be anything to do with him, right? Kingsley's voice started again, quieting the talking voices almost at once. "As you can see, we wanted to do something different from our predecessors. Obviously the Magic is Might statue goes against everything the current Ministry stands for…" The was a brief interruption of applause. "But also we didn't want to Fountain of Magical Brethren again, as that had been a fountain of lies." The crowd laughed. "So, we came up with this. Looking here, you can see that there will be one main fountain line, which will create a globe effect with water. The lights around fountain will be bright, making the water both sparkle and hard to see through. This globe represents life and magic."

Kingsley paused and Harry relaxed against the couch, relieved and listening carefully. The audience in the atrium remained silent. "As you can see, the figure in the middle of this globe is hard to see, indistinct, ever changing in the shimmering light that is magic and life. You can not tell, one moment to the next, if it is a wizard or a witch, a centaur or a mermaid, a house elf or goblin, magic or muggle. Everyone peer closely at that figure. The closer you look, the harder you look, the more indistinct it becomes, the edges more and more blurry. This is because the lines between us are blurry, unclear and unimportant. We are all creatures living in this world of magic, life, and light together. We are all of this world, we are all part of its beauty. This is what the Ministry wants to express to you now, this is a vision of the world we want to help create."

The audience burst into applause, loud even in his living room. Harry sat still, feeling moved, a smile on his face.

After a minute the clapping slowed and Kingsley spoke again. "This beautiful fountain, designed by Ipsum Esperanto will be installed into the ministry next weekend. Please give him a round of applause." The clapping started again, enthusiastic.

The announcer spoke, "A young man, handsome, with, I daresay a rather daring tattoo sleeve up one arm, is now bowing to the audience."

Once again the clapping slowed. Kingsley cleared his throat a little. "We are all thrilled and pleased with this hopeful symbol of our ideals, though I know some of you are disappointed that this isn't a statue of our handsome young Harry Potter."

Harry grimaced, his face turning red even though he was alone. The crowd laughed.

"But while I know that Harry would have never have wanted to have a statue of himself here or anywhere, really, we here wanted to honor all that he has done for us and to honor all who lost their lives or who lost a loved one fighting the darkness." There was a long pause. The crowd started muttering again.

The announcer spoke this time more more slowly. "The Minister has revealed another portrait. It looks like a drawing of a simple plaque that will go at the base of the statue. It says in bold gold letters, 'We, who live in the light, thank you for all that you have done for us. Then underneath that is has Harry Potter's name in large script, his birthday and a line, and beneath that the names of all of those who fell in the battle at Hogwarts, their names, their birthdays and...and at the bottom of the plaque, the date of their deaths, the date of the battle at Hogwarts, May second, nineteen-ninety-eight."

The announcer's voice had become more subdued as he spoke. The talking in the crowed seemed quieter as well. Harry stood, leaving the room as Kingsley and the announcer wrapped up the speech.

He needed to put on some trousers, a robe and go see Kingsley.

Harry flattened his hair and looked down as he entered the atrium, heading swiftly for the security desk.

The security guard looked bored, barely glancing up at Harry as he approached the desk.

"Wand please."

Harry handed him his wand, fidgeting, hoping the security guard wouldn't ask him any more questions. "Holy wand, 11 inches. Here's your receipt."

"Thank you."

"What is your business here today?"

"I, uh, want to see Minister Shacklebolt."

The guard snorted, "Do you have an appointment?"

"Um, no, not exactly."

The guard sighed, pulling out a map. "Here, if you go to basement level two and turn right, then left at the loo, you will run into his assistant secretaries. They will be able to assist you with whatever it is you need to see the minister about."

Harry hesitated, wondering if he should say anything. But the idea of saying, "But I'm Harry Potter! Kingsley is my friend!" made him want to punch himself in his own face. Besides, it would be better to see his secretary, it was completely presumptuous to think he could just march in here and demand Kingsley's time. He could make an appointment with Kingsley, hopefully before the plaque is put up, and see what he could do.

Nodding, Harry took the map. "Thank you."

The security guard glanced up at him again, disinterestedly. "You're…" The guard stopped, looking up again at Harry's face, his mouth dropping open. "You're Harry Potter!" The guard's voice carried. Harry glanced around nervously.

"Yes, yes I am. Um, well, thanks again." Harry tried to move away from the desk, but the guard stood and reached out, taking Harry's hand and pumping it enthusiastically with both of his.

"My family is never going to believe this. Cor, I-I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realize it was you."

Harry pulled his hand away, his grin a little stiff, a number of people were glancing his way, a small crowd gathering, pointing towards them. "That is perfectly alright. If you excuse me, I'll go find Kingsley's secretaries…"

"What? Oh, no, no. I have special instructions for you. We have security lifts that will take you directly down to his office."

Harry frowned, opening his mouth to protest, but he looked behind him, to the slowly gathering people, the crowd getting louder and larger. Someone in the middle of it yelled, "That's Harry Potter, isn't it?"

Harry looked back at the awed face of the guard. "O-Okay then."

The lift was small, the interior plush. They didn't stop at all the floors, though Harry knew it could from the excited chatter of Robert, who wanted to be called Bob, the day security guard.

Harry was apparently in the Minister's personal lift.

Bob stopped talking for a second, his eyes glancing again and again at Harry. "Um, would it be possible, do you think, sir, to get your autograph? It's just that my daughter is starting at Hogwarts this September, and we are all so relieved that everything is over now, and you are all she talks about, you know."

Bob held out a pad of paper and a ball point pen, which Harry eyed, curious. Hesitating, looking up at Bob's embarrassed but hopeful face, Harry took the pen and paper. "Thank you, thank you really. If, if you could just write a small note for her, anything really." Bob's face was practically glowing, how red it was.

Harry thought about what to put and tried to write carefully, wincing at his own bad penmanship. "Um, what's her name?"

"Elizabeth, but she goes by Lizzy."

Harry paused, then wrote, "Lizzy, Have a great and safe time at Hogwarts. Cherish it, time goes fast there. Harry Potter." Harry handed back the pen and paper, biting his lip. He didn't know how to finish it, just signing his name without any flourish. He wasn't even sure if he spelled cherish right. But Bob glanced over it, looking at it like it was pure gold as the lift slowed to a stop.

"We're here. Thanks again, sir."

Harry left the lift quickly, waving awkwardly, "Thank you, Bob."

The lift's door closed with a ping. Harry turned and looked at what appeared to be the reception area for the Minister's office. There was a sturdy dark wood desk in the back center of the room, behind which a young wizard was writing quickly, his head bent, his hair carefully parted. The carpet was a deep purple, the walls a very, very light lavender. To one side there was a few chairs and a table with a couple of glasses and jug of water. To the other side there was stiff looking black couch, a low dark wooden coffee table with folded newspapers on it, and two equally stiff looking arm chairs. In the wall behind the receptionist desk there were three doors. Various nondescript landscape paintings hung on the wall.

Harry took a deep breath, feeling vaguely ashamed of having written that note for Bob's daughter. He felt worried, as though signing anything was going to make him slowly turn into Lockhart. He also felt embarrassed, imagining Bob, so excited, giving that note to his daughter, and his daughter throwing the note to the ground and saying something like, "Dad, really, Harry Potter? Sure, I'm happy I don't have to go to Hogwarts run by evil people, but it's not like he's cool or something." Harry smiled a little to himself at that thought, feeling that must be true. It wasn't like he was movie star, or a famous athlete. He wasn't good looking or entertaining, so why would an eleven year old girl want his note?