Chapter 2


All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places

Worn out faces

(Gary Jules, Mad World)


Quotes in bold italic are from DH (chapter 33), quotes in bold are from the Sorcerer's Stone.


Not much dialogue here, as in the next chapter, and a lot of angst from the survivors. It's an inevitable process, since they're still in shock. Of course, some will heal faster than the others.


May – September 1998

In the very hours following the battle, the Weasleys tried to make life as normal as possible, even while grieving for Fred and preparing the funeral. Harry and Hermione grieved with the family too. The Weasleys were tough, faithful people. In joy or in mourning, they clung to each other better than Hufflepuffs.

Ginny had made it very clear when she began to take Harry away for special times together, in her room or walking in the wild, that they were adults now and that nobody would interfere with her life any more—not that anyone seemed to be willing to.

After that show of will, she was happy to revert to her usual place of youngest child and sibling. In retrospect, she felt all the terror of facing Bellatrix Lestrange. The whole battle had been a frightening nightmare, as she knew they were fighting not only for freedom but for their lives. The climax for her had not been Harry's duel with Voldemort but her own confrontation with Voldemort's lieutenant, when she was sure, for a few minutes, that she was going to die.

Now that it was over, she could not help feeling that she was not really safe except around her mother or with Harry. But in truth, she was the stronger one with her boyfriend, because Harry looked too much like a boxer who is still standing to the count but will soon topple down.

She would tell him, "We're free now", and he would answer in kind, and lose himself in her for a time but he just did not seem to believe it. He still was not over the shock that he had died, come back, killed Voldemort and that all was over – but with the whole world turned upside down.

The first hour of elation had lasted just that: one hour.

After that, there was bewilderment and pain. People, friends had died, and it felt too much like they had died for him and that he had failed them somehow. The present was kind of a blur. The future a definite void. Reality did not seem real, now that he had no further goal for the rest of his life.

"You can do what you want now," people kept telling him, repeating, "you're free", just like Ginny. The trouble was, after the initial relief at Voldemort's death and his own survival, he did not really know what he wanted. He never had time to really consider the future, being too busy trying to survive until the next confrontation with Voldemort.

The last year, he had given up any hope of living past his mission and had held only by the sheer will of Hermione and his own sense of responsibility. Snape's last minute revelation that he was to die to end it all had felt just right—because he did not expect more.

Only the past could give him something now, something he desperately needed: meaning and understanding.

He had been offered a second chance after visiting the strange void of King's Cross Station with Dumbledore, but it left him with a feeling that even in death, he had never been given a real choice. He could not really have let them all down, abandoning them to Voldemort to ride in a train to another life, now could he? And who told that another life would have been better?

There seemed to be no truth any more in his world. What he had always deemed true proved to be only lies. Who was Dumbledore in the end? Snape? And himself?

So, he spent hours viewing and living Snape's memories again and again – eagerly seeking understanding of the great net of Dumbledore's weaving that had trapped them all, and absorbing all possible glimpses of his mother... And his father. He found new details every time, glimpses of other moments he had hardly noticed in the emergency of the coming battle.

He also poured his own memories of Dumbledore and Snape in the Pensieve.

In hindsight and with greater maturity, Dumbledore was a first-class politician and manipulator. He always managed to distract, to question in lieu of answering and said meaningless, empty half-truths, with such a power of conviction that you did not realise before he left that he had not said anything at all, except something vaguely philosophical. He only ever admitted the truth after the facts, and only a chunk of it, using it to mislead.

"Quirrell said he hates me because he hated my father. Is that true?"

"Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy. And then, your father did something Snape could never forgive."

"What?"

"He saved his life."

"What?"

"Yes..." said Dumbledore dreamily. "Funny, the way people's minds work, isn't it? Professor Snape couldn't bear being in your father's debt... I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because he felt that would make him and your father even. Then he could go back to hating your father's memory in peace..."

In less than one minute, Dumbledore had managed to make him believe that there was nothing but an ordinary school rivalry between James Potter and Snape, implied that all was Snape fault's because it was Draco's fault they were at odds, and that Snape was an ungrateful lout...

To think he had believed this man walked on water, and that he cared for him!

Yes, he cared for him enough to abandon him to the Dursleys without checking even once how he was treated. He could almost hear him answer, if he had confronted him, that "Mrs Figg was there to check on you." Mrs Figg! He was not even sure if the old lady, kind as she was and focused on her cats, would have noticed if his uncle buried his corpse in the garden... The only thing she had ever noticed were the Dementors, but that would have been impossible to miss, even for a squib.

Yes, Dumbledore cared. He cared enough to send him back to Privet Drive for weeks on end without one visit or even one word of comfort after Cedric's death and after Sirius's death...

He cared enough to leave to Snape the task to tell him he had to die.

His memories of Snape were another matter entirely. Re-living his encounters with Dumbledore left him bitter, but those with Snape left him ashamed.

Ashamed that he never realised the Potions master was just as good an actor as the Headmaster. Snape was never so nasty as when there was an audience of Death Eaters' children or of notorious school gossips. It was like laugh tracks on TV to make people realise "here was a joke." Snape made a drama of every encounter to proclaim, "See how I hate the Boy Who Lived!" He always managed to wind him up until Harry snapped. And did he snap! So insolently and nastily, in fact, that any other teacher confronted with the same treatment would have extracted a pound of flesh in detentions and house points.

Snape was a subtle man, but an honest one when you knew where to look. Their very first lesson had set the tone of the coming years but it was also a very symbolic declaration of intention. The first time Harry answered back, "I don't know. I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?" Snape had actually taken one point from him. One. How more symbolic could he have been?

He also had a small tic. He clenched his left hand in the folds of his robe before approaching Harry in the classroom and berating him. He did the same thing when he was in front of Sirius or of Alastor Moody, or just before marching on Minister Fudge and shoving his Dark Mark under his nose. And he did it in front of Voldemort, when the madman asked him why the Elder Wand didn't work for him.

Harry watched how, as time went by, Snape still clenched his fist before approching him, but he hardly needed to say anything to make Harry defy him, just like Pavlov's well-trained dog.

It was the sole excuse he could put forward for the way he had always refused to acknowledge how much he owed to Snape and how protective the man had been. It was not Dumbledore who cast the counter spell to save him when his broom was cursed. It was not Dumbledore who was checking anxiously for his arrival when he missed the Hogwarts Express the second year. It was not Dumbledore who ran to confront Sirius when they all thought he wanted to kill Harry.

That he was exchanging his own childish, biased view of the past for another, maybe just as biased, did not occur to him. He fed his own resentment of Dumbledore's manipulations and abandonment with Snape's feelings of betrayal and wary acceptance of martyrdom.

Harry came to believe that only Snape could understand him—had understood him, since he now understood the man so well.

Always, he ended with Snape's memories of his mother. When he emerged from the relief of adoring visions of the beautiful, forever young Lily Evans, he left to meet another beautiful, young redhead who loved him with all her heart.

He told himself he did not mistake one for another, but who knows really? He would not be the first one to go after a woman who reminded him of what he knew of his mother. During the interminable summers at the Dursleys, he often flipped through the photo album Hagrid had given him. He always thought, as he watched how radiant Lily Potter had been, that Ginny would surely be just as pretty one day.

He stopped only the day Dilys Derwent sternly told him that Pensieve life on such large scale as he used was like a drug, it only gave regrets and mental addiction.

The other portraits nodded gravely in approval, as she added, "some need that to simply survive for another day" - she gave a meaningful glance at Snape's old scarf that somehow Professor McGonagall had left in place - "but you must let go and learn to live for yourself. The Headmistress doesn't realise all the time you spend inside that thing or she wouldn't give you such free leave to use her office. I was a healer. Trust me: it will only get worse if you do not stop. Now."

"She's right, my boy." Harry glanced at Dumbledore's portrait, who he had studiously ignored for several weeks. "Remember the Mirror of Erised? A Pensieve can do the same thing to your mind. It isn't better to dwell on memories than on dreams."

As he was ready to protest, Headmistress Derwent added, in a tone that brook no objection, "if it could heal and alleviate guilt, we would use them in St Mungo's."

Feeling himself turning crimson under the gaze of a gang of now surprisingly alert portraits, Harry left sheepishly—clutching the little bottle of silvery mist with guilt.

When they were sure he could no longer hear them, someone asked, "I thought they use Pensieves in St Mungo's?"

"Of course, they do, but that young man should be out in the sun with his girl. That's the best cure when you're eighteen," answered Dilys saucily, eliciting a round of chuckles.

§§§

Hermione followed Molly as a shadow. She was rather subdued, and unusually silent. After all the adrenaline-filled events that led to the death of Voldemort, she wanted to be left alone.

Everybody at the Burrow knew of the torture and the angry red scar tattooed on her arm, although she carefully avoided short sleeves and refused to speak of it. She even went so far as changing her wardrobe for rather over-sized tunics and jumpers.

"Sacks," Ginny called them disapprovingly as she inspected what Hermione had mail ordered. "They look like sacks. You must send them back!"

But Hermione did not want to. She had been so uncomfortable and cold all those months, she explained, that she needed the feel of being wrapped in her clothes as in a blanket.

She almost looked like a little girl dressed in adult clothes. Ron did not see anything amiss, since he did not exactly care for clothes, as long as they were not too shabby. Harry, who had spent all his life dressed in the hand-me-downs of Big D, even less so.

Molly shook her head sadly. She watched Hermione and Harry side by side, desperately thin in their too big clothes, and felt like she had rescued tramp twins from the streets. And then she would cry, remembering that they had been little more than that during the last year.

She knew that there was more to worry about Hermione than the way she clothed herself. She gave Ginny a sharp set-down when she heard her nag Hermione again.

"Ginevra Weasley, not everyone is as vain as you are. Leave her alone. She can wear what she wants, and if you think she needs something else, you buy it yourself with your own budget." Which was below the belt, considering the budget, but effectively silenced Ginny. The stricken teenager suddenly wondered if her mother meant that Hermione, who was a virtual orphan right now, had any money left, and that maybe she was twisting the knife because Hermione could not afford anything else.

She generously offered her friend to share toiletries and all those products girls generally think they cannot live without. Hermione accepted, more to please Ginny than anything else, because she just did not care for that sort of thing.

She was not that short on money either, since the Ministry had unfrozen her Gringott's account. It had been confiscated along Harry's under Pius Thicknesse. Her parents were rather well off and had been very generous when they filled her vault. There was more than enough to pay for all her years at Hogwarts, so she still had a little nest egg, and Kingsley Shacklebolt had promised there would be a material proof of the country's gratitude in the coming months.

It wasn't material things, though, that made Molly worry about Hermione. It was to see the purple bags under her eyes that proved she did not sleep much, and the way she sometimes seemed to have trouble carrying out the simplest of everyday tasks.

Molly was the fit companion then. She busied herself as usual and had her simply in tow, letting her offer when she felt up to it and just sharing companionship when she didn't.

The Weasley matriarch generally managed to sound rather cheerful, but at times she just couldn't. When she had an unexpected crying bout, Hermione was not far behind. They always ended comforting each other. Molly's regard for Hermione increased tenfold during that time—if it was possible.

Molly would be proud all her life of saving her daughter from "that Lestrange bitch", but she was the only one to know that she had sent that killing curse with probably as much hatred in her heart than Voldemort's favourite. It hit her physically as much as emotionally to admit what depths of loathing and darkness she had been able to summon. She had believed for a long time that she had lived through the worst of what war could send her, until the Battle of Hogwarts proved her wrong. She had lost her son, and killed for the first time of her life in hate.

She would keep some kind of pessimistic streak after that, and worry regularly how soon the circle of darkness would start again.

For two decades, she had believed that she was on the firm side of the Light, prided in her choices even when she hurt in her own flesh, and disparaged those on the other side.

Now she discovered that she could indeed be executioner as well as victim. She had understood the concept, many times repeated by Albus Dumbledore, that any one can drown in evil if they do not take care, but she now felt the truth of it in her very bones. Nobody was immune, and you could not trust yourself.

She had her ways to deal with unpleasantness, but the day her children showed her that she now had her own chocolate frog card for killing Bellatrix Lestrange, described as "the maddest and darkest follower of Tom Riddle (Voldemort)", she retired to her room and burst into angry tears.

§§§

George was in their old room, sedated. At least, he was home.

Charlie bunked with him and kept an eye on him for as long as he could stay in Britain, then Bill and Fleur took him to Shell Cottage. He did not mind. He did not care much, even without drugs. At least, watching the waves for hours on end was soothing and gave an odd feeling of fullness again.

Sometimes the wind made him laugh at the memory of clever pranks, but the salty wind was always irritating for the eyes. This is what he kept telling himself when he rubbed at tears he had decided he had no reason to shed any more. Nothing would bring Fred back. They had had so many projects that he was left to carry out alone.

He hated himself when he remembered he would never again have to find ways to prove he was a full man, and not just half of a pair.

Molly cast a Notice-me-not charm on the Family clock, supposedly "for George's sake." Fred's clock hand had just frozen on mortal peril when he died, but nothing Molly did could make the pointer disappear as it was supposed to. Arthur forbade the children to say anything about it. They all knew it did not work because her heart did not let go. You have to mean magic. Molly was simply not ready to have the last proof of Fred's part in the family life disappear.

§§§

In the early days, there were always people Flooing in and out of the Burrow: Ministry agents, members of the Order, family relations... What with arranging for the funeral, and so much chaos to unravel... Officials missing, killed or arrested, and work to be done between Hogwarts, Grimmauld Place and the Ministry.

It was still dark times, as nobody knew any more who had really authority to decide, to question or arrest. There were many cases of expeditionary justice with unreliable testimonies to damn innocents—or to pave the way for lawyers to get guilty people free later. There was no room left in Azkaban to house more prisoners, so what was one to do with them?

Interim Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt was nearly driven to distraction, as was Arthur Weasley and the surviving or newly appointed Heads at the Ministry, until Percy stepped in, taking back his old job where he had left it. Percy was at his most efficient under stress. They found themselves grateful for his maniacal and workaholic habits as he took over the managing of agendas for them all. He gained a new respect from them, although he would keep his head down most of the time when he was not working.

It would be a long time before he could bring himself to look people in the eyes again, and not automatically search for signs of contempt. When Arthur put a hand on his arm or his shoulder and asked his advice –a more and more frequent occurrence– he often felt at a loss to understand why. He was always the least favoured in the family. He had wanted to show them all, and see how it ended!

It pained his mother, who knew it was her fault that he had been different and insecure from the first. Percy's birth had been the most selfish decision of her life, a way to turn the page on her brothers' death and her own hurts, and he could not help feeling it somehow.

Molly made it her business to hug him every chance she got, and surprisingly his siblings did the same. George even tended to cling to him, Percy wondered why. He should hate him, because if someone deserved to die, it was him, not Fred.

When he found the courage to ask, George told him that being reunited with him made that at least Fred had died happy, and that he would always be grateful for it.

It was slow, but in the end, Percy remembered what being a Weasley meant.

§§§

Arthur embraced his Molly whenever he happened to be around.

In the early mornings, he made love to his wife, almost as usual. Not that they were that kinky, or in need of a desperate outlet, but they had learned the hard way and through two wars now that only tenderness and their physical bond would make the shared pain of lovers bitter-sweet enough to go on—and none the wiser.

They knew they were needed, and they needed each other to be able to do it.

Molly had killed Bellatrix Lestrange, but Arthur had his own demons to deal with, for killing Goyle. He had cast the spells with as much murderous intent as Molly, but he suffered more remorse for waiting for so long to do it than for seizing the opportunity during the battle.

Arthur considered himself a plain, unremarkable man, but he knew well his place in the world as a pillar for his family, and for the values of the Order. Considering what Goyle had done during both wars, it was his own burden to bear to keep wondering how things would have changed if he had been man enough, twenty-four years ago, to rid the world of people like the Death Eater.

The day of Fred's funeral was the one of the bleakest they had ever lived. It was all the more horrible that his was only one of many other funerals and therefore a little hurried. Later, they made a point to go to the Lupins's burial. They had to hear, and to admit to themselves, that they had been lucky to lose only Fred.

The day after, Arthur went back to work at the Ministry. There was no more time to mourn, with a whole country in disarray. He suddenly found himself in charge of a vast new Department of Muggle Affairs and Control of Secrecy but one strangely devoid of nearly half the staff—just like the rest of the Ministry. Many were mourning or at funerals, but even more were arrested or at least suspended. Kingsley Shackelbolt, as Interim Minister, was pleading with other governments for humanitarian help but also for volunteers for the Ministry.

Arthur was not in the mood to enjoy his promotion. The only nice thing was that he went to work with Percy, just like in the early days he had been recruited at the Ministry. The prodigal son was still very much aloof, due to his guilt and the shock of Fred's death on the very moment of their reconciliation, but his father would kill the fatted calf all the same.

§§§

Harry always had one official or another asking him questions. A team of counsellors and Unspeakables had been appointed to unravel what he remembered from his death experience and his duel—and to make sure that Voldemort was really gone this time, with no possibility to come back.

He was still too young to realise it, but the Unspeakables had made it their mission to discover if he was tainted by Voldemort's Horcrux and on his way to become the next Dark Lord.

Grateful at the beginning, he was growing resentful by the hour of yet another invasion of his privacy, yet another round of what sounded now like cross-examination.

"Surely, you have other people to question, no? I wasn't the only one to fight in that war."

"Tut-tut! Mr Potter." Unspeakable Croaker sounded like he had attended the same diction classes than Dolores Umbridge. It always made Harry grit his teeth. "We're not questioning you."

"You don't say!"

"You must understand your experience was absolutely unique and we wouldn't want to miss one detail that could help us to tie and eliminate the last remaining grips of You-Know-Who's magic."

"Voldemort."

Harry enjoyed the way the jaw of the condescending prat dropped. "He's dead," he said as if speaking to a small child. "You can say his name."

"I… Uh… You must know it's been decided that calling him… That name, is a bad idea." He straightened, now that he could recite official circulars from the Ministry. "People have suffered from the taboo he placed on them and we haven't finished investigating if there are other consequences still in effect. And it is illogical to honour a criminal like Tom Marvolo Riddle with the name and titles he gave to himself. Ministry officials and the press have been asked to set an example."

"Still afraid to call a spade a spade, aren't you?"

"Mr Potter-"

"Never mind. You can call him Tommy or Snake Face for all I care."

The wizard gave him a small smile, as if Harry had said a not very funny joke but he was willing to humour him. "All right. Are you sure-"

"No."

"You don't know what I was going to ask."

"No, you don't understand. I'm through with your questions. You have the memories of every single one of my encounters with Voldemort," he said, making a point to put as much emphasis as possible on the name, "and we've discussed them ad nauseam. You know what? You can keep them. I'm much better off without them and you can watch them as long and as often as you want."

"It's for your own good, Mr Potter! We may have missed-"

"Nothing," said Harry, standing. "You have missed nothing. You've been interrogating me like a criminal for days now." Before the man could stop him, he marched to the door. "If you want to do it again, you will have to arrest me for good."

Harry left, feeling that he would not put past Croaker to try to have him arrested. At any rate, he expected a Floo Call from the Minister sooner or later, but he would not change his mind. He was fed up being a puppet.

Shacklebolt Flooed in person and Harry was relieved when the Minister supported him. "Don't worry. You've been right to send them packing."

"I thought you were going to lecture me on ungratefulness or I don't know what."

"If anyone is ungrateful, it's the arses who pestered you when you didn't want to."

"It's your Ministry."

"Ha! Ha! Ha! I wish," he said without joy. "The truth is, the Ministry could very well function without a Minister. Some days, I think I'm just there to shoulder the blame so they can go on doing just as they please."

"It was you who insisted that I submit myself to this investigation when you were appointed Minister."

"And you agreed. If I remember correctly, you were just as anxious as me to be sure we were totally free from Voldemort."

"You call him Voldemort."

Shacklebolt acted sheepish. "Don't tell my staff."

They both laughed.

"I won't. It's a pity, you know? It all went well in the beginning. They really helped me sort out all the mess that was in my mind and suddenly, it all went awry."

So, Kingsley explained. There were so many people suffering from various types of psychological traumas that there just was not enough counsellors available. They were literally tied in St Mungo's by the flow of emergencies. Those appointed to Harry were so badly needed there that they soon quitted the evaluation team, after reporting that Harry did not suffer from major traumas, and that what he mostly needed to heal was time.

Unfortunately, without the counsellors to keep them in line, the prying of the Unspeakables became less and less understanding and more and more inquisitive.

§§§

They were all stalked by journalists whenever they appeared in public. Some were like locusts and did not respect any one, any thing or any occasion. No wonder tempers flared quickly, the emotions were still raw. The Burrow felt even more than usual like a haven in a mad, mad world.

After Charlie punched one of them in the face and barely avoided being dragged to Azkaban by Aurors, Percy proposed they agree to one interview each and negotiate to be left in peace after. They would just have to let him act as their common public relations agent. He had learned under Pius Thicknesse how to deal with the press.

The first to agree was Charlie. Not that he cared for the bad press, but he was eager to leave for Romania and he did not want to leave a mess for his family to deal with. The head of the Reserve would not hold his work for him forever, and dealing with Dragons was much more gratifying than dealing with the press or with the unwelcome attention he received whenever he went out. If he had been an attention-seeker, he would have chosen another kind of job to begin with.

Of course, the sharks would not be satisfied with only one interview with Harry Potter. So, Percy made him agree to a Press conference that would also accommodate foreign journalists, although he very nearly climbed walls when he was first told.

Uncomfortable as always with speaking about himself, Harry ended downplaying his own role as much as he could and speaking of Severus Snape much more than he intended. He was not over the shock of Snape's memories and it showed.

He could not call back his words anyway, when he had taunted Voldemort about Snape's real loyalties for all to hear, and he was no match for the likes of Rita Skeeter. The journalist managed to extract from him enough details to draw a nauseating image of Snape, of his endless devotion to his mother ("from the very moment Riddle threatened her, that's what you told him, Mr Potter, isn't it?"), and of his own change of heart about the man who had been his "guardian angel" as she finally wrote.

Interestingly, it deflected for a time the hysteria around himself, and he soon learned to speak of the other heroes to get rid of personal questions.

For a time, it also generated a renewed interest in the fate of the Most Hated Hero of Britain as one foreign paper dared call Snape just after the fall of Voldemort. It was really a pity that the man was in St Mungo's and that the hospital could only inform that he still had a "very reserved prognosis of life."

Very soon, due to the lack of fresh news, Severus Snape was forgotten again - as good as dead.

TBC


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