War Is Over: Chapter 10/17 - Exactly Life-Sized
Many have spoken about the methods and ways we, as a society, had to stop the murdering criminal, Tom Riddle Jr., also known as Lord Voldemort, from destroying our society for the past several years. Many will speak of it in the coming years.
One thing is already understood. It was the way we have given power to one man, here in the Ministry itself, that had allowed Voldemort to infiltrate the Ministry so thoroughly. It's the way the decision-making process has been conducted by our own government that had allowed the Death Eaters to destroy us from within.
We can only speculate how much stronger, how better, we could have been, had we all known that Lord Voldemort came back as soon as he did.
We did not, because the Minister of Magic at the time did not want us to know. Because he had let his own fear blind him to the terrible truth. Because he did not want to admit that his power and that our society were in danger.
For this mistake, we have paid dearly.
Ladies and gentlemen, from this mistake, we should learn. The lesson is simple: We must not put our trust in any one man. Our Ministry should always have a Minister, of course. One person, the most qualified of us all, to lead us. I am pleased to say that Kingsley Shacklebolt is, by all means, that very man. He has never swayed from the path, was never blinded by Cornelius Fudge, and had given his allegiance to Albus Dumbledore and those who had fought Voldemort with him from the get go. He is a man I am proud to call Minister.
But like all men, he is limited. For that, he needs us. We, the heads of office, his trusted advisors, are also here to make sure the mistakes of the past are not repeated.
We are here to make sure that whatever happens, the wizarding world never relies on one man alone, ever again. This has almost destroyed us once; we shall not let it destroy us again.
There is another man we all know and remember, whenever we think of Lord Voldemort. Harry Potter is the unquestioned hero of the Battle of Hogwarts. He is one of the greatest heroes of the war that our world has known for the past year. Yes, he has spent most of that year outside of the public eye. Wanted by the Death Eaters and by Voldemort himself, he had fled - like any of us would have. Like many of us did. We do not begrudge him that. We are not casting blame.
Harry Potter's life was in danger, and as everyone can testify, he was far more important to us alive than dead. No, despite the time it had taken Harry Potter to come back and save us all, he has returned, in the end. Lives were lost, it is true. People had died, people who could have been alive today. But this is not Harry Potter's fault. He does not, I daresay, have the power to foresee the future, and he could not have guessed the number of deaths his disappearance would bring.
No, there is no place here to blame Harry Potter. Instead, we should celebrate him! Celebrate The Boy Who Lived, celebrate The Chosen One, celebrate The Hero of Hogwarts. Celebrated the man - no, not even a man, the boy who had delivered us from the evil of Lord Voldemort.
But as we celebrate the famous Harry Potter, we should remember this. Like the Minister for Magic, he is only one man. Despite the rumours of what had happened that night in the forest, Harry Potter is human - just as human as you and I. He has done remarkable things, and at such young age. But he is not infallible. He is not above the mistakes of mortal men. As we celebrate Harry Potter, we should not be enamoured by his name, blinded by his achievement.
Harry's opinion is important to us here in the Ministry of Magic. His feedback and ideas are highly respected by all of us. We have done our best to include him in the Ministry's most important operations since the end of the war, not just out of our respect for him, but because we truly believe his opinion is worthwhile. But we should not mistake this with the idea that he knows best. We should not change respect for submissiveness. And forgive me, but I don't think Harry wants this, either.
Harry has paid a terrible price for the wizarding world. Not just this year, but the year before that, and the one before that, going all the way back to when he was only one year old, when he brought down Lord Voldemort for the very first time. His past is full of darkness and sorrow, his life full of tragedy. What effect these tragedies, these traumas and terrible events have had on him, we can only guess. Here at the Ministry, we fully support Harry Potter, even when we disagree with him. We wish him nothing but the best, even if his own personal trauma sometimes prevents him from seeing the bigger picture. We wish nothing but good fortune to him, even when it seems the pain of his past might be too much. Here at the Ministry, we shall continue to support Harry Potter, through whatever help he may need from us, and through whatever ordeals he may be going through. This is Harry Potter, after all. We all owe him a huge, terrible debt, one we probably can never repay in full.
But as we support him, we shall not be blinded by our respect for him. He is but one man - your Ministry, with all the different people, with different experiences and different lives, will continue to act in the way we, as a group, feel is the most beneficial to our own community. No longer will we follow one man - whoever that man is. No longer will we dismiss our own beliefs in favour of those of only one man - no matter the credentials he comes with.
You are all heroes. We are all heroes. Heroes - for we have survived and came to this better times. Heroes - for we keep on surviving every day. And so we shall.
I am William Jones, and I congratulate you and salute you, all of you, the heroes of Hogwarts, the heroes of the war!
-X-
Harry put down the Daily Prophet in disgust. The last thing he needed to read was more of Will Jones's words about him. If he thought he would have some peace and quiet after his resignation, the reported speech guaranteed that he was gravely mistaken.
A smaller headline caught his eye, beneath the big article about him. This story was also related to him, even though the Prophet failed to make the connection - it was about the dead Death Eaters. He started reading the piece, wondering if he would find there any word of criticism, any hint of disapproval of the Ministry, but to no avail. Instead, his eye caught the list of the dead Death Eaters. Rita Skeeter had listed both Alecto and Amycus Carrow in that list, and now that he thought about it, wasn't that what she said when he met her, when he gave his resignation announcement?
Well, he had nothing better to do, he thought. Might as well go for it. He would go to see Rita Skeeter on her own turf, in the offices of the Daily Prophet, and point out to her that once again, she had got her facts wrong.
He had never been to the Daily Prophet offices in Diagon Alley. He knew the building, of course. It was impossible not to - there was a big sign at the top of the building, that could be seen from any point of the street. Nor did they allow the offices to blend in with the rest of the buildings - unlike the greens, blues and whites of the shops, or the marble white of Gringotts, the office building of the Daily Prophet was painted bright red. Harry could find the building in his sleep. Now he was standing in front of it, and the only thought that crossed his mind was that it was getting uglier the closer he got to it.
It was good that he had the ugliness of the building to occupy his mind while he opened the door. He may not have been able to step through otherwise. He wondered if he was imagining the sheer hostility of the building. Everywhere he went, he could see people staring at him. Well, everywhere he went people stared at him, wherever he went, but for some reason, he disliked these looks even more than the usual ones. Not to mention the all-but-shocked way people looked at him when he stopped next to Rita Skeeter's desk. She herself didn't realise at first he had come there. She was busy dictating the end of yet another piece to her quill, her back to the door and to him, fixing her nails with one hand.
"... And we at the Prophet ask - what?" she stopped her dictation when one of her colleagues nudged her. "What is it - no, don't write that!" she snapped at the quill. The quill scratched off her last remarks abashed.
"You have a visitor." The colleague was obviously terrified of her.
"Tell them to go away. I'm busy."
"I don't think this is someone you want to send away," the colleague tried again.
"Well, right now I'm busy, so unless Harry Potter himself walks down that corridor, I've got no time for them!"
"Great," Harry said, and Rita almost fell out of her chair in surprise, "in that case, you can turn around!"
She did. At first she just stared at him in complete shock, and then her more familiar and insincere smile came to her lips.
"Well well well. To what do I owe the honour, Mr Potter?"
"Just came to tell you that you got your facts wrong."
"I never get my facts wrong," she narrowed her eyes, and he just laughed.
"Yeah, no. I'm not going to have this discussion with you right now. Anyway, you've made a mistake in one of your articles," he put down on her desk the copy of the Prophet, with Amycus Carrow's name circled in red. "Amycus Carrow didn't die in that raid. He wasn't even a part of that group. He was arrested before. That's where the Ministry got their information from." That's one of the reasons I quit, he didn't add.
"You're wrong, Potter," she said smugly. "I know for a fact Carrow died just like his sister."
"I was there when they interrogated him. I don't know where you heard that he died on the raid, but whoever told you that was - mistaken."
He was surprised - she didn't argue with him, she didn't mock him, she just gave him a calculating look. And then, she went to her drawer, took out a list, and showed it to Harry.
It had the official Ministry seal on it. The title said it was an announcement to the press, concerning the raid. And there, in the list of the Death Eaters who had died in the attack, was Amycus Carrow's name.
The letter was signed by no other than the head of the Auror office, Gawain Robards.
"He was alive when that attack was over," Harry said quietly. "This can't be - he was alive. Can I have this?"
Rita looked from him to the list. He knew what she was thinking - if something was going on, if the Ministry was lying about Death Eaters, this was her only indication. But he needed that list - he needed that proof. There was only one thing to it.
"Everything I learn, I tell you first," he said. She nodded, a smile growing bigger on her face. "With one condition."
"What's that?" the smile was gone, and her voice was cold.
"That you actually print it. I don't care if the public doesn't want to hear that the Ministry is lying, I don't care if people want to have faith in Gawain Robards - when I find the reason for the lie, you print it."
She gave him her hand, and he took it. "You have a deal, Mr Potter."
Reassured by her promise, Harry took the list, and Apparated to the Ministry of Magic. He sighed inwardly at the queue at the security desk and tried to kill time by looking around. The Ministry was as impressive as it's always been - too much like it's always been, in fact. The statue put on by Pius Thicknesse's regime, the one that declared that Magic is Might, disappeared. Harry was already used to see the old fountain abandoned, as for the longest of times, no one knew what to put instead. It looked now like they had found their solution - a perfect replica of the Fountain of Magical Brethren now stood at the middle of the Atrium. It was exactly the same - with the sappy, adoring looks by the goblins, centaurs and house elves. Harry winced, but didn't have long to dedicate to it, as a passing guard saw him in the queue and squeaked in surprise.
"Mr Potter! What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I just needed a word with Kingsley," Harry said evasively. A couple of words, actually. And a good shout.
"But why are you waiting here?"
"Isn't this the queue to the security checks?" Harry asked, confused.
"Yeah, but - come on, we know you. You don't need to go through that, come on, get in that way," he pointed at a second gate, where a second security guard was eyeing the people, but not putting them under any magic detectors. Every once in a while, he stopped someone and redirected them to the other gate, towards the queue.
"Come on," the security guard said.
"Yeah, but - " Harry started, and looked from the queue to the open gate. Well, it was a very long queue... he sighed and stepped through the other gate in. At the security desk, a guard was passing a magic detector around a Slytherin girl from Harry's year, Daphne Greengrass, and ordered her to roll back her left sleeve.
He crashed Kingsley's office without as much as a knock. Kingsley raised his head in surprise, as did Gawain Robards and Cornelius Fudge. Apparently, Harry disturbed some sort of a meeting. Good, he thought, as he walked towards Kingsley's desk angrily.
"Harry," Kingsley said, confused. "We're in the middle of a meeting here, do you feel like waiting until - "
Harry slammed the list on Kingsley's desk. Kingsley took one look at it, and nodded. "Gawain, Cornelius, if you'll excuse us? We can finish this meeting tomorrow."
Robards and Fudge looked at each other, almost scandalised. Fudge opened his mouth to say something, but Kingsley stopped him before he could get a single word out. "This is a matter that really can't wait." Fudge, in turn, just glared at Harry, and then both he and Robards got up and left.
"Close that door," Kingsley asked Harry. Harry felt more like shouting at him, demanding what the hell did he think he was doing, but instead, went and shut the door. Kingsley aimed his wand at it - making sure no one could hear what went on in the room, no doubt.
"Sit," he gestured at a chair. Harry remained standing, and Kingsley sighed. "Please, sit down?" he tried again. Grudgingly, Harry took the chair.
"After the interrogation, I ordered to junior Aurors to take Carrow to Azkaban," Kingsley said gravely. "I didn't think of asking someone more experienced - after all, it was a standard mission, and Amycus Carrow is hardly the world's most sophisticated Death Eater. I think it was his simple cruelty that made Voldemort recruit him, he knew that he could count on the Carrows to do his work simply because it made them happy," Kingsley sighed.
"Two hours after that, I was already in my office, busy with other things, when Gawain entered - much like you did just now. He said Carrow had tried to escape, and was killed as a result of his actions."
"No one ends up killing an escaping prisoner by mistake!" Harry blurted out.
"I quite agree. Our junior Aurors are inexperienced - not incompetent. I told Gawain this, but he was adamant that this was what had happened. The body was no longer there, they had removed it, so there was no point in checking the scene. I called the two Aurors to my office, instead.
"At first, they kept to their story, and said he was killed while attempting escape. It didn't take long to get the real story, though - Savage told them to get rid of him. To kill him."
"Then why didn't you fire him? Or put him on trial? Or something?" Harry demanded.
"For two reasons," Kingsley remained maddeningly calm. "The first, of course, is that he's sure to deny it if I asked him. Without any proof, it's the word of a Senior Auror against two junior Aurors who, as far as anyone knows, are terrified because they messed up. The second is that I don't know whether he's the one who gave that order."
"But you just said - "
"Oh, Savage is complicit, not matter what. But I need to know how far this has gone - whether it was Savage's idea, or perhaps, he was acting on someone else's orders."
"Robards."
Kingsley nodded. "I'm trying to conduct this investigation on my own. Cornelius doesn't see the point. 'It's just a dead Death Eater', he said." Kingsley sighed again. "Cornelius insists that we can't afford to have a scandal in the Ministry at the moment. That people need to have faith in the Auror Office. We don't have enough faith in anything else. Of this, he isn't wrong."
"This isn't the way," Harry said.
"No, I agree. As I said, I've tried conducting my own investigation." He rubbed his eyes for a moment, looking as tired as Harry had ever seen him. "My own people are working against me!" he shouted suddenly, letting his frustration show for the first time. "This whole Ministry is working against me," he said again, quieter this time, but his voice was full of bitterness. "And there's nothing I can do about it. No, I'm afraid that so far it hasn't gone very well." Kingsley considered the paper for a moment. "Where did you get this?" he asked suddenly.
"Rita Skeeter."
"I assume you had to promise her something in return?"
Harry smirked. "The exclusive story of what's going on," he confirmed.
Kingsley nodded again. "Perhaps this is what I needed for my investigation. Tell her - tell her that he was alive, that the Aurors claim he died while escaping - but be sure to point out how unreasonable this is."
"And what about Savage? And Robards?"
Kingsley considered this for a moment before shaking his head. "No," he said. "Not yet. If they start panicking, we may never discover the truth."
Harry stared at the list for a long moment. "Who'd have thought," he said finally. "Me and Rita Skeeter on the same side."
Kingsley turned very serious. "You're not on the same side, Harry. Rita's only ever on one side - the side that would give her the best story."
"I know."
"Don't be mistaken for a moment - there's a good chance this will backfire on you. If you're willing to be identified by name over this, you're going to get all the fire."
"I'm willing to take that chance," Harry said stubbornly.
Kingsley looked at him with a combination of admiration and pity. "I know."
Kingsley was wrong - at least at first. Publishing his accusations didn't backfire on Harry at all. Rita Skeeter published the full story - at least, the full story as she knew it - under a big headline that claimed a cover-up at the Ministry. She quoted Harry by name, of course, as it was his testimony that proved most damning for the Ministry. And for once, Harry was pleased. The wizarding world may not have cared about Death Eaters that were killed instead of taken alive, but they didn't take well to the killing of prisoners, nor to the lies the Ministry had told about it. Many well known and influential wizards demanded an open investigation on the matter by Kingsley, and the Minister gladly obliged.
-X-
In the meantime, Harry was free to start his own life, a life that did not include being a part of the Ministry. It didn't take him more than a couple of days to set a new routine. At first, he was completely lost, all alone in Grimmauld Place. It was the first time he had been alone in a long time, with nothing to do and no expectations of him. After the first night, when his attempts at making soup failed miserably, he considered calling Kreacher back from the Hogwarts kitchen. The elf had been sent there two months earlier, when Harry started his Auror training - he didn't want Kreacher to stay all alone in the house, especially after the progress the old house-elf had made.
But although Kreacher's company had become much more bearable the year before, he still didn't want the old house elf to be the only living being around. Harry preferred the silence over Kreacher's many oddities, and over the memories he would bring with him.
It was lucky, then, that George Weasley had turned up in Grimmauld Place a couple of days later, carrying a dinner invitation from Molly. Harry had been slightly worried about talking to any of the Weasleys after his public resignation, but George said Molly was nearly insulted that Harry didn't show up for dinner before.
"And besides," he shrugged, "Mum's not too hot on the Ministry at the moment, anyway." It turned out Dawlish was not the only one to lose his job over the Ministry's new policies. While Arthur was safe due to his long association with the Order of the Phoenix, Percy Weasley had not been as lucky. He had, after all, been a Ministry employee all through the year before, until that very last night and the Battle of Hogwarts. Without an association with the Order, even Arthur Weasley's son could not be protected, and so Percy had been sitting at the Burrow for the past couple of weeks.
"He's really depressed," George told Harry. "Doesn't know what to do with himself."
That was one thing Harry had in common with Percy, he thought quietly. He, too, had no idea what to do now. In the past years, ever since Voldemort returned, whenever Harry pictured the future, he pictured the war. And when he dared imagine a future where Voldemort was defeated, he always wanted to be an Auror. And now that he had left this path, he wasn't sure what to do anymore.
In that respect, too, George's visit turned out to be a blessing. After the first dinner at the Burrow, with Molly questioning Harry curiously what he was going to do, George suggested Harry helped him with the shop, and Harry jumped on the opportunity.
It took exactly one afternoon to make it obvious Harry should not be working at the shop itself. "Blimey, Harry, you'd think we were selling you," George joked after Harry escaped the people who wanted to talk to him and see him, who were full of curious questions and words of advice. There was plenty of work to do away from prying costumers' eyes, of course, and after that first awkward afternoon Harry remained at the back room, making orders, checking on supplies, and looking at the books, while George and Angelina were at the front. Angelina Johnson had showed up to help most days, until George started paying her - over her protests.
Harry watched from the corner when George told Angelina that she had to take payment, because he can't really hold the shop without her. He held her hand for a moment longer, and she mumbled something and was gone. But in response to Harry's question, he only agreed to say that he thought Angelina was there because she was missing Fred.
"It's a bit easier, I suppose. Missing Fred together, that is. Makes it feel like... I don't know, Harry," George sighed.
But Harry thought he did know.
Staying in the back room had more advantages than simply not getting mobbed by every wizard or witch that came to Diagon Alley. In the weeks that followed Harry's collaboration with Rita, the Daily Prophet returned to publish stories about Harry. The story about the Aurors and Amycus Carrow wasn't enough to stop that, especially once Cornelius Fudge started a campaign to convince people how important it was to keep the public's trust in the Ministry. After two weeks, people weren't as concerned about a dead Death Eater anymore, not when they were warned that there were outside forces that threatened the Ministry and society in general. And Rita, true to her reputation, had gladly printed those stories as well. There were no suggestions he was seeking attention, of course, not this time. In every piece that the Prophet published about him, they mentioned him as the Hero of Hogwarts, or as the Boy Who Lives, again and again. But they took their cue from Will Jones's impromptu speech after Harry's resignation. Most of the pieces they published about him these days talked about the trauma he must have suffered, the effect that carrying around a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul must have had on him - still without mentioning his name, he noted with slight annoyance, and slowly but surely presenting him as a complete mental case.
At first, George and Angelina were unsure how to discuss the matter with Harry. Afraid of his reaction, they tried to hide the articles from him. But when they saw the amusement on his face, the temporary tension disappeared, and the storage room at the back of Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes became filled with laughter.
Harry really didn't care what the Prophet was writing about him. "I've survived Voldemort," he told George that first day. "I think I can survive whatever they decide to print about me." He did get tired of it, every once in a while, and then he would just shrug, or look at the Quibbler - Xenophilius Lovegood, Harry saw with amused affection, didn't print a word about him. His latest cover story featured Flabbering Bajalians, and Harry read it in triumph. "I knew it was something like that!" he told George. George just shook his head in exasperation.
To Harry's disappointment, however, Molly and Arthur Weasley had taken the articles about him a bit more seriously. In the first couple of days after George dropped by he had stayed with the Weasleys, sleeping in Ron's room. But one morning, when he came down to breakfast, he could hear Molly and Arthur talking quietly, in tense voices, and even though he did his best not to listen, he couldn't help but hear his own name.
"I'm not saying there's something wrong with Harry," Molly said sharply. "I'm just saying, they have a point. He's only eighteen, and the things he had seen in his life... well, it's bound to have an effect on him! Not to mention what happened with... well, in the Forbidden Forest."
"That's just it, Molly," Arthur argued. "He's not quite like other people, is he? All those things he survived... He's not like - "
Harry didn't want to hear any more of this conversation. "Morning, George," he said loudly, and the voices in the kitchen turned quiet abruptly. He kept on eating with the Weasleys afterwards, but from then on he went back to sleep at Grimmauld Place.
The real test, however, came two weeks after he his resignation. He was eating dinner at the Burrow, listening to George telling his parents all about the Belgian wizards who had visited the shop earlier that day, when the door opened and Ron walked in.
Dread and guilt both settled down in Harry's stomach, tying it into knots. He hadn't told Ron he was going to resign - he was too afraid Ron would try and talk him out of it, and even more afraid he would succeed. And he hadn't seen Ron or talked to him since his resignation. Harry stared at his soup, pretending to eat, or to not have noticed Ron yet, and all the while perking his ears to hear what he might say.
"Hey guys," Ron said. "What's for dinner? I'm starving! Smells wonderful, Mum."
"Ron!" Molly jumped up and hugged her son. "You didn't say you were coming."
"Yeah, I didn't know. Hi Dad, George, Perce, Harry."
Harry lifted his eyes from the soup. "Hey," he mumbled.
Ron sat down next to him, taking a slice of bread.
"I was supposed to stay this weekend," he said with his mouth half-full. "Doing some more stuff at the Ministry. Aren't they going to run out of cupboards? But Seamus's cousin is getting married next weekend so he wanted to swap. So he and Dean are staying this weekend and me and Neville are doing the next one."
"Still cleaning up at the Auror office?" Harry asked in the most natural voice he could muster.
"Yeah, you wouldn't believe it! They found another archive. They're not even sure what's in there. It's worse than detention with Snape!"
"Nothing is worse than detention with Snape," George said, scandalised. "Well, maybe detention with Umbridge. Or classes with Umbridge. Or Umbridge in general."
"This is. The whole place is covered with dust! Padma and Lavender were there last week. They said it could take months to put it all together."
The rest of dinner went by with similar chitchat, Ron sharing his latest failed attempt to disguise himself as a rock, George talking of the new candy he thought of making, and everyone being pleasant and friendly. By the end of dinner, Harry was no longer sure whether there was any kind of tension between Ron and himself, or whether it all had been just in his mind. Ron acted throughout the entire dinner as if it were only natural that Harry would be there, natural that he had left the Auror training and was now working for George. When Harry said, after dinner, that he had better go back to Grimmauld Place, it was Ron who talked him out of it.
"What have you got to look for in there anyway?" he asked. "It's Friday, it's not like you need to be in London tomorrow or anything. Come on, I've got something to show you."
Harry followed Ron to his room, and had almost relaxed - until they got in, Ron closed the door, and faced Harry.
"You could have told me you were leaving," he said.
Harry looked at him for a moment. "I couldn't," was his only reply.
"Why not?"
What could Harry say? He didn't say anything to Ron because he knew Ron would disapprove, would look at him exactly the way he was looking at him now, and didn't want to face that expression. Because Ron would point out all the good reasons there were for not leaving, reasons Harry had thought of himself more than once. Because Ron would tell him once again that Harry was taking the Death Eaters' side over his own side. And Harry didn't want to have yet another argument about sides.
So he said nothing.
Ron sat down on his bed. "It's because I left, isn't it," he said flatly.
"What?" Harry was genuinely confused.
"Last year. You can't trust me. I know you can't, I mean, I wouldn't. Not after I left you guys like that."
"No! That's not that at all. I trust you, Ron. I really do." He was reminded, for a moment, of the time Ron left them last year. And long before that, when Ron did not believe that he did not put his name in the Goblet of Fire. The only two times he could think of when he was angry, really angry with Ron.
"Then why didn't you say you were leaving?"
"'Cause you would have told me I'm a stupid git. And you would probably be right."
Ron mulled over this answer for a moment. "Well, you are a stupid git," he said, but didn't sound too reassured.
"Thanks."
"You should have seen everyone when you disappeared, and then they mentioned something on the WWN about you quitting in protest... that was something."
"How bad was it?" Harry asked, a part of him interested in his friends' reactions, while another dreading the answer.
"About as well as you'd expect, really. Anthony Goldstein said you were completely mental, but went all 'but he's Harry Potter' about it, whatever the hell that means. Seamus was angry, but I think he was more angry because you didn't say anything than because you left. The rest... well, they didn't say much. Except for Lavender. She kept on saying that this isn't how this was supposed to go." He chuckled. "Got that right."
"Neville...?" Harry thought about that evening, when even Neville lost his temper.
Ron;s mind seemed to return the same evening. "He didn't look very happy. But he told Seamus to shut up, so I don't know. You probably need to talk to him."
"Yeah."
"And to Hermione and Ginny, too, you know. You owe them. Much more than you owe me."
Harry nodded. If he were honest, he had to admit that hearing he owed something to anyone annoyed him, even if just a bit. But in this case, he couldn't deny Ron's words. He did owe Hermione and Ginny an explanation. And Neville, too.
"Thanks for, um, keeping this conversation for after dinner."
"Are you mental? I thought that's why you wanted to escape so badly. Mum and Dad got a bit weird about you. After the war. I can't really blame them," he added, seeing Harry's expression. "Look, it was your choice not to say anything to anyone. I respect that. I imagine everyone does - well, probably not everyone," he said and Harry thought about the queue in George's shop that afternoon he was with costumers, "but everyone that matters. But all people know is that you came back from the dead, Harry. It's going to get some eyebrows raised."
And some other reactions, as well. He wasn't sure what bothered him more, Molly Weasley worrying that something was, in fact, wrong with him - or Arthur Weasley insisting that he wasn't like other people. And these were people who knew him.
He looked for a moment at Ron, who was now busy piling clothes out of his bag to get them washed by Mrs Weasley. "How come you don't?" he blurted suddenly, not sure he should have asked it at all.
"Not what?" asked Ron, distracted.
"You know. Raising an eyebrow."
Ron stopped messing with his clothes, but his eyes avoided meeting Harry's.
"I did... at first."
There was silence between them. When Ron spoke again, he still didn't meet Harry's eyes. "I mean, I didn't think you changed. I know you, you were always a stubborn git like that. Remember a couple of years ago when you insisted Draco was a Death Eater?"
"Well, he was," Harry pointed out.
"Yeah, but it was still ridiculous," Ron smiled, and went back to dig out his dirty clothes.
"Well?" Harry asked after a while.
"Well what?"
"Well, you were saying. I didn't change."
"Right," Ron paused again. And now his eyes caught Harry's, and there was something uncomfortable in them. "Well none of us would have survived that. None of us can have the Killing Curse hit them and live. Twice. It was... odd."
"Odd?"
"Yeah, odd. Like, you're my friend - my best friend, you know? I suppose, now that Hermione's my girlfriend. Man, that's so weird to say."
"It is, isn't it?" Harry laughed. "It took you guys long enough. Especially you."
"Don't remind me," Ron groaned. "And now she's making faces 'cause Lavender's with us in training. She doesn't say anything, but you know what Hermione's like when she's unhappy. I told her Lavender's dating Anthony anyway, and that she couldn't care less about me, but that doesn't stop her from making that face."
"I suppose Ginny was a bit upset that Cho was there, too," Harry pondered this.
"Yeah, well, especially as Cho still fancies you."
"She doesn't!"
Ron started laughing. "And you kept on talking about how thick I am? You should have seen Cho's face when we realised you left!"
"But she knows I'm dating Ginny," Harry said, confused.
"Yeah, well, when did that ever stop anyone," Ron muttered and fished the last of his mud-covered shirts out of the bag. "Anyway. As I was saying. It was odd. On one hand, you were my best friend, the bloke I've known since we were eleven. And on the other hand..."
Ron looked directly at Harry now. "What you need to understand, mate, is that sometimes you're a bit bigger-than-life. Even for us."
"But you were there with me!" Harry insisted. "All the time!"
"Not all the time. We didn't go to the forest. And even when we were there. Like when you showed up all of a sudden, you know? Everyone thought you were dead, and there you were, alive, and circling Voldemort, and telling him all those impossible things."
Harry thought of the words Ginny told him months ago - the same thing, essentially. For them, it was like he came back from the dead, she said.
"You showed up there," he said quietly. "So assured of yourself. After Voldemort - Voldemort - had declared you dead. And you told him exactly how and why he lost the fight. And then he was dead. And you were alive. I was there, and I understand what happened. And it doesn't feel real, Harry. It can't feel real. It's not something we can understand. Even though we were there. It's like a fairytale. I s'pose that's what it feels like to anyone who wasn't there. Or one of those Muggle comic books, you know? It looks like the good guys are about to lose, and then there's something happening out of nowhere and the bad guys are defeated. And no one really understands why - and I asked Hermione, she said it didn't make sense to her either and she's Muggle-born, so it's not because I'm missing some Muggle knowledge or something!" he added that last sentence indignantly.
Harry started arguing that Hermione wouldn't understand comic books about superheroes anyway, and it has nothing to do with being Muggle-born. "I just don't think she was ever interested in them enough understand them," he concluded.
"And you were? I don't remember any Muggle comic books."
"Nah, but Dudley had loads of them."
The conversation soon moved to some other forms of Muggle entertainment, mainly mocking the Muggle movies they had watched with the Grangers. Ron and Harry kept on talking all through the evening. They were so used to talking to each other all the time, about everything. Not seeing each other for this long felt weird, unnatural. Their conversations didn't necessarily make sense - they never did, not when they were arguing about Quidditch, not when they were discussing Muggle comic books, and not when they were abusing Snape or Umbridge or talking about school. But it made sense to them, and so they talked and talked.
In the end, Harry slept on a mattress in Ron's room, just like he did when he stayed with the Weasleys in all of their summer holidays, rather than in Ginny's room as Mrs Weasley meant for him to do. He was having too much fun talking to Ron.
And only after Ron turned out the light and said goodnight, Harry remembered something. Something he had wanted to ask Ron, but missed his chance.
"How come you're not angry with me?" he asked. "For leaving? I thought you'd be furious. That's why I didn't say anything."
"I left once, y'know? I'm not stupid enough to get all angry to do it again."
"Thank you," Harry said, and meant every word.
Only after he heard Ron snoring did he realise he never asked him whether he still saw Harry as larger-than-life, or whether it was only his friend that he saw these days.
He didn't ask Ron the next morning, or during that entire weekend. He didn't talk again about this at all, not until the next weekend - when he went to Hogwarts. He didn't mean to bring it up. Not to Ginny, who, he felt, had already given her answer, and one that he wasn't very happy about. Not to Hermione, either. He was too afraid of hearing her answer.
Instead it was Luna who brought up the subject. They were sitting by the lake and chatting, waiting for Hermione and Ginny to finish up their Transfiguration class. Luna was going on and on about Crumple-horned Snorcacks or Blabbering Begunias, and the question just came out of his mouth.
"Do you really believe in all these? I mean, Snorcacks and Begunias and... Nargles and stuff."
"Of course," she looked at him. "Don't you?"
"Not really," he confessed.
"Just because they're not around doesn't mean they don't exist," she said wisely.
"But it doesn't mean that they do," he pointed out.
"I would have thought you, of all people, would find it easier to believe in them."
"Why me?" he asked gingerly.
"You did what a lot of people thought was impossible. You were killed, and you survived. That doesn't make you any less Harry," she said.
"It does for some people."
"No, when they meet you, you're still Harry. It's just when they don't see you that they can't exactly believe you're just Harry, and think that you might be this mythological creature."
"Harry Potter, the human Nargle," he said and started laughing.
"More like a Begunia," she looked at him critically. "You're too large to be a Nargle, and I don't think you're very dangerous to be around, even if others think you're crazy, because even if you are, it's not infectious."
Harry was now laughing in earnest, and couldn't understand why he didn't spend more time with Luna. By the time the girls joined them, he didn't care what their answer would be, any more than he cared to ask them that question. He put his arm around Ginny, made jokes with Hermione, and trusted that the longer they stayed together, the less of a human Begunia he'd become.
As far as he was concerned, he could sit there, near the lake, forever. But this, of course, was not to be. There were no quiet moments for Harry Potter, even after he defeated the Dark Lord. So now, instead of relaxing, Harry could feel something watching them from behind - from the forest. His heart started pounding. There shouldn't be anything left in the forest. At least, nothing evil. Were there Death Eaters still hiding there? They were completely exposed there, next to the lake, Ginny and Hermione and Luna - and himself. Were there still evil creatures there, Aragog's children or werewolves or giants?
"Harry?" Ginny asked quietly. She was leaning on him until that point, she must have been able to feel his heartbeats.
"Something behind," he whispered, and she nodded. Together, they jumped at the same time, wands ready.
But it was just a scare - it wasn't any nasty creature who was watching them, or evil wizard, or some other terrible legacy from the war. It was a centaur - the one Harry now recognised as Bane.
"Don't sneak on people like that!" Harry said, relieved. "We almost attacked you! Why didn't you say anything!"
"Harry Potter," Bane said, completely ignoring Harry's lecture. Of course he would - why listen to any wizard? Harry sighed.
"Hullo, Bane," he said. Now that the adrenaline was sinking again, that the short excitement was over, he was feeling tired all of a sudden - too tired to start dealing with centaurs.
But something was different about Bane. He wasn't wearing that same expression the centaurs usually did when he saw them, that thoughtful contemplation, the distanced knowledge. Bane was smiling in satisfaction. On a human, Harry would have been tempted to say he was smirking, but it seemed like the wrong word to attribute to centaurs.
"What's up?" he tried again, wondering what mystic nonsense the centaur was going to say today.
"Mars is leaving the shadow of Jupiter," Bane said, his smile widening, and went back to the forest.
"What's all that about?" Ginny wondered, and Harry couldn't answer her - but he had a feeling he would not like the answer.