AN: Sorry it's been a few days since my last update on this one. I've just been really getting into a new Jily AU I'm writing, and spending most of my writing time on that one. For context, this scene picks up right where the chapter "The Lost Prophecy" in OOTP ends, and borrows the opening dialogue from it.


"I feel I owe you another explanation, Harry", Albus says, and he is hesitant as he says it. This is not what he should be saying, not really, but it is as close as he can get. "You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess… that I rather thought… you had enough responsibility to be going on with."

Albus knows he is crying, and he does not try to hide it, not that he thinks he could even if he did try. Harry stares at him a moment, an unreadable expression on his face, and then he turns away. Clearly, the boy is exhausted. Albus considers sending him to the hospital wing, but he can't do that to the boy, can't send him away like that, not now. Besides, his friends are in the hospital wing, lying in varying states of disarray, and surely it would do the boy no good to see them. He watches the boy for a moment, pondering.

He knows he should say more. He knows there are a great many things the boy deserves to hear, not least of which that Albus loves him. Because he does, that is undeniable. He had tried to avoid it, but in the century since Ariana's death, he has still not learned anything meaningful about love, not really. Not how to show it, and not how to run from it. But he cannot say them. He can't change, not really, and for all his brilliance, he has never been able to work out the things that matter most. Harry, though, Harry has never had the smallest bit of trouble with the most powerful and complicated branch of magic, the one Albus has never been able to master. It is why he is not yelling anymore, why he is not rising up to rage at Albus with white-hot fury. Why he knows that, despite the multitude of reasons not to, the boy will forgive him, has already forgiven him, was never really angry at him in the first place.

The boy's eyes are beginning to close. Albus is not surprised, the boy has had terrible night, a taxing night. Of course he is exhausted.

"Would you like a Dreamless Sleep potion, Harry?" he asks gently. The boy starts a bit. He hopes the boy will say yes, Merlin knows he needs it.

He shakes his head, though. "I'm alright, Professor. I'm just… just going to go to bed now, if… if that's alright."

Albus furrows his brow. "Harry, of course I will not force you to take any potion you don't want to take. But you have been through a terrible ordeal. You have shown more fortitude than anyone ever could have expected of someone many years older than you, let alone of a fifteen-year-old boy. I ask merely that you let me help you."

The boy blushed a bit at Albus's words. "Al… alright then, Professor."

Albus summons the potion from a nearby cupboard. He clasps Harry's shoulder as he presses it into his hand.

"Harry", he says, looking the boy right in his green eyes, "If there is anything else you need, anything at all, please come to me. If there is anything I can do to make your unfairly difficult life easier or any pain I can spare you, I promise you, you need only tell me and I will not hesitate to do so. Do you understand?"

The boy nods, and Albus is happy to see that at least the boy is looking at him, now. "Thank you, Professor."

Albus gives his shoulder one last squeeze before releasing him, and the boy turns to go. And just as he has done so many times before, Albus watches someone he loves walk away, those three words right on the tip of his tongue. And just as he has done so many times before, he does not say them.

As he stumps behind his desk, suddenly exhausted, he realizes that for the first time in a long time, he wants to pour out a hefty glass of firewhiskey.