"Please Harry! You must! Don't leave me all alone there!" Hermione Granger whined.
Harry Potter had gone into seclusion for most of the summer at the Shell Cottage in an effort to avoid as much of the magical community as possible. He had backed Kingsley Shacklebolt as the new Minister of Magic, given a lengthy deposition to the Wizengarten regarding the events leading to the Battle of Hogwarts and the destruction of the dark lord, then bugged out. He didn't seek fame, although it had been thrust upon him. Worse, he couldn't look his fellow students in the eye when so many had lost friends and family to the war.
None blamed Harry for their losses, well none that were not in some way connected to Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but he still felt responsible. It was a heavy burden to bear, but he had made it through the many tears and angst of the summer with the help of his best friends Ron and Hermione. His friends spent the summer dealing with their own sorrows, supporting Harry emotionally, and working on their budding romance.
Bill and Fleur Weasley, Ron's brother and sister in law, the current full time occupants of the Shell Cottage, offered support as well. Generally though the couple stayed out of the way of the "Golden Trio," as the press was calling them, and gave them the space they needed to start recovering from their ordeal.
Each morning Harry started the day by visiting the grave of his friend, the house elf Dobby, who had lost his life rescuing the trio and others during the war. With an incantation he placed fresh flowers on it and spoke silently to the fallen hero that rested there. It was one of those visits that Hermione chose to interrupt with yet another tirade about the need for the three to return to Hogwarts to finish their education.
"Ron's not going back, he's going to work with George, why aren't you talking him into it? No Hermione, I love you both, you know that. You and Ron are closer to me than family, but I can't face that place again."
"Well I don't approve of Ronald leaving school early either! It… pisses me off! But he won't listen. You want to be an auror; you know they require a completed program of study! And there is a new staff there, I mean; the Quibbler says they brought in a headmaster from the ICW in America. The changes are going to be so exciting! We will get a fresh perspective and they will probably get a top notch defense instructor, you know, like Remus was, remember how much you learned from him? Please Harry! Without you and Ronald I will, I… I don't know how I will manage. Please!"
"Kingsley said he could get the academics waived for me when I apply to the aurors, and who would they get for defense instructor anyway? The aurors are all busy hunting down the dark artisans that got away. No, it will suck. Oh, and just because the Quibbler says something, well, come on! I love Luna, but when has the Quibbler ever been right? They haven't brought anyone in from the ICW; the other professors would revolt! I promise, we will still see each other on all the Hogsmeade weekends. And you don't need me; you'll be fine…"
"No she doesn't need you, but I do," a deep male voice said from just over the dune.
"Who's there? Show yourself!" Harry shouted as he and Hermione instinctively drew their wands.
Kingsley Shacklebolt walked over the top of the dune and into view; his arms and hands open in front of him to show he was unarmed, and with him a very attractive blonde witch who looked to be in her late twenties. Well, Harry thought she was a witch, but only because of the company she kept. She wasn't dressed like any witch either Hermione or he had ever seen. While Shacklebolt wore the traditional African via Jamaican robes he was known for, she wore contemporary clothing like a muggle might wear to the beach, an orange tee with a stencil of a Pegasus on it, and khaki shorts that showed both her figure and long, sculpted legs. Though quite pretty, she seemed tired, as if worried and unable to sleep. It was a look Hermione and Harry both knew and recognized.
"Don't shoot," the Minister of Magic smiled. "You really need to work on your situational awareness. We apparated in while you were talking to Dobby, just before Miss Granger arrived. This young lady is Professor Annabeth Chase; Professor Chase is Hogwart's new Headmistress. She is an American from the ICW so occasionally the Quibbler gets it right," Shacklebolt grinned. "Is there somewhere we could talk?"
"Of course," Hermione answered for Harry, grinning from ear to ear, "we can go in the cottage if you like. It is a pleasure to meet you professor!"
"It is an honor to meet you Miss Granger, Mr. Potter. Your legend precedes you. Is Ronald Weasley about? I would like to talk with him too."
"Of course," Harry replied, finally able to get in a word while Hermione paused her suck up conniption fit, "He's right inside. Might even be awake. If we're lucky."
"Or unlucky, depending on one's perspective," Hermione grinned.
Fleur greeted them at the doorway and made coffee while Bill fetched Ron. Harry had developed a taste for coffee while riding the rails around London the summer before Dumbledore was murdered and had gotten his friends addicted to the caffeine rush as well.
As they sipped, Chase remarked; "This coffee is wonderful, the best I've had since I left the Java Shoppe at Ilvermorny behind. Do I detect a pinch of salt?"
"Aye yes" Fleur replied with a smile, "you know your coffee!"
"I always add a pinch too, I learned that trick from… while I was in school," Chase replied as she got a distant look in her eyes. There was a pause in the conversation and the Minister of Magic took over. It was becoming obvious to him that the Headmistress's mind was in multiple places at once and she was far less focused than she had been in their previous meetings. This was understandable given the stress she was under from the problems the school was facing so he wasn't overly concerned.
"Harry, I never put much stock into anything Fudge said," Shacklebolt began when they were all seated at the kitchen table, "but something he said before his fall has stuck with me. 'It's times like these the wizarding community looks to its leaders.' He wasn't wrong about that, but I imagine he thought he was the leader. No, we looked to Albus, Remus, and most of all, you."
"I'm no leader," Harry protested.
Hermione gently smacked his arm as she proclaimed "Yes you are, now let the Minister finish."
"May I call you Harry?" Professor Chase asked.
"Uh, sure. Of course."
"Thank you for that. Harry, its not widely known, but the truth is about to come out. In addition to terrorizing the students last year, Voldemort's helpers, we think the Carrows, slowly drained the accounts of the school. We are essentially broke. The Minister's people and the ICW are looking to recover what was taken, but much of it we think was spent on the giants and other hirelings the dark lord took onto his side. It appears much of his so called army were nothing more than paid mercenaries, funded by the Hogwarts endowment and trust accounts," Professor Chase explained.
"Well, I can contribute some I guess but"
"No no! Please, no. I'm not here seeking donations, no. I'm bringing in a friend from the states as CFO, like an Exchequer and Treasurer. She is the bomb at fund raising. Money I think I can get. Students are our biggest shortage right now. After last year the parents are scared witless about sending their children to Hogwarts. You can certainly understand their feelings. When news of our finances breaks, and that will probably hit the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning, it will scare many more away. At this time, we need your leadership by example."
Shacklebolt took over the conversation again at this point and continued. "As I said Harry, the wizarding community looks to its leaders. Whether you like it or not, you are one of them, perhaps the most important one. Your presence at Hogwarts, along with Miss Granger's and Mr Weasley's will go a long way to showing the every day witches and wizards that Hogwarts is safe and that the proper education of their children important. And it will be safe, sure there are some of Voldemort's followers that would consider seeking revenge against you there, but Professor Chase is beefing up the security tremendously. I'm glad you stayed here for the summer, with all the chaos going on it would have been difficult to ensure your safety if you were in London."
"Why would we be any safer at Hogwarts than here? With Dumbledore gone it seems unlikely, and I need to help George keeping the shop running," Ron asked, still only half awake and not wanting to deal with Hermione's academic lust this early. Having not been privy to the conversation outside, he had no idea why the Minister and this American woman were even talking to them.
"Ron, what do you know about the ICW and the magical races?" Annabeth asked by way of answering him.
"Uh, just what we covered in history of magic, it is an organization of all the magical wizengamots and congresses in the world and sets rules for uh…"
"International cooperation," Hermione interjected.
"Right and uh," Ron continued, "the magical races, we had that a couple years ago… lets see, human witches and wizards, of course, Centaurs, Elves,"
"That includes dryads, leprechauns, and nymphs" Hermione interrupted.
"Right, dryads and the other classes of elves, dwarves, uh, the four 'G's', gremlins, gnomes, goblins and giants, but not ghosts or undead as they are classified by whatever they were when alive, uh… give me a second," Ron asked as he fought in the early morning mental fog to remember something he memorized for a test two years before and promptly forgot.
"Very good, you got most of them, but there is an important one you left out, divine born," Chase said.
"Oh, we didn't have to learn the purely theoretical ones like satyrs, aliens and divine born," Harry said.
"Right. Anyway, the ICW, as part of its initiative to keep the peace among all nations and races of magical people and creatures, has its own version of field agents and we are not as bound by as many rules as the aurors. See, the main thing about the aurors is that they are there to clean up after things hit the fan. ICW agents are the fan. While aurors seek out the criminal element after a problem arises, ICW agents actively seek out problems before they occur. In the current environment though we are trying to clean up problems from the last few years and working with the aurors find those at large that were responsible. Then we will bring them to justice so that further problems don't occur. As I said, we are not bound by as many rules. So you might be wondering why weren't we active in the last war. Well we had no inkling there was a problem until a group of Canadian witches on a historical tour came back to Ottawa and reported witches going missing. We sent agents to find out what was going on, but by the time we knew anything was happening, you had defeated the dark lord and the war was over. We've been playing catch up ever since, but we won't leave until the job is done," Chase paused, feeling a bit scatter brained, before continuing.
"We train constantly and most of us have since we were in our early teens. I started at age eight. We are in the gifted program for delivering death to dark artisans. We constantly patrol the world looking for the magicians and monsters that would upset the delicate balance between the mortal world and the magical, and we're damned good at it. I know it was in the curriculum I've reviewed, although I'm not sure you ever covered it, but in your history of magic class did you learn of the recent Titan and Giant Wars that we American's fought?" Chase asked.
"Only in passing, it is not as though these two would have noticed or remembered it," Hermione grinned, "besides, the reports of it are limited and no one really believes most of it. I mean, 'closing the doors of death?' Come on!"
"Well we don't really want to publish our work to the world at large as that defeats the purpose of trying to keep our existence unknown to the mort… uh muggles, but when there are a few magicians around with true sight, and you blow up a parking lot in Rome with a flying bronze warship, some explanation is needed to the magical community. In any event, that is true. Our school's new Chief Financial officer was the one who closed the doors from the mortal side in fact. We have our differences, but you will like her if you ever meet, truly a wonderful person and powerful witch. Her early training was by Hecate herself."
"No way!" Ron exclaimed, while Harry and Hermione's jaws gaped open.
"Way" Annabeth replied, "And the other side of the doors were closed by a young man and his girlfriend who are both now ICW agents."
"And how would you know that? I mean it is not like anyone saw it," Hermione asked. She didn't want to call the headmistress a liar but she had serious doubts at this point. What she was suggesting was just too fantastic.
"Two people saw it. The young man and the girlfriend both saw it. Now, their identities and what exactly happened are still not published, but I'll let you figure out which one I am. Here is a hint: I'm a woman, so I'm probably not the young man. The point is this; part of the reason you are hunkered down in this safe house is no doubt to avoid the crush of your adoring fans, but lets face it; part of the reason is there are about 400 dark artisans that were either at the battle and escaped, at the ministry and escaped, or were not at either and are just harboring a grudge. My staff and myself can keep you safe while another work group and the aurors are hunting them down. You will be safe so long as I can make it so, I promise you that," Chase concluded.
"Okay, well, I welcome those guys attacking me, that way I can kill them," Harry began to say as Chase interrupted him.
"A man after my own heart." Professor Chase smiled as she thumped a fist between her ample bosom, causing a jiggling effect that woke up Ron, Harry and, truth be known, the Minister, completely.
"But why would I want to go back and face all that? I mean, my parents and Sirius left me enough so that I can buy a farm in Godric's Hollow, grow barley or whatever and never worry about money. What is the point of me being there?"
"Do you know anything about growing barley?" Hermione asked.
"No, but that's… that's not the point."
"Granted Harry, you don't need us, we need you. You're a symbol. When other students and parents see the hero of Hogwarts return when he doesn't have to, they will return. They will support the new administration, or at least give it a chance. I've asked you for so much already I don't deserve to ask you for more, but your school needs you. We can also protect you much easier there than at a barley farm in Godric's Hollow." Shacklebolt said solemnly.
"As to 'facing all that' as you call it, what you are feeling is survivor's remorse. It happens a lot with heroes. You wonder why you survived when so many other deserving people didn't. There may be no good reason, maybe it's luck, or maybe the fates required it to fulfill a prophecy, I don't know. But I do know what you are feeling is normal and you have no reason to feel shame. Different people handle it differently. I have a friend named Will Solace, he's a muggle doctor in the states now as well as a magical healer. He has a list of a dozen or so names tattooed on his forearm; it's a list of all those who were injured in combat that he treated and couldn't save. He gets their names permanently inked on his skin so that as long as he is alive they are not forgotten. That's his way of coping. That's how he punishes himself for surviving."
"I've read the reports, you were incredibly brave and you saved the world of British magic. People aren't going to stare at you like a freak; they are going to stare at you in awe Harry. You don't have to live up to their admiration; you only have to live a long, healthy, happy, and prosperous life. That is your punishment for survival; will you help us? Will you help me save Hogwarts?" Chase concluded by asking.
"Okay, well, Professor, if you did that, closed the doors of death, and if I do return, you have to do something for me. If you really are that good, will you teach me to fight? We haven't had a decent defense teacher since my third year. That would be the only reason for me to go and…"
"Yes. I will be glad to. Our new Defense teacher is probably the best magical fighter in the world, and maybe the best ever. But if you return, I will give you lessons myself as well, say, 2 hours, 3 nights a week? Ronald, Hermione, I make you the same offer."
"Okay but if this new instructor is so good then why would we need private lessons?" Ron asked.
"Because I'm the one that taught him," Professor Chase smiled.