Chapter 23

About two that afternoon, Harry woke up.

His feet hurt, his legs hurt, and his chest felt like it had been run over by a steamroller. If possible, even his eyelids hurt. He felt a soothing weight on his legs. "Hello Fawkes," he whispered.

Poppy had, of course been keeping an eye on him. She smiled at him for the briefest moment, and then in her sternest voice said, "Please display even the slightest respect for my profession, and do not attempt to move for the next hour." In truth, she was surprised to have the opportunity to talk with Harry again. She originally had expected that he would have died within the hour, yet he seemed to have stabilized and possibly even improved.

Through badly swollen eyelids, Harry attempted to look around the room. Tonks, Ginny, Susan, Katie and Hermione were sitting by his bed, each holding him somewhere. It was Ginny who spoke first. "We love you too much to let you die on us." She closed the curtain around his bed and they unbuttoned their robes. For fifteen minutes they made skin to skin contact with him as softly as five young witches would be able to.

Harry was comforted by the soft sound of their breathing as they gently pressed themselves against him. After fifteen minutes, his eyes were no longer swollen shut. Both sides of his chest were healed, internal injuries were righted, and his hip and femurs were no longer broken.

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Poppy was hovering outside the curtains, half amused at his "treatment," half wondering how it could possibly work. Twenty minutes after pulling the curtains closed, Ginny opened them, and the witches allowed themselves to be scooted over to the other side of the hospital wing.

Poppy waved her wand over Harry to re-examine him in utter amazement. When he had been brought in, he had twenty-two bone breaks and wasn't expected to live another hour. Now she couldn't find anything seriously wrong with her favorite patient. Looking at him in affectionate professional interest, she asked, "Professor Potter, how did you do this?"

His only reply was a single whispered word, "Magic."

He was still very tired, and in a lot of pain, but he was whole again. He gave her half of a smile and held his hand out to her. She took it and held his hand. Five minutes later, Harry sat up, and asked if she could help him into the bathroom.

Harry came out a minute later, still quite unsteady on his feet. Tonks went out and let Remus and the others know that Harry had woken up. The other apprentices led him back to his reserved bed, closed the curtains behind them, and resumed his treatments.

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The two little witches would not be deterred. At three, they both managed to sneak into the hospital wing past the big Auror who had been guarding the door. They were shocked at what they saw their professor doing.

Harry Potter, who had been brought to the hospital wing six hours ago, unconscious, near death, barely breathing, with arms and legs at odd angles was sitting in his bed playing a game of chess with Madam Pomfrey! His bed really did have an engraved nameplate on it.

Susan saw the pair, knew how much they were worried about Harry, and waved them over. With a smile she invited them to hold onto Harry's arm or wrist to help him heal quicker. Harry introduced Hanna and Gretta to Pomfrey who shook her head slightly and gave Harry a highly indulgent smile.

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"He'll be there, I promise you. He'd want you to do it."

"Auror Tonks, you can't possibly be serious."

"I assure you Headmistress, Professor Potter will be at dinner and the dance this evening. That was his original reason that he challenged Voldemort to the duel. He didn't want to have anything to worry about tonight."

Minerva looked at Tonks in amazement. Following Poppy's orders of no visitors, she had not yet seen Potter, and did not know that at that moment, Poppy had just taken Harry's knight. McGonagall replied, "If you are certain… Professor Dumbledore left specific instructions requesting that the dance be held as scheduled. I just thought that under the circumstances…"

Tonks smiled at her. "It'll be perfect. You should inform the different heads of house. We need to get ready. Six PM, correct?"

In her highlands accent, McGonagall replied, "Right."

It was three PM.

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The witches arrived back at their rooms to find that several packages had been left for each of them. They each had notes from Dumbledore congratulating them on their success. He thanked them for not abandoning Harry in his hour of need, and wished them a fruitful life and happiness.

They had each received a beautiful set of slate gray silk robes with an embroidered phoenix on the collar. Helping each other with their hair and nails, they had finished getting ready in record time. Ginny hadn't spoken to the other witches, but they hadn't noticed.

At five PM, Remus and Amelia were sent to collect Harry, and helped him back to his room. He showered and put on the new robes that the witches had laid out for him. Five minutes later, he slowly walked out of his room. The five witches were standing outside his door waiting for him. Each was so beautiful. Remus took dozens of photos.

Amelia opened a bottle of champaign that was sitting in a magically chilled ice bucket and poured them each a glass. She raised her champaign flute and simply said, "Cheers."

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Together they walked to the great hall. As if waiting for a bride to walk down the isle, the staff and students were standing as Tonks and the Apprentices passed through the doors and walked down the fourteen steps to the tables.

Minister of Magic, Amos Diggory had a few words before they sat. He began, saying, "There will be many opportunities to celebrate the defeat of the dark side, but not tonight. There will be opportunities to remember our loses, but not tonight. There will be opportunities to recognize Minerva McGonagall as Acting Headmistress, but not tonight. There will be time to listen to speeches…"

The students cut in, "But not tonight."

Slightly red-faced, Diggory said, "Right. Enjoy your evening." He then sat down.

Other than Dan and Emma Granger, there were only a dozen visitors to the castle that evening – Remus, Kingsley, Amelia, Healer Crabtree, M/M Diggory, M/M Weasley, the twins, Alicia, and Angelina. By popular demand, the string quartet that had played at the last dance had been invited back.

Harry sat between Dan Granger and Arthur Weasley at dinner. Both fathers attempted to lead the conversation around to the, Now what? line of questioning. Harry had focused his last year entirely on getting to this evening, and aside from a few conversations in his business finance class, or the last week with the Professor, his future had never really been thought through. He simply wasn't ready to have a conversation regarding the rest of his life.

He liked the mental image that he'd just had. The Professor. He did not grieve the loss of Dumbledore today. The reality was, he had been murdered two weeks ago, and just took a while to pass. He had almost certainly lived the life that he wanted, except for the regret that he mentioned about having no family of his own. The Professor had always envied Arthur Weasley. He had certainly married a spirited woman and created a dynasty in terms of love.

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Whereas most of the young wizards had decided to leave the apprentices alone, the young witches sensing the not-yet-healed rift between Harry and Ginny all seemed to believe that Professor Harry James Potter was fair game again. Ginny fumed as witch after witch came up to Harry, "accidentally" dropped something and leaned over him to retrieve their lost item, giving Harry embarrassing views. As Cho proceeded to rub up against Harry, Ginny lost it.

"Get your scrawny arse away from my boyfriend, Chang."

Every eye in the great hall turned her way. Remus was heard to say, "Oh Shite. Here it comes." And come it did. For several minutes Ginny proceeded to drag up every bit of dirt that she could recall about every female in the room. Depending on your perspective, it was highly amusing, terrifying, or utterly embarrassing.

Then she turned on Tonks and the other apprentices. "What were you thinking of, sleeping with my boyfriend while I was out of the castle?"

From there it got ugly. Tonks and Susan started shouting back that she had been no help during the duel, she had risked all of their lives by giving away highly confidential information, and that they had done just fine without her. Katie suggested that she should still be under arrest.

The lithe Redhead was furious. "You will regret saying that Bell, for the rest of your…"

B O O M !

It had been over a hundred years since a wizard of Harry's power had fired off a canon blast charm from inside the castle. Everyone's ears were ringing. Long settled dust was raised from rafters, filling the air. Those who heard it hoped that it would be another hundred years before it happened again. It made the sound of a howler seem like a joke.

Using the Sonorous charm, Harry imperiously said, "Silence." "Too many people here owe me life debts as it is. No one owns me, nor do I own any of you. If you feel the need to argue, take it outside. The Quidditch pitch is empty, and Hagrid still has more kerosene." The disgusting stench and smoke of a thousand pounds of incinerated flesh was still fresh in their minds, and Harry's words struck true.

The witches were all embarrassed at their behavior. A minute later, Headmistress McGonagall asked that the quartet resume playing.

The truth was that they were all stressed out way past any reasonable breaking point. Rather than play favorites, Harry just stood on the dance floor like a bride at a dollar dance, and spent a few moments with any witch that wanted a chance to visit.

Hanna and Gretta were first in line. They beamed at their favorite professor and told them with absolute confidence that they knew that he'd kick old snake face's arse.

Near the end of the line was Molly Weasley, demanding an explanation about what had been said. Harry gave her a hug, and pleaded with her, "Molly, I've had a really hard day. Can we talk another time?" Surprisingly she gave him a very cold look, and they parted. Harry began shaking from stress.

A minute later, he went to McGonagall and asked if it would be possible that she find a substitute for his classes the following week.

Not really hearing what he'd asked her, she said, "Of course, anything."

.-.-.-

Having a keener eye toward people's emotional health than most of the witches or wizards in the wizarding world, Dr. Emma Granger, had been watching the apprentices, especially her daughter and Harry, closely all evening. These kids had been thrust into a situation where thousands of lives were in the balance and had to make split second decisions to kill or be killed. Her own daughter had killed a man today. Where was the team of counselors that anyone would have expected to be on hand to help them?

Hermione was on the dance floor weeping onto her father's shoulder. On the other side of the floor, Ginny was doing the same. Sitting near her, Susan was sobbing, being held by her Auntie.

The apprentices were literally coming unglued.

Unnoticed, Harry went back to his room, found his staff, his katana, some cash, his vault key, a few papers, and quietly walked out of the castle. He may have just won a war, but to him it seemed like nothing was right. He felt utterly alone.

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A/N

What does a real Headmaster really do? There is the referenced board of school governors who presumably hire a headmaster and have overall budget authority. Did Dumbledore single-handedly hire everyone, or did he have help? Who selects the curriculums? Would McGonagall make a great Headmistress?

Very few stories mention the need for post-traumatic stress counseling for the teens. Hopefully JKR will provide Harry with a more skilled ear than going to Hagrid's hut.