To anyone passing by Harry Potter's office, nothing seemed amiss. The door was halfway ajar, to allow ease of access to any other Aurors with urgent business. The smell of herbal tea wafted through into the hallway as usual. And the desk was an exercise in controlled chaos, the seemingly cluttered surface surprisingly well organized, albeit in a manner that only made sense to the one who had made the mess in the first place.

Had anyone actually stepped inside the room, they would have noticed that Harry Potter was most certainly not his usual self. The chair that normally sat at his desk had been pushed into the corner of the room. Harry now sat on it, rocking back and forth, his hands in fists pressed into the soft leather. He took in small shallow breaths, his mind spinning around and around.

He's bad. They're going to take him away from me. He's not allowed to go. Everyone left me. No one is left. They're all gone. Me. Because of me. Me. What's wrong with me. I can't lose him. I don't deserve him. He'll leave anyway. I can't let that happen. Bad. Bad. Something bad. Don't want to think about it...

A knock on the door. "Harry? Are you in there?"

Someone at the door. Deep breath. Mask on. He can't let anyone see him this way. Stand up. Answer.

"Come in," Harry said, his voice betraying nothing of his thoughts.

"Hey mate, got anything new on the missing person case there?" Ron walked in with a file in hand.

"No. I'm at a loss at how to proceed from here," Harry said as he wheeled his chair back behind his desk.

Ron grinned. "I'm here to save the day, as usual." He held out the file. "Check this out."

Harry glanced at the top page in the file. "She worked at the Ministry?"

"Yep!" Ron said smugly. "She was in the Magical Maintenance Department."

"How did I miss this?" Harry wondered as he looked back at the file.

"Jane Jones isn't exactly a unique name," Ron said. "And since it's been over five years since she's worked here, the records were all sent to Permanent Safekeeping, and that place is a nightmare to deal with. Merlin's balls, someone needs to organize that place."

"Thanks for finding this for me," Harry said. "You didn't have to go out of your way for it like that."

Ron shrugged, colouring slightly. "S'not like I did much," he admitted. "I had to go to Permanent Safekeeping for my own case and just happened to run across her file while I was there."

"All the same, thanks," Harry said. "Her co-workers at the hospital didn't really leave me much to go on, and her personnel file held the basics but no real details about her life."

"I didn't look at the file, but I know how thorough the ladies are in the Human Resources Department. You should be able to find something in there that will be useful."

"Tell me there is a picture of her..." Harry flipped through the file quickly.

"There should be," Ron said, "but I'm not sure how useful it will be. Do you remember who was taking the pictures for personnel files back then?"

Harry looked up at Ron and groaned as he remembered. "Oh shite. What was his name? Chris? If he's the one who took the photo I'm out of luck. Whatever happened to that guy anyway?"

"Dunno. I think he got demoted and was moved around from department to department until he finally quit. Why management never saw to it to replace the photos he had taken for HR I haven't the foggiest."

Harry went back to flipping through the file until he found the photo. "This is definitely a Chris picture."

Ron moved to look at it and burst out laughing. "How that bloke got away with taking personnel photos for six months is beyond me."

Harry sighed and looked down at the likeness of a young woman. She had been given rabbit ears with a large pink bow, a Centaur body, and some sort of odd distortion that made it appear she had a very wide mouth and tiny eyes with a large oval face. "I wonder if Colin would be able to fix this."

"You'd have to get special permission from Kingsley to divulge facts about an open case," Ron reminded him.

Harry sighed again. "Since when did you become such a rule follower?"

Ron laughed. "I went through the same Auror Academy as you, remember?"

"Yeah, and you're married to Hermione," Harry said.

Ron shrugged. "S'not like I'm going to grass on you if you don't go through official channels. I trust Colin."

"There's the Ron I know and love," Harry said.

Ron just grinned at him as he left. Harry sat down, his curiosity drawing his attention to the file.

"Oh I almost forgot" - Ron's head poked through the door - "are you and Colin coming to dinner at the Burrow this weekend?"

"We'll be there," Harry answered. "Molly said it was a celebration for Percy and Audrey's engagement."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Who knew my stuffy older brother would actually find someone who could put up with him. I'm not sure what she sees in him."

Harry chuckled as Ron's head disappeared from the doorway. He turned his attention back to the file in hand. It was very detailed; Ron was correct that the HR ladies were thorough. Much of the information wasn't particularly relevant as far as he could surmise (why was it pertinent to note that she had a fear of heights?). Near the end, however, he got lucky. There was a memo detailing an incident where Jones had been verbally harassed by an ex-boyfriend while performing her maintenance duties. Apparently a co-worker had intervened - "Bloody hell." Harry nearly spit out his cold herbal tea he'd just taken a sip of as he reread the last sentence again.

Well. This just got a whole new level of complicated.

When Colin got home that evening he found Harry at the kitchen table. Papers were strewn across the surface. "What's all this love?"

Harry looked up. "The missing person case I'm on. Just going through some new information with a fine tooth comb."

"Any promising leads?"

"A couple," Harry said vaguely. "Listen, is it possible to alter a photo back to its original state? After someone else has altered it?"

"It's possible only if the alteration was done after the picture had been fully developed." Colin said. "If it was altered before being dipped into the developing potion then it can't be changed back."

"Can you tell by looking at a photo which one it is?"

"There's a spell that will tell me. What's this about?"

"I have a photo of my missing person, but it's been altered quite drastically. Do you remember me telling you about Chris who used to take pictures for HR?"

Colin smiled apologetically. "Let me guess, he's the one who took your missing person's photo, wasn't he."

Harry groaned and thumped his head on the table. "Yes," he moaned.

"I can take a look at the photo if I'm allowed to," Colin offered.

"If you can change it back, you obviously can't tell anyone who it is," Harry said. "This is still an active investigation."

"Of course," Colin said.

Harry handed over the photo. Colin laughed softly. "Chris really did a number on this one."

"Yes he did," Harry half laughed, half groaned.

Colin circled his wand over the photo and nonverbally cast a spell. The picture lit up with a faint blue glow and then disappeared. "Sorry," he said. "This was altered before being fully developed."

"Of course it was," Harry said in a resigned tone. "I keep hitting road blocks in this case."

"Anything else I can do to help?"

"I wouldn't mind another bubble bath," Harry said, his eyes hopeful. "It's been a long day."

Colin grinned. "Why don't you go start the water and I'll go tell Kreacher that dinner should be kept warm."

Harry jumped up so fast he knocked the chair over. He gave Colin a quick kiss as he passed by. "Thanks love."

Colin watched Harry go, internally shaking his head. This was the Harry he knew and loved. It was almost as though yesterday hadn't happened.

The walls of St. Hope seemed like they were closing in on him as Harry meandered along the hallways. He was supposed to be interviewing more people who had known Jane Jones at the hospital, but he'd been told that two of them were off today, one had called in sick, and the last one was on her lunch break. He decided to pop in to visit Bill again while he waited.

His vision felt tunneled, as though he was looking through a long telescope; he was in an odd dreamlike state, as though the world around him was floating. Or maybe he was floating. Or perhaps he was dreaming after all. Why was he here again?

A bathroom off to his left. Stop. Enter. Is that his reflection? That doesn't look like him. Why doesn't that look like him? Who is he? His hands automatically reached to grasp the sides of the sink as an anchor. Where is he? Who is that talking?

The sound of a toilet being flushed jerked him awake and Harry took a sharp breath, blinking his eyes several times as to clear away the thoughts in his mind. He gripped the sink harder, hard enough to hurt, and the pain grounded him enough to allow the haze to lift just slightly; he pulled himself together as the stall door opened. He glanced up out of habit and did a double take as he recognized Terry Boot, Colin's supervisor at Wizarding World Weekly.

Terry recognized him immediately, and a curious puzzlement crossed his face before disappearing into a courteous smile. "Harry, how's it going?"

"It's going," Harry responded as he straightened up. "My current case is keeping me busy. How's your Mum doing?"

Terry sighed as he moved to wash his hands. "She's responding to treatment, which is good news, but she'll likely have to stay at Magical Hope for some time."

"I wish her well," Harry said, somewhat awkwardly. He wasn't sure what to say; his mind was only half paying attention.

"Thank you." Terry said.

A few more pleasantries were exchanged before Terry took his leave. Harry turned back to his reflection. His green eyes searched for answers to questions he had no words for within his own gaze, but answers remained elusive.

Pull it together. You can do this.

He left Magical Hope and entered St. Hope in somewhat of a daze. He arrived at Bill's room, his vision still somewhat hazy, but able to think halfway clearly. Two. Three. Six. He counted the numbers on the outside of the door. Bill's room number. Level two, room thirty-six.

Bill was alone in the room when Harry entered. He was lying down on his side, staring at the wall. Harry followed his gaze to see the drawings that Bill appeared to be looking at. Harry studied them curiously. One was of a young boy standing in darkness. His bright red shirt shone like a beacon, but what caught the eye the most was the monster standing behind the child. It was large, misshapen, reminiscent of some kind of demon. A large astrakhan coat was draped over its hideous bulk. Harry shivered. Every child's worst nightmare, including his. He'd had horrible dreams as a kid that he'd suffered through alone. Aunt Petunia hadn't exactly been a doting mother figure to him.

Another one showed a long table with a life-sized figure lying down. The figure was human in shape but appeared more artificial, as though it were perhaps a genderless Barbie doll. (Harry had once rescued a Ken doll from the trash; Dudley hadn't cared for Aunt Marge's idea of a joke.) Standing over the table was a man with an open face, bare torso and short red hair. He looked young, perhaps in his twenties, and was drawn with muscles most men would envy. Nearly invisible scars dotted a tan that hinted at time spent in sunnier climates. Harry was impressed that Bill could convey such detailed features, right down to the intensity of the grayish green eyes.

The last one that caught his eye showed a masked man, his sinuous arms wielding a sword against a large beast with many heads, their long necks comparable to the tentacles of an octopus. Harry was at once inexplicably reminded of Fluffy, Hagrid's three headed dog that he'd had the misfortune to meet twice.

"You appear to like men rather a lot," Harry commented into the still air. A hearty laugh from behind him startled him, and for a moment he wondered if Bill had woken - but it was Luke standing in the doorway.

"He's not exactly subtle about it is he?" Luke said, still chuckling slightly. "My boy apparently has a thing for blokes, especially rather fit ones. I was told by some of his fellow officers that he was quite open about it."

"Another thing we have in common." Harry grinned at Bill before adding, "Some of his drawings are brilliantly detailed."

"That they are," Luke agreed. "So what brings you by today? You usually visit in the evenings."

Harry's mood soured slightly at the reminder. "I wanted to interview more of Jane's co-workers but most of them aren't even here today."

"I take it the search isn't going well?"

"No," Harry sighed. "I did come across some new information, and there is someone I need to talk to about it, but my guess is it will be another dead end."

"Have hope, Harry. You are a brilliant investigator, I'm sure you will come across something that will help you."

Harry simply nodded, and his eyes roamed around the room, unable to settle on anything for long.

"You seem distracted. What's on your mind?"

Harry worried at his lip, his eyes staring off into the distance for a moment before he looked at Luke. "Colin had a photography shoot."

"And is that a bad thing?" Luke prompted gently when Harry didn't continue.

"Yes. No. Yes. I mean, he wants to open a photography studio someday, so it's helpful to his career. But the people he had to take pictures of..." Harry trailed off, unable to form coherent thoughts as his mind spun.

"Are they awful people?"

"I don't know anything about the wife and kid, but she willingly married that bloke and had his brat, so my opinion of them isn't good," Harry said at last. "But...him. That - that man...he's evil. Awful. Terrible. I don't know how Colin can even be in the same room as him. He has that Nazi bullshit mentality and has done some horrible things, things that society has largely forgiven him for or simply moved on, as though the past actually can stay in the past and - and - "

Luke moved to pat him on the back. "That sounds hard to deal with," he said calmly. "Society loves to make a big deal out of things when they first happen and then forget about them as though they never existed, don't they."

"I know that's how it works," Harry said dully. "But that's not how I work - I can't just forget the past, it's everywhere I go, and I've been trying to explain this to Colin but my words all come out wrong and I don't think he really understands because he tried to talk to me again about it, he said something about how he liked the kid and was thinking maybe when he grew up he could work for him in the studio - and he said that the kid's mother was sweet and bubbly, and I couldn't...I didn't want to hear anymore. Does that make me cold? I just don't want to hear about these...people." Harry threw emphasis on his last word, making it sound like an expletive.

"You're not cold, Harry. You are human," Luke soothed. "Colin loves you and I'm sure he didn't mean to disrespect your boundaries by speaking of them."

Harry threw himself messily into the chair by Bill's bed, his hands coming up to clutch at his own face, and his glasses were knocked slightly askew but he couldn't bring himself to care. "Colin's got a big heart, it's one of the things that drew me to him in the first place, but it's also the thing that irritates me the most. Why can't he have a big heart only for the right people? That's not - that's not bad for me to think, is it?"

"Your feelings are valid. You can't help your feelings, lad," Luke said as he sat down in the chair next to Harry's. "Just remember that Colin loves you. He'll take your feelings into consideration, because he loves you and has a big heart and he won't want to see you in pain."

"Will he though? Will he really?" Harry asked. "He didn't tell me that he was doing a photo shoot with the family until after he'd already done it, shouldn't he have asked my opinion beforehand?"

"Ah lad, if you get caught up in the should haves or could haves you'll just get stuck. The thing you've got to ask yourself is, moving forward, what do you want to see happen? The answer to that question will tell you the next right play."

Harry's hands slid down to rest in his lap as he took a deep shuddering breath. "You're right of course," he said quietly. "I suppose I have some thinking to do."

"That's the ticket," Luke said as he leaned back into his chair.

Harry unconsciously copied the movement as he settled into a more comfortable position. They sat in silence for a long while. Harry let his eyes wander around the room until they came at last to rest on Bill, who was still lying down. His tousled chocolate-brown curly hair looked windswept, even though Harry knew that was most likely due to a mediwizard's (or rather a nurse, in muggle terms) use of a hairdryer instead of the natural elements. Hazel eyes continued to stare straight ahead with no expression. The soft lines of his face made him look younger than his late twenties, and in a flash Harry recalled how young Colin had looked at sixteen -

A faint tapping slowly pulled Harry away from the realm of memory and he frowned. The noise was reminiscent of a woodpecker, only more muted. He turned around in his chair to look out the window, but there were no birds in sight. "Do you hear..." he started to say, before his eyes fell on the source of the sound. "Luke," he said, his voice low. "Look."

Harry knew when Luke saw it by the way the man's breath caught in either disbelief or hope or perhaps both, and Luke's excitement fueled his own already swirling emotions. Harry felt his arms move to hold tightly to his own chest, as though he were hugging himself, and almost as if from far away he heard Luke's words, filled with undisguised anticipation.

"Bill? Son, can you look at me?"

Bill didn't answer, but his index finger kept up its subtle tap on the wooden leg of the chair Harry occupied. Harry followed the movement hungrily, not really understanding why but knowing that somehow, the repetitive motion was soothing to him, and his thoughts calmed slightly as he watched.

"Please talk to me son." Luke's voice held an edge of pain to it. "I'm sorry I left you. I want to be here for you now. Please please talk to me."

The tapping continued for a brief moment and then stopped. The sudden silence seemed loud to Harry, as though a TV on full volume had been abruptly switched off, and found himself clutching his ears, trying to make the deafening quiet stop. Luke didn't notice Harry's odd behaviour, his focus still on begging Bill to talk to him. By the time Luke had given up his pleas Harry had calmed himself somewhat.

"It's a start," Luke said as he sat on the edge of Bill's bed, his eyes still filled with anguish. "He'll wake up fully in time, won't he?" There was a questioning note to his statement and Harry understood Luke was looking for reassurance.

"He'll come back," Harry said. "Don't ever stop believing that."

Luke directed a grateful half-smile his way. He took one of Bill's hands in his own and squeezed gently. "You're right," he said. "My boy is strong. He'll find his way back."

Harry watched as Luke spoke gently to his son, sharing old memories and new adventures about the latest news in the lives of the people who lived and work at St. Hope, and something in his heart clenched. How many more fathers and sons and mothers and daughters were out there like this? Parents who worried and begged their children to come back to them, and children who wanted to come back but couldn't because of their wounds suffered? How many of these people hurting were because of the actions that he took? What if he had figured out where the Horcruxes were quicker, or learned the lessons Dumbledore had been attempting to teach him sooner? What if he'd been able to sneak into Hogwarts alone, without setting off any alarms? Then the Battle of Hogwarts wouldn't have happened, and so many people who had been killed or forever scarred in some way would have been perfectly fine, able to lead normal lives without the terror of the war hanging over them for the rest of their lives. Even Colin, dear sweet Colin, had told him of the moment when he accidently tripped over Lavender's mutilated body and had frozen in place, unable to look away...

"I was on my knees in front of her, and I was there so long that I guess I attracted the wrong sort of attention, because some Death Eater sent a Killing Curse my direction...The only reason I survived was because of the emerald rubies Professor Trelawney was throwing at people, you know, from the Gryffindor Hourglass? One of them got in the way of the jet of light and sent it back at whoever had cast it. I saw the Death Eater fall, and that woke me up enough to get up and keep fighting...but that moment...Harry I still see Lavender's badly torn up body in my dreams..."

Colin's words from years ago still echoed in his mind often. He could have lost Colin that day, all because of a battle that shouldn't have happened, wouldn't have happened, if he'd thought things out more...and Colin would have been spared the pain of seeing things he should not have had to see, and wouldn't have spent years having nightmares...how many other people had been plagued with nightmares of things they had witnessed that night? He could have saved people so much pain -

Luke's heavy sigh as he stood up from the bed pulled Harry away from the past. "I should get back to work," he said. He clapped Harry on the shoulder. "Always good to see you lad," he said.

Harry gave Luke a quick smile in response, his attention still somewhat divided. Luke squeezed his son's hand once more before leaving the two of them alone. Harry looked at Bill and then looked away. "I suppose I should track down the person I was hoping to interview today," he said. "I'm just so tired. I don't want to get up. Is it wrong of me to say - is it wrong of me to say that I - I envy you?"

Bill didn't answer, but Harry wondered if the look of understanding he saw flit through his expression was real or simply a figment of his imagination.