Harry regained consciousness briefly enough to feel an intense amount of pain as he was reminded of a curse that had been shot at him what seemed to be hours ago. He also felt a peace as the universe seemed to spill souls out of him and into the world, and Augustus Rockwood gave out a distinctive cry. He fell back into an exhausted sleep.
Harry woke up again. This time his muscles were heavier, his vision the normal amount of blurry, and his body set upon a flat wooden table. He tried to sit up but was pushed back down by a woman to his left.
"What the hell happened?" he asked, rubbing his eyes and laying his now dizzy head back onto the table.
Muttering ensued as the room realized that Harry had woken up. Harry was handed his glasses as the voices moved closer around him. Harry looked around and recognized his auror team sitting around him. Miriam was the dark haired, dark skinned woman who had forced him not to sit up. Carol and Don both seemed to have seen a ghost and appeared to be trying not to whisper to each other as Harry looked at them, and Kyle was sitting at the end of the table looking at Harry as if he'd grown three heads.
"What do you remember?" Miriam asked calmly.
"We were ambushed, it was Rockwood, he shot spells, I blacked out. What happened after that?" He spoke as concise as possible, needing to know what the aurors knew about his death.
The room became quite again. Carol and Don shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
"What happened?" Harry said louder.
This time he was met with Kyle's low voice. "You died sir. We watched the killing curse hit you, heard the incantation and saw you fall dead. The whole field stopped. Don and Miriam started shooting stunning spells, but before much more could happen your body emitted this pulse. Everything felt calm for a second, but then it was like you could feel the soul of the forest moving through you. Augustus Rockwood started screaming in pain, and all his cronies left the second they heard… well we heard you moan sir. We realized that you had survived, and everyone left. Hell, I almost left you'd scared me so much." Kyle stopped, seeming surprised at the words which had just left his mouth.
"We stunned Augustus Rockwood, sent a message to the ministry about his location, and brought you back." Miriam said in a matter of fact tone. Harry looked over to her. She looked all business, but Harry could tell she was shaken. They all were.
"Alright," Harry said with a sigh, "We need to contact the ministry." He began to sit up and saw the looks of surprise on his team's face.
"Sir you've survived the killing curse." Don said exasperated. "Are you even fit to be walking around?"
Harry swung his legs over the side of the table. "Please," He said swinging his legs over the side of the table. "I've been doing that since I was a year old." He slowly let his legs take his weight and felt the soreness in his legs from all the running. He took a few steps towards his desk and sat down in his chair to begin writing.
"Carol please get an owl ready to be sent to the ministry and to Hogwarts. Put the ministers name on the top of the label, and I'll put his emergency address underneath it. Then put the headmistress on the other." Harry's crisp, urgent instructions seemed to give his team something to do with their nervous energy. They all began moving around him as he called out more instructions to move them closer to being done with the mission. He was hoping to move out before the end of the night so that he could help the ministry deal with the crisis that he had just witnessed.
Harry got up to move towards the addressed envelopes that Carol had just set on the table. He saw the addressed to Minerva McGonagall and was suddenly reminded of his discussion with Albus Dumbledore a few minutes before. He froze on the spot. This wasn't just about a potential crisis with ministry organization and housing. His parents were alive. Teddy's parents were alive. Sirius Black was alive. They were all in the Hogwarts right now. He could walk five feet away from his tent, apparate to Hogsmeade, and hug his parents within the next two minutes.
"Is he okay?" Harry heard Carol whisper as quietly as she could.
Harry realized that he hadn't moved in the last several seconds. He quickly recovered, picked up the pen he'd dropped and walked to the table clearing his throat.
"I want to be out of here as soon as humanly possible," he began, now signing the emergency address and placing both letters neatly into the envelopes. "We've been gone for three days now, it was supposed to be two, and my wife is seven months pregnant. We're going home as soon as possible, I don't care if we've appropriately surveyed the area. We've been attacked by old fashioned death eaters. We're going home."
His staff seemed to stop momentarily at the urgency, then moved faster than before. Miriam had a sister who was probably worried sick about her, and everyone else had a wife to get home to. No one wanted to spend another minute in this watch tent.
With a crack, Harry found himself and the minister at the apparition point near Hogsmeade. Harry took off in a run towards Hogwarts. Telling Kingsley Shacklebolt had taken longer than he thought, and they had ended up briefing his teammates on the events at King Cross station. They were strict secrecy laws, which for Carol had been a first. She was concerned about her inability to tell her wife about the information, but after Miriam had assured her that she would always be an open ear the room seemed to calm down dramatically.
McGonagall would have been expecting them fifteen minutes ago and Kingsley had kept Harry too busy to send an apology. The grown men turned heads as they ran past the candy shop full of students, and the post center which had a large amount of third years starting in awe at the variety of owls.
"Is it Hogsmeade weekend?!" Harry asked out of breath.
Kingsley took a wild look around at all the students, spotting a giggly couple leaving Madam Puddifoot's. He swore under his breath and moved into a quick walk.
"Slow down," He muttered to Harry who followed was following his lead. "The last thing we need is them flooding back to the castle because the minister of magic was running towards the school.
"Hogsmeade was supposed to be more casual." Harry groaned. "We were supposed to gain less attention, and meander slowly through the Hogwarts grounds as though we were just catching up. Of course, the entire bloody school had to watch us running towards the castle."
Kingsley looked around as students seemed to have caught on to the minister's presence and began following him back to the castle. They kept up a brisk pace and made their way to a grassy walkway upon which was a frazzled looking Minerva McGonagall.
"Is everything alright Potter?" She asked as she joined them moving towards the castle.
"Nothing is necessarily wrong professor," Harry said, "We just need to address a sudden influx of people that occurred right under the school's nose because the magic involved was so unheard of th-"
"How many people are we talking about Mr. Potter?!" McGonagall interrupted shocked.
"Several hundred. But as I was saying the ma-"
"Several hundred unaccounted for students!" McGonagall nearly shrieked, causing a nearby group of girls to look at her in surprise.
"Quite down!" Kingsley whispered harshly. He quickened his pace, and Harry couldn't tell if he wanted privacy, or to see those in the room.
"And they're not students." Harry said calmly. "Most of them are adults."
"Where did they come from?" McGonagall stared at Harry, urgency obvious in her voice. "What am I supposed to do with them? How are they getting out? Where are they?"
Harry gave Kingsley a look. "They're in the room of requirement, they're locked in right now. The ministry can handle their organization."
"Where are they from Harry?" McGonagall stopped moving to look at her former student.
Harry stopped to meet her lowering his voice, "I'll tell you when we have more privacy."
McGonagall's eyes darted to see all the kids in the area. She nodded crisply and began waking at a pace to beat Kingsley.
The quick, quiet speed of the minister of magic, head auror, and headmistress of Hogwarts walking towards the school, and down the hallways drew large amount of attention and whispers. Harry passed the great hall, and visions of dead bodies littered his mind. He threw the thoughts away and considered that all those dead bodies were alive now. They were in a room several minutes away. He began walking faster. Their briskness stunned Ponama Sprout and her teaching student Neville Longbottom as they passed the pair without so much as a smile.
They finally came upon the seventh-floor hallway that Harry had paced through so many times before. He began walking back and forth in front of the doorway, the last time he had done this the war was going on around him. Kingsley set up protection charms around Hogwarts for the first time since death eaters were trying to kill him. McGonagall watched as the doors to the Room of Requirement appeared and the two ministry officials walked up to it and stared.
"I've put up enough security spells that we can tell her in private before we go in." Kingsley stated, staring at the door with a heavy anticipation.
Harry nodded in response, but his eyes did not leave the entrance.
"Well?" McGonagall asked. "What in Godric Gryffindor is going on?!"
Harry turned to face her, waved his wand to form three chairs in the hallway, took a seat, and began explaining the events of the last few hours. Her eyes widened as she realized what she was about to see. Soon she too could not stop glancing at the door. The ornate woodwork that had appeared in the middle of the corridor seemed to be calling the trio.
"No one else is to be told that we know how these people came to be." Harry told her. "We'll find a cover story as to what lead Kingsley and I to the castle, but no one else knows that I died again."
McGonagall gave a nod before standing up to move towards the door. "Just when you think you've seen it all." She whispered.
Harry smiled as he felt the implications of what he was about to do weigh on him. He reached out to the room, grabbed the handle which fit perfectly in his hand, and heard an ear-piercing yell from down the hallway.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!" He heard his wife, Ginny Weasley, scream. "Percy told me that you've been home for an entire hour and you didn't even ask that your wife was notified!"
Harry's hand fell from the doorknob as Kingsley took down the protection enchantments and McGonagall helped the chairs disappear. The room of requirement took this as its cue to shift back into the wall just as a pregnant Ginny rounded the corner.
"You could have sent a memo. You could have sent an owl. You could have sent my own goddamned brother. But instead you took of Hogwarts without so much as a word."
Ginny stopped yelling all the sudden, seeming to take in the people who were with her husband. "Hello Minister, Headmistress."
"Hello Ginny," Kingsley addressed her. "Your husband cannot come home right now. You can give him a quick hug. Tell him you're glad that he's alive. Then you have to leave immediately."
Ginny looked slightly ashamed. "Yes sir." She walked up to her husband, hand moving from her belly to her husband.
"I love you," Harry whispered to his wife as he hugged her. "I wish I could explain what is happening, but I really can't. Tell Teddy that I might not see him for a few days and I'm sorry."
"I thought you were going to quit soon?"
"It's not dangerous."
"Neither was the last one!"
"This one isn't even on the field. I'll be safe, but you need to leave." Harry whispered consolingly as he broke the hug. "I love you."
"Then come home soon!" Ginny smirked.
As she walked out of the room McGonagall began pacing in front of the door again. Kingsley set up his charms, and it was Harry's turn to wait impatiently for the entrance to appear.
Once he could, he took no chances and threw the large doors open.
The room was huge. Tall ceilings, white walls, and an expanse of space to rival the great halls magnitude. If you looked far enough into the room, you could see bunk beds resembling those which Dumbledore's Army used at the end of the war. Large signs pointed to restrooms and privacy rooms on either side of the open space. The people nearest the entrance grew quiet as they noticed the three standing at the door.
"We need a better plan." Harry said turning around. The other two followed him out and the doors shut and locked behind him. "We need to get security, healthcare, meetings with housing, economy, and the logistics team needs to begin figuring out how we're going to get these guys out of here and where they're going. We need to cooperate with the Hogwarts house elves to get them food and water as soon as possible." The three began walking down the hall towards the headmaster's office. "Kingsley meet with your speechwriting team or send them to me. I'm going to speak to these people within the next hour and let them know who they are, where they are, and what we're doing to make sure that they're comfortable."
"Why not let the minister speak?" McGonagall asked.
"More people will recognize me. I was the beacon of the second war, while Kingsley worked directly alongside the ministry during it. Not that that was any less important, but it wasn't as noticed by them," Harry added, "While you assemble this, I'm going to begin talking with some of the people in there, I'll do this while in disguise so that I'm not noticed. I need to figure out what they need that the room of requirement can't give them. I'm assuming that one of those things is information, so I'm considering finding a plan that separates the group out by the decade in which they've died."
Harry stopped to think. They had nearly made it to the headmistress's office. The gargoyle was just down the hallway, and the adults were all briskly reminded of Dumbledore, a man whom two of them assumed they would be seeing in a few hours.
"How can you think of anything except your parents." Kingsley asked, in awe at Harry's quick reflex to organize. "I haven't stopped thinking about my brother since the moment I heard."
"I want to bring them home." Harry said sternly. "I had to get my team out of the forest with all of this on my shoulder, and at that point I had just woken up from a deadly sleep. After that, this seems natural."
Kingsley nodded in understanding. "I'll get the heads of all departments and notify them that we're on emergency level 3. Nothing is wrong, but we're going to need to utilize a lot of ministry resources and personal; We need to make sure everyone is on guard." Kingsley sighed, lost in thought. "We will do as you suggested as well. If you have anything else, let me know. I'll send over my speech staff right after I've briefed them."
Kingsley turned to McGonagall. "I'm sorry that we're using your school like this. You will forgive us I hope."
McGonagall gave a curt nod, and a tear slipped down her cheek. "Anything to see them again," Her voice gave a slight quiver as she spoke. "I'll keep the students away as well."
Harry smiled at her. "We'll be there soon," He turned to Kingsley now "I'm going to go disguise myself briefly and walk around to gauge what people are complaining about. I'll keep an eye on my watch and be back in the 7th floor hallway in 20 minutes."
Kingsley gave a nod and went with McGonagall into her office. Harry couldn't help but notice the slightly jealous look that the pair was giving him. They wanted to be the ones to listen to those who were back, and Harry didn't blame them.
Harry took out his wand and performed a disillusionment charm. His cloak had been left in his bag at the ministry. He threw it on as to attract no attention while walking down the school's corridors. He walked swiftly down the corridors, back to the 7th floor hallway where he paced while diligently asking for the room where the people were.