See prologue for warnings and disclaimers.

Moonlight and Shadows: Chapter 5

Harry spent the next day much like the one before it. They had moved on to the Ravenclaw Tower, where the Carrows had been removed and there was just as much rubble as in Gryffindor Tower. It was appropriate that they addressed the three highest towers in the school first. Again, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were joined by at least as many people and house elves as the day before.

Things were peculiar for the Golden Trio since they weren't constantly looking for anything or discussing anything important. In fact, they had hardly anything to discuss except for future plans. This fell as a heavy weight on Harry's shoulders as well as, he suspected, Ron's. Hermione may have gotten enough O.W.L.s and credits from her sixth year to be able to move on with school, but Harry and Ron still didn't know where they stood on that front. Harry dreaded having to talk to Professor McGonagall and inquiring about whether he and Ron would need to take their seventh year at Hogwarts.

If Hogwarts will even be open by the first of September... Harry tried to push away this thought, but he knew that soon they would have to send out letters to anyone attending.

Suddenly he realized with a jolt that if they had to take seventh year, so would Draco Malfoy, since none of them had been at school.

Surely McGonagall would be Headmistress, but there were so many other teaching positions to fill. Hermione would be going to do Healer training, so she couldn't teach... Neville might, if he too didn't have to take his year over again.

Harry couldn't think about the future anymore. Thinking ahead was something he did in the past. He firmly resolved to live and think in the present.

The present, he found after another hour of trying not to think about his seventh year, directly involved the future. The first thing to do was to go to Professor McGonagall to ask about his further studies. He decided to do this at lunchtime, when they would be done with Ravenclaw Tower.

To his disappointment, many people seemed to have come to the cleaning of the towers simply for the reason of talking to Harry and pursuing a lengthy interview, photo session, or autograph signing. Nevertheless, there were quite enough people who were dedicated to the task at hand to get them finished with Ravenclaw Tower by lunch. When they were done, Harry made his way over to Ron and Hermione, who had started to examine the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw and her diadem.

"Ron, Hermione... I've been thinking a lot about what's going on next year. Do you think we're going to have to take seventh year?"

"Yes, I've been thinking about that too, Harry," said Hermione. It dawned on Harry that actually, he was surprised she hadn't investigated their options before now.

"Bloody hell," said Ron, looking between the two of them. "You don't really think they'd make us do that, would they? After this whole past year we've had?"

"It's not just us, Ron. I've been wondering if students in all years will need to retake their year. It can hardly be disputed that they didn't get a very adequate education this past year, can it? They didn't even get to do their exams... but then, it isn't even June yet, I wonder if they'd try to...?"

"Ah, Hermione," sighed Ron. "You are such a killjoy."

"Well–" started Hermione defensively.

"The only thing to do is to ask McGonagall," Harry interrupted. "Are you coming?" He walked out of the Ravenclaw common room, where the house members were still admiring their new settings, knowing Ron and Hermione would follow.

Professor McGonagall, they were informed by Professor Slughorn, was in the hospital wing looking after the injured. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione got there, however, it was to find Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey in a heated argument, with students staring at them from surrounding beds.

"–Must insist, Minerva, really... my duties come foremost..."

"You forget that I am at least as capable?"

"Why, no, Minerva, I'm only saying that it might be wise to leave me to my practices–"

"–The practices I taught you, Poppy! I am simply astounded that you can consider yourself so capable that you don't need any assistance! There are positively hundreds of patients! You cannot expect to solely be effective and efficient enough!"

"Don't pretend that's why I'm refusing your services, Minerva. You know as well as I do that if you were to aid the medical branch of this Hogwarts reformation, you would place it upon yourself to become the leader of my organization. And that is what I find most unwelcome!" Madame Pomfrey finished and bustled off to her office.

McGonagall stood in a huff for a matter of seconds before turning to the wide-eyed faces around her. "I am dreadfully sorry I cannot be of any use to you all. If you find your care... lacking... at all, please send a visitor to see me, and I shall be most happy to wait on any of you at any time." She turned to the door and Harry, Ron, and Hermione hastily arranged themselves outside the door so as not to startle their professor.

"Professor," started Hermione when she came out the door.

"Miss Granger," she answered, and nodded to Harry and Ron.

"Professor, we were wondering... our education was never really complete since we didn't take seventh year at all, and we have been working for the past year, but I never got to take my N.E.W.T.s and I think that's a very important part of schooling..." Harry and Ron rolled their eyes. Just like first year all over again, they shared.

"Yes, Miss Granger, I'm aware of your standing in your education. All of your teachers share my opinion that all three of you are very bright and intelligent–" Ron shot a "yeah, right" glance at Harry, and McGonagall caught it. "Mr. Weasley," she said suddenly, making Ron turn red. "Do you really believe that you are unintelligent? I would venture to say that if you were extremely unintelligent, you would not be standing here right now. You would be dead, Mr. Weasley."

There was a beat of silence in which Harry and Hermione turned hastily to Ron, and Ron turned a mixture of purple and green. McGonagall, for the first time that Harry had ever seen, looked like she might die of embarrassment.

"Dear Merlin, Ronald, I'm utterly ashamed... I'm so very, truly, sorry, I did not in any way mean to suggest that your brother was the least bit unintelligent– on the contrary, we teachers always took a secret fascination with the twins... oh dear, I'm so sorry, Ronald..." she was covering her mouth and Harry could tell that she wished fervently that she had never spoken. Ron looked at a loss for emotion at all, except perhaps a trace of surprise that arose from her calling him by his first name. She kept on, apologizing and backtracking and blubbering and feeling very sorry. Hermione, knowing this wasn't doing anything to help Ron at all, spoke first.

"Professor, please continue. You were telling us that you knew of our standing in our education..."

"Yes... yes," she said, still distracted by Ron. "Yes, Miss Granger. All of the teachers agree, as I said, that you three are extraordinarily talented and smart. Because of this, I know that you will all want to proceed into various sophisticated professions, which will require the most education available. And I know that most employers would not stand for any sort of minimal, incomplete education, even if you did defeat Voldemort."

Ron groaned at this point and all of them looked at him, concerned. But he looked like his normal self, only extremely disappointed.

"So we do have to do it all over again?" he whined.

"Ron, it isn't 'all over again,' since we never took seventh year in the first place!" corrected Hermione.

"However," Professor McGonagall continued, "I and my colleagues are of the same mind that there is another option for you all." They brightened. "Skilled and experienced as you are, we have been wondering whether any or all of you would accept teaching positions in the fall?"

She positively beamed at their shocked faces.

"So... so, we would be skipping seventh year after all?" asked Hermione.

"Well, I think you might find that you could pursue those studies on your own time, with the help of any of the teachers at Hogwarts. At the end of the year, you will need to sit your N.E.W.T.s, but that should not be a problem for any of you."

"What if..."

"Yes, Mr. Weasley?"

"What if I don't really want to teach?" he finished timidly.

"You'll find you have two options. You may either attend Hogwarts as a seventh year student, or you may take the place as disciplinary manager from Argus Filch, who is retiring." She raised her eyebrows at him.

"What would Harry and I teach? If... if we were to do this?"

"I would entrust to you, Miss Granger, my post as Transfiguration professor. Mr. Potter, I daresay you will have figured out that you would take the position of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor." Harry nodded.

"When do we need to decide, Professor?" he asked.

"I think by the end of this week. You might as well know now that I am making this same offer to Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy. While Professor Sprout is in the hospital wing, Mr. Longbottom may take her lessons. She may retire as soon as she is well, in which case he would continue the position. Professor Slughorn has already retired, and I will be asking Draco Malfoy to take his place.

"The rest of the students who need to take or retake seventh year will come to the school as students. All others will be repeating their year. We will be admitting new first years, however. The school will be unusually full, with an unusual blend of ages in the levels, as well. But I think we'll find we can handle it." The three stared at her, floored by her new proposition. "Please let me know by the end of the week what you plan to do. I'm going to alert Longbottom and Malfoy of this program, so you three don't get to them first." She smiled and raised her eyebrows, then walked off.

After nearly a minute of stunned silence, Ron spoke first.

"Bloody hell..."

"I don't know how she thinks she's going to make this work; it's mad, having twice as many first years as usual," said Hermione.

"Good idea, though, overall... we can go on with a type of job, but still be in school at the same time. And if we do well with our N.E.W.T.s, any employer's going to be just fine with what we accomplished," said Harry.

"Disciplinary manager..." Ron sighed. Hermione looked at him pityingly.

"I don't know how she thinks you're going to do well with that... you were never really great at any disciplinary duties as a prefect..." Seeing the look Ron gave her, she added, "but it's a great opportunity for an alternative to teaching. I can see why she thought it would really work for you, Ron." Ron didn't look entirely convinced.

They ate lunch and were walking up to the Astronomy Tower later, when the subject resurfaced.

"Well, I'm going to do it," said Ron. "And the first thing I'm going to do is to give Harry detention!" They all laughed.

They were almost to the door to the landing outside when Harry's heart started beating uncontrollably fast. Just on the other side of that door, Harry had stood less than a year previously to watch Dumbledore get killed, and he hadn't been up to the tower since then. Would anything be on the tower? Would there be any testament to Dumbledore's death? Suddenly Harry's heart skipped a couple of its double beats as he saw the same flash of white-blonde. He woefully associated it with Dumbledore, before remembering that Dumbledore had very grey hair...

They had been stepping over rocks since the bottom of the staircase, but the rubble increased dramatically twenty or so stairs from the door. Harry looked up in between negotiating the rocks slowing them down, and saw that the door wasn't shut all the way.

Immediately, he knew what they would find on the other side of that door. And just as quickly, he decided that Hermione and Ron should not find it with him. Hastily, he turned to them.

"Is... would it be ok if I went on up ahead and just... was there for a little bit? I... we might as well start on the stairway anyway... do you mind?" As he knew they would, Ron and Hermione looked at him somewhat sorrowfully before agreeing that they would work on the stone on the stairs while he went to the top of the tower. Harry could hear the approaching footsteps which meant they would be joined by house elves and more people soon. It would not take them long to clean up the rock around the door, but all he knew was that they could not come with him.

He sprinted as well as he could up the rest of the steps and grasped the door handle. He stepped outside and faced the wall off of which Dumbledore fell.

Malfoy looked up and sneered through red-rimmed eyes from where he was sitting against the wall, approximately where Harry was frozen in place when Dumbledore was killed.

"Is this supposed to be gallantry, Potter?" Harry stared back at him.

"'Gallantry'?" he said with disbelief. "No, Malfoy. This is proving it."

They looked at each other silently before Malfoy sighed lightly and put his head back in his arms on his knees. Harry could tell he was no longer sobbing– he may have been crying, but he remained still. Harry too remained in place by the door, finding himself very close to the spot Malfoy stood when struggling to kill Dumbledore.

"Potter," came Malfoy's muffled voice after a while. Harry was painfully aware of all the other people probably waiting to come onto the tower. But as he looked around, the stone seemed to be as intact as ever.

"Yeah," he answered.

"You were up here, weren't you?" Malfoy raised his head slightly and squinted at Harry. Harry didn't need to ask what Malfoy meant, but he considered the question's tone, which was neither unfriendly nor cool, before answering the truth.

"Yeah," he said again.

"So," Malfoy said after a little while more, the coolness back in his voice. "You're going to parade me down there and show all your little friends the teary Slytherin, now?"

"If I was going to break my promise, Malfoy, I would have just brought them up with me. I actually have a little more respect than that." Malfoy didn't speak. Harry hesitated then took something out of his pocket. "Here, put this on and we'll both avoid some questions," he said, and handed Malfoy his prized Invisibility Cloak. Malfoy narrowed his eyes briefly at where Harry's hand was clutching the cloak before taking it, looking in Harry's face, and putting it on.

"Right, now if you want to help, just take it off during some commotion and hand it to me or something. Otherwise, I'm going up to that cave to get it tonight," he warned, walking back to the door.

"You don't trust me," Malfoy's voice stated from behind Harry.

"Right back at you, Malfoy," said Harry, and he turned to the stairs.

Not once did he glimpse Malfoy that day, but he was not surprised. Once or twice he thought he felt a tug on a sleeve, but he looked down to see a house elf's ear waggling around his elbow and he shook his head and continued repairing the stairs.

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A/N: THANK YOU so much for the wonderful reviews! I really am updating as fast as I can, what with writer's block and going out of town and everything else. But more reviews equals more updating, so please tell anyone to check out the story! Thanks everyone :)