A/N: Okay, so the Scenery Competition is over, with less rounds than were expected. I did end up winning, but it was more default than anything. Thank you to everyone who supported my entries and picked up the spelling/grammar mistakes that snuck on through. Couldn't have done it without you all.

For a while I debated on how much further to continue this, and in the end I decided to finish off with two closing scenes, elsewise I would have gone on indefinitely (and I've got enough of those floating about). So this one's Harry's closing scene, and I'll finish off (hopefully some time next week) with Dudley's.

And that's it from me. Enjoy.

The Vigilant Night

Scene 5

Dumbledore's office was silent now. When his entrance had brought a standing ovation and a thundering of applause, his exit triggered nothing at all. The portraits were asleep; Dumbledore himself snored merrily over the Headmaster's desk. No doubt McGonnagal would take over the position…once the damage was repaired and the losses recuperated.

He wondered how many old faces would be missing next year. No doubt many students would have to retake the last year; Ginny and Luna had missed an entire semester, and many students lacked the few critical weeks before their OWLs or NEWTs. And then there was himself, Ron and Hermione…and Dean and several other Muggleborns who had turned of age the previous year of this, who hadn't attended at all. And the remaining Muggleborns denied entry to the education that was their right by regimes that had finally been undone.

He knew it would take a while before things sifted back into their normal flow, for their lives to get back on track so to speak. He realised suddenly, Elder Wand in one hand and Invisibility Cloak in the other while his own wand, repaired and functional once more, stayed firmly tucked in his back pocket. He distantly heard Moody chiding him for it: the claim that Wizards greater than him had their buttocks blasted off, and Tonks' curious and somewhat childish reply. It was sad he'd never see either of them again.

It was only once one stopped waiting, once what they had striven for lay in their hands, that they stopped and thought about all these things.

Ron was silent; perhaps he was thinking of Fred. So was Hermione; Harry wondered if she would go back to her parents in Australia, or stay and try and straighten this world out. It was easier for him. He had friends, and people he could be as close to as a family, but his true family was already dead.

But for him…perhaps he could go back to Ginny, if she would have him. Perhaps they could be this time happy together. But the idea felt so remote, so far away – the waves had risen to their maximum and crashed down, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake. With nothing else before them – even the beautiful phoenix that should head the stairs they were now upon had crumbled – it was hard to envision a future bright and fluttering.

At least…at least they knew it was there, and all those people who had waited so long for freedom from Voldermort's realm had come to the end of the war.

It would perhaps take awhile for it to truly end; there were many people still unaccounted for. Harry knew of one: Charity Burbage, the ex-Muggle Studies teacher of Hogwarts. Presumed dead, but her body had never been found…unlike Bagman whose corpse had been stuffed in a shack.

He frowned. Or was it Karkaroff? He couldn't quite remember. A small stab of guilt pierced him when he realised he could not recall the names of the countless faces lying now in the Great Hall. Too many people who had died before their waiting, their hoping, had come to an end.

And now that the waiting was at end, they were still standing, stagnant. Waiting for something to give way, or to direct them.

'I think I –' Hermione began, before shaking her head, bushy hair flying in all directions. Silence drifted in the darkness after that; none of them bothered to light their wands, even though the sun had long set and there was no moon or starlight to illuminate their way. There was no need for it, even if the stairs did stretch beyond them…

'Harry?' Ron spoke from behind. 'What are you going to do now?'

He recalled them asking that very question last year, after Dumbledore's funeral. That time, he had an answer. This time he did not.

'I don't know,' he replied eventually. 'Maybe wait for something to happen.'

He'd have to work out living arrangements, decide whether he was going to complete his final year at Hogwarts, a potential career…and perhaps he should at least tell what remained of his blood family the war was over –

There was an awful lot to do. But it was sporadic. All over the place. He finally had his victory over Voldermort…but it seemed now, at the end of the road, he was waiting for a new road to open up.