March 4, 2004

6:40 PM

Barrow, AK

Harry wasn't sure that his shield would hold up much longer. Tonight, nearly one month after beginning to train with Noah, Noah decided that he wasn't going to hold back. The man was incredibly powerful and did a great job of simulating the legendary pace of The Jester. For the last hour, Noah had been blasting him with enormous combinations of different spells and Harry, who was incredibly out of practice, was having trouble keeping up.

In Harry's mind, he still wasn't sure why he was training. Hermione had only made that brief appearance and Cho had been gone for a week. Harry was starting to wonder if they hadn't given up on him. If they had, then there was absolutely no way he was going back anytime soon. However, it was whenever Cho came back to his house and started talking to him that things changed.

The day before Cho had left, she had nearly convinced Harry. He still wasn't sure why. She had been telling him about how things had changed so much in the Ministry. Apparently, after Harry took off, they began to realize some of the corruption that was still going on and got rid of a few key people who had had a lot of input over the years like Cornelius Fudge. She said that Kingsley had completely gutted the Wizengamot and only a few people remained.

But it was the news that the Minister of Magic was now an elected position and that Arthur Weasley had won the election that really pushed Harry towards the edge. Harry couldn't imagine someone doing a better job at managing everything that comes with being Minister as the man with 7 children.

"Push yourself, Potter!" Noah yelled as he continued to fire curse after curse.

Yet, Harry was able to block every one of the other man's attacks. However, he was certainly tiring out, despite the fact that he was in the best shape of his life. He needed to move things quickly. That would be the key to defeating The Jester if he ever decided to go home.

Harry deflected a nasty Cutting Curse and then began to press back. With his spell that he blocked, he took a step forward. The blasts got more powerful as he got closer but they still were to the point where he could deflect them.

Once he was within a few feet of Noah, he made his move. Just as he saw Noah getting ready to fire, Harry dropped to the ground and leveled his wand towards the man's chest

"Stupefy!"

Instantly, the blast hit Noah in the chest and threw him backwards. He flew several feet in the air before flopping onto the ground, obviously unconscious. Harry got up from the ground and with a wave of his wand woke Noah up.

"Very good." he said as he stood up. "I never trained her to defend anything like that. Make sure you have some other surprises for her too. Keep her on her toes and everything will be fine."

"I'm still not sure why we're out in the freezing cold training to fight someone who I will probably never face." Harry replied.

"Because, even if you don't go home, she'll come for you." Noah replied sinisterly.

"Why?"

"Because the world knows of Harry Potter. If she truly wants the amount of power she appears to crave, she'll have to kill you to do it."

"Great." Harry replied sullenly as they started the walk back to town.

The pair had been training a few miles out of town for the past month. They had decided that they needed to go somewhere where no one would see them and three miles out into the frozen tundra was probably the best answer. So, they packed themselves into Harry's pickup truck that he had learned to drive when he came to Alaska and drove out of town every other day.

"Decided whether you're going back yet?" Noah asked as they got into the truck.

"No." Harry replied shortly. "I want to. I miss being there. But, I can't help but be afraid that it will be nothing but the same."

"Get some reassurance that it won't."

"How?" Harry asked.

"Tell them you want your job back and that you need reparations for what's been done to you." Noah answered.

"Well, I'm fairly certain that they don't take drunken Aurors back."

After the investigation and the lawsuit, Harry had gone into a rather steep downward spiral. While Ron and Hermione's wedding stuck out as a bright spot during that period, other things stuck out that drove Harry into the ground. First, it was the news that Ginny had thrown herself off of the roof of the Burrow in an attempt to end her life. Thankfully, she was unsuccessful but that, coupled with a pair of terrible cases at work, drove Harry to try the same.

So, Harry had called off sick for work the next morning and started drinking at 9AM. At 5, Harry sent an owl to Gawain Robards, telling him he was taking the next day off as well. Then, Harry went to a hotel in London where he knew no one would find him.

For three straight days, Harry had a bottle in his hand. He would have been successful had he not decided in his drunken stupor to go wandering down the streets of London. Out in the open, someone recognized him and called Ron and Hermione. They had picked up Harry outside of Buckingham Palace where he had been trying to attack the guards.

When news of Harry's drunken escapades hit the paper, Harry knew that he was done. Robards called him into his office the next day and told him to clean out his office. He was publicly chastised by Kingsley, who sent a letter to him apologizing but also saying that he had to do it. Harry didn't blame Kingsley. He knew that after everything that Harry had been involved in during the previous ten months that Harry had to be let go.

What Kingsley didn't realize was that by forcing Harry out of the Auror Office, he was giving Harry permission to run away and never return.

"They would take you back." Noah answered softly as they pulled into town. "Especially right now. Even if they thought you were dangerous (and you aren't), they would be willing to put up with it in order to get rid of Azoli."

"But that's just it." Harry shot back. "I don't want to be the weapon that they need. I want them to want me back."

"I think that for the people that weren't close to you, you'll always be their weapon." Noah replied. "But, do you think that your friends want you back?"

"What friends? You mean the people that abandoned me?"

"Harry, you heard what Cho said about Hermione."

"Hermione is the cleverest person I've ever met. I refuse to believe that someone like Amos Diggory could control her." Harry raged as they parked the car.

The two quickly got out and marched up Harry's stairs and into his house. Once they removed the frozen outer layer of clothing and changed into something warmer, they settled into the living room to continue their conversation.

"Who says she wasn't just controlled by herself?" Noah asked.

"If she was controlled by herself, she wouldn't have acted how she did." Harry snarled.

"Maybe. But, you said that Hermione has a very honorable personality. Would she have considered lying breaking that?"

"Yes." Harry admitted. "But she should have considered ratting me out as a worse offense to whatever honor she thinks she keeps."

"Why?"

"Excuse me?"

"What if, in her mind, publicly telling the truth was actually more valuable to her than protecting you?"

For the first time in five years, someone said something about Hermione that actually made him think. Had he been being selfish all these years, blaming her for bailing on him when in actuality, it was possible that she was just maintaining her morals? The thought horrified Harry. He had felt so justified in hating Hermione that the thought only made him want to throw up.

"Makes you think, doesn't it?" Noah said.

"It does." Harry admitted. "So what you're saying, without knowing Hermione at all, is that her telling the truth was more important to her because it reinforced her own morals and that I should have seen that and rather than been angry that she ratted me out, I should have been proud that she valued her own morals so highly as to risk our friendship."

"Yup."

"That sounds insane." Harry said with a chuckle. "It also sounds like something the 14-year old version of me would have done."

"Why fourteen and not nineteen?" Noah asked.

"Because at age fourteen, I watched Cedric Diggory die at the hands of a Death Eater. That changed everything for me. Maybe I would have done it at fifteen. That's when my godfather was killed. But 16 would have been it. Watching Dumbledore die was one of the hardest things I had ever done. At that time, I thought that my quest to defeat Lord Voldemort was tied to him and he was gone."

"So, you're saying that you abandoned your friends after that?"

"No." Harry replied sharply. "I'm saying I became harder, less forgiving and more willing to fight my own friends. It's what made the "camping trip" so hard. We fought all the time. I knew that I was right. While in the past, I may have let Hermione convince me otherwise, this time I didn't. I was so convinced I was right and I fought her and Ron and everyone else tooth and nail."

Suddenly, Noah started to chuckle.

"What?" Harry asked.

"You were right, weren't you?" he asked.

"Yes." Harry replied as he rolled his eyes. "But that's not the point. Really from Dumbledore's death forward, something in me changed. I got a little edgier, a little more willing to light someone up if they disagreed with me. Then, during the battle with Voldemort, even though I knew that the Elder Wand was mine and that all it would take was a simple attack to cause the curse to rebound, I desperately wanted to kill him."

"Harry Potter's never killed anyone." Noah replied with a grin. "Isn't that the defense your supporters always used?"

"Yes." Harry replied sullenly. "I wish they wouldn't have. Because more than anything in the world, I wanted to level my wand and fire the curse that I knew would end his life."

"What does this have to do with Hermione?" Noah asked. "I'm confused as to how we even got to this point."

"It has everything to do with her!" Harry shouted as he stood up and began pacing in the living room. "Something about me changed. I lost my youth. I lost my innocence. Somewhere, I lost my ability to focus on people other than myself. If I had been paying attention to Hermione, then I would have known that she was doing the same thing that I would have done. Instead, I blamed her for the world."

"Then what are you going to do?" Noah asked calmly.

"I'm not sure." Harry admitted. "The fact that everyone was so easily convinced by Amos Diggory that everything was my fault upset me."

"But..." Noah added, knowing that Harry was not finished.

"But, I've abandoned my family. When Ginny needed help, I wasn't there. When Ron and Hermione were having problems, I wasn't there."

"So you're going back?"

"Eventually." Harry admitted. "Even if I become a recluse like I am here, I want to be able to do it with the people that were there for me. The Weasleys never gave up on me. Not after I broke up with Ginny and not after I was convicted of all those things. Even after all that, they supported me."

"The Wizarding World is in for a shock, aren't they?"

"You bet." Harry replied with a grin. "I can try and forgive Hermione. After all I put her through over the years, she deserved better. I never asked her about it and I never wanted to hear anything on the matter. Now that I think about it, I never once heard her side of the story."

"What about the court?" Noah asked.

"Well, I would never want to take the money back from the Family Organization. They did need it as much as it really blew that they took it all from me. No, I've got another plan."

"Like what?"

"Well, Arthur Weasley is Minister of Magic now. I'll go to him and tell him that I'll hunt and capture The Jester for a fee." Harry replied with a sly look in his eyes.

"What kind of fee?" Noah asked, although Harry was certain that he already knew the answer.

"999,999 Galleons."

"999,999 Galleons?" a voice from behind Harry said.

Harry quickly turned around to see Cho Chang standing in his doorway.

"Yes. What about it?" Harry asked her.

"So you would only be doing it for money?" she accused.

"The money is not necessarily the important part. It is what it symbolizes."

"What does it symbolize?" Cho replied mockingly.

"That the Ministry of Magic would realize what they did to me was wrong and that they are seeking to fix it. Personally, I would take half of it if they could guarantee me a job at the Auror Office or teaching Defense at Hogwarts." Harry replied.

Suddenly, the look in Cho's eyes shifted from one of accusal and pain to one of hope.

"You'll really come back?" she asked.

"I think so." Harry said softly, fearing the words that he had told himself that he would never say again.

"When?"

"When he's ready." Noah replied sharply. "If he's going home, he needs to be able to take on The Jester without my help."

"Come back with me." Harry replied to Noah as he turned back to him. "Why can't we continue my training there?"

"Firstly, because I live on the mainland. Second, because I don't want to be put myself in her path."

"So, you want me to be in the way instead?" Harry mused.

"Yes." Noah said simply. "You could beat her. I can't."

Harry thought about this for a second. For a month, this man had been thrashing him around the frozen tundra. However, for some reason, he was supposed to believe that while the man that had been throwing him around would get beaten, he would win.

"How can you say that?" Harry asked.

"Because your ability to think outside the box will make it impossible for her to to guess what you would do ahead of time. Plus, you are trained to fight her. She's not trained to fight you like she is to fight me."

"Well that does make a little more sense."

Harry sat down on the couch and immediately dove into his thoughts. In Alaska, things were simple. No one knew who he was and no one knew what he had done. Here he was able to hide from the world and simply live his life. If he went home, he would be required to face everyone. Facing the Weasleys wouldn't be difficult. Even facing Hermione wouldn't be awful, having already done it a month ago.

It would be facing Amos Diggory and Draco Malfoy and the people that had opposed him that would be the ones that were difficult to face. He knew that when he left, he was admitting that the world had gotten to him. At the time, he never thought he would go home. Now that he was faced with possibility that he may have to be back, he would have to face all those people that forced him away.

But, in the end, it was his relationship with Hermione that he needed to fix. As Harry had gotten older and matured, Harry had slowly realized something. Something that he wouldn't allow himself to admit until the people of his past started showing up in his present. Harry had realized that the only reason he had been upset at Hermione was because of everything else that had gone on in his life. He forgave Ron for everything that he had ever done to him, including abandoning them during the hunt for Horcruxes.

Meanwhile, Hermione had never abandoned him and only when under oath did she even blame him for anything. Although, as Harry thought about it, did she even say anything that would be considered blame? Over the whole search for the Horcruxes, did Harry really believe that they had done everything perfect? Hermione had pointed out one potential flaw in the whole course of things.

Was Hermione to blame at all?

"Earth to Harry." Cho said as she sat down next to him.

"Sorry, thinking." Harry muttered, mostly to himself.

"I noticed." Cho replied with a smile. "Care to share?"

"The war wasn't my fault. I shouldn't have been blamed for those deaths. I know that and that's all that matters."

"I'm happy for you, Harry."

"Thanks." Harry said absentmindedly. "I think I'm going to wait a few days before going back home. I really need to wrap my head around the fact that I'm going back. Why am I going back?"

"Because you miss it."

"I do." Harry admitted. "I really do. But, do I owe them anything?"

"There's no reason that you have to do it to go do anything. You can go back and not help at all." Cho replied, subtly placing a hand on Harry's. He found it immensely comforting.

"That's true. But, if I go back, they'll expect me to help."

"Do you want to, Harry? What do you want to do?"

Suddenly, that question invaded Harry's mind. What did he really want to do? Why was he going home? Harry spent moments thinking about it before he answered.

"I want to go home because it's my home and I shouldn't be forced to live away from it. I will want to help because I am simply defending my home and my friends. To hell with the rest of the world."

"That's the spirit."

March 6, 2004

Barrow, AK

Over the next two days, Harry trained with Noah, perfecting his technique against the older man. They worked for hours on end, sometimes in Harry's home or sometimes miles out of town. Cho typically followed them out there, although Harry could tell that she was miserable due to the intense cold.

Realistically, a Muggle would only survive for an hour, maybe two, in this cold. However, the magic inside a wizard made him slightly more resistant to the elements. Therefore, Harry and Noah were able to be out in the cold for three or four hours without any horrible consequences.

Finally, Harry put Noah on his back for the fifth time that day and both of them decided that they were done.

"You'll beat her." Noah said as Harry helped him back to his feet.

"I hope so." Harry replied softly. "I have been in a real duel for a long time."

"You will be fine." Noah repeated as they got into the car and drove back into town. "You going to the Festival?"

"Yeah." Harry said softly. "I'm planning on heading home tomorrow morning. I figured what better way to say goodbye to Barrow than the Fest."

"I figured you would say that." Noah said with a chuckle. "Always the sentimental type, aren't ya?"

"A bit." Harry said as he pulled into his driveway, probably for the last time.

"What's the Festival?" Cho asked curiously.

"Well, Ms. Chang, The Sunshine Festival is an event held in town every year." Harry started with a smile. "Now, since Noah moved here this year, I'm not exactly sure how he knew about it."

"Any opportunity for a drink, that's what I always say!"

"I should have expected that. Anyway, the festival is held to celebrate the return of the Sun. While the sun may have come back towards the end of January, we don't have more sun than moon until right about this time of year. Hence, the Sunshine Festival."

"Sounds fun." Cho replied.

"It is." Harry admitted. "But really, unless you're into the Eskimo Games, basically like a Triwizard Tournament but without all the magic and death, you just go to the bar and have a few drinks."

"Yeah we do!" Noah joined in.

Harry, Cho and Noah got out of the car and after running into their respective homes quickly to change, they met back by Harry's truck and walked towards the only bar in town.

As they entered the bar, they saw the festivities were well under way. The three of them went to bar to grab their drinks before finding a place in the corner of the bar to sit.

"So, Harry, what are you going to do when you get back?" Cho asked him.

"Cho, I have no idea." Harry said with a chuckle. "I know that there will be some people that I need to see."

"Hermione." Cho replied. It wasn't a question.

"She's probably on the top of my list. No one else really burned me personally. But, part of me feels like with how I treated her afterwards, I owe her a bit of an apology too."

"You keep saying about how you treated her afterwards. What the hell did you do to her?" Cho asked.

"Well, firstly, I know for a fact that I never gave her the opportunity to explain herself. That's one. But, one night after Ginny jumped and I was trying to drink myself away, Hermione came over to try and stop me. I was really drunk but for some reason, this memory rings out clear as day. I know that I spent several minutes just screaming at her, calling her all sorts of horrible names and swearing at her and shit like that. Then, I tried to curse her but the most I could do was set her robes on fire."

"Holy shit." Noah said as he nearly spit out his beer. "You set her robes on fire?"

"Yeah. Not my best moment. I left Britain two days later. I hadn't seen her again until a month ago when she showed up here."

"Have you forgiven her?" Cho asked.

"I think so." Harry replied. "I just don't want to be angry anymore. I am 23 years old. I want to live my life. I just hope she doesn't curse me into oblivion."

"She won't." Cho answered. "She's missed you too much. We all have."

Harry smiled at Cho as his mind began to race a mile a second. He knew that he wanted to go home. That wasn't a question anymore. But, would he be welcomed back? Or would those that he turned his back on remember that and banish him back to the frozen tundra? Harry had only been angry back then, unable to come up with another emotion. He had aged some and matured a lot more over the past four years and hoped that would show when he went back.

The three of them sat in the bar until very late in the night, talking about everything. Harry's return home got brought up every hour or so but it was never something dark or frightening. Instead, it became bright and encouraging. The thought of going home radiated from Harry and lifted the spirits of the two around him. Harry and Noah took part in a few drinking games that were a Sunshine Festival tradition and by the time they were ready to leave, they were glad they had walked to the bar because driving was distinctly out of the question.

The three friends stumbled home and Harry invited Noah to simply stay with him rather than try and figure out how to walk around the fence that surrounded his back yard. Once Harry was certain that Cho and Noah were comfortable, he dragged himself up the stairs for the last time and into his room.

Harry was in the midst of changing into clothes for bed when he suddenly felt like he was being watched.

"You could almost sneak up on me." Harry said softly. "You're good."

Harry slowly turned around, wand in hand, to see exactly who he expected. A beautiful woman with silky blonde hair and stunning blue eyes was standing, dressed in black, in the corner of his bedroom. She had painted her face to look like a clown, although Harry was able to see straight through that.

Azoli Vinogradoff.

The Jester.

"Greetings, Mr. Potter. I am here to kill you."