II. Sacramentum

7 days ago

A sea of people moved with the utmost sense of efficiency as Harry was swept along with the current getting off the tube at Kensington station. Even though it was more crowded than he would've liked, Harry always liked trains. He liked the anonymity. Plus, it felt way better than apparition. But he reckoned anything except the cruciatus will feel better than apparition, so that wasn't saying much. Either way, it's not like he was a busy man these days.

Harry saw a familiar face. Dennis Creevey was standing to the side of the escalators, dressed in a muggle business suit, his straw blonde hair neatly combed, his tie knot immaculately symmetrical.

"You didn't need to come meet me at the Station. I know my way around the city just fine." Harry didn't resist smiling at one of the most insistent admirers from his youth, "It's good to see you," he added.

"It's good to see you too, Harry!" Apparently time did not waver Dennis' enthusiasm for the famous Harry Potter. He was every bit as energetically as he was younger, "Wow, it's been years! I don't think I've seen you since the battle at Hogwarts! How've you been? What have you been up to?" he asked, a million miles a second.

"A little of this, a little of that," Harry replied dismissively. This was exactly why he didn't like to take clients with whom he shared a past with. But magical England is a small world, and he couldn't exactly work for muggles without seriously violating the Statute of Secrecy.

"Let's get lunch. What do you say?" To Harry's relief, Dennis changed the subject to a less uncomfortable one.

The-Boy-Who-Lived completed his auror training almost right after the Second Wizarding War, becoming the first wizard to do so without sitting for a single NEWT. But Magical England was focused on healing and peace. The dangers of war had faded along with the remnants of destruction as the country rebuilt itself from its rubbles, and moved on to bigger and better things. As a result, there was a lot of stamping papers and moving documents from one cabinet to a different cabinet, and not enough death-defying duels and life-threatening missions to suit Harry's taste. Instead, he ended up getting paid money he doesn't need to do a job he doesn't want. So, after a year and some months of mind-numbing paper pushing, He resigned from his post and left his ministry approved life behind. Sick of dealing with the endless red tape of his work and being under the public's constant scrutiny, Harry Potter combed his hair (the best he could) and covered his faded scar, ditched his iconic wire frame glasses and invested in a smart horn rimmed frame. Harry Evans became just another face amongst thousands of other faces.

The official title, the one that goes on the his tax forms (yes, even witches and wizards have to pay taxes), as well as the door of his small office located above Potage's Cauldron Shop in Diagon Alley, of his new line of work is "Spiritual Advisor." which means bollocks. Harry is a Necromancer. Not the Inferi creating, getting caught means spending the rest of his life in Azkaban kind, but the summoning ghosts and drawing circles with blood and candles kind. Technically not illegal, but it's not exactly ministry approved.

Harry followed Dennis through the doors of a neat café at a street corner. Large windows allowed rays of sunlight to enter the establishment. It was clean and modern. Black and white pictures on the walls depict an assortment of geometric shapes. They sat down at a table towards the back and were immediately attended to. Dennis quickly ordered some things as Harry flipped through the menu and decided that, if it wasn't blatantly obvious before, this was a very, very nice place.

"It seems you're doing well for yourself."

"Well, I suppose so. After I finished Hogwarts, I decided to come back to the muggle world and go to university. There were some problems with providing some documents and exam scores, of course, but I managed to get it all worked out. Turns out arithmancy was dead useful for studying economics. So now, I'm a banker!" Dennis seemed to have regained his enthusiasm.

"A pretty good one from the looks of it. This is a nice place for a 20-pound sandwich," Harry was impressed. Young Dennis was doing quite well for himself, more than he could say about most people who didn't have the right last name.

"Well, lunch is on me," Dennis laughed, albeit a little uncomfortably.

They ate in silence.

"So, what can I do for you?" Harry asked, after he took the last bite of his sandwich.

"I heard stories. I know what you can do. And I…" Dennis hesitated before continuing, "I want to see Colin, to tell him that I'm doing really great and well, I'll be getting married soon, and I feel I…I want to tell him."

The Second Wizarding War tore through England's magical community like a rabid beast and left behind nothing but destruction, devastation, and death. No one was more affected by the war than Harry Potter. Harry logically knew that it would be absurd to say that the war was his fault. He also knew that he did everything in his powers, and a hell of a lot more, to fight Voldemort and the Death Eaters. But logic be damned, he can't help but feel a nagging sense of guilt in the corner of his mind for not being clever enough, not strong enough, not quick enough…There's always a something he could've done better somewhere along the journey. Dennis' request was one he sympathized with. But he wouldn't let anything like Remus and Tonks happen again. As much as he wanted to help Dennis see his brother again, Harry was not going to raise the ghost of Colin Creevey.

"Your brother was a loyal friend, Dennis. But I don't think you want to do this." Dennis opened his mouth to speak, but Harry cut him off, "I understand what you feel, more than most would. Colin would be very proud of what you made of yourself. You don't need to tell him, he knows. He is watching over you, Dennis. And he always will."

This case was too close to home. Colin was someone he felt responsible for ever since he was petrified by the Basilisk. Harry always felt protective of Colin, as annoying as he was sometimes, he was just a young boy with a big heart, trying to do the right thing and emulate, though foolish it was, his hero. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to remove his emotions to do the job properly. It was too much like the first time, and Harry vowed to never let anything like that happen again.

Remus and Tonks were Harry's first attempt at necromancy without using the resurrection stone. Like most first-times in life, it had gone horribly. Souls do not like being summoned like a dog on a leash, even if said soul was one of your father's best friends. The problem is that summoned ghosts are fueled by the emotions of the summoner. When a ghost is summoned, it feels what the human it's anchored to feels, only multiplied a hundred times in intensity. And Harry was feeling very, very guilty. As a result, the Lupins were overcome by guilt. They cried, they apologized for abandoning Teddy, for being too eager for battle, for being too willing to sacrifice themselves for the right thing. Then they cried some more. Needless to say, his 7 year old godson did not have the most pleasant afternoon. Teddy positively shit his pants when he saw the devastatingly distraught, not to mention, dead parents greet him as ghosts while wailing at the top of their vocal register and flinging objects around the room.

What made matter even worse was that at this point of his budding career as a spiritual medium, Harry knew fuck all about the proper etiquettes of channeling spirits. He was surprised that he summoned the Lupins at all, so it was no small wonder that he knew nothing about how to release the ghosts back to their astral plane. Harry's knowledge was strictly limited to a quickly skimmed chapter from some book from a bookshelf that caught his eye while he was cleaning 12 Grimmauld Place when he was moving in. As much as he loved Lupin and Lupin, the presence of two hysterical dead ghost parents doesn't exactly make the optimal environment for a 7 year old orphan to grow up around. So Harry did the most logical thing he could think of, he sang the melody backwards, trying to literally reverse the summoning by reversing the process itself. Surprisingly, Remus and Tonks' inconsolable ghosts faded and disappeared, presumably going back to where they came from. No more crying ghosts. No more flying books and broken glass. Tragedy had successfully been averted. Harry was forbidden from doing any magic in the presence of Teddy until grandmother Andromeda was "rotting six feet under the bloody ground."

But Harry never returned the souls of Remus and Tonks back to their spiritual plane, he they merely ceased to exist. After a more in depth study of the arts of spiritualism, Harry eventually realized the meaning of his action. By literally undoing the musical anchor of the souls. The ghosts lost its connection to this world. With nothing holding the soul together, it scattered into nothingness. Once he came to the realization of just how big his fuck up was, the guilt he felt towards Teddy can only be described as 'ghost like.' Harry didn't know where non-existence is, but he did know he dragged the souls of the parents of his godson, his friends, out of the place it should be and removed them from reality.

Harry learned more about the importance of preparation in twenty minutes than in the entire six years he spent at Hogwarts.

"I just…I really miss him, you know?" Dennis' voice was quiet, "I really want to see him again."

"You will in time, but that time isn't now, and hopefully not until you've a nice, fulfilling life," Harry smiled, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't seem to work. "Seeing Colin again, as a ghost, would hurt you more than you can imagine," Harry continued, "He'll only be a manifestation of himself, a shade of the person he was. All it will do is remind you of your loss. There's nothing worse than seeing the ones you love but knowing they don't belong in this world anymore. Trust me."

"Then why do what you do? Why bother at all? Surely the Hero who defeated you-know-who wouldn't be going around summoning ghosts if it'll hurt people so?" Dennis scoffed, his sadness was replaced with an anger Harry hadn't seen from him before, the last words soaked with bitterness.

"They made their own choices, who am I to refuse?" The words left Harry's mouth before he realized what he had said.

"I'm making my own choice."

"I don't want you to suffer. You've been through a lot," It even sounded lame to Harry.

"You don't know a thing about me, Harry Potter," Dennis said, his voice low and venomous, "you don't care about me, you didn't even care about Colin, you just don't want someone who died, because of you, to haunt your own fucking conscious."

Dennis stormed off, and left with the last word before Harry could reply with his own obscenity.

Harry was left with the bill.