If Harry had felt surprised when he woke up to see a petit redhead curled against him he never mentioned it. And Ginny never wanted to bring the subject up after that day. Certainly if anyone else who had found their way to the dormitory later that evening had noticed that Harry had turned in his sleep and was clutching the fiery witch to him with something akin to possessiveness then they never mentioned it. Ron had sprawled across his own bed with Hermione within his arms and slept like a dead-man, with the exception of his loud orchestral snores. Neville, too, had found his way to the dormitory eventually and beneath the coverlets of his own safe and secure bed.
If Molly or Arthur had ever mentioned the fact they had, in a frantic moment after searching for their only daughter amid the chaos of the day, come across her in the boys dormitory, if they had mentioned it then maybe Ginny would have acknowledged it too.
But as things happened, no one did mention it. The following day seemed to pass with no mention of where the previous night had been spent. And aside from a quick blush from the bespectacled black-haired boy when Ginny had sat next to him at lunch the following day, and a raised eyebrow and knowing glance from Hermione directed at Ginny, no reference was made to it.
And as the day progressed all thoughts turned from musings on peaceful sleeps instead to less pleasant activities. Such as clearing and identifying bodies. Moving rubble to uncover buried students. Trying to match items of identification to their potential lifeless owners. Writing lists of names of lives lost. Trying to contact those who had fled. Sorting the dark that had fallen from the innocents. Working out which Death Eater names were not accounted for amongst the bodies. Endless tasks that took up endless hours, and that exhausted all those involved.
That one day turned into another, and another, and another.
Over the next few weeks Ginny rarely had a moment alone with Harry at mealtimes, let alone to try to figure out where she stood with him. She had thought for a little while that perhaps he was avoiding her, embarrassed by her. She was embarrassed by herself and her own selfish actions that night after the end of the war. Fancy trying to fill her own void when he had suffered so much – when he had in fact died and come back to life (for that's what it had seemed like and he certainly hadn't denied the stories yet.)
She would blush to herself whenever she thought about how she had caved into weakness, and how she knew she was stronger than that. Hadn't she proven that to herself, to everyone, over the years? Hadn't she proved she was no longer a silly schoolgirl with a schoolgirl crush? And then to go acting like one all over again!
Blerk! It was enough to make her gag!
Next thing she would know she's be making another stupid valentine's card and lining it with stupid bows and pasting stupid glitter on its stupid pink borders.
Stupid.
Ginny huffed with annoyance at herself. She had taken years to build herself up to the strong image she liked to portray. She was strong. She knew it in herself. But she also knew that she had one hell of an Achilles heel when it came to Harry Potter.
Fact: She had grown up playing pretend Mrs-Boy-Who-Lived and forcing her poor dolls to play the part of Harry.
Fact: She had wanted to marry him and have his babies the minute she saw him at the Burrow that first summer.
Fact: They had even dated in Hogwarts.
Fact: She had thought she was falling in love.
But then the war had happened. And Harry's first priority was, and always would be, protecting those around him. Whether he had harboured true feelings for her at some stage or not, the outcome was the same. He had pushed away from her 'for her own good' and then gone off and fought the most evil wizard ever. Perhaps he had loved her in his own way. They had certainly had some fun in the hallways at Hogwarts! But she didn't doubt that even if there had once been some deeper feelings between them, everything that they had gone through since had driven a wedge between them and made acting on anything impossible.
Harry certainly didn't give her a second glance anymore. He just ploughed on in determination each day. He was there, helping coordinate the Hogwarts site. Helping and arranging meetings between remaining Order members, being called upon to give expert witness accounts to the activities of Death Eaters. He and Kingsley were constantly being called to meetings – Kingsley being the current standing Minister until a vote was held once everything settled down. Ron and Hermione were often called off to those meetings too.
She knew everyone was doing their utmost to bring some semblance of normality back to the world. Merlin knew she was giving every spare minute, every aching muscle, every effort of her own to bringing her beloved school back to life. The goal, though unspoken, was to have Hogwarts back to at least a liveable state by the time the next school year began. What better way to start a year than by kicking it off with the next generation of witches and wizards wide-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to take on the world, or at least the mysteries of Hogwarts.
And Ginny loved the fact that she could turn up each day at Hogwarts and be given a task, no matter how menial, and she could devote every thought of the next nine or ten hours to that one task. It meant she had very little time to think...and even less time to brood on things she just couldn't, or wouldn't, face right now. She could ignore everyone and everyone else's problems, she could even ignore her own. Instead she could just take apart a pile of rubble, stone by ruddy stone, or she could choose a blood-stained wall and clean it.
Today she was placed on the schoolgrounds near Hagrid's hut. Giant chunks of earth had been gorged out of the ground, the tidy paths no longer existed and had been replaced by upturned trees and stones, turning what had once been a tidy English landscape into a rugged war-zone. Hagrid's hut no longer existed as it had once been, instead being reduced to a burnt and empty shell of a ruin.
Ginny wiped the back of her sleeve across her forehead, it was hot and tiring work. She glanced over at Hagrid and grinned when he saw her looking and winked. He was lifting by hand many of the larger clumps of debris and clearing them into a pile nearby. The great half-giant of a man had proven time and time again his fierce loyalty to the Light side, and most importantly to Harry.
Ginny's heart stilled and her breath caught in her throat as, unbidden, the vivid image of Hagrid carrying Harry's lifeless body at The Battle appeared forefront in her mind. What an awful moment that had been. To have the man she loved so much, and that the world looked to as a representative of all they fought for, to have that hope destroyed in that one moment...
She shook her head of the image. It was thoughts like this that kept intruding in her mind. Kept threatening to reduce her to a sorry state if she wasn't careful. Harry had survived. She had to remember the survivors, if she were to think too long about those that didn't fare so well she really would fall to pieces.
She gritted her teeth and continued her work.
...
Harry sat in silence. He stared blankly at the colourful stone paperweight holding down a large pile of reports on the Minister's desk. He could have sworn that he had just seen the paperweight open an eyelid lazily and blink at him. But then he had looked more closely and thought he must be imagining it – he wasn't exactly getting his daily quota of sleep at the moment.
It blinked again.
Harry looked again, startled out of his musings. It had blinked!
Kingsley Shacklebolt looked up from his work at his desk to the boy, or rather man, that sat there. He had heard Harry's movement and looked to see what had caught his eye.
"It's a pet rock. My sister gave it to my father when we were younger, and he in turn gave it to me".
Harry looked confused. "Sir, we have pet rocks in the muggle world, but they're just jokes"
"No Harry. Most of the pet rocks you have in the muggle world really are alive, it's just they know better than to open their eyes with muggles about. They don't do much really, except serve as nifty paperweights which is why they're really only ever seen for that purpose in offices."
Harry gaped at him.
"They've been around for centuries. I think the muggles started using them a while back too, but the truth that they're living creatures has really just became a fable to muggles." Kingsley explained with a smile.
Harry had an unpleasant crawling sensation in his stomach. He had had a pet rock once, it had been given to Dudley by one of his father's business associates. Dudley had quickly realised how pointless that gift was – particularly when he had no piles of paperwork as he got Harry to do the majority of his schoolwork – and had instead found a better use for it as an implement in Harry Hunting.
Harry had liked the pretty colours of the almost-see-through rock and had kept it hidden away in his closet, not wanting Dudley to know that something he had thrown away was actually appreciated by his scrawny cousin.
Harry now gulped, wondering where that pet rock had gone.
Kingsley finished off the letter he was writing with a flourished signature and then put his quill down and looked at Harry. Harry was looking much better than he had a few weeks ago, when Kinglsey had first had the opportunity to seen him after The Battle, but he was still looking drawn and weary.
Kingsley sighed. "Harry," he started.
Harry looked up. He had been studying the rather unusual pattern of dragons on the carpet. It was a design consisting of two red dragons head-to-tail breathing fire on each other.
"Harry, I know you've been getting really bored coming into the ministry. But I do appreciate you being here to help with all the rounding up. I know you would rather be helping your friends up at Hogwarts, or even just back at home sleeping, but having you here at the ministry means we are able to tie up a lot of loose ends."
Harry nodded as Kingley motioned for him to get up, and together they walked to a meeting in one of the conference rooms adjacent to Kingsley's office.
Since he had fought Voldemort that last time he had been to too many meetings to count. Too many long and boring discussions between politicians and ministry workers, and usually about things that were way beyond his bubble of experience. He knew nothing of taxes and fund accounts and treasuries. He knew nothing about the inner workings of the government, and had sat through numerous long conversations about the Wizengamot, the Old Houses, the Guilds and endless other organisations and associations.
It really made no sense to him. And to be frank he didn't really care.
But he sat through it because he saw how the others looked at him. When he walked into a meeting and sat down everyone hushed. And when a meeting began to get out of control the Minister was able to gain some semblance of organisation again just by asking Harry his opinion on the matter at hand.
Harry hadn't yet told them his true opinion. He didn't think they'd appreciate it.
Instead he nodded and usually gave a few words which didn't really mean anything.
Maybe if he could bring himself to care he would listen and pay attention. He was sure what they discussed was important. What could be more important than providing the foundations for a brand new, transparent, honest Ministry of Magic?
But in truth Harry just didn't have the energy for it. He couldn't bring himself to care for any of their problems at all. He was just tired. He had helped bring down Voldemort hadn't he? Why couldn't things just go back to normal, the way they were...well, minus the Dark Lords and giant snakes and such...
He smirked to himself, things hadn't every really been normal in his life, had they?
But now that the war was over he had kind of hoped for some peaceful nights by the fire at the Burrow, watching Ron best Hermione at wizards chess every time – it was the only thing Hermione didn't seem to have a knack for, well, that and flying.
But instead he had found himself stuck in endless talks that seemed to go in circles. It seemed like exactly the same conversation day after day. One person would start by saying something about how they thought the new ministry should be run, and then someone else would counter with something about the old ministry and how they didn't want to go down that path again, then there would be a bunch of arguments from all different sides, and then, finally, someone would end the meeting and they would have achieved nothing, and things would continue no different to how they were before the meeting.
It was enough to make you tear your hair out.
Or in Harry's case, it was enough to be so bored that you were reciting the twelve different uses of dragons blood under your breath.
And after all those tedious meetings he went back to the burrow where he sat around the silent dinner table, eating whatever meal Mrs Weasley had managed to put together. More often than not the table overflowed with food, as Mrs Weasley seemed to be dealing with the death of her son by avoiding it all together. When he woke up in the morning he could hear the rattle of pots and pans from the kitchen as Mrs Weasley cooked, and she was usually still up pottering around the kitchen well after he had gone to bed.
Dinners were the worst though. The table was silent. George still hadn't come out of his room, and everybody would silently eat their meal with eyes downcast, desperately looking anywhere but at the empty places. Sometimes Mr Weasley would try a weak attempt to engage someone in conversation. But each time the recipient of his question would simply stare blankly back at him, and the conversation would dissolve.
It was bloody awful.
Harry hated every minute. He hated the ministry meetings. He hated the dinners at the burrow. He hated going to bed and lying on his back in Ron's room, watching the ceiling and counting endlessly in an attempt to bore himself to sleep. He usually reached mid-eight thousands before he nodded off, and that was on a good night. On the worst nights, the nights where the faces of the dead haunted his peripheral vision no matter which way he turned, he didn't get any sleep. He would lie awake listening to Ron's snores and trying to keep himself sane through counting.
If this was what post-war life was like, well, he kind of wished he'd stayed at train station with Dumbledore.
He pinched himself then, and yelped as he pinched too hard. The members of the meeting at which he was currently present turned to look at him and he smiled sheepishly back.
"Sorry...papercut" he said by way of explanation.
Kingsley raised an eyebrow and Harry shrugged back at him.
He tried to tune back into the conversation. They were talking about the Auror division, and Harry tried to listen because at least this was something he had a bit of interest in. Since he first considered a career in the wizarding world he and Ron had always assumed they would apply to be Aurors.
Personally, Harry felt as if they should be given a fast track into the program. How many Aurors could have had the field experience they had?
He tried to pay attention. A wizard he hadn't met before, Mr Blumenfield, was saying that he felt the Auror division, given the number of deaths during the war, needed to place an emphasis on recruitment. They needed to target the wizards currently graduating and beginning to look at careers.
Well, this was something Harry understood.
"Excuse me" he said, and, as expected, the roomful of heads turned in his direction.
"If you're looking to recruit, you should think about the DA, Dumbledore's Army" he said, suddenly shy in front of the table.
Mr Blumenfield stared blankly at Harry.
"The what?"
"The DA. Dumbledore's Army. We did more in the war than most adult wizards combined" he said, proud of the DA's performance in the war.
"And we had almost no losses" he finished.
Mr Blumenfield was still staring blankly at Harry, and Harry turned to look at Kingsley for help.
"The DA, or Dumbledore's Army, was an organised student club run by Potter who taught them advanced defence tactics" Kingsley explained, "They were a key component in the defence of Hogwarts during the war, were responsible for the evacuation of most of the muggleborns and halfbloods during the reign of Snape, and I believe McGonagall has also mentioned they consistently achieved the top marks in all subjects"
Harry felt himself going red. He was extremely proud of the group of students that had formed the club. Through everything he thought they had proven themselves time and time again. Since the war ended Ginny and Neville had disclosed some of the activities that the DA had been up to whilst he had been hunting horcruxes, and from the sounds of things the pair had run the group extremely effectively. He had been very impressed when Neville had told him about the sabotage and rescues that they had performed whilst the Farrows and Snape prowled the corridors of Hogwarts. More than a couple of students owed their survival to the existence of the group.
Harry remembered that first ever meeting at the Hogs Head when Hermione and Ron had convinced him to lead the group after Umbridge had single handedly destroyed the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. To think that he hadn't wanted to have anything to do with the group to start with...he was incredibly grateful he had such strong-minded friends.
The others at the meeting were staring at Kingsley with mixed impressions. Some were nodding, and Harry suspected they had most likely already known about the DA, perhaps they had children who had been involved in the organisation, or perhaps they had heard about the group through the stories that were only now coming out in the Prophet as the heroic acts from the war became known.
Some, on the other hand, were looking quite unimpressed. They probably thought the group was just a bunch of kids playing grown-ups. Harry narrowed his eyes at the ones he thought didn't believe Kingsley about the groups' heroics.
Finally one of the members, a balding older man who had a huge bulbous nose and a gap between his two front teeth, spluttered and gave a couple of coughs into his closed hand.
"Excuse me Kingsley," he said, and Harry was uncomfortably reminded of the last ministry representative who had started her sentences with little 'hem hem's and had since become infamous in her own right.
"I recognise that through the war there were many...heroic...deeds performed. Some by children such as those at Hogwarts. But is that really the kind of person we want involved in the ministry Auror program? Students who couldn't obey the rules at school and organised their own guerrilla terrorist group?" he said.
Kingsley raised an eyebrow in response.
Harry sat trying to unravel the speakers words...was he saying that Harry and his friends were terrorists?
"I understand your viewpoint, Mr Wingfield, but I think you're underestimating the maturity of those students involved. From what I understand they were well organised, had extremely capable leadership, covered a wide range of tactical and practical teachings, and as I said were an invaluable resource during the war. To write them off simply because of their age is, I feel, somewhat short-sighted" said Kingsley.
Harry watched as Mr Wingfield sat back, still obviously unhappy.
"What exactly is the point though, Kingsley" asked a man who Harry also didn't recognise.
Kingsley nodded in recognition of the question.
"I think that, given the dire numbers of our defence force, that it might be worth looking at abbreviated training modules for those considered to have exceptional circumstances as a result of the war, those considered to have life experience equivalent to that of part of the Auror training program".
Harry tried to figure out what that meant. Did that mean that they would get fast tracked into the Auror program? Ron would be thrilled!
"What!?" exclaimed Mr Wingfield, standing up in his chair. Harry was surprised by how his eyes bulged as he stood, and wondered if his brain was on the verge of exploding.
He kind of hoped that was the case.
"Kingsley! These are children!" said Mr Wingfield.
"He's right Kingsley, you can't equate the acts of children with the warfare enacted by mature trained adults" said another blonde haired woman towards the end of the table.
Harry was beginning to get annoyed. As far as he could see he and his friends had done far more in the war than any of the people sitting around the table, except for Kingsley of course.
"We can't fill the places left by men and women fighting with the children they were fighting to protect" said another voice.
Suddenly everyone was clamouring to put in their opinion. Voices began to raise in volume, some people began to raise themselves onto their arms on the table.
Harry watched back. He was getting really really tired of all these political games.
"SHUT UP!" he yelled, finally fed up with them all.
"SHUT UP!" he yelled again, and miraculously the room fell silent.
He stared at all their faces, most staring at him wide eyed as if they thought he might hex them then and there, Kingsley had his eyes closed, and for a second reminded Harry of Dumbledore when he was trying to measure his words before speaking.
"We're NOT kids! Don't you get that?" He said, angry that all the deeds his friends had done during the war were being so easily tossed aside.
"We watched our friends murdered, some of these kids you're dismissing have been tortured, and worse! Some of these kids have watched their family and friends picked off one by one by death eaters. Some have fought those death eaters and killed grown men and women like you! They fought with the aurors, they did more than those aurors for a good part of the war, and without these kids there wouldn't be any children to protect anymore" he yelled.
He ran out of breath then, and took a few seconds to focus on breathing as he stared wildly around the table. He was furious at them all.
"Harry" began Kingsley gently, "We're not trying to demean the actions that you and your friends have taken. But we are just saying that students fresh out of Hogwarts might not be able to fast track into the auror program so easily. Perhaps they need the entire program to gain the experience necessary for their future survival on the job".
Harry turned to the rest of the table.
"How many of you are aurors?" he asked them, unsure what audience he was actually directing.
More than half of the dozen odd people at the table tentatively raised their arms.
"And how many of you think that when you graduated from Hogwarts you could have done half the stuff we 'kids' have done?" said Harry furiously.
The faces around the room started taking on a somewhat ashamed look, but Harry wasn't finished.
"Many of you have or know people who have had children at Hogwarts during the past few years. Don't you see that the odds are they wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for the DA? Don't you see that the DA have done more than their share of 'adult' work? They have been involved in more fighting against Death Eaters and against Voldemort..."
Harry glared at the table members as they unanimously flinched at the name...
"Voldemort" he said again, enunciating each syllable. "They fought with adults and proved they were equals" he said, hoping they were taking in what he was saying.
He sighed then, and sunk back down into his chair.
"Look, I know what your trying to say. I get it. We're kids. We shouldn't be thrown straight from war into the post-war cleanup. We're young, and immature, and too inexperienced to really be able to do anything useful..."
Harry looked around at them all slowly, internally smirking when one by one they all averted their eyes from his.
"But the truth is...those of us who grew up with the war around us, who spent our teenage years fighting for survival rather than just fighting for the House Cup...we never got a childhood like what you're thinking. We skipped that part, and even though that sucks, that's just the way it is.
But you can't just send us back and ask us to forget all we learnt. We had to grow up quickly, too quickly maybe but nobody can help that. So let these 'kids' show what they can do if they want. I dunno, maybe give them a trial examination or something that will show they're equal with junior Auror trainees...but don't just write them off because they're still in school. They haven't been 'kids' for a while now" Harry fininished, unsure whether his argument made sense but with nothing to add to it.
He sat back and, suddenly embarrassed over his outburst, he looked down at his feet and tried to study the shoelaces of his worn trainers.
Everybody was silent and Harry was left feeling extremely self conscious.
Finally, Kingsley cleared his throat.
"Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to call an end to this meeting" he said in his dark baritone voice.
The others in the room all stood, shuffling papers and glancing at each other with quick sideways looks.
Harry made his way to the door, scuffing his shoes along the bottom of the door as he waited for Kingsley to wrap up the meeting.
Finally they made their exit, neither speaking a word while Kingsley led Harry to his private office and stood by the floo.
"Harry, I think there's still enough time for you to get to Hogwarts and survey the progress that has been made there" he said.
Harry looked down, he felt really bad about his behaviour earlier and worried that he had ruined the meeting
"I'm really sorry Kingsley.." he started.
Kingsley stopped him with a booming laugh.
"Harry! It's okay, don't worry about it!" he said, chuckling. "They needed the sense knocked into them. Things aren't going to be able to go back to the way they were for a long time yet, and it was high time someone hammered that into their skulls."
Kingsley took a moment to study Harry who was still studying his shoes.
"Harry, you were right. You and your friends did more in the war than any of those senior Aurors combined. The ministry organisation of the Aurors during the war was severely lacking and inhibited by ministry incompetence. And then they were forced to submit to Voldemort's leadership...it's a sore spot with them. The sooner they realise that they need to be more flexible in their post war rehabilitation of ministry processes...well, the sooner we can all feel like life is returning to normal."
Kingsley put a hand on Harry's shoulder.
"I hope you realise you're being extremely helpful by coming along to these meetings" he said, and Harry raised his head to look at Kingsley in confusion.
"But I don't even do anything, really. All I do is sit there, and every now and then lose my temper!" he said, annoyed at the thought that Kingsley might be patronising him.
Kingsley shook his head. "Exactly Harry. You are a symbol that the war has ended. By being there you remind them of that, and you also have the rare privilege to be able to say truths that would otherwise be unsaid."
"But its just commonsense" Harry protested.
"Yes it is. But when it comes to politics there is no such thing as commonsense" said Kingsley wryly.
"I can't say this is a role I wanted for myself, and I don't think it's a role that you wanted either. But fate has decided to place us in these positions, so all we can do is do our best to guide the wizarding world towards some positive changes" he said.
Harry nodded. It certainly wasn't how he wanted to spend his day, being some kind of revered symbol who people only listened to because they thought he had some kind of...superpower...just because he had died and come back to life. They didn't seem to get that it was all a fluke.
And, he supposed, Kingsley had never really seemed the type who would want to sit through endless meetings. He had always thought Kingsley preferred the wand-in-hand action rather than the behind-door politics.
He shrugged, grabbing a handful of floo powder before arranging himself within the fireplace to floo to Hogwarts.