Chapter 5

Quidditch was one of the great things about being back at Hogwarts. Most of the Gryffindor players had had their quidditch-privilege revoked last year, but everyone had been catching up over the summer and by now the team was getting really good. Harry felt lighter and happier as he walked back up to Gryffindor tower after practice. He had hurried to leave the locker-room afterwards and had pretended not to notice Ron's questioning look when he left. It felt like the pleasant lightness would be disturbed if he had hung around to listen to the noise and chatter of his teammates.

He took shortcuts through secret passages and made his way to Gryffindor tower way ahead of the rest of the team. With all of them missing, the commonroom was unusually quiet. Hermione was studying at a desk by the window, immersed in a book and absentmindedly scratching the back of her hand with her quill. She had ink smudges on both her cheek and her fingers. Harry rested his Firebolt against the wall and pulled out a chair across from her.

"Muggle Studies?" he asked.

She looked up, blinking as she resurfaced from the text.

"Hi Harry. Yeah, it is. I'm struggling a bit with my conclusion."

She closed the book but kept a finger in place between the pages to mark her place.

"How was practice?"

"Great, actually."

"That's good. How's Ginny doing as captain?"
"She's excellent. She's really at ease with it. I think it might be from the DA, you know, that she was leading it last year."

In fact he thought she was much better at leading the team than he had been. People used to tell him he was a natural leader both when he was quidditch captain and when he headed the DA, but he had never enjoyed it. He had hated having to make decisions for other people, making choices that would have consequences for everyone, being responsible for them while worrying that he wasn't even qualified to lead them and that he would eventually let them down. "Think you might win?" Hermione asked.

He grinned.

"I think we stand a decent chance. You should see how we flew today. Ron will be bragging all night, he saved everything Dean threw at him and he is not going to miss a chance to rub it in. Oh, but Ginny is worried about Ravenclaw, she told me Cho smiles ominously whenever they talk about quidditch, but I'm not sure if that means anything…"

"How are things with you and Ginny?"

He shrugged.

"Okay, I suppose."

"Yeah? That's good."

Harry nodded. He had been staying at the Burrow for most of his summer and in the beginning things had been weirdly awkward with Ginny – as if they couldn't talk normally to each other or joke around like they used to. After he broke up with her before the search for Horcruxes, a mountain of stuff had accumulated between them: death and war and terrible experiences, decisions nobody had wanted to make. They couldn't ignore it, but neither of them were really the sort of people who could sit down and talk things out. It had helped when they started playing quidditch with Ron and George in the garden and that had felt normal. By now they had a sort of relaxed, non-awkward friendship and Harry was happy that their past relationship wasn't messing up the dynamics of the team. But even though he still liked her and she was still just as pretty and funny as she had always been, they wouldn't be getting back together. That had been obvious after the first week of summer. Something was different; a seriousness had settled in her that somehow wasn't compatible with whatever it was that had changed in him.

"Is it just me," he asked Hermione, "or is Hogwarts a bit… weird this year?"

She looked surprised.

"Of course it's not just you."

"Nobody talks about it."

"No, I guess not. But of course it's different. I mean, we know what it was like with Snape and the Carrows. Sometimes I feel terrible that we weren't even here – I know it wouldn't have changed anything, but still. It really worries me that they haven't hired a psychiatrist, but apparently they aren't big on therapy in the wizardring world. I think the professors are just trying really hard to get everything back to normal as smoothly as possible, but even they must have some trauma they need to work through. I'm going to talk to McGonagall about it. I mean, many of the kids have been tortured. They have to talk to someone about that, right?"

"Yeah. There aren't a lot of second years either."

Hermione shuddered.

"No. I would have pulled my child out of school too if that was what their first year was like. Especially the muggleborn."

"But it's over now," Harry said.

It was a phrase they had been repeating to each other since the first morning after Voldemort's death. The first time they woke up and looked at each other it had been relief. Later it had become a reassurance for when you couldn't feel the relief you were supposed to, or for when it felt like it wasn't over or that what they did hadn't been good enough. Right then, Harry could hear it himself how he put too much force into the words. It sounded like he was trying to convince her.

"How are you doing?" she asked, her voice suddenly softer. "You've seemed distant lately."

"No, I'm doing fine."

"Okay."

She was about to say more, but then the portrait hole opened and the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team emerged, chatting happily. Ron made a beeline for the table where Harry and Hermione sat.

"We are going to crush Slytherin this year," he announced happily.

He bent down to kiss Hermione and Harry looked away.

"Why did you leave, mate?"

"Bathroom."

"Oh, right."

Ron lowered his voice.

"Honestly, I miss you being captain, Harry. It's too weird with Ginny – I can't take orders from my little sister."

"I think she's an excellent captain."

"Sure, but it's weird."

"You'll get used to it," said Hermione.

"You know, I've been thinking about something," Harry said.

They looked at him.

"I thought maybe… you know, just speaking of Ginny," he gestured vaguely, "I thought we might start up Dumbledore's Army again?"

Hermione frowned.

"We could call it something else, and maybe it could be more like a duelling club. I know we can't use the room of requirement anymore, but it wouldn't have to be a secret, so we could talk to professor Jenkins or professor McGonagall about it."

"Why?" asked Ron.

"I don't know, it was just a thought. Might be fun."

"Honestly, Harry, I don't think that's a good idea. Luna made it sound like the DA was practically a refugee camp within the school last year, not really a duelling club. And even when we started it back in fifth year, the purpose was teaching kids how to fight and defend themselves. I know we joked about it, but we were turning them into soldiers."

"You make it sound like we did something wrong. We had to do that because Voldemort was back. It wasn't some terrible thing."

"It wasn't, it was great and back then we needed it, but we don't anymore. Now we need to learn how to… not be at war."

"And how would we even have time for a duelling club?" added Ron. "We have practice three times a week, and classes and homework as well."

"Yeah, you're right. It was a bad idea, forget about it."

"Don't get me wrong, it was great back in fifth-"

"But you're right, we wouldn't have time for it now," said Harry.

"You could try asking Ginny or Neville about it, but I think they would agree with me," said Hermione.

"Yeah, forget I said anything."

He stood up.

"I think I'll head back out for a bit, actually. I'll just fly a short trip around the grounds."

He picked up his Firebolt.

"You're not angry, are you?"

"No, not at all. I just need some air. I already finished the paper for Muggle Studies anyway," he said, indicating Hermione's roll of parchment.

"Really?" asked Ron, looking almost betrayed.

"Yeah, so I'll see you later," he said, heading for the portrait.

ø

Harry walked down the stairs towards the entrance hall with his broom over his shoulder. It was probably true what Hermione said, that a duelling club might bring back bad memories of last year, but Harry certainly wasn't too busy for it. He had expected that with Voldemort out of his head for good he would be able to sleep better at night, knowing that his nightmares weren't invasive, legilimency-induced visions of reality. But now his sleep was restless and light, he often woke up several times in one night, if he could fall asleep at all.

As far as he knew, his dorm mates hadn't noticed his insomnia, since they all had silencing charms on their beds. They probably didn't notice it either when he left the dorm to go walking around the school at night, but the problem with his nightly walks was that he couldn't stop thinking. They ended up making him even more agitated and he couldn't get through an entire day of school when he hadn't slept at all. So instead he had started doing his homework at night. By now he had read at least a chapter ahead in all of his classes and he didn't have a single unfinished written assignment that he hadn't edited two or three times, but this meant that even with quidditch practice three times a week, he seemed to have more leisure time than he knew how to spend. He was growing restless and he had been hoping that the new defence against the dark arts professor, Helena Jenkins, would create a duelling club or some other sort of extra curricular activity. He didn't think fighting would make him think more of the war than he already did or bring out more bad memories than he already had, and he definitely preferred some action packed distraction to quiet reminiscence. But apparently both Jenkins and McGonagall shared Hermione's views on fighting-related activities and Harry grew bored and restless and had all the time in the world to spend thinking about dead people. Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Moody, Fred, Dobby, Lavender Brown, Colin Creevy, Cedric Diggory, Crabbe, and all those kids he didn't know at the battle of Hogwarts, the list was endless, and he couldn't stop going over it again and again in his head. It left him feeling guilty and angry and absolutely powerless. At least when he was fighting Voldemort he had been actively trying to make the world better, but now that he was gone Harry couldn't do anything anymore, and it didn't feel like the world was fixed. It didn't feel that way at all.

He passed through the great oak doors and out into the chill evening air. It wasn't completely dark yet. Great clouds were rolling over the skies like soft mountains coloured gold and rose by the last rays of sunlight. Autumn was coming and though the day had been fairly warm, the temperature was dropping quickly. His school robes were charmed to adjust to the weather conditions within a certain limit, and they would be fine for flying, even if they weren't as good as his quidditch robes. Harry mounted his broom and kicked off. He sped upwards, accelerating to greater height as his mind went quiet, his thoughts unable to keep up, and blind happiness surged through him.

He headed towards the forest. The airspace above the Forbidden Forest was just as off-limits to students as the forest itself and flying over it was not allowed. But it was beautiful from above and there was a certain appeal to the thought that his flight over the dark treetops included some element of danger. He dropped and swooped low over the trees. The forest stretched for miles in every direction and though the leaves were yellowing they still clung to the branches, and the foliage hid almost everything below. However, once or twice he caught a glimpse of movement in a clearing or eyes glinting in the trees and a jolt of adrenaline went through him. Far away he saw a thestral gliding in circles against the quickly darkening sky and then head of towards the mountains. Harry changed direction and followed it.

Students of Hogwarts were not allowed to leave the school grounds except for Hogsmead weekends or with special permission, but as he rushed through the air and left the castle further and further behind, Harry decided that he deserved to take advantage of the fact that for the first time in seven years there was no immortal, dark wizard out there plotting to kill him.