Chapter 1: Moving Through Jello

It is a strange and surreal feeling, to suddenly see the world with fresh eyes. Not only to see with fresh eyes, but also possess a hyper-awareness that you, in fact, are seeing the world with fresh eyes.

So it was for Harry Potter, as the sun rose over the Hogwarts Castle and grounds on the morning of May 2nd, 1998. He, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived, the… Man who had defied death over and over again, was now moving through the world as though he was a stranger viewing it for the first time. He felt somewhat akin to a newborn baby, despite how his actual experience as a newborn so long ago had been traumatic. His senses were heightened. Everything felt sharper, if not exactly clearer.

For part of the surreality of the present moment, as Harry attempted to move through a new world, a world reborn, interact with this world and his place in it, was that he was aware how he no longer knew what his place in this world was. If someone had told him that a purpose fulfilled was to by extension no longer have any purpose, he wouldn't have tried so hard to defeat Voldemort, much less survive at all.

For the first time since he had turned 11, Harry was left at a loss in understanding what his purpose was in the wizarding world. He remembered being briefly confused as to what he could offer the magical world when Hagrid had first revealed his heritage to him, but these thoughts had quickly been banished by how quickly and how often Hagrid and many other people had told him exactly what he was here for and why. To defeat Voldemort. Save their land.

Well, that was now over and done with. Which left a giant, gaping void in the wake of his victory that he, Harry, should have been celebrating alongside everyone else. Instead, all he could ponder was:

What now?

Moving through the crowd of triumphant freedom fighters, Harry vaguely registered when people physically walked into his path, stuck out their hands to congratulate him, rushed in to embrace him. Several girls had full-on kissed him, and his senses were too dulled to very much care about being dragged into an actual snog of gratitude, aside from hoping that Ginny was nowhere within eyeshot. He felt as though he was moving through jello, or trying to walk underwater. He had never been anywhere close to a claustrophobic, and yet he felt the uncontrollable urge to find space to stretch out, to breathe.

Harry had to more or less fight his way out of the Great Hall amidst a chorus of admirers, in a slightly different variation on the way he had fought his way into the same hall mere minutes earlier, all while invisible, to face down and defeat his nemesis.

Boy, did he sure wish he was invisible now. Fame had made him wish for such a thing in its darkest moments, but he had never more desired it than now. Blooming shame that he had dropped the Invisibility Cloak somewhere back there on the floor; he would eventually have to go back and retrieve it after it had been trampled underfoot and…

He felt sensation in his fingers, which were strangely clenched into a fist and he glanced down and nearly laughed: the Cloak was clutched in his hand.

Staggering through the Entrance Hall before eventually stumbling out into the courtyard, Harry gulped in his first breath of clean, fresh air. Bits of blasted stone in rubble, many of them now coated in a thin layer of flakes from what had once held together Voldemort's body, lay scattered about. His hazel eyes took in the sight of a severed snake head, lying yards from its body and he turned his face away, holding back from retching at Nagini's corpse.

The sun was shining, the sky what some would call severely clear. With the sudden urgency of a man possessed, Harry ducked through the torn-apart alcoves, ducking around spell-charred corners, searching for Ginny.

For the longest time, he met no one. Didn't hear a sound from a soul until he drew near a broom cupboard and his ears picked up on the telltale smack of lips coming together in an easy give and take. Though he was fairly certain he could count on Ginny not to have shacked up within anyone else in his absence, Harry yanked open the door to the broom cupboard anyway.

It took an almost comically long minute of them snogging before his two best mates even realized they had an audience. Ron and Hermione were kissing langorously, the snog open-mouthed, all at once lazy and yet feverish. Ron's calloused and large hands were feeling up Hermione's accentuated buttocks through her jeans, a liberty with which the beautiful and ordinarily prim and proper brunette witch appeared not to take offense.

Harry felt a big brotherly rush to defend Hermione's honor overtake him, in spite of the fact that he had personally witnessed them necking not hours earlier, and in the middle of the battle itself, no less. Tilting her head, her chocolate-brown eyes fluttering open, Hermione's gaze shifted and spotted Harry, her orbs bulging and she started to make frantic squeaking noises into her lover's mouth until she and Ron finally broke apart, both of them red-faced and with their arms still wound tight about each other.

The absolutely scandalized look on Hermione's face made Harry nearly roar with laughter; he settled for a smirk. "Never mind me!" It was an effort to keep the chortle out of his voice.

If it were possible, Hermione turned even further pink, though her smile, formed by bow lips flush from all the snogging, upturned radiantly as she shyly beamed. "Fine. We won't." And turning back to her lover with shining eyes, she pulled him back into another kiss that quickly deepened.

The quip, something more akin to what the man currently wrapped in her arms might say, so shocked Harry that he let finally let out that bark of laughter as he swung the broom cupboard door closed behind him. He had been hoping to give them some instructions to meet later, a kind of post-mortem debrief, if you will. As it was, he'd leave it for later today, and perhaps even tomorrow, he was so tired.

Harry's thoughts wandered back to Ginny. Moving back into the inner walls of the castle, he tried to sleuth out where she would go. A sharp pang ripped through him as he remembered Fred and he was about to plunge back into the sea of faces in the Great Hall towards the temporary morgue before he hesitated: even if Ginny was there, grieving with most of her family, it wouldn't be right to disturb her, or any of the Weasleys.

He finally asked after her to the likes of Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas and Michael Corner, to which the boys told him he might check the Gryffindor Tower; many had retreated to the dormitories to sleep the battle off.

"Wouldn't hurt to check Ravenclaw Tower too, mind," Corner offered up. "Old Gin would stay close to Luna, check to see if she was OK."

Harry nodded his thanks, deciding that he would check both towers, their turrets acting as polar opposites on either end of the castle. He set off for Ravenclaw Tower first.

The eagle that had normally guarded the entrance to this Hogwarts house was lying on its side when he approached, the statue having been blasted off its pedestal by some spell during the brawling fight to the death. Harry recalled standing here waiting to pick up Luna for their date as friends to Slughorn's Christmas more than a year ago. But instead of asking a riddle as it had then, the eagle now lifted its eyes to Harry and shook his head.

"Feel free."

Harry felt bad that he had to step over the poor statue to gain access.

The Ravenclaw Common Room seemed quiet and deserted, a far cry from the chaos that had erupted in here the evening before, when Harry had intervened on behalf of Minerva McGonagall and tortured Amycus Carrow into a doddering, stuttering mess. He felt funny that last night had been his first time inside Ravenclaw Tower; Cho Chang had never invited him in here, in the close to full half-term they had dated his fifth year.

Harry paused to glance down at the spot where he had felled Carrow. There was no sign of the lowlife now – whether he had been taken away, or he had escaped during all the pandemonium after being tied up by McGonagall was unclear. Ascending the landing, Harry moved surefooted along the staircases, checking each dormitory.

The first – he couldn't tell immediately whether it had housed the Ravenclaw girls or boys – came up empty. The second, he jumped back and nearly yelped with shock at the sight which greeted him on one of the four-posters, the curtains drawn back.

Rolling around in his clasped embrace, Luna Lovegood was kissing Neville Longbottom with a passion and ardor that Harry would never have imagined of the unflappable, blonde girl. Certainly he had never heard Luna – or anyone, really – moan like that, as the Ravenclaw witch now arched her back and matched the thrust of her new lover's hips as Neville moved on top of her. Sweet Merlin, he had walked in on them shagging…..

Harry stood there frozen for a moment, witnessing the moment that Luna was brought to orgasm; her body trembled through a violent shudder as she came. Silvery eyes lidded as Neville's lips slanted along hers before moving on to her face, the curve of her neck, Luna turned her head and tilted it back to give her paramour better access. Her gaze – dreamy and serene, almost now to the point of being dazed – fell on the intruder who had just walked in on her and Neville Longbottom losing their virginity together.

"Oh, hullo, Harry. Were you fancying a threesome? I'd be careful – the Nargles can put such foolish, lustful thoughts into one's head." From where her blouse had been torn open to reveal the swell of round, pert breasts, the valley into which her partner had now more or less face-planted, Neville didn't even lift his head, much less seem to register that he and his girl were now putting on quite the floor show.

Harry awkwardly cleared his throat. "Just, err… looking for Ginny….."

"Hmm. You might check the Gryffindor Tow! – er….." Luna's voice lilted into an airy yelp as Neville resumed making love to her, thrusting into her spread-eagled legs. Harry backed out of the dorm awkwardly, waving lamely.

"Cheers. Um….. carry on….."

He pretty much ran the distance across the width of the castle to reach the Gryffindor Tower opposite.

Much like Ravenclaw's eagle, the Fat Lady more or less let him in, password not required. When he found Ginny seated on the common room sofa gazing into the fireplace, he more or less sighed in relief.

The firelight, even though it was getting on the middle of the day, illuminated Ginny's auburn curls so that the felt like extensions of the hearth, twisting like tongues of flame. The glow cast her lovely face in sharp relief.

"You're here…." Harry breathed.

"Prat. Where else would I be?" Ginny's lips were quirking in amusement, even as she now rose to her feet to embrace him.

"Clearly not going for a roll in…. well, wherever." When she drew back in his arms to study him, bemused, Harry flushed. "Have you ever heard a song called the Lusty Month of May?"

"No, can't say that I have," Ginny wrinkled her nose, her blue eyes sparkling, waiting for the punchline that Harry wasn't altogether sure he wanted to give her.

"It's from a musical called Camelot. Aunt Petunia used to play a record of it from time to time. Apparently, some people have taken the song to heart – I just walked in on no less than two couples – one of them in various states of undress – snogging and shagging."

Ginny blushed, lifting a hand to her mouth to hide her smile. "Oh, dear. Well, all's fair in love and war!"

"You wouldn't be saying the same if I told you it was your brother I saw kissing Hermione – and that was before I barged in on your two best mates shagging like Blast-Ended Skrewts!"

Drawing both hands to her mouth now, Ginny gasped – and then she squealed.

"Neville plucked up the courage with Luna?!" She recalled what Neville had shouted to them during the castle evacuation.

"He's using lots more besides courage to deflower her at the moment…." Harry cringed.

"And Ron and Hermione finally….?" Ginny paused, then suddenly walloped Harry in the chest. "My brother and best girlfriend finally snogged and I missed it! Why didn't you tell me?"

Harry snorted bitterly. "Didn't exactly have the time to, now did I?"

Ginny faltered. "Of…. of course, you must be exhausted! Come on…." and she held out her hands to him. "Come up to bed."

Harry trustingly took his palms in hers as she guided him with purpose up towards the boys' dormitory. "We're not going in there to shag too, are we?"

Now it was Ginny's turn to snort. "Not bloody likely. Not yet, anyway," and her piercing blue eyes fell him with a pointed look. "There are some things we need to hash out first, love."

Gulping, Harry nodded. There would be time later to reconcile how things had ended between them last summer. For now, just platonically sleeping, just being together again in companionship, if not yet back in romantic union, was enough.

The Boy Who Lived more or less toppled into a four-poster bed and fell asleep to Ginny stroking the bangs of his unkempt hair.