CW: domestic violence
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iv. out of straw (bale it all)
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Ginny leaves, in '98, and it's not the end of the world.
Harry's been through wars. Knows that worlds don't end. Remembers the day when Cedric died, when Sirius died, when Dumbledore died, when Teddy's parents were murdered. Every time something so dramatic happened that he thought surely, this would mean the end of everything else. The Earth would have to stop its rotation around the sun, the Muggle electronics would have to all quit functioning at once, because if his world shattered, so should everyone else's. But, that's not how it works, is it?
Regardless of what you throw at it, the universe responds with a shrug. It's a bit like Muggles, keeping the noise and the cold out with bales of straw around their houses, packed tight and compact in pseudo, eco-friendliness, memories wrapped and hidden inside layers of concrete. In 1998, autumn wets the pavements and dampens the air, doesn't grant any of its precious attention to the leaves that fall upon the ground. Harry functions, works. The world seems keen on continuing to exist, so he has to. Spends his nights lying awake, stares at the walls and only then allows himself to remember the insulation that sits at the core. Usually, by three in the morning, Ginny's the only thing he can think of.
Auror training starts on the 7th of September, that year. A week after the girls go back to Hogwarts. The days pass. In preparation, he writes to Kingsley to sign up, orders a new Potions kit and some books from Diagon Alley. Waits.
The day after Ginny leaves, after Hermione sits on his couch and lays out her diagnosis for the PTSD that lives rent-free in their heads (like putting words on an issue will instantly make it go away), Harry opens all of the storage cabinets around his flat. He lines up cans of beer and bottles of firewhiskey in a neat row against the kitchen worktop, takes one good look at them and pours everything down the drain. Halfway through, it occurs to him that he could have just used his wand to vanish the liquids out but there is something oddly satisfying in watching the amber colours mix in with the clearer ones, drops tinting the stainless steel of his sink. The smell makes him feel like retching; he runs the tap to get rid of it.
That morning's Day Zero, he decides. The day after Ginny tells him that the relationship (which according to her, wasn't ever one) is over, the day that must not be named, or discussed, or thought of, ever again. Harry throws up in the bathroom at eight o'clock in the morning and decides that this is what he will do. No more booze, no more cigarettes (those are actually bloody hard to quit, he finds - only really manages to completely wean himself off by late December), no more fucking about. This autumn, Harry decides that he will work, train, and come home. He doesn't really want to kill himself, anyway, so in truth, what else is there? Throws all the glass containers into a bag, the last reminders of the bizarre summer he's just had, drops them off into the recycling bins, over at the car park of the council estate just down the road. The September sun is still too bright, nicer mornings and chillier nights, and he decides, rather authoritatively, that this is it: the page turns, doesn't it?
'You look well,' Hermione tells him, that first weekend after she comes home from Hogwarts, mountains of homework, tales of house points and of the fat lady in tow. It all feels rather anachronic and Harry has a feeling that she hasn't told Ron about the night when he drunkenly considered slashing his own veins open. You look well, to her, probably means congratulations, you haven't done anything to fuck yourself up further, over the short span of the last five days.
When Harry woke up on Day Zero, there was shame at the back of his throat, the result of a lapse of judgment perhaps, anger at himself for being weak and feeling used. Yet, somewhere, a strange idea that not only could he not keep Ginny, but he also wasn't even capable of properly hurting himself when he meant to. Hermione says: 'You look well,' that day, and Harry just swallows and shrugs, realises that perhaps the person he used to be (Harry, just Harry)'s boarded a train and left the station, now. Everything's being dealt with by Harry Potter, these days, the bloke whose jaw is always set in the pictures that the papers take, the bloke who shrugs and just ploughs on.
'Thanks,' he says.
Hermione comes and goes, that autumn, so Ron and he rebuild their own little unit. A unit that's always been fun, worked well, but has also always felt like a tricycle that's missing a wheel, functional but less grounded, just doing its best to carefully trudge along the road until the missing part's brought back to it. Ron laughs, says: 'You know, sometimes, it's the same when we're on a date,' and Harry probably looks positively mortified. 'Like, I'm happy to be with her, don't get me wrong, but I'm always looking over my shoulder to see where you're at.'
Harry hopes that this doesn't happen during all of their activities because God, that is not a vision he needed to have in his brain. Ron coughs (probably suddenly realising what he's said) and Harry lets him off with a laugh and a little shove to his shoulder. Secretly, he kind of understands what his best friend means. It was the same (albeit more dramatic) when Ron left last year, like they weren't sure how to be without him. It occurs to Harry that Hermione's on her own in Scotland, writing letters and packing her bags every weekend to head back south. If what she told Harry is true, that the two of them are the only people she trusts, he imagines perhaps he and Ron are the lucky ones, that her adventure is far lonelier than theirs.
Auror training soon absorbs most of their energy, during those first few weeks. Their intake is made up of twelve people, the largest in years. Ron, Seamus, Dean, Katie, Susan, Terry, Padma, Parvati, Justin, Anthony, Harry and the odd one out. There's always an odd one out. This time, her name is Opal and she's a shy, home-schooled girl with wide, grey eyes and golden, brown locks that cascade down each side of her face in perfect symmetry. Harry must admit that he doesn't pay much attention to her, at first, until they're all asked why they joined and she's the only one who has a story to tell that isn't a variation of: 'Well, I was in the DA, I fought in the battle, so it felt like the next logical step.'
Harry makes a joke out of his own answer. 'To take the down the Ministry from the inside and rule the world, I presume,' he says, because he's pretty sure that at least one journalist will write that somewhere. He gets a few laughs from the old gang and an annoyed eye-roll from Kingsley who attends their Welcome-To-The-Ministry-Of-Magic party. It's what is expected. It's easier than giving out his real reason for joining. Well, I already have PTSD so might as well spare it from anyone else, probably wouldn't sound as inspiring as people want him to be.
Opal says: 'With Mum and Dad, we hid Muggleborns,' and suddenly, Harry's interested, curious about all the things that happened outside of the tent that he, Ron and Hermione were trapped in. He's been spending a lot of time trying to piece together other people's wars, asking about the Order and Hogwarts but it's been difficult when almost everyone he knows is desperate to move on. He looks at her: her small frame and her shy voice. 'We helped about fifty people get out of the country. I know it's not much, but –'
His words are quick, before he can really think. 'No, that's loads,' he says. She blushes (of course), because Harry Potter's just spoken to her and unlike the others, she hasn't decided what she sees in him, yet. Dean takes care of it, flashes her a reassuring smile.
'Harry's right, you know?' he says. 'Plus, I've heard it's really rare that they take people in without a Hogwarts education, you must be really good.'
Her skin is pearly white and in contrast, her cheeks are almost crimson red. When Harry catches her gaze, he realises that there's something of himself in her, something that dates back to when he was eleven and always surprised to be on the receiving end of any actual human decency. He doesn't think that's ever truly left him.
'You'll see,' Ron laughs, a few seats away. He fakes a secretive, conspiratorial tone and Harry fakes an exasperated look over his glass of water. 'At first, you're impressed 'cause he's Harry Potter and all, but then you'll realise he's a complete wanker,' he shrugs, shoving a piece of potato into his mouth. The table chuckles around him. 'Then, suddenly, it's seven years later and there's a price on your head because you've followed him into some foolish attempt to save the wizarding world,' he grins, raising his glass in Harry's direction. 'Be careful, he's really bad news.'
Harry snorts and, 'Yeah,' he nods, picking up the joke where his best mate's expertly left it. One-upping each other is an effortless game between the two of them, almost something from before the war. 'Reckon I'm still at the wanker stage, right?'
Everyone around them laughs, including Opal. Something discreet but happy and just like that, she becomes part of their little DA family. She's only twenty, she later admits, and a child of the same, stupid wars, Harry thinks.
They spend most of their days in a classroom on the DMLE floor of the Ministry, that September, running around between duelling exercises, spell firing ranges, the potions lab and the library. The facilities they have are truly impressive; even Ron's eyes go wide when they're given a tour of the department. It's a bit like being eleven again and discovering Hogwarts for the first time, except that everything here is geared towards making them the best Aurors they can be. Portraits of the few Death Eaters who remain at large are displayed in almost every room and Harry feels a sort of bustling energy running through him every time he steps into the office, a buzz that comes from knowing that now, at least, he's doing something about it. It's not much, especially since they're not allowed to go out onto the field until the beginning of October but at least, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Aside from the Healer who comes in a couple of times to teach them first aid, most of their instructors are experienced Aurors. Robards, the newly reintegrated Head Auror takes on their spell and duelling instruction. 'We had a trainer,' he says, providing no further explanation and Harry later learns that the woman's been locked in Azkaban for months, pending her trial for collaborating with Death Eaters. It becomes quickly apparent that whatever's left of the department is terribly overworked and understaffed. Yet, the decision to hire Harry (or any of them, for that matter) clearly came from Kingsley rather than the DMLE themselves. Continuously, Robards addresses their group as 'a merry band of children,' and on Harry's first day, the man actually asks him, in front of everyone else, if he knows of any spells that aren't Expelliarmus.
It clearly annoys Ron far more than it annoys Harry himself. 'We fought in a war,' Ron says, one night, over a pint with Dean and Seamus. 'What on Earth did he do?'
The others seem to agree ('Fecking right, that is,' Seamus even says) but surprisingly, part of Harry finds that he kind of gets Robards. He's not sure how to put it into words, yet, but being an Auror already feels very different from simply fighting for survival. Robards' not like Snape, he's not downright hostile, he just doesn't care. It's something that Harry finds almost refreshing, like the fact that one of his trainees killed the Dark Lord barely registers on the long list of his concerns.
Often, Auror training feels like the first time since Lupin's defence classes that Harry finds himself being taught things that he actually cares about. Somewhat effortlessly, he throws himself into the work. That autumn, 'Potter' is always the first to arrive and the last to leave, putting all his might into catching up with the spells and techniques that the others seem to have learnt in Hogwarts while he was too busy being the Chosen One. For the first time in his life, Harry actually feels like he understands why Hermione always loved studying so much: it helps him focus. Often, he finds himself glaring right back at Robards across the room, determined to make him care.
It's a strange thing, too: being in a classroom again. Being able to make mistakes that won't cost anyone else's life.
At night, Harry can't drink himself to sleep, anymore, so he takes up running. Comes home late from the Ministry, eats a Mars bar or two, tosses and turns until four o'clock in the morning (he does sleep sometimes, just enough that he doesn't die, it seems) before getting up and throwing in the towel. He fishes out an old pair of trainers and tracksuit bottoms charmed to fit his size rather than Dudley's, and takes off into the night. Runs through the streets of London until the sun starts poking its head around the corner, comes home, gets a shower and tea before heading back into work.
Politely, Mia, the girl who lives on the ground floor of his building asks if he could try and be quieter when he heads out – the gate in front of the house squeaks loudly, she explains, and –
'Oh, sure. Sorry,' Harry says. He supposes he could just Apparate out onto the street but instead, he rushes down the stairs and simply jumps over the fence. Sometimes, Ginny's voice finds its way into the back of his head: are you trying to live like a Muggle, Harry?
Obviously, the press and the whole Narcissa debacle don't simply go away because he wishes them to. Kingsley and the Ministry monitor coverage all through September and October, even summon Harry into a special meeting in Kingsley's office, a couple weeks after he starts Auror training. Harry politely shakes hands with a wizard from the Department of Information who drones on for an hour about things like approval ratings, interviews to be given and opinion polls. Regardless, Harry still refuses to meet with journalists and finds it bizarre that there are charts to be drawn about what people think of him.
'Your decision to join the Aurors was quite well received,' the Ministry official says, pointing at an arrow moving up on a chart, like an indisputable fact. Harry kind of wishes Ron was in the room to take the piss out of it. 'It seems to have swayed a number of people in your favour, though we still have a thirty-five per cent "don't know" rate amongst British witches and wizards between the ages of 20 and 100, when asked whether they believe Mrs Malfoy's version of events, or yours.' The wizard flicks his wand and another chart appears on the board in front of them. 'Of course, we still have a ten per cent rate of people who believe her version of events, but I doubt we'll really ever be able to swing those.'
Kingsley nods thoughtfully, like it all means something. To Harry, the only indisputable fact of this matter is that the Malfoys willingly hosted Voldemort in their own home. He's never exactly been the forgiving type.
'Still better than we hoped,' Kingsley finally shrugs, quickly sharing a glance with the other wizard. 'I suppose the Malfoys did rub a lot of people off the wrong way, didn't they?'
'They were Death Eaters,' Harry interrupts with a frown because suddenly, this whole conversation is beginning to feel really, fucking absurd. Why is he the one under scrutiny, he wonders, while Lucius Malfoy is the one with the Dark Mark branded onto his skin? In response, Kingsley just gives Harry a look, that same look he bore when, a couple weeks ago, he explained that facts don't matter as much as the way you spin them.
'I hate to say this,' Kingsley says, later, once Harry and he are left alone. Harry feels his heart in his throat. 'But your break-up with Ginny was the best thing that could have happened, media-wise. It's all everyone is talking about, these days. Made the Malfoys look like old news.'
Harry decides that he has nothing to say to that, now, so he says nothing. Just looks to his feet, studies the wooden flooring of the Minister's office. Every time he closes his eyes, he still sees Ginny right there, almost within reach. Their relationship was never made public but with the pictures that were taken in front of Grimmauld Place, their break-up definitely was. From what Harry's seen so far, the press has tried to piece their story together by getting quotes from obscure Hogwarts acquaintances babbling on the events of his sixth year, and harassed Ginny for comment when she went down to Hogsmeade last weekend. Overall, even though he's been dealing with reporters since he was fourteen years old, this level of attention and scrutiny still doesn't fail to surprise him. The way that people care, the way that they seem to think there are sides to be taken, like he and everyone he touches suddenly become public property.
From what he's read in the press, either Ginny is a slut or he's an arsehole, depending on which news outlet you pick. The Prophet seems to have opted for the latter, unsurprisingly, probably as a result of years of much warranted mutual dislike. For once, though, instead of ignoring what is being said, Harry finds himself kind of drawn to reading their abuse, like somehow, they could give him all the answers he doesn't seem to have. Their gossip pages run editorials (words, and words, and words of speculation) about all the reasons that could have led her to date him in the first place (she must have really felt sorry for him, someone writes, once) but also to dump him (I mean, have you seen how crazy he's been acting lately, no wonder she couldn't be bothered). Sometimes, he reads stuff and finds that it strangely makes sense, wonders if perhaps The Prophet might actually be better at figuring out what went wrong than he is, considering he never saw it coming.
'She ended it because I'm me,' he tells Hermione, once, which is technically true (You are this war and I can't, Harry) but also not the full picture. Sometimes, when he's feeling less charitable, he can't help but think that she was selfish, prioritising her own ability to get over the war by closing the door on it, while being Harry Potter prevents him from ever doing so. He's got to live with this in a way that she doesn't, in a way that she can insulate herself from the noise, heal, grieve her brother, and slowly move on. Sometimes he feels like that's so, bloody unfair, like if he's got to suffer through this, why shouldn't she, but then he remembers that being furious with her doesn't mean the love behind it's evaporated. He would have died for her a hundred times over, and so maybe she deserves to be happy. If she couldn't be happy with him, she was probably right to end it, wasn't she?
The last thing he'd want is to trap a girl into a relationship she doesn't want.
Hermione just responds with another one of her, 'Oh, Harry,'-s and levitates the newspaper from his hands and into the fire.
At the other end of the spectrum, Witch Weekly has bizarrely taken his side. This isn't a relief, of course, because a) it's always been a ridiculous publication to begin with and b) they seem to be hell-bent on harassing Ginny the most, which also angers him. They paint her as this cutthroat, ruthless witch (bitch, perhaps) who left the cute, broken and scarred war hero. In front of everyone in the former DA, Luna also declares: 'Well, he clearly is heartbroken,' which makes Harry kind of glad that at least, The Quibbler still seems to find Nargles more interesting to cover.
'Mate -' Ron tries, once. They're having lunch at the Ministry canteen, long Formica tables and food that appears on their plates.
'She left,' Harry almost spits out. The words almost physically hurt when they make it past his lips. 'Reckon I've got to move on, alright?' he sighs, pushes food around his plate. 'I hate everything the press is saying about it but if I respond, it'll just keep feeding the frenzy.'
Ron nods, probably remembering how those exact words came out of Hermione's mouth just a few days before, when Harry threatened to storm into Witch Weekly and the both of them had to stupefy him for his own good. It's fucking shite that they both know Hermione's right, so that's probably why Ron doesn't ever bring the topic up again.
'I was sorry to hear, dear,' Mrs Weasley says, once, over Sunday roast at The Burrow. It almost makes Harry feel sick to his stomach. There is a tone of mild concern in Ginny's mother's voice, and perhaps regret, as well as something almost quizzical, like her judgment is being reserved until one of them finally caves in and gives her the information she needs. The Weasleys generally know that Ginny was the one to break it off (on top of what the press has reported, the look on Harry's face was probably enough evidence of that), but no one really knows why. 'She said neither of you did anything wrong, dear, so I was just wondering -'
No matter the amount of curious looks he gets, Harry never says a word (what could he say, anyway?) and just silently wonders how much credit Mrs Weasley still gives Witch Weekly, now that they've decided to turn on her daughter. But also: I swore on their grave, Harry suddenly remembers her telling her husband, and: how did we allow this to happen?
Sometimes, it really baffles him that the family still seem to want to keep him in their lives. Sometimes, the thought that Fred died because of him hits Harry like a truck and he can't look anyone in the eye for days afterwards.
'Ah, give him to me,' Andromeda says, once, after she spots Teddy wailing in Harry's arms, outside, in the garden of The Burrow. The little one's been crying non-stop for the past twenty minutes and Harry must admit that although he loves his godson to hell and back, he does hand him over to his grandmother somewhat gladly. 'You've got that look on your face. He can tell, you know?' she smiles.
Harry raises an eyebrow as she secures Teddy in her arms. Andromeda's been spending a lot of time at the Weasleys' over the past few weeks, especially since Molly gladly offered to look after Teddy a few days a week while the both of them are working. He can't be put into Muggle nursery until he learns to control his hair colour and Harry refuses to hire wizarding childminders who aren't blood, so figuring out his care was a bit of a nightmare. Andromeda repeatedly points out that: 'You're going to have to trust somebody, Harry,' and punctuates her statements by a handful of exasperated sighs but all he can think about is that if anything were to happen to Teddy, on top of everything else, he probably wouldn't survive it.
As a result, so far, they've been managing through an awkward combination of Molly, Ted's parents, and Andromeda taking random days off here and there.
'What look?' he finally asks her. She coos, softly, and Teddy stops wailing.
'Like you're feeling sorry for yourself,' she shrugs. 'You might want to think about being a bit less … transparent. Especially with all those cameras following you around.'
She says the word 'transparent' like it's an insult, and it's in things like these that Harry's sometimes reminded that there might have been a reason why she was sorted into Slytherin. He half-laughs, half-sighs in response, tries to chase the thoughts away. 'As soon as we're out of training, I'll apply for the night shifts. It'll be easier then, I can watch him during the days,' he tells her, instead, skilfully changing the subject. That's scheduled for the 5th of October, as far as he knows, so it's only a month, really, and –
'No, you will not,' Andromeda says. Her tone is curt and definitive. 'You need to sleep.'
Harry catches her gaze, then, and respects the fact that when she speaks, she clearly isn't pointing this out of concern for him, but out of concern for his ability to effectively look after Teddy. He's found, over the past few weeks, that Andromeda is both the person who judges his life choices the most, but also the least, beyond the scope of how these choices could impact her grandson. Harry remembers how surprised he was when, from the get-go, she treated him as an independent adult, an equal, and never like The Boy Who Lived.
'They trusted you. So, I trust you,' she said as though in her head, it had always been that simple, almost a mathematical equation. 'We make decisions together, fifty-fifty.' She also never asked what her sister was blackmailing him with before the truth came out, like whatever it was, she would never meddle.
Harry looks at her, now, and shrugs. 'I don't really sleep, anyway,' he admits, trying to forget that perhaps, she will worry about him, too, someday. While she was in Slytherin, she was also married to a Hufflepuff for twenty years. 'Some nights, I run ten miles, come home to do push-ups and abs, and I still can't sleep.'
Please, just let me do this, he silently begs Andromeda and when she remains silent, just looking at him, all he can do is eventually resort to chatting about more prosaic concerns, like pointing out the fact that Teddy has now started drooling onto her robes.
'Andromeda, he's -' he starts.
She ultimately just smiles, shifts her grandson in her arms and settles: 'All right.' And: 'For the umpteenth time, Harry, please call me "Annie."'
So, that autumn, Harry mostly splits his time between work, Teddy, jogging, and spends the little hours he has left at Grimmauld Place. In the summer, he'd kind of deserted the house, leaving it to Kreacher, first, then Ron and Hermione. His place, he supposes, was the one he preferred, the safe haven he'd built with Ginny. Over the past few weeks, though, he's started popping over to Grimmauld more often. At first, it was because Ron was there and Hermione wasn't, because there was an empty space to be filled. Yet, quickly, as London gets darker and colder, Grimmauld becomes something else.
Initially, it starts with Seamus. He can't find a place to stay within his budget and Ron asks: 'Do you mind if he stays at the house? There's, like, six empty bedrooms or something.'
Harry shrugs and says that of course, he doesn't mind. Then, gradually, it becomes: Seamus, and Dean, and Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Hannah Abbot (who claims that unlike her Leaky Cauldron lodgings, at least this place doesn't reek of firewhiskey), and Opal. Before Harry knows it, the previously grim and empty house fills up with people. Life and laughter, and spells, and songs, like an extension of the Room of Requirement in its heyday. Every time he pops over, Harry finds that someone new has settled on a couch, drinking tea or playing tunes on the piano, and he can't even begin to explain the level of contentment that this brings him. Like he's finally able to do something for them all: provide their merry band of children with a place to call 'home.'
Kreacher, thank Merlin, is there to keep the house from turning into complete chaos. He moves back in permanently and continues to periodically frown at the DA's general company, but even Harry can tell that the elf's heart isn't truly in it. Kreacher cooks, cleans, and (much to Hermione's dismay) seems to take his duty of serving them very seriously. In late '98, Grimmauld Place strangely becomes the place to be in their world. The press permanently sets up camp outside of the house once they figure out that most of the DA's former members are staying there - Neville and Seamus make it their personal responsibility to fuck with them as much as possible. While Harry truly praises himself for his decision to get his own flat over the summer (a bit of peace and quiet is often a luxury), he likes that on those evenings when he doesn't particularly want to be alone, he can randomly pop over and have people to exist with.
On the weekends, thanks to McGonagall's flexible policy with the Seventh Years, a small handful of Hogwarts students often pours in from the fireplace, alongside Hermione. It is usually then that things get truly crowded (and, honestly, when the most fun is had). Neville and Luna are regulars, sleeping on camp beds next to the fire in the upstairs study; by the end of October, Ginny's the only member of the former DA who hasn't set foot inside. Harry takes that thought, throws it into a box and tries to toss out the key.
Within a few weeks, the house hosts a total of ten people full-time, sometimes climbing up to fifteen on the weekends. Hogwarts banners are hung, Quidditch league results discussed at length and – of course - house rules are quickly drawn up by Hermione, before the situation manages to get truly out of hand. She makes everyone sign them before entering the premises and under the cover of complaining about it ('It's my house!' Harry says, to which she responds: 'Oh, Harry, for goodness' sake, just sign. It's like living in student halls in here!'), he actually thinks to ask her if she minds. Even if he finds that he bloody loves the house like this (Sirius would have thought it was brilliant, too), Harry must also admit that because he has his own flat, he also doesn't have to deal with it all the time. This is not exactly what he had in mind when he offered Grimmauld to Ron and her, last summer, for a bit of calm and time on their own.
Hermione seems to consider her answer for a second, before smiling and admitting: 'I've my own room at Hogwarts if I want quiet.' The benefits of being Head Girl, she explains. And, 'I think I actually like it. It's like being properly young, you know? Mum even laughed when I told her about it.'
Harry nods and in his head, he's eating a KitKat and she's drinking a cappuccino, and he's sitting in a café last June and asking her why they were never kids. Perhaps they get to be kids now, he muses and Harry thinks he understands what she's saying more than she will ever know.
He signs her list of rules with a smile on his face, later on, even if he doesn't believe her when she swears the paper isn't cursed. Promising not to leave his dirty socks lying around is a small price to pay to claim back their childhood.
At the start of October, the Aurors finally let them know that they're about halfway done with their in-class training. This means that they are finally (finally) included into rotas that will allow them to be paired up with experienced Aurors, and to go out onto the field with the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol. The former Gryffindors are brash and excited, Ravenclaws hastily reviewing their notes, while the Hufflepuffs make sure that no one has forgotten any of their belongings in the training rooms. They're all split into smaller teams and units, then assigned to a senior Auror for supervision, someone who is there to show them the ropes. Three shifts a week, at first, and two days in class, until the end of November. Then, they are on full-time rotas until they pass probation and get their permanent nominations in March.
Harry looks at Ron, the night before. Remembers life during the days that followed the war, last summer, when his best mate stayed up polishing his Order of Merlin while Harry decided to dump his at the bottom of the river. Remembers the stuff that they've both done, too, to deserve these.
'It's weird, isn't it?' Ron states. The fire burns in the fireplace at Grimmauld; they're the last two left awake. 'Every day, I keep looking over my shoulder to see where Hermione's at. Now, they're splitting us up, too. I mean, who's going to keep you from getting killed?' he jokes and Harry laughs, pretends that he doesn't see that statement for what it really is. In that moment, he can't help but think about Hermione's speech on PTSD, about Ron's desperation to help everyone because he couldn't help Fred.
'You've had my back since we were eleven,' he says, setting his empty mug of tea back down on the table. Ron bursts out a real laugh when he adds: 'Reckon you deserve a bit of a holiday.'
That rather arduous task thus falls onto somebody else's shoulders, that October. Her name, Harry finds out the next day, is Giulia. When he meets her, he notes that his new partner is tall, athletic, half-Italian. On the right side of her thirties, with thick, dark-brown, wavy hair, green eyes and olive skin. She was an Auror for ten years, she tells him, between '87 and '97. They re-integrated her just last June. 'Threatened to give them hell if they didn't give me my old pay back,' she tells him. Her former partner, Dermot, was killed the day the Ministry fell. 'My name was on one of their lists,' she just shrugs. 'So, I had to leave.'
On Harry's first day, she arrives a good ten minutes late. Opens the door to the patrol car and plops herself down onto the passenger seat, barely grunts a 'hello,' before immediately going on to complain about people who have the bad taste to put milk in their coffees. Perhaps because of this, perhaps because he doesn't take milk in his tea, Harry immediately decides that he likes her.
Her first lesson is to teach him how to drive the patrol car. 'I don't know why we use them,' she explains, honest, and Harry vaguely wonders if he should be taking notes. 'Reckon the Ministry saw them being used by Muggles, had to prove they could do better. They like making noise, the Ministry, don't they? Lots of sirens and shite.'
Politely, Harry hides a chuckle behind a cough. He clearly doesn't know yet that he doesn't need to, that Giulia's sarcastic sense of humour is one of the things that he'll come to appreciate the most in this world, over the next few months. That the sound of her voice is one he'll try to never, ever forget. That in the speech that he'll give when he makes Head Auror, over a decade later, he'll think of her and say: 'Okay, let's try to not just be sirens and shite, all right?'
In the meantime, he just listens to her rambling on, stifles a laugh. 'Alright, now, driving these -' Giulia starts, stops, taking a long swig of coffee. The smell of it fills the car. 'Driving these does not mean you get your Muggle licence, okay? The number of newbies who go off and hire Muggle cars is just ridiculous. Those are two different things. This car can fly and squeeze itself into doorways, and become invisible. That is not possible with Muggle cars, understood?'
Harry nods and, because it's his first day, doesn't dare say how familiar he actually is with Muggle life. Bizarrely, he feels nervous, a bit like starting school all over again. The training room was all fun and games but this feels real, now, and, you've killed the darkest wizard of all time, he tries to remind himself, you can do this.
His hands are a bit clammy against the steering wheel.
Giulia finally puts her coffee down in the mug holder sitting between them and turns to her right, finally looking at him for the first time. Harry stares straight ahead. The moment her glance lands onto his features, though, he hears her burst out a laugh.
'What in Merlin's name is that?' she asks.
Because she giggles and points at his entire self rather than at something in particular, it takes Harry a couple of seconds to understand what she's referring to.
As Tonks had mentioned all those years ago, one of the very first tricks they learnt during in-class training was to change their appearance. So far, Harry's found this to be the most useful thing he's ever been taught. Since then, he's taken up to changing his hair colour almost daily, sometimes going as far as camouflaging his scar with Muggle make-up (for some reason, nothing magical seems to work on it, not that it's particularly surprising – he can't help but think that Dumbledore would surely have an explanation for that). The combination sometimes almost feels like he can take the target off his back, albeit for short while.
This morning, it seemed like a good idea to turn himself into a scar-less, blue-eyed, blonde, non-descript man, especially since he knew they were going to be patrolling out in the open. Instead, it just gets Giulia breaking into a somewhat hysterical fit of laughter.
'Okay, look at me, because we need to get this out of the way,' she instructs. Harry sighs, turns to his left to face her. 'You're Harry-fucking-Potter,' she declares. 'You're famous. And, not, like, Puddlemere-United-Quidditch-rising-star famous, no, you're I-killed-the-darkest-wizard-of-all-time-and-The-Prophet-follows-me-around-everywhere famous.'
In response, Harry barely suppresses a groan. She ignores him.
'What you need to understand, right now, before we even leave this car park – and for the life of me, it is bizarre that you haven't figured this out yet - is that you will get special treatment, everywhere you go, whatever you do, for the rest of your life,' she declares. Harry draws in a breath, trying to interrupt, but she just talks over him. 'Even you being here with me is special treatment. You haven't taken your N.E.W.T.s, ranked fourth in your intake due to abysmal Potions scores – yeah, I've seen them – and yet, you end up paired with me, both statistically and in actual fact, the best ranking Auror in the department.'
'Look, I never asked for –'
'I know,' she insists, again, and seems to roll her eyes like she can't believe how slow he's being. 'Kingsley trained me. Had a bit of chat about you last week, actually.' She fakes an enigmatic look, and ugh, Harry thinks, perhaps he should have been nicer to Kingsley about all that media stuff, all things considered. 'You're street-smart, hate the attention, have incredible instincts and a huge issue with authority. Now, I didn't say this to him, obviously, but fair enough, if you ask me. Up until last May, authority was more or less constantly out to kill you, no?'
And, at that, Harry, who'd opened his mouth to try and interrupt, and defend himself, closes it, at a loss for what to say. He just looks at her, staring like a fish through the glass of its tank.
'Look, my point is,' Giulia adds, pausing: 'This job is fucking nuts, and we're all fucking nutters for wanting to do it,' she tells him. Swears a lot, Harry quickly finds, both in English and in Italian, especially when she's driving. Always goes onto these long monologues, too, like whatever she thinks about a matter is the most important (if not the only) thing he should consider. As he listens to her talk, over the next few months, he finds that he doesn't necessarily disagree. 'Just don't add having to look like someone else every day on top of that, honestly, or you'll go bonkers within months. My guess is that being you is already pretty fucking bonkers, yeah?'
There is nothing to say to that, Harry figures, so he says nothing.
'I don't know,' she adds after a breath and to tell the truth, he thinks he's never actually met someone capable of saying this many words per minute. 'Maybe instead of hiding it, we can find a way to use it. Not sure what that is, yet, but we'll figure it out,' she announces as though this is, indeed, not his problem, but theirs. 'Merlin, hiding who you are might be useful in certain specific instances but generally, I refuse to train someone who looks like one of those peroxided tossers from the Muggle telly.'
That finally gets a laugh out of him that he can't suppress. In the end, he shrugs. Mutters a reluctant, 'Alright,' and turns his hair back to black, his eyes back to green, and scourgifies the make-up off his scar.
'Right,' she says. 'Now. I'm Giulia; you're Harry. It's nice to meet you,' she adds, extending her hand out to him. He chuckles again, shakes her hand above the gear lever. 'Let's start this car, shall we?'
In October '98, the moment he's out of full-time training, Harry finds that he loves being an Auror. Loves the idea that this is an identity that he chose (Harry, the Auror) rather than one that was forced upon him. Loves that, although the job can be dangerous and does sometimes get the adrenaline pumping in his veins, it feels like a way to do what he enjoys – fighting evil – without constantly dealing with an immediate threat to his own life. He loves that every case is different, that he needs to be both tough and understanding, even if it's not always his forte. He loves Giulia, her no-nonsense chats and her sense of humour. She teaches him everything she knows without a hint of competitiveness or afterthought, just because she seems to think, too, that he could make a good Auror, someday.
In the patrol car, that autumn, they get to know each other. It occurs to Harry that it's been years since he's met anyone new, anyone who he didn't grow up with and is still expected to trust. It's scary, at first, and although she doesn't say, he thinks that perhaps Giulia understands that. Understands that it's hard for him to live in a world where not everyone wants to kill him. She misses Tonks, she confesses, once, and Harry can't resist showering her with the many pictures of Teddy that his wallet now holds. He loves listening to her talk about her life, finds that there is comfort in her monologues, in the way that she learns to fill his silences, talking about the job, about her flatmates, or about the endless string of Muggle women that she seems to date.
That autumn, the sun doesn't always shine in London but when it does, his partner makes it a little brighter. On the days when something good happens, like when he and the other new recruits participate in the big bust that takes down Rodolphus Lestrange, Harry decides that she might be right when she tells him to take whatever satisfaction he can get from the job, and forget about everything else.
Once or twice, of course, he gets told off for not following orders. One afternoon, they're on a stakeout in front of a building where they think Rita Skeeter is hiding, trying to bring her in for questioning. One of Bathilda Bagshot's distant relatives has finally filed a complaint alleging that she fiddled with the poor woman's memory and Harry fights tooth and nail for Giulia and him to take over the case. Yet, that day, Harry gets restless, ends up pulling himself out of the car before anyone can stop him, in an attempt to use himself as bait to get Skeeter out. 'I swear,' he tells Giulia. 'She'll come out if I do -'
'Harry, no, I told you to stay in the – oh, Merlin, go on then, vaffanculo -'
Skeeter does come out - obviously - brandishing her wand at him like a madwoman but he quickly stuns her into inaction. Giulia crosses her arms over her chest, fakes a stern look and tries not to laugh. 'That is not what I meant when I said you should use who you are to your advantage, Harry.'
'What did you mean, then?' he grins. She just rolls her eyes and shakes her head at him.
Of course, there are parts of the job that he doesn't particularly like. Hermione wisely tells him that this would have happened with any job he chose. 'It's just that…' he starts, tries to find words that tell her what he wants to tell her without telling her what he doesn't want to tell her. It's not the risks that they sometimes have to take, or the boring paperwork he was warned about. It's - 'There's things I didn't anticipate, I suppose.'
Hermione snorts. 'When you die,' she says, then insists: 'In over a hundred years, I'll get that engraved onto your headstone. Harry Potter,' she jokes. 'And all the things I didn't anticipate.'
Ron chokes out a laugh next to them.
At the end of October, Giulia and he get dispatched to an incident in West Bay: dark night skies, rows and rows of little cottage houses on the waterfront. Giulia warns him in the car as they fly over from London (about how difficult these can be, about the things that he can and cannot say). When they get on-site, Harry decides that this – this - is the part of the job he hates.
He pulls the front door open and lets Giulia come through. They're the second team of Aurors on the scene so it's already been secured; in the living room, a man's body lies on the floor, unmoving. He's tall, on the heavier side, a knife plunged through his chest. From what Harry can see, he's still breathing, two Healers already crowding around him, trying to stabilise his condition enough to move him to St Mungo's.
Giulia turns, chats with the other Aurors. It's only then, when his gaze drifts, that Harry finally notices her. A woman in her mid-thirties: she's sitting on the floor, arms around her knees, legs bare under an oversized t-shirt (a Harpies t-shirt, Harry sees and can't help but think of -). She's covered in blood (whose, he's not sure) and it's close to Hallowe'en, by then, which just makes everything worse.
The other team of Aurors stay at the scene to collect evidence while Harry and Giulia take the witch and her five-month-old baby to St Mungo's. With the Ministry cars, the trip barely takes a couple of minutes; she's quiet throughout. At the hospital, the Healers help her out of her clothes and into a gown, quills expertly reporting the list of bruises and injuries over her skin, the ribs that she broke months ago, it seems, and never got sorted.
When they're done, Harry stands outside the loo while she washes her hands. 'She's already been cleaned,' one of the Mediwitches tells him with a hint of annoyance in her voice and he doesn't bother explaining why he knows that there's something about blood under your fingernails that just can't be scourgified, like it will always be there, no matter how many times you make yourself look away. Instead, he ignores her and escorts the woman in and out of the bathroom, gets her a cup of tea while they wait for the Healers to check on the baby.
'I should have –' she starts. Lots of should-have-s and could-have-s. They sit on a bench, about five inches between their legs. 'The first time, he was drunk,' she explains. 'Hit me in the face and I hexed the hell out of him,' she smiles, something sad and broken in her voice. 'I thought it was just a mistake.'
A moment passes. She breathes, looks down to her knees. Reaches for Harry's hand in between them, and he wonders if it could transfer the weight of her regrets onto him. He'd gladly take on that burden, if he could.
'Then, it happened again,' she says. 'And again, and then he took my wand, threw it in the fire. I just –' She closes her eyes, tears wetting her cheeks; Harry waits. With a few extra, halting sentences, she explains how that night, after a year and a half of fearing being in her own home, he tried to strangle her. Harry notices the bruises at her neck when he turns. 'I was on the floor and I saw him going towards Aedus's room and I just -'
She grabbed the knife, she says, didn't know it was cursed. He launched at her, struggled; it just happened, she swears, her words tumbling again. Harry believes her, he wants to tell her, couldn't imagine doing anything other than to believe her.
'I should have left,' she says. Could-have-s and should-have-s. 'I should have known, I should have left, I shouldn't have -'
'Hey -'
'I was so scared, so, so scared - the Cruciatus curse,' she stammers. 'It's – I don't know how to explain - You wouldn't believe -'
The air gets caught up in his throat the moment he hears her words and when Harry blinks, he can almost feel his own body shudder, like the pain and the tremors are still raw, even four years later. He tells her that she doesn't need to explain, that he understands, that none of it was her fault, that there's nothing she could have done. 'I know,' he says and means it. 'I know, I know, I know,' as she buries her face in the crook of his shoulder, hot tears against his Ministry-issued robes. 'It's not your fault,' he insists as his eyes find Giulia's, standing opposite them in the corridor. She says nothing.
Later, they bring the woman and the baby back home. As his partner escorts the both of them back into the house, Harry gets out of the car to smoke a cigarette, his back against the door. 'You should quit these,' Giulia just says, the moment she gets back. He doesn't bother telling her that he's tried, because 'trying isn't the same as doing,' she once told him. Instead, he fakes a smile, her heart just isn't in it when she adds: 'Kind of makes you look like a twat.'
He shakes his head, tosses his half-smoked cigarette to the ground. She slips into the driver's seat of the car and drives back to London the Muggle way without another word. Three hours into the night, between little country roads and the M3. Harry doesn't ask why she lets his silence stretch, just stares out the window onto the motorway.
At around five in the morning, they park at the Ministry. He goes to open the door and only then does she catch his wrist. 'That,' she just says. 'That's how you use it – who you are. Not the kind of bollocks you pulled with Skeeter. When someone tells you they've been crucio-ed, you're probably one of the few people in this world who can hold their hand and say "I know." Because, you do know, don't you?'
He stares at the black plastic of the glove compartment in front of him. The silence between them almost occupies a material space, like you could cut through it in one, firm stroke like in a birthday cake, extract a slice to study under a microscope. It has molecules and neutrons and protons, and micro-organisms multiplying through its insides, that silence.
She asks how old he was. At his answer, she closes her eyes, mutters: 'Jesus, a fucking child.' Then, 'Who was it?' she wonders and Harry looks away again. From Bellatrix, he knows that the strength of the Cruciatus depends on who casts it, how good of a wizard they are, how much they mean it. He doesn't answer Giulia's question but she reads the answer on his face either way. 'Fuck, you never had it easy, did you?'
In the night, he gazes out at the deserted car park, jaw set and glasses heavy on his nose. Something in his gut almost prevents him from blinking, as though if he closed his eyes for just a second, he'd see all the films that haunt his nightmares: Ginny writhing in pain under the Carrows' ruthless glares, and Hermione's screams. His own pain has always felt like it mattered less, somehow.
'You think it's wrong? What that woman's husband did?' Giulia asks. He frowns.
'Yeah, of cou-'
'Then, fucking say it,' Giulia says, anger seeping through her voice and gaze burning at his side like she expects him to talk, expects an answer. 'Say something. Because for better or for worse, people listen to you. We'll all die and be forgotten,' she shrugs. 'But, you won't. Kingsley says you used to have a voice – why did you let him take that from you?'
He freezes, body turned to ice at the sound of her words. When Harry closes his eyes, then, he sees Tom. Not the one from last May, just the kid in the orphanage with the dark hair and the wide eyes. At night, Harry often wonders if that child wasn't one of the many people who should have been saved, who could have saved, somehow, if he'd been quicker, smarter, had given his life up sooner. It's stupid, perhaps, because time doesn't work that way, and yet the feeling of guilt is still there, coursing through his veins, watching that kid with the burning wardrobe, the same kid who Giulia says robbed him of his own words, on the grounds of all the could-have-s and should-have-s of the world. When I killed him, I killed that kid, too, Harry thinks, swallows, and he feels guilt, but not remorse, and: 'I'm not sure I'm a good person,' he admits. 'Not sure I'm worth listening to.'
As he speaks, the words feel both familiar and foreign in his mouth, like they've been at the tip of his tongue for months, just waiting to find their way out. With the things he's done, the ones he continues to fuck up every day, with Ginny, and Narcissa, why should anyone listen to him? Giulia's mouth opens quick but he's not sure he wants her to give him another piece of her mind. Instead, he cuts her off and asks: 'What will happen to him? The husband, I mean.'
She stops mid-breath, seems to consider his question. 'If he makes it, they'll put him in jail, I suppose,' she says, matter-of-fact. 'Depends what case the MPS can make in front of the Wizengamot.'
'And, does that help? Azkaban?'
'I don't know,' she says and her next words both surprise him and don't, like he always knew, somehow, that the number of words that merrily came out of her mouth was only meant to show one thing: that they are all like bales of straw, accumulations of tiny, little twigs, mistakes and successes that slowly add up to the meaning of their names. She'd told him, in passing, that she'd left Hogwarts after her O.W.L.s, only took her N.E.W.T.s in her early twenties. 'I don't think it's what helped me,' she admits.
That night, her voice fills the air of the car and for once, her sentences are short, punctuated by the way she stops to bite her lips, or stare at the floor. 'I was fifteen when I got arrested,' she explains. 'I was a minor, so I didn't do much. I believed, though. Acted as the lookout while my mates broke into Muggle houses and tortured these poor people. Served time. Turned my life around, I suppose.'
Her voice dares him, it seems, to hate her for it. For a moment, Harry thinks that he will. His jaw is clenched and his fingers wrap around the wand in his pocket because the first thing he thinks of is that she isn't much younger than his parents. That while she was doing that, they were probably already hiding out in Godric's Hollow, waiting to be murdered. But then, from the way that she speaks, he can tell that she probably hears their screams in her head, too.
It's a hard thought to reconcile, in the end, because to tell the truth, he likes her, and Merlin forbid, he's come to trust her. She's not Snape, he thinks, who only betrayed Voldemort to save his mother, uncaring for the world around him, or the Malfoys, who turned their coats out of sheer convenience. She may have followed Voldemort at the same age as Harry was being tortured in a graveyard and yet, in light of the events of the last year, Harry's not so sure he's allowed to take the moral high ground. When she tells him she became an Auror so that what happened to her didn't happen to anyone else, he almost laughs at the irony of it all.
'You're not a bad person, Harry,' she tells him, then, her palms flat against her knees. 'You're just – a person. The kid who threatened to kill Narcissa Malfoy and meant it,' she pauses, crossing his gaze. 'And the kid who held that woman's hand tonight. The latter because of the former, maybe.' Outside of the car, he notices that the dawn is breaking, shades of pink, baby blues and oranges. 'You've done shit things? Own them, do better,' she smiles, palm finding his forearm. 'Just steer clear of the sirens and shite, yeah?'
Harry closes his eyes, that morning, for a just a moment, and it takes him a while, in 1998, but perhaps a little bit thanks to her, he finally feels like he grows into his own skin.