Aftermath
Much later, Minerva McGonagall was still in the hospital wing. She hovered over Harry, her face a blank mask, as she smoothed his long hair back to reveal the jagged lightning bolt scar that remained vivid red against his chalky pale skin.
“Everything’s going to be all right, Harry,” she whispered in a maternal tone, fixing his covers and fluffing his pillow absentmindedly.
“That would be a nice change,” answered a new voice from the door. She turned around and Dean Thomas slumped into the room, his shoulders hunched and his fists shoved deep into the pockets of his Muggle-style jeans. His eyes never strayed far from Harry as he approached the headmistress.
“I guess none of us are sleeping well tonight,” was her reply.
“Where’s Charlie?” asked Dean. “I would’ve thought he’d be up here too.”
“He is currently bringing Ms Lovegood and Ms Chang up to pace on the events of last night. He was here earlier.”
“Right. Of course.” He paused. “Do you want to know what’s funny about all of this?”
McGonagall stiffened and sniffed irritably. “I cannot imagine what you could possibly find amusing about this situation, Mr Thomas.”
“Oh come on, Minerva, we’re colleagues now. After all these years, surely you can call me Dean.” He smirked. She only thinned her lips in response, so he back-tracked hurriedly. “Not ‘ha-ha’ funny; I meant ironically funny.
“His entire life,” he said, “since he was born and that damn prophecy was made, Harry has always been the hero and symbol for the Wizarding world. His life has always been dictated by ‘kill or be killed’, and I don’t think that anyone actually thought the latter was really a possibility. Everyone knew he would manage it in the end, it just didn’t happen at the time or in the way any of us expected.”
“And twelve years too late,” she added.
A soft snort came from the bed beside them. “You can say that again.”
The two teachers’ heads snapped up at the same moment and immediately turned towards their old friend. “Harry!” Dean cried as he rushed to the head of the bed so that he was at eye level with his former roommate, who was now attempting to sit up and staring at them with hooded eyes, while McGonagall poured him a glass of cool water from the pitcher beside his bed.
“Potter, drink this.” She lifted the cup to his lips and he sipped at it gingerly.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“How do you feel, Harry?” asked Dean nervously.
“Like I’ve just been on the receiving end of a stampeding herd of Hippogriffs,” he grimaced.
Dean chuckled tersely as he sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s to be expected, I say, considering you’ve just had a Dark Lord’s soul sucked out of you.”
Harry’s face instantly crumpled in pain, the quick change of disposition alarming. He tried to take another sip of water, but his hand was shaking so violently that the water just spilled down the front of his pyjama shirt. McGonagall shot a hard glare at Dean for his tactlessness while Harry’s attention was diverted.
“Scourgify,” McGonagall muttered, and the wetness siphoned easily off the flannel.
Dean was studying Harry intently. He looked pointedly at Harry’s jittering hands and then caught the gaze of Harry’s deadened green eyes; Dean felt an intense protectiveness wash over him at the sight. “Are you really all right, Harry?” he questioned.
At first, Harry said nothing, just stared into Dean’s open face, and Dean got the sensation that he was being tested in a sort. Finally, however, he uttered a quiet and ashamed, “No.”
“Well, how could you be?” exclaimed McGonagall. “It is no wonder after all you have been through.”
“Harry,” said Dean slowly. “What do you remember?”
“Of the last twelve years? Too much,” was his weak reply. “How … how did you know what to do?”
“Leah Andrews “ you know, Cory’s friend? She figured it out. She’s a smart one, that girl. Came up with the Dementor thing all by herself, too. They realized that the snake was Voldemort’s without anyone telling them, and they became suspicious when they saw your eyes change colour.
“Which reminds me,” said Dean. “How did you know what to do?”
“I guess I’ve just had a long time to think about it.” But his eyes shifted uncomfortably away from them to stare at the white hospital wall.
“Then why did you not just come to us, Harry?” sighed McGonagall. “We may have been able to help you even earlier. You couldn’t have possibly thought that you could do it “ free yourself of him “ on your own?”
“No,” he answered sadly. “No ... I know I couldn’t have, but would you have believed me if I told you?” He laughed hoarsely; the rough cadence of his voice cut like shards of broken glass between them. “I knew that I had to go to some kind of extreme for you to even begin to believe me. But then Hagrid didn’t know or suspect as much as I’d hoped, and I tried to tell you when I killed Nagini, but Voldemort was fighting so hard that day that I had to stop before I could finish.”
“The blood on the wall ... the letters ... We thought it was meant to be a laugh, somebody’s idea of a sick joke,” Dean mused, shaking his head in awe.
Harry nodded. “I tried to spell my name but I ran out of time; I only managed the first two letters.”
“What else did you try?”
Now, Harry scrubbed his hands over his tired face and through his thick matted hair, before looking down at his covered legs ashamedly. “I knew that he was going to go after Cory. I knew I had to do something ... but I was quickly running out of preferable options, and time. I arranged for them to run into Hagrid; even if he didn’t know enough he could at least make them suspicious about me “ him ... us.”
“They turned out to be quite the little detectives,” said McGonagall with a disapproving sniff and the hint of an indulgent smile on her lips. “Just like a different trio I used to know.”
“And thank Merlin for that,” Dean added.
“I just didn’t know what to do!” said Harry, looking up at them, begging for them to understand. “And even if I found a way to use his Dementor against him, I didn’t even know how to get to that point! Voldemort was becoming angrier as each month passed, and once he started threatening Leah Andrews, I knew that what I was doing would never be enough, so then I forced myself to the front of my mind for a moment and told her everything. I was past the point of caring if anybody believed me “ as long as the doubt was there.
“And she behaved exactly as I hoped she would. And, fortunately, so did Voldemort.”
“What do you mean by fortunately?” asked McGonagall crossly.
“I mean that ... me telling her and knowing that she would tell you ... it tripped Voldemort up, at least temporarily. He would’ve taken Cory much sooner if he wasn’t so afraid of what you would do when you knew the truth. The Dementor attack was a part of the original plan.”
“But then ...” whispered Dean, “do you mean that ... Voldemort actually meant for the Dementor to hurt Cory and Gwen?”
Harry looked guiltily at them again. “I managed to stop him just in time. I don’t want to think of what would have happened had I not been able to make that Patronus ...”
“But doesn’t your Patronus always take the form of a stag? This one barely had any shape to it at all!”
“Yes, it does, but ... all of the memories that I once would have used to produce the stag ... they’re tainted now by memories of him.” He spit the last word out like a dirty expletive. “He tainted every part of me! Every good moment of my life! Any happy memories I may have had of my friends! I’ll be lucky to ever see that stag again because all I can remember ... all that comes to me now ... is that none of that can happen again, not for me!”
“Jesus, Harry,” Dean muttered. “I can’t imagine “”
“No, Dean, you can’t,” he snapped. “Thank God you can’t. You have no idea what it feels like for him to take everything from you and make you watch while he turns it all into dust! I watched him murder Ginny, Ron and Hermione, torture hundreds of innocent children until they did what he wanted, and take away pretty much everyone I’ve ever known or loved; and all the while I was there, and it wasn’t just him killing them, because there was a part of me that was killing them too! You can’t know what that’s like!”
“Harry,” said McGonagall tentatively, “what happened after Voldemort Disapparated from your office? Why did he take you onto the grounds; why have Charlie meet him in the office in the first place?”
Harry sighed heavily. “Look ... Dean, Professor McGonagall ... I understand this is all stuff you need to know, but do we really have to go through it now? I want to sleep.”
“Better to do it now while it is fresh in our minds,” said McGonagall. “I am truly sorry, Harry, but you would not be any more ready for this if we waited years to discuss it.”
“Yeah, all right, I’m sorry. I “ I don’t know,” he answered her earlier question. He shook his head and wiped the wet tears from his face, his voice a little calmer. “I don’t even know why he took Leah and Gwen too; he was always only going to take Cory. But maybe he just thought that they knew too much? Anyways, we went outside, and the children were putting up a good fight ... but of course they had no real chance; he was just toying with them. He threw the girls on the ground ... broke Cory’s leg ... I managed to regain control for just a second, and he must’ve been afraid that they’d run then, so he put the shield around them. And then the three of you came.” He gazed at them with such admiration that for a moment Dean swore he could see a glimmer of the old Harry in that look. “And, well, you pretty much know the rest.”
“But his Death Eaters ... the army outside of the gates ...” breathed Dean. “I mean, they all scampered as soon as they noticed he was dead, but why didn’t he call on them before?”
“He was tired,” Harry answered with a mocking smile. “Can you believe that? Voldemort was actually tired of the whole charade! Having him in my mind was physically painfully for both of us, every second was total agony, and we lived like that for twelve years! But I think he still would have gone through with his original plan, had the Dementor not removed him from my body. After that, he saw no reason to continue as nothing more than a ghost. I guess eternity didn’t seem so tempting to him anymore.” He laughed again.
“So he killed me.”
He said it so easily, as if it meant nothing, and maybe it didn’t anymore. Because, Dean realized, Harry was tired too, tired of it all.
“And he’s finally out of you now? The Horcrux, is it really destroyed?”
“Yes, he’s gone. I can’t feel his presence at all.”
Harry was still crying; all three of them were crying. It felt like they had never stopped, only hid it well beneath the walls and layers and years that they had built, until the time finally came when they could share their tears with each other.
“What about your spell? The one you used against him: Priori Incantato.”
“Can you blame me for wanting to see them one last time?” he asked, resting back against the pillows. “I didn’t think that I would survive this fight, in fact I was planning on it, and I couldn’t be sure of what I would see on the other side when I didn’t. It worked in the graveyard during the Triwizard Tournament, and I just ... just wanted to tell them ... how sorry I am ... about how things turned out.”
“There is nothing wrong with that,” soothed McGonagall quietly. She grasped Harry’s right hand while Dean grasped his left, and they held on for a long time. “But I’m sure they all ready knew.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you know what you’re going to do now?” asked Dean.
“You shall stay at Kootenay, of course,” McGonagall answered before Harry could put a word in. “You will be perfectly protected here under the wards and extra security. Just because Voldemort is gone, doesn’t mean that other Death Eaters won’t be looking for you.”
Harry mumbled something unintelligible, making McGonagall and Dean lean in closer.
“What was that, Harry?” said Dean. “Couldn’t make that out, mate.”
And then Harry exploded. He bolted upright in his bed, his hair tousled and his pyjama shirt wrinkled; his eyes were as sharp as emeralds. To say the very least he looked quite dangerous, or maybe insane.
“It’s not safe anywhere!” he cried. His voice cracked twice. “Don’t you get that? Hogwarts wasn’t safe so many years ago, and Kootenay has been in danger ever since I came here. Anywhere I go isn’t safe! I’m not safe,” his voice turned into a hoarse choke, “so it would just be better for everyone if I wasn’t around anymore. I bring everyone around me down too.”
McGonagall gasped quietly. Dean looked sick.
“Don’t say that, mate,” Dean pleaded.
“Harry, what are you saying?” asked McGonagall.
“I shouldn’t exist!” he whispered. “It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble and pain if I’d just died during the First Battle when I was supposed to.”
“No, don’t say that. It isn’t true.” Dean swallowed the bile that was suddenly rising in his throat.
“I’m … hollow “ empty,” he said gutturally. His haunted eyes, the ones that reminded Professor McGonagall of Sirius Black after he’d escaped Azkaban prison, closed in unspeakable anguish. “I was forced to see things, to do things,” he shuddered, “the nature of which you could never comprehend. And I wouldn’t want you to. But so many people’s blood is on my hands and it wasn’t even worth it. None of it was worth this.”
An awkward silence fell. Dean looked around at the others’ solemn faces and abruptly changed the topic. “Hogwarts is going to be rebuilt. They’re estimating that it should be ready to open again by September of next year. Death Eater free this time,” he said in a falsely upbeat tone.
Harry was only partially listening. McGonagall and Dean knew that he wanted to be left alone right then, but they could not bear to let him close in on himself again.
“There will be lots of job openings, too. You always did enjoy teaching the D.A.”
“I’m tired. Please, just leave,” said Harry quietly.
Then he rolled onto one side in the bed, facing the wall instead of them, and feigned falling into a light sleep. His companions shared a long look with each other before they gave up for now and began to leave the hospital wing, leaving the broken man behind them to his thoughts.
At the last moment however, Harry seemed to remember something vital, for he sat up again and called Dean back.
After he had voiced his request and Dean had left, Harry laid back down and let sleep finally claim him.
Lying half awake in his bed in the hospital wing, Harry Potter tried to let his grief finally come. Voldemort was gone, his mind was at last his own, and there had been no more casualties in the process. He knew he should be grateful, even cheerful; but he wasn’t, and he wondered why.
Charlie had been in to visit again after McGonagall and Dean had left, and they’d talked long through the morning and into the afternoon about any trivial subject which came to mind. Harry had liked that; he’d had enough worry over Voldemort and Horcruxes to fill a couple of lifetimes, and it was nice, to have a person to talk absolutely nothing with again. And while they’d talked, Charlie had also passed along something else.
Carefully, Harry pulled the old crumpled photograph that he had asked for and which Dean had given Charlie to pass to him from its envelope, and smoothed it out: he’d hoped, probably fruitlessly, that seeing that group of happy teenagers decked out in their Quidditch gear would do something for him; finally make him feel alive, or throw up, or just … something, anything.
That far away day had been his old life though, and like it or not, it was long gone and he could never get it back. He didn’t feel sad or angry that it was gone, but maybe that would come with time. And with that thought, Harry finally understood what it was he was feeling, and it hurt no less, made none of it any easier. Harry was finding himself lacking any emotion at all. He felt numb. He felt dead.
He stuffed the picture away and closed his eyes resignedly. He had made a promise to Dumbledore, before he’d made the decision to come back, that he would try to find some level of happiness now in whatever he could; but he didn’t want this emptiness that was inside of him. He didn’t want any of this anymore.
“What’s going to happen now?” asked Leah. The three of them “ her, Gwen, and Cory “ were outside, happily taking advantage of the bright spring day by lounging under their favourite tree by the edge of the forest on the far side of the lake.
“What do you mean?” said Gwen.
“Well, what’s Mr Potter going to do now that he’s safe and You-Know-Who is gone? He’s not just going to leave and forget about all this, is he? I don’t see how he could.”
In the distance she could see two people walking together across the grounds. The first was Potter, his Masen disguise discarded for the moment. The other was unmistakably Hagrid, who kept dabbing at his eyes every few seconds with a large handkerchief as the old friends spoke.
Good, Leah thought, satisfied. He deserves some closure.
Cory picked at the long grass with his fingers, rubbing the green strands together and letting them flutter to rest by his feet. His eyes remained fixed on his shoes. “My dad says he’ll be staying with us in Romania, at least for now. ‘As good as family’, he said. It’s going to be weird though. I mean, having Harry Potter living with us. But Mum is thrilled, already has a room made up for him and everything.”
“That’s great!” replied Leah, gazing at him curiously. “Isn’t it? At least he won’t be alone.”
“Yeah, I guess. Both of you will come and visit though, right? Maybe some more familiar faces will be good for him, people that aren’t connected to his life before all of this.”
“We’ll be there,” said Gwen. “What are best friends for, eh?”
Cory snorted, finally letting a reluctant smile spread across his face, and he shoved his shoulder against hers playfully. “Now, I thought that the two of us weren’t friends.”
Gwen grimaced as she leaned her bandaged head against the trunk of the tree. Her concussion was healing quickly, but Madam Pomfrey had said that she should expect her head to be tender for a day or two and not to overexert herself. “Look, man, do I have to spell it out for you?”
At his blank look, she laughed and bumped his shoulder in return. Leah shook her head in amusement. “Boys are so daft,” said Gwen. “Of course we’re friends … best friends just like we are to Leah. How could we have survived everything that we have this year and still not been?”
He nodded, as if life suddenly made perfect sense to him, or at least, Gwen Seward did. “Okay, good. I mean, cool. That’s cool.”
Suddenly, Leah glanced up from the pages of notes she was only halfheartedly reading (they may have helped save the world, but they were still expected to write their end of the year exams, McGonagall had taken entirely too much pleasure in reminding them) and her eyes were mischievous, her smile wide. “Hey, Gwen?”
“Yeah?” The blonde girl’s eyes roamed over to Leah, who was sitting on the opposite side of her as Cory.
“Remember the first day that we all met?”
“Yeah …?”
“So then you remember what you told me during the Sorting Ceremony, about Cory? That if he didn’t turn out to be just another one of those stuck-up, teacher-loving snobs than you’d do one million cartwheels through the common room in your bathrobe.”
Cory looked properly appalled. “You didn’t!” he laughed.
Gwen’s face at that moment most closely resembled a ripe tomato, so brightly red it was. She mumbled a heated curse under her breath, ignoring Cory’s grin and Leah’s teasing tone. “You just had to bring that up, didn’t you?”
“You should probably wait a bit though, Gwen,” continued Leah calmly. “I’m sure that’s one thing that would definitely fall under Pomfrey’s classification of overexertion. Because I think that Cory has proven he is, in fact, nothing of the sort.”
There was silence, and then all at once the three friends dissolved into a round of uncontrollable laughter, their voices ringing out over the whole school grounds. People stopped what they were doing to look up, searching for the source of the commotion, or stared as they passed by; but under the big tree they didn’t take any notice. For they were secure in the power of their friendship that day, and they knew that it would never fade, would only ever get stronger as the years went on. It made them immortal.