It was a very disgruntled crowd of people that dragged themselves to breakfast the next morning at half past seven. Even Amelia herself looked like she was regretting calling such an early meeting.
"Was I just really drunk last night," Sirius began, nursing a cup of coffee and very clearly hungover, "or did you two walk through a wall?" He eyed Harry and Draco warily, and Harry laughed.
"You were really drunk, but also yes."
"Yeah, I was wondering about that," Anthony Goldstein piped up, raising skeptical eyebrows.
"Apparently that's a thing he can do now," Draco said, reaching for a plate of bacon. "The castle likes him, so he told me."
"It does," Harry confirmed with a shrug. "Neville, you should try it sometime. It's gonna make getting between classes a breeze." He was already thinking longingly of the extra time in bed it would give him in the mornings, not having to bother with all those stairs.
"Is it too late to resign as headmistress?" McGonagall said with a heavenward glance. "I don't know if I can handle one more year of your shenanigans, Mr Potter."
"It'll be fine," Harry assured her breezily. He stole half a bacon sandwich from Draco's plate — now he had a cup of tea in him, he was feeling slightly more human and willing to try eating food.
Sharp footsteps on stone made all of them look up, several of the students making surprised noises at the sight of Snape heading towards them. The man was dressed in his usual black teaching robes, ever-present scowl on his face. However, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of vials. The first two went to Harry and Draco, and Harry, as had become habit, uncorked it and drank the contents without even looking at it.
"Harry, you don't even know what that is!" Parvati gasped, then looked fearfully at Snape like he might put her in detention for suggesting he would poison his student.
"Hangover potion," he relayed with a blissful smile, the tension in his head easing and the rolling of his stomach subsiding. "Severus, you're my new favourite."
"Oi!" Sirius protested, only to be tossed a vial of his own. "Okay, yeah, new favourite, sorry Moony."
Remus was not there to argue, but Snape's lips twitched.
"I only do that for Severus and Draco," Harry assured, seeing several concerned looks around the table. "I don't just blindly drink any old thing I'm handed, promise." He could trust those two — both to not give him poison, but also to know exactly which potions he could take safely at any given time.
Despite his scowl, Snape had brought enough potions for everyone who needed one, stoically ignoring any and all gratefulness in response.
"Did you just come to sober us all up so we don't make tits of ourselves at the Ministry, or did you need something?" Charlie asked, one of the few people at the table who was far too used to Snape to take offense at the man's general countenance.
"I am coming with you," Snape replied. "Gringotts has confirmed that I am indeed still eligible for the Prince seat, and I am long overdue in claiming my birthright." Harry was sure only he and perhaps Sirius and Narcissa could see the tension in Snape's shoulders, the slight hesitance at his admission. He was nervous, confessing these secrets of his past to a group of mostly students.
Susan gasped, eye lighting up excitedly. "I wondered where Dumbledore's last seat came from! It's been you all along!"
"Indeed." Snape inclined his head. "I went straight from Hogwarts to my Apprenticeship and then to teaching, so I was never given the opportunity to come forward. Dumbledore," he sneered, "has been my proxy since my mother passed. It is high time that changed."
"Doesn't that mean Dumbledore's got no seats left?" Ernie pointed out. "Unless he's been willed any proxies in the last year."
"I think we're mostly present and accounted for," Narcissa confirmed. "As far as I'm aware, the only sitting Wizengamot members who died in battle were ones who almost certainly willed their seats to my late husband. Unless they updated their wills recently, I should be gaining quite a few more." She looked less than pleased by that outcome.
"I think some seats will have died off, now," Draco mused, a dark edge to his voice. "Crabbe and Goyle were the last of their families. And I think the Lestranges have gone extant, too."
"We shall see," said Narcissa primly. "And on that note, we had best get going."
"Do you have room for one more?" Professor Slughorn slipped through the open door, hands on the lapels of his velvet jacket. "I'm running rather late, my apologies. But I ate in my quarters, so if you are all on your way then might I accompany you?"
In all the chaos, Harry had completely forgotten that Slughorn was also on the Wizengamot.
"Of course, Horace," McGonagall agreed with a half-smile. "I would be glad of the escort." Since the battle, Harry noticed, the cane she'd used after being hit with all those Stunners last year had started to return every now and then. Seeing it made his stomach twist uncomfortably; a reminder that his battle-axe of a housemistress was not as indestructible and immortal as she had always appeared to be.
Slughorn brightened up, offering his arm to the headmistress, and together the lot of them set off out of the hall.
Harry walked with Draco's hand in his, looking around the group in quiet amazement. Twenty-nine seats between them — possibly more to come depending how things went when all the Death Eaters were processed and all the wills enacted. Almost the entire Wizengamot, finally in capable hands. Harry was under no impression that they would all agree on everything, but he knew he could trust all of these people to make decisions with the whole country's best interests at heart.
"I'm still very impressed the whole lot of you managed to convince your previous house heads to give up their seats to teenagers," Amelia remarked as they strode across the grounds, carefully sidestepping around the battle scars. "Those of you with only proxy guardians is one thing, but the rest! Mr Macmillan, I am quite frankly astounded that your father is stepping down in your favour."
Ernie shrugged, looking a little bashful. "We had a chat about it yesterday, when I went to get them out of hiding. I think going through this war a second time has made him reconsider what he wants in life. He was surprisingly agreeable to the whole thing, said that half our problems was the old traditionalists hanging on to their seats too long, and the Ministry could do with a few young revolutionaries." He grinned at his friends, and they all grinned back.
The Ministry was about to get plenty of those.
Not every heir in the school had won over their guardians like Ernie had, though. Hannah's mother, understandably, was retaining her seat at least until Hannah was out of her hospital bed, and very likely until after she was graduated too. But Blaise's mother wasn't retiring from the politics game any time soon, and Lord Patil wouldn't hear a single word of it, so fresh from losing his daughter. But it was a solid start. They had years, decades even, to get the rest on board.
"Harry, my lad," Slughorn said quietly, prompting Harry to hang back a bit and fall into step beside the two professors. "That matter we discussed, before term ended — it has all been dealt with appropriately, I trust?" His eyes held a decades-old wariness. It took Harry a moment to figure out what he was referring to. Of course, he was concerned about the horcruxes.
"Yes, sir," he assured. "All sorted. Every last bit."
Slughorn just about shook with relief. "Good. Good lad. I had hope, when I heard about Severus and the snake, but… this old man's heart can rest easy, now."
Harry patted the man's arm, saying nothing more and ignoring McGonagall's perplexed frown.
The old professor might have made a terrible mistake in giving the information to Tom Riddle, but Harry could see how much the regret had been weighing on him ever since. It was a burden he was more than happy to relieve.
Past the gates, they gathered to apparate to the Ministry; the floo network was still being brought back online, and Hogwarts had not yet been reconnected.
"Harry," Amelia said evenly, once they were in the Ministry atrium. "After the meeting, you will come with me and complete the paperwork for your apparition license, yes?"
It was only then that Harry realised he hadn't even attempted to pretend he needed a side-along. Oops. "Yes, ma'am."
Susan snickered quietly at his meek response.
Looking around, Harry realised that this was his first time visiting the Ministry while there was actually work going on. The last — and only — time he'd been there, it had been deserted and he'd ended up destroying half of the Department of Mysteries.
He hoped the Unspeakables weren't still mad about all that.
Now, it was a hive of activity; still likely not as busy as it was supposed to be, given the number of people who had yet to return to their jobs and the countless empty positions throughout the building, but enough that their whole group apparating into the designated zone took a few minutes to be noticed.
"Good morning, Minister Bones!" one woman called cheerfully as she walked past. "Morning, Minister!" another greeted, then dropped the briefcase she held in shock. "My word, is that Harry Potter?"
"Oh, Merlin, here we go," Harry groaned under his breath. The group closed ranks around him, but the damage had been done — all through the atrium, people were stopping in their tracks, trying to get a look at the seventeen year-old saviour.
"You'd best get used to it, pup," Sirius said apologetically, ruffling his hair.
Luckily, with Amelia heading the pack they could avoid going through the whole rigamarole of wand screenings, heading straight for the lifts. There were so many they had to split between the two, and even that was a tight squeeze.
Harry wondered if Susan, Neville and Daphne were remembering that fateful trip to the Ministry in as much vivid detail as he was right now.
"Y'know," Sirius said as the lift shuddered and screeched to life, "last time we were crammed so tight in one of these, Char, we snogged in front of your dad. You remember that?"
Harry was jammed into the opposite corner, plastered against Draco's front, but he didn't need to look to know Sirius was grinning smugly. He groaned, head falling forward on Draco's shoulder. "More information than we needed, Padfoot."
"Just trying to ease the tension!" Sirius defended. "Honestly, you'd think we were all headed into another battle! This is the easy part."
They were saved having to try and find a response to that by the lift slamming uncomfortably to a halt, practically spitting them all out when the doors opened. Sirius was still grinning, winking at Harry when he caught his godson's eye. Harry had to admit, it was a good distraction from the way they turned past the door to the Department of Mysteries and towards the Wizengamot meeting room.
"This is where we leave you, then," Amelia declared softly, pausing at the door. "You all know what to do."
She pressed a kiss to Susan's brow, then she and the others who had already claimed their seats entered the hall. The Wizengamot would need to be in session before any further claims could be acknowledged.
The wait was excruciating. Harry tried not to fidget, but Draco had to grab his hands to stop him picking at his fingernails. He kissed Harry's palms, one at a time, then threaded their fingers together.
Even Snape looked nervous, if you knew what to look for. Harry sidled over to the man, leaning ever so slightly against him. "Think of how furious all those Death Eaters going to Azkaban will be when they learn that they've lost everything and you're now a sitting Lord," he murmured under his breath. Dark eyes slanted in his direction, and thin lips curled in a smirk. Then at last, it was time.
The door handle glowed a bright green, indicating it was acceptable for them to enter. Somehow, Harry ended up pushed to the front, urged to open the door. Honestly, all his friends were so dramatic.
He squared his shoulders, and stepped over the threshold.
The magic of the Wizengamot meeting room felt… ancient. As ancient as Hogwarts, but different, more austere. This was not a magic that had grown off the blossoming power of children, but off the restrained power of adults trying their best to keep it to themselves. This magic had fed off the souls of criminals, and judged countless people worthy of their family names.
This was not a magic you wanted to mess with.
None of them spoke. When Harry looked up at the gathered Wizengamot, he ignored all the startled faces and looked straight at Sirius' smiling eyes, wrinkled at the corners.
"As the last of my family line," Harry began in a firm, steady voice, "I, Harry James Potter, have come to claim the Potter, Peverell and Slytherin seats of my birthright, and relieve Lord Black of his proxy duties for those houses."
The names he listed made several people gasp, and Harry wondered how the fact of him being Slytherin's heir wasn't common knowledge by now.
Then he felt the magic reaching into him, searching his core and his blood, checking he had the right to make the claims he had. Harry kept his breathing steady, holding back the instinct to fight the intrusion.
Three seats glowed with a bright white light beneath them. His robes shifted, becoming the plum garb of a Wizengamot member, and the magic converged electric-cold on his hand to form his lordship ring — able to shift between the three crests at his will.
Harry knew his choice was important' whichever seat he took was the title he would be addressed by, though he had the right to all three. He walked forward, and offered Augusta Longbottom a smile as he sat down beside her.
"Welcome, Lord Potter," Amelia greeted, inclining her head towards him. Lord Potter. He was a lord, now. With all the powers and responsibilities that came with it.
If he had surprised the Wizengamot, then the next claim had some of them almost falling off their chairs.
"With the permission of my grandmother; I, Neville Francis Longbottom, have come to claim the Longbottom and Gryffindor seats of my birthright. I also claim the proxy guardianship of the Hufflepuff seat, with full permission of the current Heir Hufflepuff." Harry filled with pride at the way Neville's voice didn't waver once, his head held high and not a hint of fear or shyness in his frame.
Beside Harry, Mrs Longbottom stood. "I gladly pass this mantle to my grandson, and relinquish all claim on the Longbottom seat."
As she shuffled down the steps, her robes became a set of neat navy dress robes, while Neville's transformed appropriately. The tall Gryffindor kissed his grandmother on the cheek, then headed up to take the seat at Harry's side, giving him a shaky grin. Harry offered a discreet thumbs up.
One by one, seats were claimed. Some were expected — Theo; Anthony; Draco. The blond claimed his seat like he had waited his whole life for such a moment, and Harry saw Narcissa dab her eyes with a handkerchief. Daphne shocked many by claiming proxy of the Ravenclaw and Ollivander seats, waving cheekily at her uncle sat across the room in the Greengrass seat. Through it all, Percy Weasley diligently took notes on the proceedings, in his new official position as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister.
Then Severus Snape stepped forward, becoming Lord Prince, to the most prominent silence of all.
McGonagall was quiet but dignified in claiming the Ross seat, and at last Susan was the final person to step into the centre of the room. Many of the older Wizengamot members were eyeing her with confusion, unsure why she would be there when her aunt was clearly planning to stay in power.
"With the permission of my aunt, I, Susan Constance Bones, have come to claim the Bones seat of my birthright."
"I gladly pass this mantle to my niece, and relinquish all claim on the Bones seat," Amelia replied formally. She had no need to move seats, as she was occupying the Minister's seat in the room. Beside her, Arasi Shafiq gasped.
"Minister Bones, this is highly irregular," he burst out as Susan claimed her seat. "You do realise that should you fail to win the election, you will no longer have any place within the Wizengamot?"
"I am aware, Lord Shafiq," Amelia replied mildly. Harry had to admire her confidence, in making that irreversible move. "I also—" She cut off mid sentence, as the door opened once more.
Draco's sharp intake of breath was the only sound within the hall as two girls walked hesitantly into the room. "I— are we too late?" Pansy Parkinson asked, wringing her hands anxiously. "There were issues with the floo." At her side, Millicent Bulstrode stood blank-faced and tense. Both Slytherins had been missing since term ended, feigning loyalty to Voldemort to keep from being disinherited and left with nothing. They'd hoped the pair had fled to Germany, to Millie's betrothed. Feared much worse fates for them.
When Harry glanced over at Draco, his boyfriend's knuckles were white around the arms of his chair.
"You are just in time, ladies," Amelia assured with a smile.
One after another, the Parkinson and Bulstrode seats were claimed.
"As I was saying," Amelia continued, "I also recently discovered that prior to her incarceration, Dolores Umbridge, Lady Selwyn, willed her seat specifically to 'the Minister for Magic'." Her lips quirked. "Therefore, with the permission of its bloodline, I, Amelia Grace Bones, do hereby claim proxy guardianship of the Selwyn seat, for as long as I serve as Minister."
Harry wasn't the only one who couldn't hold back a snicker.
"As we can see, the magical family lines of Crabbe, Goyle, Lestrange, Travers and Crouch have ended, as judged by the Wizengamot Chamber," Amelia announced, turning solemn. "Gringotts bank have been notified, and will deal with the house assets appropriately. Lady Malfoy, your proxy guardianship of the four lines you have held is now ended — we thank you for your diligent care."
Narcissa only nodded in acknowledgement. Harry was surprised by the last name — surely Crouch would have died out when Barty Jr died? Evidently there had been another magical heir to the family in the Death Eater ranks. They were all so intermingled, it made sense.
It was a horrifying display of how much damage Voldemort had done, that five families had gone completely extinct under his reign, and several more only held heirs through as-yet-undiscovered bastard children and squib descendants. That several more families held only one possible representative of their line, right in this chamber. It would take time to rebuild, and some things were lost forever. Such was the way of war.
"I call this Wizengamot session to order, as all appropriate inheritance announcements have thus been acknowledged," Amelia said, her voice ringing out through the stone chamber. The expression that followed was one Harry knew all too well — he'd seen it on Susan dozens of times, that glint of mischief and that barely restrained smile. It usually came right before some bold move or unexpected bombshell. He braced himself, wondering what was to come next.
"With that said, I pass the floor to the new Lady Bones," she continued. "She has brought a number of concerns to my attention, and I believe they are best explained by her."
Then Amelia sat down, and Susan stood behind her desk. Her eyepatch today was a pale lavender, and depicted the Bones family crest. Theo was getting really quite good at the details, now.
"Thank you, Minister Bones," Susan said with a nod of acknowledgement. Then she reached into her pocket, and pulled out a small cube — which quickly resized itself into an enormous stack of parchment. A stack that, as soon as she set it on the table, quickly replicated itself for every member of the Wizengamot to read for themselves. Harry reached for his, grinning at the familiar handwriting.
"These are just our immediate concerns," Susan informed the chamber at large, keeping an impressively straight face even as her fellow student Wizengamot members failed to hide their glee. "The further concerns can wait until the new Minister is elected and things are less dire. But as you can see, there is a lot to be done here."
The adults in the room stared agog at this seventeen year-old girl, only two days fresh off a battlefield and already telling the Ministry what for.
Amelia Bones sat back in her chair, and beamed with pride.
.-.-.-.
They were several days past the battle now, and the celebrations had gone nation-wide. As wixen emerged from hiding and returned from overseas, magical Britain filled once more with people, all keen to celebrate the true death of the Dark Lord. Diagon Alley was thriving once more — the twins and Lee had been working non-stop on the fireworks orders coming in, while Blaise and the three ex-Gryffindor chasers manned the shop itself. Mr Ollivander had been found in a dungeon in Hampshire, and had returned to his shop like nothing had ever happened. Even Fortescue's had reopened. The Ministry, such as it was, was rushed off their feet with the need to contain the festivities and stop the muggles from noticing. It was certainly keeping everyone busy.
It was good, Harry thought, for them to have things to do. Without all that, he dreaded to think of how he'd just be… drifting. Thinking about the deaths of his friends, wondering how they could have been prevented. Parvati had left for India, promising to keep in touch in the last few weeks of summer. Harry hadn't seen Dennis Creevey since the battle, but he knew the boy had gone home with his muggle parents, who had been in one of the Black family safehouses.
Perhaps that was for the best.
But he had found himself with a rare afternoon free; Sirius and Charlie were with Narcissa, taking all the currently displaced muggleborns for Inheritance Testing at Gringotts. Harry had thought about going with them, but he hadn't wanted to overwhelm Nashira and the twins if what they suspected was true. There would be time to meet them properly later.
He and Draco were the only students left permanently in the castle, now. Though due to the entire extended Black family still living there, it wasn't unusual to find visitors in search of one or another of them. Amelia was around regularly, discussing the handover of the DMLE with Kingsley, who still didn't seem to have quite registered that he was going to be a father soon.
Harry was glad for the quiet. He had never been great in crowds, and while at first it was fun having all his loved ones surrounding him and so joyous with relief, it had soon become suffocating. The Chamber of Secrets had once again become a necessary refuge, though he did have to put up with Salazar now pestering him to start sorting out journals to 'accidentally' discover and release into the world.
This time he didn't need that kind of solitude, though. He wasn't hiding, per say, he was just… enjoying the view from the Astronomy Tower. Neville and Professor Sprout had worked hard to re-grow the grass, and other than a few dips that hadn't been there before, you could hardly tell what had happened. Plans for a flower garden were underway, with rumours of some sort of memorial statue. Harry wanted absolutely no part in that, but he had warned both McGonagall and Amelia that if the statue was in any way shape or form designed to look like him or his lightning bolt scar, he would turn the castle to rubble.
But it was a nice evening, warm and breezy, the sun reflecting off the mirror-still surface of the lake. He'd not seen the squid since the day after the battle — perhaps it was sleeping off its large meal of troll parts.
"So this is where you wandered off to."
He turned, smiling at Draco as the blond's head popped up through the trap door. "Hey, you." Harry happily shifted over on his stone ledge, making room for Draco to tuck in beside him. The Slytherin straddled the ledge, one leg hanging over the edge, so Harry could lean back against him. Harry wasn't worried about them falling — Draco could turn into an owl, and he was pretty sure his own connection to Hogwarts would make him bounce or something equally ridiculous.
So they cuddled together on the lip of the tower, the grounds spread out below them. "Have you been looking for me long?" Apology seeped into Harry's tone. Draco rubbed Harry's shoulder.
"Not really. Checked the obvious places, then went and asked Hannah. Thought you might be down in the Chamber."
Harry forgot that Hannah was still in her private room in the Hospital Wing. All other patients with long-term injuries from the battle had been moved to St Mungo's, but between the delicate state of her back and the unknown quantity of her connection to Hogwarts, it was decided she would recover best in the castle. A specialist in dark curses had come to see her, removing the last of the magic from her body; now it was just a matter of time while the potions regrew her bones and nerves and muscles. As much as they could manage, at least.
Terry Boot was in a holding cell, soon to be in Azkaban, having surrendered at the end of the battle. Harry hoped he rotted there.
"Want to tell me what's got you so worried?" Draco asked knowingly, tangling Harry's hand with his own. Harry sighed, slumping heavy against his warm boyfriend.
"Dumbledore," he admitted. "No one's heard even a whisper of him since January. I would've thought he'd have popped his head up by now, if only to try and say Voldemort's still not dead and I've got to be murdered to save the world." His lips twisted in a grimace, and he felt Draco tense. "He's probably just gone and died somewhere from that curse on his arm," Draco said diplomatically, thumb running soothingly over the back of Harry's hand. "Uncle Sev did say he wouldn't have much more than a year left."
Harry wanted to believe that, he really did, but he couldn't shake the worry that something deeper was in the works. Dumbledore still had the Hallows, after all. Could he even die, with a power like that?
It made him sick to his stomach just to contemplate.
Lips pressed against the back of his neck. "Stop worrying about things that will likely never happen," Draco insisted, the soft nuzzle of his nose against the base of Harry's skull slowly turning him to goo inside. "If he's not dead, he probably will be soon. And if he does show up — you're the most powerful wizard in the country, and he's an old man on his last legs. I doubt he'll be much of a challenge for you."
The unquestioning confidence in Draco's voice made Harry smile. He made a fair point.
Surely if Dumbledore had some sort of mystical Death powers, he would have come for Harry by now? He would have revealed himself, tried to encourage the wizarding world to treat him like some sort of divine figure.
The gentle nuzzle became a firmer press of lips, and Harry became suddenly aware of an insistent press against his lower back, too. "Is that a wand in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" he drawled lightly, feeling Draco's quiet snicker.
"Such a cliché, why am I so in love with you," he mock-despaired, biting at Harry's earlobe. "I just figured, while we're up here and everyone else is busy… you always hear such scandalous tales of the Astronomy Tower. We could see what the fuss is all about."
Harry swung around, facing Draco with an arched brow. "Now who's the cliché," he retorted. Draco just swooped in, capturing his lips in a kiss.
"Come on, you know you want to," he cajoled, stroking Harry's thigh, fingers tracing the inseam of his jeans.
"Pretty sure all the scandalous tales happen at night-time. Y'know, when the stars are out?"
Draco was unperturbed. "We can come back later, too. Pretend we're breaking curfew, sneaking about like it's fourth year all over again. I can't believe we never came up here back then, honestly."
"Too high a risk of getting caught." That wasn't a problem now, not with Harry's ability to sink into the very stones of Hogwarts and pop out wherever he liked. "I suppose we can tick this place off the list," he agreed, moving off the ledge, pulling Draco further into the room, where they were less likely to have an unexpected drop ruin the mood. He tugged on Draco's belt. "Would be better if we were in uniform, though. More authentic."
"I'll show you authentic," Draco muttered, rubbing Harry through his jeans. Perhaps they truly were going to take a nostalgia trip to fourth year, frotting against each other fully clothed and snogging until their lips were numb. Harry could absolutely get on board with that.
Then Draco paused, meeting Harry's eyes. "Hang on, did you say you have a list?"
"No!" Grey eyes narrowed, and Harry faltered. "I mean, not on paper or anything. Just. Y'know. We've got a year left in this castle. I can travel through walls and control the wards. That leaves lots of places for me to get you off." He moved his hands to Draco's backside, gripping two firm handfuls and grinding their cocks together. "It's not really a list."
Draco leaned back against the wall, the line of his pale neck into his undone shirt collar drawing a needy whine from the back of Harry's throat. "You make a fair point," he said, rolling the words slowly over his tongue, considering the matter even as he snuck a hand under Harry's t-shirt. He tangled a hand in Harry's hair and yanked, kissing down his jaw. "But if there's going to be a list, we start over on September first. Doesn't count if school's not in session."
That was fair. A shiver of anticipation raced down Harry's spine, imagining all the places they could try and have sex without getting caught. God, McGonagall was going to hate them.
"Deal," he agreed, pushing his leg between Draco's thigh. "Let's just call this a practice run."
.-.-.
The next school year was going to be terrible.
Severus could feel it in his bones already. Having to deal with all the damn students who had seen Remus kiss him in the middle of the Great Hall. Listening to the whispers of his star-crossed love and his tortured soul as a spy for the Light. Somehow, between Harry and Remus, the public had gotten it into their heads that Severus' entire personality was also part of the ruse to keep Voldemort oblivious of his true loyalties.
They were trying to be nice to him. Expecting him to be nice in return! The world had truly gone mad.
He stalked into his quarters, pausing at the sight of Remus sprawled out on his sofa, dozing. Guilt wormed through him when the werewolf startled awake. "Oh, Severus. You're back. What time is it?"
"Not long past four."
"Why do you look like someone cracked your favourite cauldron?"
Severus scowled, but didn't hesitate to sit beside the man when Remus lifted his legs up pointedly. He settled them back in the Slytherin's lap, one knee bent over Severus'. "I just had to deal with a staff meeting in which no less than six of my colleagues tried to thank me for my contribution to the war, apologising for thinking I was truly so cruel all these years." A slow smile crept onto Remus' face, and Severus glared at him. "Pomona tried to hug me, Remus!"
Remus outright burst into laughter at that, which was not helping Severus' ire any. "I'm sorry," he said, though his eyes were still dancing. "Really, I am!"
"You don't look it, you damned wolf," Severus groused, propping his own feet up on the coffee table. Remus smiled wider, reaching for Severus' hand. He played with the fingers, massaging the digits, often so tense from hours holding a knife or a stirring rod.
"I just— it absolutely baffles me that these people seem to think it was a lie. Pomona taught you! She knows you've been your own personal storm cloud since the day you left the damned womb!"
"Yes, well, she seems to think that the love of a good man has softened me, but I've been hiding it all this time to allay suspicion," Severus explained, rolling his eyes, and Remus scoffed.
"I'm not nearly a good enough man for that," he remarked ruefully. "If it makes you feel better, Sev, I'm sure they'll soon stop thinking you've in any way changed since the war ended. Once they see you terrify all the students into submission once more."
"If I can even look those students in the eye knowing they watched you molest me." Remus barked out a laugh, grinning like the cat that caught the canary.
"Okay, I'm not sorry about that one. I couldn't help myself. That has been a fantasy of mine since I was fourteen years old."
Severus would never admit that he, too, had sometimes dreamed of staking such a public claim on Remus Lupin.
"I just don't know what to do with all these people suddenly expecting me to smile or joke or hug," he spat the word like a curse. "People I hardly know, even! Going to the Ministry has become impossible." He'd gone a few times; first to sort out various family affairs, then to testify against some Death Eaters, and lastly to help the Department of Education with their plans to re-integrate the Hogwarts students who had spent the last year in hiding. Minerva had made him her deputy for some god-forsaken reason, and he was starting to think she'd done it just to make him suffer. "I blame your brat godson more than I blame you."
Harry bloody Potter, the beacon of light and good and Gryffindor; if the public were wrong about Severus, they were even more wrong about Harry, but they would one day learn that he was a sneaky little Slytherin shit. Right now, they believed that the hidden mentorship bond between the pair of them meant that Severus was secretly some sort of warm, jovial father figure. Merlin forbid the Man-Who-Defeated be trained by someone who was exactly the miserly, severe, dark-aligned bastard that Severus absolutely was.
"Our brat godson," Remus corrected. "I keep telling you, we share him now."
"And I keep telling you, you can keep him," Severus argued by rote.
He looked at Remus, studying the lines on his face — scars, yes, but the creases at the corners of his mouth and eyes, the furrow of his brow; those were all laugh lines, smile lines. Even though for twelve years Remus had had very little to laugh or smile about, he still remained positive, caring, compassionate.
Not for the first time, Severus wondered what the hell a man like that was doing with a man like him.
"Would you prefer it, if I were nicer?" he asked suddenly, cringing at the way it came out. "In public, that is. I understand that now our association is known, there will be… unavoidable social events. I have no desire to tarnish your reputation by being my usual self."
All of a sudden, Remus used his grip on Severus' hand to pull himself into a sitting position, his legs still flung over the Potions Master's lap. "Severus," he began, and Severus braced himself for the worst. "Severus, you have been an irascible bastard since the very second I met you, and that's exactly the man I fell in love with." The Slytherin blinked, and Remus' honey eyes softened. "I don't care what people think of me, if they judge me for being with you. Quite frankly it's none of their business. I don't care if they think you're some soulless old bat — I know you, inside out, back to front and all over. I've seen you at your worst, and at your best. And I've seen what you're like with people you actually care about; you are entirely capable of warmth and love. I see it every day when you look at me! As long as you don't hide that part of yourself away from me, or our friends, or the boys, or—" he paused, biting his lip, "or our kids. The general public don't matter."
Severus' breath hitched. "I… I doubt myself, sometimes. My… capabilities." His ability to express positive emotion. He still had a habit of resorting to cutting words when he got upset, even with people he loved. Especially with people he loved.
"Then it's a good thing you've got me here to have confidence in you," Remus pointed out, cupping Severus' jaw. "I'm sure it's awful having all these people crossing your boundaries and assuming things about your personality. But it'll pass. You just keep being your usual grouchy self, and they'll soon realise that you're exactly the same as you always were, except you're a bit less biased towards Slytherins and a lot less biased against Harry Potter." He grinned teasingly. "And all that changes with us is that I can finally laugh openly at your snarky little remarks instead of keeping a straight face. Honestly, anyone who thinks you don't have a sense of humour is just too thick to realise it."
Severus raised an eyebrow, hand resting on Remus' thigh. "I didn't realise you found me so… amusing."
Remus looked back at him with the same mischief Severus remembered from when they were teenagers. "Distractingly so, sometimes," he confessed. "All these Order meetings, and the staff meetings back when I worked here. Pretty sure Filius thought I had bronchitis, I was constantly coughing to hide my laughter." That gaze changed, sparking with heat that curled right around Severus' insides. "That, and the fact that I am unendingly and overwhelmingly turned on by the sight of you absolutely ripping someone to shreds with that razor-sharp tongue of yours," he drawled, a hint of a growl creeping in. "It's quite a problem, really."
Severus' eyes widened. But really, he shouldn't have been so surprised. Remus Lupin appeared to have been crafted by the universe specifically for Severus in every other way, why not also have him be aroused by what usually made Severus so hated?
Merlin, to think — he actually got to spend the rest of his life beside this man.
.-.-.
Harry should have suspected, really, that Susan had tricked him. With her 'you do the hard part, Harry, and I'll take care of the rest', placating him and encouraging him to just take care of her little Dark Lord problem, promising he could rest when that was done, and then dragging him into this.
There was so much to do, now they were part of the Wizengamot. The actual rebuilding of the Ministry was not their problem — certainly wasn't Harry's problem, anyway, though he knew Susan was helping her aunt out. And sometimes Kingsley came to Harry for a quick chat about his opinion on things. But that wasn't really working on it! The man asked the same things of Sirius and Narcissa and Remus, even Snape! But outside of that, there were just so many laws. He'd known this, logically. He'd spent more time than he cared to count over the last three and a half years reading through books full of those laws, finding all the ridiculous ones that were still somehow in place. Susan had made it sound so easy — like they would just make a big list of all the shit laws, throw out the entirely barbaric ones and re-write the less barbaric ones to be actually decent.
She had said nothing about the arguing.
In the Wizengamot chamber, every single law had to be discussed. It didn't matter that all of Susan's reasoning had been written out in very clear statements for the other Wizengamot members to peruse at their leisure, and it didn't matter that there was enough of a majority within their alliance that the laws were absolutely going to pass anyway — every one of them had to be brought to the table, and everyone was allowed to say their piece before a vote could even be taken. And everyone had opinions.
It had really quite disrupted the older members of the Wizengamot, the first time there had been any true resistance against one of Susan's suggestions — the suggestion to abolish the awful creature laws that stopped 'dark' creatures from keeping jobs, and get rid of the werewolf registration committee. Arasi Shafiq had aggressively pressed questions and scenarios against Susan in an attempt to make her back down, and had definitely not expected Daphne Greengrass to stand up and tackle his criticisms. Nor had he expected Harry to be right behind her.
The students quickly learned that the old guard, as they called them, had thought Susan the only politically-minded one of the lot of them, the rest of them led around like sheep, just agreeing with whatever their friend said. They didn't realise that all of them had spent the last several years helping Susan research these laws and consider corrections that wouldn't utterly terrify the wizarding world with their radical changes. That all of them knew these proposals inside and out, and had put more thought into every one than Harry suspected the previous Wizengamot had put in to an entire year's worth of meetings. Susan might be their spokesperson, the one running the show, but that didn't make the rest of them idiots. They were young, but they were all capable. They knew enough of the world to know what problems they most needed to fix.
Personally, Harry couldn't wait for the Wizengamot and the Ministry to meet Justin Finch-Fletchley. They thought Susan was bad on her own…
They would learn.
Regardless, Harry was feeling quite duped by Susan Bones and her promises that restructuring the wizarding world would be less work for him than destroying Voldemort.
At last, the pair of them finished the reading they were doing in a small conference room off of Amelia's office; it was a counter-proposal to their changes to the laws regarding rituals for celebration, from Tiberius Ogden, and he had some decent points but Merlin it was a dry read.
"I think we can call it a day," Susan declared, rubbing at her face. She wasn't supposed to spend too much time reading, her eye not used to taking the full strain by itself. It gave her headaches, and then Theo gave murder-eyes to whoever let his girlfriend work herself up into said headaches.
"Please, God, yes," Harry blurted, making the redhead giggle. "We've got some easier laws next, right? Nothing likely to get their backs up like this?" He hadn't thought something as simple as bringing the traditional Yule and Samhain and Beltane rituals back into legality would be so divisive; half the purebloods had been secretly practicing them for years anyway. It wasn't like they were trying to bring back blood rituals!
"Yeah, don't worry — the next few are just abolishing all those stupid ancient laws about flying carpet regulations."
Harry sighed in relief, packing up the papers around him into his new dragonhide briefcase. It was a belated birthday present from Charlie — ethically sourced, from a dragon who had died of natural causes. It was bigger on the inside, locked to everyone but him, and with the naturally spell-resistant hide could be used as a shield in a pinch.
Harry wasn't sure what it said about him that, even with the Dark Lord gone, his family still expected him to get into the types of situations that would require an unexpected shield.
Packed up and ready to go, Susan slipped a note under Amelia's office door to tell her they were headed back to Hogwarts for the afternoon, then the pair of them headed for the lift. Even now, a week after the battle and with Harry in and out of the Ministry most days, he still got gawped at like the second coming of Merlin.
They stepped into the atrium, and immediately noticed something was off; there was a commotion further down the busy hall. Both of them had wands in their hands in a split second, creeping towards the source of the noise. Harry's heart stopped.
It was Dumbledore.
The old man looked every one of his hundred and fifteen years, his body thin beneath his lurid star-spangled red robe, his gaunt face mostly hidden by his ragged beard. His cursed hand was still shrivelled — Harry's gaze narrowed in on the ring on his finger. The resurrection stone. When had he had that re-set? Severus had told him the original ring housing it was destroyed.
"Really, I must get in to see Minister Bones immediately," he was saying, facing a security guard who looked deeply unimpressed.
"Minister Bones is busy," the guard said flatly, "and quite frankly, Mr Dumbledore, the things I've heard about you, you should be glad you're not under arrest."
"But that's just it!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "I must speak with Minister Bones and get all this straightened out. It's just a big misunderstanding, really; a silly thing that got quite out of hand!"
"You kidnapped Harry Potter!" the guard exclaimed, raising his eyebrows.
"It was a ruse!" Dumbledore said, "an attempt to distract Voldemort while Harry and I took the necessary steps to rid him of his immortality. There was never any true division between Harry and I!" he chuckled, giving that grandfatherly smile. "But as often happens with these things, the story took on a bit of a life of its own, and, well — Harry had to continue playing his part, or else the whole thing would fail."
Harry was done listening, fury rising in his belly. He turned to Susan, whose jaw was clenched tightly. "Get your aunt," he murmured. "And send a message to Mrs Frobisher." The stack of evidence of Dumbledore's crimes she'd been sitting on for the last few months was about to see the light of day.
Susan sped off, and Harry strode forward, the crowd parting once they realised who it was.
"All a ruse, was it?" he called, drawing Dumbledore's attention. "That's the first I've heard of it."
The old man's blue eyes flashed angrily, just for a moment, before they were back to their twinkling warmth. "Harry, my boy. It's so good to see you alive and well!"
"Really, because last time we met you had me tied to a bed with my magic bound, telling me how you needed to kill me to excise the evil within me from the world."
"You don't understand, Harry!" Dumbledore insisted. "I was misguided — I believed the piece of Voldemort within you could only be removed by your death."
"And all that stuff about how he was taking over my mind and turning me into his little minion, and how you bound my magic as a baby to try and snuff it out?"
"Everything I did, Harry, I did for your own good," Dumbledore said earnestly. Harry scoffed.
"That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. You did it for your own selfish gains — you got a taste of power after you killed Grindelwald, and decided you liked it. You manipulated the children of Hogwarts without them even realising it, turning them against each other — against anything Dark, anything traditional, anything different. You made them turn to you, praising you as some saviour of the light, when really you were destroying the magical world from the inside out! You saw the rise of Voldemort as your chance to cement yourself as the saviour once more, to have everyone worship you as the most powerful wizard of the age."
Harry smirked, watching Dumbledore stutter soundlessly. "And then there was a Prophecy, declaring a child was destined to be the one to defeat the Dark Lord. Not you. So you plotted, and you planned. And you took your chance when my parents were killed. Binding my magic, placing me with abusive muggles, leaving me entirely oblivious to my true place in the world. Then introducing me to magic through the most prejudiced good people possible, letting me hear all about how terrible and evil Slytherin house is, enough to have me argue the Sorting Hat out of putting me there!"
He couldn't stop himself now; all the things he'd kept bottled up inside came spilling out of him in one furious tirade. "And if that wasn't bad enough, you manipulated people I thought were my friends into spying on me, making sure I was making the right choices. You drowned me in compulsions until I'd throw myself into the danger that you orchestrated with a fucking smile on my face, and ignore every bit of the world except the bits you deemed acceptable for me! Was it fun for you, making your little plans to test how far I would go without getting myself killed? Making me hate myself, making me believe I had nothing — making me believe my life was only worthwhile as a sacrifice so others could live? You decided from the second you saw that scar on my head that I had to die, so you turned me into a living bomb, chaining my magic so tight that I'd level all of fucking Hogwarts when I came of age unless you chose to release it. All so I could fulfil my destiny and you could sweep in and take care of the rest, claim my death was a tragic accident and go on acting like your every word is fucking gospel."
Harry trembled with rage as he stared at Dumbledore, his words spent — what else was there to say? None of it would change anything. None of it would make Dumbledore feel one single speck of remorse for what he'd put Harry through, what he'd put all of them through.
"Harry…" Dumbledore's mouth drew in a frown, his eyes going serious. "I see now that you are not as free of his influence as I thought. All of these lies fed to you, this poison against me — can't you see how he lurks within you still? His soul, bound to yours?" He shook his head sadly. "As long as he is present, there is a chance for his return, a chance to ruin the peace we have all worked so hard for." The old man drew his wand, and Harry tensed. "I am truly sorry it has come to this, my boy, but sometimes difficult decisions must be made. It is for the greater good."
The first spell came hurtling towards him, and sent the crowd of onlookers scattering. Harry ducked it, firing back one of his own immediately. He could hardly believe this was happening, hardly believe Dumbledore was trying to kill him in the middle of the Ministry. What did he hope to achieve, even if he succeeded?
All people would see was him murdering their saviour. He was truly mad if he thought he could repair his reputation enough to save that.
But Dumbledore was giving it all he had; this was not like his duel with Voldemort, in this very space just over a year ago. That duel had been a show of power, a brag, a mockery. Not to harm but to make the other feel inferior.
This time, Dumbledore was aiming to kill.
But he was not the man he had been a year ago. And Harry was not the same boy he had been, either.
Draco was right; the power difference between them was almost laughable. Dumbledore was clearly trying his hardest, and Harry wasn't even struggling with it. Considering the other man had the Deathstick, the Elder Wand, it was truly a show of how far he had fallen.
Or perhaps the wand recognised Harry as a Peverell, and refused to try too hard against one touched by Death. Either way, Harry knew he had to end it before someone else got hurt. There were at least forty other people still in the atrium, and Dumbledore did not seem to care about who he hit in the process as long as Harry was dead.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry yelled, hoping to Disarm the man so the aurors could deal with him. The spell hit Dumbledore with enough force to knock him to the ground, while the wand jumped straight into Harry's left hand. The moment it touched his skin, it felt like a livewire pressing against him, power coursing through his body.
"Albus Dumbledore, you are under arrest!" Tonks' voice called out over the chatter of the crowd. She strode over with a pair of aurors at her back, and Dumbledore gasped where he was crumpled on the floor.
"No! You can't— you don't understand! The boy must die!" He was clutching at his chest, craning up to look at Harry, shock filling his face when he saw the Elder Wand in the Gryffindor's hand. "No! My… my wand." The last word came out as a breathy croak, and Harry saw the exact moment life left Albus Dumbledore's body. The Elder Wand seemed to shiver in his hand, warm against his palm. In the middle of the atrium, Albus Dumbledore slumped down, utterly still.
Not waiting for Tonks to move, Harry strode up to him. He had to know, had to see if there was any truth to this Master of Death business. Surely, as a Peverell — as Lord Peverell — he would feel something of that connection if it existed.
Harry dropped to his knees at Dumbledore's side, looking right into the man's blank eyes. As if in a trance, he reached out, placing a hand on his thin chest. He wasn't breathing. There was no magic to him, not even a tiny fading spark. Just… nothing.
"He's dead," he announced dully, looking up at Tonks. "I suppose the shock was too much for him. That curse in his hand…" He trailed off; let the public make of that what they will.
They couldn't say Harry killed him. Everyone had seen it was a simple Disarming charm he had thrown.
How much damage Harry had done with such a simple spell, over the years.
No one moved. No one seemed to know what to do now — Dumbledore had been raving madness to his very last breath, but before all that he'd been a beacon of hope to them all. How was one supposed to react to that?
Looking back down at the body, Harry's gaze caught on a glint of something shiny.
Where Dumbledore's withered hand was still at his chest, there shone the resurrection stone on its plain silver ring. Once a horcrux, now both so much less and so much more.
It was as if another entity was moving Harry's body. Discreetly, as if just adjusting Dumbledore's robe, Harry reached forward and slipped the ring off the blackened, shrivelled finger. He tried not to shudder as he touched the cursed flesh; that dark magic was long inert, now.
He pulled back, dropping the ring in his pocket as he got to his feet.
"I'm going back to the school," he said, looking at Tonks as he spoke, barely even noticing the rest of the room. Tonks reached out as if to hug him, to say something, but let her hand fall awkwardly in the space between them.
"Okay. I… we'll sort things out here."
That was all Harry wanted. No one stopped him as he strode towards the floo, picking up the briefcase he had dropped in the fight. No one said a word as he grabbed a handful of green powder and tossed it into the flames, calling for the school and disappearing in a whirl of ash and flames.
The floo spat him out into the Great Hall. Harry took one look at the people gathered there — Sirius and Narcissa and Draco and Charlie, staring at him with confusion at his blank-faced gaze, at the familiar second wand in his hand — and turned on his heel, walking straight into the wall beside the fireplace.
He needed to be alone.
.-.-.
Alone, it turned out, was not quite how he ended up; in his emotional state the castle had interpreted his request for privacy in the usual way, taking him down to the Chamber of Secrets. The one place no other living person could reach, not even Neville — like Harry, he could now walk through walls in Hogwarts, but even the castle would not take him to Slytherin's chamber without permission.
No other living person was down there. But the portrait of Salazar Slytherin had plenty to say about Harry's abrupt arrival.
In a way, the castle did the right thing — Harry needed to talk to someone, but he needed someone who would understand, who wouldn't judge him. Someone who had seen far too much of the world to be concerned by Harry's fucked up and complicated feelings about the death of his old headmaster, technically at his hand. "What if that's what the Prophecy meant all along?" Harry pondered, lying on his back on the sofa in Salazar's office, staring up at the ceiling. "What if defeating a Dark Lord meant both of them? I know Dumbledore wasn't exactly a Dark Lord but he was certainly cruel and manipulative enough to count for something."
"Does it change anything, if it did?" Salazar pointed out. "They're both dead now. You still live. That is all that matters."
"But… he was everything, to so many people. For a while he was everything to me." Dumbledore had been the most incredible person in the world, to eleven year-old Harry. The man who had saved him from the Dursleys and brought him to this wondrous world of magic and warmth and home.
And then Harry had discovered the truth of it all, and everything had been ruined.
"Often our idols will shatter the pedestals we put them on, in the end," Salazar said wisely. "Your Albus Dumbledore, while I'm sure a very powerful and capable wizard in his time, was just a man. And men are far too easily corruptible." He frowned down at his young heir. "You have hated this man for longer than you have loved him. You have spent months preparing to destroy his reputation so that he can rot in Azkaban. Now he is dead and gone and no longer has any sort of hold over your life. You should be happy."
Harry snorted bitterly. He wasn't sure what he felt right now, but happy certainly wasn't it.
"Are you upset because he did not suffer?" Salazar asked, no judgement in his tone. "Because he will not live to see you destroy the world's view of him? Because from the sounds of things, you had begun to do so long before today. He spent the last few months of his life in hiding because of you — he got to see the consequences of his actions, if only in part. And he got to see you succeed without him, see you loved and happy despite everything he tried to ruin. He suffered the loss of his dignity, the loss of his magic, the loss of his influence; all in a very public forum. Does that make you feel better?"
Part of Harry hated it, because damn it all, it did.
"I don't know what I want," he admitted. "I don't know what I feel. I just… I didn't expect it to go this way." This didn't feel like closure, or relief. He just felt… hollow.
"That's normal," Salazar told him, surprisingly gentle. "I daresay you have the right to be confused about it all. But I also think that the best thing for it is time, and comfort. From actual, living humans." Harry gave him a look, and Salazar stared back, unrelenting. "Go back up to the castle, Harry. Find your family, and that young man of yours. Allow them to help you through this — you may find they have a similar mindset."
Harry made to argue, then paused; Dumbledore had ruined more lives than just his. He'd cursed Remus with the spell to make his werewolf half hate him, to use him as an example of the kind of beasts that needed taming even if they meant well. He'd let Sirius languish in Azkaban for twelve years because he couldn't bear to have someone around who cared more about Harry than the war. He'd forced Snape to do terrible, terrible things in the name of spying, and allowed the teenage Marauders to harass and almost murder him in the name of friendly house rivalry.
Maybe they would understand a little of what he was feeling.
"Fine, you win," he muttered, glaring at the smug portrait. "I'm going."
"Your life will be much easier once you learn to accept that I am always right," Salazar replied. It was such a Slytherin thing to say it made Harry snort as he stepped through the wall, reappearing in the Great Hall exactly where he'd left it.
Immediately, Sirius jumped to his feet, bundling him in a hug. "Oh, thank fuck, there you are!" He pulled him close, kissing his crown. "Susan came and told us what happened. Harry… I'm so sorry you had to go through that, love, I truly am."
Harry gripped the front of his godfather's blouse, throat aching and eyes itching like he was going to cry but the tears didn't come. He couldn't steady his tumultuous emotions long enough for his body to decide to cry.
Sirius just held him, murmuring words of comfort, carding a hand through his hair. "Everything is gonna be alright, kiddo," he promised. "It's all over now. Everything's done. You can rest."
Choking on a ragged breath, Harry did just that, burying his face in Sirius' chest and just falling into the embrace. Sirius kept him upright, leading him over to the nearest bench so he could sit and just hold Harry like he was a small child, cradling him. Harry didn't even notice when the animagus lifted his wand and send off a Patronus.
He did notice when several more sets of footsteps entered the hall. He raised his head, seeing the whole family — Charlie, the two Malfoys, Remus and Snape — come hurrying over, stopping just short of the embracing pair.
"Harry," Draco started, worry plain on his face. "I… are you alright?"
"We looked everywhere," Remus said, "where did you even go?"
Draco and Snape both had knowing expressions, and Harry just shook his head. Now wasn't the time to drop that bombshell. "Doesn't matter," he murmured. "I just… I needed some space."
"Of course, yeah," Draco agreed instantly. "Are you okay?"
Harry couldn't help but laugh. What a ridiculous question.
"Tell you what, pup," Sirius murmured, chin still propped on Harry's head. "I think it's time we all went home. We've been living in this bloody castle long enough — you need some distance from this place before you're back in it for the next four months."
"It would do my old heart some good if we didn't live in a place where you could walk through the walls whenever you please," Remus agreed, making Harry smile despite himself.
Home sounded good.
"I— I need to go pack, then," he started, trying to wrestle his way out of Sirius' embrace, but the dark-haired man held fast.
"The elves can handle it," he insisted. "Your friend Dobby."
"I'll send word to Minerva," Snape volunteered.
It seemed they wanted to get Harry home before he changed his mind, wandered off through another wall to a place where they couldn't follow. Guilt gnawed at him for that — it wasn't fair on them, he shouldn't have done that, he just kept worrying people — but he pushed it away, letting Sirius pull him to his feet and start directing him towards the door.
One of these days, Harry would have to figure out if his manipulation of the wards extended to apparating through them. Having to walk all the way to the gates was such a pain.
But not now. He was not in the emotional state to be experimenting with that.
The sight of Seren Du towering ahead of him made Harry's knees weaken with relief. This was a place that the war hadn't touched, this was safety and comfort and home. Ceri greeted them at the door, beaming. "Ceri is glad to have Masters and Mistress home!" she chirped.
"We're glad too, Ceri. Would you do a round of hot chocolates up to the family living room, please?" Sirius requested. "And then when you've got time, head to Hogwarts and help Dobby pack up all our things? We left a bit abruptly."
The elf nodded, disappearing, and Harry dragged his feet up the stairs, still tucked under Sirius' arm. In the living room, the pair collapsed on the sofa together, Sirius easily shifting to cuddle Harry, stretched out across the cushions. A quick spell from Draco had both of their shoes removed, the blond offering a gentle smile.
Harry hoped he wasn't upset, didn't take it personally that Harry was so attached to Sirius. He just… needed a parent, right now.
Ceri arrived with hot chocolate, and Harry sat up carefully so he didn't spill. Holding the warm mug in both hands, he sipped the sweet liquid, feeling it run all the way down to his stomach. His shoulders eased, his brain finally able to think of something other than Dumbledore's eyes losing their twinkle for good, locked with his.
He looked up. Across from him, Remus smiled. "Chocolate cures everything," he said knowledgeably. Harry snorted.
"I just… I can't believe he's gone," he breathed, shaking his head. "I didn't— I didn't mean to."
"No one blames you, pup," Sirius said immediately. "Everyone there saw you use a Disarming charm. He was just old, and suffering under that curse."
"It's a miracle he lasted as long as he did," Severus confirmed.
Harry wondered how it would have been, if Dumbledore had died in whatever hole he was hiding in. How long before any of them would have known?
Would it have felt better than this?
"End of an era," Charlie murmured, "and a new one begins." He smiled encouragingly at Harry. "Good thing we've got so many of us making sure it's a bloody good one, eh?"
His words eased something deep within Harry's chest — the worry that he might be becoming like Dumbledore, or worse, like Voldemort. Too powerful, too unquestioned, too unfettered.
Too loved.
It was a different kind of love, he decided. He had the kind of love that was not blind devotion, but the kind that would smack him over the head and tell him he was being a prick when he needed it. The kind that would hold him accountable.
This was not one person building a new empire. This was a whole team of them, building a community.
He sipped at his hot chocolate, and leaned against his godfather, waiting for one of them to ask him to put a name to his feelings, to let it out, so to speak.
But they didn't. They all just remained silent, drinking and sitting with each other and offering merely their presence to ease Harry's heart. If he had wanted to speak, they would have listened. But they wouldn't push.
When Ceri came to collect their empty mugs, Sirius quietly declared it bedtime, making Harry realise just how long he had spent down in Salazar's office. No wonder they were all worried.
Every single one of them hugged him goodnight, even Snape. The tall Slytherin paused, his hands on Harry's shoulders. "You have released me from two masters, now," he murmured, eyes meeting Harry's, voice fraught with emotion, "I don't know if you understand how impossible I believed that to be. You are a marvel, Harry Potter. But you are not an island."
Then he kissed Harry's forehead and turned him around, straight into Draco's arms. "Don't let that old fool's nonsense get in your head," he said, louder. "He is but a footnote in history, now."
Harry nodded solemnly, and let his boyfriend lead him to bed.
It felt like a lifetime since he'd last been in his room in Seren Du. So much had happened since then. He was a different person, practically.
But some things were the same. Like Draco fussing over him as he put his pyjamas on, rolling into the centre of the bed to pull Harry close, their legs tangling together. "I love you," Draco whispered, lips pressed to his hair. "Whatever you need, I'm here. No matter what."
For some reason, that did it. That loosened off the vice grip inside his chest, shook out all the emotions jumbled up inside him.
Finally the tears came.