Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After the battle, the trials that followed it, rebuilding Hogwarts and attending endless funerals, Harry had wanted to do with the wizarding world. This universe that had once seemed so, for lack of a better word, magical, had only been surrounding him with pain, as of late. But, to be fair to the world that had also provided him with freedom and unconditional love, maybe pain following him wherever he went had nothing to do with magic and more to do with Harry’s own eternal streak of bad luck.

He’d confirm his theory after moving back to the muggle world, choosing to live amongst them for a full year.

It wasn’t a complete detox. After all, he still needed to see his friends and family, and eventually decide what to do for a living, but the peace the muggle world provided him, with no fans or enemies that recognized him everywhere he went, or empty spaces left by ghosts of people he felt personally responsible for losing, had made him stay for much longer than he’d originally planned.

However, the muggle world was not — and had never been — free of tragedy and pain. It was tough, to have a magic stick that could make what in their eyes was impossible, possible, and walk by people starving and freezing to death on the streets of muggle London, unable to aid them without breaking the Statute of Secrecy, and whatever other ridiculous rules the wizarding world had arbitrarily set against it, out of fear of losing something that they’d done nothing to deserve or feel that entitled to.

That’s the dark space where his mind got stuck in, as it so often did, while he was on the underground on his way to St. Mungo’s. A man was sleeping across a line of seats, and Harry couldn’t help but stare, his fingers itching to reach for the wand in the inner pocket of his coat and fix the holes in his clothes. The piles of generational money felt heavy in his pockets, like they were actually in them, weighing him down. It was easy to feel guilty about his privilege and forget about all he’d lost and been through, even on the day he was visiting his friend at the hospital, who was in a coma due to a war he’d died in.

When he saw the train was about to reach his station, he pulled a couple of spare pound notes out of his pocket and approached the sleeping man, which was just an excuse to get near him without raising any suspicion. As he sneaked the notes into the man’s pocket, he reached into his own and wrapped his hand around his wand. With a minuscule flick, he cast a warming spell over the sleeping man, watching the muscles of his body immediately relax before walking out of the carriage and into the platform.

As he walked towards the nearest floo, his headphones filled his ears with melancholic rock music and his heart with more angst than he needed before meeting his friends for an already depressing enough reason, so he turned off the music and switched his walkman to radio, hoping whatever trashy pop song was playing would at least cheer him up a little.

Cher had just finished singing the words after love for what had to be the millionth time when he walked into the library that Natalie, a thirty two year old half-blood witch, owned in a particularly bohemian area of London. She was friendly, and she never bothered Harry with autographs or intrusive questions, so Harry had decided to buy a book every time he needed to use her upstairs floo. She was too proud to accept tips, and something about the way she looked at him seemed like she could tell he was going through a lot, so Harry refused to accept her free pass.

He took off his headphones, letting them hang around his neck as he browsed his usual section: the History books. He'd never liked History, back at Hogwarts or muggle school, but he'd grabbed a book at random the first time he'd used Natalie’s floo, which just so happened to be about misconceptions of muggle wars in Ancient Rome, and after that, he a tad obsessed with reading about muggle wars, amazed at the parallels between each one and the war he'd fought in. He figured maybe understanding the cause behind wars in general would help him prevent it from happening in the wizarding world, or at the very least try.

If only it was that easy.

“Hello, Harry,” said Natalie with a smile once he finally chose a book and brought it to the counter. “Not a good day?”

“Is it ever?” He handed her a little over the amount of money the book cost, and accepted the change, just to save himself the lecture.

“Such a ray of sunshine, you are.” She handed him the book in one of her pretty decorative paper bags, with the logo of the shop on it, and he took it with an amused smile. “Have an okay day, then.”

Harry chuckled and waved at her before discreetly making his way upstairs. He knew there was some sort of disillusionment charm around the stairs, to avoid suspicion from muggles, because the first step always felt odd, like he was walking through a thin barrier of jello.

St. Mungo's was never a nice place to have to visit, no matter the reason, because there was never a good reason to be at a hospital. The bright lights blinded Harry for a second, contrasting drastically with the inherent dark grayness of London and the warm dim lights at Natalie's bookshop, and he blinked until his eyes got used to the change, grateful to have this path memorized by now.

Lavender had been in a coma since the battle, her frail body unable to handle such terrible wounds. Every time she seemed to be making a swift recovery, the full moon would throw any improvement she'd made to the trash by forcing her body to transform, even in her unconscious state; breaking her bones and putting them back together in odd angles, stretching her muscles like rubber bands, contorting her feminine face into a snout. He'd only been there for her transformation once, and never visited on a full moon again, unable to stomach the sight — or the guilt.

It was only Parvati, Ron and him today. Sometimes, Neville and Luna would visit as well, but they were in training to become the next Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures professors, and with April came NEWTs revision and last minute assignment submissions, so he couldn't blame them.

“Harry! I'm so glad you're here!” exclaimed a teary-eyed Parvati, throwing herself at Harry, who did his best to catch her in his arms. “You need to stop them,” she said, “you need to tell them we're not giving up yet! They'll listen to you.”

“Stop them?” he asked with a frown, looking up at Ron for answers.

His best friend, looking much older than he was, took a deep breath and ran his hand over his face. “The healers think,” he started saying, very slowly, “that since she hasn't gotten any better, or showed signs that she ever will, it would be more… humane,” he paused briefly, and Harry saw him struggle to get the next words out, swallowing hard and blinking tears out of his eyes, “to let her go.”

Harry's heart sunk in his chest.

He'd known since the moment he first saw her, after the battle, that she'd never be the same after she recovered, and a heartbroken Poppy Pomfrey had explained to them, at length, how difficult it would be for her to make it out of this alive, but even then, he’d foolishly continued hoping. After all, how many times had he avoided death, against all odds, because of sheer luck? Why couldn't it be the same for her, just this once? Why couldn't it have been that way for everyone else who died for him?

Was that the price he had to pay for his survival? To watch everyone he loved die, so he wouldn't have to?

What kind of a life was that? Certainly not one worth fighting for, or sacrificing people for. His life was not worth any more than the lives of others in his life. People who were much more loved, much more kind, more positive, more talented than he'd never been and ever would be.

People who lived, not because they had to, but because they were hungry to.

Harry looked down at his friend with tears in his eyes, too frozen by shock to even let them fall. Lavender had put her life on the line for him, even though he'd barely talked to her during the six years they had shared a tower, or the months she had dated his best friend. He'd learned everything he knew about her while she lay unconscious on that hospital bed, from the mouths of the people who loved her, and yet, that had made him wish he could trade places with her even more.

“Tell them!” an inconsolable Parvati said, letting go of him just to look him in the eye, tears running freely down her cheeks. “Tell them she'll be fine! Tell them you won't let them!”

“Ho– Hold on,” said Harry, taking a step back and running his fingers through his hair. The book he'd carried there from the bookshop was so heavy that the handles of the bag were cutting the circulation of his fingers, but he didn't put the bag down or switch hands, because that almost laughable little pain was grounding in the midst of the dread he was feeling at that moment. “They can't just do that, can they? Don't they need her family’s permission?”

Parvati wrapped her arms around herself and Ron enveloped her in a hug just in time for her to start crying harder, her shoulders shaking as she hid her face against the crook of his best friend's neck. “Her mum died in battle, as you know,” he explained, having been witness to several of Harry's drunken confessions and breakdowns, during which he famously insisted on naming every victim's name from memory, only to cry whenever he realized he'd forgotten a name or two, “and her stepdad being a muggle… he doesn't quite understand how magical medicine works. He thinks if magic couldn't save her, she's never gonna get better, and after seeing her transform…”

“He called her a monster!” bellowed Parvati, letting out a heartbreaking sob.

Ron winced, but didn't deny it or corrected her. “He wants her to have a dignified death,” he said, his voice breaking at the last word. “Before she becomes a monster for good.”

Anger burned the back of his throat like acid, helplessness filled his lungs with dark clouds of smoke that made it painful to breathe in, and for a moment, he understood why dragons spit fire whenever they caught sight of humans.

“Monster” was an appropriate word to describe the man who had taken his daughter's life from her, and not because of his fangs or his yellow eyes or the fur that covered his distorted body, but because he'd enjoyed causing other people pain for as long as he'd lived. Unlike sweet Lavender or loyal Remus, who had spent all their lives caring for others and hoping to get only their love in return.

Harry had met real monsters. He'd spent years under their care and trying to get away from their clutches. He'd looked them in the eye, while they lied through their teeth, spat out the most cutting insults and made promises they never intended to keep, just to get what they wanted, which more times than not was just to watch others suffer. Those were monsters. The girl on the hospital bed in front of him, with baby blue bows in her blonde curls, that had been carefully washed and braided by her best friend consistently for a year, would never be one.

But Harry might as well be one too, because as he watched her previously mentioned best friend sob uncontrollably in his own best friend's arms, he didn't know what to say to her.

It was unlikely for Harry to have any positive thoughts at all, nowadays, as hard as he tried to see the bright side of things. Most things in his life didn't have a bright side. This certainly didn't. Not to mention, everything that he could think to say to her would only make things worse.

I'm sorry.

I wish I could die instead.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I should've let Him kill me before they got to her.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I wish I hadn't been born.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Sometimes I think I'm cursed and everyone who knows me is destined to die. You should get away from me, as fast as you can, and tell everyone to do the same.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

He heard Ron call his name before his vision became clear again and he realized he had walked out of the room. His breathing was picking up a dangerous pace, and so were his feet. He didn't know where he was going, he just walked, and walked, and walked, taking more oxygen than his body needed, or maybe less, in smaller, quickly succeeded doses.

When he dared to look around, to figure out where he'd ended up, he had to blink the blurriness out of his eyes before he could tell the different blobs apart. The sage green walls told him he was on the fourth floor of St. Mungo's, but the beige capes over the usual white robes of the healers walking around him told him he was on the Mind Curses and Hexes wing, where Neville's parents lived.

He didn't have time to catch his breath or laugh at the irony of walking himself to the nuthouse in the middle of a panic attack, because the otherwise neutral colored vision in his line of view was stained by a black and white figure.

What was Pansy Parkinson doing there? He hadn't seen her since the battle, but he had assumed she had fled the country with her family, like most Slytherins and yet-to-be-caught Death Eaters. Had one of her loved ones been attacked? And if that was the case, had it happened during the battle or recently?

Was she yet another person he'd failed to protect and checked up on?

Her skin, as always, looked so white and flawless that the fluorescent lights of the hospital made it seem like porcelain. She was dressed in all black, as if she was planning to attend a funeral later. Maybe she was, Harry was more surprised to hear good news and joy on people's faces nowadays than he was to see tragedies play out. Sorrow was a common occurrence, even without a war, he'd unfortunately learned.

She didn't break eye contact to run, or apologize, or even sneer at him, which were the only three things he could imagine going down during any encounters with Pansy. Her face was free of pain, anger, annoyance, shame or regret. She was simply staring at him, calmly, and he stared back.

At first, something about her presence made him deeply uncomfortable, enough to send a shiver down his spine. But then, a sense of calm filled him from head to toe, making every breath easier and getting rid of the pressure on his chest, the invisible hand around his throat, the tension in his shoulders and the tightness of his jaw. The anxiety and sadness he'd been carrying around for longer than he could remember was, for a blissful moment, completely gone. He was numb, but not in the emotionless way he'd been feeling for the past year or so.

Breathing felt as easy yet beautifully cyclical as watching ocean waves hit the boulders at the beach. Keeping his body still was no longer something that required any effort on his part, and he was acutely aware of how he wasn't shifting his weight from leg to leg, or taking minuscule steps back and forth, or repeatedly tapping the floor with the heel of either of his feet. He wasn't thinking about anything or anyone at all, he was merely an observer of the girl in front of him and the movement happening in his peripheral vision.

For a moment, he just existed, and that was enough.

Whether they stayed there like that for a second or a year, Harry couldn't tell, but at some point, he had blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, she wasn't there anymore. Poof. Gone. Like she had apparated, without a wand or the usual sound and flash of light that came with it. She had simply disappeared, and it seemed more plausible that he had imagined it all.

Chapter Text

As he put on his best formal robes, Harry wondered if maybe the little break he got from his own mind at the hospital had actually been a gift from the gods, to make it up to him, in preparation for the day that awaited him the week after. He hadn't been at Hogwarts since its reopening, after fixing the cracks on its ancient walls and wiping the blood of the people that had died in battle for him off the marble floors. It had only felt right to help, even if each bloodstain and new ghost sighting made the guilt heavier on his chest. But after making sure not a single brick was missing, attending the re-opening ceremony and later the memorial service for all the lost students, Harry did everything in his power to avoid stepping on Scottish land, let alone get anywhere near the magical castle that had once been the only home he'd ever known.

The first anniversary of the battle seemed like a monumental enough occasion to make his return. He knew he would have to, eventually, because that's what people expected him to do, and McGonnagal was starting to get angry at him for not visiting and for making Hagrid sad over the same thing.

It was the least he could do.

There was a knock on his door, in the pattern that Hermione had insisted on creating and teaching both Harry and Ron, for safety, after Harry had gone through one too many negative experiences with fans, enemies and friends sneaking into his home or lying about the reason behind their visit, just to attack him or ask him for favors, and he'd emphatically declared he was going to permanently remove the floo network in his home.

He checked his face in the mirror one last time, deciding he couldn't do anything about his unruly hair or the perpetually dark circles under his eyes, before walking out of his bedroom to open the door.

“Oh, Harry!” exclaimed Hermione as she launched herself into his arms, in true Hermione fashion, and enveloped him in a hug. He wrapped one arm around her waist, because his other hand was shaking and gripping his wand with white knuckles, and shared an amused look with Ron that neither of them meant, as it had always been their way to mask their fondness for the loving witch. “Ron told me! About Lavender and Parvati and your—” She shook her head against his shoulder, not daring to say the words panic attack or mental breakdown out loud, probably because she knew him well enough to know not to discuss his mental health without either sedating him or hexing him stiff first. “Ugh. I'm just so, so sorry.”

“It's alright,” he said softly, swallowing the guilt in his throat, hoping it would put out the fire in his chest on its way down. “There’s really nothing I could've done.”

“It shouldn't be on you to do anything!” She pulled away, breaking the hug just to look into his eyes with her own misty ones, holding him gently by the arms. “I’m sorry I wasn't there. I should've been there.”

“What for?”

“For support!”

“C’mon. You guys couldn't stand each other before she—”

“That hardly matters now, and you know it, Harry.” She bit her bottom lip and looked down at her shoes. “And I meant… to support you two. You're the ones suffering, not her.”

He scoffed. “I'm sure her father would like to differ, after seeing what he's seen her go through.”

She shot a stern look at him. “Don't.”

“What?”

“Don't do that to yourself,” she said softly. “She can't feel it. She can't feel anything.”

A frown took over his face, and suddenly, her touch felt like it was burning his skin, even over his clothes. He wanted nothing more than to push her away, to run and hide. He didn't. “You don't know that. Nobody knows that.”

“Well…” He watched her throat bob as she swallowed. “If she is, then this will be a merciful thing.”

The hands he had over her elbows dropped to the sides of his body in defeat, devastated by the knowledge that she agreed with Mr. Brown. “How can you say that?”

“I know it's not what you want to hear,” she said while keeping her hands occupied by tying the knot of his tie. Only then it clicked that he hadn't, in fact, tied it himself like he thought, and had instead stared off into space while holding both of its ends for a solid ten minutes. “Especially not today. I know it's hard to keep losing people to the battle long after it ended. I know you're still in savior mode.” She finished the knot and pointedly glared at him, though it had no edge to it. “But hopefully, you'll see it before it's too late.”

“What am I supposed to see exactly?” he asked, raising his voice a little too much, pushing a little too hard, enough for Ron to send him a warning look and wrap a protective arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders. “That giving up on our friends, who fought alongside us, is good?”

“Forcing them to suffer more than they have to, instead of letting them go, just so you can feel less guilty, is not the selfless good deed you think it is, Harry.”

A cruciatus to the chest would've hurt less.

Hermione sighed, but her eyes softened on him. He hated the pity he saw in them. “It's not your fault. But it will be, if you keep this up. Her friends and family need to grieve to move on. You need to grieve and move on. It's killing us to see you like this.”

His eyebrows went up to his hairline. “Us?” He looked at his best friend, but Ron wouldn't meet his eyes, and guilt was the only thing he found on his face. That's when it dawned on Harry: they had discussed him, at length, behind his back. The thought of them being concerned, or angry, or sad for him made him sick. He’d made them worry way too many times before, and his sulking wasn’t a good enough reason to put them through that again, when they were so happy together. He wasn't ready to move on. How could he move on from such a thing? But he didn't want them to be stuck with him either. “I see,” he managed to say, but he had to clear his throat after getting those two simple words out, hating how raw his voice had sounded.

“Don’t do that,” reprimanded Hermione.

“Don’t do what?”

“Push us away! We’re allowed to be worried,—”

“I never said you weren’t!”

“—you’re our friend.”

“I know that.”

“Well, it certainly hasn’t felt that way lately.” The bluntness of her words shocked both him and Ron, and he thought he saw a bit of fear in her eyes after she said it, like he was a flight risk and she had just said the triggering word that would get him to leave. Maybe he was. It was all he wanted to do at that moment: to run. Away from their concern and disappointment. Away from the guilt, so much guilt, weighing down on him, keeping his head down. Her eyes softened on him, probably noticing his change of demeanor, which only made Harry want to go hide under his bed even more. “Don’t forget we want you around, Harry.” She swallowed hard before speaking again. “We fought to have you around.”

Before he could ask himself what exactly was he doing with the life they had fought so hard for him to have, Hermione took a deep breath, smiled at him, and proceeded to push both him and Ron towards the door, babbling something about the time it would take them to walk the distance between Harry's place and The Spellbook — Natalie’s bookshop and their nearest floo connection.

“Harry, hi, I’m so sorry—” Her eyes found Ron and Hermione, and Harry was grateful he was being saved from the whole sorry for your loss speech, which he was anticipating to hear more times than he could stomach throughout the day. “Oh, it’s all three of you! How nice!”

Speaking of Natalie, as soon as he saw her, he wanted to hug her legs and beg her to hide him somewhere in the bookshop, out of sight from the reporters and the grieving families that were waiting for him on the other side of her floo. Even her usual friendly smile had nothing against the defeatist mood he was in today.

The Spellbook was notorious for having themed displays and hot sales every other week, a smart business practice for any shop, but particularly for bookshops, since they seemed to be more and more empty every year, as both Natalie and Hermione had pointed out more times than he could count. He wasn’t sure of what the theme was this time around, but he couldn’t remember seeing as many books about the LGBT community the day before.

“Isn’t pride month in June?” he asked Natalie, and only then noticed that he had rudely interrupted her conversation with Hermione, if the latter’s glare was anything to go by.

“Yeah,” she said, following his eyes to the pride collection of books that were being displayed right by the door, as if daring anyone who was against the community to enter and find out what the consequences would be. “They caught the nutcase that’s been bombing marginalized communities lately, so we’re kind of celebrating but also raising awareness. A shame so many people had to die to get him behind bars, though. Too light of a punishment to my taste. Makes me miss dementors, y’know?”

Instead of grabbing her pen and fidgeting with it, which is a frequent habit of hers, she grabs one of the mini pride flags in a festively decorated tin can to her right on the counter and starts fidgeting with its plastic flagpole. As his eyes follow that movement, he notices the muggle newspaper next to the can of pride flags. Its headline reads: “BLAST VICTIM WAS PREGNANT” in big bold black letters, and Hermione’s questions about the Black History collection being displayed somewhere else in the shop faded to the background as he started reading the rest of the story.

Apparently, the victims of this particular bombing had been a married couple and two of their friends, one of which had been the best man at their wedding, and Harry’s mind was immediately invaded by the memory of his parents in their wedding pictures, smiling at each other, kissing, dancing, tipping their heads back and laughing with their arms wrapped around Sirius and Remus. The attacker was older than him by only three years, and he kept picturing different faces of people he knew that were capable of such horrible acts of violence over his face.

Muggles and wizards weren’t as different as blood supremacists wanted to believe.

“Harry!” exclaimed Hermione, apparently not for the first time.

Ron’s eyes were softer on him, and so was his voice when he asked, “You alright, mate?”

“Yeah…” He slid his hands under his glasses and rubbed his eyelids, trying to brush away the images of his parents, uncles and friends dying.

“You sure?”

The smell of blood, the tiny crumbs of rubble in his eyes, the dust in his throat making him cough… Had they felt it all too? Had they wondered when it would end, or if it would end at all? Had they pictured themselves taking a shower and getting into their warm beds afterwards, only for their lives to end before they could?

He nodded, not bothering to try emitting any sounds.

“Let’s go, then. We’re gonna be terribly late.” She turned to look at Natalie, probably smiling as she nudged Harry towards the floo. “Lovely to see you, Nat!”

The longer they walked through the halls of Hogwarts, the more Harry’s stomach twisted into knots. There was a heavy silence hanging over them, the kind of respectful silence one is too scared to disturb at graveyards, and only the echo of their feet against the reconstructed marble floors could be heard. Within this hauntingly quiet symphony, Harry swore he could hear Fred’s carefree laughter nearby, a disgusting snake-like whisper in his ear telling him he should die, and the screams of the children who had died for him.

For the first time in a year, he willingly let them all in. He opened his heart and let sorrow take over him, grief melting all the shields and barriers he had built like corrosive acid, intrusive thoughts eating their way into his mind like worms.

He didn’t realize he was crying until he felt Ron wrap an arm around him and pull him tightly towards him, nearly making him trip and stumble forward. A sniff to his right let him know that he wasn’t the only one crying. Hermione whispered a broken little “sorry” and offered him one of the handkerchiefs she had grabbed from her purse. Ron, who apparently was in a similar predicament, sheepishly accepted the very next one.

As beautiful as the ceremony was, there had always been something dark about being at a candlelit castle, surrounded by ghosts. Needless to say, talking so much about the battle and the unnecessary amount of death that had taken place there only a year before didn’t make the atmosphere any less gloomy.

He didn’t like his speech. Everyone had cried and thanked him and patted him on the back for it, which is the kind of response he had hoped and prayed for during all those sleepless nights he had spent writing it and second guessing each word. Back when he was walking around his flat, rambling to himself, practicing every little gesture and the cadence of each word, he thought it was the respectful way to go. The bare minimum he could do to give back to those who had sacrificed their lives for him. But the moment he started speaking, it sounded so rehearsed and fake to his ears, even though he meant every single word.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Harry,” Hermione had told him, with a comforting hand on his back. “Even if you had written the perfect speech, which doesn’t exist, you still would’ve found a flaw.”

She was right, as always, of course.

Then, it became a matter of stopping himself from leaving. Finding things to do that didn't involve much talking, but that showed he cared, and staying for long enough to make everyone happy. Of course he cared about the victims and their families, and he knew his presence alone was a comfort and, in a way, a symbol of their triumph as a collective. It just hurt so fucking much to be there.

In some cases, Harry didn't even know the victims, which was guilt inducing enough. But in other cases, he knew the person's name, and had even talked to them, but not enough to know important details about them, or to have checked up on them during the battle, which made him wonder if maybe they would've lived, had he cared a little bit more. It was a reminder of just how heavy the weight on his shoulders had always been, and how inadequate he was to hold it up.

A perfect example of this was Colin Creevey. His death had always particularly affected Harry, because of the boy's admiration for him and his young age — though that was an unfortunate pattern of most of the victims of the battle. Harry couldn't help but feel especially responsible for his death, as if he had personally forced him to fight and led him to his tragic fate. He hadn't seen him during the battle until it was too late, so he didn't even know who had cast the finishing hex on him, and hearing his brother talk, he felt even more guilty for having thought of him as too annoying to spend quality time with him before his passing.

“From what mum read in his letters from the Prophet, we think they were interested in him,” his brother Dennis was saying, with a deeper voice than he remembered him having the last time he saw him. Harry tried to commit everything being said about Colin to memory. “Had a job offer lined up for him and everything. We were actually able to recover his camera. Well, the clean-up team did. He took pictures of the battle until the very last second.”

“And I'm sure those pictures will be used in history books for centuries to come,” said McGonagall with a smile, placing a comforting hand on Dennis’s back.

“He was probably holding his wand with one hand and his camera with the other, that numpty…” Dennis let out a very watery chuckle, only to hide his face against his professor's chest and start sobbing only a second after.

As all the lighthearted energy got sucked out of the room and was replaced by more sorrow, Harry had to look away. He thought about the history books he read in his spare time. Had those muggles, who did not have wands to protect themselves, died to get the pictures he spent so long staring at? The thought of it made him nauseous, enough to drive him out of the Great Hall and to the hallway that now had new portraits of their fallen heroes on display, which he'd been avoiding since he'd arrived, but were currently an easier poison to swallow compared to the very real, living and breathing grief in the other room.

He took a few deep breaths, and could only decrease his anxiety a miniscule portion before he felt someone's eyes on him.

He looked up to find Pansy Parkinson, dressed in all black, staring at him through the veil over her face. From afar, she looked like an innocent mourning woman, standing alone in a corner because everyone who previously would've been there with her, had died. Harry had seen plenty of those people, and had mastered the art of cowardly avoiding them, simply because he never knew what to say to them. However, this was different. To his knowledge, Pansy hadn't lost anyone dear to her during the battle. At least not from their side.

He frowned.

He supposed no one she cared about had been on their side, but just because they, to some degree, deserved their fate didn't make her pain over losing them any less painful, did it?

Suddenly, he was happy to see her there. Even if she gave him the creeps.

She deserved to grief, too.

He felt Ron’s hand on his shoulder before he heard or saw him. “There he is!” He turned to look at Hermione, who was rushing to catch up to them.

She sighed and put a hand on her chest. “Thank Merlin.”

“I told you he wouldn't run today.”

Ah. So they were babysitting him.

“Harry, are you okay? I swear, Ronald, if you had seen his face before he—”

“What's Parkinson doing here?” asked Harry, for some reason unable to look away from her. Not in the supernatural way he felt back in St. Mungo's, thankfully — although Harry had never missed the calm she had somehow provided more than he did in that moment — but it was still strange to feel that way about her, after years of getting the hell away from her as soon as he saw her face in the distance, knowing an insult or hex was coming his way if he let her get too close. “Do either of you know?”

“Stop looking at her,” whispered Ron, nudging him subtly. “She's bad news, is what she is. I don't know why they let her in.”

“Ron, c'mon.” Hermione gave him a warning glare. “She's been awful to us, sure, but if this inspires change in people, we should encourage it. She's not gonna magically disappear if we ignore her.”

He scoffed. “I wish she would.”

“Ronald!” she whisper-shouted, glancing nervously at Pansy, who was thankfully no longer staring at Harry and showed no signs of having heard his friend.

“If you want her out, mate, I'm sure anyone would be happy to ask her to leave in a much more polite way than I can manage.”

Harry shook his head. “No, it's— Just let her be.” He tried to swallow the lump in his throat that refused to dissolve. “We're all going through a lot. We don't know her story.”

“That's very kind and mature of you, Harry.” Hermione offered him a smile, tears already gathering in her eyes. But then, being the bright witch she'd always been, she seemed to process his words and her smile dropped. “Are you—?”

“Could you guys get me a drink?” he asked, hoping to avoid her questioning. “All this talking and crying… y'know. I really need a drink. Pumpkin juice, in fact. Could you get a goblet for me?

Ron, bless him, happy to finally have a tangible task he could help him with, immediately brightened up. “Of course! I saw some on the Ravenclaw table. We'll get you that. A treacle tart slice.”

“But—”

He took Hermione's hand, and interrupted whatever she had to say yet again. “Two slices! And the best seat!”

As soon as they were out of his field of vision, he let out a sigh and felt his shoulders drop. When had he tensed up so much? Was it before or after this conversation? Was it last night? His body had been preparing for today for weeks, like he was about to fist fight a giant.

“Oof,” he heard a familiar voice say, only to find Dean Thomas smiling sympathetically at him when he looked up. “Not looking your best today, Harry, I must admit.”

Harry winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry…”

“For what?”

“That you had to see me like this, that I haven't been able to help with Lav’s situation yet, that I suck at explaining myself…” At that last one, Dean snorted. “I'm just… sorry.”

“None of those are your fault, Harry. Not even that last one. You're quite good at explaining things, actually. Best teacher I've ever had.” With his hands still in his pockets, he nudged him with his elbow, and actually got a fraction of a smile out of him. “You're just explaining things you shouldn't explain, because they're not your fault.”

“People keep saying that, but—”

“You don't believe them,” he finished for him, raising an accusatory eyebrow that made him blush.

There was a comfortable silence between them for a moment, and Harry tried not to check if what he felt on the back on his head were Pansy's eyes, because he didn't know how Dean would react if he found out she was there, and because he felt he deserved his patience, attention and respect, in that moment.

“You've been hiding.” It wasn't a question, just a statement, so Harry didn't answer. Instead, he lowered his head in shame. “I'm not mad, Harry. I'm just worried, like everyone else,” he reassured him in that soft, soothing voice of his. It didn't feel any better than when Hermione or Ron said it, though. “And you can't get mad at me for it. I care about you and there's nothing you can do about it.”

“I know that!” he said, or rather, shouted. He didn't mean to get so angry, but today had been a lot, and he was tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. Dean was just the unlucky drop that overflowed the glass. “And I'm grateful, okay? I am! It just hurts! It fucking hurts!” He started tearing up, but he aggressively wiped away the first tear to roll down his cheek, as if warning the rest of them not to come out. “I don't understand why I deserve to be cared for and be happy, when they're all dead! And they were all robbed of this love and sympathy because of me!”

He finally let out the ugly sob that had been stuck in his throat all day, and he cried and cried and cried more of those sobs, just staring at his messily tied shoes that he couldn't even remember tying, and Dean didn't reach out to hug him or comforting once.

When he finally seemed to have run out of tears, he reached up to wipe away the rest of them with his sleeve, but Dean offered him a handkerchief before he could reach his face. He couldn't see his expression because his eyes were still wet and his glasses were foggy from his own breath, but he hoped he wasn't angry or disgusted.

“Sometimes, it's all too much,” he said in a barely audible tone. “And guys like you and me… we're not good at talking out our feelings.” Harry took off his glasses to clean them, and caught a glimpse of his sad smile. “I know a fucked up childhood when I see one. Lived one. Probably not to the same extent as you, but…” He sighed, and when Harry put his glasses back on, he was surprised to see the seriousness in his face. He supposed it made sense, in the context of their conversation, but Dean had never been a serious guy, which made Harry wonder how on earth he managed to be the happy-go-lucky boy he knew if he had, as he said, lived a fucked up childhood. But then, hadn't Harry made Ron laugh more times than he could count? Hadn't he been told by every Weasley that he was ‘so bloody funny’? “The point is, we only have two options: get addicted to something, or rely on a higher power.”

“If you say friendship, I swear to fucking god, D—”

Dean laughed and shook his head. “No, not that. I mean an actual higher power.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Are you talking about religion?”

“Yes.”

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes simply out of respect for his friend. For a moment, he'd actually thought Dean would offer a useful solution. Or give him the number of his therapist. “Since when are you religious anyway?”

Dean smiled at him, with a hint of amusement in his eyes, like he knew exactly what Harry was thinking, and was resisting the urge to make fun of him. “Since I found out Gods in the wizarding world are real.”

“What?”

“They're real.” At Harry's incredulous look, he raised his hands in theatrical defense. “I swear on my mum. She was the one who introduced me to them, after the battle.”

Harry scoffed, then shook his head in disbelief. “I knew you were taking the mickey out of me.”

“Don’t believe me if you don't want to, just do your own research. I'm just trying to help.” He started walking like he was about to leave the room, but stopped when he was shoulder to shoulder with Harry, and put a hand on his shoulder. “It saved me, man. I just want you to feel better before it's too late to get you back,” he whispered, maintaining eye contact with an intensity that made Harry squirm, only to pat him twice on the shoulder and leave, like nothing happened.

It seemed the wizarding world still had some surprises for him, after all.

Chapter Text

After checking his watch and realizing he’d only been there a torturous fifteen minutes, Harry decided he needed a cigarette before going back to the Great Hall. Of course, Hermione wasn’t pleased to see him smoking, once she and Ron finally came back with the food they had promised, but the slight relief the cigarette provided and the sight of them walking up to him with way too many treacle tart slices floating around them —which had made him laugh inappropriately loud— had been worth the scolding.

More people followed them out into the hallway, to either admire the portraits of the fallen or continue conversations that had started in the Great Hall, and Harry started suffocating again. No amount of treacle tart could help him swallow down the guilt he felt when he heard Andromeda sob after Tonk’s portrait told her off for calling her Nymphadora.

As he tried to prolong every bite for as long as possible, to keep his friends satisfied without going into a diabetic coma, he looked around the hallway and noticed there was an empty space between Fred and Colin's portraits, with a blank copper plaque underneath it, waiting for a name to be engraved on it. An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach the more he thought about the reason behind this, because no matter how hard he thought about it, he always ended up coming to the same conclusion: they were saving that spot for Lavender, in case she didn't make it.

Harry looked away from that wall, unable to stomach that thought any longer, and started looking for Pansy in the now much bigger crowd, hoping that would distract him enough from the overwhelming grief that was filling his lungs, like the ice cold water he'd almost drowned in, back in the lake at the Forest of Dean.

When his eyes found her, it was like they had set her in motion. She went from standing in her corner, completely frozen on the spot, to walking towards someone, or something, without even looking up from the floor, like a wind-up doll. It was impossible for him to see the emotions on her face through her black veil, but her walk was quick and determined. Maybe a little too quick, which made every nerve in his body tense up, sensing upcoming danger without having to see it, as easily as someone would feel the presence of their sibling in a crowded room.

A blonde, tall man stood between two paintings, leaning against the wall instead of admiring the art. His eyes were set somewhere else, on something Harry’s could not see from where he stood, but he could tell, by the way the other man’s eyes followed movement, that the subject of his fixated attention was a person.

Harry furrowed his eyebrows and leaned to the side to get a better sight of the lingering man over Ron’s shoulder, and by the time he realized the man in question was none other than Theodore Nott, Pansy was already by his side, whispering something into his ear as they both stared at whoever they were watching.

Wordlessly, he handed Ron his half-eaten plate of treacle tart and started walking towards the suspicious pair. It took only a few steps for him to get a peek of who their target was: Jerome Cuffay, Lavender’s stepdad and, coincidentally, the first muggle to step foot into Hogwarts grounds in centuries — if ever.

Before he could process this revelation, Hermione called his name, confused as to what had made Harry walk away, and making both Nott and Pansy look up at him.

He started running too late.

Not only was the other man closer to his target and in better form than Harry — which made him regret rejecting Kingsley’s offer to get right into auror training, and spending the past year sulking, drinking and smoking instead — but Pansy had also disappeared into thin air, like a muggle magician. Still, it was impossible to apparate within Hogwarts grounds, so he was hoping someone would see her frantically run from the scene and catch her before she could get away.

The medals on his chest made a clinking sound as he ran, mocking him. Because there he was again, wasn’t he? The Chosen One. The hero of the wizarding world. The one who had allegedly restored the peace, running after yet another man trying to wound an innocent person, just because of the blood running through his veins. He hadn’t done shit, and by the looks of it, he would fail again, because Theodore Nott already had his wand pointed at Jerome.

Jerome, who had been pushed into an unknown and prejudiced world against his will, and fully embraced it, for the love of a witch.

Jerome, who had adopted said witch’s daughter as his own, staying by her side even as she took the anger that came with the grief of losing her biological father out on him.

Jerome, who had lost his wife to a war he didn’t understand and could do nothing to stop.

Jerome, who was about to lose the only family he had left, his stepdaughter, to an illness he used to think of as mythological.

And Harry started seeing red, because it wasn’t fair. None of it. Not the things Jerome had lost, not the things he had sacrificed himself, not all the lives they’d given up —which flashed by him as he ran, in a mixture of memories and paintings— in hopes of a change… all in vain. All for nothing, because the war continued, just as violent and vicious and merciless as it’d been since it started in both of their worlds.

He thought about the attacker that had killed all those muggles, the one he'd seen in the newspaper at Natalie's bookshop. They had also been unsuspecting and defenseless, at the time they were attacked. They were meeting up with their friends, and the next second, that bomb went off and they were dead. They probably didn't even get to see or process what had killed them. And Theodore Nott was about to do the same thing to Jerome. He would be killed with a quick and simple hex, by something he didn't fully understand, in a matter of seconds, and much like those muggles, he was surrounded by people who had the power to stop his death from happening, but weren't paying enough attention to the danger he was in to do so.

Because, at the end of the day, that was all it came down to: minorities being targeted, people who looked the other way, governments that didn't care at best and agreed with those ideas at worst. Wars that started because the majority thought they deserved to win just because there were more of them, and ended because more people in the group they claimed to be protecting and representing were empathetic towards those being targeted than they expected. And death. So much death as a normalized casualty, as if limbs and rubble were just different types of materials to be cleaned up after a battle.

Were they doomed to repeat the same cruel “mistakes” over and over again?

He wouldn't allow it.

Not again. Not while he was alive.

He yanked Nott by the neck of his robes, pulling with enough force to make him trip backwards, but too late to stop the unforgivable curse from leaving his lips. Both of them froze on the spot at the sight of green lightning, and Harry turned his head just in time to see the spell hit Jerome on his left ribs, and then watched, almost in slow motion, as he fell to the floor unceremoniously.

There was silence for a moment. Deafening silence throughout the entire hallway, as everyone turned around and tried to find the source of the commotion, confused as to what had just happened. Harry’s eyes burned with ghosts of tears that he couldn’t bring himself to cry at the sight of Jerome’s limp body on the ground, the Patil family staring at it in horror, frozen with shock as they processed the fact that the man they had been talking to seconds ago was now dead.

Just another casualty of a war that was supposed to be over.

He turned to look at Theodore Nott, sitting on the floor, making no attempt to pull away from his tight grasp, like he had nothing to run or be ashamed for, and he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw that the bastard was fucking smiling, grinning madly like a seeker that had just caught the snitch seconds before the game was over. He didn’t care about all that Jerome had lost in the past year. He didn’t care about the girl who had been fighting to survive in St. Mungo’s, or how alone she would be, even if she managed to pull off such an impossible feat. He didn’t care about the other girl, standing just a few meters away from them, who had cried in Harry’s arms at the thought of losing her best friend, who had seen her get attacked, and who he had just traumatized further.

And in that moment, something took over Harry.

Why did he need to spare his life? What had he gotten from his pacifist attitude throughout the war, other than immeasurable losses and disappointment?

Maybe the reason assholes like Nott dared to strike again, even long after they’d lost, was because Harry had felt too morally superior to kill their leader when he had the chance, before that final battle that had caused so much destruction. Maybe — a dark thought whispered into his ear — he should’ve given him a more painful ending, to make an example out of him, and prevent future blood supremacists from rising again.

Because maybe, if people like Dumbledore and Snape hadn’t tried to keep their hands clean and their reputation secure, playing long games and making others do what they considered to be beneath them, they wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.

And if Harry needed to lose it all, to prevent more pain and suffering, then he would happily get his hands bloody.

Merlin knew he had done it before.

Before he could stop himself, his wand was pointed at Theodore Nott’s neck, and all he could think about, as he saw the tip of his wand dig into his skin, too dull to actually cause an injury without the assistance of magic, was that he wanted to cause the other boy — man, he reminded himself, they were men now — as much pain as he could, and that even if he was successful, that wouldn’t be enough punishment for the crimes he’d committed, not enough retribution for the pain he had caused, and certainly not enough to satisfy Harry’s need to see him under his foot.

The shrill voice of none other than Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman who had caused more pain to others around her than anyone else he knew, echoed in his mind, representing all the worst parts of himself: Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?

He felt the same two damning words that Nott had used against Jerome only moments before perch themselves on the tip of his tongue, like a deadly butterfly, getting ready for take-off.

You need to mean them, Potter. You need to really want to cause pain — to enjoy it — righteous anger won't hurt me for long.

If he didn’t deal with him now, he would get away, as bastards like him always did, and even if they managed to catch him, Azkaban wouldn’t fix anything. Azkaban wasn’t enough punishment. Azkaban wouldn’t bring Jerome or Lavender or that muggle couple and their baby back. In the quidditch game that was the war, their side had caught the snitch at the last second, but that didn’t matter, because the death eaters had humiliated them with a score for the record books.

The game was over, but the casualties had been too many to forgive, and Harry would make sure to get even.

“AVADA KEDAVRA!” he yelled, with so much force that he felt his throat get raw and sore before he even got the second word out, his wand moving in that lightning pattern that had been burnt into his skull eighteen years before. The last thing he saw before his vision went blurry was the shocked face of Theodore Nott, who obviously hadn’t expected Harry Potter to kill him on the spot, in front of a crowd of mourning families. Then, the other man fell unceremoniously to the ground, cold and unmoving. Just like that, Harry had terminated a life.

Reality came crashing back, like a bucket of cold water, pushing him down against the cold marble floors of the castle.

He heard several gasps, then a muffled exclamation of his name, asynchronous running steps approaching him… and then his ears started ringing. It was like his body was beginning to fail to perform its basic functions; with his hearing and vision now gone, his ribs felt tighter against his lungs, making it harder to breathe by the second, and for a moment, he was positive that he was about to die too.

Sweaty palms dragged his useless body away from Theodore Nott’s corpse, but he barely made it a few inches away before throwing up on someone’s shoes.

He coughed, which felt like being scratched by a hippogriff from the inside, due to his sore throat. He tasted the bile in his mouth the second he closed it, and a gentle hand placed itself on his trembling back as he fought against the urge to keep vomiting, disgusted by the unpleasant flavor and by his own actions.

Someone was talking to him — maybe several people — but he could not hear a word until the moment he looked up and met her eyes.

There she was again, staring him down, inexplicably getting rid of every negative emotion and sensation in his body, seemingly with just force of will. This time, though, he wasn’t as grateful for it. He wanted to keep suffering. He deserved it. Not only had he been the reason why all the innocent souls in the paintings around him had died, he had also killed a man who, some people would argue, still had plenty of time to change and reinsert himself back to society. Hell, he’d been one of the people who had argued in favor of that system. He’d shown up at every one of their trials, testified for people who had attacked and betrayed him until the very last second of the war, like Draco Malfoy, and had claimed they were both too young to be defined by their actions. And yet, there was Theodore Nott’s body, robbed of its life because Harry had been in a bad mood.

And people were comforting him.

“It’s okay, Harry,” he thought he had heard Hermione whisper, the warmth of her hand on his back and her breath against his ear felt like fire, burning him with shame. “You did what you had to do.”

Then came Ron’s voice, angrier than hers, most likely affected by Jerome’s death and happy about the ex-death eater’s. “No one will blame you, mate,” he said, probably thinking he was reassuring him. “He had it coming.”

He blinked to clear his vision from the tears in his eyes, and that’s all it took for her to disappear. He remembered trying to scream, to tell them all to run after her, but… something stopped him. His brain felt like mush, unable to recall any words in the English language; his throat was not sore anymore, a soothing layer of something that felt like thin mucus covered its walls, causing a slight choking sensation, the way it felt for the first few minutes after he woke up in the morning; and really, there was no point in telling them to go after her because she had vanished, and he couldn’t remember seeing her run in any direction.

Suddenly, his body started feeling heavy with exhaustion, so much so that Hermione had to catch him before he collapsed.

“...no point in questioning him right this second!” he heard Ron shout angrily at what Harry assumed to be a pair of aurors standing nearby, if their crimson uniform and black boots were any indication.

“Take him to the Hospital Wing,” said McGonnagall, after Harry felt his eyes close without his permission. “He can rest there, and you can question him after he’s recovered.”

Harry couldn’t remember anything else after that.

His next memory was waking up in the Hospital Wing the next day, mindlessly following orders to drink a potion and eat a meal, then answering questions from two different aurors and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, though everything felt like he was experiencing it outside his body.

In a matter of hours, he was back home, like nothing had happened.

He had killed someone, and now Hermione was making lunch in his kitchen, while Ron tried to figure out how to work his television.

Thinking back on it, he supposed that’s how their lives had always been. Traumatic events, followed by mundane routine, never acknowledged unless their emotions were a necessary ingredient in the recipe for disaster that Dumbledore had written however many decades before they were even born.

But something about this one felt different. Maybe because there was no plan behind it. There was no mastermind behind his actions, no puppeteer to blame for his every move. He was the only one responsible for this, and it just happened to be one of the biggest regrets of his life.

Was he incapable of making good decisions without someone guiding him?

Had he been right, all those years ago, when he told Sirius he felt like he was secretly a bad person?

When he wasn’t thinking about his own moral shortcomings, his thoughts would inevitably find their way back to Pansy Parkinson. The one who got away… literally. But how? And why had she been there in the first place? Hermione and Ron had seemed curious and interested at first, but after hours of discussing the same subject, they were starting to share those patronizing looks that Harry had hated since their school years.

“There’s no way she’s not involved in all of this. I mean, why else would she follow me around?”

Ron sighed, and Harry knew exactly what he was going to say, because they had already gone over this. “Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she just happened to be there, mate.”

“I haven’t seen her in a year, and suddenly she’s everywhere I go, but sure, it’s all just a fucked up coincidence.” Harry clicked his tongue. “As if those have ever happened to me.”

“You said it yourself,” he said, raising both of his hands defensively, “their side also had losses. It makes sense that she would only get out of her house to go to the hospital and a memorial.”

“The same day I did?” He lifted his eyebrows at him, feeling the slightest bit of relief when he saw a hint of hesitation in Ron’s eyes. “At the same time? In the same rooms? Hogwarts is fucking huge.”

“But the memorial was happening in the Great Hall and the Hallway of the Fallen,” pointed out Hermione, tipping her glass of wine slightly towards him. She and Ron were sitting across from him in his shitty dinner table with an unbalanced leg, that barely fit two people, let alone three, and which they had to clean for him (not without reprimanding him for the amount of takeout containers and empty bottles they’d found on top of it, from Merlin knew how long ago). Their plates were finished, his practically untouched. “Besides, bumping into her twice, at the only places you both poke your heads out of your houses to visit, can’t be considered stalking, Harry.”

“Don’t compare me to them,” he said sharply, glaring at her.

She simply shrugged. “I’m just pointing out facts.”

“Well, it’s a fact that she talked to Nott before he…” Harry swallowed, looking down at his food and wishing he had eaten it, not because he was hungry, but because the smell of it was making him nauseous again. Though maybe that had nothing to do with the food.

“They’re—” Ron winced. “—were friends.”

“I’ve never seen them spend much time together. She was always with Malfoy’s little gang.”

“And we all know you’re the expert on that.” Harry looked up to glare at Ron for his teasing, but his best friend’s smirk remained firm on his face. “Though I didn’t know you stared at Parkinson as much as you used to watch Malfoy, but lately, I’ve been wondering…”

“Don’t,” he said. “This isn’t me obsessing over Parkinson the way I did with Draco. Which I was right about, by the way.” He squinted at Hermione, who just took another sip of her wine. “I just think they knew having her — or anyone, for that matter — stalk me would have me on edge the second I saw her at the memorial. They wanted me to react and I gave them exactly what they wanted.”

“I think what we’re trying to say is…” interrupted Hermione, placing a hand on top of her boyfriend’s. “...that maybe, the reason why you’re overanalyzing every single one of your interactions with them, is because you’re trying to find a justification as to why you did what you did.” She smiled sympathetically at Harry. There it was again. Pity he didn’t deserve, especially not after what he’d done. Guilt stabbed him on his chest, poking the open wound in his heart and making it bigger.

“There is none,” he said gravely, looking down at his glass of wine. He had tried not to drink much, so as to not worry them further, and because he knew there was no telling how his drunk self would behave after the events of the previous day, but it probably wouldn’t be fun to witness. “I know that.”

“Yes, there is,” said Ron, with such unexpected rage that made his head snap upwards and look at him. He was frowning, squeezing Hermione’s hand so hard that his knuckles had turned white. “That prick killed Lav’s dad, and who knows how many other innocent people. We’ll never know how many others he’s tortured or wounded, but we can only assume he had every intention to keep doing more harm, and you stopped it. That’s as valid a reason as it gets.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Hermione, looking just as nauseous as Harry felt. “There’s a reason we have laws, a Ministry, a prison. There’s a system we need to—”

“Oh, please! The same system that let him go free during his trial?” asked Ron, staring at Hermione with a fire in his eyes that even scared Harry. “The same system that supported them while they were committing all of those atrocities? The system that made us war criminals, while we were trying to save their asses?"

Hermione, who had kept her eyes on her drink during his entire speech, pursed her lips. “It’s undeniable that the system is flawed, but we’re supposed to be working on changing that through legislation, not… manslaughter.” She glanced at Harry, but whatever she saw in his eyes pushed her to look back down at her wine. “With Kingsley as Minister, we’re closer to making those changes than ever before, especially with Harry’s implicit support, and I highly doubt the Wizengamot would risk favoring a blood supremacist in this political climate. A year is a long time. If his trial had happened today, he would’ve had a different sentence.”

“So… what you’re saying is, you agree with me. What I did was unforgivable and completely unnecessary, despite whatever twisted plan he and Parkinson were trying to rope me into,” he concluded, hoping he didn’t look as miserable as he was feeling.

“Maybe,” she said, tilting her head from side to side, as if she was still trying to decide whether she believed that or not. “But I’m also saying I don’t think they will be stupid enough to press legal action against you. And even if they do, there’s no chance they’re winning that trial. People would riot.”

As he watched his best friend take a long sip of wine, silence filled the room, and he was left to grapple with the fact that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted with zero legal or political consequences, as if winning a war someone else had masterfully planned for him to win from before he was even born granted him some kind of birthright to corruption and tyranny. Even his best friends, his only family, couldn’t see how fucked up that was, and seemed to be unaware of how much Harry despised that idea.

But then, he had befriended the girl who had locked up a journalist in a jar for months, so maybe this was a bed he had made for himself, and now he had to lay in it.

Because maybe, he wasn’t as good of a person as he always believed himself to be.