sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-08 03:19 pm
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-08 03:19 pm
Entry tags:
Harry Potter and the Legion of Ghosts, Ch. 2
Warnings: DH spoilers; this is a post-DH fic, set four years after the end (not the epilogue) of the book.
Chapter One
Chapter Two: I Must Not Tell Lies
When Harry finally woke properly, on the third try, the room was empty. He didn't exactly feel great, but when he flexed his hand the only pull he felt was from the old scars Umbridge had given him, and he was used to those. His body didn't hurt, and when he pushed himself to his elbows he felt all right.
He was in a private room at St. Mungo's, which appeared to be completely filled with flowers. There were roses, lilies, half a dozen kinds he couldn't put a name to, and one rather terrifying potted plant that he swore turned and looked at him when he moved. It was sitting close enough that he could see the tag; yes, that'd be Neville's idea of a gift, a plant that watched you.
He sat up and examined what he could see of himself -- arms in order, toes wiggling on command, same old chest as always. He felt his face; no scars but the one he'd always had. Glasses would be nice, though.
"Accio glasses," he said, and they came whizzing forward from behind an enormous bouquet of chrysanthemums. He put them on and frowned. "Accio wand?"
There was a clatter from nearby; a small wooden box rocked back and forth. Harry flicked it open and there lay his wand, beautiful as ever, shining against red velvet. It leapt into his hand.
He had his glasses, his wand, and at least most of his health; Harry Potter was ready to face the world.
Which was just as well, because at that moment the door clicked open and Arthur Weasley hurried through, carrying a sandwich and a coffee. When he looked up and saw Harry sitting there he dropped the coffee, which spattered on his shoes.
"Good morning!" he said, his face lighting up. "Well, well, I step out for a bit of breakfast and of course you would choose that minute to wake up. No, don't get up -- oh, this is nothing, I'll clean it up -- later -- how are you, my boy?"
"I feel all right," Harry said.
"The Healers said you might be up today. Can't keep Harry Potter down, can you, is what I said, and you've just proven me right again. Shall I get them?"
"Not just yet, thanks," Harry answered. "Where's Ginny and M...um?"
"Bless you, remembering she asked you to call her that. She'll be pleased. Ginevra's gone home to sleep for a little while, she was up all night with you, and Molly's erm...cleaning your flat, I think, for something to do." Arthur gave him a sheepish look. "They send their love, of course. We've been watching in shifts; Percy and George should be arriving any minute but they do rather enjoy flirting with the mediwitches so they may be late. Well, Percy does; you know how George can be."
Harry glanced down at his hands in his lap. "Yeah."
"Do you need anything, Harry? Sandwich?" Arthur offered the plate to him. Harry's hands seemed to take it of their own accord and he was two bites into it before he realised he should probably say thank-you.
"M'starving," he said through his food. "Ta."
"They'll be pleased you're eating. I'm not surprised, you've been sleeping off that little fracas of yours for two days."
"Feels like it," Harry said. He finished half the sandwich and attacked the other half. "Ginny was here last night?"
"All night. Though I say it myself, Harry, I don't think you'd find anyone else who could keep up with you but our Ginny."
Harry grinned. "You and me both. It's just...she didn't see anything weird last night, did she?"
"Weird?"
"Ghosts. I thought I saw a ghost, but maybe it was a dream, I don't know."
Arthur seated himself and Harry turned to face him, legs dangling over the edge of the bed. The older man looked up at him with a gaze more shrewd than Harry would have credited Arthur with, ten years ago. Ten years ago, though, Arthur had not lost a son to Voldemort; perhaps ten years ago Harry had seen him as Ron's goofy, geeky father rather than a man. And Arthur had seen him as Ron's underfed, under-loved friend.
"Who did you see?" he asked.
"Teddy's father," Harry said. "But I think it must have been a dream."
"It's all right to say his name, Harry," Arthur murmured.
"When Teddy was born, the day he was born, I was asked to be his godfather. That day he became Teddy's father." Harry laughed a little. "And in the dream he had Gryffindor's sword, so it had to be a dream, right? I know Neville's got the real article hanging in his office."
"Have you ever seen him before last night?"
"No. I know he's dead, Arthur, I understand death. Even when I was just a kid and I wanted to see Sirius one more time -- Sirius is dead, I know."
The frown deepend. "You saw Sirius too?"
"Not then, but...when I had the knife to my throat, during the fight...I'd swear I saw him in the doorway. And Tonks, too. Nymphadora, I mean. Holding the knife away from me."
Arthur stood up and put both hands on Harry's shoulders, craning his neck to be on Harry's level. "You were in a fight, Harry. You were in pain. Pain makes people see funny things, things that aren't there."
"I know that, Arthur."
"You seem to know a lot, suddenly. What I'm saying is that you don't have to worry about ghosts. You know they're gone. You saw them because you were in pain and afraid, that's all. That's natural."
Harry smiled. "So I'm not going crazy, is that what you're saying?"
Arthur let his shoulders go and smiled. "I've never met a saner man. Which is good, because the Weasleys can supply more than enough madness to fill the gap. I'll go get the Healers and fetch Ginny, shall I?"
"Please."
Pain and fear did make the head go funny, of course; Harry watched Arthur leave and held onto that advice. He didn't mention seeing his godfather or his godson's parents; he just let the Healers ask their questions, test his hand, check his eyes, and prescribe him two weeks off the job. He didn't like the two weeks off the job part, but it got them out of his hair and got him out of the exam room and into Ginny's arms.
"Hello, little woman," he said, waltzing her around the lobby while the rest of the family laughed.
"Call me that again and I'll show you who wears the trousers in this family," she answered, deliberately stepping on his toe.
"Peanuts! I give," Harry said, and let her go.
"You really worried us, Harry," she replied, her arms still around his shoulders. "Ron cried."
"He never did. RON!" Harry called over his shoulder. Ron grinned at him. "Ginny says you cried!"
"He did," Hermione said, crossing her arms.
"It's a filthy lie. Teddy cried, I didn't want him to feel bad being the only one," Ron answered.
"I didn't!" a small voice said from behind Bill's legs. Bill gave Harry a long-suffering look. "Say I didn't!"
"Tell me yourself," Harry said, bending down and opening his arms. Teddy darted around Bill, ran towards Harry, tripped on his own shoes, and tumbled into his godfather's arms. "There you are."
"I didn't cry," Teddy insisted.
"I believe you," Harry answered. "How is my favourite godson in the world? Umm, sticky," he added, as Teddy placed a toffee-laced kiss on his cheek.
"M'alright," Teddy said, allowing Harry to pick him up. He gave Harry a piercing look, Lupin's brown eyes over Nymphadora's snub nose. Teddy made some people uncomfortable with that stare, but Harry had never been able to fathom it. Surely everyone in the world ought to see his perfect godson was just terribly clever beyond his years. "You all better?" Teddy inquired.
"Yes, I am. And the Healers told me I had to take a holiday, so in a few days I'm going to steal you from Gran and keep you with me for three whole days, how does that sound?"
"Like heaven," he heard Andromeda murmur, somewhere off to his left. Teddy squeaked and wrapped both arms around Harry's neck so tightly he threatened to throttle him.
"I love you Harry," Teddy said against his cheek, and Harry thought he might cry, thus bringing the whole mortifying circle to a close. Instead he stroked his godson's soft hair and set him down.
"Love you too, Teddy. Now go on and pester Bill," he said, and Teddy stumbled off klutzily. Clever but not very well co-ordinated, poor kid.
He straightened up and found Weasleys closing in on all sides, patting him on the back and kissing his cheek, Ginny taking hold of his hand. Hermione gave him a hug not dissimilar to Teddy's, but Ron contented himself with a gentle punch in the shoulder.
"Got word from Broderick for you," he said, and an immediate damper fell on Harry's good spirits. "He wants to debrief, but not until you're feeling better."
"I'd like to get that arse-kicking over with," Harry answered. "I'll be free tomorrow if he wants to come round."
"He won't kick too hard," Hermione put in. "That little stunt is going to put a few people in Azkaban for a very long time."
"He did call you a cowboy, though, and you know it's never good when you call someone a cowboy," Ron added. "But if he sacks you I swear I'll walk out, and he can't afford to lose me."
Harry grinned. "Right, then. Come around for dinner tonight, yeah? Both of you?"
"Wouldn't miss it. Glad you're okay, Harry," Ron said, and Harry knew that all the Auror bravado in the world was currently covering up for the fact that Ron had probably been terrified and upset. Hermione's reassuring hand on Ron's wrist only confirmed it. There were no two people in the world -- not even Ginny -- who loved and understood Harry as well as they did.
"Me too," Harry said. Message received, message returned; Ron and Hermione smiled and drifted away as Ginny took his hand and pulled him towards the floo.
"And we're still throwing that birthday party!" Molly called, while Harry wrapped his arms around his fiancee and said, "River in the Hollow."
***
When Harry found himself graduated from Hogwarts, free from the war and with more money than he knew what to do with, his first instinct was to run to the Burrow and beg Molly and Arthur to give him Bill's old room. Or run to Andromeda and beg to be given a room in her home, a place where he could find rest and be with Teddy, the quiet little baby who rarely cried and whose laugh made Harry feel instantly better.
Instead, however, he stopped and thought. This was something he'd rarely done before. He did go to the Burrow and found himself more than welcome, but he knew he couldn't stay there any more than he could stay with Andromeda. He needed a home; he'd never had one of his own, not really. Well, except Hogwarts, but he couldn't very well live in Gryffindor Tower his whole life. Twelve Grimmald Place was unthinkable; he had experts come in and scour every last hint of darkness from it, and sold it to a pair of Muggleborn wizards who knocked huge windows into every wall and filled the place with laughing, happy people.
Life kept bringing him home to Godric's Hollow, instead. He'd wanted somewhere big and light and really different; he'd rejected cottages and mansions, flats in London, farms in the countryside, until finally the agent he'd hired to find him his home threw up her hands and tried to sell him something so absurd that he actually bought it.
River in the Hollow was much more enormous than he really needed, and one whole wing currently stood empty, but Harry didn't care. A stream flowed up the path to the door and under one of the walls, snaking through the center of the bright, high-ceilinged foyer before disappearing beyond the far wall and back out into the garden in the courtyard of the house. He could turn to his left and follow a snaking passageway into what had once been a formal reception room and was now a living-room filled with scruffy furniture and Quidditch pennants; half the windows of every room in the east wing looked out on the courtyard and across a low fountain to the west side of the house, which Harry fully intended to fill with children someday. He could eat breakfast in the courtyard every morning, take Teddy fishing in the stream, practice hexes and charms with Ron and Hermione in the enormous unused ballroom that stood to the south, and stargaze with Ginny when the nights were clear.
Harry loved his home.
He walked out into the courtyard of River in the Hollow, the morning after his return from the hospital, only slightly hungover from the wine the night before and feeling as though he could take on a whole army of knife-wielding maniacs. As it was, he only had to face Broderick, who was being served tea and a plate of scrambled eggs by Kreacher.
"You young pups do live the high life," Broderick observed, standing to shake Harry's hand.
"My inheritance paid for it," Harry answered. "It's a fixer-upper."
Broderick's lips quirked upwards momentarily. "Can I ask you something, Potter?"
"I assumed that was why you came."
"Something personal."
Harry sat down, accepting a glass of cold orange juice from Kreacher. "Thank you, Kreacher. Sir, my life's been an open book since I was a toddler."
"You have all the wealth you'd ever need; you don't need to work, and the work you do is not without hazard. Why did you join the Aurors?"
Harry sipped thoughtfully. "Well, all the cool kids were doing it."
Broderick gazed at him steadily, reproach oozing through the silence. Harry shrugged.
"I wanted to be useful. I wanted to make sure nothing like what I went through ever happened to anyone again. I could have gone into politics or done charity or whatever, but I had the skills to be top-notch. I thought I ought to use them."
"And it's not just a little bit because of the excitement?" Broderick asked. "I've been an Auror twenty years, Potter. I know people can get addicted to the adrenaline. I didn't think you were one of them."
"Ron says you called me a cowboy."
"I called you a few more names than that. What were you thinking, floo'ing straight into The Corner? You had to know there'd be a panic."
Harry tilted his head. "For a debriefing, this is a little informal."
"Potter."
He sighed and leaned forward, rubbing his face with his hands. "I didn't mean to. Wright must have told you the orders I gave. We were going to go in quietly. I...you will sack me, when you hear this."
"I'll definitely sack you if I don't."
"Hermione Granger came in just as I was floo'ing out. She told me Happy Birthday, so I waved to show her I'd heard. I bumped my hand on the edge of a floo and it misdirected me -- I got knocked right into The Corner by accident. Stupid accident. I know better."
"Yes, you do."
Harry frowned. "Everyone else is okay, though, right?"
"Thankfully, yes. I notice in the report that you had the presence of mind to name a second-in-command, so your other teams found themselves reporting to Wright, god help us."
"He's a good officer. He's got grit when it counts," Harry protested.
"So I'm told. The other inspections went fine; Weasley went a bit off and abandoned his inspection when he heard, so he'll be on the desk for a week or two, but I can't say I fault him. Besides, he's Weasley; hard to put a tarnish on his shine."
Harry laughed. "Yeah, he is. So -- do you want a play-by-play?"
"That is why I'm here."
"Will I be disciplined for messing up?"
"That remains to be seen. Why don't you walk me through what happened afterwards, and we'll see how the rest came out."
Harry lifted an eyebrow; Broderick knew how it came out, because he had to have debriefed Wright and the rookies within an inch of their lives. Which meant he wanted to know what Harry thought had happened, what Harry had been thinking during the botched search. He wanted to know if Harry liked it.
And of course Harry liked his work, or he wouldn't be doing it. But the idea that he got some kind of thrill from it...
Well, did he?
Did he?
"Potter," Broderick said. "You can stare at your juice all day and your house-elf makes a good scrambled egg, but I'm a busy man. I've got a dozen other Aurors to babysit."
Harry opened his mouth and, to his own surprise, he began to talk. He started with breaking his hand (so the Healers said) on the floo point, and went slowly through the entire event, answering Broderick's questions when they were asked. At every point, a decision; every decision weighed in Broderick's balances, what a good Auror would do up against what Harry had done.
He got all the way to the knife at his throat before he hesitated.
"Then he pulled back. I think he was scared because it cut me so easily," Harry said. "We looked at each other for a while and I think I said something, but...it's all kind of fuzzy at that point, you know?"
"Try," Broderick said.
"He pulled back and held up the knife, and then Smith burst through and knocked him over. I heard someone make a noise, and then I don't remember anything until I woke up in St. Mungo's," Harry said, all in a rush.
Broderick looked at him, gauging him as he had the first time he'd met the Boy Who Lived, a raw trainee, a near-washout in his first year and top of his third-year class.
"That's all?" he said.
"That's all."
"Well, your account fits with what we know from Smith, so that closes things," he said finally, folding up the parchment on which he'd been taking notes. "The floo incident will be kicked over to internal affairs; I doubt you'll be disciplined. If you are, it won't be severe. People make mistakes, and as they go yours is pretty mild. For a dose of perspective, when I was your age I was up before internal affairs for killing someone I might not have needed to kill. Then again, those were wilder days."
Harry stood when Broderick did, took his outstretched hand and shook it with his right hand, the one inscribed with a warning not to tell lies.
"I'll see you in two weeks, Potter."
"Yessir," Harry answered.
"Look sharp. I'll show myself out."
He left Harry standing in the courtyard, perplexed and unaccountably disturbed, until Kreacher began to clear the breakfast plates.
***
"Me and Hermione are in a fight," Ron said.
There wasn't enough alcohol in the world, Harry decided, and definitely not enough in this restaurant.
It wasn't that he didn't love the Weasleys, or want them to throw him a big birthday party. The idea, in theory, of a big birthday party with all his friends and family around him was marvelous. Harry had dreamed of big birthday parties as a child. And he had enjoyed himself, but being the centre of attention never sat well with him and you could cut the awkwardness between Ron and Hermione with a knife. Not to mention Hermione and Molly. Victoire had been cranky and had to be taken home early; Teddy had managed to upset an entire tray of drinks all over himself, which sent him into a wail over his injured pride and running straight to Harry, who had spent an hour cleaning and soothing the upset toddler and now smelled like a brewery. Then Andromeda had gathered the child up and taken him off to be put to bed, but not before telling Harry that they needed to Talk when he came to pick Teddy up the following day.
"What did you do?" he asked, sipping the firewhiskey he'd finally caved and ordered. Ron leaned on the bar and sighed.
"That's just it! You'd think she'd be thrilled, wouldn't you? I asked her to marry me."
"That's brilliant, Ron!" Harry said, wondering if the night wasn't looking up a little. "Why didn't you say so?"
"Because she said no!"
"Hermione wouldn't say no," Harry replied. "You must have misunderstood her. Or she misunderstood you. What happened? When did you ask her? You two were all right two nights ago at the Hollow."
"Well, I asked her yesterday. I just thought, what with you and Ginny getting married, and it's a dangerous job a bit, so she should get the pension if I got knifed by some crazy shopkeeper," Ron said.
"You didn't put it like that, did you?" Harry asked, horrified.
"No! I went out and bought her a ring, and I got down on one knee like you're supposed to and asked her to marry me."
"Okay, and what did she say?" Harry glanced at Hermione, who was sitting at a small table with Ginny, the two in deep conversation. Ginny glanced at him, smiled, frowned at Ron, and turned back to Hermione.
"She said she didn't want some tool of the patriarchy dictating her legal status," Ron said gloomily.
Harry sighed. "And what did you say?"
"I said I wasn't a tool, of course!"
"Not that kind of tool, Ron. She told you she didn't want to get married because married women change their names and you have to do things differently on your tax and all," Harry said, realising that he sounded rather vague. He'd probably have to investigate all that before he and Ginny got married.
"Well, she doesn't have to change her name if she doesn't want to," Ron said. "It's just, I'd like her to move in with me, it'd be acres more convenient for both of us. She's said she'd like it too."
"So move in, what's the big deal?"
"It isn't proper," Ron said, and Harry choked on his drink.
"The world's gone mad," he announced. "Topsy-turvy. I don't know up from down anymore."
Ron scowled at him, took his drink away, and finished it. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Hermione's the one who wants to live in sin and you're the one who wants to be respectable. Oh, Merlin's nuts, I swear. Another firewhiskey," he said to the barman.
"Mum thinks so too, so she's mad at Hermione, and if something doesn't happen soon someone's going to bring up that time Mum snubbed her because she thought Hermione threw you over, and then all hell really will break loose."
"Ron, listen to me," Harry said. "Here's what you do. You go over there and tell her you're very sorry, but you come from a very traditional family and you just thought this was how things were done. You'll be happy to move in with her and you won't ever bring up marriage again unless she does but you want her to be with you forever, she'll like that. You spend the rest of your life introducing her as your partner, Hermione Granger, and if you have kids, god forbid, you can call them Granger-Weasley."
Ron looked at him. "You really think?"
"Well, your mum'll probably hold a grudge until the first grandkid is born, but it's not like she's going to disown you, is it?" Harry said, accepting the drink that was placed on the bar. "And return the ring and buy a great big bed for your new place, instead."
"Cheers, Harry. You think now? I mean, I should say all that stuff now?"
"Do you want me to write it down for you?"
"No! No. Sorry, traditional family, moving in, partner. Right." Ron squared his shoulders.
"Good luck," Harry said, and sent him off with a gentle shove. Ginny looked up, saw Ron coming, and casually vacated her seat for him with all the subtlety of a Bludger, heading for Harry.
"Hi," she said, rubbing his shoulder and leaning up to kiss him. "Guess what Ron did."
"Proposed marriage to a woman with a sudden, ardent feminist streak?" Harry asked. Ginny laughed. "Yeah, he told me."
"I hope you didn't tell him to keep proposing until she collapses. Hermione thinks he might, but my money's on her killing him before she caves," Ginny said, leaning back and watching them talk. "Besides, it's not sudden. Hermione's always been like that. She likes the rules until she thinks they're stupid and then she does what she wants. I think it's brilliant."
"You're still marrying me, though, right?" Harry asked, suddenly anxious.
"Yes, Harry, I am still marrying you. But I'm playing Quidditch under the same name, got it?" she said.
"Got it," he answered, sliding an arm around her waist.
"Harry Potter, how much have you had to drink?"
"Not enough," he replied, nuzzling her ear. "I got put in hospital on my birthday and I just had to talk your brother off a ledge. I think I deserve a few drinks. And soon I want you to let me take you home and do things to you your mother would disapprove of."
"You're terrible at dirty talk," she said, but he noticed she didn't pull away. "What exactly kinds of things? Mum likes you an awful lot, it'd take something really unusual -- "
He kissed her, because there were after all limits to what you could say in public. But, out of the corner of his eye, he also saw a flicker of movement where no movement should be...
"What?" she asked as he leaned back, scanning the room.
"I thought I saw...something," he said lamely. "Sorry. Maybe I have had enough."
"Well, we can go if you want. People are drifting off."
"I think..." he frowned and picked up his glass. "I think I need to make a toast first. Hey! Everyone!"
Heads raised from conversations, and people turned to face him as the silence descended. He held up his glass.
"A few days ago I turned twenty-two years old," he said, hoping this wasn't going to be as maudlin and embarrassing as it sounded like it might. "And we all know that if it were not for the people who loved me and gave up what they had for me, I would not be here tonight to celebrate it with you."
A few murmured hear, hears echoed through the room. He saw Molly, nodded to her, and turned back to the group.
"So I would like to propose a toast to them," he continued, lifting his glass a little higher. "To fallen friends -- may we remember their sacrifice as long as we live."
George, at the end of the bar, lifted his glass. "To fallen friends," he repeated.
"To fallen friends," the room chorused.
Harry swore, for a split second, that he saw Alastor Moody standing next to George at the bar, lifting his flask in the toast.
Continue to the next part
Chapter One
Chapter Two: I Must Not Tell Lies
When Harry finally woke properly, on the third try, the room was empty. He didn't exactly feel great, but when he flexed his hand the only pull he felt was from the old scars Umbridge had given him, and he was used to those. His body didn't hurt, and when he pushed himself to his elbows he felt all right.
He was in a private room at St. Mungo's, which appeared to be completely filled with flowers. There were roses, lilies, half a dozen kinds he couldn't put a name to, and one rather terrifying potted plant that he swore turned and looked at him when he moved. It was sitting close enough that he could see the tag; yes, that'd be Neville's idea of a gift, a plant that watched you.
He sat up and examined what he could see of himself -- arms in order, toes wiggling on command, same old chest as always. He felt his face; no scars but the one he'd always had. Glasses would be nice, though.
"Accio glasses," he said, and they came whizzing forward from behind an enormous bouquet of chrysanthemums. He put them on and frowned. "Accio wand?"
There was a clatter from nearby; a small wooden box rocked back and forth. Harry flicked it open and there lay his wand, beautiful as ever, shining against red velvet. It leapt into his hand.
He had his glasses, his wand, and at least most of his health; Harry Potter was ready to face the world.
Which was just as well, because at that moment the door clicked open and Arthur Weasley hurried through, carrying a sandwich and a coffee. When he looked up and saw Harry sitting there he dropped the coffee, which spattered on his shoes.
"Good morning!" he said, his face lighting up. "Well, well, I step out for a bit of breakfast and of course you would choose that minute to wake up. No, don't get up -- oh, this is nothing, I'll clean it up -- later -- how are you, my boy?"
"I feel all right," Harry said.
"The Healers said you might be up today. Can't keep Harry Potter down, can you, is what I said, and you've just proven me right again. Shall I get them?"
"Not just yet, thanks," Harry answered. "Where's Ginny and M...um?"
"Bless you, remembering she asked you to call her that. She'll be pleased. Ginevra's gone home to sleep for a little while, she was up all night with you, and Molly's erm...cleaning your flat, I think, for something to do." Arthur gave him a sheepish look. "They send their love, of course. We've been watching in shifts; Percy and George should be arriving any minute but they do rather enjoy flirting with the mediwitches so they may be late. Well, Percy does; you know how George can be."
Harry glanced down at his hands in his lap. "Yeah."
"Do you need anything, Harry? Sandwich?" Arthur offered the plate to him. Harry's hands seemed to take it of their own accord and he was two bites into it before he realised he should probably say thank-you.
"M'starving," he said through his food. "Ta."
"They'll be pleased you're eating. I'm not surprised, you've been sleeping off that little fracas of yours for two days."
"Feels like it," Harry said. He finished half the sandwich and attacked the other half. "Ginny was here last night?"
"All night. Though I say it myself, Harry, I don't think you'd find anyone else who could keep up with you but our Ginny."
Harry grinned. "You and me both. It's just...she didn't see anything weird last night, did she?"
"Weird?"
"Ghosts. I thought I saw a ghost, but maybe it was a dream, I don't know."
Arthur seated himself and Harry turned to face him, legs dangling over the edge of the bed. The older man looked up at him with a gaze more shrewd than Harry would have credited Arthur with, ten years ago. Ten years ago, though, Arthur had not lost a son to Voldemort; perhaps ten years ago Harry had seen him as Ron's goofy, geeky father rather than a man. And Arthur had seen him as Ron's underfed, under-loved friend.
"Who did you see?" he asked.
"Teddy's father," Harry said. "But I think it must have been a dream."
"It's all right to say his name, Harry," Arthur murmured.
"When Teddy was born, the day he was born, I was asked to be his godfather. That day he became Teddy's father." Harry laughed a little. "And in the dream he had Gryffindor's sword, so it had to be a dream, right? I know Neville's got the real article hanging in his office."
"Have you ever seen him before last night?"
"No. I know he's dead, Arthur, I understand death. Even when I was just a kid and I wanted to see Sirius one more time -- Sirius is dead, I know."
The frown deepend. "You saw Sirius too?"
"Not then, but...when I had the knife to my throat, during the fight...I'd swear I saw him in the doorway. And Tonks, too. Nymphadora, I mean. Holding the knife away from me."
Arthur stood up and put both hands on Harry's shoulders, craning his neck to be on Harry's level. "You were in a fight, Harry. You were in pain. Pain makes people see funny things, things that aren't there."
"I know that, Arthur."
"You seem to know a lot, suddenly. What I'm saying is that you don't have to worry about ghosts. You know they're gone. You saw them because you were in pain and afraid, that's all. That's natural."
Harry smiled. "So I'm not going crazy, is that what you're saying?"
Arthur let his shoulders go and smiled. "I've never met a saner man. Which is good, because the Weasleys can supply more than enough madness to fill the gap. I'll go get the Healers and fetch Ginny, shall I?"
"Please."
Pain and fear did make the head go funny, of course; Harry watched Arthur leave and held onto that advice. He didn't mention seeing his godfather or his godson's parents; he just let the Healers ask their questions, test his hand, check his eyes, and prescribe him two weeks off the job. He didn't like the two weeks off the job part, but it got them out of his hair and got him out of the exam room and into Ginny's arms.
"Hello, little woman," he said, waltzing her around the lobby while the rest of the family laughed.
"Call me that again and I'll show you who wears the trousers in this family," she answered, deliberately stepping on his toe.
"Peanuts! I give," Harry said, and let her go.
"You really worried us, Harry," she replied, her arms still around his shoulders. "Ron cried."
"He never did. RON!" Harry called over his shoulder. Ron grinned at him. "Ginny says you cried!"
"He did," Hermione said, crossing her arms.
"It's a filthy lie. Teddy cried, I didn't want him to feel bad being the only one," Ron answered.
"I didn't!" a small voice said from behind Bill's legs. Bill gave Harry a long-suffering look. "Say I didn't!"
"Tell me yourself," Harry said, bending down and opening his arms. Teddy darted around Bill, ran towards Harry, tripped on his own shoes, and tumbled into his godfather's arms. "There you are."
"I didn't cry," Teddy insisted.
"I believe you," Harry answered. "How is my favourite godson in the world? Umm, sticky," he added, as Teddy placed a toffee-laced kiss on his cheek.
"M'alright," Teddy said, allowing Harry to pick him up. He gave Harry a piercing look, Lupin's brown eyes over Nymphadora's snub nose. Teddy made some people uncomfortable with that stare, but Harry had never been able to fathom it. Surely everyone in the world ought to see his perfect godson was just terribly clever beyond his years. "You all better?" Teddy inquired.
"Yes, I am. And the Healers told me I had to take a holiday, so in a few days I'm going to steal you from Gran and keep you with me for three whole days, how does that sound?"
"Like heaven," he heard Andromeda murmur, somewhere off to his left. Teddy squeaked and wrapped both arms around Harry's neck so tightly he threatened to throttle him.
"I love you Harry," Teddy said against his cheek, and Harry thought he might cry, thus bringing the whole mortifying circle to a close. Instead he stroked his godson's soft hair and set him down.
"Love you too, Teddy. Now go on and pester Bill," he said, and Teddy stumbled off klutzily. Clever but not very well co-ordinated, poor kid.
He straightened up and found Weasleys closing in on all sides, patting him on the back and kissing his cheek, Ginny taking hold of his hand. Hermione gave him a hug not dissimilar to Teddy's, but Ron contented himself with a gentle punch in the shoulder.
"Got word from Broderick for you," he said, and an immediate damper fell on Harry's good spirits. "He wants to debrief, but not until you're feeling better."
"I'd like to get that arse-kicking over with," Harry answered. "I'll be free tomorrow if he wants to come round."
"He won't kick too hard," Hermione put in. "That little stunt is going to put a few people in Azkaban for a very long time."
"He did call you a cowboy, though, and you know it's never good when you call someone a cowboy," Ron added. "But if he sacks you I swear I'll walk out, and he can't afford to lose me."
Harry grinned. "Right, then. Come around for dinner tonight, yeah? Both of you?"
"Wouldn't miss it. Glad you're okay, Harry," Ron said, and Harry knew that all the Auror bravado in the world was currently covering up for the fact that Ron had probably been terrified and upset. Hermione's reassuring hand on Ron's wrist only confirmed it. There were no two people in the world -- not even Ginny -- who loved and understood Harry as well as they did.
"Me too," Harry said. Message received, message returned; Ron and Hermione smiled and drifted away as Ginny took his hand and pulled him towards the floo.
"And we're still throwing that birthday party!" Molly called, while Harry wrapped his arms around his fiancee and said, "River in the Hollow."
***
When Harry found himself graduated from Hogwarts, free from the war and with more money than he knew what to do with, his first instinct was to run to the Burrow and beg Molly and Arthur to give him Bill's old room. Or run to Andromeda and beg to be given a room in her home, a place where he could find rest and be with Teddy, the quiet little baby who rarely cried and whose laugh made Harry feel instantly better.
Instead, however, he stopped and thought. This was something he'd rarely done before. He did go to the Burrow and found himself more than welcome, but he knew he couldn't stay there any more than he could stay with Andromeda. He needed a home; he'd never had one of his own, not really. Well, except Hogwarts, but he couldn't very well live in Gryffindor Tower his whole life. Twelve Grimmald Place was unthinkable; he had experts come in and scour every last hint of darkness from it, and sold it to a pair of Muggleborn wizards who knocked huge windows into every wall and filled the place with laughing, happy people.
Life kept bringing him home to Godric's Hollow, instead. He'd wanted somewhere big and light and really different; he'd rejected cottages and mansions, flats in London, farms in the countryside, until finally the agent he'd hired to find him his home threw up her hands and tried to sell him something so absurd that he actually bought it.
River in the Hollow was much more enormous than he really needed, and one whole wing currently stood empty, but Harry didn't care. A stream flowed up the path to the door and under one of the walls, snaking through the center of the bright, high-ceilinged foyer before disappearing beyond the far wall and back out into the garden in the courtyard of the house. He could turn to his left and follow a snaking passageway into what had once been a formal reception room and was now a living-room filled with scruffy furniture and Quidditch pennants; half the windows of every room in the east wing looked out on the courtyard and across a low fountain to the west side of the house, which Harry fully intended to fill with children someday. He could eat breakfast in the courtyard every morning, take Teddy fishing in the stream, practice hexes and charms with Ron and Hermione in the enormous unused ballroom that stood to the south, and stargaze with Ginny when the nights were clear.
Harry loved his home.
He walked out into the courtyard of River in the Hollow, the morning after his return from the hospital, only slightly hungover from the wine the night before and feeling as though he could take on a whole army of knife-wielding maniacs. As it was, he only had to face Broderick, who was being served tea and a plate of scrambled eggs by Kreacher.
"You young pups do live the high life," Broderick observed, standing to shake Harry's hand.
"My inheritance paid for it," Harry answered. "It's a fixer-upper."
Broderick's lips quirked upwards momentarily. "Can I ask you something, Potter?"
"I assumed that was why you came."
"Something personal."
Harry sat down, accepting a glass of cold orange juice from Kreacher. "Thank you, Kreacher. Sir, my life's been an open book since I was a toddler."
"You have all the wealth you'd ever need; you don't need to work, and the work you do is not without hazard. Why did you join the Aurors?"
Harry sipped thoughtfully. "Well, all the cool kids were doing it."
Broderick gazed at him steadily, reproach oozing through the silence. Harry shrugged.
"I wanted to be useful. I wanted to make sure nothing like what I went through ever happened to anyone again. I could have gone into politics or done charity or whatever, but I had the skills to be top-notch. I thought I ought to use them."
"And it's not just a little bit because of the excitement?" Broderick asked. "I've been an Auror twenty years, Potter. I know people can get addicted to the adrenaline. I didn't think you were one of them."
"Ron says you called me a cowboy."
"I called you a few more names than that. What were you thinking, floo'ing straight into The Corner? You had to know there'd be a panic."
Harry tilted his head. "For a debriefing, this is a little informal."
"Potter."
He sighed and leaned forward, rubbing his face with his hands. "I didn't mean to. Wright must have told you the orders I gave. We were going to go in quietly. I...you will sack me, when you hear this."
"I'll definitely sack you if I don't."
"Hermione Granger came in just as I was floo'ing out. She told me Happy Birthday, so I waved to show her I'd heard. I bumped my hand on the edge of a floo and it misdirected me -- I got knocked right into The Corner by accident. Stupid accident. I know better."
"Yes, you do."
Harry frowned. "Everyone else is okay, though, right?"
"Thankfully, yes. I notice in the report that you had the presence of mind to name a second-in-command, so your other teams found themselves reporting to Wright, god help us."
"He's a good officer. He's got grit when it counts," Harry protested.
"So I'm told. The other inspections went fine; Weasley went a bit off and abandoned his inspection when he heard, so he'll be on the desk for a week or two, but I can't say I fault him. Besides, he's Weasley; hard to put a tarnish on his shine."
Harry laughed. "Yeah, he is. So -- do you want a play-by-play?"
"That is why I'm here."
"Will I be disciplined for messing up?"
"That remains to be seen. Why don't you walk me through what happened afterwards, and we'll see how the rest came out."
Harry lifted an eyebrow; Broderick knew how it came out, because he had to have debriefed Wright and the rookies within an inch of their lives. Which meant he wanted to know what Harry thought had happened, what Harry had been thinking during the botched search. He wanted to know if Harry liked it.
And of course Harry liked his work, or he wouldn't be doing it. But the idea that he got some kind of thrill from it...
Well, did he?
Did he?
"Potter," Broderick said. "You can stare at your juice all day and your house-elf makes a good scrambled egg, but I'm a busy man. I've got a dozen other Aurors to babysit."
Harry opened his mouth and, to his own surprise, he began to talk. He started with breaking his hand (so the Healers said) on the floo point, and went slowly through the entire event, answering Broderick's questions when they were asked. At every point, a decision; every decision weighed in Broderick's balances, what a good Auror would do up against what Harry had done.
He got all the way to the knife at his throat before he hesitated.
"Then he pulled back. I think he was scared because it cut me so easily," Harry said. "We looked at each other for a while and I think I said something, but...it's all kind of fuzzy at that point, you know?"
"Try," Broderick said.
"He pulled back and held up the knife, and then Smith burst through and knocked him over. I heard someone make a noise, and then I don't remember anything until I woke up in St. Mungo's," Harry said, all in a rush.
Broderick looked at him, gauging him as he had the first time he'd met the Boy Who Lived, a raw trainee, a near-washout in his first year and top of his third-year class.
"That's all?" he said.
"That's all."
"Well, your account fits with what we know from Smith, so that closes things," he said finally, folding up the parchment on which he'd been taking notes. "The floo incident will be kicked over to internal affairs; I doubt you'll be disciplined. If you are, it won't be severe. People make mistakes, and as they go yours is pretty mild. For a dose of perspective, when I was your age I was up before internal affairs for killing someone I might not have needed to kill. Then again, those were wilder days."
Harry stood when Broderick did, took his outstretched hand and shook it with his right hand, the one inscribed with a warning not to tell lies.
"I'll see you in two weeks, Potter."
"Yessir," Harry answered.
"Look sharp. I'll show myself out."
He left Harry standing in the courtyard, perplexed and unaccountably disturbed, until Kreacher began to clear the breakfast plates.
***
"Me and Hermione are in a fight," Ron said.
There wasn't enough alcohol in the world, Harry decided, and definitely not enough in this restaurant.
It wasn't that he didn't love the Weasleys, or want them to throw him a big birthday party. The idea, in theory, of a big birthday party with all his friends and family around him was marvelous. Harry had dreamed of big birthday parties as a child. And he had enjoyed himself, but being the centre of attention never sat well with him and you could cut the awkwardness between Ron and Hermione with a knife. Not to mention Hermione and Molly. Victoire had been cranky and had to be taken home early; Teddy had managed to upset an entire tray of drinks all over himself, which sent him into a wail over his injured pride and running straight to Harry, who had spent an hour cleaning and soothing the upset toddler and now smelled like a brewery. Then Andromeda had gathered the child up and taken him off to be put to bed, but not before telling Harry that they needed to Talk when he came to pick Teddy up the following day.
"What did you do?" he asked, sipping the firewhiskey he'd finally caved and ordered. Ron leaned on the bar and sighed.
"That's just it! You'd think she'd be thrilled, wouldn't you? I asked her to marry me."
"That's brilliant, Ron!" Harry said, wondering if the night wasn't looking up a little. "Why didn't you say so?"
"Because she said no!"
"Hermione wouldn't say no," Harry replied. "You must have misunderstood her. Or she misunderstood you. What happened? When did you ask her? You two were all right two nights ago at the Hollow."
"Well, I asked her yesterday. I just thought, what with you and Ginny getting married, and it's a dangerous job a bit, so she should get the pension if I got knifed by some crazy shopkeeper," Ron said.
"You didn't put it like that, did you?" Harry asked, horrified.
"No! I went out and bought her a ring, and I got down on one knee like you're supposed to and asked her to marry me."
"Okay, and what did she say?" Harry glanced at Hermione, who was sitting at a small table with Ginny, the two in deep conversation. Ginny glanced at him, smiled, frowned at Ron, and turned back to Hermione.
"She said she didn't want some tool of the patriarchy dictating her legal status," Ron said gloomily.
Harry sighed. "And what did you say?"
"I said I wasn't a tool, of course!"
"Not that kind of tool, Ron. She told you she didn't want to get married because married women change their names and you have to do things differently on your tax and all," Harry said, realising that he sounded rather vague. He'd probably have to investigate all that before he and Ginny got married.
"Well, she doesn't have to change her name if she doesn't want to," Ron said. "It's just, I'd like her to move in with me, it'd be acres more convenient for both of us. She's said she'd like it too."
"So move in, what's the big deal?"
"It isn't proper," Ron said, and Harry choked on his drink.
"The world's gone mad," he announced. "Topsy-turvy. I don't know up from down anymore."
Ron scowled at him, took his drink away, and finished it. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Hermione's the one who wants to live in sin and you're the one who wants to be respectable. Oh, Merlin's nuts, I swear. Another firewhiskey," he said to the barman.
"Mum thinks so too, so she's mad at Hermione, and if something doesn't happen soon someone's going to bring up that time Mum snubbed her because she thought Hermione threw you over, and then all hell really will break loose."
"Ron, listen to me," Harry said. "Here's what you do. You go over there and tell her you're very sorry, but you come from a very traditional family and you just thought this was how things were done. You'll be happy to move in with her and you won't ever bring up marriage again unless she does but you want her to be with you forever, she'll like that. You spend the rest of your life introducing her as your partner, Hermione Granger, and if you have kids, god forbid, you can call them Granger-Weasley."
Ron looked at him. "You really think?"
"Well, your mum'll probably hold a grudge until the first grandkid is born, but it's not like she's going to disown you, is it?" Harry said, accepting the drink that was placed on the bar. "And return the ring and buy a great big bed for your new place, instead."
"Cheers, Harry. You think now? I mean, I should say all that stuff now?"
"Do you want me to write it down for you?"
"No! No. Sorry, traditional family, moving in, partner. Right." Ron squared his shoulders.
"Good luck," Harry said, and sent him off with a gentle shove. Ginny looked up, saw Ron coming, and casually vacated her seat for him with all the subtlety of a Bludger, heading for Harry.
"Hi," she said, rubbing his shoulder and leaning up to kiss him. "Guess what Ron did."
"Proposed marriage to a woman with a sudden, ardent feminist streak?" Harry asked. Ginny laughed. "Yeah, he told me."
"I hope you didn't tell him to keep proposing until she collapses. Hermione thinks he might, but my money's on her killing him before she caves," Ginny said, leaning back and watching them talk. "Besides, it's not sudden. Hermione's always been like that. She likes the rules until she thinks they're stupid and then she does what she wants. I think it's brilliant."
"You're still marrying me, though, right?" Harry asked, suddenly anxious.
"Yes, Harry, I am still marrying you. But I'm playing Quidditch under the same name, got it?" she said.
"Got it," he answered, sliding an arm around her waist.
"Harry Potter, how much have you had to drink?"
"Not enough," he replied, nuzzling her ear. "I got put in hospital on my birthday and I just had to talk your brother off a ledge. I think I deserve a few drinks. And soon I want you to let me take you home and do things to you your mother would disapprove of."
"You're terrible at dirty talk," she said, but he noticed she didn't pull away. "What exactly kinds of things? Mum likes you an awful lot, it'd take something really unusual -- "
He kissed her, because there were after all limits to what you could say in public. But, out of the corner of his eye, he also saw a flicker of movement where no movement should be...
"What?" she asked as he leaned back, scanning the room.
"I thought I saw...something," he said lamely. "Sorry. Maybe I have had enough."
"Well, we can go if you want. People are drifting off."
"I think..." he frowned and picked up his glass. "I think I need to make a toast first. Hey! Everyone!"
Heads raised from conversations, and people turned to face him as the silence descended. He held up his glass.
"A few days ago I turned twenty-two years old," he said, hoping this wasn't going to be as maudlin and embarrassing as it sounded like it might. "And we all know that if it were not for the people who loved me and gave up what they had for me, I would not be here tonight to celebrate it with you."
A few murmured hear, hears echoed through the room. He saw Molly, nodded to her, and turned back to the group.
"So I would like to propose a toast to them," he continued, lifting his glass a little higher. "To fallen friends -- may we remember their sacrifice as long as we live."
George, at the end of the bar, lifted his glass. "To fallen friends," he repeated.
"To fallen friends," the room chorused.
Harry swore, for a split second, that he saw Alastor Moody standing next to George at the bar, lifting his flask in the toast.
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