Not in the Hands of Boys

"...most of the teachers' quarters are on the lower floors, but I thought that you might prefer this. It's not Gryffindor Tower, but we're right under the roof of the west wing here, and the view over the lake is quite nice."

McGonagall didn't wait for Harry's reply; the heavy wooden door swung open at a wave of her wand. "You're free to put up any kind of security measures that you see fit, but I suppose there will be no need before the students return in September." She stepped over the threshold and gestured for Harry to follow her. Harry did, although the whole scene felt bizarrely unreal to him; ever since he'd seen the Ministry car that had taken Ron and Hermione away from Hogwarts disappear in the distance, he'd felt as if he were walking through a dream from which he was going to wake up any moment.

"Here's your study, the sitting room, and the bedroom is through that door." McGonagall gave him a quick sidelong glance before she continued, "You can always make changes if you don't like the rooms as they are now. I've asked the house elves to bring your luggage, and they will help you with anything else you need. They'll also serve your meals here if you ask them to, but I'd prefer it if you came down to the Great Hall to eat with the other teachers. Most of the staff are staying during the holidays this year, so you won't find yourself alone in an empty castle."

Harry nodded glumly. He wasn't sure whether any of the teachers were staying for his sake, and right now he didn't care. Even though the last students had only left a few hours ago, Hogwarts already seemed like a totally different place than the school he'd considered home for so long, the empty corridors and echoing halls suddenly feeling cold and forbidding. Harry was profusely glad that he wasn't going to be left behind here with no other company than a few ghosts and a sneering portrait all summer.

"I've had this put up by your desk, so that Professor Snape won't have any trouble helping you with your preparations." The Headmistress pointed at a huge canvas that showed a nondescript, rather gloomy landscape. Harry half expected Snape to come into view any moment, and he made a mental note to have a curtain installed in front of that picture as soon as possible. He knew there was no way around working with Snape, but, portrait or no, he wasn't going to allow Snape to turn up in his rooms whenever he chose.

If McGonagall noticed that he still hadn't said anything, she showed no reaction to it. "If there's anything else you need, you know you just have to tell me, don't you?" It was obvious that she wasn't talking about his quarters anymore, and even though Harry didn't think there was anything the Headmistress would be able to do about the fact that he felt like a blind man feeling his way through an unfamiliar room, he still forced himself to nod.

"Yes, I -" For some reason, his voice wouldn't obey him; he had to clear his throat before he was able to finish, "I know, Professor. Thank you."

McGonagall inclined her head, her businesslike expression softening. "Then I'll let you unpack and make yourself comfortable. I'll see you at dinner, Professor Potter."

Professor Potter. Harry couldn't get the sound of it out of his mind when he slowly started unpacking his trunk; it sounded so ridiculous that his first thought had been that the Headmistress was mocking him somehow. He knew he was being stupid, of course; less than two hours ago, he'd signed his work contract, which technically made him a Hogwarts professor, no matter how he felt about it.

It didn't help that the first thing he found when he opened his trunk were his old student robes, which he was never going to wear again; he would have to make a trip to Diagon Alley at some point to get a whole new set of clothes.

With a sigh, Harry levitated his trunk into the bedroom. There was a huge wardrobe next to the four-poster bed that had enough space for twenty times the amount of clothes he owned at the moment, and he stuffed his student robes into the back of the bottom drawer where he was unlikely to come across them by accident. It didn't take him long to put the rest of his belongings away, and he began to feel a bit better when he placed the picture of Teddy on his bedside table and then went back to the study to put Luna's Fwooper quill on his desk. The quarters were nice enough, light and airy with dark-red curtains in front of the tall windows, thick, soft rugs on the stone floor and a huge fireplace with two high-backed armchairs in the sitting room; perhaps it wouldn't be so difficult to start feeling at home here.

The study, however, made Harry feel like a child who had snuck into his teacher's office and was playing make-believe there. His few schoolbooks took up hardly any space on the bookshelves that covered a whole wall of the study, and it took him a while until he could bring himself to sit down on the heavy wooden chair behind the huge desk. It seemed too absurd to contemplate that there might soon be students standing in front of this desk to have him berate them for a poor performance in his class or hand out detentions for using magic in the corridors. Even though there was no sign of Snape in the picture frame on the wall to Harry's right, he couldn't shake off the impression that he was being watched - and mocked for even thinking that he might ever be able to fulfil the part he'd foolishly agreed to play.

What had Hermione said when she'd bid him good-bye in the morning? I know you'll be doing fine, Harry. Harry wished he could share her confidence, because right now he'd have loved nothing better than to go to McGonagall's office and tell her that he had reconsidered. He wasn't going to do it, of course; he'd made a commitment, and he wouldn't chicken out now just because he was getting cold feet. He'd been through so much worse, after all, and he had every reason to hope for a future that would look much brighter than the past, while so many others were still mourning their losses and trying to find ways to live with their grief.

That train of thought brought back memories of Ron's parents, who had been at Hogwarts just this morning to pick up Ron and Hermione, and of the stab of guilt he'd felt when he'd seen the deep new lines in their faces and the white threads in Molly Weasley's hair. Harry hadn't missed the tears in her eyes when she'd caught him up in a rib-crushing embrace, and he still wasn't sure whether he should accept her invitation to visit the Burrow over the holidays. Seeing the Weasleys again had reminded him just how much he missed being treated like a part of their family, but he couldn't help wondering whether his presence wasn't making things harder for them than they already were. He knew they weren't blaming him, neither for Fred's death nor for the fact that things hadn't worked out between him and Ginny, but he still felt that he'd made them pay a high price for all the kindness they'd shown him.

Of course, he also knew that Ron would cuff him over the head for having ideas like these, and that knowledge made everything a little easier. After some consideration, Harry went to get his old photo album and took out a photograph that Luna had taken of the four of them with the new camera her father had given her for Christmas. Ron, who was in the centre of the picture, had one arm around Hermione's waist and the other one around Harry's shoulders; Luna, who had slightly miscalculated the Self-Timing Charm, kept rushing towards Harry's outstretched hand and then disappearing again while Ron grinned and Hermione waved at the camera.

Harry was about to put the photo next to Teddy's picture on his bedside table when something made him hesitate. It felt cowardly somehow to limit all traces of his personal life to his bedroom, where nobody would ever see them, as if he were trying to hide who he was behind the new façade of "Professor Potter". There was still the mantelpiece in the sitting room, but...

At long last, he went back to the study to put the photo on his desk. It seemed a bit out of place there, but given the circumstances, Harry thought, that was probably just fitting.

* * *

Harry's first meal at the staff table that evening was a thoroughly surreal experience. He had never felt more like a schoolboy than when he gingerly sat down between Professors Flitwick and Vector, wincing at the loud scraping of his chair that seemed to echo in the empty Great Hall. The fact that everyone around him took great pains to act as if an eighteen year-old former student was a perfectly normal addition to their ranks made it worse, and Harry couldn't help wondering whether his new colleagues (that term would take a lot of getting used to as well) were just as uncomfortable with the situation as he was.

He ate in silence, merely nodding or making non-committal sounds when someone addressed him; thankfully nobody seemed very interested in chatting with him anyway. Dinner conversation was centred around the repairs to the castle that would be done over the summer. It looked like the teachers hadn't stayed because of Harry after all, but because they were needed to help with getting rid of the remaining effects that a year of Dark Magic had had on the school. Harry listened with growing astonishment; he'd had no idea how much of the damage still hadn't been repaired, and he tried not to ponder the question how badly the school would have needed a fully qualified Defence teacher right now.

He excused himself as soon as he could, claiming that he was tired and wanted to go to bed early. It wasn't even a lie - the day had seemed impossibly long, as if much more time than just a dozen hours had passed since all those good-byes in the morning. Harry was weary to the bone, yet once he went to bed, sleep wouldn't come for a long time. It was much too silent in the unfamiliar bedroom without the sound of Ron's even breathing, and he found himself desperately missing Luna's warm, reassuring presence which had always kept the shadows at bay that were now closing in on him.

Harry could hear a clock strike midnight somewhere in the distance; he was so tired now that his head was spinning, but he just couldn't bring himself to relax and give in to exhaustion. Little pinpricks of red light were dancing behind his closed eyelids, and again there was the feeling of being watched - a pair of dark eyes in an angel-like face that glowed bone-white in the darkness, a soft, full mouth curling into a smile that was both inviting and mocking, and the gentle touch of cool, slender fingers brushing his lips, leaving a trail of burning warmth in their wake -

He sat up with a start, his heart racing and his pyjamas clammy with sweat. It was pitch-dark in the room, and even though he knew without a doubt that he'd only been dreaming, he had to fight the temptation to reach for his wand and light every candle in the room. Feeling utterly ridiculous, Harry lay back again and tried to concentrate on taking deep, even breaths to slow his heartbeat down to normal.

The dreams hadn't bothered him for months, and over all the NEWTs-related stress he had all but forgotten about them. Compared to some of the others he'd had, this one had been perfectly innocent, but he still wondered what on earth had caused young Tom Riddle to show up in his dreams again. There was no part of his soul inside Harry, never had been; there was just no reason for his shadow to keep haunting Harry's nights. Or was it because Harry now held a position that Tom Riddle had been denied during his lifetime, because he was about to defy the old curse Voldemort had placed on everyone who dared to take up the post?

Or maybe it's just because you've been thinking about him a lot lately. Get a grip, Harry, it's OVER.

"You're gone for good, and so is your stupid curse." It was silly and childish, but Harry still felt better for speaking the words aloud. "You have no hold over me, so you might just as well leave me alone." With that, he pulled the blanket up over his ears and closed his eyes again; this time it didn't take him long to fall asleep.

* * *

It was almost ten o'clock when Harry woke up again. Since it was long past breakfast time anyway, he saw no need to hurry; when he entered the sitting room after a long, hot shower, he was pleasantly surprised to find a breakfast tray on the coffee table. The amount of food the elves had prepared for him made him consider skipping lunch as well - he knew he couldn't avoid the staff table forever, but one awkward meal less was still an attractive prospect.

His good mood lasted until the moment he finally walked into his study and found Snape glowering at him from the picture frame by his desk.

"Potter, do you know how late it is? How do you expect to get this done when you already start lazing around on the first day?"

It cost Harry some effort to keep his temper under control, but there was just no point to fighting with a portrait. "It's Sunday, in case you've forgotten. I'm off to see Teddy today, so you will have to wait until tomorrow to start torturing me."

"Your precious godson will have to wait." Snape's voice was flat. "I have my doubts whether I can get you adequately prepared if you work straight through the holidays, Potter, but I'm absolutely sure that you will keep embarrassing yourself in front of your students on a daily basis if you don't. It's a charming prospect, but unfortunately I promised the Headmistress to make sure that the new Defence teacher was up to the task."

Harry grinned. "Still bitter that she didn't ask Malfoy?"

The portrait shrugged. "Qualification-wise, Mr Malfoy would have been the better choice, but since he decided to play with magical gadgets in the Gringotts vaults instead, I'm afraid I'm stuck with you."

"He didn't decide anything, Professor McGonagall refused to ask him." Harry wasn't sure why he kept trying to goad Snape - it was probably stupid given how much he would need the portrait's help, but he couldn't resist nevertheless.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "What makes you so sure about that?" Before Harry could reply, he indicated a stack of parchment on the desk. "I've ordered the house elves to bring my class outlines from two years ago to give you a first impression of the task you're about to face. Sit down, Potter, we have a lot of work to do."

Surprised in spite of himself, Harry stepped up to the desk and picked up a sheet at random. It was covered in Snape's spidery handwriting, and from what he could make out at first glance it contained a detailed outline of the subjects to be covered during the first term of second year. If all of Snape's notes were this meticulous, he had saved Harry a huge amount of work by handing them over.

"You didn't have to give them to me." Harry couldn't quite bring himself to thank Snape outright, but it was probably for the better, because the portrait shot him an icy look.

"Severus Snape wouldn't have during his lifetime, you can be sure of that."

"I am, actually." With a sigh, Harry sat down behind the desk and reached for the stack of parchment. Even though he hated to admit it, Snape was right about the frightening amount of work that awaited them, and Harry knew there would be no more sleeping in for the next couple of weeks. He was still going to visit Teddy later, of course, even if it meant that he would have to work until midnight to make up for it. "Where do you want me to start?"

Snape made a face. "Have you actually given this any thought before you accepted the position?"

"Nope." Harry found that Snape's obvious annoyance did wonders for his own mood. "I reckoned it couldn't be all that difficult if someone like Gilderoy Lockhart could do it."

It was clear from Snape's expression that Harry's flippancy didn't fool him. "Then the only advice I can give you is to add a few loops and curls to your autograph. Shall I leave you to it?"

"No, of course not." Harry sighed again, but he held the portrait's gaze without flinching. "All right, I don't have a clue about any of this, and if you don't help me, I'm going to mess up royally. Are you going to help me?"

Snape inclined his head; it looked strangely formal. "We'll start with the first year syllabus; you can work your way up from there."

Harry gave him a curt nod and began to sift through the stack of parchment.