Harry Potter and the Legacy of the Light

Chapter Thirty-Six - Postbellum, Postmortem

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We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

-- Thomas Paine, "Common Sense"

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When Harry awoke, he immediately wished he hadn't.

It wasn't because of the pain, though there was quite a lot of it.
Pain was something he knew, and even though it was more than
he had felt in a long time it always felt familiar. Like an old shirt that
he could put on and take off...only he couldn't take it off when he
wanted to, and he never really remembered putting it on in the
first place.

No. It wasn't the pain.

He was tired--so terribly tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of thinking.
He would have given anything, anything, to go back to the blissful
darkness that was hovering just beyond his reach.

Even if kept his eyes closed, he could still feel things. He was lying
down, on his side, and there was something cool against his cheek,
and something warm at his back, and something hard all along his
side. He could feel all those things--and the pain, because it hurt--
and as long as he could feel them he couldn't go back to the darkness.
It wouldn't take him back.

He wanted to cry. He would have, if he could have made tears come.

But he couldn't even do that.

His head felt soggy, as if it had been stuffed with dripping wet
cotton-wool. He knew that something had happened, and that the
something that had happened was something terribly important, but
everything was fuzzy in his mind. Trying to remember only made his
thoughts grow dimmer, as though he had read about the Something-
Terribly-Important in a book long ago and mostly forgotten it.

In a way, he was glad. He didn't want to think. Better to delay the
memories for a time...they would return soon enough, and then he
would have to think about them for quite a long while after. Better to
lie very still and think about nothing until the darkness claimed him again.

And yet the darkness didn't come for him, and after a time he came
to realise that his back was very warm, and growing warmer with each
passing breath. At first the warmth had been nice, comforting, but
now it was decidedly uncomfortable. Soon, it would be intolerable.

He wanted to roll over onto his back or his stomach, whichever would
move him away from the heat, but he didn't know if he could trust his
body to do what he wanted. Even shallow breaths made his ribs protest.
He would have to start off slowly...

...perhaps by opening his eyes.

The awkward position of his body made the edge of his glasses dig
into the side of his nose, but at least he could see. He closed his eyes
and opened them again (it couldn't really be called 'blinking') and tried
to make sense of what he could see.

A shadow--his shadow--was stretched out before him across the dark
rough grey of a stone floor. There was a flesh-coloured blur inches
from his face. It turned out to be his left hand. He attempted to
wiggle--no, no, no, that HURT, he couldn't move his fingers at all.
There was nothing else in front of him except a carved and polished
bit of wood that looked like the bottom part of the leg of a chair,
and next to the chair--

He looked up, and his heart almost stopped.

Someone was there.

His breath came faster, little whimpering gasps that he couldn't
stop. Panic seized hold of his chest and made the blood thunder
in his ears.

Standing beside the chair--looming over him--was a dark shape, a
towering figure with two terrifying points of light where eyes should
be and flames rising from its head, like a crown of fire.

But then, the figure took a step forward, and Harry saw that it
wasn't fire at all.

It was firelight, caught and reflected in a great tangle of wild
white hair, individual strands turned to vibrant oranges and reds
and golds by the warming fire that he could feel beating down on
his back. And the two points of light were the glitter of dark
eyes that shone with the same firelight, the flickering reflection
set deeply in a craggy, weatherworn face.

It was a tall man, returning Harry's stare with the same intense
scrutiny, gazing down at him over a beaked nose. There was a strong,
stern set to the man's jaw that made Harry's stomach threaten to
turn over...but not from fear.

"So," the man said abruptly. "You're the one who's been looking
after my Watchman all this time."

Deep and resonant, the man's voice clawed at Harry's memory. A
strangled sort of sound escaped his throat as he struggled to think,
to remember if--where--he had heard that voice before--

"Lie still," the man commanded severely. "Don't try to speak."

Harry lay still, and did not try to speak. His body went limp of its
own accord.

The white-haired man regarded him for another long moment with a
gaze that made him feel cold and hot at the same time. But then the
man glanced away, off to the right, and said:

"He was wise to bring you here."

Puzzled, Harry followed the direction the man was looking in. Since
he could not turn his head for more than a fraction of an inch it
was difficult to see clearly, but by straining around the edges of
his vision he was able to look to the right.

There was another carved piece of wood close to his head, the bottom
part of the leg of another chair. Will was slumped in that chair, his head
buried in his hands and his face hidden from Harry's sight. His breathing
was uneven--not the breath of a man fast asleep.

Worry churned in Harry's stomach. He had never seen the Old One
look so drained, so completely and utterly exhausted. It was as if every
last bit of his energy had been spent.

"He is very tired."

Harry started--the old man might have been reading his thoughts. But
the man was not looking at him, but at Will.

"Very tired," he repeated, more softly this time, and there was a
quiet concern in his tone that belied his otherwise severe expression.
But then he looked back at Harry, and with his next words his voice
shifted back to its brisk, business-like rhythms.

"Though I think you would do better to worry about yourself than to
fret over Will Stanton, young man." One bristly eyebrow arched at
the startled noise Harry made, and the corners of the man's mouth
twitched faintly upwards. "So rest now, and let the Light finish
its healing."

A wave of tingling warmth swept through Harry's body, starting at the
tips of his toes and spreading through his veins. The fire at his back
felt far less hot in comparison. At the same time, a darkness began
to creep over his vision as slowly as if a lamp was being turned down.
Yet this darkness was not the cold, still oblivion that had held him
before, but rather the peace of a natural sleep, a drowsiness that
came on as easily as if he was back in his warm bed in the Hogwarts
dormitory. He could almost hear Ron's snoring, and the sound of a
chilly rain lashing against the windows.

He was floating away from the pain, away from the warm fire and the
stone floor and the carved wooden chairs and the tall old man. The
last thing he heard before the darkness bore him away was the voice
that his memory couldn't quite place, but which he would always be
able to hear for ever afterward...if the day was still, or the night
was clear, or the dream was right:

"You did well, Harry Potter."

* * *

When he next opened his eyes--even before he'd found his glasses and
put them on--he knew both where he was and what time it was.

With regular Quidditch games and long practices, assorted accidents
during class, and any number of other adventures that had ended in
unconsciousness, he'd became intimately familiar with the Hogwarts
infirmary. After enough time in bed, one soon learned the way the
shafts of sunlight created patterns on the floor and walls. Since
the window-shaped bars of light stretched halfway up the far wall,
he knew it was well into late afternoon, close to dinnertime.

He knew where he was, and who he was. The usual practice was to
determine how and when he had gotten there...but first, he had to
take care of more routine matters.

He did a quick general inventory of body parts, and as far as he
could tell he still had all of them. The skin of his forehead was
itchy, the well-known itch of a bandage wrapped a little too tightly
round his head. He tried to raise a hand to scratch it, but his shoulders
felt as if they were being pinned down with weights, and any movement
but the shallowest rise and fall of his chest made his muscles tingle and
ache. His right hand, resting on top of the blanket, was a blob of white
from wrist to fingertips.

Nothing hurt too badly, though. He was terrifically sore, but
nothing was missing, nothing broken beyond repair.

He would have been grateful, but he was too tired to be properly
thankful. That would have to come later, too.

A shadow crossed one of the bars of light, and Harry looked up, his
entire body tensing.

He relaxed at the sight--blurred, but still recognisable--of Remus
Lupin's gentle smile.

He raised his non-bandaged hand, waving it in a silent greeting.

Deftly, Remus caught his hand in mid-wave and felt for his wrist,
checking the pulse. Seemingly satisfied with what he felt, he
switched hands, lifting Harry's bandaged right hand from the
blankets and prodding it delicately.

Remus was being extremely careful, but even the slight pressure
was enough to make Harry wince.

"Sorry," Remus murmured. "Does it hurt much?"

"Only when you touch it." He hadn't meant it to sound like a bad
joke, but when Remus chuckled, it brought a smile to his face, too.
"Hello, Remus."

"Hello yourself," Remus replied. "Good to see you're awake."

"How long have I been out?"

Remus carefully returned the bandaged hand to the top of the blanket.
"Almost three days. It's Tuesday evening."

"Oh." He hadn't thought that much time had passed, but then again
that sort of thing was always difficult to tell. Now that he had an
idea of when it was-- "Can I have my glasses?"

He used the opportunity to have a better look at Remus. There
was a gash on his chin that was just finishing its healing, and the
knuckles of his left hand were bound tightly with a thin strip of
cloth, but other than that he looked fine--if a little tired.

"Are you hungry?" Remus asked. "Do you need anything?"

"No, thanks. I don't think I could eat even if I wanted to."

Remus's smile faded, but quickly brightened again. "All right, then.
I'll fetch a bell for you to use if you want to ring for me, and I'll
let the others know that you're awake."

Harry smiled a sleepy smile.

"I always seem to end up in hospital, don't I?" He ran a hand over
the cool white sheets. "You'd think Madam Pomfrey would be tired
of seeing me in here."

Remus looked away suddenly, staring fixedly at a painting on the far
wall that depicted a nurse in starched white robes and cap attending
to a bed-ridden patient.

"I...I don't think she has to worry about that anymore, Harry," he
said awkwardly.

"What do you--" Unbidden, the image of Madam Pomfrey falling face
down in the dirt of the battlefield flashed into his mind--and with that
image the dam on his memory broke, releasing a flood of other, more
horrible memories. "Oh...I...oh, no...."

"Harry!" Momentarily forgetting the boy's injuries, Remus grabbed
him by the shoulder, eyes wide with alarm as he tried to think of
something comforting to say. "Listen to me, please. It's...there
was nothing...it isn't your fault--"

"Who else is dead, Remus?"

"Harry--"

"No." His face was stony, without a hint of sadness. "I have to
know. Who else was killed?"

"Ron and Hermione are all right," Remus said quickly, soothingly.
"Neville, Ginny, and Colin, too. And so is Sirius. They're fine,
they're all fine, Harry, don't worry. Now, please, you need to--"

"Tell me." It was not a plea. It was an order. "Who else did
they kill?"

Remus took a deep breath. He let it out slowly.

"Alastor Moody, and Mundungus Fletcher." He kept his voice low,
as if speaking too loudly would be physically painful for him. "The
Killing Curse...we didn't find them until it was all over. Arabella's
badly hurt--it's been touch and go for the last few days. And there
were two others...I don't think you'd know their names, but they're
Ministry folk." He sighed. "That's all I know."

Harry glared at him, and ground out through fiercely gritted teeth:

"Tell me."

Remus closed his eyes, and lowered his voice even further. "We lost
one of the Slytherin sixth-years last night. There are one or two
others at St Mungo's that may not last the night. Lee Jordan took
a nasty blow to the head--he's at St Mungo's now, too. Several of
the older students were injured as well, but none of the--"

He glanced at Harry, and broke off in mid-sentence when he saw that
the young man's face had turned a sickening greenish-grey. Harry
was shaking violently, his thin frame wracked with spasms as angry,
helpless tears poured down his face.

"Harry--" He reached for his best friend's son, but Harry jerked away,
feebly slapping at Remus's hand.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

"Harry, listen...."

"They're DEAD!" His shrill scream rattled the paintings on the
walls, and the nurse looked up from her patient in alarm. "They're
dead, they're dead, they're all dead, just like my parents, just like
Ron's mum, just like Cedric and Dennis and Draco, because of
me, because I couldn't--"

"You arrogant little ass."

The sharp, incisive voice cut through the air of the sickroom like
the crack of a whip. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere,
ringing in the stillness.

Remus leapt up with a low growl, wand poised for defence.

Too weak to move, Harry could only shrink back into the bedclothes as
the figure of Will Stanton shimmered into existence right at the foot
of his bed.

He thought for certain that his heart would stop beating. He had seen
the Old One angry before, and had even been subjected to that anger,
but this was far worse. Cold, impersonal rage, all the more terrible
for the fact that it was barely held in check, radiated from the older
man in icy waves.

"'Died because of me'?" The mockery was deliberate, calculated. "I
have never heard such idiocy in my life."

"You dare to--" Remus snarled, raising his wand, but Will cut him off
with a sharp word and a strange twist of his hand. The former Defence
Against the Dark Arts professor fell back onto Harry's bed, eyes glazed
over, wand hanging limp in his hand.

Harry, cowering beneath the blankets, stared in unblinking terror as
the Old One's hand shot out and pointed a menacing finger at him, right
between his eyes.

"Get it out of your swollen head that the people lying dead at this
moment gave up their lives 'because of you' or 'for you', or whatever
other nonsense you have thought up." Will's voice was soft and ominous,
seething with anger. "They would all have fought Voldemort and his
minions, whether you had been there or not. They, and perhaps more,
would likely have suffered with or without the gracious honour of your
presence."

He lowered his hand, very slowly. The awful presence of wrath in
the sickroom lessened slightly, only to be replaced by a frigid
indifference.

"You trivialise their deaths with your snivelling," he said coldly. "You
may be the Boy Who Lived, Mr. Potter, but you're still a boy. Now
that all this is over, you can start by remembering that."

Turning to Remus, he extended his right arm with his fingers spread
out and pointing, and said a single word.

The frozen man blinked, and shook his head like a man coming out of
a daze. He regained his grip on the wand in his hand, and stared at
Will with the stark desperation of an animal caught in a trap.

Scornfully, Will returned his stare.

"And you," he said to the other man. "Do not indulge him in his
self-pity. He has been indulged for far too long, and this is what
has come of it."

He pulled his cloak closer about him.

"Good day, Mr. Potter," he said, without turning to look at Harry.

And he vanished.

The white-robed nurse in the painting glared indignantly at Remus
and Harry, deeply shocked that they would disturb the tranquillity
of the sickroom. But before she could return to caring for her
patient, there was a rapid pounding on the door.

"Professor Lupin?" Hermione's worried voice called out, muffled by
the thick wood. "Professor? Is everything all right?"

Remus, still too dazed to stand, pointed his wand at the door and
muttered quietly.

The door swung open, and Hermione half-stumbled, half-fell into
the room. Colin and Ginny, who had been with her outside in the
corridor, both lost their balance and landed on top of her. The
three of them hit the floor with a heavy thud.

Hermione squirmed, attempting to extricate herself from the jumble of
arms and legs. "Ow, Ginny, my hair...Colin, will you get OFF...oh,
Harry!"

She scrambled to her feet and ran over to the bed, leaving the two
fourth-years to untangle themselves on their own.

"Are you all right?" She grabbed Harry's unbandaged hand, holding
it in both of her own. "I was just about to knock, and thought I
heard--"

"Hermione," Remus chided in an unsteady voice, "we should let Harry
rest. The three of you"--he glanced back at Colin and Ginny in the
doorway--"can come back tomorrow."

"No!" Harry blurted out, clinging to Hermione's hands. "Wait,
please...I don't...."

He saw Colin and Ginny hurry toward him, skidding to a stop at the
foot of his bed. With Remus to his right and Hermione to his left,
and all four of them staring at him, he felt not a little like a fish
in a bowl. For all that he hated that feeling, he couldn't bear the
thought of them going away and leaving him in an empty room--with
nothing but memories and shadows for company--until the next morning.

"I...I'll have to know everything sooner or later." he said softly,
staring down at his bandaged hand. "It might as well be now."

Stay with me, please. I don't want to be alone. Don't leave me
alone...not now...not tonight.

Remus started to shake his head, but with Hermione, Colin, and Ginny's
pleading eyes fixed on him, his resistance soon crumbled.

"Pull up some chairs," he said, reluctant but resigned to the
inevitable. "Have a seat."

There were a number of chairs and stools at the far end of the room,
kept for visitors to use. Hermione and Colin and Ginny wasted no
time in dragging a motley collection of chairs over to Harry's bed.
At first they all tried to squeeze round the same side of the bed,
but when they discovered that there wasn't enough room for all of
them Colin moved to the other side, next to Remus.

"Where's Sirius?" Harry asked when they had all settled down. "And
Ron and Neville?"

"Your godfather's asleep, and he's going to stay that way," Remus
declared firmly. "I put him in one of the smaller rooms. It's the first
time he's slept since you were brought in here, and he can be as
furious as he likes when he wakes up, but I don't care." A steely
glint had come into his eyes, banishing the dazedness and hesitation
of a few moments before.

"Ron's with Dad," Ginny said. "They've been helping to look after
Fred and George."

Harry's distress must have shown on his face, because she quickly
added, "But they're all right, don't worry."

Colin, ever helpful, piped up. "They're fine, really they are. They
just got a bit...." He gnawed on his lip, trying to think of the right
word to use. "A bit roughed up. That's all."

"What happened to them?" Harry asked.

Hermione's brow furrowed as her worried frown deepened into a scowl.
"Look, they're probably charming the bedpans to sing the Hogwarts
school song in perfect four-part harmony right now. THEY'LL be all
right."

Ginny couldn't contain a giggle at the thought, but she stifled her laughter
and ducked her head guiltily.

"And last I saw Neville," Remus said, "he was helping some of the
students move back to their dorms. We still have a few people in
the infirmary here, but everyone else has either been released or
was taken to St Mungo's."

"But what about Dumbledore? And McGonagall?" The reassurances hadn't
helped. There were still so many questions, so many people to consider.
"And Snape, and Hagrid, and...."

"Easy, easy now." Remus laid a hand on his shoulder, easing him back
down into bed. "They're all safe, and there will be plenty of time
to talk about them later." He turned to Hermione, and asked, "How
are you feeling, now?"

"Much better, thank you, Professor," she said eagerly. "Much better
than yesterday."

"Hermione and the others only woke up on Monday morning," Remus
explained to Harry. "They were unconscious as well. All of you were,
when you were first brought in."

"Brought in?" Harry said.

"From the Quidditch pitch," Remus said. "We put all six of you in
here, and you were the last to wake. But you're awake now, and I
was about to spread the good news when your visitors burst in."
He gave the children a rather stern look.

Hermione tossed her head. "I thought I heard someone else's voice,"
she said stoutly. "I thought it sounded like Will."

"Will--you mean Dr. Stanton?" Remus's eyebrows almost disappeared
into his hairline. "Whatever makes you think that? There's been no one
else in here but myself this evening, until the three of you came along."

"But Remus--" Harry began.

The professor looked at him questioningly. "Yes?"

Harry felt a sudden chill. Either Remus was frighteningly adept at
lying--or he didn't remember a thing.

"N...nothing," he said, plucking at the worn satin edging on the
blanket. "Never mind."

Remus frowned slightly, but seemed to let it pass. He turned back
to the others. "Would you mind finding Ron and Neville, Hermione?
I think they ought to know that Harry's woken up."

Hermione held Harry's hand more tightly. "But Professor--"

"And you can take Ginny and Colin with you. I'll be along in a
moment."

"Yes, Professor." There was no prudent way for her to refuse a
teacher's direct request, but the tone of her voice made it plain
that he knew she wasn't at all happy to oblige. Sighing, she
squeezed Harry's hand, and smiled at him as she stood up.

"I...I'm glad you're all right, Harry," she said.

He smiled back. "You too, Hermione."

Colin got to his feet. "Feel better, Harry."

"I will."

Ginny stood as well, but did not look at him. Her eyes were downcast.

Harry tried to catch her eye. "Sorry, Ginny," he said lightly, trying to
make a joke. "I didn't mean to do anything brave."

Her head snapped up, and to his surprise he saw that her eyes were
filled with tears. Her mouth worked, but whatever she wanted to say
wouldn't come out.

"Go on, all of you," Remus said, ushering them away from the bed.
He shooed them outside and closed the door firmly behind them, and
made his way over to the long table where Madam Pomfrey had kept
the medicines she dispensed most often. He selected a bulbous bottle
half-filled with clear liquid and splashed some into a clean glass, then
brought it back to the bed and handed it to Harry.

Suspicious, Harry sniffed at the liquid. It had no smell--or none
that he could detect. "What's this?"

"A glass of water." Remus couldn't hide a smile. "No potions, no
charms, no Muggle medicine. Now drink."

Gingerly, Harry sipped the liquid. It was tepid, but it tasted like water
and nothing but water. He drained the glass.

Remus took the empty glass from him and set it aside. "And now," he
proclaimed roundly, "you need sleep. I know Madam Pomfrey would
never forgive me if I disrespected her memory and let you stay up all night."

"Sleep?" Harry was flabbergasted. "But I just woke up!"

"And now you're going to sleep again," Remus said, reminding Harry of
Madam Pomfrey at her most irritatingly cheerful.

"I'm not going to sleep," he said stubbornly.

Remus gave him an appraising stare. "Then you won't mind if I read
to you?"

"Read to me?"

"Seeing as how you're not going to sleep anytime soon...unless you'd
rather I wouldn't."

"No, no." If Remus had it in his head to treat him like a five-year-
old, there was little sense in acting any other way. "You can read
to me, if you want."

"Mm-hm." The professor opened the drawer of the bedside table and
drew out a slim leather-bound book. He flipped through the pages.
"Let's see...ah, here we are. Sirius stopped at Chapter Seven--I
do wish he wouldn't bend the corners like that--but since you're
actually awake and listening now, I think that I'll start from the
beginning."

Harry stared at the book. He knew that cover: scarred red leather
worn from years of rough handling, cracking spine, faded and barely
legible gold lettering on the cover....

"That's..." he started to say. "That isn't--"

Remus calmly turned the pages until he was back at the beginning of
the book.

"'Chapter One: The Evolution of the Flying Broomstick.'" He paused
long enough to grin at Harry, then continued. "'No spell yet devised
enables wizards to fly unaided in human form. Those few Animagi
who transform into winged creatures may enjoy flight, but they are
a rarity....'"

Harry had read the opening paragraph of Quidditch Through the Ages
at least hundred times. He could recite entire stretches of the book by
heart. But there was something different about having it read to him,
hearing the familiar words spoken aloud in Remus's easy, gentle voice.

"'...our ancestors were not content with hovering five feet from the
ground. They wanted more....'"

He was being read to. It was an odd feeling, but a good one. It
was like...it felt like....

His eyes had closed by the time Remus reached the middle of the second
paragraph.

He was asleep before Remus turned the page.

* * *

A tinny clatter and a muffled curse woke him from the jumbled depths
of a cloudy dream. He started awake, and his eyes flew open, blinking
against the light streaming through the windows.

A blurry figure was standing beside his bed, fumbling with a blob of
silver. Squinting, Harry was able to tell that the blob was a tray
covered with a dome, and that the blurry figure had the unmistakeable
facial features of Sirius Black.

Sirius finally managed to set the tray down without spilling it, and
glanced in Harry's direction. He grunted apologetically when he
noticed that Harry had awoken and was staring myopically at him.

"Sorry," he murmured. "Lost my grip."

"'s all right." Harry tried to sit up in bed, but the weakened muscles
in his arms refused to support him. He wriggled futilely for a moment,
twisting against the sheets, before giving up with an aggrieved cough.

"Let me," Sirius said quietly. He lifted the cover off the tray, then
slipped an arm behind Harry shoulders and helped him sit up in bed.

"Fancy something to eat?" he said as he handed Harry's glasses to him.

Harry took them, and looked up at Sirius.

The skin around his godfather's right eye was swollen, ringed with
colourful bruising that ranged from sickly yellows and greens to a
circle of purple close around the eye. There were several scratches
on his face; none too deep, but all were red and angry- looking. In
addition to the cuts and the black eye, the upper part of his chin
was scabbed over, encrusted with dried blood from a split lip.

"It's nothing," he said, seeing Harry's concerned expression. "And I
gave back better than I got, at any rate."

Harry's gaze drifted from Sirius's face to the tray he was holding.
On it was a shallow, steaming bowl of what looked like greasy brown
water, and a toast rack with several slices of plain toast. No butter,
no marmalade, no jam.

He stared at the tray, then back at Sirius. "What's this?"

"Breakfast." Sirius slid the tray onto Harry's lap, and draped a
napkin across his godson's chest with a waiter's grandiose flourish.
"Eat up."

Harry wrinkled his nose. "This is breakfast?"

"Eat up," Sirius said again, his tone brooking no argument. He sat
down in the chair that Remus had used the night before, and settled
in to watch Harry eat.

Breakfast, as it was, consisted of hot beef tea and cold dry toast.
Harry choked on the first spoonful, spluttering at the unexpected
taste and dribbling a little of the broth out of the corner of his mouth.
Sirius swooped in to dab at the drips with the edge of the napkin, but
Harry swatted his hand away with the spoon.

"Stop that," he snapped. "I'm not an invalid."

Sirius looked round, taking in the rows of white-sheeted beds, the
scrubbed stone floor, the tables and shelves with their phials of
potions, the locked poison cupboard. He raised a mocking eyebrow
at his godson.

Harry grumbled, and resumed his meal in silence.

Sirius watched him like a hawk as he scraped the bowl clean and ate
every crumb of the toast. Harry, for his part, was thankful when the
toast rack was empty and the last bit of broth was gone. Eating with
his left hand was an awkward task, and in order to keep from spilling
the broth everywhere he had to go very slowly. Raising and lowering
his arm was tiring. But he had eaten, and his stomach was full, and
he wanted to go back to sleep.

Sirius whisked the napkin away and replaced the cover on the tray.
"Do you want anything else?"

"No, thanks," Harry mumbled.

His godfather nodded and left the room, pulling the door closed
behind him.

Harry slid down in bed, burrowing under the bedclothes, and stared
at the wall. The nurse in the painting had just finished giving her
grateful patient a sponge bath. Drowsily, he wondered if Remus or
Sirius would be in to give him a sponge bath. He probably needed it.

He was asleep within minutes, and it seemed as if next to no time had
passed before he felt a hand gently shaking him.

It was Remus, and he had a tray balanced on one hand. "Time for
lunch, Harry. Can you sit up?"

This time, Harry was determined to do it on his own. Wedging his
elbows under his pillow, he used his legs and feet to inch himself
backward, toward the headboard. Remus stood by and watched
the process, but did not move to help.

It took longer than he thought it would, and his stomach and arm
muscles were screaming from the exertion by the time he was done,
but finally he was able to work himself into an upright position.
He beamed at Remus, grinning wearily.

"Eat up," Remus said, smiling as he set the tray in Harry's lap.

Lunch, it seemed, was a heartfelt apology for breakfast. The bowl
in the centre of the tray held a hearty stew, brimming with chunks
of meat and vegetable. Beside the bowl was a basket of small loaves
of fresh, crusty bread, and beside that was a jug of milk and a
plate covered with a napkin. Remus lifted the napkin, revealing
three gooey jam tarts.

Harry's eyes could barely take in the sight of so much food. With
a happy grunt, he grabbed his spoon.

He ate ravenously, shovelling the food into his mouth and washing
all of it down with great gulps of milk. It was the best meal he
had eaten in his life.

"Slow down, slow down," Remus scolded, eyeing Harry as the food
disappeared from the plates with alarming speed. "You'll be sick
if you keep that up."

When everything that could be eaten had been eaten, and Harry was
looking longingly at the empty plates, Remus took the tray and set
it on the floor.

"Where are the others?" Harry asked, wiping his mouth on the sleeve
of his pyjamas.

Remus wrinkled his nose, and handed him another napkin. "Hermione,
last I saw, was writing to her parents. And I think Colin's having a nap.
Ron and Ginny are probably with their brothers right now--the twins
have been asking after you."

"I wish I could go see them," Harry said wistfully.

Remus's face took on a thoughtful expression. "Hagrid's in the same
room with them. I don't think he'll be much for talking right now,
but...would you feel up to going for a little walk, Harry?"

"Would I!" In a flash, he had swung his legs out from beneath the
sheets. But the moment his bare feet touched the floor, a jolt of
cold prickled up his legs, and his head swum with sudden dizziness.
"Nggh...."

Remus caught him before he could topple out of bed. "Perhaps I
should have put that differently," he said. "You're not walking
anywhere, not yet."

Once he was sure that Harry had regained his balance, Remus ducked
behind one of the privacy screens that had been drawn around the now-
empty beds at the far end of the ward. He emerged moments later,
pushing a wheeled chair that looked nothing like the smart Muggle
wheelchairs Harry had seen. It was more like a leather armchair
attached to a child's wagon, with two large wheels in back and a
single smaller wheel in front that could be steered with a long
handle.

"Hop in," Remus said.

He fetched a dressing gown from the foot of the bed, and helped
Harry into the chair. He tucked a blanket over Harry's knees, and
they set off.

They didn't have far to go. The Hogwarts hospital wing had several
wards: two large ones that held two rows of thirty beds each, and
four smaller, more private rooms with only two beds each. Harry
had been the last remaining occupant of one of the large wards; the
other was across the corridor. The door opened soundlessly on well-
oiled hinges, and Remus wheeled Harry inside.

Fred and George were in the two beds closest to the door. They were
sitting up in bed, well-wrapped in red flannel dressing gowns and
resting on a sea of pillows. George's left leg and Fred's right leg were
encased in white plaster casts and propped up on more mounds of
pillows.

The twins had chosen to pass the time by flicking Exploding Snap
cards through the air and into a bedpan placed a few feet away.
Cards were scattered all across the floor; only a handful had
actually hit the target.

Their faces lit up when they saw who had come to visit. They waved
their arms wildly and opened and shut their mouths, but all without
making a sound. Harry couldn't understand what they were doing, but
as Remus pushed his chair down the ward he soon saw the reason for
their silent greeting.

Hagrid was lying on a makeshift bed at the far end of the ward.
Four normal-sized beds had been charmed together for him, but his
feet still stuck out over the edge. The top sheet was drawn up to
his chin, and his head was wrapped in wet towels so that only his
nose and part of his mouth were visible.

Remus wheeled Harry's chair close to the bed.

"He can hear you," he said as he unwrapped a few of the towels from
around Hagrid's head, uncovering ears and eyes. "He may not be able
to respond, but you can still talk to him and let him know you're
here."

Harry was only half paying attention; he had been fighting to control
his shock on seeing Hagrid's face fully for the first time. The cold,
wet towels had covered a massive, swollen haematoma in the middle
of Hagrid's forehead, the result of a blow that in all likelihood would
have crushed a normal man's skull. The half-giant's face was red and
puffy, suffused with blood. His eyes were swollen shut, but they
opened a crack when Remus lifted the towel, and with an uncanny
awareness Hagrid looked right at Harry.

"Hello, Hagrid," Harry said, smiling what he hoped was a cheerful,
healthy smile.

The bedsprings creaked and groaned as Hagrid stirred.

"Harry...." he breathed, his voice rusty from lack of use.

"Yes." Harry reached out, pushing a few strands of thick, coarse
beard out of the way of Hagrid's mouth. "It's just Harry."

Hagrid breathed out again, a relieved sigh. "Yer...a'right, Harry?"

"Yes. I'm fine."

"Mm," Hagrid grunted. "'Twas worryin' me a bit. But yer a'right."

Harry's smile wobbled; he pressed his lips together tightly. "I'm
glad you're safe. I was worried about you, too."

"No need for yeh t'worry 'bout me." Something like concern flitted
across Hagrid's swollen face. "Is Fang a'right?"

Harry was about to reply that he didn't know, but a voice spoke over
his shoulder:

"Charlie's looking after him for now. You remember my brother, don't
you, Hagrid?"

Harry twisted round. "Ron!"

Ron grinned down at him. "Hey, Harry." He turned back to Hagrid
and said brightly, "And Charlie says you've got to get well soon,
Hagrid, because he's tired of having to feed Fang a hundred times
a day. He says that dog eats more than five of his dragons."

"Heh heh heh." Hagrid wheezed with laughter. "Good lad, your
brother. Always was. Fang liked him."

The laughter seemed to have tired him out, because his voice grew
faint, and his eyelids drooped. "Good lad...good lad...."

Remus replaced the towels over Hagrid's forehead, smoothing them
down with his hand.

"Where was he?" Harry asked as Remus bent over the sleeping half-
giant. "I mean, where did you find him? Was he really in the
Forbidden Forest?"

Remus pressed a finger to his lips, and wheeled Harry away from the
bed before he answered.

"Tied to a tree and Stunned unconscious," he said grimly. "They had
posted a guard, but...well, it doesn't matter. We cut the ropes and
brought him here. It took three men to levitate him up the stairs."

"Will he be okay?"

"The worst is over. It'll take some time before he's back on his
feet, but he'll be better and better each day." Remus patted him
on the shoulder, and turned to Ron. "Here to see your brothers
again?"

"Actually, I came to see Harry," Ron replied. "Ginny told us he'd
woken up."

"Oi, Ron!" George called out in a loud stage whisper. "Bring our
rugged hero over here so we can thank him properly!"

Remus stepped aside to let Ron take control of the wheelchair.
Ron kicked the bedpan out of the way and pushed Harry between
the beds.

"Well!" Fred exclaimed, fanning himself with a get-well card as he
gave Harry a once-over. "Don't you look a treat."

"We're just glad to see you're alive and kicking, mate," George
said. "We'd bought a gift for you and everything--it would have
been a shame to waste it."

He pointed to the bed table on his left. Displayed in a position of
prominence was a new toilet-seat, white porcelain festooned with
red and gold ribbons and a gigantic red bow.

Harry plastered a smile on his face. "Thanks. I hope Sirius will
let me keep it."

Fred and George's eyes widened at the mention of Sirius's name.

"Sirius Black...is he really your godfather?" George said in hushed
tones. "I mean, Dad told us the whole story, but still...."

"You have to admit, Harry," Fred said, "it's a bit much to swallow.
All we heard about year before last was how he was trying to sneak
in and slit your throat, when all along it was really--"

"Fred," Ron said warningly.

"Sorry."

"Yes, he's really my godfather," Harry told them. "He and Remus--
Professor Lupin--were my dad's best friends at school, and now
they're my guardians."

Fred shook his head. "Wicked."

Ron looked suddenly thoughtful. "Hey, Harry? Exactly what did you
say to Ginny last night?"

"What d'you mean?" Harry said.

"Well, she and Hermione and Colin came back from the hospital wing
last night, and a bunch of us were sitting around downstairs. So
Dean asked how you were, and all she said was 'Harry's awake' before
she started bawling her head off."

George puckered his lips and batted his eyelashes. "Ooh, ooh...she
was so relieved to have her precious Harry safe."

Ron rolled his eyes. "So Hermione tries to calm her down, and before
you know it she's crying all over the place, too. And then Angelina
and Katie--"

("--Alicia's at St Mungo's," Fred interrupted unnecessarily. "Got
hit with a Jaw-Breaker Hex.")

"--Angelina and Katie started getting all weepy, and that's why I
happened to be wondering just WHAT you might have said to my
sister last night."

"I didn't say anything to her," Harry protested. "I just told her that I
didn't mean to--" His words were drowned out by the wet, slobbery
kissing noises that Fred and George were making at him. "Stop that!"

"Oh, how touching! The fair maiden weeps to see her own true love
safe!" George declaimed, pressing his hand to his heart. Fred flopped
over, pretending to swoon.

"Come on," Ron said disgustedly, pulling the chair backwards. "Let's
go someplace a little less moronic."

He pushed the chair away from the twins, who had started to act out
their version of Harry and Ginny's touching reunion in alternately
high-pitched and deep growling voices ("Oh, Harry! My heart doth
leap within my virgin breast to see thee safe and sound!" "Lo, my
dearest darling Ginny, let us away to yon empty cupboard near yon
Charms classroom so that we may profess our undying love and have
a right good snog!"), and out into the corridor.

"Harry, there's something I've got to tell you," he said as soon
as the door was shut.

"Me, too, Ron--"

"No, wait, let me go first." Ron took a deep breath. "I was talking
with the twins the other day, and I mentioned something--I don't even
know what I said now, and this is going to sound weird, but...I don't
think they remember all of it."

At times, Harry had to remind himself to be patient with Ron. This
was one of those times. "All of what?"

"The battle. They don't remember Will being there at all."

"What?" All thoughts of patience flew out the window. "Are you
sure?"

Ron nodded his head. "I asked Dad about it before he left last
night. The thing is, he remembers that Will was there, and he said--"

Without warning, the door opened, and Remus poked his head out
into the corridor.

"There you two are," he said when he saw Harry and Ron. "I was
wondering where you'd gone to."

"Oh, I was just leaving," Ron said loudly. "I promised Seamus I'd
help him do...do something. Bye, Harry! Bye, Professor!"

He mumbled a hasty "Tell you later," to Harry as he passed by,
hurrying down the corridor and out of sight.

Remus watched him go, then took the handles of Harry's chair.

"You wouldn't mind a short detour, would you?" he said. "Only I've
one more thing left to do." He wheeled the chair over to the door
to one of the private rooms. "It's a little dark in here, but we
won't be staying long."

The room was indeed dark, and the sickroom smell of sterile dressings
and carbolic acid was cloyingly strong. Heavy draperies had been drawn
over the windows, blocking all natural light. The only illumination in the
room came from a dark lantern that hung on a hook near the door. One
of the two beds was occupied; Harry could see a shape it in, a person
reclining on a pillow.

Remus took the lantern off its hook and opened the metal flaps,
raising the light level enough for Harry to get a better look at
the man in the bed.

His gut twisted when he saw that the man in the bed was Professor
Snape.

"Good afternoon, Severus," Remus said genially.

Snape said nothing. His eyes were closed. There was a tray beside
his bed, laid out with the same hearty lunch Harry had enjoyed--but
none of the food had been eaten.

"I've brought you a visitor. I hope you don't mind." Remus set the
drew up a chair. "I know you said you weren't hungry, but are you
sure that you don't want something else?"

Snape did not move. He made no reply, or gave any indication that
he was aware of their presence.

Harry thought that he ought to say something. "Hello, Professor
Snape."

Snape's reply was immediate, but the delivery lacked its customary
sharpness:

"What is he doing here?"

"He's been to the other ward to see the Weasley twins and Hagrid.
I just thought I'd stop by on the way back and...." Remus seemed
to realise that Snape's question hadn't demanded an answer, and he
stopped. "I have to change the bandages, Severus. Could you please
sit up?"

Without a word, Snape pushed himself a little more upright.

Harry's eyes had finally become used to the weak lamplight, and
he was sitting close enough to notice that Snape's hands were
formless white shapes of gauze resting on the bedclothes.

Remus took one of Snape's hands and, painstakingly, began to unwind
the long white strips.

Harry watched the procedure: first with an odd curiosity, then with
alarm, and finally with nauseated horror as the last of the bandages
fell away.

Severus Snape's hands were a wreck. The long, slender fingers that
had once brewed the most complex of potions were horribly blistered,
disfigured beyond all recognition. A thick, yellowish, foul-smelling
substance was oozing from countless open sores. Remus was taking the
utmost care as he removed the layers of dressings, but large pieces
of skin sloughed off and peeled away even at his cautious touch.
Glimpses of stringy tendon could be seen where the skin had been
entirely destroyed, and in places the stark whiteness of bone gleamed
through. Tough scar tissue had formed where the sores had granulated
and started to heal, crisscrossing the backs of his hands with a network
of raised, puffy marks. Not an inch of his skin had escaped damage.

"What...what happened?" he heard himself say.

"A parting gift from Lucius Malfoy," Snape said in a voice like
desert dust. "I never thought that the great champion of pure-
blooded wizardry would resort to such a crude, Muggle device
as vitriol."

Vitriol. Harry was appalled. "He threw it at you?"

"He threw it at me." Slowly, very slowly, Snape opened his eyes.
"And whilst my hands were otherwise occupied, he took advantage of
the opportunity to cast the Caecus Curse," Snape said.

Harry couldn't stop himself from flinching, but what he saw was not
what he had expected to see. He had expected to see a ravaged ruin
staring accusingly at him, but Snape's eyes looked fine. There was
nothing wrong with them, no signs of injuries or damage. But the
longer he looked, the more he felt that something wasn't right.

It might have been the low light in the room, but Snape's gaze
seemed to lack its usual fire. The glare that had the ability to
reduce the average first-year to floods of tears at twenty paces
and turn Neville Longbottom into a mass of quivering jelly was
noticeably absent. In fact, Snape's eyes looked blank. Vacant.
Empty.

Blind.

"Caecus," Snape declared with exaggerated slowness, as if spelling
out a word for a slow-witted child. "From the Latin, meaning 'not
seeing' or 'sightless.'"

"Severus, Albus cast the counter-curse as soon as we found you,"
Remus sounded as if his patience had been worn to bare threads by
countless repetition. "It will take a few weeks, a month at the longest,
for your sight to return, but it will return." He lifted Snape's hands,
checking to see that the new dressings he had applied were securely
in place, and gathered the strips of used gauze. "The blindness isn't
permanent."

A sneer curled Snape's upper lip, but the blankness of his eyes made
it look grotesque, not intimidating.

His eyelids snapped shut, and he sank back into the pillow and turned
his face away from the light.

Deeply shaken, Harry sat like a stone in the chair, waiting for
Remus to finish tidying the room and wheel him outside, into the
daylight and away from the man who had been his Potions professor.

* * *

He had a difficult time falling asleep that night, and he woke early
the next morning to the sound of a conversation taking place just
outside the door that led to the corridor.

The first voice he recognised was Remus's, though the professor was
speaking in an oddly high-pitched whisper that was not nearly as
soft as he seemed to think it was.

"Look," Remus was saying, "I know it's important, but it's not the
best time for--"

"She's gone, Moony." That was Sirius, his voice rough and gravely
as if he hadn't slept all night. "And I'm bound to give this to him."

"But you can't do it now." The urgent whisper carried through the
door. "Let him sleep--let him rest, he shouldn't have to face this
just yet--"

"Remus...."

"--let him have breakfast, for pity's sake!"

"And then what?" Sirius forgot to keep his voice down. "Tell him
after breakfast, after lunch, after dinner? Fill him up with food
and then take him down the hall to see her sodding cor--"

"Quiet! He'll hear you!"

Sirius snapped, "Let him hear! He'll have to hear it sooner or
later, and we're not doing him any favours by putting it off!"

Harry willed himself to lie still when he heard the doorknob rattle.
You're asleep, he told himself. You're asleep, you don't hear
anything. You're asleep. You're asleep. He repeated the words
like a mantra as the door was flung open, and the click of rapid
footsteps--Sirius, with Remus at his heels--approached his bed.

"Harry?" Sirius was shaking him, none too gently. "Harry, wake up."

"Wh...wha?" You were asleep. It's early...they've woken you up.
He groaned loudly and rolled over, groping for his glasses. He
blinked his eyes with pretended sleepiness, and held up a hand to
shield his eyes from a non-existent bright light. "Sirius? What
is it?"

"Harry, I...." The springs creaked as Sirius sat down on the edge of
the bed. "There's something I have to tell you."

He pressed something into Harry's hand. Harry felt the stiff crackle
of paper, the sealed flap of an envelope.

Sirius didn't wait for him to ask what it was. "It's from Arabella.
From Mrs. Figg. She...wants you to read it."

Harry didn't quite like the hitch he had heard in Sirius's voice, but he
opened the flap and pulled out a folded sheet of parchment covered
in a precise script.

"I had to use an Antigrafo Spell," Sirius said, by way of explanation.
"She couldn't hold a quill well enough to write it out on her own."

Dear Harry [the parchment read],

So they tell me that you've woken up, and
all I've got to say is that it took you
bloody long enough. Lazy little brat,
making others wait on you.

I'm having your godfather take this down
for me for two good reasons: one, because
he's standing right here gawping at me (and
since I'm in my nightie it's bloody indecent
of him), and two, because I know he'll bring
this straight to you like a sensible mutt.
The only reason I'm writing this in the
first place is because I don't want you
tearing all your hair out over what's
become of me. I'd rather have it all
out now, in my own words.

Before I forget, in the bottom drawer of
my old desk in the Defence classroom there
should be a brass box. It's protected with
a Lock-Blocking Hex (and I taught you the
countercurse for that one, so you'd better
damn well remember it), and once you've
dealt with that you'll find a key inside.
That key, and only that key, will open
Vault 352 at Gringotts. My vault.

It's not been properly checked in ages,
but the Ministry should have been putting
my wages in there every month for the last
fifteen years. Albus probably has stacks
of papers for you to look at and for your
guardians to sign off on, but it's all
just a bunch of legal folderol to let you
know that everything in there is yours,
and that when you turn twenty-one you
can do whatever you like with it. It's
yours, Harry--every last Knut.

Next time you see Will Stanton (because
you WILL see him again, you know--he's
not through with you yet) you tell him that
Arabella Figg didn't give in without a fight,
and you tell him I said so. You tell him that,
you hear me? Not that I care what he thinks
of me, you understand. It's the principle of
the thing.

Goodbye, brat. I'll say hello to your mum
and dad when I see them, and I'll be sure
to tell them they should be damned proud
to have had a son like you. Of course, they
know that already, but it never hurts to
hear it from someone older and wiser.

The signature was an illegible smear of ink.

Harry let the letter fall onto the blanket. He didn't know whether
to laugh out loud or start sobbing his eyes out. He felt like he
could do both at once.

"After she signed it, she told me that she was going to close her
eyes and rest for a little while." Sirius laid a hand on his arm.
"She went peacefully, Harry. There was no pain."

"When...when she showed me the papers that said I could go and
live with you, I told her...." His voice cracked, and he cleared his
throat angrily. "I told her she was like a fairy godmother." He
laughed tearfully, helplessly. "And this proves it."

Sirius pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
Remus bowed his head.

They sat in silence for a time before Harry said, "You never told me
what happened, Remus."

Remus looked up, startled out of private contemplation. "What?"

"On the Quidditch pitch. You never told me what happened. You
never told me what happened to you and Sirius, and you said you'd
tell me later." He fixed both of the adults with a compelling
stare. "What happened?"

Sirius and Remus glanced at each other.

"Do you want to tell it?" Remus asked. "You remember more than I
do."

Sirius shrugged, and turned to Harry. "Well, you know most of it.
The real fighting didn't start until after all six--seven--of you vanished."

"And Lord Voldemort vanished, too," Remus added. "At the same time."

Sirius gave him a look as if to ask, 'Who's telling the story here?'.
"It was like blinking, and you were gone."

"Which came as a great surprise to the Death Eaters."

Sirius rounded on his old friend. "Look, do you want to tell this?"
he growled. "'Cause you can go right ahead."

"One more thing, and then I'm finished."

Sirius folded his arms across his chest, and waited.

"I don't really know what happened after that," Remus said. "The
Death Eaters came at us all at once, and I know that I was able to
fire off precisely two spells before someone blindsided me--and,
well, that was the end of my glorious turn on the battlefield."

"It wasn't funny," Sirius snapped.

"I know it wasn't," Remus replied. "Go on--you were there for the
rest of it."

"Are you done?"

Remus glanced up at the ceiling with a most innocent expression.
"I am now."

Sirius snorted, and turned back to Harry.

"Well," he said. "It was a madhouse. Mud everywhere, and you
couldn't hear a thing for the shouting. You couldn't even hear
yourself cast a spell. And add a lot of screaming kids...it was
like being in Hell. I thought that Azkaban had given me a good
idea of what Hell should sound like--that was nothing compared
to this.

"So everyone was fighting. It didn't matter who you were hexing,
only that you fired your spell off before he did and you got out
of the way of the one coming at you from the other direction.

"Minerva was brilliant, though. The only one of us who kept her
head through all of it. She got all the teachers together--anyone
who hadn't been hexed by that time, at least--and had them shielding
the students while the rest of us were blundering about, trying to
do everything at once and generally succeeding in making complete
asses of ourselves. It was chaos for I-don't-know-how-long, and--"

"And what?" Harry said anxiously. "What happened?"

Sirius passed a hand across his forehead.

"I don't know," he said slowly. "All I saw was this flash, so bright
it burnt your eyes and made you see stars dancing in your head,
and I thought that someone had finally gotten me. I must've passed
out. When I came to, everyone was on the ground. Death Eaters,
students, everyone. Like we'd all been knocked flat.

"It didn't look like anyone would be coming after me with a wand
anytime soon, so I got to my feet. It took a while. I couldn't
see very well out of my right eye, and there was blood dripping
down my face and running into my left one, so I was staggering
around like a drunken Hippogriff, half-blind, until I tripped over
Remus here."

"That woke me up, I can tell you," Remus said with a faint smile.
"There's nothing like a good kick in the ribs to get you moving."

Sirius ignored him. "So I was trying to help him stand up without
falling over myself, and that was when I saw a light in the middle
of the pitch."

His eyes went bright, remembering. "It was more like a glow, really.
Like a Lumos spell, but not as bright, and a little larger. It was
small at first, but then it started growing, spreading out into a
circle. And then it stopped growing all of a sudden, but the light
grew brighter, brighter, and...."

He trailed off, and his face darkened suddenly. "No. I'm not doing
this right. No matter how I say it, I'll sound completely mental."

"It's all right so far," Harry said helpfully. "You don't sound mental
to me."

His godfather gave him a black look. "Thanks ever so much."

"I mean it!" he persisted. Sirius couldn't stop now. "So the light
in the middle of the pitch was brighter, and then what?"

Remus leapt out of his chair. "Just a moment," he said, and hurried
from the room, leaving the door wide open.

Sirius scratched his head. "What was that all about?"

Harry shook his head. He had no idea.

It seemed like hours before Remus returned, though it was probably
closer to five minutes. He was staggering slightly under the weight
of a wide but shallow basin made of smooth stone. Light shone from
the basin onto his face, streaking his greying hair with even more
strands of silver.

"Maybe it would help if you used this," he said, setting the basin on
Harry's bedside table.

"A Pensieve?" Harry said.

Sirius stared at the basin as if it would bite him. "Where did
you--"

Remus waved a dismissive hand. "Albus gave it to me, weeks ago.
He bought a new one for himself, and--look, that isn't important
now. Use this, Sirius. Let Harry see it for himself."

All the colour drained out of Sirius's face. "No. I can't do that."

"Please, Sirius," Harry begged.

"It only has a few memories of mine in it," Remus said, holding out
the basin. "They're quite mundane in comparison--they shouldn't
interfere with yours at all."

Sirius gave him a doubtful look, but with both his best friend's and
his godson's eyes upon him he took out his wand. Pressing the tip
to his temple, he screwed up his face in concentration, and slowly
pulled the wand away from his head. A long, silver strand, like one
of Dumbledore's grey hairs, came away with it. Remus lifted the
basin, and Sirius dropped the thread into the basin.

Remus set the Pensieve on Harry's lap. The shining silvery liquid
within swelled and ebbed. Coiling, cloudy patterns like oil on water
swirled lazily. Sirius prodded the liquid with the tip of his wand, and
instantly an image began to ripple into view, blurs of brown and
black on a wet, grassy green.

"There it is," Harry murmured. Cautiously, he touched the glistening
liquid with a fingertip.

He knew what it would feel like, and he had braced himself for the
shock, but nevertheless the rocking jolt threw him off-balance as he
hurtled headfirst into the basin, into Sirius's memory. He landed
hard, on solid ground.

Sirius had not been exaggerating when he had said that everyone looked
as if they had been knocked flat. Bodies lay on the ground, in large
groups and small groups, separately and together. Some were bleeding.
There was no way of knowing who was friend and who was foe--or who
was alive and who was dead.

Only one person had remained standing, and that was the frozen figure
of Albus Dumbledore.

A flutter of cloth caught his eye. He half-turned to see Remus and
Sirius limping past him. Their clothing was torn, their hands and
faces bruised and bloodied. Unthinking, Harry called out to them,
but the memory of his guardians could neither see nor hear him.

All of a sudden, he saw the glow that Sirius had mentioned. It did
look like a Lumos spell, but it was so large and so bright that it
might have been a Lumos cast by a hundred wands.

Then, with a rush of wind that felt like a breath of magic, the glow
was gone.

In the place where it had been were five huddled heaps of black cloth.

It was all he could do to not look away. Ron, Hermione, Neville,
Ginny, Colin--he knew that they were all right, he had seen them,
spoken to them, he knew that they they were unharmed--but they
looked worse than dead to him.

The glow had disappeared, but now the air itself was shimmering in
a way that was immediately familiar to him.

A fierce, almost solemn joy leapt inside his heart as two massive
wooden doors, larger than life, materialised at the other end of
the Quidditch pitch.

The doors opened outward, and a man emerged from the darkness
within. He walked steadily, but slowly; there was a distinct fatigue in
his tread, as if he had come to the end of a very long journey. He
seemed to be carrying something in its arms, something large and
bulky and strangely shaped.

As it drew nearer, Harry realised that the man was Will, and that the
burden Will was carrying...was him.

He glanced back at Remus and Sirius, but he had to look away at once.
The look of utter anguish on his godfather's face broke his heart.

Instead, he watched Will walking toward the two men. The Old One's
face was drawn and weary, his eyes deadened and emotionless. Yet
for all his weariness, there was a certain dignity in his bearing--in the
way he held the unconscious Harry--that was not the walk of a man
carrying a child. Rather, it was the stride of a soldier bearing a fallen
comrade.

Will kept walking, stepping around the place where the five collapsed
children lay, avoiding the bodies of those still out cold.

Sirius stumbled forward, his arms outstretched. Will drew to a halt,
letting Sirius close the distance, and with the greatest care he laid
Harry in his godfather's arms.

Sirius fell to his knees in the dirt, cradling his godson. A choked
and bitter sob, like a burst of mocking laughter, tore from his throat
as he buried his face in Harry's chest. Remus knelt beside his friend,
trying to comfort and grieve at the same time.

But Will was already moving away, across the pitch. Harry desperately
wanted to follow, to get away from Sirius's overwhelming grief, but
even in the dream-like state of the Pensieve he was too weak to walk.
He was so frustrated at his inability to stand on his own two feet
that he very nearly didn't pay attention to where Will was going--
until he saw that Will had stopped, and was standing in front of
Dumbledore.

Will circled the elderly wizard, studying him from all sides.
Then he held out his right arm, fingers spread wide, and pointed
at Dumbledore.

Nothing happened. The only sounds on the pitch were the muffled
sobs of Sirius, and a scattering of groans and whimperings as people
began to stir, regaining consciousness and feeling their wounds.
The air hung heavy, thick and still.

Will raised his left hand, pointing it in the same exact same manner
as his right. As Harry watched, the Old One's hands began to glow
with a dazzling white light.

What happened next he could never describe. He tried many times to
explain it, but every attempt failed to capture exactly what he had
seen and felt. The closest he could ever come to it was saying, "It
was like watching frost melt off a windowpane. And yet it wasn't
like frost at all, and it didn't really melt...but that's what it looked like."
He would always stop there, and say nothing more about it.

(Later, he would sometimes wonder how he could have seen everything
that happened, if it had really been Sirius's memory. He never asked
Sirius about it, and Sirius never asked him what he had seen in the
Pensieve. But he did wonder.)

Whatever it was, whatever Will did, it happened.

Dumbledore blinked, stretched his arms, and shook his head. His
beard waggled to and fro.

At the same time, Harry heard Sirius shout:

"Harry! Don't move, Harry--oh, god, Remus, he's..."

And Remus's startled cry:

"What in heaven--"

And then he felt himself being snatched up, rising into the air and
the Quidditch pitch was fading from sight, and he found himself back
in his bed with Sirius's hand on his arm.

Still half in shock, he began to babble. "I'm sorry," he said to
Sirius, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't want
you to think I was...because I wasn't...but it must've looked like
I was...."

Sirius reeled back as if he had been punched in the stomach.

"That's not it," he said harshly. "It was the way he was holding
you--and you weren't moving--"

The words caught in his throat. He had to look away to collect
himself.

Harry leaned forward, reaching out to him.

"Careful, careful!" Remus dove for the Pensieve before it could
spill over.

The three of them were saved from an uncomfortably emotional scene
by the need to scramble to save the Pensieve, and before he knew it
Harry was explaining what had happened in his battle with Voldemort.
He told the story as best he could, but when he reached the part
where he had been blasted off his feet, he found himself struggling
with the details.

"Don't worry about it," Remus said kindly when he voiced his
frustrations. "You've been through a lot."

"But I do know it," he insisted. "I remember all of it, and I know
there's something that comes after it, too. It's just that--" A huge
yawn cracked his jaw, silencing him before he could finish.

"Go back to sleep," Sirius said, getting up. "We can take care of
this later."

Harry would have protested, but he was tired. Too much had
happened in too short a space of time. He let Remus tuck him
in--something he would have never allowed if he had been more
alert--and nodded off in minutes.

The piece of parchment slipped off the bed and landed on the
floor, beside the Pensieve.

* * *

Despite the promise, they never did finish their conversation. Harry
spent most of the day dozing, slept fitfully that night, and when he
woke on Thursday morning he was shivering with cold, huddled
in the blankets. The quaking of his body made the old metal bed
frame rattle, a ghoulish sound in the silence of the sickroom.

When Remus came in a few minutes later, he took one look at Harry
and heaved him out of bed and into a high-backed chair close to the
fire. He wrapped quilts and blankets around Harry's shaking shoulders
and hurried from the room, returning in moments with more blankets, a
teakettle, and a shallow footbath.

He knelt in front of Harry, and set the kettle and footbath aside.
He piled the blankets onto Harry's knees and deftly rolled the legs
of his pyjamas to a point halfway up his shins. Then, he picked up
the kettle and tapped it with his wand. A whistling puff of steam
spurted from the spout.

Harry watched with some curiosity as Remus poured the steaming water
into the footbath, testing the temperature with a fingertip. Remus then
reached into a pocket in his robes and produced a white paper packet.
He tore the packet open and dumped the contents, a dusty yellowish
powder, into the water.

The strong odour of mustard assailed Harry's nostrils, making him
cough and rub at his eyes. Before he could see enough to know what
was happening, Remus had taken hold of his ankles and thrust his feet
into the murky yellow bath.

"Yeowch!" He jerked back, and if the muscles in his legs had been
stronger he would very likely have kicked Remus in the teeth. As
it was, he could only thrash about. "That's HOT!"

"And you're feverish," said Remus, unsympathetically. "We've run
out of Pepper-Up Potion, and I don't want to risk giving you anything
stronger. Want some tea?"

Harry grimaced. His feet and ankles felt as if they were going up in
flames. Nevertheless, he leaned over the footbath, and held his hands
out to feel the warmth of the fire.

He spent the morning in the chair, bundled in blankets and soaking
his feet in the mustard bath until the sweat was running down his
face. Remus was in and out of the room all morning. Every time he
returned he poured more hot water into the footbath. Shortly before
lunch, he strode into the ward carrying a clean pair of pyjamas and
trailing two chattering house elves in his wake.

"Mimsy here is going to change the sheets on your bed, and Wimsy
will help you have a wash and change clothes," he said to Harry.

Harry reluctantly submitted to the house elf's ministrations. By
the time he was clean and dressed in new pyjamas and two pairs of
thick wool socks, Mimsy had made his bed with the new sheets and
she and Wimsy had disappeared with the old ones. Remus brought a
light lunch of toasted cheese and tomato soup, and asked Harry if
he wanted anything more.

"No, thanks." He had no appetite, but ate anyway. He didn't want
another round of mustard baths.

The hot bath had taken away the feverish chills, but there was ice
deep inside him that medicines and mustard powder couldn't melt. It
stayed with him all the rest of the day, even when Ron, Hermione, and
Neville came to see him. Ron did his best to entertain by regaling the
twins' first fumbling attempts to walk on their crutches. Neville brought
a five-pound box of chocolate mints that his grandmother had bought
specially for Harry to 'build up the dear boy's strength'. Hermione
talked for what seemed like hours about her plans to finish revising
for the O.W.L.s.

"They've cancelled classes for two weeks, but they haven't said anything
about not having exams, not Professor McGonagall or anyone, and anyway
it's better than resting all the time," she informed them.

Harry nodded every so often, and laughed where he thought it was
appropriate to laugh, but his mind was elsewhere.

Truthfully, saying that his mind was 'elsewhere' would be a gross
understatement. It was a million places at once, full of unanswered
questions that buzzed about in his head like a bucketful of Snitches.
Voldemort was gone, but what about the Death Eaters? Would there be
trials? Would he have to go to them, or testify at them? Would the
people in St Mungo's all recover? What would happen to Professor
Snape?

The more he sat and thought, the more unanswerable the questions
became. Why didn't Fred and George remember what had happened
before the battle, but Remus and Sirius did? Would Mrs. Figg have
a wizarding funeral, and would he had to attend it? If she had been
his guardian, did that make him her next-of-kin, and if he was her
next-of-kin, did that mean that he would have to--

He always stopped when he reached that part.

Fortunately, as time passed he had less and less time to sit around
and think. Now that he was able to get out of bed, the days went by
in a whirl of activity. Ron and Hermione came every day and spent
most of the long hours with him, playing games and swapping stories
and helping him to build up his strength. At first, he could only
walk if they were both supporting him, but soon he could do it with
only a hand to steady him, and by late Saturday evening he was able
to walk the whole length of the ward and back on his own.

Remus had warned him that it might be some time before he would feel
strong enough to ride a broom again, but he was determined to be back
in the air as soon as possible. Fred and George had already promised
to go flying with him once their casts were off, and he couldn't wait.

Walking practice wasn't the only thing that occupied his time. Now
that everyone knew he was up and about, there always seemed to be a
steady stream of people into and out of his room. Students dropped
in at all hours, professors who taught subjects he had never studied
before came by to enquire after his health, and McGonagall asked for
daily reports on every twinge and toothache.

Sirius had appointed himself the task of screening all the visitors,
taking great care to allow only those people he knew into the hospital
wing. At first Harry chafed at what seemed to be nothing more than
irritating overprotectiveness, but when Sirius intercepted and forcibly
ejected an obnoxious, frumpy woman reporter from Witch Weekly who
had somehow talked her way into the school in search of an 'exclusive,
one-on-one interview with the Boy Who Lived', a little overprotectiveness
didn't seem like such a bad thing.

The trouble was, there was no shortage of reporters seeking exclusive,
one-on-one interviews with the Boy Who Lived. Rumour had it that
Hogsmeade was swarming with people from the Daily Prophet. Every
day, letters poured in from wizarding newspapers and radio stations all
over the world, begging Harry for an interview, a story, or even a
sentence or two in reply. The Hogwarts Owlery had trouble coping
with all the post that came for him. Bags and bags of unread and
unsorted letters were piling up at the far end of the hospital ward,
and there was no end in sight.

The situation became critical on Friday, when Sirius stormed into
the room just after lunch with Colin (who had his camera clutched
protectively in his hands and a very uncomfortable expression on
his face) in tow.

"They're impossible," Sirius snarled, all but dragging poor Colin
over to Harry's bed. "Some cheap little rag has threatened to write
a story saying that the Ministry is trying to hide the fact that you're
DYING in filth and squalor if we don't give them something
to print."

He shoved Colin forward, sending the younger boy crashing into the
bed frame. "So we'll give the bastards something to show you're
alive and well and not bloody dead." He poked Colin in the back.
"Now get it over with so we can all get on with our lives."

Colin swallowed nervously, holding his camera in front of his chest
like a shield.

"C...can I take your p-picture, Harry?" he stammered, blushing seven
different shades of crimson.

Harry let Colin take a dozen pictures of him sitting up in bed,
looking as healthy and not dead as he possibly could, while Sirius
stomped around the room and glowered at both of them. Colin clicked
and snapped with lightning speed, keeping one eye on Sirius all the
while, and the second he was finished he scuttled off to develop the
prints. Sirius followed him out, muttering horrible imprecations on
all journalists under his breath.

The press may have been the most persistent correspondents, but they
were by no means the only ones. It seemed as if every single witch
and wizard in the British Isles had decided to send flowers to Harry
Potter. After two nights of sleeping in a room that smelled as if a
florist's had exploded, Harry pleaded with Professor McGonagall to
take the flowers to the other ward, to the Great Hall, to St Mungo's,
to Muggle hospitals--ANYWHERE but his room.

So the flowers were taken away. Harry kept only three bouquets for
himself: one from the Grangers, a smaller one from Colin's parents,
and a green glass vase full of opera-singing purple plastic daisies
that Bill, Charlie, and the twins had ordered from Gambol and Japes.
But before the house elves could move all the flowers out of the room,
he selected a particularly riotous arrangement of Chinese snapdragons
to give to Hagrid, and a simple bouquet of sweet-smelling roses and
carnations for Professor Snape.

Hagrid sent him a scrawled thank-you note in return. He received
nothing from Professor Snape.

By Sunday night the bandage on his right hand was ready to come
off. His fingers were stiff, but the hand was otherwise sound. After
breakfast the next morning, he plucked up his courage and declared
his intention to go for a walk on his own. Remus hemmed and hawed,
but agreed on the condition that he dress warmly (it was a beautiful
balmy May morning), be back before noon (it was quarter to eleven),
and that he stop and sit down, no matter where he was, if he felt at
all dizzy or tired. Harry promised that he would follow the instructions
to the letter...if Remus agreed to let him go on the walk alone, without
a four-legged shadow.

All the conditions were agreed to by both sides, and by eleven
o'clock Harry was heading down the back stairs that led to the
ground floor.

He stuck to the little-used corridors, avoiding the main staircases
and the well-travelled paths that led to the common rooms and the
large classrooms. It wasn't that he didn't want to see anyone, but
he only had an hour to get where he wanted to go, and he didn't
want to waste even a minute of it bogged down in conversation.

Taking the back way took more time, though, and there were more
stairs to climb. The exercise took its toll, and by the time he arrived
at the entrance to the library corridor he had to lean against a wall
and catch his breath. His heart was beating in his ears as he walked
along--and not only from the exertion.

He reached the end of the corridor, and stopped dead.

The door to the little room off the library was gone. There was
nothing but the blank stone wall.

Stunned, he ran his hand over the stones, half-hoping he would feel
something give under his touch. No matter where he touched them, or
how hard he pressed, the stone was as solid as if the wall had always
been there. As if there had never been a door at all.

"Looking for something, Harry?"

Harry spun around, back flat against the wall--and found himself face
to face with Albus Dumbledore.

"Where is it?" The question came out more like an accusation, as if
Dumbledore had hidden the door as part of some elaborate trick.
"What happened to it? Why isn't it here?"

Dumbledore shook his head.

"Doors have a habit of disappearing in this school," he said lightly.
"A door may be there for days, or months, or even years, and then one
day it will have vanished without warning."

Harry felt his lower lip starting to tremble like the traitor it was.
He bit down on it hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

Dumbledore studied him for a long moment. There was something
unreadable in his gaze.

"Will you walk with me?" he asked. "I'm on my way to my office, but
if there is somewhere else you need to be...."

"I have to be back in the hospital wing by noon." He couldn't keep the
disgust out of his voice.

The elderly wizard chuckled. "You can use the Floo fire in my office,
then. It will save you the walk."

The walk was a pleasant, if silent one. Most of the school was at
lunch, and the only person they met in the corridors was Professor
McGonagall. She smiled and nodded to them, but she continued on
her way without a word.

Once they reached the office, Dumbledore ushered Harry to a chair
with wonderfully overstuffed cushions. Fawkes had been perched on
the back of the chair, but when he saw Harry enter he rose into the
air and flapped over to his normal resting-place by the fire. As
Harry sank into the plush luxury, he saw Dumbledore reach into a
jewelled snuffbox that sat on the mantle, take a pinch of powder,
and throw it onto the fire.

"Remus?" he called out. "Are you there?"

There was a whoosh of flame, and Remus's head appeared in the centre
of the fire.

"Right here, Albus," Remus replied. "What can I--why, Harry! What
are you--"

"I wanted to let you know that I have asked Mr. Potter to dine with
me in my office," Dumbledore said calmly, before Remus could finish.
"But he thoughtfully requested that I ask your permission first, since
he thought you would worry if he did not return in time for lunch."

"I...I see." Remus paused. "Well, I don't see why not."

"Excellent." Dumbledore beamed. "And I'll escort him back to the
hospital wing afterward. Goodbye, Remus."

"Er, yes, good--" The last part of the word was cut off as Dumbledore
tossed another pinch of powder on the fire.

"Dobby, would you bring two meals to my office, please?" he said into
the flames. "Whatever you've made for the lunch in the Hall would be
lovely...oh, and a pot of cocoa, if you please. Two mugs."

He turned away as the flames subsided and returned to their normal
colour.

"So, Harry," he said as he walked over to his desk. "A number of
interesting things have happened since last Saturday. Has anyone
spoken to you about them?"

"No...no, sir." It was true. He hadn't seen a newspaper in over a
week, and he had a feeling that the news he received from his friends
was carefully filtered.

Dumbledore sat in his chair, and folded his hands in his lap. "Well,
to begin with, the Dementors have vanished."

Harry leapt out of the chair as if someone had lit a fire beneath it.
"VANISHED?"

"Without a trace." He tapped his fingertips together, and waited for
Harry to sit down again before he continued. "The Aurors assigned to
guard Azkaban have no explanation for it. According to their reports,
one moment the Dementors were there, and the next...." He waved a
hand through the air in a vague, elusive gesture. "And somehow, I don't
think it will surprise you to learn that they disappeared on Saturday
afternoon."

Harry felt the room spin, even though he was sitting down. His head
was reeling. "You mean--"

There was a knock on the door.

"One moment!" Dumbledore called out. He stood up and walked to the
door, humming a little tune under his breath.

Harry was so distracted by the shocking news that he only partially
heard Dumbledore and Dobby talking to each other. The next thing he
was truly aware of was that a covered tray had somehow ended up on
his lap.

Dumbledore was already back at his desk, lifting the lid of his
own tray and inhaling the rich aroma. "Chicken and asparagus pie,
delicious. And sponge and custard, too. Amazing how the house
elves always seem to outdo themselves every time, don't you think?"

It did look delicious, and it smelled heavenly, but Harry did not know
how he would be able to get it down. Dumbledore, on the other hand,
was already tucking into the flaky crust, and showed no sign of
continuing their conversation before the meal was over.

Harry exhaled loudly--his entire life seemed to be revolving around
mealtimes, recently--and speared a piece of chicken with his fork.

They ate and drank, savouring the fluffy sponge and custard with
the last of the cocoa. Dumbledore wiped his mouth with his napkin,
brushed a few stray pie crust crumbs from his beard, and leaned
back in his chair with a contented sigh.

"The Dementors were Dark creatures," he said, out of nowhere. "And
after the attack on the Hogwarts Express, I was forced to consider
that they might be creatures of the Dark as well."

Harry choked, and gulped some cocoa. "So when Voldemort was....when
Voldemort was destroyed, the Dementors were destroyed with him?"

"Not only the Dementors," Dumbledore replied. "There were two reasons
that you and many of the others hurt on the Quidditch pitch were not
taken to St Mungo's. The first reason, and the more obvious one, was
the severity of your injuries. The other was the fact that the staff
at St Mungo's, skilled and talented though they are, could not have
coped with such a great influx of the injured and the insane at the
same time."

Again, Harry felt that all he could do was stare. "Did you say insane?"

"By defeating Voldemort, you defeated the power of the Dark that he
had accepted." His face grew solemn, a sorrowful cloud shading his
features. "But men have fragile minds. They cannot wholly accept
the Dark and retain their humanity at the same time. With the
merciful exception of Professor Snape, every person who bore the
Dark Mark has gone mad."

He gazed at Harry over the tops of his spectacles. "Completely--and
incurably--mad."

This was too much to take in at once. Harry felt giddy, sick to
his stomach.

"Lucius Malfoy nearly broke the neck of the mediwizard who had the
unenviable task of restraining him for transport to St Mungo's."
Dumbledore continued talking, answering questions that Harry hadn't
even thought to ask aloud. "Peter Pettigrew was discovered a little
ways into the Forbidden Forest. He had apparently been set to watch
over Hagrid...but when we found him, he was gnawing on the bloody
stump of his arm."

Harry shuddered with revulsion.

"And these reactions were not confined to those in the immediate
vicinity. Throughout Britain, and all around the world, there have
been reports of sudden, inexplicable madness...all of which began at
the same moment as the destruction of Lord Voldemort."

"But why didn't Snape--" He stopped himself. He already knew the
answer. "It was Wi...Professor Stanton, wasn't it."

"From the little information I could draw out of Severus, it seems
that Dr. Stanton was able to create some kind of interference, a
buffer against the immediate effects," Dumbledore said reflectively.
"It caused him great pain, but it prevented the Dark from affecting
him through the Mark."

"But if he could do that," Harry said abruptly, putting words to a
question that had been bothering him ever since he had awoken,
"why didn't he stop Voldemort from freezing you with that spell?"

"Because I asked him not to."

"You what?"

"I asked Dr. Stanton not to do anything to protect or defend me,"
Dumbledore said. "We had agreed upon it before we left: neither
of us would interfere with the other's magic. It would have been
too dangerous."

"And that's why he didn't help...." No, that wasn't it. He had known,
deep inside, at the moment the lightning had struck, that Draco Malfoy
would die. No one could have saved him. He could have been killed
by the fall as easily as he could have died by his father's hand, and in
the end there was no one to blame for Draco's death but Lucius Malfoy--
and Voldemort.

"Precisely." Dumbledore's response, for all its eerie timing, fell
flat on Harry's ears.

"Oh."

The elderly wizard raised an eyebrow at his tone. "You don't believe
that?"

"I...." He was supposed to believe it, but after hearing it so many
times it had all but lost its meaning.

"I don't know." he said hopelessly. "It's just like Ron said--At
least we had a choice. But Draco didn't. He didn't get to choose."

"And that troubles you?"

"He didn't have to be like his father. He didn't...but they made him.
They USED him. And then...and they threw him away. His own son--
how could he?" He was genuinely angry now: rage boiling in his chest,
clenching his hands into fists and turning his face scarlet. "And no one's
ever going to know why he died, because they don't remember it!"

"Is that so important?"

"Of COURSE it is!" A calmer and definitely more reasonable part of him
vaguely registered that he was screaming at Albus Dumbledore, his former
Headmaster and the current Minister for Magic, but the part that was
doing the screaming was not about to listen to reason. "Of COURSE
it's important!"

Dumbledore's bright eyes bored into his own. "Why?"

"Because...because...." For some reason, the simple question had taken
the wind out of his sails. "Because it doesn't mean anything if no one
else remembers it. You can tell yourself it's important, but if you're
the only one--"

He broke off when he heard what he was saying, and his hand flew to
his cheek. He felt as if someone had hit him in the face.

"You make a very good point, Harry," Dumbledore said, quite calmly.
"Have you spoken with Dr. Stanton about it?"

Before Harry could say a word, there was a loud crackle of sparks from
the fireplace, and Professor McGonagall's head appeared in the flames.

"Albus, I've just had an owl from Edward Linchley," she said.
"He would like to speak with you immediately about a very urgent
matter."

Dumbledore ran a hand over his beard. "With Linchley, everything's
a very urgent matter."

McGonagall bit back an unamused laugh. "And your private secretary
contacted me five minutes ago to ask me to remind you that you have
a meeting with the Department Heads in half an hour in your London
office, and would I please tell you that she doesn't know where the
file on the"--and there was a noise as if she was rustling through a pile
of papers--"African Horned Toad Importation Licences is, and she
wonders if you might have it with you?"

"Very well, Minerva, I'm leaving now."

McGonagall's head faded away, and Dumbledore began to rummage
through the piles of papers on his desk.

"Well, Harry," he said sadly, "I'm afraid we'll have to cut our visit short.
You can use Floo Powder--in the red wooden box, not the little blue
enamel one--to return to the hospital wing. Dobby will come back
for the trays." He pulled on his travelling cloak and reached into the
red box. Just before he threw the powder onto the fire, he looked
over his shoulder. "Oh, and Harry?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Your O.W.L.s are still on, as are the N.E.W.T.s. The Committee On
Wizarding Education Results--'C.O.W.E.R.', for short--has agreed to
modify the exam content somewhat, but the general format will be the
same. Although Professor McGonagall will mention this at dinner
tonight, I thought you might appreciate an early warning."

Harry felt a headache stirring behind his temples.

"Thank you, sir," he said listlessly.

"Take care, Harry." The flames blazed high as the powder hit them.
"My office, the Ministry of Magic!"

Once Dumbledore had stepped through and disappeared, Harry wandered
over to the fire and took some of the powder from the red box. However,
he did not throw it onto the flames. He opened his hand and let it slide
through his fingers, back into the box. Then he took some more powder,
and let it run out of his hand again.

Fawkes was watching him keenly. When Harry released his handful
of powder for a third time the phoenix uttered a single piercing note,
and bumped his head against the young man's shoulder.

Harry closed the box with a snap. He reached up and rubbed a finger
across the delicate vermilion crest of feathers on the top of the bird's
head.

"It's over, Fawkes," he said softly, stroking the ruffled plumage.
"Voldemort's gone, the Death Eaters won't hurt anyone anymore, even
the Dementors have all been destroyed. Everyone says it's over...so
why doesn't it feel any different? Why doesn't it feel like we've won?"

The phoenix let out a throbbing, mournful trill, and tilted its head
to allow Harry to scratch its neck.

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Gramarye
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June 13th, 2003