Harry Potter and the Legacy of the Light

Epilogue - Memories of the Future

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And the ancient one waits
For the young one to knock upon the door
And both of them are me.

-- The Essene Book of Days

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It had all seemed so simple at first. He had had a plan, or some
semblance of one. This wasn't the kind of thing one could do without
a plan. And naturally, his plan had included very specific written
directions that wouldn't have confused a house elf.

However, when he looked up and saw that he was walking past the
Oxfam bookshop for the fifth time, Harry realised how lost he truly was.

He hadn't intended to become lost. It isn't something that one ever
intends, it simply happens. And of course, by the time he knew
that he was lost, he didn't know how to set about becoming un-lost.

It wasn't the first piece of bad luck he had had that day. Repairs had
shut down part of the Underground, forcing him to take a twenty-
minute detour on two other lines to reach the train station. Work on
a faulty signal somewhere outside Royden had created an hour and
a half delay on his train, so that by the time the train pulled into the
station it was already one o'clock. And then, the very second he
had stepped off the train, it had started to rain.

The rain. Yes, that was it--he could blame it all on the rain. The skies
had been grey when he set out, but now there were fat wet drops
splashing everywhere, even onto the piece of parchment he had tried
to keep covered. Three of those fat wet drops had set the ink to running,
blurring some of the words together and completely obliterating others.
And now the rain was coming down harder, water soaking his shoes
and wicking up the legs of his jeans and plastering his hair to his head.

He ran for the nearest telephone box and pulled the door shut. His
glasses fogged up almost immediately.

"When you get off at the rail sta...oh, hell...." He yanked his glasses off
his face and used the edge of his shirt to wipe away the condensation
that had collected on the lenses. "From rail station, follow Station Road
onto Regent Street." He nodded to himself; he had done that already.
"Regent Street will become St Andrews Street--did that, too. From
St Andrews Street, turn something-left...at the first left? Or the second
left....?"

He stared at the piece of parchment that was wilting in his hand,
then let out a long breath and slumped against the grimy, scratched
window.

He had to face facts. He was lost--and entirely alone--in Cambridge.

* * *

"Cambridge?" Ron's voice was nearly a shriek.

"What's so wrong about me going to Cambridge?" Harry plucked a
long stem of grass and twirled it between thumb and forefinger. "You
make it sound like Azkaban."

"Why do you want to go there?" asked Ginny, chewing on a thumbnail.

"Because."

Ginny's eyes narrowed. "That's not an answer."

Harry sighed, and lay back on the grass.

It was a beautifully warm summer's day, and the three children were
lazing about in the mid-morning sunshine and keeping one eye out for
Muggle backpackers. If they saw no one before lunchtime, it usually
meant that they could grab brooms after lunch and practice Quidditch
without too much fear of being seen.

However, Harry, Ron, and Ginny weren't at the Burrow, and it wasn't
the last two weeks of August. It was early July, only a few weeks
after school had let out, and they were over fifty miles away from
the village of Ottery St Catchpole. They were at Harry's house,
an old bungalow tucked away in the Mendip Hills in the heart of
Somerset. It was the same house that Sirius and Remus had shared
the summer and winter before, and now it was Harry's as well.

The house was very remote: fifteen miles south of Bristol, with the
nearest town a good half-hour's walk over hilly country. When Remus
had first found the house it had had the singularly inappropriate name
of The Larches (there wasn't a larch in sight), but in a moment of wit
Sirius had christened it Wookey Went, after an old Muggle folktale
about a 'Witch of Wookey' who was supposed to have lived in the
area hundreds of years ago. It had been good for a laugh at the time,
but the name had stuck, and now Harry couldn't imagine calling the
house anything but Wookey Went.

He hadn't expected to end up at Wookey Went. He hadn't expected to
end up anywhere, if the truth be told. Once his exams were over and the
agonising week of waiting for O.W.L.s results had arrived, it had dawned
on him that he hadn't given a moment's thought as to where he would be
spending the summer. He had known that he wouldn't be going back to
Little Whinging, and he supposed that Sirius would take full advantage
of his newly-won freedom to live wherever he fancied. However, the
idea of actually being able to live with his godfather had only existed
as a lovely dream at the very back of his mind.

But now, he was living with his godfather and his favourite professor,
his father's oldest friends. And after an awkward week of 'please pardon
me's and 'I hope you don't mind if I come in's, he and Sirius and Remus
had settled in to an almost domestic sort of life.

The bungalow was smaller than the other houses he had lived in, all on
one floor with only six rooms and rather low ceilings, but Harry loved
it. There was a garden out back, and a well, and a wood with trees to
climb and old limestone caves to explore, and a low grassy field that
was perfect for flying over very fast on a broom. What was more, he
had his own bedroom. Not a hand-me-down second bedroom, or a
spare room with a lumpy bed, or a room that had to be shared with four
other boys--his own bedroom.

What was even better, in Harry's opinion, was the fact that Ron and
Ginny were close enough to visit everyday. A handful of Floo powder
and a shout of "The Burrow!" was all that he needed to spend the
whole day at the Weasley house, without having to feel that he was
being a burden on them. After all, he could leave at the end of the
day and go home, to his home. It was a state of near perpetual bliss
that he was certain he could get used to.

He had spent almost every waking moment at the Burrow the first
week, but gradually he came to feel that something wasn't quite right.
Something was missing--and that something was Mrs. Weasley.

Her presence had made the Burrow the first warm and welcoming
home that Harry had ever known, and without her the house felt
painfully empty. There were no sounds of knitting needles working
busily at a jumper or plates washing themselves in the kitchen sink,
no mouth-watering smells wafting from the kitchen, no cheerfully
plump figure bustling to and fro, alternately scolding and smiling.
She was gone, and without her it felt as if the best part of the
Burrow had gone, too.

Harry could see how it was affecting the remaining members of her
brood. Ron often fell silent for long periods of time, staring at nothing.
Twice, Ginny ran all through the house looking to show something to
her mother, only to burst into tears and run to her room when she
realised that her mother was no longer there. Fred and George mostly
kept to themselves, the rattles and bangs and experimental noises from
their room sounding three times as loud in the silence of the house.
They were planning to move out on their own as soon as they could
find a flat in Diagon Alley. Mr. Weasley had received his long overdue
promotion to the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, but
his work schedule was still erratic--the final total of restricted or
prohibited objects confiscated from the Malfoy estate alone was
said to number in the high thousands--so Bill had taken a leave of
absence from Gringotts in Egypt to lend a hand at home. Even with
him around, the Burrow was still too quiet.

By the second week of the summer holidays, Harry decided to invite
Ron and Ginny over to Wookey Went 'for a change'. The three of them
never spent the whole day in the Burrow again.

It had taken him until the Monday of their third week off school to
pluck up his courage and mention, quite casually, that he was thinking
of going to Cambridge by himself for a day. Ron and Ginny's reactions
to this news had not encouraged him.

"You didn't answer Gin's question, Harry," Ron was saying, and the
tone of his voice implied that Harry's answer had better be a truly
magnificent one. "Why do you want to go to Cambridge?"

In as few words as possible, he told them what had happened in the
hospital wing the night he had woken up. Ron and Ginny were both
staring at him, open-mouthed and with chalk-white faces, by the time
he was finished.

"And then he was gone," he said, plucking another blade of grass and
tearing it into little pieces. "He disappeared. And that was it."

Ginny was the first to recover. "He said that to YOU?"

"And now you want to go to Cambridge?" Ron threw up his hands
and flopped back, sprawling on the grass. "There's a wonderful idea.
Professor Will Stanton is ticked off at me, so I think I'll just pop
over to his place and have a chat."

"It's not going to be like that, Ron."

Ron kept going, declaiming to the sky and the world at large. "Harry
Potter hasn't had enough danger and excitement in his life yet, so he
wants to go halfway across the country to get his head blasted off!"

"Ron, I have to go!" Harry said exasperatedly. "D'you think I want
to get my head blasted off?"

"It certainly sounds like it," Ron retorted.

"But you don't have to go by yourself," Ginny said pleadingly. "At
least have one of us go with you."

Ron seemed to blanch at the thought. "Er...look, Harry, why don't you
ask Hermione if she wants to go?"

"Ron!" Ginny exclaimed.

"I'm not saying that I wouldn't go if he wanted me to," Ron said hastily.
"I only mean that Hermione would probably know how to help you get
around on trains and things better than either of us would."

"I have been on trains before," Harry said with a snort. "By myself.
Many times."

"How many times?"

"More than you," Harry shot back.

"Stop it, both of you." Ginny turned to Harry. "Have you mentioned
this to Hermione at all?"

"No," he said. "Not yet."

Ron rolled onto his stomach. "I'll bet she has a fit when you tell her."
His voice was muffled by the grass.

"How do you know if Will would even be there?" Ginny asked.
"Muggle schools let out for the summer, don't they?"

"I don't know if he'll be there," Harry said. "That's why I have to
go there and find out."

"Why couldn't you just write him a letter?" Ron said hopefully. "A
nice long letter saying how dreadfully sorry you are."

Harry glared at him. "If you're going to be an ass about this--"

"All I'm saying is that it sounds daft. But if you've got it into your
head to go, there's nothing any of us could do to stop you." His
mouth quirked in a not-quite-smile. "We all know what happened
to the last person who tried to get in your way."

"It's something I have to do, Ron. I have to go by myself."

"Then go right ahead." Ron lifted his head and glanced at him. "But
I still think you've got a death wish, mate."

"So I've been told." Harry sighed again. "Come on, it's almost
lunchtime."

They stood up, brushing the grass from their clothes, and trooped
across the field to the little cottage.

Harry thought long and hard before he composed his letter to
Hermione that night. He wanted--he needed--to strike just the
right chord, a mixture of friendly chatter and summertime laziness
with a single offhanded question thrown in. When he finished
writing, he read the letter aloud to hear what it sounded like.

Hermione,

How are you? I hope your summer is going
well so far. I'm having a great time--it's
lovely here. Ron and Ginny come over almost
every day now. Remus and Sirius keep asking
me if you're going to visit us sometime this
summer. I told them I'd ask and see if you
could come.

Have you had a chance to visit Natalie yet?
I know you said you were going to in your
last letter, but I didn't know if you meant
this week or next week. If you see her, tell
her that I hope she's feeling well. Remus
said that he isn't sure if she'll be allowed
to come back to school next year, but he's
promised to keep talking to McGonagall
about it.

Oh, I almost forgot--if you have the time,
could you see how much a train ticket would
cost between London and Cambridge? I was
thinking about going there for a day, just to
have a look around. I've got all this free time
and nothing to do with it except my summer
homework. (And while that might be enough
for YOU, it's driving me batty.) Let me know
if you find anything.

Tell your parents I say hello, and thank
them again for the flowers they sent.

Yours,
Harry

The letter was posted, and not two days later Hedwig swooped through
his bedroom window clutching a large envelope addressed in Hermione's
precise hand. Inside the envelope was a sealed and folded piece of
parchment, a fold-out map of the Cambridge city centre, a pocket-
sized railway timetable--trains from London to Cambridge--and a map
of the Underground. Written on the back of the folded parchment was
a message:

Harry,

Consider this an early birthday present.

Hermione

Breaking the seal, he unfolded the sheet of parchment. Written on
it, in Hermione's best note-taking script, were directions to the
Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.

* * *

Now, damp and chilled and huddled in a dingy public telephone box,
he almost wished that he had brought someone with him.

It wasn't difficult to imagine what things would be like if Ron and
Hermione had come along. Ron would be wringing out his clothes
and roundly cursing the downpour, and Hermione would be poring
over a guidebook to the town, carefully keeping the rain off the list
of bookshops she was using as a 'bookmark' and at the same time
telling them both to stop grousing, she'd be able to find the information
booth if they'd only be quiet and let her think.

He almost wished they were with him. Almost.

The rain was starting to let up at last. It had settled into a steady drizzle,
which was as near as he supposed he would get to a complete stoppage.
He pulled the hood of his raincoat over his head, pushed open the door,
and set off.

He waded though a few streets, looking for something he could use
as a landmark that wasn't the Oxfam bookshop. He passed an Indian
restaurant and women's clothing store, then turned down a side street
that he thought would take him back to the road he had come down.

The side street only seemed to be taking him further from where he
thought he was supposed to go, and before he had gone two hundred
yards the drizzle decided to switch back to rain again. Harry ran for
the shelter of a nearby doorframe and waited for it to let up.

Looking up through rain-streaked glasses, he saw a pub sign dangling
crookedly overhead. At first he read it as "The Crosswinds", but a
step or two nearer to it and a change of angle proved that it really
read "The Crosswands".

With that sort of name, it had to be a wizarding pub.

He turned round, and stared at the worm-eaten wooden door that he
had been leaning against. He hesitated, torn between wanting to get out
of the wet and not wanting to wander into a wizarding establishment
by himself.

A lashing gust of wet wind made up his mind for him. He turned the
handle and went inside.

The pub was small, barely half the size of the Leaky Cauldron. The
bar, a slab of chipped wood awash in a sea of empty glasses, took up
most of the space. Crammed into the space left over were four or five
tables with mismatched chairs and a row of stools at the bar itself,
and that was all the space there was for the patrons. A group of
grizzled older men sat round two of the tables, playing some sort of
dice game and tossing back pints of a tar-black, sudsy-looking brew.
They paid no notice to the newcomer.

On the other hand, the middle-aged witch behind the bar did notice
Harry's arrival. She sat up, and the magazine she had been flipping
through was quickly pushed aside.

"Why, hello there, love," she drawled in a husky voice. Her greying
hair had gone frizzy from the humidity, but she nevertheless patted
and smoothed it down as best she could as Harry approached her.
She leaned on the bar and smiled at him with what she obviously
thought was a youthful, fun-loving grin. "What'll it be?"

Harry slid onto a stool. He pushed back the hood of his raincoat,
but kept his eyes down, and hoped that the rain had made his hair
stick to his forehead.

"Hot butterbeer, please," he mumbled.

The witch selected the nearest empty glass and rinsed it out, then
turned to the taps to draw a pint. Harry rummaged in his pockets
and found a handful of Sickles and Knuts, enough to pay for his
drink. He counted out change as the witch at the bar tapped the
glass with her wand, sending butterbeer froth bubbling over the
rim.

Harry gratefully took the pint from her and sipped the foaming brew.
The hot drink warmed him all the way down to his toes, casting out
the chill of damp clothing and wet weather. He took another sip,
then drained half the pint at a swallow.

The witch chuckled as she watched him down the contents of his glass
in a matter of minutes. "Another one?" she asked.

Harry wiped the foam from his upper lip.

"No, thanks," he said, a little breathlessly.

The witch set the glass at the far end of the bar, replacing it amongst
its equally dirty fellows.

"Don't see many ones your age round here," she said as she wandered
back to Harry's end of the bar. "You lost, then?"

Harry's first thought was to say no, but something in the quirk of her
crooked smile reminded him of Mrs. Figg. The words stuck in his
throat. "Y-yeah. Sort of."

"D'you have a map?"

Digging in the back pocket of his jeans, he pulled out the map that
Hermione had sent. It was dog-eared and grubby from being folded
and unfolded, and the glossy paper was wrinkled from where the rain
had soaked it. He handed it to the woman.

"Let's see that." She peered at it, turning it round and round in her
hands. "Heh. This one confuses enough Muggles...you'd think
they'd've changed it by now."

She set Harry's map down on the grease-spotted bar and pulled out
her wand. With a neat flick of her wrist, she waved her wand over
the map. "Cartaglypha!"

Harry stared at the map. The lettering seemed to be dissolving, the
printed words running together just as the ink of his directions had
run together. But all of a sudden, the letters snapped back into focus,
clear and sharp.

With a tiny pop, a small white box appeared in the bottom right hand
corner of the map, and as Harry watched a string of words swam into
focus inside the box. They read, 'WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?"

"There now, duck," the middle-aged witch said brightly, wiping her
wand on the sleeve of her tatty robes. "That ought to help you. If
you tell it where you want to go--and speak nice and clearly, now--
it'll show you the best way to get there. See that little box just
there? It'll give you the directions you need."

Harry took the map, and pushed his last two Sickles across the bar
for a tip. "Thank you."

"No trouble." She took the money, but caught hold of his hand just
before he could pull it away.

"Say..." she began, staring at him shrewdly. "Haven't I seen you
somewhere before?"

"No!" Harry gasped, then took a quick breath and formed his features
into a thinly polite smile. "I mean, no. I don't think so."

The middle-aged witch gazed at him, frowning as if she knew she
had seen him before but couldn't quite place where and when. Then,
she said loudly:

"You were at Hogwarts, weren't you."

The old men in the corner looked up from their pipes and their dice
game, staring at Harry and the witch at the bar. The silence thudded
in the damp, smoky room.

Harry cringed. This was it. "Y...yes."

To his astonishment, the woman let go of his hand and clucked her
tongue sadly. The crow's-feet around her eyes wrinkled, her mouth
puckering as her face drooped in a tender, almost motherly sympathy.

"You poor dear boy," she cooed. "It must have been so terrible.
Fair gave me shivers, reading all about it in the Prophet and
thinking that it was just like the bad old days all over again."
She shivered for effect, but then her eyes lit up. "Did you get
to see Harry Potter when you were there?"

"He...was in some of my classes," Harry croaked.

"Fancy that now!" A pleased little smile played across her lips, as
if she and Harry were old pals and she had finally made him confess
one of his deepest, darkest secrets. "What was he like?" she whispered.

Harry found that he was stammering worse than Neville on a bad day in
Potions. "I-I-I d-don't r-really know."

"At school with Harry Potter..." All of a sudden, she seemed to have
forgotten about him entirely. She propped her chin on her hands, bony
elbows resting on the bar, and gazed dreamily into the distance. "Oh,
if I were only ten years younger...."

"Yeh'd be twenty years too late!" came a boozy shout.

"Shut it, you old sot!" the woman barked at the cluster of old men.
The joker and his companions roared with intoxicated laughter.

Harry took advantage of the opportunity to escape to the street.

* * *

"Cambridge?"

"I need to talk to Professor Stanton."

"And I suppose you're not going to tell us why."

"I...you wouldn't understand."

"Cambridge?"

"Not this again. Harry, why wouldn't we understand?"

"It's something I have to do alone, Remus.

"Cambridge?"

"Yes, Sirius, we've established that already."

"Shut up, Remus. Harry, do you have any idea how you're going to
get there?"

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me."

Harry had also hoped that raising the subject over dinner would make
things easier, but it was plain that this would not be the case.

Sirius shoved his plate away and leaned back in his chair. "Well,
you could try to get there the Muggle way, but it would take days."

"Days?" Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Well, the better part of a day. In case you haven't noticed, we're
not exactly on the beaten path."

He was prepared for that argument. "Hermione says it'd take maybe
half an hour to get to Weston-super-Mare from here by car--"

"Oh, that's what she says?" Remus remarked.

"--and it's a two and a half hour journey from there to London,"
Harry finished. "There are trains from Liverpool Street and King's
Cross that only take an hour. I could be there in--"

"Five hours," Sirius interrupted. "So that's five hours there and
five hours back. Plus car hire, plus rail tickets...." He ticked off
the points on his fingers. "And you want to do all this by yourself."

I don't want to. I have to. Harry thought this, but he didn't dare
say it aloud.

"Do you have a better idea?" was what he said.

"Well, we are on the Floo," said Remus sensibly. "That could at
least get you to Diagon Alley, and probably further than that."

Harry stared down at his plate. "I'd rather not go to Diagon Alley,
if that's all right."

Sirius and Remus exchanged concerned looks.

Harry had visited Diagon Alley the Friday before classes had resumed;
he needed to buy a new wand. His old one had been destroyed in the
fight against Voldemort--all that was left of it were a few splinters of
wood that Remus had dug out of the palm of his hand--and he had
had to go to Ollivander's to select a new one. Professor McGonagall
and Remus had accompanied him, but even then Harry had not been
able to avoid the screaming, cheering, sobbing crowd of witches and
wizards that had flocked to him the moment he had stepped outside
the Leaky Cauldron. There were hundreds of people, pushing and
shoving and jostling one another out of the way to catch a glimpse of
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the child who had defeated the
Dark Lord for good and all.

The Boy Who Lived had taken one look at the crowd and immediately
fled inside.

The next morning, Mr. Ollivander quietly hung a Closed For The Day
sign on his shop door and travelled to Hogwarts, bringing a small
legion of wands for Harry to choose from. Fortunately, one of the
wands was a slim twelve-inch holly and phoenix feather that had
worked perfectly at the first swish and flick. Harry had not been
back to Diagon Alley since.

"You'll have to go back there sometime, Harry," Sirius said gently.

"I know," Harry replied, still staring at his plate. "But if it's all the
same to you, I'd rather not go there right now."

"You don't have to travel by yourself the whole way, you know," said
Remus. "We could come with you to London. See you on the train."

"I have to...." He was tired of repeating himself. "It wouldn't work."

Sirius shoved his chair away from the table and started to collect the
empty plates. "We'll work something out."

In the end, what they worked out was a compromise. That Friday,
Harry would get up early in the morning, eat a quick breakfast, and
Floo to the Leaky Cauldron. Remus paid a visit to the Diagon Alley
pub on Wednesday to arrange for the use of the landlord's private
fireplace for the Floo journey--a simple arrangement, as the old
proprietor was only too eager to accommodate the wishes of young
Harry Potter. Harry was assured that he could then slip out a side
entrance and into the bustle of Charing Cross Road, and from there
he could make his way by bus and Tube to the Liverpool Street
station and onto the next train to Cambridge.

"Why Liverpool Street?" Sirius asked when Harry showed him the
timetable. "It says here that the trains run out of King's Cross as well."

Harry had a reason for picking Liverpool Street over King's Cross,
but he didn't want to say it to Remus. It was the same reason why
he had stopped visiting the Burrow, and the same reason why, in
the darkest part of his heart, he was secretly dreading going back
to Hogwarts in the fall.

In order to pay for his Muggle transportation, he needed Muggle
money. Remus had also stopped at Gringotts on Wednesday, and
had changed some of the money in Harry's vault to pounds and
pence. It had been a while since Harry had had to think in terms
of decimals, and seeing the little pile of notes and the bag of coins
on the kitchen table made a flutter of nervousness run through his
stomach.

It was settled. That Friday, he would be going to Cambridge.

* * *

It was far easier to get where you were going when you had someone
telling you exactly where to go. Harry silently thanked the witch from
the Crosswands as he stared up at a cobbled archway. Through
this archway, the map told him, would be a number of University
departments, including the Department of Social Anthropology.

The rain had slowed once more, this time to a sullen mist that was
more annoying than drenching. Harry rubbed at his glasses to clear
away the fog and checked the map again.

TURN RIGHT, the words in the box said, AND GO DOWN THE
SLOPE.

Harry turned right and walked through the archway. He found himself
in an open space surrounded by tall buildings on all sides, and using
the map and the directions in the box he wove his way through a maze
of alleys and back entrances.

"Third door on the right...third door on the right in the corner...."
He muttered to himself, counting steps and counting doors. He was
very glad that there were no Muggles around to see him talking to a
map as if he expected it to answer him.

The third door on the right had the same coat of flaking white paint
as the first and second doors he had passed. A small plaque on the
lower part of the door read 'Department of Social Anthropology'.

He tried the handle, and the door opened into a small atrium with a
rickety-looking staircase.

THE DEPARTMENT OFFICE IS ON THE FIRST FLOOR, the
map said.

Harry folded the map and put it away, then started to climb the stairs.

The building was silent, without a soul in sight, and that made Harry
distinctly uneasy. It was a Friday, in the summer, and a quick glance
at his new-old watch--it had belonged to his father and grandfather,
and was a very belated birthday present from Sirius--told him that
it was nearly four-thirty in the afternoon. What would he do if he
arrived at the department office and no one was there?

He climbed faster.

He found the department office more quickly than he had thought he
would, but his heart sank when he saw that there was no one inside.
No one was at the secretary's desk, and the door that presumably
led to an inner office was closed. The room was empty.

So that was that. He had come all the way to Cambridge to end up in
a deserted, windowless outer office in a mouldering academic building.

He leaned heavily against the doorframe, trying to gather up the strength
to go back out into the rain and start his twenty-minute walk to the rail
station. He would be on the train by a little after five, if the signal was
fixed, and it would take--

A sharp noise from behind made him jump and whirl around. A short,
sour-faced woman was standing behind him, staring at him with beady-
bright and deeply suspicious eyes.

The woman cleared her throat again--it had the alarming staccato
sound of gunfire--and Harry realised that she was staring at him
because he was blocking her path into the office. He quickly moved
aside to let her pass.

The woman strode past him, trailing a miasma of synthetic violet
scent so strong that Harry had to choke back a sneeze. She went
straight to the desk near the closed office door and began to open
and shut drawers very loudly. She pointedly ignored Harry.

Harry felt that he had to speak up. "Er, excuse me? Miss?"

Annoyed, the woman glanced up, and her hard face took on a look
of pinched disapproval when she saw that Harry was still standing in
the doorway.

"Yes?" she snapped, flinging the word at him like a grenade.

Harry hung back. The look the woman was giving him reminded him
very strongly of his Aunt Petunia, so strongly that he half-expected
her to order him outside and tell him not to come back until he had
repainted the chipped white door outside.

"I...I don't mean to bother you," he said in his most polite voice,
"but could you please tell me where Professor Stanton's office is?"

The woman's jaw twitched. She gave him a scathing glare, and picked
up a raincoat that hung on a hook behind her desk.

"Doctor Stanton isn't in," she said crisply, putting extra emphasis on
the correct title. She shrugged on her coat. "He's not here today."

"Oh." Harry's spirits, which had been flagging ever since he had
stepped off the train and into a rainstorm, sank even further.
"Do...do you know where I could find him?"

The woman collected a battered plastic shopping bag and a flowery-
patterned umbrella. "Try his College."

At Harry's blank and uncomprehending look, she lifted her gaze to the
heavens, and said in a voice meant for the profoundly deaf:

"Christ's College."

Harry thanked her, humbly and profusely, and hurried out the way he
had come.

* * *

"Young man!"

For the third time that day, Harry snapped to attention. He turned on
his heel to see an older man walking toward him.

The man's dark grey three-piece suit was perfectly pressed, his salt-
and-pepper moustache neatly trimmed. He walked with the controlled
swagger of one who holds an official position. Everything about him
shouted Person In Authority.

As the man approached, Harry wondered what he had done wrong
this time. He had found Christ's College in five minutes with the aid
of his map, and no sooner had he poked his head through the gate
than someone was chasing after him.

"I'm sorry?" he said, trying to look innocent of any wrongdoing.

The man drew to a halt and gazed down at him imperiously.

"The College is closed to visitors," he said, biting off the ends of his
words. "You'll have to come back when we open tomorrow. Nine
o'clock."

He was already guiding Harry back to the main entrance, back to the
small wooden door in the larger wooden gates of the College. Harry
jerked back just in time, pulling himself straight and tall.

"I'm here to see Dr Stanton," he said, trying to sound as though he
was on an urgent, life-or-death mission. "Dr Will Stanton. Could
you tell me where his office is, please?"

The man's bushy eyebrows went up, and he looked at Harry with a
greater interest.

"Dr Stanton never mentioned a visitor." Leaving Harry just inside the
entrance, he turned left and headed through a doorway marked 'Porter's
Lodge'. He returned moments later, holding a sheet of paper. "What's
your name, lad?"

Harry froze. For a blinding second, he couldn't remember his name,
and before he knew it he was blurting out the first thing that came
into his head:

"He's my uncle."

The porter stared at him, looking as surprised as Harry felt. "Your
uncle?"

"Well, he's not really my uncle. He's a friend of my dad's, or
something like that, or anyway I've known him for ages and ages."
To his astonishment, the story bubbled from his mouth as freely as
if he was speaking the absolute truth. "And I've always called him
my uncle, even though he's not, not really."

The porter hadn't thrown him out on his ear yet, so he kept going,
the words flowing more and more naturally as he wittered on. "I
know it sounds silly, but it saves me the trouble of having to
explain the whole thing properly like I'm doing now, and it's not
as if--"

"All right, all right." The porter pointed across the open courtyard.
"Go through that archway on the right. There'll be a big building
straight ahead of you: that's Second Court. You'll be wanting 'B'
Staircase, that's the door on the right. Up the stairs to the second
floor, and make a right, and it'll be the second door."

Harry's head spun with directions. "Thank you," he managed to say,
and started walking.

The rain had stopped, but the clouds overhead hung heavy and thick.
No one was about. No tourists, no students, no professors. The
stately buildings of the College looked wan and colourless in the
weak sunlight, a sharp contrast to the lush, vibrant green of the
manicured lawns. Harry trod carefully on the path around the centre
circular lawn in the first courtyard. He was afraid that he would be
hunted down if he were to accidentally trod on so much as a blade
of the close-cut grass.

He walked through the archway, a small tunnel of cut stone and the
dark rich warmth of old wood, and stepped onto another path. Ahead
of him, the imposing, mansion-like structure that the porter had called
'Second Court' was shrouded in wisps of fog. The building's blank
windows seemed to be staring at him through the mist, like rows
of eyes hidden behind spectacles.

He veered right and found the staircase the porter had described,
and went up the flights of stairs. When he reached the top--a little
winded from the climb--he stopped dead.

There was the door that the porter had mentioned, but it was closed,
and two people were standing in front of it. A short dark-haired girl
and a taller blond boy, both of them several years older than himself.
Harry guessed that they were Percy's age, or a little older.

They were kissing.

Harry felt a sudden strong desire to scream.

He opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out the girl saw
him. She reluctantly broke the kiss, and she and the boy half-turned,
giving Harry impatient and distinctly unfriendly stares.

"Is...is Dr Stanton in?" Harry asked, trying to look as if he wasn't the
slightest bit uncomfortable at having interrupted them.

The boy answered first. "No," he said curtly.

"Oh." At almost any other time Harry would have excused himself and
left, but he had had enough of being treated like nothing more than an
annoyance. "Do you know if he'll be back today?"

The boy wrapped one arm more tightly around his girlfriend's waist,
making her giggle and squirm. "Yes," he said.

"Do you know when he'll be back today?" Harry said, keeping his
voice level with some difficulty.

Casually, the boy raked his free hand through his short, spiky hair.
"What's it to you?"

Harry very nearly reached for his wand, but the dark-haired girl
scowled at her boyfriend and pushed him away.

"Ian, leave the poor kid alone," she scolded. She gave Harry the
first kind smile he had seen that day. "There's some reception he's
at, some farewell party-thing for one of the research fellows. He's
supposed to be back by five."

"Is there somewhere I can wait for him?" Harry asked eagerly.

"Depends on what you're here for," the boyfriend said with a snort.

"He's my uncle," Harry declared.

"Uncle?" The boy looked him up and down, then shrugged. "Well,
you look normal enough."

"Ian!" the girl said, horrified.

Harry put on an affronted expression.

"He's not really my uncle," he said, with a haughtiness that came as
much from exhaustion and ill-temper as any attempt at play-acting.
"He's a old friend of my dad's, or something like that, or anyway--"

The boy made a face. "Spare us the family tree."

The girl ignored her boyfriend's comment. "I'd tell you to go in and
wait in his office, but it's--oh!"

She gave a little cry, because Harry had suddenly stepped forward
and put his hand on the doorknob. He had been seized by an odd
compulsion to try the door for himself. At his touch the handle had
turned. The door opened a crack.

"Would you look at that!" the girl exclaimed, looking from Harry to
her boyfriend. "Ian, I thought you said it was lock--"

Harry didn't waste another moment. He darted between them and
through the open door, shutting it quickly behind him--though not too
quickly to miss the words "little brat" being tossed over his head.

He was plunged into pitch darkness. He reached out, fumbling, and
after two tentative steps forward his questing fingers struck wood
and the cold, slightly damp metal of another doorknob. He turned
it, and found that the inner door was open as well. Once he was
safely inside, he turned around, his back against the door.

He was in Professor Stanton's office.

Having only seen the office from the vantage allowed by the magical
mirror, he found that being in the room itself was more than a little
disorienting. It wasn't as large as he had thought it was. Smaller
than Dumbledore's office in Hogwarts, certainly. Yet there was the
large wooden desk with the two chairs in front and the one behind.
There was the grate--cold now, and free of ashes, the fire unneeded
in the summer days. And there were the crowded shelves filled to
overflowing with all kinds of books: several worn leather folios; a
good amount of newer, hardcover editions with colourful dustjackets;
a scattering of paperbacks. On a separate shelf was a row of back
numbers of scholarly journals. Most of these were recent editions
of the Cambridge Journal of Social Anthropology.

For lack of anything better to do--a glance at the clock on the desk
told him it was ten minutes to five--he wandered around the room. He
ran a hand along the shelves, idly reading a few titles. The names
meant little to him--Social Customs of So-and-so, Cultural Studies
of This-and-that. Quite a few of the books looked like textbooks,
anthropology and archaeology texts with a few history and sociology
books tucked in among the lot. Some were in foreign languages; he
noticed a tidy set of eight hardbound books on an upper shelf that
had French titles. Behind the professor's desk was a section devoted
entirely to reference materials: writing style guides, four or five
foreign language dictionaries, a battered Latin grammar that might
have been an old school exercise book, a thesaurus, and a copy of
the Oxford English Dictionary that looked as though it had outlived
several owners before coming to a dilapidated rest on that particular
shelf.

Standing beside the desk, he turned around, searching for the place
where the mirror must have been. On the wall opposite the desk
there was a gap between two bookshelves, the right size and shape
to accommodate an oversized, floor-length mirror. But in the gap
there was only a framed Ordnance Survey map of Roman Britain
hanging on the wall. A small table, like a writing-desk, sat below it.

Harry shuffled over to one of the two chairs in front of the large
desk and sat down. He let his eyes drift.

As he sat and stared, he found that the room disturbed him. There
was something about it didn't ring true. He stared and stared, and
it took several moments of more careful scrutiny to realise what was
bothering him.

There were no photographs anywhere in the room. Not a single snap
of family or friends, or even of Professor Stanton himself. And apart
from the framed map (which didn't really count) there were no other
pieces of artwork, or knickknacks, or decorative objects. Nothing
that might have hinted at any sort of hobby. There wasn't so much as
a potted plant--nothing to suggest the slightest interest in the decoration
of the room. And while it could be argued that the room was ideal for
working, completely free from distractions, the lack of a personal touch
was as distracting as the presence of objects would have been.

It felt sterile.

He shivered, suddenly cold.

Just as he was about to stand up and walk around the room again, he
heard noises outside the door--the sound of muffled voices.

"Miss Merridew. Mr Featherstone. May I help you?"

"You told me to stop by to pick up my letter, sir. The recommendation?"

"So I did. You wanted it on University letterhead, correct?"

"Yeah--I mean, yes."

"I have it here...somewhere....ah, here you are. Good luck with it.
The application deadline's next Friday?"

"I'm posting it tomorrow."

"Good for you. Best of luck, Miss Merridew."

"Thank you, sir."

"Oh, by the way, sir, your nephew's in your office."

There was a silence, broken only by Harry's own quickened breathing.

"...my nephew?"

"I--we said he could wait in there. I hope that's all right, seeing
as how he's family and all. The door was open, and--"

"Thank you, Miss Merridew. If you'll be good enough excuse me...."

Harry leapt to his feet at the sound of the handle being turned.
He heard the first door open, then the second, and then--

--for half a second, no longer than a heartbeat, he would have sworn
that he was back in the little room off the library. Daunting and
magisterial, dark robes swirling, the towering figure of Professor
Stanton seemed to fill the room--

--but then he turned, and closed the door.

The billowing robes shrank in size, taking on the modern cut of a
long dark overcoat. The Old One's presence lessened to the point
where it was no longer overpowering, and one could breathe again.

Until he spoke.

"Ah. Mr Potter."

Harry swallowed. His chest felt as if a great hand was squeezing
it, and his throat seemed to be sticking to itself.

"H...hello, sir," he said. It required effort to make the mechanisms
of speech work properly.

"How are you today?" The question was quiet, polite, unemotional.
The sort of question one might ask a stranger.

"I'm fine." Harry's reply was equally quiet and polite, though copying
the lack of emotion was a strain. "And you, sir?"

"Quite well, thank you. And your friends?"

"They're fine, too, sir."

There was a moment when neither of them seemed to know where the
conversation ought to be going, or even whose turn it was to speak
next. Neither moved from where they stood.

Abruptly, Professor Stanton held up a hand. Harry couldn't stop
himself flinching, but a burning relief that was closer to shame swept
over him when the hand merely gestured toward the two chairs on
the far side of the desk.

"You can sit down, Mr Potter," Professor Stanton said dryly. "And
take off your coat, if you wish. I'm not about to order you out into
the rain, not after you've been to such lengths to find me in the first
place." He slipped an arm out of his own water-spotted raincoat.
"Do sit, please."

Obediently, Harry sat, perching on the very edge of the nearest
chair. He took off his raincoat but held onto it, clutching it to his
chest in an unconscious attempt to shield himself.

Professor Stanton hung up his overcoat and brushed a few stray
droplets of water from his suit-jacket.

"Miss Granger and Mr Weasley are here with you, I trust?" His face
was still turned away from Harry.

"No, sir," Harry said. "Just me."

"Alone?"

"Yes, sir."

Professor Stanton paused in the act of adjusting the knot of his tie.
He murmured, more to himself than to Harry:

"It takes courage to go alone."

Harry could not bear it any longer. The awful tightness in his chest
felt as if it would crush his lungs. He said, wildly, "Sir, I wanted to
come by to tell you that I'm--"

"Harry."

He broke off, the last of his pent-up breath escaping in a hiss like
air from a punctured tyre. He glanced up.

Will had turned to look at him. He was smiling a strange, sad smile.

"It's all right," Will said quietly. "In all honesty, I should be the one
apologising, not you."

Harry's mouth opened, but not a sound came out.

"Can I offer you something?" Before Harry could answer, Will was
already moving toward the door. "I don't keep much here, only tea
things and the like. I take my meals in Hall most nights."

"Oh, I don't want to--" Harry began anxiously.

"Tea, then," Will interrupted decisively, as if he hadn't heard a
word of protest. "And we'll see what else I have at hand. I won't
be a moment--the gyp room's just at the end of the corridor."

He disappeared through the door, leaving a very baffled Harry alone
in the room once more. Within seconds he was back with two teacups,
saucers and spoons, a sugar bowl, and a creamer balanced precariously
in his hands. He deposited everything on his desk and vanished again.
When he returned a few minutes later, he was carrying a plain white
china teapot, a plate, and--to Harry's great delight--a package of
chocolate-covered digestive biscuits.

"You're in luck," Will remarked as he opened the box of biscuits.
"I bought these only a few days ago." He arranged some biscuits on
the plate, then picked up the teapot. "Black or white?"

Harry blinked. "Er, white, please."

"Sugar?"

"Yes, please."

Will handed him a brimming cup and pushed the sugar bowl toward
him. "Would you care for anything else?"

"Oh, no, thank you. This is great...lovely." And it was. The last food
he had eaten was a meagre and distinctly soggy cheese sandwich that
he had bought on the train, and though hot butterbeer was always
delicious it did nothing for one's appetite. The tea was smooth and
flavourful, and the biscuits tasted...like biscuits. Simple, normal,
chocolate-covered.

He sipped tea and nibbled biscuits until he had taken the edge off
his hunger. The familiar ritual had a calming effect, though he did
not realise how calming it was until he found that he was chatting
away quite easily, talking to Will as if being in the older man's
office was the most natural thing in the world.

"I didn't know you worked here," he said, taking another biscuit. "I
went to the Social Anthropology building before I came here, and the
lady at the desk told me--"

"Ah." Will shook his head ruefully. "So you had the misfortune to
run into our Mrs Harriman."

"Yes...er, no!" Flustered, Harry corrected himself. "No...I mean,
that is...."

Will laughed quietly. "There's no need to flatter her to me. Most of the
undergraduates call her 'The Harridan'--though that is warm praise
compared to what some my colleagues have said about her."

"She wasn't very nice," Harry confessed.

"She's been the Departmental Secretary since before I was first an
undergraduate here. I still haven't determined exactly what I did to
end up in her bad books, lo those many years ago." Will set his
cup on his desk. "But she sent you here, and I expect you told the
porter the same thing you told her...that I was your uncle."

Harry took another sip of tea. "Mm."

"Very clever of you. And that same story got you into my office.
Incidentally, how does it feel to be on the other side of the mirror?"

"I like it." Harry looked around. With another person in the room, it
didn't feel sterile at all. "It's...old. But it's a good sort of old. Like
Hogwarts."

"That's because you're seeing it as I see it." Will tapped his fingertips
together lightly. "Try squinting at the grate, and tell me if you notice
anything out of the ordinary."

Harry did as Will asked. He stared hard at the grate, and all of
a sudden his vision wavered, and he saw an smooth concrete slab
where the polished metal and open space of the fire had been.

"It's--it's blocked up." He rubbed his eyes, and suddenly the grate
was there again. He looked to Will. "What happened to it?"

"When those who do not possess magical abilities enter this room,
they see what looks like any other office of a rather junior Lecturer
at this College." Will made a sweeping gesture, indicating the room
at large. "Bricked-in fireplace, cheap modern furniture, and so on.
But you see the room as I see it--something a little less modern and
a good deal more comfortable."

Harry was fascinated. "Did you make it that way?"

Will nodded. "During term time, I spend an average of nine hours a
day in this room. Between supervisions, research, marking essays,
and the thousand other things I do here, I think I can be forgiven
for wanting to make my work environment rather more habitable."

Harry silently agreed. He drank the last of his tea, grimacing at its
overly sweet taste.

Will held out the teapot. "Care for more?"

"No, thank you."

He insisted on helping Will clear the tea things away, and followed
the professor down the corridor to a tiny kitchen crammed in a space
barely large enough for two people. The crockery was rinsed and set
to dry, the milk and sugar and biscuits returned to their proper shelves.
They made short work of the clean-up, and Will led Harry back to his
office.

"Now," he said when the door was closed, "you were speaking before,
and I interrupted you because I believe that I do owe you an apology.
I must confess that I'm very surprised to see you here at all after what
I said to you."

Harry held back a shudder at the memory. "It's all right."

"No, Mr Potter." Will shook his head. "I lost my temper and took out
my anger on you, even though I knew full well that you were in no
condition to face it. For that, I am sorry."

"But not for what you said." The words were out of Harry's mouth
before he even knew what he was saying.

A fleeting, ironic smile crossed Will's face. "There aren't many who
would take such criticism from their closest friends, let alone a
passing acquaintance."

"I don't think of you like that," Harry said forcefully, sitting up very
straight. "As an acquaintance, I mean. And...."

His stomach wrenched. This was what he had come to say--he had
to say it just right.

"And you were right," he continued in a rush, scared that he would
lose his nerve. "I was being stupid. Everyone kept telling me that it
wasn't my fault, but it always sounded like they were trying to make
me feel better. I never believed it, not really. But when you said it...no
one had ever said it like that before. Like they weren't just saying it to
make me feel better. Like it was the truth."

He stopped. His legs were trembling, and his hands were clenched in
his lap.

Will looked thoughtful. "Was that what you came to tell me?"

Harry nodded, miserable.

Will stood, and walked around his desk.

Cringing, Harry looked up at the Old One's solemn, severe face, and
felt the beginnings of a cold sweat on his brow.

"Then I hereby absolve you, Mr Potter, for the most horrific and
terrible crime of being human." Will's voice was deathly serious as
he passed one hand over Harry's head in a manner reminiscent of
a benediction. "Go now, my child, and see that it doesn't happen
again."

The awful tension that had been humming in the air snapped like a
rubber band.

Harry burst out laughing.

At first he tried to stifle it, but the laughter refused to be stifled. He
laughed until his sides hurt, until tears came, until he was falling out
of his chair. He clung to the arm of the chair with one hand, held his
aching ribs with the other, and wheezed helplessly.

When he was finally able to wipe his streaming eyes, he saw Will
holding out a glass of water, regarding him with a half-amused,
half-concerned expression.

"Drink this," he ordered, pressing the glass into Harry's hand.

Harry drank, and the cool water ran down his throat and washed
away the last of the hysterical laughter. He eased back into his chair,
feeling tired and giddy and very, very relieved all at once. At last he
composed himself, brushing away the last of the tears and folding his
hands in his lap.

"Thank heaven that's over," Will said when he had settled back in
his own chair. "So how is everyone? Enjoying the summer?"

"Everyone's well," Harry said. He told Will about Ron and Ginny and
the Burrow, about his letter to Hermione and her response. He talked
about living with Sirius and Remus, about Wookey Went and the quiet
peace of the countryside and what it was like to live in a real house
with a real family. He talked about the end of school, and the late
nights of frantic revising for exams, and how Hermione had broken
every single school record for the O.W.L.s and how no one had been
at all surprised when she did. His own marks had been very good,
though it had taken him a while to get used to using his new wand.

And while he talked, Will sat in his chair and listened, and his sympathetic
silence made it all too easy for Harry to turn from the good times to the
bad ones. He spoke of Hagrid's face, of Snape's hands and eyes, of the
desolation he had seen on the faces of the students in Slytherin House
when McGonagall announced that Professor Vector would be their
acting Head of House for the remaining weeks of term. He spoke of
the Ravenclaw Quidditch team awarding the victory to Slytherin for
their final game, of the tearful Leaving Feast and McGonagall's toast
to those who had died, and how everyone had stood and raised their
glasses high and drank to the memory of Draco Malfoy.

He spoke about all these things, and his voice did not falter until
he came the letter from Mrs Figg.

"She wanted me to tell you that she fought," he said, struggling to
remember the exact wording. "That...that she fought, and she didn't
give in without a fight."

Will closed his eyes.

"She was a good woman," he said quietly, sorrow running deep
beneath his even words. "I will always feel that it was an honour
to have known her, and a rare privilege to have been her colleague."

'Not that I care what he thinks of me...it's the principle of the
thing.' Harry hoped that Mrs Figg had known what Will thought
of her. He thought she would have been pleased.

"Can I--" He caught himself, then tried again. "May I ask you a
question?"

The Old One nodded, pleased with the correction. "By all means."

"Why did you make them forget?"

Will did not answer right away. His gaze turned vacant and cloudy,
sliding past Harry and over his shoulder. Harry glanced back, and
realised that Will was looking at the place where the mirror had
been.

"Why should they remember me?" Will said after a long pause. "It
was your magic that defeated Voldemort, not mine. Your friends
helped you to cast his own spell back at him. I was there to help
you, nothing more."

"But you were there," Harry said insistently. "You saved Professor
Snape. You brought Dumbledore back from...from where he was.
And I know you brought the Aurors onto the Quidditch pitch."
And you saved me. You saved all our lives, and now no one
will ever know it.

Will drummed his fingers on the desk. "A variation on the Portkey
magic was already under development, crafted to link to a person's
location rather than a fixed place. It was Albus Dumbledore's idea
to link the Portkey to me, and after a satisfactory testing of its
abilities it was decided that I would arrive first, and they would
follow."

From Cornwall. "So you never got my letter at all."

"Not until after the fact. Though I will say that you showed
excellent judgement in sending it."

Harry felt his cheeks grow hot from the unexpected compliment.
"But I still don't know why everyone had to forget."

"'Everyone'?" Will echoed, faintly disapproving. "Surely not
everyone."

"Well, no," Harry said slowly. "Ron and Ginny remember everything.
At least I think they do. And so does Hermione, and Neville and
Colin." He frowned, thinking hard. "And...and Sirius and Remus,
and Ron said that his dad...."

He trailed off, and bit his lip.

"The people who need to remember will remember," Will said simply.
"As for the others...it is better if they forget. Does that not make sense?"

Harry wanted to say no, it didn't make sense; no, it wasn't better.
But Will's eyes were boring into his own, so he gave the tiniest of
nods and said, meekly:

"Yes, sir."

Will's face went suddenly stern. "Now, if I may ask a question of my
own, exactly what were Miss Granger and Mr Weasley playing at
with their little trick during the battle? I certainly don't recall teaching
you anything of that sort."

"I don't know," Harry said honestly. "They wouldn't--I mean, they
never told me. I never asked them." And he hadn't. He hadn't
thought to ask.

"I see." Will stroked his chin contemplatively. "Well, the next time
you see them, please thank them for me. It was well done."

"I'll tell them," Harry promised, a vicarious thrill of pleasure running
through him.

They talked for a little while longer, and soon the topic of conversation
turned to the upcoming school year. Harry answered a question or two
about sixth-year classes and preparation for the N.E.W.T.s, but his
answers were monosyllabic, never more than a sentence.

"You don't sound as if you're looking forward to this coming year,"
Will remarked tautly after Harry had answered "Mm" for the fourth
time in a row.

Harry looked down at his shoes. "Would you?"

"It's a different world you're living in," Will said, matter-of-factly.
"You've fought long and hard for it, and you deserve to enjoy it."

"So everyone's been telling me."

"And they're quite right."

Harry sighed, and dug his toes into the carpet. "I can't believe it's
really over. It doesn't seem possible--"

"That an ordinary boy could have saved the world from the powers
of evil and darkness?" The irony in Will's voice was palpable, rapier-
sharp, though the light in his eyes was kind.

Harry scowled at his own idiocy. "Stupid, I know."

Will shook his head. "Not stupid. Short-sighted, yes--but certainly
understandable."

Harry didn't think it was so understandable. For five years he had
lived in a world where people had been hurt for nothing more than
being in the same place with him, or being someplace where he should
have been and wasn't, or being someplace where he shouldn't have
been and was. And now all that was supposed to be over and done
with--and yet he still woke up with green lights flashing in the back
of his eyes and the sound of his mother's dying screams fading in his
ears.

"How did you cope?" he said suddenly.

"Cope?" Will looked mildly puzzled. "With what?"

"With...." His hands flailed, tracing shapes that had no meaning to
illustrate an idea that didn't exist. "With everything."

There was a beat of silence.

"Everything?" Will repeated, doubtfully.

"Well...." Words failed him yet again. He decided to give up on
explanations. "Everything."

The Old One studied him for another beat, then folded his arms
across his chest.

"I honestly don't know," he admitted with disconcerting candour.
"But when I do figure it out, you'll be the first person I tell."

Harry grimaced.

Stupid, he thought angrily. What a stupid question.

"Not at all," Will said, startling him out of his black thoughts. "You've
earned the right to be completely and hopelessly confused. But you've
also earned the right to shove that confusion aside and get on with things."

"I wish I knew how," he sighed, hearing too late how dangerously close
to whining his wish sounded.

Will's eyes narrowed to slits.

"Have you learned nothing?" He sounded very cross, the schoolmaster
who has discovered that his star pupil has not been paying attention
to the lecture. "Your friends will show you how."

"My friends?"

Will gave him a look of infinite patience.

"Go live, Harry," he said, gently. "For pity's sake, don't spend the rest
of your life sitting around in darkened rooms, waiting for the other shoe
to fall. Read a book. Read twenty. Go for a walk and don't return home
until dinnertime. Go on holiday, go abroad, even--there's far more to the
world there than this little island. Or you could play that sport you seem
to enjoy so much--Quidditch, wasn't it?"

Harry's mouth hung open.

"After all," Will continued, quite naturally, "you weren't born solely to
defeat the Dark Lord. Why should your life end with his?"

Behind and slightly above the open mouth, Harry's mind was working
furiously. The way Will had put it--it couldn't be as simple as all that.
It couldn't.

Or could it?

"But what about you?" he said, grasping at the first coherent idea
that formed in his head.

Will tilted his head to one side. "What about me?"

"What are you going to do?"

"The same thing I've been doing for some time now." He waved one
hand, the same sweeping gesture that managed to encompass the room
and all its contents. "I'll be here, if you should have need of me. You
know I can always be found."

Harry's mouth twisted. "That's not what I meant."

"I know," Will replied. "But what becomes of me is not your concern.
I'll be here long after you're gone. That is all you need to know."

The last sentence was spoken in the tone of voice that forbade all
questioning. Harry knew that the subject was closed. But there was
something else, something that had not entered his mind until a moment
before.

"Could..." he began timidly. "Would you mind if I stopped by again,
sometime?"

"You...." It was Will's turn to be astonished. He stared at Harry
as if he could not believe his ears. "You what?"

"If it's all right," Harry added quickly, with a nervous grin. "I mean,
it wouldn't look right if your 'nephew' didn't come to visit once in a
while."

Will ran his fingers through his hair. Twice, he opened his mouth
to speak, but shut it again. His eyes had gone entirely out of focus,
not seeing anything.

"Is...is something wrong?" Harry ventured to ask. It was deeply
unsettling to see Will Stanton looking so...lost.

"No, no," Will said distractedly. He blinked several times, and he
seemed to be pulling himself together. "I...I'd like that. I'd like that
very much."

Harry grinned, for real this time. "Great."

Will appeared to be about to say something, but at that moment the
little clock on far end of his desk chimed seven strokes.

Harry checked his watch. It was indeed seven o'clock. He had been
in the room for over two hours, though it had felt like barely twenty
minutes had passed.

A rustle and a squeak made him glance up, and he saw that Will had
pushed back his chair and stood up. He was buttoning his suit-jacket.

"Well then, what are you sitting 'round here for?" Will said briskly,
doing up the last button and striding toward the office door. He laid
a hand on the knob, and looked over at Harry. "Go on!"

Now it was Harry's turn to stare blankly. "What?"

"Go on, I said." Will tapped his foot on the ground, showing every
sign of impatience. "Leave me to my work. This is no place for a
young man like yourself."

"But I--"

"Mr Potter." The composed professor, the austere Old One, had
returned in full force. "Do I need to make this a formal request?"

Harry knew that tone of voice all too well. He stood, his knees
protesting at the unwelcome change of position, and collected his
now-dry raincoat. But when he reached the door, he stopped, and
held out his hand.

"Thank you, sir...Will," he said, in an adult voice that did not sound
like his own. "Thank you for everything."

Will smiled at him and took his hand, gripping it firmly.

Their hands had barely touched when, acting on a sudden impulse,
Harry let go of Will's hand and threw his arms around the older
man.

The Old One stiffened at the unexpected physical contact. A soft,
surprised sound somewhere between a gasp and a cough forced its
way out of his throat.

For a instant, Harry was horribly afraid that he'd done something
wrong, but the fear dissolved when he felt the touch of a hand on
his shoulders, and then a gentle pressure as Will returned the hug.

They stood like that for...Harry never knew how long they stood there.
The even rhythm of Will's heartbeat blended with the measured ticking
of the desk clock and the blood rushing in his ears, and Time seemed
to stretch all out of proportion. Whether it was his imagination, or
whether it was some greater magic of the Light...he didn't know.

He didn't care.

Then, after a space of time that might have been seconds or minutes
or hours, the pressure was gone, and Will's hands were on Harry's
shoulders, and he was looking down at Harry with the most unguarded
expression the young man had ever seen. It was as if emotion itself
had crept up behind him and taken him unawares. His eyes shone with
warmth and pride and an ancient, ageless radiance that made Harry's
heart swell, beating faster.

When he finally spoke, his voice was no more than a husky whisper,
but it was so thick with emotion that Harry felt his own throat close
up in response.

"Go well, Harry Potter," he said. "And may the Boy Who Lived live
well, and be happy."

Harry smiled back, and nodded, because there was nothing he could
say.

There was nothing he needed to say.

* * *

The varnished oak door closed behind him, and he walked the length
of the corridor and down the flights of stairs. His feet felt strangely
light, as if his body was floating an inch or two above the ground
with every step.

He pushed open the glass-panelled door and stepped into the courtyard.
The heavy grey clouds had broken up, revealing patchy blue sky above.
A gentle wind pushed the clouds further apart and rustled the leaves on
the trees, flicking drops of water into the air like spray from a garden
hose. Harry paused on the step, inhaling the light, sweet fragrance of
the rain-washed summer evening, before he started walking once more.

He had the grounds all to himself as he followed the crushed stone
path through the archway and around the perfectly tended lawn of
the first courtyard. The porter nodded to him from the office in the
covered entryway. Harry nodded back, not really seeing the man.

There was the little door, the keyhole in the ancient wooden gate.
He side-stepped the sign that proclaimed that the College was 'Closed
to Visitors', passed through the little door, and was back in the main
street once more.

Just outside the gate of the College, he paused again, breathless.
For the briefest of moments as he passed through the door, he had
thought that he had heard music--a sweet, yearning, bell-like strain
whistling past on the breeze. It caught at the deepest part of him,
but as he turned and raised his head to better hear the last notes
the thread of music vanished, fading into the dimness of things
almost remembered.

He checked his father's watch. It was five minutes after seven.

Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his raincoat, he set off down
the street, leaving Christ's College behind him. He was heading in
the direction of the railway station, and there was a return ticket
in his pocket...but there were two Galleons in there as well.

He smiled to himself as he raised his wand hand. Yes, he had paid
for the train ticket, but the Knight Bus would be faster.

He couldn't wait to get home.

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When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back
Three from the circle, three from the track
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone
Five shall return, and one go alone.

Enter, Watchman of the Light
Grant to us your inner sight
Enter, for the time draws near
Power will erase our fear
Enter, lest the darkness win
We the Six now call you in

HERE ENDS HARRY POTTER AND THE LEGACY OF THE LIGHT

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June 20th, 2003