To be Normal

A cold night at the end of November Harry walked in to the living-room. Ron and Hermione seemed to have been watching a movie together under a blanket. Now Hermione was asleep against Ron's shoulder. Harry quietly sat down in his favourite chair, smiling. Crookshanks jumped into his lap, and lay down purring. Everything was peaceful for a while, when Crookshanks suddenly lifted his head. A moment later Harry spotted a grey owl outside the window. Harry took her inside and removed the note. There were only two words scribbled on the note:

Glasses orphanage

Harry started the words for a while, orphanage, that sounded like it might have something to do with Voldemort. In the end Ron asked what was wrong, Hermione had woken up too.

"I-I got this weird note..." He handed it to Ron. Suddenly Hermione sat up straight.

"The glasses, of course!" She ran in to the office and came back with page from a book in her hand. "She's always wearing them, it's perfect."

"Do you know who the note's from? It might be a trick," said Ron.

"Well, no... but we sort of have to check it out. It's our only lead, and we can't sit around and wait for the Horcrux to fall into our hands."

"You're right I guess," Ron pulled Hermione back to him with a serious expression on his face. "So, do we know where the orphanage is?"

"Actually I read about that in a book a few days ago, it's the Stockwell Orphanage near Vauxhill Road in London," Hermione responded.

"Great! Remus is coming over tomorrow, we'll fill him in then. He'll probably like to come with us, maybe we should talk to Moody too." Harry was thrilled that they actually were getting somewhere again.

Remus, like Ron, had been concerned about the origin of the note, but he too agreed that they had to give it a shot. He also talked to Moody and got him to come, they needed him in such a risky operation.

Harry spent a few hours over the next week checking out the orphanage from under his invisibility cloak. With so many people around at all times it would be hard to get the five of them in undetected. What they were looking for would probably be in the basement, away from the kids. Harry decided the best time to get in was at 6 o'clock. Then they all went inside for dinner, and he noticed that the dining room was in the floor above the entrance. The meals were generally noisy, so any suspicious sounds should quite effectively drown in the noise.

The following afternoon Remus and Moody met up with the rest of them. They covered themselves in invisibility cloaks. Ron and Remus shared the one Harry got from Dumbledore, while Harry and Hermione used the other. Moody had his own. It was tricky, but minimized the risk of being caught. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand and counted, "1-2-3." It worked like a charm. They landed safely in London, still covered by the cloak. They walked closer to the front-door while leaving white footprints behind. Soon a second pair followed them, and Moody's came last. It was hard to avoid crashing into each other this way, so they moved slowly while trying to figure out where the others stood.

Harry slid open the front-door. He immediately noticed the narrow stairs leading down to the basement. Quietly they edged down until they were safe in what apparently was used as a bathroom. A bench lined one wall and a row of sinks the other. A wide opening lead in to a room of showers, and on the opposite side Harry noticed a closed door. They took off the cloaks and stuffed them safely away. Ron started walking towards the door, and his hand was on the handle when Moody ran forwards and pulled his arm away.

"You won't be able to open it that way, because it's a trap, and he wouldn't risk Muggles setting it off." Moody motioned for them to step back. He positioned himself left of the door, and pointed his wand at the door. They saw a flash of blue and then the door open slowly. Moody backed further away. When the door was about half-open ten sharp swords came out of nowhere flying through the opening, then crashed into the wall between the showers.

"See? Now you can go."

They all walked in. Remus sealed the door behind him so no kids could stumble across them. This room was rather large, and full of boxes, old furniture rags, worn-out shoes, faded paintings and other worthless things they could barely make out in the weak wand-light.

"Well, there has to be a door somewhere right? No wizard would want to guard this junk so badly," Harry said, and started walking around the room. For a while they all looked, but the walls appeared solid. Harry pulled out the faithful magic detector. It surprisingly started buzzing and vibrating quite strongly when he pointed it towards roughly the middle of the room, the signal seemed weaker some other places, and sometimes there were none at all.

"I guess we'll need to start going through all this junk then!" Ron opened a box. "Only old news-papers in here." After ten minutes, he had more fortune.

"I found some glasses... in fact, I found a whole box of them! Some are broken though." Hermione rushed over to him, and started digging through them. Harry had been following the different signals, so far he'd only found half a wand, a cracked orb, a book he didn't dare open and a quill without a tip. When he pointed the magic detector on the box he got no reaction at all. He waved it around and pointed it at individual pairs, but nothing happened.

"I don't think this is it," he said, disappointed.

"No, I don't recognise anything from the pictures." Hermione sounded disappointed too. The search continued. Just as Harry was looking at a weird old sneakoskope, it was Hermione's turn to call out.

"I found them!" Her wand-light flickered, apparently she was jumping with joy. Harry double-checked with the detector, and the signal was nice and clear. They stumbled back out into the bathroom. The light was blinding. They hurriedly apparated back to Godric's Hollow.

The glasses where clearly ancient, the glass was very thick, and the frames were broad and made of strong iron. They looked very uncomfortable, but Harry could understand that Ravenclaw, in his mind pictured as an avid bookworm wouldn't give up on books because of problems with her sight. It was probably her books who gave her the problems to begin with.

"So... how should we destroy them?" Harry asked.

"Too bad we don't have a convenient volcano around here," Ron said in a fake serious voice.

"I guess we conjure up some incredibly warm fire, and just melt them," Hermione suggested. "I think I know how to do that."

Harry went into the kitchen to make some dinner, Ron came and helped him. Remus and Moody stayed with Hermione. They made some pizza to celebrate. Forty-five minutes later the boys were called back into the living room. It was quite hot in there. Hermione had been crouching in front of the fireplace, now she straightened up.

"It won't get any warmer than this, I think we should try it now," she said while wiping her sweaty forehead with her sleeve. She walked to a safe distance, then levitated the pair of glasses into the middle of the green flames. The flames flickered, and still burned blazing hot. They waited anxiously for what felt like ages. Then suddenly, a loud bang and the familiar white cloud. Harry and Ron hugged Hermione, then walked away to get the pizza.

The winter went by like a wind. Actually more like a howling cold storm. Life in Godric's Hollow was quite pleasant, Harry enjoyed spending time with his two friends. They seemed to like spending time with each other too. They had many laughs in the evenings, playing games and watching TV. Regularly Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came over, often with Bill, Remus, Tonks, Kingsley and Moody. Then they discussed the more serious matters. A lot of unpleasant things happened in Britain during the winter. It was unnaturally cold, and several people froze to death, more than usual. Most of them were homeless, others were just old and unable to keep warm in their homes. A train mysteriously crashed right before Christmas, packed with Muggles on their way to visit their families for the holidays. For every incident Harry got more dedicated to tracking down Voldemort. Only Nagini and Voldemort himself was left of that gruesome snake of a man now.

In February the usual crowd had a meeting in Godric's Hollow. Everyone had been working the best they could towards their one goal. They had to know where Voldemort and Nagini were hiding. At this point they were noticing a certain pattern in the rumours buzzing around, in the Ministry, the Daily Prophet and in general among the wizards. The Black Forest, or like the locals said, Schwartzwald. It kept coming up in every meeting they had. Now they were almost sure this was the area to go for. Still, it was a very large area. They needed to narrow it down a lot. Remus volunteered to travel to Germany and look around. He had been unable to find a steady job for a while. Moody wanted to come with him, he was eager for some action now that he was retired. Clearly it would be safer to travel as a pair, and Harry couldn't imagine who would be better suited then the two of them. Both had special advantages after all. Remus had his keen werewolf-senses, Moody his amazing sight.

The timing had to be right for them to stand a chance, they couldn't attack in the middle of a big Death Eater meeting. And, they had to get to Nagini before Voldemort even knew they were there to be successful. They heard nothing from Remus and Moody for two weeks, Harry was getting worried, the full-moon was approaching fast. Then one morning they were awakened by a vigorous knocking on the door. The three of them walked downstairs and let Remus and Moody in. Remus looked even more shabby than usual, they both did.

"We found him," Moody muttered as they stumbled past the teens and sat down, exhausted, leaving wet footprints behind.

"That's great." Harry was delighted to hear news about Voldemort.

"Yes, it was well hidden, to me it looked like a dense part of the forest, and a small mountain. We were flying over it on broomsticks. Moody were able to look past the camouflage, so we flew low into the trees. Then I could see it too. A grassy clearing under the trees and a small castle. I saw a few people, they were dressed like Death Eaters. We were only there for about an hour, but we even saw Nagini once, she slithered out the gate and curled up in front of it for a while. Like a creepy dog guarding her master. The castle's exact location is plotted on this map," Remus pulled out a tattered piece of paper.

They spent more than a month digging around to find the right time to strike. Harry got more impatient every day, horrible news of deaths and destruction were in the papers nearly daily now, he had a strong urge to stop it all. Remus, Tonks, Moody and Bill went on several trips each to have a look at the castle and monitor how many wizards were there. In early March Bill reported that he had seen a group of vampires visiting. Clearly they had to act soon, before Voldemort could gather any more allies. Harry, Hermione and Ron were hardly ever alone in the cottage now. Remus, Moody, Tonks, Bill, Kingsley, Minerva, Arthur and Molly were there almost every day.

The strategy they came up with was that they would port-key to a small clearing shielded from the rest of the open area, and hardly visible from the castle, Arthur would be able to set up the port-key. They would wear invisibility cloaks to further avoid detection. They could not move towards the castle until they were able to dispose of Nagini. McGonagall brought over Godric Gryffindor's sword. It was the one Harry used to kill the Basilisk in second-year, she figured it should do the trick on Nagini as well. Kingsley had talked to Dawlish, the Auror. He now knew that they had something planned and would be ready to summon the other Aurors when Kingsley sent the word.

One day word came from Bill that many of the less important Death Eaters were leaving, and a couple high-ranking had arrived. He could tell because those who left showed great respect for those who came. He suggested that Voldemort was having an important meeting with his best men, and wanted to get the others out of the way. This was as good as they could hope for, at least there were slightly fewer Death Eaters present. The whole group had been gathered in the cottage at the time, so they needed no time getting ready. Kingsley sent an owl to Dawlish, telling him to get the Aurors ready, still Dawlish didn't know where they were going or what they were doing. He would be told later when the Aurors were needed. First they had to take care of Nagini.

Everything went down like they had planned, soon the group landed next to Bill in their secret spot. Minerva and Molly stayed behind, the headmistress never quite regained her strength after her run in with Umbridge, and Molly had her other children to worry about. Everyone was under a invisibility cloak, they had managed to get together five of them. Harry was the only one who didn't share with anyone when Ron snuck over to Bill's.

No one was outside the castle when they arrived, they had to be patient. After ten minutes five people walked through the gates, then disapparated. A while after that a single person appeared out of thin air in front of them and walked inside. Harry's feet were getting stiff when finally Nagini slithering and curled up in her usual manner. Harry had to get closer. He carefully walked through the trees between them and out into the open, then he stopped.

"Nagini..." Harry tried to lure her over to him using Parseltongue. "Nagini..." the snake lifted her head, and started gliding in his direction. Harry's hand moved to the sword he had fastened to his side. He had to move fast once she got close enough. He'd practised lifting his cloak and getting the sword out in one swift movement at home. It was a great that no one was around to see him.

The large snake was only five feet away. Four. Harry tightened his grip on the sword. Three feet. Harry threw of the cloak with his left arm, and pulled out the sword with his right. The snake had no time to react, in the blink of an eye the sword had severed it's head. A white mist rose from the cut, and faded away. Harry dropped the sword and grabbed his cloak. Quickly he flung it back over his shoulders to cover himself, he didn't want to be a big target right in the middle of Voldemort's yard.

He retreated back into the dark forest where the others were waiting, the night was drawing nearer now. Kingsley told him that the Aurors were on their way, and it didn't take very long for them to arrive. They appeared at the edge of the clearing in the twilight, Harry's nerves eased for a moment when he saw around fifty allies with their wands ready. They hastily took cover between the trees, Harry removed his cloak and joined them, followed by the rest of his group.

They saw movement in the castle now, and after five minutes twenty Death Eaters came out and positioned themselves on the opposite side of the clearing. They were so far away that they could easily dodge any spells sent their way, it was useless. Then another three masked men appeared by their side, a moment later two more. Still the dark side were out-numbered two to one, but their situation was steadily improving. The Aurors were starting to move closer, a few spells were fired from both sides, still unsuccessful. Suddenly they all froze, a gap had formed in the middle of the Death Eaters ranks, behind them a tall figure was approaching. The man they all feared was in their midst. Voldemort stopped in front of his tiny army, waiting, behind him the gap was filled by Wormtail, the traitor.

Harry walked towards Voldemort determined to hold his head high and look straight into the red eyes of the gruesome monster. Spells flew past him, but none hit their target. It wasn't his fate to be killed by a nameless minion it seemed. Soon he was no longer watched by the Aurors and the Death Eaters, they were busy in combat. He and Voldemort might as well have been alone. Harry stopped thirty feet away from his adversary. Between them lay nothing more than green grass.

"So, you think you can match me? The greatest dark wizard of all times?" Voldemort sneered. "Take your best shot, make me feel pain! Or are you too good for the Unforgivables boy?" Harry couldn't help doing what he was instructed to do, he wanted to make the old bastard feel pain after all, and it bought him a few extra minutes.

"Crucio." Harry knew the curse all to well. It hit Voldemort in the right shoulder, but he barely flinched.

"Honestly, is that the best you can do boy? Try again." Voldemort's laugh made Harry's insides squirm. Harry wanted so badly to shut him up.

"Crucio!" Harry's spell hit Voldemort in the thigh, and made him take a step back, but it was miles from the desired effect. Voldemort raised his wand at him.

"Do I have to show you again how it works?" he laughed. "Crucio!" The pain that consumed Harry was overwhelming and made him loose control of his body completely. He was twisting and screaming in agony for what felt like hours. When the pain faded away he found himself lying on the ground, covered in dirt and grass. "Don't you want to kill me now?" Voldemort said sweetly. Harry knew he was playing with him. He tried to build up all the anger and pain he could.

"Avada Kedavra." The familiar flash of green light hit Voldemort in the stomach. He didn't even look scared, but let out a gasp. Harry was disappointed that it didn't work, although he hadn't really expected it to.

"Try again!" Voldemort commanded. "If you can't do it, I'll have to show you this one too!" Harry swallowed hard, it was getting dark around him, the flashes of light like fireworks. Just as he was raising his wand once more, thinking it would be the last time he ever did so, he saw a familiar face lit up by an eerie green jet of light. Ron. He had been fighting behind Voldemort. Harry saw him get hit in the chest. His best-friend fell to the ground. Harry felt glued to the spot even though he wanted to rush over to him. His vision got blurred with unshed tears. The anger suddenly filled every inch of his body.

"What are you waiting for boy, are you too afraid? Too bad your dear mother isn't here to protect you this time." The voice snapped Harry out of the trace, before he could even think his body had acted for him. Instinct told him one think, this had to stop. Now.

"Avada Kedavra!" Harry felt he powerful words make their way out of his mouth. Voldemort never knew what was coming. He still had a fearless and confident look on his face when he feel.

Harry took a few steps forward. For a moment he stood frozen over the still form of Voldemort, the flood of emotions blended together in his head so he were unable to think. A girlish scream made him lift his gaze just as Hermione fell sobbing to the ground next to Ron. Harry stepped over Voldemort's dead body, and slowly made his way over to his friends. Hermione looked at him, her eyes mirrored his own feelings. Grief, anger and, over-shadowed by everything else, relief that it was over. Her tears made a path through the dirt on her left cheek. For an eternity the two sat holding each other and Ron, who's blue eyes would never again be open.

Ron's funeral took place four days after the Battle of the Black Forest. They wanted to lay him to rest as soon as possible. Percy had been there too, and the Weasleys seemed to have come to a quiet understanding. Harry vaguely remembered this fact, because it was only the second time he saw Percy in a year, both times had been in a funeral.

Too many others had also been buried that same week. Sixteen Aurors. Ollivander who's bones where found in the dungeons during the clean-up. Florean Fortescue had been severely dehydrated, but alive. Both had been dumped there when they no longer served a purpose. Fortescue had been questioned for days about relics dating from the founders age. History had been a life-long interest of his, and especially Hogwarts. Maybe Voldemort wanted decoys for the real Horcruxes. Ollivander had made his last wand, thankfully it wouldn't be the one to kill Harry or anyone else anymore. He'd been told that it had been burned along with the rest of Voldemort's body. Nobody felt that he deserved a funeral.

After all the action Harry couldn't stomach the thought of becoming an Auror anymore. Of course, he hadn't finished school either, but he'd been promised an opportunity to train for a position anyway by Otto Ansgar, the new Head of the Aurors. That happened at the party after he had received his Order of Merlin First Class. It had been eight days after the Battle of the Black Forest, the clean-up had just ended. By his side Hermione, Kingsley, Moody, Tonks and Remus stood. Ron's medal was given to Mr. Weasley. Together they had been at the frontline. Mrs. Weasley was not present at the ceremony. The shock had been hard on her, and she was mourning the loss of her youngest son deeply. Second Class medals had been given to the thirty-nine Aurors still standing after the battle, and to the families of the sixteen who fell between the dark trees.

Harry and Hermione stayed in Godric's Hollow. The first few months they hardly did anything other than the normal rituals. Harry never felt more alone than when he was making dinner, and Ron weren't there to make jokes. Hermione spent a lot of time in front of the TV, curled up under a blanket. The had many long talks about their worries and memories. After a while they could talk about Ron without crying. Still, their lives felt strangely empty. Especially Harry didn't quite know what to do with himself. For ages he'd been on a mission, now he was free to be normal. He felt like he didn't know how. He sometimes wondered if he could ever be normal, he'd been through so much, there were so much grief.

His happiest memory was from when he and Hermione went for a walk in the park. It was the middle of May. Birds were singing, and everything was green once again. They walked down the path towards the pond. A cluster of tulips had sprung out in bright red, yellow and orange. Swimming around side by side in the pond where two ducks. One of them was bright white, the other had some brown feathers. Harry had half a doughnut in his hand, and casually threw a small piece of it towards them. Both ducks reacted immediately, they reached the food at the same time and after a bit of fighting and flapping their wings, the brown duck ate it. When he threw in the rest of the doughnut, Hermione started cheering for the white duck to get it. The two ducks were swimming like crazy.

"Come on, Draco, you can take him. Stand up for yourself! Don't let him take all your food." Hermione encouraged the poor bird. She sounded so funny, Harry joined in.

"No, Hagrid, you're the champion here, scrawny blondes are no match for you!"

"Move your lazy ass, Draco... see what happened now? He practically stole the food from your mouth... beak!" Hermione tried to look furious, but could only hold it for a second. They both plopped down on a bench. Harry sat there giggling like a girl at the absurdity of their little game. The mental image of a swimming contest between Draco and Hagrid was suddenly the funniest thing he had thought of in weeks.

Hermione became restless after a while. She was used to having something to work with, home-work or research. She talked to Professor McGonagall, and decided to go back to school in the fall. Harry didn't want to, his friends weren't there anymore, and he was sick of being famous Harry Potter, which he felt was all strangers saw him as.