Mourning Dawn (A Prelude to The Wand of Elder)

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Harry found several things that had been laid out for him the day before by Kreacher, including a clean pair of socks, clean jeans, a tee shirt, and a set of finely pressed lightweight summer wizarding robes. He shook his head slightly, and chuckled. He should have realized.

He quickly stripped out of the robes he was wearing and transfigured them back into pajamas. He then dressed in the robes that Kreacher had prepared for him. Harry did not want to hurt the elf's feelings in case he saw Harry wearing different clothes.

As Harry changed, he thought about what he must do this day. The light of the still sleeping sun was not in evidence outside of Harry's window. He would most likely be one of the first awake in the castle. He suspected many more people were sleeping off the exhaustion of the battle, and the gathering that followed.

He knew that there would be so much to do that day. He must fulfill his duties to the Weasleys and offer his condolences and support. He must check on Ron and Hermione, and get the news of the previous day from them. If time permitted and if the new temporary Minister of Magic made an appearance, perhaps he could speak to Kingsley Shacklebolt and discover what lay behind Professor McGonagall's cryptic remarks about his education and future.

The day ahead suddenly seemed like it would be long and arduous and he was not sure if he was ready to face it. Harry folded the pajamas neatly on the bed, stuffed his father's invisibility cloak in the pocket of his robes, and hung the mokeskin pouch around his neck. He then took a deep breath and looked around his lonely dormitory. With a sense of dread for the coming day, he strode to the door.

The common room actually contained several overnight guests. There were cots strewn haphazardly around the room to accommodate the family members of those Gryffindors who had stayed to fight. Harry thought he saw Seamus Finnegan's mother near the fireplace. On the other side of the room, Neville's grandmother slept regally in a rickety cot as if she was lounging in a suite at a five star hotel. Harry noticed that Neville slept in a cot next to her. With a stab of guilt, Harry suspected that his roommates had chosen to sleep in the common room rather than wake Harry from his recuperative slumber. It was difficult to tell in the darkness, but Harry saw no sign of the Weasleys among the sleeping families.

Harry made his way out the portrait hole and towards the entrance hall. As he descended the last set of the steps and looked around the great chamber, he was amazed...simply amazed.

An army of house elves was still cleaning the place. It was obvious that there was much left to do, as the masonry and marble were still blown out in a few places, but much had been set to rights. The rubble, blood, and other detritus of conflict had been completely cleared away and those portions of the giant room that were still intact or that had been repaired shone dimly and pristinely in the guttering light of the torches. If Harry had not been there, he would not believe that a pitched battle had been fought among many hundreds of wizards and magical creatures in that place less than twenty-four hours previously.

The house elves parted as he walked through them, all work ceasing as he moved towards the castle doors and the grounds beyond. They looked up at him silently, almost reverently. Their huge orb-like eyes shone at him like many pairs of bright little flashlights. Several reached out a hand to touch him as he passed. They seemed to desire just a brush against the Boy Who Lived. They simply wanted to know that the young man who had twice vanquished Voldemort was indeed a real person, and alive and well at that.

As he gently pushed his way through the throng, he felt small packets being pushed into his hands, and smelled the scent of bacon and sweet breads. Harry looked around at their sharp little faces, and felt very uncomfortable with their adoration. He put what he hoped was a grateful smile on his face, but he walked as quickly as he could to the castle's main doors.

Harry did not even look towards the Great Hall. He feared what he might see.

Once he was out the front doors of the castle, Harry could hear the sound of the cleaning resuming behind him in the entrance hall. He did not know whom else he might meet on the grounds, and he decided that he could not handle any more adoration at the moment. He withdrew his invisibility cloak from his robes, and covered himself within its concealing anonymity.

He began to walk. Of their own accord, his feet took him down the path to the Quidditch Pitch that he had trod so many times over the years. He ate some of the food given to him by the House Elves as he went, stowing in his robes that which he did not eat.

Harry surveyed the dark grounds as he made his way. It was obvious that the House Elves had not yet begun their cleanup of the exterior of the school, and Harry was grateful that the night still clung to the school grounds like a concealing veil. The darkness was deepened by the unusual absence of the blazing windows that had always dotted the face of the castle. He did not want to see the full extent of the damage.

Even in the blackness, however, Harry could still see that rubble littered the grounds here and there along his path. In places the earth had been blasted up by spells, or perhaps gouged by giants. He looked up and saw a huge curved chunk missing from the astronomy tower high above him, starlight twinkling where solid rounded wall had been. It was as if some monstrous creature had taken a bite out of the venerable school. As his eyes drifted down the walls of the castle, he saw a giant hole blasted in its side. He averted his gaze, refusing to allow himself to recognize the place where Fred was killed.

From a distance in the darkness, the amorphous forms of the stands and the changing rooms on the Quidditch Pitch looked as they always had done. At first, it looked as if a Quidditch match could be started at first light. Yet when Harry drew closer, he saw the terrible damage.

A ring was toppled and others were simply gone. The stands had several holes blasted in them, and he could see now that one section was slumped towards the ground, dangerously unstable. The frame and roof of the changing rooms were undamaged, but the walls had collapsed inward and appeared to be partially melted. Harry shuddered to think that someone might have been sheltering there when that happened. Charred brooms, gloves, and other pieces of equipment were strewn madly about the destroyed structure.

Harry looked around the pitch, awestruck by the damage. After Voldemort's destruction, in the euphoria of a victory just attained, the tales of the battle had been bandied about like talismans of happiness. Yet they had failed to mention such awful scenes as that which confronted Harry in the pre-dawn stillness.

Harry dimly remembered overhearing during the celebration that Arthur Weasley and his charges had been in a sharp scrap with some Death Eaters in this area of the school grounds. Since they were so sturdily built, Harry could see that the stands would have made an excellent place through which to stage a fighting retreat. Arthur's roving group of Hogwarts defenders must have made a terrific fight here.

Harry began picking through the scattered refuse around the changing rooms. At first, the going was difficult because of the darkness. After several minutes, however, Harry noticed that he could see a little better. He looked up and saw the faint outline of the mountains surrounding the school. They stood like shadowed sentries against the lightening sky, their rearing silhouettes bearing witness to the fact that another day was coming.

After a few minutes Harry found a single broom that was only slightly damaged, its blackened tail testifying to its near destruction. He tucked it up under his arm as he gazed at the distant mountains for several moments. Bringing his eyes back to the ground in front of him, Harry knew that there was nothing else undamaged amongst the wreckage.

He had an impulse to stroll down by the lake, and had begun to move in that direction, but then his foot kicked a tiny round object. In the dimness, Harry watched a little golden ball bounce along the path ahead of him. Harry hurried forward and quickly found where the snitch had rolled. He bent to pick it up and inspected it in the half-light.

Harry could not remember a more pitiful sight. The little golden ball was encrusted with soot and seemed lifeless and broken. Yet as Harry looked closer, he saw a short, half-burned little golden wing waving slowly and pitifully on one side, and a tiny flickering stub on the other.

Harry felt a lump rise in his throat for the struggling little thing and he blinked rapidly. He could not say why it affected him so. Perhaps it was that the snitch had been made to buzz and whir and zoom free through the air until caught, remembering forever the hand that was its master. Now this poor thing would never fly free, and if it could remember anything, it would remember only fire and violence.

With a shudder, Harry looked back at the distant dim shape of Hogwarts, and thought of the young men and women who were maimed and killed defending it. Would those boys and girls, or their spirits, only remember Harry's beloved school as a place of pain and blood?

Harry forcefully pushed such thoughts from his mind as his shaking hands placed the little crippled snitch in the mokeskin bag around his neck. He continued down the path to the lake, knowing that he was not yet ready to face the horror that he had unleashed on his school, and the responsibility he felt for each and every one of the casualties in the battle.

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