Inner Demons

Inner Demons

"When I find myself fading, I close my eyes and realise my friends are my energy."

Anon.

***Chapter Four***

"Oh for the love of Merlin, Mione! Stand still!"

Draco Malfoy was slouched against the banister in the Entrance Hall watching the Charms professor with a look of someone at the end of his tether.

"I can't!" she exclaimed, but she stopped pacing nonetheless. "It's Harry, Draco!"

"Well first thing I'm going to do is knock the git senseless!" stated Ron with the self-righteousness of a teenager. "What does he think he's doing, running away like that? And after eight years of hearing neither head nor tail from him he decides to reappears on our doorstep, just like that!"

"Oh honestly, Ron! We don't know what he went through - you remember how broken up he was after the war, especially about Sirius. I'm sure he has a good reason for everything."

"Well I don't care," Draco drawled, "I just wish he'd hurry up and get here. I have an appointment with my tailor in three hours. I'm getting my new robes in today."

"Well we wouldn't want to make you late for that, would we?" Ron rolled his eyes at him. "How many robes does this make? Can your wardrobe fit any more?"

Draco seemed to ponder this seriously and then brightened. "If it doesn't there's always an Enlargement Charm! I've been waiting for a good excuse to expand it."

"You are completely impossible. You know that, don't you?"

"Just because you have no taste, Weasley, doesn't give you the right to go making snipes at mine."

"You have taste? What taste?"

"I'll have you know that my taste is impeccable - I'm a Malfoy, remember? With plenty of wealth at my disposal." He smiled as Ron's ears went pink.

"Oh grow up, the both of you!" snapped Hermione. "How old are you? Ten? We haven't seen Harry in eight years! What is he going to think if the first thing he sees are the two of you arguing?"

"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose," said Draco, grinning easily. The more things change, the more they stay the same. "My way of keeping him from getting overwhelmed."

Unwillingly Hermione felt a smile curling her lips and she covered it with a frown.

"Well can't you stop? Call a temporary truce?"

"Dearest," said Ron in a slightly mocking tone, taking her hand, "If we did that we'd loose all the...spice in our relationship - and then we wouldn't have much to go on, would we?"

"Quite so," Draco agreed solemnly.

"Argh! Males!"

"Indeed, Hermione, we really are the most inscrutable of beings aren't we?" Dumbledore said from behind them, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. "I have come to alleviate your suspense."

Irritation at the other two forgotten, she turned and faced the headmaster. "Is he nearly here?" she yelped, resuming her pacing to Draco's profound annoyance.

"If the wards are correct, and there is no reason for them not to be, Harry has just Apparated to the outer border of the anti-Apparition field. He should be taking the carriage up to the school now."

Though Harry had accepted the placement a week ago he had waited until that day to arrive in order to settle his affairs and pack. All had agreed that it would be best if Harry were allowed a reunion with his friends before meeting the rest of the staff, though Draco still didn't know why he was placed in the 'friend' group, given their past history.

Dumbledore smiled and turned to head back up the stairs. "I will leave you to get reacquainted with Harry." Abruptly, he paused in his ascent and looked solemnly down at the three. "Remember, Harry has faced many trials since he left us and he may not be the boy you remember."

"He hasn't turned out to be a complete snot, has he?" Ron joked.

"I will leave you to judge for yourself, though I trust he has not," the old man said, without changing expression. "Also, there is a reason for the timing of his return, but they are his own...."

"We won't pry, Albus," assured Hermione. "If he wants to share it with us, he will in his own time."

Dumbledore's smile returned and he nodded. "Give Harry my regards and tell him that I will see him in the evening."

"We will, Headmaster." Draco inclined his head and watched as Dumbledore disappeared up the stairs.

They stood in tense silence, alternately staring at the walls and the floor as if they expected Harry to come oozing in between the stones. The silence was broken by harried footfalls and Draco rolled his eyes and watched Hermione, who was being uncharacteristically fidgety, resume her pacing. Ron gave a long-suffering sigh.

"You're pacing again, Mione," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders.

She stopped then and unconsciously began tapping on the banister with her fingernails. Ron stopped her again and she narrowed her eyes, grinning dangerously. Then she started tapping her foot on the stone floor.

"Mione!"

So caught up were the two in their little game, what were they, eight? wondered Draco, that they didn't notice the main doors open slightly and a slim figure slip in. The movement made Draco look up and stare.

"Potter."

Even his quiet intonation was enough to make Ron and Hermione stop in their antics to look at the newcomer. Carrying nothing but Hedwig's cage, the actual owl perched on his shoulder, and looking very tentative, Harry Potter looked like an eleven year old arriving for his first day at Hogwarts. That was, until they got a good look at him. When Harry had was still the teenager that he had been all through school - thin and gangly with limbs that seemed over-proportionally long and a face that had traces of the roundness of childhood. That was all gone now. With a square jaw, cheekbones that stood out in sharp relief, bright green eyes that were unfettered by glasses and a broad shouldered, slim waisted figure that the robes did not quite hide, Harry was without a doubt an adult. Even his hair, though still hopelessly messy, looked like it had been purposefully styled that way. There was a long silence as old friends stared at each other for a long moment.

*

"Why couldn't the anti-Apparition fields be set closer to the school? Can you go a bit faster, please?" he asked, leaning forward to address the thestrals who both ignored him and continued plodding along at their own pace.

Sighing he sat back, feeling nostalgic but determined to enjoy the ride that he hadn't made in eight years. All his belongings were shrunken down and stored in the back of the carriage; his clothes, books, furniture. It seemed that no sooner had he settled down in London then was he on the move again.

"Excited, old girl?" He looked at Hedwig who was wide awake despite the daytime hour and was flapping her wings. He opened the door to the cage and she soared out of the carriage.

Laughing, he stuck his head out of the window...and his breath caught in his throat. How many times had he made this journey? How had he, in all his years at Hogwarts, failed to looked outside the window and appreciate the spectacular sight of the castle, majestic and huge, against a backdrop of green forest and blue sky? Of course, back then I had Ron and Hermione to entertain me, he thought wistfully. The banners representing the colours of all four houses fluttered in the wind as if welcoming him, cheerfully. As the castle loomed closer and closer and the carriage stopped, he leapt out to admire the grounds. At last he was truly home.

Two house-elves, dressed in what looked like black pillowcases with gold trim and the Hogwarts crest emblazoned on the front, appeared quite suddenly in front of him. With synchronised gasps, they bowed.

"Professor Harry Potter sir. We heards that you were coming back to us!" one of them, a female, he was quite sure, squeaked. "A great honour it is!"

"Oh...um, thank you," he smiled and bowed back, eliciting further squeaks of admiration from the pair. "Um shall I help you with my bags?"

"No, no, no Professor Harry Potter, sir!" the other house-elf exclaimed, looking quite horrified at the suggestion. "We is taking them to your room sir. Professor Dumbledore says that Professor Harry Potter is to go in."

"Thank you," he said, watching as the house-elves tripped over each other to grab his luggage and then vanish with a sharp crack.

He whistled to Hedwig who alighted on his shoulder, took a deep breath and turned to the ancient door. He remembered standing in front of the same doors, facing an army of Death Eaters and Dementors, sure that that day would be his last. The Hogwarts crest, carved into the ancient wood, was pitted and scarred but was still visible - the lion, serpent, badger and eagle surrounding a large H with the words Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titilandus, etched around it. Summoning his courage, he pushed open the door.

Slipping inside, he looked into the Entrance Hall. A young man at the foot of the stairs looked up at him in surprise.

"Potter."

At the sound of his name, the other two people in the hall turned to him and he found himself staring at his two, oldest friends. Gone was the awkward Ron of his teenage years, replaced with a young man whose confidence all but radiated off him. He was still tall, redheaded and freckled (some things did not change) but his shoulders were now broader than Harry's own and he stood with an easy grace and was dressed in finely cut robes, which fit him perfectly.

Beside Ron, looking shocked, was Hermione who had also grown up - and how she had grown up! When he had left, she had already been a young woman but now she was all soft feminine curves on a stately frame. Her hair, no longer the busy mess that it used to be, was pulled back into a smooth, sophisticated knot and her face had lost all traces of childhood but still managed to retain all of the fresh-faced prettiness of her younger years.

And the biggest shock of all was the blond who had first spoken. He knew, even as a teenager, that Draco Malfoy had been stunning. Harry had always been vaguely annoyed that his archrival had been fortunate enough to be endowed with poster-boy good looks, but now Malfoy had ascended into the realm of other-worldliness. Tall, slender and graceful - even when he slouched - his formerly pointed jaw had squared slightly with age and he had grown into his aristocratic nose and high cheekbones. His hair, once gelled back now draped artfully around his face, accentuating his almost translucent complexion with its silvery, Veela-like, colour.

"Harry!"

With a wuff, Harry felt all the breath get knocked out of him as Hermione launched herself at him, hugging him with a bone-crushing strength. Ron followed soon after with a bear hug and he started to feel stars dance before his eyes.

"My god..." he breathed quietly as he pulled away to look at them, realising all of a sudden how large a part of himself had missing.

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed and hugged him again.

"We've missed you, mate," Ron said quietly, joining the embrace.

Harry shut his eyes, revelling in the presence of his two best friends. Hermione's embrace was warm and welcoming and Ron's was strong and brotherly, the same as it had been all those years ago. He sighed and it was as though a parched man, lost in the arid desert, had at last stumbled across a cool oasis in the midst of burning sand.

"And so the sacred Triad is complete once more." The three pulled away as Draco's mildly sarcastic voice broke in. He smirked, the closest approximation to a smile that Harry had ever seen, and held a hand out. "Welcome home, Potter."

"Thanks Malfoy." The smile was returned genuinely - he was not sure if it was because of Draco or because he was back - and he shook the other man's hand. "It's good to be back."

Then he blinked in shock as Hermione slapped him. "Ow! Mione!"

"That was for all these years of being away and not letting us know how you were!" she said, a little angrily. "We've been worried half to death!"

"I know...I'm sorry, though that doesn't begin to cover it." He looked to the other two who were staring at Hermione in surprise. "A lot has happened...I..."

"Oh, you don't have to tell us now, Harry!" she smiled and hugged him again. "Whenever you're ready, we'll be here to listen."

"Gosh...I haven't seen a mood swing that fast since I put a cheering charm on Draco," laughed Ron. "Must be that time of month."

*

"...so she said 'go shove a broomstick up your anal sphincter!' and stalked off!"

Harry turned to Hermione, an expression that was half shock and half amusement on his face. "You said that, to Cornelius Fudge...to the Minister of Magic?"

"Yes, well..." Hermione blushed and then giggled, "he was being an ass..."

"Only you would sound like a textbook when swearing at Fudge. Same old Mione." He smiled fondly at her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "So how'd the windbag react to that?"

"Ooh look, Harry!" interrupted Hermione, "Here are your chambers!"

They stopped in front of a stone arch that had been carved into the wall and under the arch was etched a large stone snake, its head reared as though ready to strike.

"Here is the entrance to your chambers, Harry." Ron nodded in the direction of the arch and on cue the snake moved to peer at them.

"Passssssword," it hissed at them, sounding remarkably bored for a stone etching.

"This is Harry Potter, your new resident," said Ron, politely. Then he turned to Harry. "Just give him a new password."

Harry stepped in front of the snake and cleared his throat. "Uh, hello." He was vaguely aware that his words came out as a hiss and in response the snake blinked and regarded him with new interest.

"You speak Parseltounge, human?" The words were clear but it sounded as though they were spoken over the hissing of a thousand snakes. "You are the first to do so in many hundreds of years."

Harry turned to Malfoy, eyebrow raised. "This was your idea wasn't it?"

Malfoy shrugged and gave him a 'who-me?' look which Harry didn't trust for half a second. Hermione clucked her tongue.

"It was Draco's idea but we thought it would be the best room for you, seeing as how this is the only staff chambers left that faces the Quidditch pitch. With four rooms I'm sure it'll be large enough."

"Before it was subdivided, it used to be part of Salazar Slytherin's suite of rooms," explained Malfoy.

"Slytherin?"

"Ah...of course. I forgot you still think that all Slytherins are evil overlords," Draco smirked

"Grow up, Malfoy...I have," retorted Harry. "And don't presume to know what I think."

"How refreshing," Draco regarded him with new interest and then pushed himself away from the wall against which he had been slouching. "Well go on...we haven't got all day, Potter. Give the snake a password so we can all get back to our little lives. I have an appointment to keep."

Ignoring Malfoy, Harry stared at the snake for a moment and hissed, "Open."

The snake stared at him with an expression, if such a thing were possible, of mild contempt on its face. "That is your password? It is not very original."

"It's not like anyone else can say it," Harry retorted. "Just let me in."

"As you wish, man-snake." With an unmistakable hissing laugh the snake moved, with surprising mobility, through a gap in the inner border of the frame and slithered so that it formed the arch of the doorway that suddenly materialised.

"You cannot say that Slytherin didn't have style," Malfoy smirked as they stepped through the doorway into the room.

The sitting room that they stepped into was enormous; carpeted with elegant rugs, furnished with fine mahogany tables, chairs and inviting looking leather sofas, and the windows were draped with heavy, dark green, velvet curtains. The furniture was heavily carved with detailed images of intertwined snakes and vines and the Slytherin crest was sculpted into the stone above and around the fireplace. A fire crackled merrily in the grate and small flames flickered in intricate silver fixings that were generously place around the room. All in all, the impression that the room made was one of supercilious opulence.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" sighed Hermione. "There's some Floo powder on the mantelpiece if you want to contact any one of us or the kitchens."

The bedroom was another spacious room, complete with a mahogany wardrobe, full length mirror with an intricately carved border and the largest four poster bed that Harry had ever seen, sumptuously appointed with thick velvet covers and a mound of pillows. At the foot of it was his trunk, ready for him to begin unpacking it.

"That is a huge bed," commented Harry, mildly overwhelmed. "It's about three times the size of my four-poster in Gryffindor tower."

"In that case you'll just have to find someone to share it with, won't you?" Draco sniggered and drifted out of the room before Harry could decide whether or not throwing Malfoy out of one of the huge windows could later be justified to Dumbledore.

Tiled with cold, green marble the bathroom was as luxurious as the other rooms. A shower was built into the corner of the room and a tub easily large enough for four people sat in the corner. Harry found, to his utter delight, that the silver taps on above said tub dispensed a number of things ranging from the standard water and bubbles to...was that chocolate sauce? Harry gaped. Salazar Slytherin clearly had a perverse sense of humour.

The final room in his suite was a private office. Hermione explained that this room had the benefit of allowing him to do work without the constant interruption of students. The armchairs and coffee table that he had brought with him were already set up around a fireplace and across the room were another set of intricately carved chairs and a desk. His numerous books were set up on a ceiling-to-floor bookshelf which stood by an equally large window that gave a spectacular view of the Quidditch pitch down below.

"Well?" asked Ron, grinning. "What do you think?"

"It's certainly much more than I expected. I think I might be in danger of getting lost in my own suite of rooms," chuckled Harry. "I don't know about the Slytherin décor though."

"Philistine," declared Draco, rolling his eyes. "Well I'm afraid I must love you and leave you but I do have a tailor to see." He gave Hermione a quick peck on the cheek and headed to the doorway. "I'll see you all at the staff meeting his afternoon."

"Staff meeting?" Harry turned to his friends once the door had closed after Malfoy.

"It'll be a chance for you to catch up with the other staff members," explained Hermione. "Most of the old members of faculty are still here but there are a few new additions. Besides, everyone is eager to see you again Harry."

She must have seen him pale a bit at the notion of a reunion because she laid her hand on his arm and said in a soft voice, "Unless you would rather have some time to settle in first...I can make your apologies if you like."

Harry looked into her sympathetic eyes and at Ron's concerned expression and for a moment was tempted to gather all his things and return to London to live a life of peace and anonymity as James Evans. But he was Harry Potter, and in spite of all he tried to do to escape that, fate always seemed to ensnare him in her far-reaching grasp.

"No, I'll go." He set his jaw determinedly. "It's about time I stopped running."

*

They sat in Harry's sitting room an hour later, around the afternoon tea that a pair of kow-towing house-elves had brought up. Harry was amused to see that Hermione still pursed her lips when confronted with blatant displays of what she had called 'enforced slavery'. Ron sat beside Hermione and Harry opposite them across the low mahogany table.

"So...how have you two been?" he winced, knowing that it sounded lame after eight years apart but the appropriate sentiment seemed to elude him.

Stephen had always said that Harry had the tendency to be annoyingly evasive when faced with a potentially emotional situation. A wave of dull pain condensed in his stomach as he thought of him. Here he was, back to the place where his life had all but begun (he didn't count his miserable existence at the Dursley's as 'life'). He had come full circle but how many obstacles had he encountered in the way? Far too many. The eight years of self-induced exile seemed like a lifetime in itself. He had yet to tell his friends about Stephen. Hermione, being as open-minded as she was, would take it well, he knew, but he was unsure about Ron. He could not bear to come back to his first and best friend, after so many years, to be rejected. In his mind he could all but hear Stephen berate him for his lack of trust but could he be blamed? He had lost too much already to lose Ron as well.

"Harry?" Hermione's soft, questioning voice brought him out of his reverie. "Are you alright? You looked a million miles away for a second there."

"I'm alright." He gave her an overly bright smile. "Well?"

"I'll start," she said, looking unconvinced but apparently willing to accept it for now. "After I left Hogwarts I went to Stonehenge Uni where I got a degree in the Practical Application of Research and Development of Charms."

"She did more than that," said Ron, smiling fondly at her. "She got a PhD in it."

"Really? Doctor Granger, eh?" Harry looked impressed.

"I'm just Hermione to you," she replied with a smile. "Anyway, I had plenty of fun, I even developed a charm or two of my own but in the end I wanted something more fulfilling. So when Dumbledore wrote to me saying that the position of Charms professor was free, I jumped at the chance. Apparently the last Charms teacher quit because he couldn't handle the constant stress of the Gryffindors and Slytherins sniping at each other. And because Ravenclaw has been without a Head of House since Professor Flitwick died, I was also made the Head of House."

"A Gryffindor, Ravenclaw Head of House?" Harry chuckled. "Uh oh, I'll have to keep a look out for the Ravenclaws as well as the Gryffindors now, won't I? How about you Ron? Dumbledore said that you became an Auror. That's brilliant!"

"Yeah...except the part where I had to work with Malfoy...Ow!" he winced as Hermione elbowed him. "The first few years were pretty exciting. Training was tough and then we had the unenviable job of mopping up the Death Eaters that popped up around the country."

"I thought it all ended with Voldemort." Harry's voice was quiet. He had lived for eight years thinking that he had at least left his friends in peace after killing the Dark Lord. Apparently not.

"It should have, Harry. It should have." Ron shook his head, grimly. "Every day we caught Death Eaters but they kept popping up. Most of them were sympathetic purebloods rather than the real thing but they were still a problem. Anyway, because of the staff shortage at the time the Professor that had been teaching Charms was also teaching Transfigurations so I accepted the job."

"Weren't you awful at Transfigurations in school?"

"I got better," Ron said, sounding a little petulant.

"What about Malfoy? Don't tell me the same guy was teaching whatever subject that Malfoy's teaching, as well."

"No, nothing like that," said Ron, shaking his head. "He teaches Arithmancy, by the way. Apparently decent Arithmancers are difficult to find. They didn't even have a teacher until Malfoy came along. When he was left without a partner after I got this job, Albus all but pounced on the guy. It turns out that Malfoy was the top of our year in the subject. Who'd have though that the amazing bouncing ferret would be a professor?"

"I get the general impression that your relationship with Malfoy has progressed over the years," said Harry dryly. "Seven years of name calling, humiliation and him being a general ass, and now you're all chummy?"

"Draco's changed since school Harry," explained Hermione, sitting forward. "Would the Draco Malfoy that you knew for most of our years here spied for us or fought with us against Voldemort? He's a good person despite his...prickliness."

"Despite the fact that he's called you 'mudblood' since second year."

"Despite that," she nodded firmly. "He's proven a hundred times over that he's not just the son of Voldemort's right-hand-man. He's saved both our lives in the post war round-up of Death Eaters, been awarded the Ministry honours for service and is implicitly trusted by Dumbledore."

"Be that as it may," said Ron solemnly, "the image of the ferret is far too priceless to be given up over something like friendship."

"Oh grow up Ron!" chastised Hermione, elbowing him in the side.

He gave her a wounded look and then grabbed her arms when she went to nudge him again. She glared at him but her lips curled upwards.

"Watch it, Ron, or you'll be sleeping on the couch tonight."

Immediately he let her arms go and then gave her a placating hug, which made her eyes soften. Harry could not help but notice the frequent, almost unconscious, touches, glances and smiles between the two. When he had left, Ron and Hermione had been awkward around each other but now it seemed as though that uneasiness had melted away along with their teenaged selves. Seventh year, Voldemort and NEWTS aside, had been one frustrating attempt after another to get the two to admit how they felt about each other. In the beginning he had employed the assistance of Ginny Weasley but when that failed they gradually turned to other people until it quickly got out of hand. At one point, (and this was a thought that had haunted him for years) even Snape had become involved, offering to brew a love potion in a last-ditch attempt to get his seventh year Gryffindor class to shut up. It had been rumoured that the staff had a pool going to see how long it would take them. Strangely, the pair at the centre of the debacle had been blissfully unaware of the mass frustration that they were wreaking on the school.

"So...um...what's going on between you two anyway?" he asked, hoping that he was not putting his foot in it.

Immediately they let go of each other and stared, almost guiltily, at Harry.

"I know this may be hard for you to accept..." began Hermione, gently.

"Look, mate, this'll come as news..." Ron stammered.

"I know you've been away for a long time..."

"Well it has been eight years and..."

"Oh, Harry, would you like me to get you a cup of tea?"

He watched his friends with growing incredulity, feeling like a spectator at the Wimbledon. Finally, he threw up his hands in frustration. "Oh, for the love of Merlin, just spit it out already!"

Unused to his outbursts they stared dumbstruck at him for a moment and then Hermione, who was the first to recover, reached out and grasped Ron's hand. It was at that moment that Harry noticed, for the first time, a ring on the third finger of her left hand, its diamond catching the afternoon sun. He gaped and looked to Ron's finger which was adorned with a simple gold band. Harry had been expecting them to announce that they were dating or even that they were engaged, but not married. And why not? he asked himself, it had been eight years after all. Suddenly he felt sad. He was supposed to have been there as his friends found each other; supposed to counsel them and be happy for them when they did; supposed to be standing at Ron's side as his bride walked down the aisle towards him. He had missed all of that, missed such an important part of his friends' lives. A wave of guilt washed over him and he bowed his head.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

Hermione released her husband's hand and sat down beside Harry, giving him a tight hug. "You're here now, Harry...that's what matters."

"When? When was it?"

"Four years ago...it was a lovely day," she said mistily in a very un-Hermione sort of way.

"Now you're in trouble," warned Ron, grinning, "you've just given her the perfect opportunity to drag out the old wedding pictures. You've made her day."

Harry smiled and then it faded as a thought struck him, "You don't have children do you?"

Now Ron laughed and he looked over at Hermione, winking.

"Not yet, Harry, not yet...but we're working on it."