i
“You’re a little quiet, today, Harry,” Hermione’s words cut through his reverie. “What’s on that mind of yours?”
A lot. “Nothing.” he responded, and Ron gave him that look that suggested very blatantly that he was well aware of the lie. But he didn’t push. Not once had he done so, ever since the last time they had come here, choosing to abandon his former notions to impulsively ask much too many personal questions in preference for silence.
Of course, if it was Harry in third or fourth year he would have been rather concerned, kept up late at night as the quiet suffocated the small expanse behind the bed frame curtains. And now all he could do was appreciate it – the staggering emotional growth of his best friend – because it gave him more time to sit and just simply ponder.
Not that he knew what he was even thinking about, really. These days, his brain begged him for stillness, and when he satisfied its demands, it rarely gave him anything back. There were little slips of questioning, where it echoed words like Ginny , the ginger-haired inferno that had reduced itself to a bit of a small trickle of flame over a few months, or Auror, the future that had seemed so impossible but so daunting when it was up close, and maybe occasionally Death, a horror that he had experienced and somehow had not entirely left his system.
There was still so much, a labyrinthine tangle of self autonomy and identity that he had left so deeply intertwined with each other that he just couldn’t pick out all the shreds of war. They remained. Remained in dreams and flashes and fuzzy clutters of memory even though it seemed like everyone else had already gotten past it.
“I don’t trust that one bit,” Hermione sighed, looking at him pitifully. “Harry, if –” she began, but her voice trailed off quickly and Ron fiddled with the ends of his robes.
“I’m really alright, ‘Mione,” Harry insisted, but his focus was immediately drawn away as his peripherals caught a flash of green by the doors.
Ron seemed to have seen it as well. His eyes widened.
“They’re back?” he asked, and it was a bit of an obvious question, really, but maybe he just didn’t want to believe it.
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Of course,” she frowned. “The invitation was extended to everyone. What do you think it’d look like for their image if they refused?”
“It’s already at rock bottom, it can’t get worse,” Ron grumbled. He'd always disliked her tendency to voice his thoughts entirely, as much as he loves her.
“Oh, Ronald. We’ll be seeing much more of them as well. McGonagall is making all the Eighth Years share a common room.”
“I know,” Ron wailed, dragging his hands down his face. The door shifted open, uneasily.
“Hi, Luna,” Hermione smiled sweetly.
“Hello,” Luna replied, a wistful gaze in her eyes. She took a tentative seat beside them; not because of hostility or anything, but that was how she always moved, with an air of mystical grace like she didn’t quite know whether to commit to an action while doing it. “Don’t you think it’s rather funny, this entire, coming back to Hogwarts thing?”
“Funny how?” Ron snapped, and immediately shook his head apologetically. “I mean, yeah, kind of, it’s a bit ironic, actually—”
“The air feels different, that’s why it’s so odd,” she said softly. “Maybe it’s because we’re missing so many people. It’s like it’s holding its breath, waiting for them to come back.” And then she left.
Ron stared. He was a bit pale now.
────
The Great Hall was still, as it had always been, a sea of color, divided reasonably into four clumps. The Eighth Year area, with its significantly smaller student body, consisted of only one table – where indeed, the Slytherins had returned, taking up the left side with a bit of a berth in between. But not as prominent as Harry had expected it to be.
There weren’t many returning students, consisting of him, Ron, Hermione, Seamus, Dean, Neville, Luna, Parvati, Padma, Anthony, Susan and Hannah, and a few others – then, almost unbelievably, Malfoy, Parkinson, Nott, Zabini, Goyle, and Bulstrode, who sat solemnly with stoic expressions and a cracking facade.
McGonagall gave a bit of an emotionally charged speech and concluded the feast with an appreciative mention of all the Eighth Years finishing their studies this year, and the hall erupted into cheers, although Seamus joked that half of them were probably meant for Harry. There was a chorus of laughter but he didn’t find it entirely that humorous, really.
The common room was decked out in royal purple and it had started raining by the time they got there, soft pattering repetitions of wind and water against glass.
“I call it an upgrade,” Dean marveled. “Blimey, if I hadn’t been a Gryffindor all my life, I would almost want this color instead.” He collapsed onto the couches and yawned, a little too carefree.
“This is a reminder of Triple Potions tomorrow,” Seamus joked, and Dean’s eyes shot open. Susan snickered.
The students were divided into dormitories of four, and when he saw his name written in bold red script along with Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy, and Blaise Zabini (much to Ron’s fury), he found that he was half expecting it.
This was going to be a long year, he thought, as Luna commented that sadness felt a bit like soft rain, because it wakes you up and makes you feel alive. Then Malfoy caught his gaze from across the room and that’s when he began to think that, no, he did not feel alive, so if it wasn’t sadness, was it indifference?
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“We don’t like it either, so stop sulking, Weasley,” Zabini said curtly as he watched Ron very silently unpack his stuff, rage practically spilling out of every movement in cascades. Harry mentally prepared himself to defend his cause if Ron said something stupid and not risk a duel on the first day of what was supposed to be a fresh start, but his friend remained reticent, so he did too.
The Slytherins, too, looked like they had been giving their best attempts to find closure and leave the War behind. Zabini had abandoned his pureblood silk and satin, cufflinks of silver and orthodox formal robes, for what he was clad in now; a slightly laid-back attire that he probably wouldn’t even offer a glimpse to before. Malfoy’s sunken cheekbones had become slightly more full, and he’d gained a bit of muscle too, seemingly having gotten over strictly slicked back hair and instead letting his platinum wisps fall and curtain his face.
He hadn’t given much thought to Nott and Parkinson, and he hadn’t even seen Bulstrode and Goyle in the common room, but Nott’s eyebags had disappeared and Parkinson seemed to be putting a little bit more effort into her appearance, so much so that her eyeliner looked as if she applied it with the edge of a blade.
“What made you want to return?” Harry blurted, all of a sudden, because of their sudden presence in his head. He really did not mean to. He couldn't afford to be rash, but it was a question, and if he couldn't get the answers to himself, maybe he could get the answers to the other mysteries he was doomed to dorm with.
Malfoy raised a single eyebrow and Zabini looked a tinge offended. “We came because we had to,” the former replied, his voice positively dripping with hatred. The expression on his face shifted from pure animosity to a more controlled dislike, like he'd been practicing it for when they first exchanged words. As Harry tried to formulate a response, he continued: “I don’t think you understand what you put us into, but I suppose you would never know, or care, honestly. You’re so deep in your own victory that you haven’t even scratched the surface of what you’ve done to the rest of us in favor of your heroically martyr-like agenda. I suppose you like the spotlight, Potter, so you can revel again and again in shoving it right up–”
“Draco,” Zabini warned, and Malfoy paused for a second before storming into the bathroom.
“Like the spotlight?” Ron yelled once he was gone, and his anger was targeted at particularly the bloke out of sight, but the brunt of it went to Zabini. “Like the spotlight? Merlin, I always knew he had his head up his arse, but I didn’t know it was this bad. You guys – you guys think Harry likes being tackled by adoring fans every day, barely being able to go out in Wizarding London without requests for handshakes and ‘fancy a cup of tea, Mr. Potter?’ Fame, contrary to what you might think, is not all it’s cracked up to be, have you considered that? Ever?”
He was gripping the roots of his hair now and Zabini finally managed to open his mouth. “I don’t want to argue with you,” he said darkly. “None of us do. But Draco’s anger is very much caused by a trigger. You may have been followed by fans, but we’ve been followed by hexes, and he has much reason to believe that the reason for the world’s hatred against us is because of… you. I apologize for his behavior, but Potter, we returned because we had to. We would have been shunned if not. Most definitely killed, eventually. Death Eaters, with the audacity not to accept a gracious invite to return to the school of great witches and wizards, even despite our – actions.”
His eyes narrowed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to fetch Draco and try to negotiate a switch of rooms.”
Harry watched him cast a silencing charm and hammer at the door. Even in the midst of all of his ambiguities, there was now one thread that had now untangled itself from the rest: His decade-old rivalry with Draco Malfoy was still as fervent as before.
He groaned. Was that really the only certainty in his life?
────
“And now he’s asking to switch rooms,” Ron was spitting, irate, by the time he made it down to the Great Hall for dinner. “McGonagall’s gone mad, I ought to go with Zabini to her office as well–”
“Harry,” Hermione said gently. Ron gave her a look of incredulity. “Are you alright?”
He froze. “Why do you keep asking that? I’m okay.”
“You look very out of it,” she replied, all motherly. “You’ve barely… given us a letter or anything during the summer, and now you’re like this— it’s Hogwarts, Harry. It’s our home.”
Suddenly the mess of rooming with Slytherins and not being sure of anything anymore was lost in a blur and Hermione’s words implanted themselves in his mind. It’s our home.
“You’re right,” Harry muttered, abruptly remembering his incentives. He had come to Hogwarts to make sense of it all. After all, there was a time when he was like this too, in First Year, fresh out of realizing that he was actually a wizard . “Hey, guys,” he announced loudly, looking around to the group of Gryffindors sitting around them. “Who’s up for a game of Quidditch tomorrow?”
“Quidditch?” Neville asked curiously. “Are we even allowed to use the pitch?”
“As long as you reserve it,” Hermione smiled, and Harry exhaled. Yes. This was Hogwarts, 414,000 square feet of memories and childhood mirth and ancient spires weathered by centuries piercing the misty beyond. There are murmuring portraits, stones of immortality, moving staircases, and the souls of those lost, and somewhere in its walls was the version of himself he had left behind when he skipped Seventh Year. Not this paradox he was now.
It was almost enough to ignore Pansy Parkinson’s eyes burning into his back.