Learning to Live

Harry ripped the handle of his broom to the side with one hand and hurled the quaffle above and behind him with the other. Getting his second hand back on the broom handle he pulled back as hard as he could, his speed rapidly dropping, catching the opposing chaser off guard and causing them to speed past him. Harry accelerated again, cutting towards the low hoop while his teammate who had caught the pass sped towards the top one, pulling the keeper towards him.

Their third chaser was nowhere to be seen but that was expected at this point. He had joined a recreational quidditch league and it seemed like some of the players came more for the beers after than the sport. The other chaser, a decent flyer named Tim ducked a bludger and lobbed the quaffle over his defender to Harry who slapped it through the lower hoop.

He wheeled back around and moved down the field a bit to prepare to defend against the coming push, giving Tim a nod as he did. They pulled off a good play, he deserved it. When he had been trying to join the league, he had sent a letter to the commissioner, but the only spots that were available were chaser positions.

Of course, his team’s seeker, a tiny guy named Larry, had offered to switch with him his first day practicing with them, but he waved him off, he wasn’t going to show up and steal a position the guy had held for years just because he was famous. Honestly it was one of the best decisions he made, he enjoyed playing chaser far more than he expected. He was probably still a better seeker, but he didn’t want to be apart from the game anymore, watching from above while everyone’s hopes rode on him. He’d had enough of being in the limelight like that. Anyway, playing chaser was exhilarating, constant action, fast pace, it wasn’t just a race it was a high strategy brawl. Also, despite being new to the position, his was a naturally good flyer and had picked up a lot of the strategy quickly, he and Tim were probably two of the best chasers in the league and it was showing in this game. They were leading by 520 to 400, just a few more scores and they would be untouchable even by the snitch.

The other teams rush was starting to come in and Harry marked the ginger man flying with the quaffle. Angling his flight to cut off passing options he pulled alongside and attempted to knock the ball out from under his arm, only to be evaded. He went for a more aggressive move and gave the man a strong hip check, knocking him off course, towards a well hit bludger from one of his beaters. Well, there was a first time for everything and one of his beaters doing something correctly was definitely a novelty. The man panicked, throwing a wild pass that unfortunately for Harry connected, the enemy dodging past a fumbling out of position attempt from Tim and heading straight for the hoops.

Harry wasn’t going to be fast enough to intercept so he angled down to get the quaffle if Angus their keeper deflected it, or if it went through, they could launch a quick counterattack. It didn’t matter though as he saw the two seekers streaking after the snitch. Larry reached out and grabbed for it, missing by a millimeter and the opposing seeker snatched it out of the air holding it up to celebrate.

Damn it, well there was always next week. He flew to the ground, dismounting and congratulating the opponents. It always annoyed him a little bit how starstruck most people were when talking to him. He had just played Quidditch against them for the past hour and a half but shaking his hand was somehow a great honor. This team at least didn’t say anything even though they were clearly excited about beating him. As Harry walked away towards the pitch’s exit, he heard them talking about how they were going to tell their wives about beating Harry Potter.

Back in the locker room he tossed his Quidditch robes into his locker, wearing only muggle exercise clothes underneath. The wizarding world was great, but they were a bit behind the muggle one in athletic wear. He pushed his sweaty hair away from his face. “Good game everyone, tough loss.” He sat down on the bench in front of his locker and started unlacing his boots. Tim stood in the middle of the locker room.

“Well, like Harry said it was a tough loss, I thought for sure we were going to have them.” Larry slumped over a bit clearly beating himself up over not getting the snitch. Tim was their captain, and he liked to do this after every game. “We have to remember though this is a team game, a loss isn’t on anyone person, there are a million ways any one of us could have brought that one home. We are still high on the table; we still have chances. Everyone head home, shower, and meet at the broom and bristle in 30.” Everyone finished tossing their gear into lockers and made to leave. Unlike at Hogwarts where they had showers in the locker rooms, their lockers here were basically cubbies in a shed. It was the standard post game ritual to shower at home and then meet up for lunch at a nearby pub, the broom and bristle.

He moved to head out the door, saying goodbye to everyone on his way out. As he passed Tim who had the last locker in the row Tim flagged him down. “Will you be there for lunch this week?”

Harry gave him a small grimace, “Have plans unfortunately. Maybe next week.”

“Yeah, maybe next week.”

Harry made it outside the door and apparated to Grimmauld place, he had moved in after Hogwarts. Why would he buy a new house when he had a massive perfectly good one. He might be rich, even richer after Sirius left him everything, but he wasn’t wasteful.

“Kreacher, I’m having a shower could you make me a sandwich.”

Yeah, he lied to Tim about having plans. It wasn’t that he had anything against the man, or any of the people on the team, just whenever he went it was always so awkward. They were all fine when they were flying together, working together, but the second they were back on the ground they couldn’t seem to treat him like a normal person. It also wasn’t a problem unique to them. Harry had hoped that as they got further from the war, people would become less in awe of him, start treating him like a human again, but if anything, the opposite seemed true. It was probably why he didn’t have many friends.

Twenty minutes later he descended the stairs, freshly showered and changed. He tapped the door frame above the door to the kitchen, it was a bit of a tradition he had made with himself. That wall was where the portrait of Wallburga used to be, but he had done some renovations after he moved in. It turns out the only way to get rid of the sticking charm was completely replace the wall. So, he had rebuilt it and moved the painting up to the attic. That had been almost ten years ago, but he still did it every time he went through the doorway. Thank Merlin that old bat was gone.

He sat down at the kitchen counter and instantly a sandwich and a beer appeared in front of him.

“Thank you Kreacher.”

He flipped open a copy of the daily prophet to read while he ate, tuning in to an article on Jeremy Macallister’s ongoing trial. Macallister was an all-around general dirtbag and there was a long-recorded history of that. He was a death eater during the war, not one of the important ones, those had all been rounded up for years, but he certainly had caused more than his fair share of mayhem and murder. After the war he had been dabbling in all sorts of criminal activities. The list of charges against him was longer than one of Hermione’s books, fraud on both the muggle and magical side, illegal importation, theft, vandalism, assault, sedition. Harry had personally caught him smuggling 600 pounds of Class A restricted materials into the country and so he was now finally going on trial for his crimes. He was going away for a long time and that made Harry quite happy, which was rare for him these days.

Hermione said he needed therapy, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, all he knew was that if he talked to someone at a bar it was in the papers some time that week, if he started getting therapy the front page would be screaming that he was unstable. Hermione had suggested going to a muggle but how was he going to get anything out of that without exposing the magical world? He wasn’t an idiot though, he knew he wasn’t happy, and he knew he hadn’t been happy for a while. He was however a man of action, he had a problem, all he needed to do was find the cause and fix it.

It was honestly why he joined the quidditch league, what made him happier than playing quidditch. It was helping his mood he thought, at least a little. When he was playing or practicing, he had a great time. But after he always wound up back at home, eating alone while the whole rest of the team drank at the pub. He would like to go with them, but it just wasn’t worth it. Too awkward for them and even worse was the rest of the pub staring or coming up to ask for autographs.

He kept reading the article, the game this morning had done him some good at least. If he hadn’t had the game he would probably be at the courthouse right now, watching the trial go on. For so long he had just done what other’s expected, defeat Voldemort, join the aurors, serve and protect that he wasn’t sure he could separate what he actually wanted to do from what people expected of him.

He flipped through the paper more as he ate his lunch. Puddlemere United were having a good season, that was surprising, they had been terrible the last three years. France and Germany were passing neo-communalist legislation, not surprising they were always doing that shit. Before he knew it, he was done with his sandwich, sitting in his kitchen at 1:00 on a Saturday, drinking a beer by himself. He briefly considered visiting the trial, just see how it was progressing and ruthlessly squashed that thought. He told himself he wouldn’t, he was not going to go to that courthouse.

Harry made his way to the front row of the courthouse. It had taken him all of ten minutes after his resolution to go back upstairs, throw on a set of robes and take the Floo to the ministry. The light in the ministry was as harsh on the eyes as always, artificially reflecting of the black and white tiled floor. In the center of the courtroom the scale inlaid into the tiles shifted slightly, one side falling slightly as the barrister continued interrogating the witness. There was no real connection between the scale position and the progress of the trial, but in this case the fully tilted position was an accurate representation of the man’s crimes. If he ever saw the light of day again Harry would be shocked.

Harry had spent a lot of time watching that two-dimensional scale tip back and forth. There was one built into the floor of all the ministry court houses. He hated the constant slow swinging, what was the point of adding magic to something like that. The scales movement didn’t make it any better, if anything it seemed like it was mocking him sometimes, pointing out how powerless he was in this room. He could catch as many criminals as he wanted but he didn’t get to decide what to do with them.

He pulled his gaze away from the floor and looked up to the bench, the judge for this trial was a young woman, well young for a judge, probably in her late thirties. He had been assigned this judge enough times before to know that she was fair, many would even say harsh. She certainly looked it in her position, elevated above all else her hair pulled back in a bun that would have made McGonagall proud.

The two barristers had finished their closing arguments just before he got there, allowing him to slip in while the court was recessed to allow the judge to decide on a sentence. It wouldn’t take long; this was one of the most open and shut cases Harry had ever been involved in.

The courtroom was a hive of low conversation while the judge was out, people chatting about what they thought was going to happen, none of them having a single clue about the law. The fact that so many people turned up to watch a case of this magnitude really said something about their society. After the war this would have barely been a footnote and now people were making a massive deal out of it. Harry turned as the man next to him lightly tapped him on the shoulder. “Mr. Potter I’m so sorry to bother you but I just had to thank you.” He was clearly emotional, “After everything you’ve done for all of us already, catching him, during the war he-” the man broke off trying to keep himself under control.

Harry had delt with enough of these situations to not be awkward. He grasped the man’s shoulder lightly. “I just did what anyone would have if they could.” He turned away facing forward again, no good would come of keeping the conversation going longer.

Merlin, if only every problem was as easy to deal with as an over emotional middle-aged man. Like the problem of why he kept showing up to these trials and dedicating his life to the aurors and the people when he got nothing out of it. Harry knew what the issue was, he could see all the symptoms, but he just couldn’t bring himself to step away. His overactive sense of duty and the crushing weight of public opinion was going to keep him from living as long as he let it, but he wasn’t sure he knew how to do anything but try to fix the world’s problems.

Sometimes he found it hard to distinguish between those two, was he so committed to the aurors because he loved justice or just because he was always striving to be the Harry Potter that everyone made him out to be. It certainly didn’t help that it was so hard to tell when no one would treat him as a normal person, instead getting so stilted and awkward around him.

And, if he did leave the aurors, what he even do. He was pretty sure he would go mental if he didn’t have something to spend his time on but what could interest him enough to take up enough his time. He liked quidditch and was having fun in the casual league, but that was one game and two practices a week, not enough to fill his life. He liked dueling, but entering the pro-tour as the slayer of Voldemort was a sure way to get more pressure and expectations placed on him then he had ever wanted. And there lay the real issue, if he was trying to start living for himself, he needed to escape or learn to tune out other’s expectations. He would never be able to escape, and he wasn’t sure he could learn to ignore them.

Everyone in the courtroom cut off their conversations and rose to their feet with a loud rustling of robes and he hurried to stand as well. Clearly, he had been lost in thought for longer than he thought if the judge had already come to a decision and was coming back into the courtroom. She started talking about the case and Harry’s mind drifted off again, you know what, his birthday was coming up in a couple of months and he had tons of vacation saved up. He would use some of the schedule flexibility that came with being Harry Potter and he was going to take some time off and travel.

This summer he was going to spend just on himself, he’d always wanted to go to Paris, he would hop around Europe for a few months, relax and try to make up his mind about what to do with the next few years of his life. Hopefully in other countries he could exist without the scrutiny he faced in the UK. He promised himself that he was going to take that time. But, hadn’t he told himself the same thing about not coming to the courthouse.

The judge was getting to the end of her speech and Harry focused for the sentence. The judge looked the picture of the law sitting on the bench, a mural of Merlin founding the Wizengamot behind her. They had renovated the ministry courtrooms a few years after the war, each with the scale on the floor and a different mural behind the bench. Harry tried to avoid the one that had him defeating Voldemort in it. It wasn’t that he felt self-conscious about what he did, if anything he was proud of what he accomplished. He just didn’t like having to look at a constant reminder of the day when he lost countless friends.

“In light of your repeated offences as well as the magnitude of your crimes I feel I have no choice but to sentence you to life in Azkaban to be served starting immediately.” She tapped her wand against the bench, a bang echoing through the courtroom. Immediately the two aurors standing next to the bench moved towards the Macallister, pulling him out of his seat and marched him towards the exit that led to the holding cells.

As the man passed in front of where Harry was seated, they briefly made eye contact, hate burning in the criminal’s eyes. He stumbled falling forward and the aurors on either side instinctually reached out and caught him. Harry saw it first and flexed his wrist to activate his wand holster, only for nothing to come out. The only ones allowed wands in the courtroom were the aurors and he had to watch as the man fast as a snake grabbed one auror’s arm, ripping his wand from its holster. Wild eyes made contact with Harry’s, pupils dilated as he jabbed towards his position in the front row. The auror flailed at the wand, knocking his arm down but it was already too late, a bright orange spell zipping through the air.

The two were separated by only a few feet, even if Harry had a wand he probably wouldn’t have been able to get a shield up, the deadly spell tearing through the air with purpose. Harry barely had time for his final thoughts. He had really wanted to see Paris. The spell was inches away from his chest when it occurred to him. His quidditch team was going to see he bailed on lunch to get himself killed.

He closed his eyes for the last time.