“Mister Potter, the wards around your ancestral manor have been fluctuating recently, we would like to request that you reset them so we can preserve the manor for future generations as per your request.”
“Ofcourse Ragnor, that would be no problem. may your gold flow, Ragnor.”
“And may you vanquish your enemies master Potter.”
As he makes his way out of Gringotts a realisation hits him, it has been 30 years since the defeat of Voldemort, it has been 30 years of relative peace. He sees smiling people on the streets, children that never had to know the monstrosities of war, that can safely enjoy the gifts of life. He had realised a while back that his place in this world had faded and that he has to create a new one, but he is not sure he can or even know how to, it has always been done for him and now even if he could there are parts of him, horrors he carries with him that no longer have a place in this world, things of the past that he might never be able to let go of.
he moves out of the way so no people will bump into him and apparates away.
There is the sound of apparition and a manor stands in front of him, modest in comparison to that of the Malfoys but a manor nonetheless. As he steps closer and passes through the wards he feels a familiar wave of magic, one from a time before he could remember, but it feels like home and family. As he makes his way to the front door he pushes one open and steps inside. There is darkness surrounding him, he lifts his wand to cast lumos but as he does so lights along the walls light up curtains in front of the windows open and it is as if life gets blown into the house. Picture frames, portraits, small blemishes of past accidents trail along the walls. The shadows of the people that were there before, the faded wallpaper, the childhood pictures covered in dust. The traces of tombed love, the lives of people he loves yet never knew, entombed in a house he never got to explore, never got to enjoy. A life that could have been, but one that he could never experience. How do you mourn something you never got to experience, how do you handle the pain of losing something you only got a taste off. He had it, it was within his reach so close but then it left so suddenly together with Sirius, someone he loved even though he never got to truly know his godfather.
It is as if the house is whispering to him, he can see children run from one room to the other, laughing and playing. He follows as the children make their way deeper and deeper into the house, they show him the sitting rooms, an office, the library and finally he ends up in the kitchen. The beach door is open and the children spill out to the garden, they seem to multiply and adults seem to join. They look like him, some with the potter hair, one has the exact same nose as he does and there between two men with the potter mop of hair stood a woman with the same golden brown skin tone as he had.
As soon as he stood in the door opening everyone turned to him, there were soft smiles on their faces. As he looked around at them, the woman he had seen earlier makes her way closer to him. Based on the few stories Sirius got to tell him he surmised that this must be his grandmother; Euphemia Potter. She reaches out her hand to him, “come Harry, you can let go now, everyone is okay, you can relax, you can breathe now.”
he looks at her as her words seem to sink in, he can breathe? he can finally Breathe now! He steps into the garden as he takes her hand and breathes in deeply. He Exhales long and he seems to stand straighter as it feels like a heavy almost unbearable burden finally finally lifts off his shoulders.
60 years after the defeat of Voldemort:
Voldemort is nothing more than a scary bedtime tale and Harry Potter the-boy-who-lived is a hero between the pages of books and in the memories of people that have lived through darker times.