Ripples in the Pond

He remembered it as though it had happened yesterday – the fact that it had all happened and ended not two days prior not withstanding. He remembered the pure, near blinding whiteness of that place between here and there. He remembered the eerie resemblance it had to that train station he had first entered to go on his merry way to Hogwarts. Not once had he thought, in that train carriage with Ron, that things would end up like that.

Though speaking of Ron—

“Mate,” Ron murmured, his voice softer than he ever recalled hearing it before as he sat there in bed from where he’d suddenly woken. “Have you thought ‘bout going to Madam Pomfrey? I know there’s not much Dreamless Sleep available, but I’m sure she could wrangle up some—”

“I’m fine, Ron,” he said, ignoring the fact that he was drenched in sweat, his heart feeling as though it were beating a mile a minute as he sat there in bed, feeling like he’d just run a marathon. “I just… I just need to have a shower… Get changed. Then we need to help McGonagall with the repairs… and the burials.”

“That’s Professor McGonagall, you know,” Hermione’s voice rang out, and he glanced over, blinking as he found her there, stood in the doorway, a familiar veneer of concern scrawled on her face.

“Headmistress,” Ron chimed in, looking awfully gleeful at the prospect of her being the Headmistress of Hogwarts – undoubtedly preferring the idea of her, to the instalment of Snape. The same Snape Harry was still trying to figure out, remembering the way those eyes had looked into his own as they had seen their last light.

“Look at me,” his dying words echoed around in his brain then, and Harry swallowed thickly, wondering where all his hatred for the man who had both bullied and somehow protected him through all his six years of schooling had gone to. Part of him wished he could bring it back. Part of him wished to feel the odd bitterness that was supposed to come without a proper conclusions to all those wrongs the man had ever caused him.

Yet pity and misery were the only things he really felt, and he wondered then, if somehow, he lacked the capacity to truly hate anyone. He hadn’t hated Bellatrix Lestrange enough to truly harm her, his once tried crucio producing nothing but the mocking echo of cackles which still haunted him to that very day.

“I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black,” her mocking little song reverberated around in his head, yet still the anger didn’t come – only the aching loss of the last remnant of family he thought he’d had. Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were no more. All of them were dead, and Lupin’s body was yet to be buried – along with his wife. Their son was left all alone in the world, just as he had been all those years ago. He closed his eyes then, sending Ron a faint smile as he climbed out of bed and made his way to the washroom all of his dormitory shared.

A shower had him feeling slightly more human, the sound of his heartbeat echoing in his ears, part of him so vividly reminded of the time it had stopped. The memory of that arc of green light, the sizzling, almost hissing sound that spell had made. The words Avada Kedavra rang in his ears, the memory of Tom Riddle’s voice carved into his memory. The memory of a man who had wished him dead with every fibre of his being to cast that spell. The memory of a sad, lonely, madman who could have been him if just a few things had been different.

He gripped the sink then, towel wrapped around himself as he stared at his reflection and the puffy red scar which was considerably less vivid than it had been throughout his childhood and Hogwarts. A consequence of not having the soul shard of Tom Riddle trying to burrow into his own and subvert his control over his own body.

Rubbing at the scar, he sighed softly, wondering why his eyes looked so wide as he stared at himself in the mirror.

A knock at the door pierced through the haze. “Oy, Harry!” Seamus Finnigan called, knocking on the door once more. “You nearly done in there?”

“I’m finished,” he answered, pulling the door open, all the while wondering why the other boy hadn’t barged in – the showers had cubicles, and there were enough for all of them to shower together and holler at each other to stop stealing Finnigan’s soap since his mother handmade what had to be the best soap in Britain.

He’d received a little box of the soap; all twelve bars neatly wrapped – something of an apology he’d found on his bed at the start of their sixth year. Glaciers would melt by the time it took Seamus to apologise meaningfully with words, so that had been his way of apologising. Nothing could go wrong with a bar of soap, Harry mused, thinking of the fact those bars were still languishing in Grimmauld Place where he’d left them before having to go off on the run from everyone as Undesirable Number One.

“Harry,” Ron hollered as he came down into the Common Room, and he could only blink as he felt several eyes fixate on him. Mercifully, no one came over to talk to him; to congratulate him or otherwise. Privately, he thought they had all got that out of their systems two days ago, when Tom Riddle had fallen to the floor.

For all that he had wanted to be immortal and something more than human he had died a mortal’s death. There had been no crumbling of ashes, no bursting into flame like a phoenix to be reborn. He had just fallen – his corpse still there for all to see, features twisted but undeniably human in death.

“Boarding a train would take you… on,” Dumbledore’s words echoed in his ears, and Harry could only remember the expression on the older man’s face when he had seen him there in that place. Sorrow, relief, an undeniable sadness. There, in that white station, his back hadn’t seemed so big. Rather, he had looked frail – human, just as Tom Riddle had, but with a steadfastness his archenemy had lacked, if only because, he came to understand, Dumbledore had never tried to run away from death. “Or you could go back…”

“McGonagall wants us to help out after breakfast,” Ron said, falling in step with him as they ventured onto the route they had taken for six years – not including the gap of schooling which was meant to be their seventh year. “There’s… a plot of land which the teachers cleared,” he murmured. “They’re burying most of the casualties on our side there. Percy said that’s where Mum—” his voice choked up for a moment. “It’s where Mum said that Fred is going to be buried.”

Harry blinked, sorrow clawing at his heart for the briefest of moments as he walked towards the Great Hall. His mind was already thinking of the many days before that one – when everyone from Hedwig to Moody was alive and well. “I see,” he murmured, wondering then if Remus and Tonks were going to be buried there, together the same way they had fallen.

“They’re also sorting out the carving… the etching of names,” Ron murmured, his eyes looking mysteriously wet. “McGonagall – well, Headmistress McGonagall decided that there’ll be a memorial with all the names of the victims of the second war… I think she’s also planning on petitioning the minister – whoever that’ll be – to exonerate Sirius’s name. His name will be on there too, I think… Anyone who died to the Death Eaters… or… Voldemort…” he said, looking around nervously as if expecting a bunch of snatchers to appear out of nowhere for daring to call Tom by his chosen name. Yet that didn’t happen, because Tom Riddle was dead – and soon to be buried, left to rot and be forgotten by everything besides the history books.

He blinked once more. A wry smile curled at his lips. “I almost forget that most of the world sees him as a criminal still,” he said, feeling inexplicably wistful as he thought of the year he had thought that Sirius Black was evil. Part of him wanted nothing more than to grab a hold of his Third-Year-Self and demand for him to make the most of one of the last connections to his father’s memory. The last sliver of family he had left, even if they weren’t related by blood. He wanted to go back to the days when he had a godfather who sometimes confused him for his father. “Do you think my name will be on it too?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. “I technically died too…”

The silence which followed that statement was almost deafening, and Harry didn’t have the heart to look over at Ron to see his expression.

“What…” Ron’s voice broke the tenuous silence which had fallen between them on the way to the Great Hall. “What was it like?” he asked, and Harry thought back to that ghostly white train station which had lacked all the noise, smells, and people who would have haunted the real King’s Cross Station. “Being… dead?”

“Confusing,” he answered, that swirling mixture of feelings surging upwards then as he recalled the events which had led to him walking to his death without promise of return. He’d been ultimately ready to die, part of him was coming to realise, and it felt strange to be alive. It was as if whatever force had shoved his soul back into his body and forced his heart to beat once more had misplaced something. And that something was important, he mused, smiling at Ron and making headway for the Great Hall once more.

There was the stench of burnt flesh clogging up his nose.

It smelt eerily similar to the barbeque Vernon Dursley had once cooked for him, his aunt, and Dudley many, many years ago in the back garden of Privet Drive. Before he had learnt of magic and of maniac Dark Lords who were out to get him.

Harry blinked, watching then, as the bodies of their enemies burnt on the pyre erected some two-hundred metres away from the graveyard that was slowly starting to be built. Coffins were made, charmed plaques on them denoting whose corpse had already been packaged away. Preservation charms had been laid time and time again, but the pervasive scent of rot was starting to fill the air wherever those bodies lingered.

Professor McGonagall had almost finished finalising the names of the deceased on Hogwarts’ Grounds, ready for the gravestones and the memorial. Hermione had been helping her. Ron had been with what remained of his family, all of them lingering around one coffin marked with the name of Fred Weasley. He had drifted between them all, gazing at coffins which held names he knew.

Colin Creevey. The name conjured up the image of the bright-eyed eleven-year-old who had once wanted a signed photo of him. He remembered that giant camera, and the flash which had blinded his eyes momentarily as the younger boy had stared at him in awe and adoration. He remembered the irritation he had felt when Lockhart – arguably one of the more incompetent Defence Professors – had barged into the situation with all the elegance and grace of a mountain troll. It seemed like a lifetime ago, those days. And now that bright-eyed boy was dead at only sixteen. Harry closed his eyes, drifting between those bespelled coffins, wincing when the list of names he recognised, even vaguely, kept stacking up.

Soft footsteps came, and he paused then, glancing over his shoulder to see Hermione standing there, staring at him sorrowfully with big brown eyes. “Have you asked for Dobby’s name to be added to the memorial?” he asked, remembering then, that he had met the slightly mad house elf the same year he had met Colin Creevey for the first time.

“I’ll ask the Headmistress,” Hermione murmured, undoubtedly remembering the brave house elf who had whisked them away from Malfoy Mannor at such a great cost.

“You adapted quickly to that,” he said, smiling even as he looked at the coffin of Lavender Brown. A victim of Greyback, he had been told, wondering then just how Parvati was taking the death of her best friend. “Professor McGonagall was always your favourite, though, wasn’t she?”

“Mr Potter,” the newest headmistress called, as if summoned by the very mention of her name, and Hermione went silent as their Head of House started speaking in earnest. “I know this isn’t an opportune time… but it would seem the Daily Prophet… and other newspapers have come knocking already,” she said, lip curling then at the mention of those reporters – and idly Harry wondered if Rita Skeeter was among them. Silently, he prayed she wasn’t. There was only so much he could tolerate, and that woman was exceptional – near-Umbridge levels – at stepping on all of his sore spots. “I can send them away,” Professor McGonagall said kindly. “Just say the word and I’ll have the aurors wrangle them up and out of the gates… the wards should be fixed soon, I hope, and that should prevent them from coming without proper authorisation like they are right at this moment…”

“Send them away,” he said. “Please.”

“I’ll see it done,” Professor McGonagall spoke, eyes narrowing on him as he stood there. “You should go and see Madam Pomfrey, Mr Potter. You look as though a strong wind could sweep you off your feet.”

“I’m fine, Professor,” he murmured, ignoring the sharp, beady side-eye she gave him at that, even as she went away in a swish of bottle green robes.

“She’s right, Harry,” Hermione finally said, looking at him with a familiar concern. “You need to rest… you… you died only a couple of days ago. There might be side-effects… just, please – go rest. You’ve worked harder than anyone.”

“You’re still working on things,” Harry said matter-of-factly, sighing softly as he started to pace once more – only to frown as the world shifted, exhaustion reaching out from nowhere to wrap around his limbs.

A faint chime rang in his ears, and he lost awareness of everything which was around him then. “Malleus,” a soft feminine voice whispered, sounding as though it were coming from far away, the tone sounding slightly muffled and distorted – as if someone were speaking to him from underwater. “Even if you’re only older by a few hours,” that same strange lady continued, her voice seeming to echo, her words only slightly distorted as that sensation of warmth and love blanketed him. Everything was going to be okay, part of him had already decided. “Protect your baby brother Gladius.”

It was dark, he noted idly in some sliver of his brain, and warm. He was safe in his shell, he decided, something tickling at the back of his head at what he had just thought. There were arms wrapped around the hard shell encasing him—

“Harry!” the voice pierced through the haze, and he groaned as that sensation of being safe was ripped away from him.

His eyes fluttered open, a soft groan escaping him, and blearily he looked around to find Hermione staring down at him, familiar concern scrawled across her face as she looked at him nervously. “’mione,” he mumbled, butchering the first part of her name.

“Here,” she murmured, passing him a glass of cool water then, even as familiar screens blocked off an all too familiar room. He was in the Hogwarts Infirmary, for the nth time in his entire school career. The true number had been lost some several visits ago before his sixth year had come to a close.

“Why am I—What happened?” he asked, changing track halfway through his sentence as he tried to piece his suddenly rather fuzzy memories together. Something about a hammer protecting a sword? Pain stabbed through his head, sharp, fast, and yet somehow also aching. He ran his hand over his forehead, fingers feeling out the two mirrored tender spots just behind his hairline. “It hurts…” It felt as though there were two tiny hammers pounding at his skull from the inside. The visualisation almost made him smile, even as a familiar nurse bustled through the screens. “Madam Pomfrey,” he greeted, sipping at his water then as he felt a familiar, stern stare settle on him.

“Mr Potter,” Madam Pomfrey acknowledged him, her expression softening, if only by a fraction. “Somehow I thought you might have managed to go an entire year without having to see me once,” she said, a tight smile curling at her lips. “I see I thought too soon…”

“Don’t worry,” he said quickly, reminding himself that there was undoubtedly plenty to be doing instead of lying there in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing. “I won’t take up any more space,” he spoke hurriedly, sitting up properly then and shifting as though he were about to get out of that hospital bed. The mattress was awfully firm, and he would rather have been resting in his once-dormitory, if he was to rest at all.

Dreaming only brought the nightmares to his doorstep.

“Nonsense,” Madam Pomfrey said, all but slamming a dark bottle of a familiar potion down on the bed table she had swiftly pulled out. “I can see those bags under your eyes. Drink up, Mr Potter… and rest – peacefully, for once,” she ordered, and Harry quailed under that stern gaze.

It wouldn’t hurt to have one dreamless night, would it? He chewed on his lip, feeling inordinately nervous all of a sudden as he stared at that dark liquid almost harmlessly sloshing about in that small dark glass bottle.

“You deserve it, Harry,” Hermione said patiently, uncorking the bottle and handing it straight into his waiting hands. “Trust me, and get some sleep – some proper sleep, if you really want to help out.”

He trusted her, he knew deep in his heart, a faint smile curling at his lips, even as he brought the potion to his lips and drunk deeply.

He was out like a light.

Light filtered through the glass panes of the window, and Harry groaned softly as awareness returned to him slowly. He felt refreshed all of a sudden – as if he had the best night of sleep in his life. There was no waking up to the ever-present fear of Voldemort trying to murder him. There were no more horcruxes to hunt down while sleeping on a lumpy camping mattress in the flimsy tent he had called home for months. A smile curled at his lips at the relief that brought, and then came the crushing guilt as he remembered just how many they had lost to bring that man down.

Yet his body was burnt, only the ashes remaining, and those had long since been scattered to the winds. All that was left of him was memory – and that was infinitely harder to forget. He breathed out a soft sigh, the rumbling of his stomach telling him it was probably time to seek out some breakfast to face the next day ahead of him.

He sat up then—and immediately froze as something in him screamed at him that something there was very, very wrong. There was nothing around him that would pose a threat though, and no one could see him thanks to the screens that Madam Pomfrey had left around his bed. Yet there was that niggling, subconscious feeling that something had changed.

Blindly, he fumbled for his glasses, scowling as the heavy sleeve of his robe sent them skittering away once or twice before he grabbed a hold of them and placed them on his nose. He paused then, staring at the robes which fell far past his wrist then, swallowing up half his hand. Lifting his arms, staring at the cut of the sleeves, he frowned. Had someone hit his robes with an Engorgio whilst he’d slept? A soft laugh escaped him, even as he pushed back the covers and climbed to his feet.

He blinked, swallowing thickly then at the realisation that his toes could no longer reach the ground. Hadn’t they been able to do that only the day before? He was shorter than the average height for someone his age, thank you Dursleys, but he had been able to put his feet on the floor just about from that bed.

Wiggling his toes, he stared at them, wondering if he was imagining the idea that they somehow looked slightly smaller than yesterday. Harry shook his head, nervousness filling him the longer he sat there doing nothing. It wasn’t like him to sit around and do nothing. Besides that time after his fourth year had come to a close, the memories of a flash of green and Cedric’s dead body thumping against the ground fresh in his memory – and replaying the events of the graveyard had been all he could do whilst he’d been shut in his room with a can of cold soup to last him the day. He breathed out then, pulling his thoughts away from the acrid green colouring of the killing curse.

He jumped down from the bed, pulling his shoes back on quickly and wondering whether he ought to pop back to the dorms and grab a fresh change of robes. Though he hadn’t managed to change every single day while on the run. So it would probably be okay with a quick cleaning charm. There was no need to waste any more time than necessary when there was too much to be doing.

The bottoms of his robes brushed against the ground, and Harry had the misfortune of tripping up over his suddenly slightly too long robes several times before he reached the Great Hall. Breakfast was already in full swing by the time he got there, and it took him a couple of moments to spot a familiar red mop of hair and the familiar brown remarkably tame locks. He hurried towards the pair, watching as they finally caught sight of his approach. Frowns appeared on both of their faces, and Harry had little doubt they had noticed his sudden change of height, and the badly fitted robes which had become something of a casualty of the Potter Luck. That was what he was tentatively attributing his sudden loss of height to. There wasn’t really anything else he thought could be the likely culprit behind the weirdness which regularly overtook his life.

“Harry, mate,” Ron greeted. “Why the bloody hell have you shrunk?” he asked with all the tact and grace of a sledgehammer smashing into a boulder.

“While he could have phrased that better,” Hermione interjected kindly, peering over the table at him with a familiar concern scrawled across her face. “Has someone pranked you?” she asked, eyes going to a spot on the table where both Fred and George had once sat. She visibly paused at that, sadness flashing through her eyes for a split second before her gaze returned to her breakfast plate and then him in that order.

Harry pursed his lips, taking a seat at the table bench and frowning. “Not to my knowledge,” he said flatly, watching as the light of hope died an abruptly, brutal death in Ron’s eyes. “I don’t think Madam Pomfrey would have let anyone prank me in the infirmary. You remember what she was like the one time when Fred—” his voice died abruptly, eyes darting to where George was sitting a little while away, speaking with a student dressed in Ravenclaw robes.

“I remember,” Ron murmured, smiling then, fondly and infinitely sad – because Fred and George would never be able to play another prank together again.

“But… if this isn’t a prank,” Hermione said, frowning at him. “Then what exactly is going on?”

“I don’t know?” Harry answered, shrugging nonchalantly. “Maybe it’s a side-effect of coming… back,” he said. “It’s probably nothing to worry about.”

“If it’s a one-time thing, then maybe,” Hermione said, looking as though there was a whole host of things she wanted to say instead. Yet she held her tongue, and Harry went about his day trying not to think too much on the consequences of shrinking.

Yet it wasn’t a one-time thing, Harry swiftly discovered, heart beating somewhat frantically in his chest as he woke up the next morning and his robes were a centimetre longer on him – and well and truly sweeping the floor around him whenever he moved.

“You shrunk again,” Ron intelligently informed him.

If he kept on shrinking… Harry swallowed, wondering then whether he was simply becoming shorter, or whether his age was somehow regressing backwards. Either prospect didn’t sit right with him, yet the only word he could think of to sum up the situation was—“Fuck.”