War
Life under siege was life at war.
Harry had watched many men - boys, really - adapt to life at war. He had no judgment for how the Weasleys and their people skittered about in a constant state of needing to be busy. That tight, tension ridden neediness was good. More people volunteered for training. No shortage of hands to do the drudge work. Harry recognized the fear behind the frenzy. He watched these strangers work themselves to the bone, and knew they lay in bed at night too fearful to rest. One day they’d learn to sleep through the fear. Too soon they’d wake up from the nightmares of it.
There were veterans among them. Harry could spot them in their stance. Firm feet, straight back, at ease. Lupin was always at ease. His encouraging smile was never far from his lips, saved special for the young ones trying too hard to help out among a world of nervous adults. It shifted, for Harry. Still warm, but now something new. A shared secret. Camaraderie. Some sliver of the trust and belief in Harry that he’d had when Harry was his student, being forced to learn to lead when he’d rather have given up. Lupin looked to Harry now in search of that leader.
Harry knew the veterans by what they wore. Old leather tugged out of old chests and drawers. Pieces of chain mail draped in odds and ends. Bits too snug on the men and women who’d grown into their old age. But these were resourceful people who let out the clothes or passed them on to younger, fresher fighters who would one day settle into the armor and stop flexing against the strange material. All Harry had was battle gear. He felt like he’d been waiting for this moment to not look out of place wearing it.
The veterans were most clear by their weapons. Lupin’s violet haired friend carried a bow looped over her back and a quiver of arrows on her hip. They weren’t the army’s design or like the hunter bows used by the Weasley’s guards. She knew the feel and shape of them and moved without the pieces ever getting in her way. She strapped small knives everywhere. Dull handles that didn’t catch the eye. More surprising was the Weasley matriarch. Molly still wore layers of skirts covered by an apron filled with household trinkets, but she also had a blade on either side. At one hand a short sword, and at the other a cleaver that might have come straight from the kitchens. The veterans didn’t train daily with the others. But, you might catch them at odd hours. Stretching out old muscles. Cycling through never-forgotten battle steps. Showing deadly skill learned long before Harry had been born.
It was only in seeing these people, mostly strangers, wake up for battle that stirred a feeling of kinship in Harry. Something he didn’t realize he’d been missing, cooped up so long among people who didn’t truly know war.
People like Charlie. Harry enjoyed spending time with Charlie. Hours, most days. Charlie had that rush of nervous energy that kept him moving. Busy. Looking for more work to do. He bore it well. Kept a level head. Had the advantage of actual responsibility that hadn’t fallen wayside in the siege. But he looked for little projects to fill the time. Looked at Harry like he might be one of those projects. So when all the work that reasonably could be done was done, Charlie would sidle up close to Harry and poke and prod with his questions, trying to get to know the man underneath.
Harry never lied, and for the most part he tried not to avoid the questions. But more than once he felt he didn’t have the words in him to make Charlie get whatever he was trying to say. It felt like when he tried to read words off paper that Harry couldn’t hold in his head. Charlie would have known the words, and maybe always suspected Harry should know them, too.
Maybe after the war, he wouldn’t need to find words. Maybe then Charlie would get it. Feel that same kinship Harry somehow had with Lupin. With Charlie’s mother. With old men and women Harry would never know the name of, but who looked on at the young folks training with the sadness of knowing it was death that lay ahead.
So as soon as Charlie allowed it, Harry switched to kissing. It always felt good, the way their bodies slotted so well together. As long as Harry thought Charlie wanted it, and hadn’t just given up on trying to talk to Harry. Those times…
Harry didn’t dare tell anyone how relieved he was when battle finally came. It had been the time between fighting when he didn’t know his place. The times when he could only add value if he could write his thoughts, or recount history, or strategize over politics. The times when he’d been called upon to choose how his soldiers would die, instead of being one of the soldiers on the field.
Thankfully, they had all decided that managing Harry was only possible if they stopped trying to keep him out of danger. They’d realized if they tried to hold him back he’d find his way out. Slither through their defenses like a snake. So instead Lupin was once again making Harry promise to stay with him - but not behind a wall. When the sign finally came, the one they’d expected weeks ago and grown so stressed over not receiving, their forces gathered. Lupin and his lady on either side of Harry. All of them armed to the teeth and ready.
Harry was so, so ready. His pulse thrummed beneath his skin. He forgot that he hadn’t wanted war. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this. He forgot that the soldiers around him were someone’s loved ones. That this would be devastating.
He forgot because for as hard and loud as his heart beat - it beat cold. Harry was ice. He was cold brutal fury. He was the only part of him that came easily. The only way he knew how to be exceptional. The only thing he’d ever done right. And when the twins’ war machines rained down deadly arrows on the Death Eaters who had thought they were out of range, and their retreat was halted by an army that Lupin and the Weasleys knew would come, it was Harry riding out on the white horse Charlie had told him he could keep, with a garrison at his side, into bloody battle.
Less than a hundred enemy warriors caught between forces had no right to make things that bloody. Harry was strong and brutal but so was each foe he faced. For all Harry had learned since Lupin’s training yard, the Death Eaters made him look like he was still a boy who couldn’t hold his own against the training master. Harry saw Snape’s sneer on his enemies’ faces. The same condescension. The same knowledge that they were better than Harry and could strike him dead.
They would have, too, if only Lupin hadn’t been better. If only that violet haired woman wasn’t there with her swift blade that kept poisoned tipped weapons away from Harry’s skin.
Not that Harry was useless. He was strong and relentless. He beat his enemies back. He killed ruthlessly. With living shields at his side, he threw himself forward without restraint. He killed until even the best of these warriors saw death in his eyes. And with all the forces Harry’s side had brought to bear, they were able to cleave out their victory against King Voldermort’s best force. Until less than a dozen were left. They were led by the tallest woman Harry had ever seen, black hair and black battle paint darkening her eyes. She saw Harry and his warriors advancing. Her eyes narrowed in recognition. Her teeth bared. But even while her grip tightened on her black blades eagerly, she turned and ran. Cutting through Harry’s army to flee.
Harry supposed there was cheering. Not from him. From the others, who were capable of euphoria at having won. Or perhaps just having survived.
Harry felt nothing but the heavy weight of his sword. He was suddenly shaking. He could barely hold his weapon. Down at his feet, besides the prone bodies of skull-decorated enemies, were too many others. Men with red hair. Pale blonde locks. The occasional brunette. All color of now dull eyes, staring out at nothing. Harry felt guilty he could never remember anyone’s name. Cedric had forced him to learn new soldier’s names. Even if they were going to die. But here, they were just faces. Now just bodies. Harry’s eyes flickered everywhere. So desperate to find out if any of these strangers was actually someone he loved.
Lupin took Harry’s sword from him before Harry could drop it. And while Harry should have stayed and helped gather the dead, Lupin pulled him away. Pulled him back to the castle and whispered reminders to breathe. Tried to ground Harry where he was before he could lose himself to fear, and eventually anger. Tried to warm him. To thaw his icy heart.
The next day, there would be details. The next day, Harry would learn about Dean Thomas and Terry Boot defecting from war in the east and how they took five hundred soldiers with them, with all the supplies they could grab, and all the supplies they’d commandeered on the long road across the country. The next day, Harry would learn that his side had lost more than they killed. At least three to one. That even though they’d only sent out trained soldiers, mostly from Hogwarts and the north, they hadn’t been trained well enough to survive the Death Eaters. It had only been the sheer overwhelming force that had gotten them through. The next day, there wasn’t a soul left in the castle who didn’t understand the weight war would have on them. Because those who’d been injured without dying soon found an injury was too much. Black lines of poison etched across skin. The castle filled with pained cries of soldiers unlucky enough to have a long death. The next day, Harry learned that for all the extra grain and livestock the castle might have, they had no such stores of medicine. It was Arthur Weasley who did his best. There were whispers that he had once dabbled with alchemy. Whatever knowledge he possessed had some effect, only not enough. Most of the injured couldn’t be saved.
The next day, Harry pulled himself up out of bed. He roused Dennis, who slept in the hallway outside his door, his diligence his own escape from the horrors. Together they walked through the castle, Harry leading them straight to that room with the big table and the overstuffed chairs. The room was vacant but Harry took his seat.
He didn’t want war. He could swear it and mean it and be believed. But now that it was here…
Harry knew war. He’d been built for it. This is what he’d broken over. What Lupin had never been able to help him heal from. And even with all the pain and misery ahead, he was ready.
That day there was only one thing he wasn’t ready for. When all the people came and the room was filled with those who’d been tasked to determine what came next, it wasn’t a question of strategy. They’d had their plan since before Harry had sparked the conflict with his fateful trip south to meet Voldermort. They now had land and soldiers and supplies. They’d already sent food to the north to fulfill his promise to his people. They’d destroyed the strongest of the King’s men, no matter the cost. They were ready. The only question left was ready for what - a proletarian uprising? Class warfare? A new form of government? Hermoine’s eyes might have shined as she hypothesized a future democracy, but she did not ask him for that. She asked if Harry would make it easy for them. If he would say here and now that he would give everything it took to win the war. If he would give his very life - not in death as he always imagined, but bound in service by choice. Pledged to take on the role of King.
Harry was not ashamed that he looked away at that request. He was not ashamed that the fear he felt at that request was deeper than what he found on the battlefield. He’d been bound most his life by situation. Beaten by his family. Beaten by war. He had been so very good at taking direction. Doing only what he was told. Maybe a king like Voldermort could do the telling, but Voldermort was cruel and selfish. Harry may never be that cruel, but it would be selfish to think he knew any better how to rule. He wasn’t made for that. Harry gulped down bile and fear and regret for losing a life that he never could have had. What would a life of freedom look like, anyway? Alone in the woods with a dog trained to die so you could run away? A different sort of selfishness.
Fine. Fine. An easy choice, in the end. King Potter. A title and a name he didn’t want. For all the people he didn’t want to die. The only cost was a hope he didn’t realize he’d even carried. The hope that one day this would end and there would be something else for him.
The announcement did everything Harry’s friends had promised. It legitimized the uprising. It turned a few battles into a civil war. Old families, Loyalists and beyond, flocked to Harry’s side. With the strategic dispatch of missives came momentum.
Only, easier wouldn’t be easy. The enthusiasm of his friends rubbed him raw until Harry only felt comfortable meeting the eyes of those who’d lived through war. Real war. Where there were so many battles and deaths they all blended together and it was all one nightmare that wouldn’t stay out of your dreams. Harry saw it in Lupin’s eyes, behind his supportive veneer. He saw it when he passed an old man who dressed each day for battle even when the enemies weren’t near. In those moments he felt kinship.
He felt none of it in the stables with Charlie and his endless questions. The quieter Harry was the harder Charlie tried to break through. Harry was doing near all Charlie’s chores by the end, as Charlie hoped he could wear the other man down far enough he’d open up.
But Harry didn’t have the words for him. Didn’t know how to explain how worthless he was for anything other than battle. Couldn’t explain that being King was admitting that Harry, lowly simple Harry, wasn’t good enough. Couldn’t handle when Charlie pushed against him. When Harry gave in to the pressure and tried to explain. Charlie had such big aspirations. He saw so much good to be done. He didn’t understand why Harry didn’t see this as a gift. As an opportunity. As a chance to do good and be good. Make the world a better place for all the little children who didn’t have families who loved them. Or food on the table. Or safe jobs to work in where machines wouldn’t crush them.
Harry tried to stop him talking with a kiss. A sloppy, uncoordinated thing. Charlie pushed him away. The gap between them was more than space. It was all the things Harry didn’t know what to say and all the things Charlie wanted that Harry couldn't give him. Harry felt woozy letting it hover between them.
“Can’t we just… kiss?” Harry’s words made the ask a mockery of what Charlie offered previously.
Turns out, they couldn’t. Charlie’s bushy brows set in their stubborn way and his stern glare told Harry all he needed to know.
So Harry left the stables. He really was worthless. Too worthless for a man like Charlie. Who knew what Cedric would even think of him, now. Although, even then, Cedric’s dream had been to go home and find a wife. Never Harry.
Harry was suddenly lightheaded. For once, no one was there to keep him on his feet. No one was watching him. In solitude, he didn’t feel free. He felt sick.
Breathe, Harry reminded himself. Remember to breathe. Harry took one step after another, trying to push through it. He tapped his fingers together, feeling the brush of skin against skin. He tried to stop his mind from racing long enough to focus on anything, but instead walked faster in a frantic bid to outpace his panic.
Only there was nowhere to go. The courtyard was filled with soldiers’ camps. There were so many soldiers now they couldn’t all be contained to the main fortress. The camps spilled out between the large wall and the small. They had too many people now. Too many for this one space. And now they all recognized Harry. King Potter, they whispered as he walked by. The only thing worse than walking past their whispers would be walking inside the castle with its narrow hallways that would press down on him until he really couldn’t draw breath. Or, perhaps, worst of all, would be trying to leave for real. Try to take one step outside that outer wall only to be stopped. To know for certain he was trapped here. That he’d agreed to the trap.
Harry felt a surge of desire to go back to Charlie and tell him all these fears just so Charlie would wrap him in an embrace and allow Harry those mind numbing kisses. Allow Harry to lose himself in the feel and taste of another man. Only there was a cold knot in Harry’s chest that stopped him. Because Charlie was too stubborn to accept Harry’s poor attempts at openness. He would poke and prod with his questions and find Harry lacking. The cold certainty of failure stopped Harry from turning back.
Harry had been wrong. The worst thing was what he did next. How after circling through camps he caught one soldier’s eye. A young man. Blonde and fair features from a land Harry couldn’t place. Maybe the east, where they must be recruiting boys to the army to fight the Durmstrang war. He was pretty. Charlie was rough and firm, a sinewy frame that could box in Harry and hold him tight for kisses. Or More. This one with his thin. His gangly body held no such promise. But his blue eyes shone bright and tracked on Harry with a gleam Harry had seen before. Different from the other soldiers, who admired their newly discovered king. This one, he admired Harry as a man. And foolishly, Harry approached him. Foolishly, he invited the strange man to walk. Most foolishly, Harry walked the man back to his room. Then asked if the man wanted to come in.
Maybe it was wrong, but it didn’t feel wrong when the young man was kneeling on the floor with his pink lips wrapped eagerly around Harry’s cock. It felt tight and wet and fantastic. Harry didn’t know where to put his hands. He held one on the wall and clenched the other into a fist to bite into so that he wouldn’t shove it into the young man’s hair. If he did that he might pull in any number of ways that would hurt. The young man had none of the skill Harry’s whores had, but the man was eager. Harry yearned for eager. And easy. This man had been fucking easy. Nothing but his starry eyed gaze at the man who was his king. Harry relished the feel of the man hollowing out his mouth as he bobbed up and down, energetically overcoming the awkwardness of an inexperienced gag reflex. It was nothing like Charlie would have been. Harry didn’t want to think of Charlie. The thought made him angry and he almost did reach down for the man’s hair. He bit himself harder instead, to stop himself from grabbing and taking more pleasure than he should just for that little extra edge to block out everything else.
Afterwards, Harry used his hand to jack the man off. The fellow liked it plenty. Harry watched the rapturous expression on the young man’s face when he orgasmed. Harry could only just remember the euphoria of fumbled handjobs in the alley outside his uncle’s shop. Maybe this would be a good memory for the man. Harry wanted it to be.
Even if now that it was over Harry was settling very firmly on it all having been a mistake.
Harry let the man stay the night, anyway. It would have been more awkward to throw the man out. More awkward even than laying in bed tense all night, unable to so much as close his eyes when the stranger slept near. Harry watched him sleep. The man was so fucking young. Not a boy, not like the soldiers Harry had fought alongside in the north. They must not have had a chance to kill all the young men in the east, yet. Must not have ruined the people to the point where people like Harry lied about their age to get food. Not to the madness of children like Colin and Dennis being accepted into the fold. This pretty man, with his delicate nose and full lips, didn’t even know the horrors that he’d run from.
Harry chased the memories away. They were as bad as nightmares. As soon as the morning light peeked in Harry figured it was fine to wake the other man up. He did it with his mouth, trailing kisses down the man’s skin. The man groaned and stretched and didn’t raise one protest as Harry dipped down to repay the previous evening’s blow job. Harry wasn’t well practiced, either, but he knew what he liked. His own basic experience with Cedric was supplemented by more recent rendezvouses with prostitutes who Harry did his best to emulate. It had the man moaning and thrashing in Harry’s bed and coming in Harry’s mouth in record time.
Too much noise, though. A suspicious enough amount that Dennis, ever digilent Dennis, opened the door in time to see Harry spit out the man’s cum. It had the younger man scrambling for clothes.
Harry just slumped back down on the bed and let Dennis be the one to chase the man away.
“Who was that?” Dennis demanded. Harry had honestly expected him to have left. Harry sighed and closed his eyes hoping it might happen. Instead, “You don’t even know his name, do you?” In truth, Harry had never considered asking. “I thought you were with Charlie.”
That at least was enough to get Harry to react. “Get out,” Harry growled.
Dennis growled right back. “What are you even doing, Harry?” Harry slung an arm over his face and prayed Dennis would just go away. No. Of course he didn’t. “You know he’s going to talk, right? If you need a quick fuck at least think for two fucking seconds. I could find you another prostitute without causing half as much trouble.”
Dennis’ pragmatic scolding rubbed the still-raw edges of Harry’s nerves. Harry whirled a pillow off the bed and whipped it right towards Dennis’s head. It hit with a thunk. “Get the fuck out.”
Dennis finally took the hint and left. Looking angry. And frustrated. And hurt.
Harry slumped. His mind whirled. He hadn’t been thinking and he didn’t want to start now.
Hours later, Harry’d found and drank the booze he’d hidden in the room. He got drunk enough that he could stomach what happened the night before. In the distant, foggy way of the truly inebriated, Harry realized something felt funny and then realized it was dried cum still on his hand from the night before. Cum and sweat had dried on the shirt Harry had never taken off. He stumbled through fully disrobing now. He scrubbed himself with a rag laid out next to a bowl of water. He rinsed water through his mouth. He wanted sleep, but a lopsided look at the bed had him thinking it might still smell like that stranger. Harry staggered through the work of pulling the bedding off and chucking it in a corner. He barely managed to put on underclothes before collapsing onto the bare mattress and releasing himself to restless sleep.
A useless attempt. Harry woke up screaming.
It was still light. He could have only dozed for a couple hours. Not even long enough to fully sober. But enough to ache. Everywhere.
Something creaked. A shifting of weight on the floor making noise. Harry’s hand was reaching for the knife he kept under the pillow. There was no pillow. He reached for the one he kept under the mattress. It wasn’t there, either. He was reaching further towards his pack before he even looked up to see who was there. He felt how the weapon that should have been at the top of his pack was gone before he placed how he knew the dark twinkling eyes shining from that pale, heart-shaped face. She’d hidden her violet hair under a dark cap. Even though she sat plainly, she was so still she blended into the space around her. Still enough that Harry suspected the movement had been on purpose to draw his attention.
The woman smiled graceful as a cat. She held up just one of Harry’s knives to show him where they’d disappeared to. “I hear you’ve been throwing things,” she said jovially. She tossed the knife towards Harry so it landed on the floor in front of him. “Promise you’ll hang on to that no matter how angry you get and I’ll give you back the others.”
Harry scowled. He leaned forward to nab the knife then scooted back onto the bed. His heart thundered and he gripped the knife tight.
The woman propped her chin on a hand as she surveyed the younger man. Her sharp eyes caught everything, Harry had no doubt. She made the smallest hmm sound and then leaned back and smiled. It was bright and shiny with no edges.
“You’re not holding up well,” she remarked entirely without pity.
Harry considered throwing the knife at her anyway. He settled for scowling. “Go away,” he stated flatly.
The woman shrugged daintily. “Alright, Harry. Here’s a riddle for you. Get it right and I’ll walk right out.” she waved at the door without breaking her shiny smile. “What’s my name?”
Harry blinked. He didn’t want to look flustered but couldn’t hide a blush from spreading.
Her smile grew until lines around her eyes crinkled. “It’s alright, Harry. We haven’t actually been introduced. Most people eventually get around to asking, but you’re an odd duck. You keep your head shoved down whatever hole is closest and miss nearly everything.”
Harry cycled through emotions. Outrage, embarrassment, resentment. “Why are you here?” he snapped.
The woman sat up and spread her arms wide to draw Harry’s full attention. “This is an intervention!” she declared. “Only your so-called friends are too chicken to do it themselves so you get lil ol’ me instead.” She caught Harry bristling before he could say anything. “No, no, I’m not saying they're cowards. They just said we shouldn’t do this, and I didn’t tell them I was ignoring them.” She scrunched her nose in a way that reminded Harry of an adorable rabbit. It was disarming, how defenseless this woman could make herself look.
“Who are you?” Harry finally asked.
Something about this smile was different. They all reached her eyes, but this one wasn’t half as cute as her facade always managed to be. She stuck out one of her hands. “Nymphadora Tonks. Friends call me Tonks.” Harry stared at the offered hand. “Don’t be weird, just shake my hand,” Tonks instructed.
Slowly, carefully, Harry reached out his hand and let Tonks grip it. There was that smile again. A little uglier than when she was faking. “Well done, you,” Tonks said without sounding even a little patronizing. Cut her and she’d bleed sincerity.
“Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to put all my cards on the table. Harry, darling, friend of my friend, future King,” she was laying it on thick. As she talked she tilted her head until her eyes were level with Harry’s and he begrudgingly met her gaze. “They all swear you’re not trying to off yourself, but if you keep on like this you ain’t going to make it.”
“I’m fine,” Harry bit out reflexively.
Tonks’ frown was this pretty little thing with her cupid bowed lips tilted down. “You can lie if you want, but I know you’re not.” She paused briefly and maybe there was a glimpse of that thing he saw in other people - people who understood what horror was and didn’t pity him for crumbling from it. “Seeing how I’m being one hundred percent honest with you here, I’m just going to tell you that out of everyone still living, I know you. Not you as a person, but any and every piece of history that is out there to be learned.” Harry’s confusion must have been plain on his face. “I’m Dumbledoor’s spymaster,” she explained and paused long enough for the confusion to melt into realization. She nodded at him then. “Sirius worked for me. Madeye works for me. You’d be surprised who works for me.” Another real smile and a quirky tap to her nose. “It’s my job to know everything and, Harry, you really don’t make that hard.”
“There’s nothing to know,” Harry said again without thinking.
Tonks hmmed that little noise. She eyed him up and down as she considered what he said. “Well. How about I just say that the lovely gentleman you spent the night with won’t be telling anyone about it. It won’t get back to Charlie, or his family, or Lupin, who somehow has no idea you’re gay. This gets to be yours and my secret. One of many, but I don’t think we need to write out a list to make you understand just how many.”
It was the way Tonks spoke so conversationally. The friendly smile she held on her face. Harry had seen her slice through death eaters on the battlefield, but she still made it easy to forget how deadly she could be. That’s what scared him. That’s what stilled him and flooded him with cold.
“Oh, calm down, I’m not threatening you,” Tonks scolded. It was like magic how she knew Harry’s thoughts without him speaking them. She sighed and looked around the room. “We should get you some food or something. You’d feel better after. Easier to talk to.” She was doing it again, looking innocent. Like a kind old aunt instead of a warrior. She waved the thought away with another of those little smiles. “I suppose this comes back to the point. Harry, it’s really up to you, but I think you ought to think about maybe not driving all the people who love you away. If you hadn’t tossed out Dennis, he’d have made sure we had food right now. He does dote on you. It’s good to let someone take care of you now and then.”
This sounded too much like Charlie’s words that Harry felt himself flush with anger again.
Tonks hissed through her teeth. “Sorry, sorry, too close to home. Okay, let’s think about this different,” she had the same soothing tone Lupin managed when Harry got hot headed. It upset Hary how easy it was to go along with it. Then, “You have trust issues!” Unlike Lupin, she immediately embraced the next explosive topic. “It makes sense. Your family is awful. You have no social skills and actively avoid getting close to anyone. You finally find a mentor in Lupin, just to find out he was lying to you about the whole Potter thing. You’ve never had a chance to learn how to let anyone in.”
She could see Harry shutting down as she talked. Putting up ice brick walls that blocked her words.
“Snape knew your mother,” she said it fast. A targeted fact to stop Harry from closing off completely. She waited until Harry’s pained gaze met hers. Until she could see his hunger for the rest of the story. “It’s a lot of drama, but Snape and your mother were friends before your mother married James. When Lily married James, Snape went south, and when James’ friend Peter betrayed him and got your parents killed, Snape chased him down and murdered him. Which is how Snape joined the death eaters. You have to kill one to get in.”
Harry gaped at the tale. “Are you saying Snape…” he couldn’t complete his thought.
Tonks did her little shrug. “You’d be surprised who works for me,” she repeated. She sighed before leaning forward, resting her elbows on her legs and focusing her attention on Potter. “All you damaged men and your secrets. You think your secrets must be the biggest and the worst, but they almost always are perfectly normal things. The sort of things anyone who loved you would accept or forgive you for. Not that you’re looking for acceptance or forgiveness, are ya Harry?”
This pause lingered. Stretched into a silence uncomfortable and jarring, but for once Tonks didn’t fill it with easy chatter. Her gaze held steady on Harry’s and her gentle smile never faltered. She’d give Harry time. As much time as he needed. No matter how long he let the time stretch out. No matter how badly he wished not to get to the end of this silence.
“I don’t need anything from anyone,” Harry lied, finally. A clear lie, since he’d needed this woman to keep him alive just days ago on the battlefield.
Her eyes crinkled as her smile warmed. “Alright Harry.” Again, no reproach. She tilted her head a moment and pursed her lips in thought. “You know, Lupin’s never going to ask you to share too much. Big one for privacy, our Lupin is. And he doesn’t like me sharing his secrets, either. But if you want, some time you could ask him about how he knew your father. Him, and Sirius, and Peter. You could ask him why Peter betrayed them all. Or how Sirius ended up the way he did. Or how Lupin didn’t. Because only one of these men was ever willing to admit they needed anyone. And I need you to believe me when I tell you this, Harry, it was the bravest, strongest thing I ever saw.” She let her mask slip fully then. And for a moment, Tonks didn’t look friendly or harmless at all.
Then she was all smiles, waltzing out of the room. Off to find Dennis and have him bring in food.
Harry buried his head in his hands and reminded himself to breathe.
Her words hung in his head when Dennis did bring food. They hung in his head every time Lupin’s own eyes crinkled at the edges of his warm, encouraging smile.
Later, Harry left with a garrison of the best trained of their soldiers to visit households and secure alliances. Lupin was at his side, but Harry never asked. He just watched all the moments Lupin gave to those around him. Harry didn’t flinch away when Lupin always carved out time for him. They shared a tent, for safety. But also it was like being back at Hogwarts. Lupin would talk Harry through exercises and Harry would believe it might help.
Life on the road was still life at war. Voldermort’s strategists were clever, and as soon as they learned Harry was on the road they sent all manner of fiends to kill him. The battles were always bloody. Harry fell into them with wild abandon. Only… Lupin stayed with him. Kept him steady. It was not so hard now to remember to breathe. Not so hard to stay focused and in control. He was brutal when enraged, but when focused he had greater impact. Lupin taught him that without ever saying words. And after the battles, Harry dared to tell Lupin all about what had happened. Even though Lupin had been beside him the entire time. Lupin still listened. Still let Harry share everything. Everything he felt.
They returned to Hogwarts, the fortress on the sea. An armada gathered along the shores. Lords and dignitaries had gathered to finalize battle plans. McGonagall was there, once again shadowed by Hermione who had traveled back along a different route. They reported every secured alliance and where further inroads might be made. Ron and Neville were also reunited, both a bit hardened from battle. Gone was the bumbling trainee Harry had last known Neville as. The man here now spoke with precision about every resource and supply their army had at its disposal. Admiral Hooch and her commodores were outlining strategies to attack along the coast. Kingsley Shacklebolt, who bowed deeply to Harry at their introduction, outlined the plan to attack over land. Dumbledoor sat at the head of the table. All of these people followed him. It was Dumbledoor’s Army, even if they’d declared it Harry’s. Even if Dumbledoor was sincere in his consultations with Harry before approving strategy.
So not only did Harry have to attend the meetings. He had to then meet with Dumbledoor and Lupin, who insisted Harry understood everything discussed. Who looked to Harry for final decisions.
Life in these damn meetings was life at war. The way Harry loathed watching soldiers come into their room up in a Hogwarts tower and report out on how missions went. The way everyone relied on him to decide if it was a success. The way he had to… well, it was never far from mind how it felt to be congratulated for a mission well done when all that he remembered from it was fuel for nightmares. Harry couldn’t bring himself to be insincere. He only offered congratulations when no one died. For the rest - he offered condolences. He struggled, again and again, to find words that acknowledged what people had died for. It was hard. He had to step back and remember what feeling had drove him to plead to Voldermort and his court for food. He had to remember that while he signed up to be King, to be stuck, forever, if their army won it would finally bring peace. Or at least food to the north. And whoever else needed it. He could tell them they died so others had a chance to live. And he could see that sounded good enough on others’ ears.
Harry practiced reading so he could bury his head in reports of soldiers who died. It kept him centered in a different way. He worried that life behind the fortress walls, these months that dragged into years, would weaken his understanding of what the men fighting for him faced. Lupin would take him out every few months, so he could be seen leading a battle and increase morale. Harry knew how carefully these encounters were selected because he finally understood battle strategy. He’d learned to distract himself from Ron bickering with Hermione, which somehow read as flirting. He practiced math to distract himself after he did take Dennis up on his offer to discreetly hire Harry a prostitute. He started to write the night that Lupin got married.
It was a small ceremony. Dumbledoor officiated. Tonk’s mother, Andromeda, walked her down a short aisle. Harry was shocked that Lupin asked Harry to be his best man. Harry signed as witness to their marriage. But when those assembled broke into celebrations Harry wandered away. He found himself on a battlement, staring into the night sky and the never ending sea.
He felt such a severe longing in his chest to be anywhere but there. Here he was, playing the part of king. Convincing everyone to believe in him. Somehow fooling Lupin into trusting him. But he was still broken. Still a shell of what a person was meant to be. He couldn’t stand to hear the revelry. It was alien and made his chest ache.
Leaving the wedding was a horrid thing to do but Harry was good at justifying his horrible choices. That was when he pulled out a notebook Lupin had given him months before. One still empty. It took all night for Harry to fill the first page. His script was still shaking and slow. But he carved out each word. Each feeling. Escape. He wanted to escape. He dreamed to escape. Escape anywhere. Go anywhere. Travel away, like his father had once wished to do. Sail off into the sea. Harry felt it, and imagined it, and wrote it.
He felt steadier after. Steady enough to sleep.
Everything changed when Dumbledoor died. He had been speaking, then black tendrils spread from under his skin, out under the hem of his robes. No one knew how the poison reached him. But it did not kill Dumbledoor kindly. Kingsley was pulling Harry out of the room even as Harry watched Dumbledoor’s lips ink black. Dumbledoor’s eyes bleed red. Harry was pulled away before he could see if Dumbledoor’s body convulsed like the soldiers Harry had watched die at the Weasley’s manor. Kingsley took Harry to Tonks, who told Harry to flee. There was poison in the castle and Tonks believed the killing wasn’t done.
Everything changed when Hedwig died. The white mare had carried Harry across country and into battle. Charlie had trained her well, and she had rode fiercely. Perhaps her shining coat was her undoing. She was easy to spot and recognize. Easy to aim for. Their foes in the castle had accomplices in the woods outside it and one clean shot pierced Hedwig’s chest. The mare let loose a high-pitched, loud scream. She staggered forward, stumbling to her knees. Harry had just enough time to climb out of his saddle before the horse shuddered and groaned, slumping in a way that would have crushed a leg underneath it. Harry saw the black poison inking out of where the arrow struck her. Foolishly, Harry stayed with Hedwig. Whoever shot her would be after him, but Harry couldn’t leave her alone to die. The horse sagged further towards the ground. She had barely any energy left in her. However, she did nudge against Harry’s outstretched hand. She leaned into his fingers as they stroked along the crown of her head. Harry waited with her as she shuddered through her death. Her eyes closed before Harry heard the sound of other hooves.
Harry killed those men. Perhaps he wouldn’t have, if he succumbed to icy rage. But he kept control of himself and moved with the precision Lupin drilled into him. He hunted with that precision. He scoured the woods for other enemies and struck those he found down before they could hurt anyone else he cared for. When he returned to the fortress he found they had eliminated the threat just as efficiently. The leaders who survived looked to Harry, only Harry, since everything had changed. Dumbledoor was truly gone. Only Harry had changed, too. People assumed it was Dumbledoor’s death. Who would care more for the simple, guileless affection offered by an animal? It didn’t matter if they understood. The fact was he knew as he watched his horse, his friend, die that no one in the land was safe. What he was doing wasn’t enough to keep them safe. He was done planning and scheming. It was time to truly go to war.
South. They traveled south. They fought. They conquered.
Their armies, now truly Harry’s army, gathered in the south. They cut Voldermort off until his kingdom was only the most southern lands.
They had spies in the south. Secret doorways into the heart of the kingdom. Harry called on all their resources to charge ahead. To finish this.
Everything changed when Fred died. The Weasleys had always been a unit. Their family was a thing Harry could never understand. They loved so deeply and so openly. To remove one was to remove a limb from the whole. To say nothing of the twins. Fred and George were two pieces of the same soul. Two parts of one mind. When an explosion took out part of a castle wall, and that key Weasley brother, it irrevocably changed the entire family. Ron left Harry’s side then, to go to his brother. To defend George, who did not know how to live alone.
Everything changed when Colin died. Colin wasn’t meant to be there. He should be safe in the north. He was still the youngest soldier Harry knew. He had a life ahead of him. But at some point, between the nightmares and the drinking, Colin felt the calling that tormented Harry and returned to the only thing he knew. He went to fight. And despite his youth, he’d been deadly and cunning and earned his place in the final battle. If only because Harry and Dennis had not known he’d been granted it. Not until it was too late. All ever-diligent Dennis could do was see his brother fatally wounded and abandon Harry to try to pull Colin out to safety.
Everything changed when Tonks died. That carefree woman, who knew everyone’s secrets and didn’t judge you for them. Who somehow had won the heart of Lupin, who was more Harry’s family than anyone had ever been. But Harry had never asked how or why. He had just let them smile at him, warm and encouraging. He had let them flank him in battle, to ensure no strike ever got through. It was the tall death eater woman who killed her. That black eyed bitch grinned as she did it. Grinned as Tonks stepped past Harry. Stepped to where Harry hadn’t seen help was needed. Stepped so she stood between the death eater’s strike and her husband.
Everything changed when Lupin died. That morning Lupin had sat with Harry. Made Harry promise to stay with him. Because even if he trusted Harry now, he still cared too deeply to leave anything to chance. Harry knew he’d earned that trust. He’d earned it through work. Through showing up each day and, without ever having to ask for it, accepting Lupin’s help. He’d earned it enough to be Lupin’s best man at his wedding. He earned it enough that when Lupin and Tonks welcomed their child three months ago Lupin had asked Harry to be the godfather. It had been so strange, looking down at a baby, and thinking that maybe yes he’d actually like that. Everything else might make Harry feel hollow and empty inside, but there was nothing like holding little Teddy. That made him feel warm. That made him hopeful. Only he never thought he’d ever have to be a godfather for real, since Lupin had always been there and would never leave Harry’s side. Until, suddenly, he did. It took more than one death eater to kill him. That tall woman alone couldn’t do it. And Lupin mortally wounded her helper even after receiving a killing blow.
Everything changed then. Everything inside Harry shifted. No one was next to him, telling him to breathe. No one was there. It was just Harry and the gaping hole in his chest. Just Harry, filling with pain and terror and rage.
Rage so hot he could do anything. Kill anything. Rage burning under his skin like poison. Killing him from the inside. Taking down as any people as he could with him. His blood pounding too loud to hear anyone cry for mercy. His rage-blinded eyes seeing nothing but enemies to kill. Harry couldn’t tell you how far he went, how many he killed, to try to burn through the rage that filled him.
There were no memories from after Lupin died. Just bodies. So many bodies. And emptiness. A hollowness that victory could never fill.