Post-Battle Depression
Things were crazy for a while after that.
Harry did not, in fact, go for a nap. Instead he was interviewed and photographed by Rita and Colin.
Afterwards, Harry went to find Amelia Bones. He told her about the wards and the horcruxes and what Dumbledore had tried to get Harry, Ron and Hermione to do, and she fired the headmaster on the spot as acting Minister for Magic.
Sirius and Remus yelled at him for hours, his friends were all over him, then remembered what he'd done and ignored him, then were all over him again, and Susan even kissed him on the cheek!
Dudley was given an Order of Merlin for shooting Bellatrix, the first muggle ever to receive one. Harry gave him two million people points for it, making him that years' winner. His reward was enough money for a wedding when he finally got around to proposing to Shannon. Dudley graduated college with an A* and was all set to start his degree in September. It was cooking related, of course.
During the summer, all of Harry's people hid away at Grimmauld place to avoid the press and other annoying people. Molly and Fleur planned the perfect wedding, and Fleur looked absolutely gorgeous as she walked down the aisle, Colin snapping pictures the whole time. He'd been paid to, of course.
Harry, Cedric and Viktor followed her, dressed in light blue suits and carrying a small bunch of forget-me-nots each. Charlie cried three times and Percy showed up before the wedding, looking incredibly guilty.
He was forgiven of course. Harry had forgotten about him to be honest.
The party afterwards was immense. Dudley and Shannon had been the caterers, and had done a marvellous job. Harry, of course, did the baking and the wedding cake, with a bit of help from Daphne and Ginny. Dudley made Harry promise to come and make the puddings in his future restaurant, when Harry got bored of the wizarding world.
Luna was in charge of the music, and did an excellent job. Hermione and Molly were the organisers and Draco, Neville and Ron enjoyed kicking unwanted people to the curb.
Oh, and Peter Pettigrew had been found dead. Whoopie!
~
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls-"
"May we present to you-"
"Lockhart's Mad Menagerie!" Fred and George finished together with a flourish, doing jazz hands and jumping to the side so that the crowd could cheer and clap for Gellert Lockhart, currently the most famous zookeeper in the Wizarding World.
"Hello, hello!" He exclaimed, waving to the crowd. "Do come through, this little project had been years in the making!"
"How much for a ticket?" Harry asked, smiling at Gellert as he stepped forwards from the crowd.
"For you, Harry? Free of charge!" Lockhart ruffled his hair and pulled him into a side hug.
"Big smile, Harry." Lockhart whispered. "Together, you and I might just make the front page!"
Harry laughed loudly and Colin snapped a picture with a smile.
"Front page indeed." Harry said, winking at Colin. Colin Creevey was currently the most famous and highly sought after photographer in the country.
Lockhart beckoned the crowd forwards and everyone piled into the zoo.
Hermione had to admit, it was truly incredible. The place was huge, and the enclosures were designed to replicate the natural environments of the creatures inside almost perfectly.
"As you can see, we keep the mundane creatures in this half of the zoo, to appeal to the muggles as well as the magical." Lockhart explained, still grimacing slightly at the word "muggle" Hermione gave Harry a sharp look and he just smiled unrepentantly at her. "Our magical creatures are right through here, hidden from the muggle eye. Miss Greengrass has put some fine wards in place for us that ensure any talk of anything magical is hidden from muggle ears. I believe they have four ears, right Harry?"
"Er, two actually." Harry said. "I got my facts mixed up."
"No worries, dear boy! Now, for my finest exhibit." Lockhart waited for the crowd to gather together and then waved his wand with a flourish. An invisibility ward fell and revealed a glorious bird enclosure.
"Phoenixes!" Lockhart cried as the crowd cheered. "We have four currently, our most recent addition being Fawkes, who decided to retire as a familiar and live out his last few years here with us. And if you look to the left, you'll see-"
"Peacocks!" Ginny exclaimed, as one fanned out his feathers and preened.
"Yes, graciously returned to their rightful home by dearest Lady Malfoy." Lockhart announced. Narcissa smiled warmly and excepted Lockhart's grateful kiss on the back of her hand.
"This is insanity." Ron muttered to Neville and Draco.
"You sound surprised." Draco said sarcastically.
"Even Hermione is enjoying herself, look!" Neville sniggered. Hermione was watching the phoenixes with a look of awe. "After all those fights she had with Harry about the morality of lying to Lockhart, she somehow still found herself enjoying the results of Harry's labour."
"Because I'm just so rad, Nev, am I right or am I right?" Harry grinned, sneaking up behind them. Neville jumped and sneezed.
"I'm right, actually." Ginny said, remembering her own fake identity. "And I say this place is wicked. One of your better ideas, Harry, I have to say."
"Absolutely." Bill agreed, watching the peacocks fight Fawkes for a burger tossed into the enclosure by Luna. "Um, can birds eat burgers?"
"Apparently." Daphne smirked. "Fawkes adores them."
~
After the summer holidays, Minerva took over as Headmistress, Severus as Deputy. The first thing Minerva did was replace Binns with Narcissa Malfoy and make sure each Head of House had a deputy. Hermione and Draco were named Head Girl and Boy.
Severus decided he preferred teaching potions and handed over his Head of House position to Aurora, with Narcissa as her Deputy. Remus took over as DADA teacher and Head of Gryffindor House for the time being, with Babbling as his deputy. Flitwick gained Grubbly-Plank as a deputy, and Sprout gained Vector.
With Voldy gone, Severus Snape was much more pleasant and a far better teacher. He was already on the redemptive path, but Voldy's death sped it along. He was still the scariest professor at Hogwarts. Almost. Narcissa was far more terrifying. Harry still purposefully wound him up and Snape still pretended to hate it, just for laughs.
Ron asked Hermione out, who obviously said yes. Draco still balked at the thought of relationships, so Daphne had a lot of fun pretending to ask him out several times a week. Ginny joined in, just because she could. She somehow managed to smuggle in five bright pink gnomes that chased Draco around for two days. Kreacher especially seemed to enjoy this.
Ginny and Kreacher had bonded massively over shared leadership of the Quabbler. Susan was still Kreacher's favourite, but Ginny was a close second. Harry was starting to get really annoyed at being no-one's favourite.
Neville became Sprout's assistant teacher after an O+ in his sixth year Herbology exam. She added muggle plants, especially cacti, to the curriculum. He also managed to ask out Hannah, with some help from Dobby.
Hermione and Harry managed to get O+ in their sixth year Potions exams. Harry got another O+ in DADA, allowing him to continue with assistant teaching. He did wonder whether he and Hermione would get the chance to TA for Snape in Potions, but he hadn't heard anything yet.
Introductory classes and courses were offered to all students. Muggleborns were reached out to far earlier in their childhoods instead of on their eleventh birthdays, and more safeguarding measures were put in place for all magical children, muggleborn and pureblood alike. Magical primary schools were set up for children of all magical or muggle descent, that taught a blend of magical theory and muggle subjects that would be beneficial.
Ginny, Luna and Astoria got permission to have a pet dog on grounds, who assisted Madame Pomfrey in the hospital wing (Sirius had always been a proficient healer). The twins' shop business was going amazingly, and Harry-
Well, Harry was bored.
"Hermione?"
"No."
"You don't even know what I'm going to ask!"
"No, Harry, you will not be becoming a Dark Lord just because you do not know how to exist out of survival instincts and threats of death looming over you."
"Oh, so you did know what I was going to ask. Drat."
All in all, things were looking great for Seventh Year.
~
"Harry, I said don't become a Dark Lord!"
"I'm not! I'm a Light one! See?" Harry pointed at the light bulb balanced on his head.
"Some things never change." Ron shook his head in amusement.
"Clearly dying just made him even more mental." Daphne added with a snort.
Harry grinned. Mental? Maybe. Loved? Most definitely. Harry might have been insanely bored, but he was happy.
Who knew all one needed in life was a little bit of childish nonsense?
Which sounds like an ending. But Harry was too bored for things to be over yet. He didn't really want to be dark lord, a light lord, or a dark-light lord, but he did still have things to do.
Like go on Safari! And visit Hagrid properly, and catch up with everyone else like Cedric, Tonks, Viktor, Bill, Carlie and Fleur! And have a family! Him and Susan should also probably tell their friends they're dating now. Daphne would definitely cry, since she was used to Harry telling her all the gossip. And he still had a bet with the goblins to win. Since he was still alive, he really should think about his future more seriously. Now that he thought about it, he didn't have time to become a dark-light-dark lord.
Susan, Hermione and Draco though? Well, they were already plotting how to take over the ministry after graduation. How hard could it be to just take over the Britain and then the world alongside? Pretty easy, for those three anyway. Especially with all the house elves Susan had stolen from Harry and kept collecting more of. They'd have an army in no time.
Oh yes, and he really needed that elder wand. Which now he thought about it, he still had the resurrection stone! Maybe it was time to get the marauders back together for a few hours...minus Peter, duh.
Harry grinned. The next few years would be far more interesting than he'd originally thought...