Days After Death

Harry hadn’t really told anyone except Ron and Hermione later on, but in truth, he hadn’t had a backup plan to this. He had no idea what sort of future he would have pursued had this not worked out, he had no idea if he could have done another aimless year without… well, this.

It’s why he’s eternally grateful he doesn’t have to wonder about whatever that pathway held in store for him. Just dark things, probably.

It hadn’t been easy sitting through the first three hours of it, though. Full of unnecessary speeches from apparently famous people Harry had never heard of before. He sits with the rest of the interns, and Kanoka Kaji actually ends up dozing off in front of him at the rambled speech of Birdy Heffman, some Head of the Astrology department or rather.

Then the names of the interns came next, and each one strode up to the stage and stayed wearing a newfound purpose.

“Mordecai Berrycloth,” the Head of the Auror Department, Williamson Dune, says, his chest bolstered. He’s been staring at where Harry sits since the start of the ceremony, causing Ron to continuously jostle him.

“Come on, mate, you look like you’re going to shit yourself,” Ron says, in that mumble-y quiet tone that makes Harry wonder if he’s truly serious. “If Seamus can be donned, then you will too.”

Still, he hasn’t been wanting to raise his hopes, so he convinces himself he isn’t sure what to make of it. Until his name is spoken, Harry will feel like he’s been holding his breath since the donning ceremony began.

He doesn’t understand why the ceremony starts so late in the evening. He ought to be having dinner now, really, but he’s too nervous for him to work up an actual appetite. Not Ron, though, who's ever loyal to his own needs then Harry has been. He complains about how mad his stomach hurts, holding it, and Harry can hear Ron’s gut groan louder than he does. It would be incredible if his mind could offer the time to be amazed at it.

The dark atrium that stretches above him, twinkles as if freshly polished, enhancing the darkness of the crowd and the light on the stage, where all attention is directed. It’s usually held for public councils with the Minister, but has been cleared out to maximise the stage for the new Auror graduates to stand on. The interns who’ve trained for the past two to three years sit behind the board members of the Auror department, and they’re supposed to be in alphabetical order, but Harry would probably die if he didn’t have Ron to break the rules and come sit beside him. He’s been attempting to lighten Harry by bitching about the entire ceremony so far, and it would work if not for the fact that Harry feels this is his entire newfound purpose to cling to, something that could not be guaranteed by a prophecy. Everything was terribly and absolutely up to him. Behind them are rows of seats full of family members, bosses, colleagues and news reporters, who mostly stand to the side. There’s more of them this year than any previous year before. He can guess why.

Harry ticks off the names as they’re called. Alphabetically.

Neville gets called, and Harry and Ron’s applause is nothing if not monstrously loud. Harry can’t even hear the roar of everyone else due to him and Ron. Neville, coy as always, seems to try and shrink from the flashing cameras, like a deer escaping headlights, but it proves useless when he finds himself on stage. He smiles, wobbly, a little hunched, and Harry sees him purse his lips as he bows.

Head Auror Dune looks to him again, and dons him with a bronze medal, symbolising his promotion from intern in training to a regular, established Auror. The crowd claps again, and Neville is the first one to receive two applauses. This is their first celebrity, anyways. The famous man that slayed Voldemort’s last horcrux.

Neville seems uncomfortable under the attention. Harry knows the feeling.

The names go on, and Neville goes to stand by Seamus, who seems to straighten next to him. It annoys Harry a little, how Seamus changes ever so slightly under the public eye around them, but as soon as the next name is called (Ron has to shake Kanoka awake so she can go collect her medal), the familiar set of nerves settle into him once again, overwhelming everything and anything else.

The names reach the letter P.

It goes past Harry.

Head Auror Dune chooses now to be a good time not to look at Harry. Harry sits there, reeling. He should’ve been called by now. Maybe they mixed some of the letters up.

Then the names reach letter Q.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Ron growls, only seeming to just realise they skipped Harry. “What the fuck is happening?”

Harry doesn’t know. He looks around at everyone else in the crowd to see if they also picked up on this mistake. Some stare back at him with wide eyes, the sides of their mouths curled like they can’t believe they’re witnessing this. His eyes glaze over as he tries to find Hermione, his breaths quickening. She’ll tell him what to do, she’ll tell him it’s all just part of the protocol.

Suddenly, a flash goes off in his face, and Harry blinks so much that his eyes water. He looks around to see cameras, directed at him. Ron looks like he’s about to shit a brick.

He’s murmuring things to Harry, or maybe he’s saying them obnoxiously loudly, Harry doesn’t really know. He’s blocking Ron out, staring hard at Dune, urging him, pleading with the universe, almost, for him to look at him again. And the old bastard, for seeming to have so much interest him in the first half of the ceremony, doesn’t even glance in his direction unless it's to gaze over him like a faded out stain in a carpet.

“Mr Potter,” one of the more courageous reporters begins. He’s leering down at Harry, who can’t even see his face, but only the big, blinding flash his massive camera (shoved right up his nose, almost) snaps. “Can you tell us a little about how you’re feeling? What do you–”

“Oi, shove off,” Ron growls, smacking the big camera so hard that it almost falls out of the guy’s hand. The reporters scoot away from them, the circling breadth ensuing for fear that Ron would probably punch their expensive machinery out. But the photos don’t stop.

“Fucking gits,” Ron swears, and he looks like he’s about to scream at them. His fists and cheeks are as red as his hair.

“Ron, calm down,” Harry manages, sounding much too out of breath. It’s only a fucking ceremony. Surely there’s been a mistake or something that he can remedy if he just calmed down to. Either way, nothing will help if Ron gets into a fight that’ll end up in them getting kicked out.

Still, even with a mollified Ron, things are no stranger to him. Flashes of light. The deep rasp of Dune’s voice. A chair scratching backwards behind him as the recipient rises to receive their award. Neville trying to gesture something to him, worry etched on his face. Seamus staring at the ground. Ron’s heavy breathing beside him. Is he scared he won’t receive something either? His thoughts are making his head feel bloated.

So Harry presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose, and closes his eyes. Names and applause. Names and applause. Heavy footsteps.

What if this wasn’t a mistake?

He thinks of the bridge between here and nothing. He thinks about the subliminal peace he hasn’t felt for years. It pacifies him almost immediately.

You’re not needed anymore.

He finds himself not caring, though he knows such a state can only be held for so long. Maybe, if what he suspects deep inside is to be true, and all of this was for naught, maybe he'll be allowed to slip away from here and hide forever. There’s nothing much else to do.

Usually, when Harry finds himself longing for something he pretends isn’t what it actually is, he makes sure to do it somewhere quiet, with little distractions, somewhere where there wouldn’t be ticking, where the rise of the hammer wouldn’t shadow him when he’s brought back to reality. A public ceremony where everyone watches his every reaction, where he bargained his entire future, is not the place. But Harry knows no other.

“Ronald Weasley,” Williamson Dune announces, and the hammer falls.

Applause. It’s loud. People know Ron. He’s a hero too.

Ron stays seated, but then shifts. He clasps his hand onto his shoulder, and Harry winces despite the lack of pain.

“I’ll fix this,” he says, and he gets up, and Harry is the only one still seated on his side of the aisle.

Ron walks up the stage, and applause scatters as he doesn’t bow to Dune, who’s awaiting to don him with the medal. Instead, he leans forward, murmuring so softly to him that his words aren’t even being picked up by the microphone. He gestures a bit behind him, a vague area to where Harry sits. Dune says something back, clapping Ron on the shoulder in the same manner Ron had with him, placating, trusting. His words back to Ron are a little louder, some sounds are being picked up by the speaker, but it’s still too indecipherable to make out. Harry tries anyway.

Dune pats Ron on the shoulder again, as if signifying the end of the conversation. Ron nods something to him, Harry can’t really gauge his expression because his back is facing him.

Ron bows and is donned. More applause. He stands off to the side beside Neville and Seamus, who immediately begin whispering to him.

Harry can trust Ron to look back at him, and he does.

Ron gives him a thumbs up, and this is probably the only thing that has calmed Harry down today. A simple gesture from his best friend, whose word is more valuable than gold.

There’s two more names read out, and Harry can feel himself sweating in almost every crevice of his body, feeling itchy in places too deep to relieve himself. A part of him just wants to get up and run away, and never go near the Auror department or the Ministry ever again.

It must say something about either himself, or the rest of the world, that every time Harry thinks about finally booking it, something always happens to get him hooked again.

“Harry Potter,” Dune says. The words itself aren't as alleviating as Harry would have first suspected at the start of the ceremony, but the thunderous cheers that follow it, drowning out the last few syllables of his name, are.

Cue wild applause, flashes of those ancient wizard cameras going off like a chain reaction, as Harry tries to keep his face somewhat neutral, so he’s not grinning like a schoolboy. He feels almost dizzy with happiness, or something close to it, that he could almost cry.

He walks up to the stage in such a disoriented blur, he forgets the walk up as soon as he finds himself standing in front of the grinning Head Auror, wrinkled and a little too red-eyed up close, his pupils blown a little too wide. It’s an uncomfortable clash to look at, making him seem almost manic in his glee. He looks proud of himself, probably thinking his apprehension to call out his name was nothing but a mild inconvenience to Harry. Harry doesn’t care. He feels almost as euphoric as Dune looks.

The applause doesn’t die when Harry bows his head. He’s going through the motions, though he’s finding it hard to separate the frantic pounding of his heart with the clicks of the cameras, the whistles of the crowd, the clap of hands. He hears a male voice jeer at him. He doesn’t recognise it. He looks to the ground, implementing that step by step process he sorts for himself when things get hard, per Hermione’s advice. He hears a female voice shout his name, but he’s processed it too late to recognise it. He wants to think it’s Hermione. Or Ginny.

He’s waiting for Dune to adorn him with the bronze medal, but he doesn’t. Dune grasps his shoulders tightly, and something shakes within him.

He grasps Dune back, ready to shove him off, ready to pull that bronze medal out of his grubby old hands if he has to. He’s worked for this. Nearly two years of training, and seven years of worser things before. If there’s anyone who deserves this stupid medal it’s him.

Dune gets him to stand up.

“Oh, you should never bow to us, Harry Potter,” he says, his voice magnified out towards the crowd of people staring at him. “No. For your service to wizardkind, you deserve more than a standardised medal. It is us that need to show our respect.”

Dune turns to the rest of the crowd, his eyes shining. He leans into the microphone. Harry hears his words as one may hear distant, high-pitched ringing coming from nearby.

“Please rise,” he tells them, and they do after a moment. The entire auditorium is standing for him, and all Harry can think about is prying that big, dumb medal from Dune’s sweaty hands and leaving. “Thank you. For being our light in the dark. For all you have preserved. Many of us, if not all, wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. It would be a much darker world, one in which I’m sure none of us would willingly desire to imagine for ourselves. For that, you don’t simply just deserve this medal, but all of our thanks.”

Dune takes a step back, creating space between them, and he smiles as he bows to Harry. The rest follow.

Harry stares, not knowing what to do, floored by the absolution of it. Everyone, save for the journalists to the sides, are bowing. Everyone. Did they all know? It would be so quiet if not for the clicking of cameras. Harry isn’t even sure he’s breathing.

He flexes his wrist because he’s so tense, and the moment is over. He’s almost not sure if he’s dreamt the whole thing.

Harry is aware of how acutely physical he is. He feels the fabric of his clothes brush his skin, the sweat and grime in between his joints and on his face, the folds of his skin, the hairs on his arms and the aches in his muscles. The guilt hits him after, because he feels this way and isn’t immediately grateful. Is he grateful? Perhaps to some extent. But maybe he doesn’t like feeling grateful either. Maybe he’s tired of it.

When Dune stands up straight again, everyone follows. They break into another deafening applause as he adorns Harry with the bronze medal, and this time Harry does bow his head. He remembers to smile at Dune, and he’s not sure he’s doing a great job of it until he realises Dune is winking at him and leaning in to tell him something. Harry leans in too, and despite how loud everything is, Harry can hear him just fine.

“Sorry about all that before,” he says, the satisfaction in his voice palpable enough to drip onto the stage floor between them. “But you were planned to be our closing act. You just had to be.”

He pulls back, plants a hand on Harry’s back, and turns to the cameras, smiling as usual.

Harry does the same, tries to banish Williamson Dune’s words from his mind, and attempts to ignore how the clicks of the cameras are louder now, and the flash more blinding than usual.