Chapter Eighteen
By the end of April, Harry was at an impasse. With each passing day, he learned more and more about the individual schools of magic that Voldemort was likely to use in order to go back in time. Unfortunately, that knowledge wasn't translating into anything actionable. On average, Harry spent more than twelve hours a day at Potter Manor, working through the pieces that would lead to Voldemort's plan, hoping for anything that could give them a clue about where and when Voldemort would attempt to go back in time.
And yet, Harry had nothing. That wasn't exactly true. He'd learned a great deal over the last four months, but the pieces of the puzzle just weren't coming together.
At the same time, the manhunt for Parvati had turned up nothing. Her disappearing act at The Leaky Cauldron had turned out to be somewhat permanent. In the two weeks since that date, no one had seen nor heard from her. There'd been no additional attacks on the Death Eaters or their supporters since her escape. Harry knew, however, that she wasn't done. She'd told him that she knew where Dolohov was hiding. If that was true, then there was no chance that she would walk away at this point.
Harry knew that wherever she was, she was likely planning the next stage of her plan to get revenge for her parents' murder.
On April 30th, Harry finally decided to reach out for some help. He knew that it was likely past due at this point, but he'd wanted to keep the potential circle of people who knew about Voldemort's plan as small as possible for as long as possible. The more people that knew about what Voldemort might be doing, the more likely that Voldemort was to just execute his plan without any of his intended theatrics. He could simply disappear one night and change everything and the world wouldn't know any different. They would all wake up in a new world, one shaped by Voldemort himself, and be none the wiser.
All of them except Harry, that is. While Harry certainly wouldn't be the only life lost if Voldemort went back and made changes, Harry was the only person that Voldemort would certainly ensure didn't survive long enough to become a problem for him. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he was fighting for his own life as much as he was fighting for the magical world.
At noon, Harry Disapparated from Potter Manor and landed in the middle of High Street in New Hogsmeade. From there, he walked from the small town to Hogwarts itself. While Harry had been at the school for Dumbledore's funeral, he hadn't been inside the castle since The Battle of Hogwarts.
Even as Harry reached the restored entrance, a rush of emotions threatened to overwhelm him. The last time he'd been even near this location, it had been Lord Voldemort standing in this place, glowering over the corpses of Minerva McGonagall and dozens of students who'd been murdered in the attack on the castle.
The last time he'd been here, Snape had revealed just how far his treachery had gone.
With a sigh, Harry pushed open the door and walked into the Entrance Hall. Just like every other time Harry had walked through the front doors, Harry was in awe of the castle, but this time, it was for a very specific reason. The castle had been restored to the exact state it had been before the attack. In fact, if you were a first year student walking through those doors for the first time, you would have had no idea that less than five years ago, the entire wall just behind you had been blown to pieces.
"Mr. Potter."
It was a term that Harry was still getting used to hearing. Every day at the Ministry, Harry heard people call him Mr. Potter. He hated it. He was young, far too young to be one of the central pieces of their government in his own mind, and that meant that a name like Mr. Potter was an ill fit. Still, no matter how much Harry protested, he knew that it was a sign of respect.
The only person who had managed to call him Mr. Potter and have it sound like an insult was Snape.
The man who had called him was Professor Richard Gray, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Gray was in his early fifties and his hair was every bit as gray as his name might suggest. He wore it well, however, with a neat beard and a strong jaw. Even at his age, he was a rather attractive man, one that Harry had heard quite a bit about from some of his former classmates.
Gray had been hired as the Defense Against the Dark Arts after Snape's betrayal. For the first time in several decades, the post had been held by the same person for multiple school years, four in the case of Professor Gray.* By all accounts, Gray was a good, knowledgeable teacher who cared a great deal about his students. However, Gray was an academic. As far as Harry knew, he'd never been in a duel, let alone a real fight.
In Harry's mind, the person teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts during this perilous time should at least have the knowledge to truly teach their students what it's like to fight the Dark Arts. In that regard, he agreed with Mad-Eye Moody, even the version that'd be played by Barty Crouch Jr. It was one thing to understand the Dark Arts.
It was another thing entirely to face them.
"Professor," Harry said politely, shaking the older man's hand.
"The Headmaster has asked me to escort you to his office."
"Lead the way," Harry said, although he probably could have walked the path from the Entrance Hall to the Headmaster's Office with his eyes closed.
As the pair of them marched up the stairs, Gray turned over his shoulder.
"I must say, it's an honor to meet you."
"It's really not," Harry replied. It was meant to be a joke, but apparently Gray was being far too serious to catch that.
"I'm serious. You're the only person alive who has survived the Killing Curse. You're the only person alive who's faced Voldemort and lived to tell the tale."
"Three times," Harry muttered.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
They'd made it almost to the Headmaster's Office when Gray spoke up again.
"I'm resigning at the end of the year."
"Really?" Harry said, confused as to why Gray would mention that. "Why is that?"
"I applied for the Headmaster's job and didn't get it," Gray admitted. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Hogwarts, much like the Ministry, has often cared more about who you know than what you know."
"Excuse me?" Harry said, stopping in his tracks.
"Well, when given the choice between myself, a noted expert in my field, and Fleur Delacour, a former Triwzard Tournament competitor, friend of Harry Potter, and expert of nothing, then it is the obvious choice to pick the one who could garner favor with The Boy Who Lived."
Gray's tone had somehow gone from conversational to mocking in only a few short seconds and it'd taken about that long for Harry to realize that he really didn't like Richard Gray.
"Mr. Gray, when was the last time you fought a Dark wizard?" Harry asked.
"Ah, yes, a crack about my lack of "field experience." How original," Gray scoffed. "This is a school, Potter, not a training ground for Aurors."
"Maybe so, but it would probably be nice if the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts could actually, you know, defend themselves against the Dark Arts."
"I'm a highly proficient wizard and I think-"
Harry never found out what he thought. With a quick flick of his wand, Harry Summoned Gray's wand. Before Gray even had a chance to realize that it was missing, it was in Harry's hand.
"Give that back!" Gray shouted.
"Do you know what I think?" Harry asked rhetorically. "I think that Professor Flitwick knows that I know how to get to the Headmaster's Office. I think that Flitwick trusts that I could get from the Entrance Hall to his office without an escort and I also think that, even if he thought that I did need an escort, he wouldn't be foolish enough to send someone who is clearly upset at me. So, Professor, let's try this again. Did the Headmaster ask you to escort me?"
"Give me back my wand," Gray growled, reaching for the wand. Harry pulled it out of reach, forcing Gray to attempt to push past him like a small school boy.
"No, he didn't," Harry replied. "Second question: which upsets you more? That you lost the job to a woman or a veela?"
"That has nothing to do with-"
"Don't lie," Harry spat at him. "Fleur Delacour qualified for the most prestigious magical competition in the world and survived, which is more than I can say for you. She's worked at both Beauxbatons and the French Ministry. She spent four years of her life with me, training me to be a better wizard. Yes, she's a woman. Yes, she's young and yes, she is beautiful. Every person that has ever worked with her has realized that those are the least remarkable things about her."
"'Arry?"
Harry looked up to see Fleur Delacour walking down the hall towards him.
"Professor Gray, Monsieur Potter has a meeting with the-"
"I know!" Gray barked at her. Immediately, Harry grabbed the collar of Gray's robes and pulled Gray towards him.
"Talk to her like that again and I'll show everyone in this school what it means to be proficient in Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Take your hands off me!" Gray yelled.
Harry noticed that there were some students milling about in the hallways, some of whom had noticed the three adults shouting in the middle of the hallway. Harry let Gray go and handed him back his wand.
"Hogwarts deserves better than you."
Gray looked like he wanted to punch Harry in the face, but the students surrounding them stopped him. Instead, he growled something to himself and walked away, causing the students surrounding them to snicker and whisper at him.
Harry could tell for as attractive as he was, he wasn't particularly popular amongst his students. After that particular display, he couldn't say that he blamed them.
"Sorry about that."
"Do not apologize," Fleur replied. "You 'ave done what every woman he 'as ever met 'as wanted to do."
"That's not true. He's still walking straight."
Fleur snorted in a rather undignified way before leading Harry towards Flitwick's office.
"Why didn't you tell me you got the job?" Harry asked.
"I thought zat you 'ad other zings to be worrying about."
"I wish you had told me," Harry replied. "I'm glad you got the job. First foreign-born Headmaster of Hogwarts!"
"Zis is true," Fleur said with a smile. "I know zat some of ze Governors were concerned about zat. Thankfully, Albus spoke up in my favor before he died."
"I'm sure he'd have been pleased to learn that you got the job."
"He knew," Fleur replied as they reached the gargoyle to Flitwick's office. "I found out ze day before he died."
"That's great. He liked you a lot."
"As did I," Fleur replied. "Now, you are meeting with ze Headmaster. He 'as asked me to join you."
"Really? Why?"
"In his mind, we are both ze Headmaster now. Anything that involves him involves me."
"Well, I'm not really asking about Hogwarts things. It's more of a Charms thing."
"Zat will be up to him to decide, I suppose."
Fleur gave a wave of her wand and the gargoyle immediately leapt aside. Apparently, Flitwick had decided to forgo spoken password in favor of some sort of wand movement. Fleur led Harry up the spiral staircase that led to the Headmaster's Office. The last time Harry had been there, Dumbledore had been the Headmaster. Books, trinkets, and little knick-knacks of a wide variety had lined the walls then.
Now, the books, knick-knacks, and trinkets were gone, replaced by photos. As Harry walked around the room, he recognized dozens of faces. He even saw himself in some of the photos. There must have been hundreds of them, all of them moving from one portrait to the next as if they were connected, like the painting at Hogwarts.
The other thing that Harry noticed was that the desk was missing as were the stairs. The Headmaster's Office had three levels that were typically separated by stairs. Now, ramps had been added.
"It's a bit different in here, isn't it, Harry?"
Harry turned around to see Filius Flitiwck on the top level of the office. He was seated in a wheelchair. Flitwick had always been a small man but the wheelchair meant that when he rolled his way down to Harry, he only came up to Harry's knees.
"Professor," Harry said with a smile.
"Miss Delacour, would you conjure him a chair?"
Fleur did as Harry asked, conjuring a chair that appeared in the center of the room.
"Sit, sit, sit!" Flitwick ordered excitedly. Harry, not wanting to be rude, took the seat. It was surprisingly comfortable.
"I bet you're wondering why I didn't conjure you a chair?" Flitwick asked as he rolled his chair to face Harry.
"Well, sir, I wasn't going to ask-"
"Didn't want to seem rude, eh?" Flitwick chortled. "Nonsense. It's part of why I am turning over the keys to the castle as it were. You see, I have some goblin blood in me. Does that surprise you?"
"Not really, sir," Harry said honestly.
Flitwick laughed.
"Albus always said that you were honest to a fault. I like it! No, it shouldn't surprise you. It would have been more surprising if I were this short and didn't have some goblin blood in me. Anyway, goblins and humans don't really mix well and every so often, you'll get someone who turns out like me. For the most part, it wasn't a big deal. I was still Dueling Champion in my day! Unfortunately, as I've gotten older, my magic has started to fail me. Now, I can't cast so much as a Cooling Charm."
"That is unfortunate," Harry replied.
"I always knew it was coming," Flitwick admitted. "It is something to know that the thing that defines you in life is just one day going to disappear. Still, I've had a good life. I'm not going to die anytime soon, but I can't very well protect an entire castle of students without any magic. Thankfully, we've got Miss Delacour here who will do a wonderful job in the future."
Fleur, in one of the rare moments of true humility that Harry had seen from her, blushed.
"Now, I hear you have questions for me."
"Yes, sir."
Harry spent the next thirty minutes explaining the nature of his work. Most importantly, he did explain to both Flitwick and Fleur why he was performing this research. Needless to say, neither of them seemed encouraged by the news that Voldemort was looking for a way to successfully travel back in time.
"I must say, Harry, when I heard you wanted a meeting with me, I wasn't expecting this."
"Trust me. I've been trying to tell as few people as possible. There's probably only a dozen people that know the basics and only a handful that know more than that."
"I understand," Flitwick replied gravely. "Whatever I can do to help, I'll do."
"You can tell me how Time-Turners work," Harry said. "Most of the research that the Department of Mysteries has performed on time is restricted, even to me. I've checked every other source that I can think of, including the Hogwarts Library, and there's nothing on how they're made or how they work."
"I imagine that's because casting an Hour-Reversal Charm is one of the more difficult pieces of magic that you can perform. Only the Unspeakables are trained to do that, so I have no information on exactly how to perform that spell. However, I do understand the concept of how they work."
"Alright. I'll take whatever information you can give me."
Flitwick smiled and then began speaking animatedly. It was clear that Flitwick loved teaching, even if it was a former student asking about Time-Turners.
"Well, you have to understand what exactly a Time-Turner is. It's more or less a wand."
"A wand?"
"Certainly," Fliwtick assured him. "When we use our magic without a wand, it can be wild, uncontrollable unless properly trained. However, it becomes much easier to do magic with a wand. The wand focuses our magic. The wand doesn't perform any magic of its own. Instead, it channels ours."
"A Time-Turner works in a very similar way. When it's made, it's made so that the only spell that can be cast using a Time-Turner is an Hour-Reversal Charm by turning the hourglass. But the magic to use the charm doesn't come from the Time-Turner, it comes-"
"From the person," Harry realized.
"Exactly. That's why there are limits to how far a person can go back in time. Everyone's magic has a limit. Anything further than four or five hours and you're stretching the limitations of a person's magic."
"What would happen if a person had more power than normal?" Harry asked.
"Well, we don't know exactly," Flitwick admitted. "But, if I had to guess, I would say that the more raw magical energy a person had, the further they could safely go back in time. It ultimately wouldn't matter much, though."
"Why not?"
"A Time-Turner casts an Hour-Reversal Charm. If you go back longer than four or five hours, you still have to relive that time. There's no way to quickly pop back in time, change what you want, and then jump back."
But there was. Harry knew from the experiments of Eloise Mintumble that they'd used some form of rift to travel back in time. The cogs in Harry's mind immediately started turning. There was something here. He knew it. Something that connected the Time-Turner to the information that he already had. Now, he just needed to make the connection.
"Thank you, Professor. I appreciate the information, but I really have to be going," Harry said, standing to leave.
"Of course, Harry. However, before we go, I do have a request of you."
"Anything."
Flitiwck smiled knowingly.
"I would like you to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor next school year."
Immediately, the cogs in Harry's mind came to a screeching halt.
"What?"
"I know that I am done at the end of June. However, until then, I am technically still empowered to make staffing decisions. Professor Gray has already submitted his letter of resignation after he failed to procure the Headmaster's job."
"Yeah, I met him in the hallway."
"Oh, did you?" Flitwick grinned. "Pleasant man, isn't he?"
"Not necessarily the words that I'd use."
"Too true. In either case, I would like my final hire as Headmaster to be you."
Harry was stunned. He had come to Hogwarts to get some information. Now, he was walking away with a job offer.
"That's...I...I don't know what to say," Harry admitted. "This is not at all what I was expecting."
"I'm sure it wasn't," Flitwick replied. "And yet, I'd very much like you to accept. You are as knowledgeable in the field as any person that I could hire. You showed a proclivity for teaching and accepting instruction at a young age. You are a natural leader. There is no one better suited for this position than you."
"But I just accepted a job at the Ministry."
"I do admit that makes things a bit more difficult," Flitwick replied. "I was intending to ask you at the end of the school year, but the news of your hiring required me to accelerate my time table a bit. Once I was certain that Professor Gray was leaving, I intended to reach out. However, much to my surprise, you beat me to the punch, so to speak."
"It was my intention to ask you as well," Fleur added. "I was quite 'appy when Filius told me zat he wished to ask you."
"But how can you offer me the job?" Harry asked. "I never even applied for it."
"You don't need to apply if you have the endorsement of a former Headmaster."
"But how can you endorse me if you're the one hiring me?"
"Who said it was me?" Flitwick said as he motioned to Fleur. Fleur nodded and then walked to the other side of the room where she pulled a small roll of parchment off the shelf. She handed the parchment to Harry. His hands were shaking as he opened it. He knew what to expect, but that still didn't prepare him for the loopy cursive script that he saw on the page.
My old friend,
I know that my time is drawing to an end. I can feel it in my bones. In these last days of my life, I often find myself reflecting on the very beginnings of my journey. I remember our first day teaching at Hogwarts like it was yesterday. What a sight we made: Albus Dumbledore and Filius Flitwick, the two newest professors at Hogwarts.
I spent most of my adult life teaching at that school. My time there, regardless of whatever else I did or will do, will be my legacy. To that end, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the fate of one of my former students.
Harry was always more than just a student. I dedicated my life to protecting him. I failed in that regard a great many times. I failed to protect his parents. I failed to protect his godfather. For a time, Harry's anger over these failures reached such a tipping point that I feared that we would never speak cordially again. No one would have blamed him if that were the case. I had failed him a great number of times and my successes were largely inconsequential when compared to the defeats that I had laid at his feet.
But Harry is a better and wiser man than I will ever be. In the end, I'd like to think that he saw me for what I was: a man trying to make the world a better place. He forgave me for my failures, even if he never forgot them. He trusted me with his instruction, the instruction that will ultimately lead to Voldemort's defeat.
I do not say it lightly when I say that I believe Harry is my greatest student. He might not be my most powerful student, that would likely be Tom Riddle. Nor would he be my most intelligent. Names like Hermione Granger, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, and Lily Evans come to mind. But Harry has a natural gift, an ability to learn and adapt that no other student of mine possessed to such a degreel.
I firmly believe that Harry will defeat Voldemort because of this. Harry knows this already as I have told him on a number of occasions. Because of my faith in him, I have started to think about what he might do with his life after Voldemort. He will be given the world on a platter with the choice to do whatever he wishes.
And that is what I want for him. I want him to do what he wishes, free of the burden of others, for the first time in his life. That being said, Filius, if you get the opportunity before your time at Hogwarts is over, I offer you this one recommendation: hire Harry Potter. He would make a great Auror. He could play Quidditch professionally if he chooses. If Harry said the word, he would be Minister of Magic, even if I believe that this is the last thing that Harry wants in this world.
But above everything else, Harry is a teacher. He understands people. He understands how they learn and he supports them as best as he can until they have performed. If you hire him, you will find that there is no one more dedicated to the success of others and to the success of Hogwarts than Harry.
I am not certain whether this will be my last letter to you, but if it is, I wish you well. It has been one of the great honors of my life getting to teach beside the greatest Charms professor our school has known. Beyond that, it has been an honor to know you, my old friend.
With love,
AD
To Harry:
If you are reading this, then I am certain that you are likely sitting in my old office, having been confronted by Filius with an opportunity. If you would forgive an old man for one more piece of advice: take the job. I have no doubt that you will find that teaching at Hogwarts will be a most rewarding experience.
Harry considered the letter for a moment before he rolled it up and handed it back to Fleur.
"That old bastard," Harry muttered to himself as he rubbed the tears from his eyes.
"Yes, Albus did seem to have a sense for these kinds of things," Flitwick admitted. "But, as you can see, he was rather adamant that you take the job."
"Yes, he was," Harry said. Dumbledore had known him well, there was no doubt in that. Initially, Harry had been inclined to turn the job down. But after a little bit of thought and some encouragement from his mentor, he was leaning towards taking it.
"Can I think about it? I'd like to talk it over with-"
"Miss Granger, I assume," Flitwick said. "Of course, you can have until the end of the week."
"That's a little quick, don't you think?"
"I find that if you let these things linger, you're more likely to overthink it," Flitwick explained. "Let me know by Friday and we'll talk about what happens next."
"You seem rather confident that I'll take the job."
"My dear boy, you just got a letter of recommendation from Albus Dumbledore. Are you really going to turn that down?"
Harry couldn't help but laugh. At fifteen, that would have been the biggest reason not to do something in Harry's life, outside of maybe a personal recommendation from Voldemort himself. Now, Flitwick had a point. Dumbledore had clearly given a lot of thought to this.
At the very least, Harry owed Dumbledore a few days to think it over.
Before that, Harry wanted to crack the mystery of Voldemort's time travel. The magical energy component of Time-Turners was certainly related to Voldemort's attempts to go back in time. Harry just wasn't initially certain how everything tied together.
For the better part of three days, Harry worked on this. He ignored his work at the Ministry entirely, slept at Potter Manor when he had to, and spent hours without eating or drinking at all until finally, at just before midnight on Thursday evening, Harry had a breakthrough.
Immediately, he sent letters to Ron and Hermione, asking them to come to Potter Manor as soon as they could. While they were both clearly tired, they arrived, although Harry could tell that they both were looking at him far more than he was looking at them. He hadn't showered in three days, he hadn't slept for more than two hours in a row, and he had spent most of the last few hours preparing madly for this presentation.
Still, after weeks of research, Harry had cracked the code. Now, he just needed to convince Ron and Hermione. He sat them down on a pair of chairs that faced a large cork board that had dozens of pictures and articles strewn across it. If any sane person had looked at it, they would have found no pattern, but Harry, who had spent months going over it, piece by piece, knew the pattern.
That's what he would walk Ron and Hermione through.
"At first, we weren't exactly sure what Voldemort was doing, but then Vjosa showed up and told us about Time-Proximity Relevance Theory. In short, the further you go back in time, the more elastic it gets. It's only a theory because no one has been able to go far enough back in time to prove it. Successfully, anyway. We know Eloise Mintumble went back but that was a right mess."
"Anyway, we know that Voldemort wants to go back in time, but we aren't sure how. As far as we know, there's no way to make it work, although we know that Mintumble went back using some sort of rift, basically a hole in time. But it wasn't stable. So, Voldemort has two problems. One: he needs to figure out how to create a method that will allow him to go back in time far enough that he can make changes. Two: he needs more power to do it."
"For weeks, we assumed that whatever Voldemort was planning, it was all one big thing. Whether it was a ritual or a device, it was all one thing. But then, I talked to Flitwick a couple of days ago. He offered me the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, by the way."
"He what?" Hermione interjected.
"Not important!" Harry shouted, knowing that if he stopped, he'd lose his train of thought. "In any case, he said the largest problem with Time-Turners is that they draw magic from the person. That's why they only go back so far. A person only has a limited amount of magic after all. But what if we were looking at this wrong? What if it wasn't one ritual, but two?"
"Look at this: the Egyptians used the Pyramids to channel the magic. We know that these shatterpoints exist all over the world, places where there is just more magical energy. We also know that there were cultures using the sun to generate magical energy. What do all of these things have in common? Energy. We thought that he was looking for alternatives, but it's not that at all. He needs multiple forms of energy because he's not just trying to go back in time."
"All this time, I've been operating under the assumption that he was going to go back and then stay back. Go back in time, kill me as a baby or something like that, and then live in that world. Maybe he'd survive, maybe he wouldn't, but the original version of him would survive. It's the only kind of sacrifice he'd ever be willing to make: one for himself."
"But what's an even better outcome for him? That he goes, makes his changes, and then comes back. What if he could figure out a way to send himself back in time, but also a way to generate enough energy to ensure that he could make a return trip?"
"You think that he's going to create a rift like Eloise Mintumble did," Ron stated.
"I do," Harry said. "But we know now that the issue with that rift was that it didn't have enough energy, but what if he were using a device that generated more magical energy while standing on a shatterpoint while drawing additional energy from the sun?"
"Would that be enough energy to sustain the rift?" Ron asked.
"The only person that could know the answer to that would be Riddle himself," Hermione replied. "But if there's anyone that could figure it out, it would be him. I've spent weeks looking at all of this. I thought that I was just trying to narrow down which resource he was going to use. I was wrong. He's going to use all of them. He's going to go through a rift in time, make his changes, and then he's going to come back. And if the changes aren't to his liking-"
"Then he can go back and do it over again," Ron realized.
"Over and over and over again until he gets the world exactly how he likes it."
"At that point, the changes that he makes might be the least of our concerns," Hermione said. "We have no idea how the fabric of our very reality will react to that kind of manipulation. As far as we know, no one has ever done it before. Even the changes that Mintumble made were likely small and she affected the very nature of time itself. If he goes back and makes major changes-"
"He could destroy everything," Harry said. "That is the worst case scenario, yes."
Ron and Hermione sat in awe, staring at the board in front of them. They looked how Harry felt: exhausted and frightened.
"Listen, I know that all of this sounds insane, but-"
"It's you," Ron said.
"What?"
"Mate, if there's anything that I've learned about you and Hermione, it's that when either one of you start spouting stuff that would sound mad coming out of anyone else's mouth, it's time to take things seriously."
"I agree," Hermione replied. "This fits and not in a "I want it to fit" kind of way. Now, where and when could he do this? If you're right, then the options are much narrower."
"I'm not exactly certain yet. Weeks ago, I started cross-referencing shatterpoints with structures that could channel magical energy. It's not a long list."
"Then we start there in the morning."
"In the morning?" Harry asked. "We're here. Let's start now."
"No, we're going home now," Hermione said firmly. "You look like shit and I can smell you from here. You're going to go home. You're going to call off work tomorrow and sleep until your body wakes you up. You're going to take an entire day away from this so that you can come back to it with fresh eyes."
"Hermione, I'm fine, really. I can-"
"I'm not asking, Harry," Hermione said firmly. "We need you at your best and right now, you are far from it. I am amazed that you're still standing, let alone able to process all this. But that doesn't change the fact that you need rest, a shower, and something to eat."
"Listen to her, mate. She's smarter than we are."
Harry knew that she was right, but he also knew that they were finally on the right track. They were close to figuring out Voldemort's plan. If they could determine exactly where he would open the rift, then they could stop him before he ever had a chance to open it.
But that didn't change the fact that she was right.
"Fine."
"Did you say that Flitwick offered you a job?" Ron asked suddenly.
"He did. The current Defense professor resigned because Fleur got the Headmaster's job."
"She did?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, she did. I guess they haven't made that public yet, because she hadn't told me either," Harry said. "In either case, the other guy resigned and Flitwick wants me to replace him."
"What did you say?" Hermione asked.
"I told him that I would think about it."
"You shouldn't," Hermione replied.
"Really? Why not?" Harry asked. "I mean, I think it would be fun and I liked teaching the DA."
Hermione smiled. "No, you misunderstood. You shouldn't have thought about it; you should have taken the job on the spot."
"Agreed," Ron said with a nod. "You had no idea what you were doing and you were a really good teacher for the DA. Imagine what you could teach those kids now."
"Plus, Hogwarts has always been home to you. It feels right that you would go back."
"But I just took a job at the Ministry," Harry protested halfheartedly.
"So?" Hermione scoffed. "We both know that you took the job because you felt like you had to. Penelope will find someone else. Hell, she might just hire Padma. She's basically doing your job right now anyway."
"Ouch."
"Don't worry about what everyone else will think," Hermione told him. "You would be great at it and you know it. For once in your life, do something for yourself."
Harry nodded. "I'll think about it."
"Plus, you know that I've had professor fantasies," Hermione added.
"Gross," Ron replied, although Harry could see him fighting back the urge to smile. "You two are gross."
"Making up for lost time," Hermione shrugged.
Harry did as Hermione asked. They went home where he took a long shower, slept until noon the next day, and then finally ate breakfast. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he sent a letter to Professor Flitwick.
Professor,
I'm in.
Harry J. Potter