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August 31, 2002
Almost eleven years to the day after he first laid eyes on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizard, Harry Potter walked through its doors again. This time, however, Harry was a teacher, a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Fleur Delacour, Headmistress of Hogwarts and his boss, stood in the center of the Entrance Hall, a smile on her face.
"Welcome 'ome, 'Arry," Fleur said with a smile.
Harry still couldn't believe that this day had actually come. So much had changed in the last few months. News of Voldemort's death had traveled quickly. Less than an hour after Harry came back through the rift, the streets of New Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley were full of people celebrating the fall of The Dark Lord. Despite his general desire to avoid large crowds of people, Ron and Hermione had encouraged Harry to go to Diagon Alley.
Personally, Harry had wanted nothing more than to go home, but he had agreed to go for a bit. Six hours later, the trio were still celebrating in Diagon Alley. It seemed that once Harry had shown up there, it had become the official celebration. Every person that Harry had ever met seemed to be there, all of them somehow packed into an area no bigger than a city block. In the end, the party in Diagon Alley ended up lasting almost a whole day, although Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally returned to Potter Manor to sleep after nearly seven hours of well wishes, handshakes, and congratulations.
The days that followed were a blur of official Ministry parties, interviews, and public appearances. Normally, Harry would have turned them down out of hand, but Ron pointed out that the people needed to hear from Harry that Voldemort was really gone. While everyone was excited about the prospect of a world without Tom Riddle, there was also a general sense of unease. They'd thought they'd been free of Voldemort once before.
They needed to know that this was not going to be like last time.
So, Harry put up with the attention, the interviews, and the questions.
For about four days.
Then, Harry returned to Potter Manor and locked himself away for a weekend to help restore some sense of normalcy. Thankfully, he had Ron and Hermione by his side the entire time. Harry was glad that both of them seemed to sense that he needed their presence. He hadn't talked much about his experience, about what killing Voldemort and seeing his parents had been like, but he knew that when he was ready, the two of them would be there for him.
Some things never changed.
However, some things did and that included the Ministry actually forcing people to be accountable. Starting in the month of June, the Ministry convicted more than two dozen Death Eaters to lengthy prison sentences. While a number of them tried to use the Imperius defense again, the death of Voldemort had made people more willing to talk. Once the first informant came forward, a veritable flood of information washed over the Ministry, effectively reducing the number of people that could actually claim the Imperius defense to less than a handful. The rest were sentenced to a minimum of sixty years in Azkaban, regardless of their age.
This included former Auror Daphne Greengrass. Due to testimony given by Harry, Ron, Hermione, and a very upset Draco Malfoy, Greengrass received one of the heaviest sentences, a total of two hundred years on a number of offenses. Harry had to admit that he did cheer when her sentence was announced.
However, this run of trials also included Harry's ex-girlfriend. While Parvati was clearly guilty of a number of crimes, Harry had kept his promise to her and ensured that she received a lighter penalty than the Death Eaters. In the end, she ended up with a twelve-year sentence that could be reduced to eight if the Ministry deemed it prudent. In their sentence, the Wizengamot outright admitted that they had failed people like Parvati Patil over the years and while that didn't excuse Parvati's actions, they did consider it when sentencing her.
The day before she was set to go to Azkaban, Harry visited her at the Ministry again. Parvati begged Harry to tell her about everything that was going on. Harry initially pushed back, but she insisted, so Harry did as she asked. Eventually, Harry even told her about his new job at Hogwarts.
"That all sounds great," Parvati said, the regret evident on her face. "I wish I could have been there for it."
"So do I," Harry replied.
"If I'd listened to you sooner-"
"Don't think like that," Harry scolded her. "You were dealing with one of the most horrible things that can happen to a person. Should you have done what you did? No. But at some point, the people around you should have seen what was happening. We didn't. While this is your crime, Parvati, we all share a little bit of the blame."
"But you told me that this is where I was headed," Parvati pointed out. "You knew."
"Only because I'd been in a similar place," Harry said. "I had done exactly what you were trying to do. I wanted to kill Bellatrix so badly for what she did to Sirius."
"But you killed her and didn't go nuts afterwards."
"Well, I had people around me that never would have let me do that," Harry replied. "I am, after all, Harry Potter. I was important."
"Ouch."
"You know what I mean," Harry replied. "I was essential; people needed me to survive. They needed me to move past my grief so that I could lead. I got everyone's attention. Meanwhile, you and dozens of others like you were left to grieve on your own. There are probably hundreds of people suffering from what this war did to them and their families."
"Use me as an example," Parvati insisted. "Show them what no to do."
"We will," Harry assured her. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Ron point at his wrist. Technically, since Harry wasn't family, he shouldn't have been there at all. It was only thanks to Ron that Harry had gotten in to see Parvati at all.
"I have to go," Harry said. "I'll come visit you."
"Don't," Parvati replied. "I'm going to get out of there and I don't want your memories of me to be associated with that."
"You think that will stop me from coming?" Harry asked.
"No," Parvati said with a roll of her eyes. "Just...keep a date open for me when I get out."
"I'll see you before then," Harry promised her.
"I know," Parvati smiled. "But hopefully, in somewhere between eight to twelve years, we can have dinner on the outside again."
"I'm looking forward to it," Harry said. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to let her know that even though she was about to go to prison for the better part of the next decade, he wasn't about to let her suffer through that time alone. Unfortunately, there wasn't much else that Harry could do about any of that.
Just as Harry turned to leave, Parvati reached through the bars of her cell and grabbed Harry's arm. Immediately, the two Hit Wizards that had accompanied Harry stepped forward. Harry motioned for the two of them to back off, but then backed away from Parvati.
"What?" Harry asked once he was certain that the Hit Wizards weren't about to attack her.
"Promise me something."
"Sure."
"Make things work with Hermione."
Harry smiled. People had asked a lot of him over the last couple of months, but that was a request that he could easily accept.
"Absolutely," Harry said, "and thank you."
"Thank you? For what?" Parvati asked.
"You told me that I would realize that you were right about me and Hermione one day."
A look of realization crossed Parvati's face.
"And on that day, I'd expect a thank you," Parvati chuckled. "You're welcome, Harry."
Harry spent much of the summer working with the Ministry to create programs for those that had been affected by the war. Some people needed money, some needed a job, other people just needed someone to talk to. With Harry's loud and passionate support, the Wizengamot authorized thousands of Galleons worth of programs including a pilot program to send two people to a Muggle university in order to learn more about how the Muggle world handled things after such a prolonged period of trauma.
That was the first in a series of tacit admissions that maybe, just maybe, there were things that the Muggles understood better than magical people did. While Ogden would never say that publicly during his time as Minister of Magic, his actions and the programs that he supported suggested that he might not have been quite as traditional as Harry would have expected.
On Harry's twenty-second birthday, he announced the creation of the Restore Godric's Hollow campaign. Backed by the Weasley twins, it was a Ministry-supported effort to restore the town into the magical haven it had once been. The first house to get repairs was the Potter home which the Ministry had graciously returned to Harry after taking ownership upon his parents' death. Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent the better part of that summer fixing the house, restoring it to the way it had been before Voldemort had destroyed it (certain aesthetic choices were updated to account for the fact that it was no longer the eighties). Harry and Hermione even officially and publicly moved into the house on that July 31st as part of the Restore Godric's Hollow kick-off event.
While they'd been restoring the house, Harry had taken a break one day to explore the ruins of the town. It was still so strange for Harry to be in Godric's Hollow. He'd been in the town after all, although the version of it from October 31, 1981. Now, to see that same town practically razed to the ground was such a truly disturbing experience.
On his walk, Harry had been wandering by the ruins of the church when he noticed a small graveyard. Out of curiosity more than anything else, Harry had entered the graveyard, examining each of the stones. Some of them were more than five hundred years old and several even bore the Gryffindor name, although none of them were the House's founder.
And that's when Harry found them. As he approached their gravestones, he knew that their corpses weren't there anymore. He knew that their corpses weren't anywhere, having been blown to pieces by Harry during The Battle of Godric's Hollow. But this was where James and Lily Potter had been laid to rest.
James Potter
March 27, 1960 - October 31, 1981
Lily Potter
January 30, 1960 - October 31, 1981
"To live free is to live without fear."
They'd been so young. They had been younger than Harry was now. And now, more than ever before, Harry knew just what kind of people they were. For years, Harry had heard just how selfless his mother had been, how brave his father was. Lupin had talked about them like they were paragons of virtue and strength, the kind of people that everyone should want to aspire to be. Harry had thought that was just people mythologizing the dead.
Then, he'd met them and he understood. They'd been given the choice to save their own lives. Harry had told them that if they returned home, they would die that night.
And they chose death. They lived their life without fear of the unknown. Each of them, when given the choice between saving themselves or ensuring that their son lived and Voldemort died, chose death.
"I'm going to make this place look like it did that night," Harry promised them. "This town is going to live again."
It certainly would. Within a year, more than two hundred people, most of them the same people that the Ministry was supporting, had moved to Godric's Hollow and established permanent residence, making it the largest magical community in the country.
The church, a relic from when Muggles and magical people had lived side-by-side, had been converted to a community center, a place for everyone in Godric's Hollow to come together.
As such, it felt only right that it be named after his parents: The Lily and James Potter Memorial Community Center.
"I hope you're proud," Harry whispered. "I know that I haven't always been good. I know that there were times that I've disappointed you. But I hope that over the years, the good has outweighed the bad. More than anything, I hope that, wherever you are, you're at peace. Know that the choice that you made, it saved everyone."
While Harry was preparing to return to Hogwarts, Hermione was patiently waiting for her next employment opportunity. Much like Harry, Hermione had dedicated almost every hour of every day of her life for the last decade to defeating Voldemort. While Harry was looking forward to teaching, Hermione wasn't certain what her future held. For the time being, she enjoyed spending time with her parents, visiting cousins that she hadn't seen in years, and just generally enjoying the idea of being free to do whatever she wanted, something that hadn't been true from the very moment she stepped into the magical world.
Harry was happy for her. Now, instead of rushing into something, she could take the time to really look for work that would make her happy, something that would give her the sense of fulfillment that she was looking for. He knew that when she decided to take another job, it would be the right one for her.
While she waited, Harry stood in the Entrance Hall, looking at the castle with new eyes. He was finally here. He'd waited for this day for months. Harry Potter could finally say that he was a Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Hi," Harry finally said, setting his bags down to shake Fleur's hand. "What happens now?"
"First, I will take you to see your classroom," Fleur explained. "Zis evening, zere will be a meeting of ze staff where you will be introduced with ze rest of ze new staff. From zere, you will have free reign of ze castle until tomorrow evening when ze students arrive."
"Sounds great," Harry said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. Fleur smiled and then waved her wand at Harry's bags which immediately disappeared.
"Your bags will be in your quarters zis evening," Fleur said. "Now, if you will follow me?"
Harry did as she asked and followed her towards the stairs. However, much to Harry's surprise, Fleur elected to bypass the stairs and instead walked along a corridor to their left. During his six years at Hogwarts, Defense Against the Dark Arts had always been held in a classroom on the third floor of the castle. Fleur was relatively new to Hogwarts. Maybe she was lost? Harry doubted that she would mistake the third floor for the first, but then, stranger things had happened.
It wasn't until they were just outside of his classroom that Harry realized exactly where they were going. As Harry walked into the classroom, he could just imagine Professor McGonagall wandering around the room, offering pointers to her students as they tried to turn matchsticks into needles.
"Zis was Filius's final request as Headmaster," Fleur explained. "According to 'im, after ze Professor's death, zis room was left unoccupied and ze new Transfiguration professor took a room on ze second floor."
"Why me?" Harry asked as he wandered the room, running his fingers along the desk as he passed them.
"You were one of her favorites," Fleur replied. "Ze last two professors to use zis room were Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall. Filius believed, much like everyone else, zat you are ze natural successor to their legacy. As such, you will also be named Head of Gryffindor House."
Harry's ears rang. Did she say Head of Gryffindor? Harry turned back to Fleur, who stood by the door, smiling.
"Neville Longbottom is not yet a full professor," Fleur explained. "Since ze only other Gryffindor on ze staff is also new, it only made sense that you should be given that role."
"Who is the other Gryffindor?" Harry asked.
"You'll find out zis evening," Fleur replied. "I assume zat you will accept zis role?"
"Yes! Of course! Thank you," Harry said, almost unable to believe what was happening. If you had told Harry even six months ago that he was going to be a Professor at Hogwarts and the Head of Gryffindor, he would have thought that you'd lost your mind.
"Don't thank me," Fleur replied. "You are a great leader and your students will learn a great number of things. Hell, you will almost certainly take my job eventually, so consider this the first step towards your career goals."
"I have absolutely no interest in being Headmaster."
"Zis is today. You might zink differently in ten or twenty years," Fleur said as she looked down at her watch. "For today, I 'ave one more question."
"Of course."
"Would you be willing to teach some Flying lessons?" Fleur asked bashfully. "Madame 'Ooch, if zat was her name, retired a few years ago and Filius could never find someone to replace her. I zink zat you would be well suited to ze job."
Harry laughed. If he was most suited to teaching Defense, then flying was probably the only other thing that he actually was qualified to teach. That made it very easy to say yes.
"Good, I am glad," Fleur said. "Now, we go to your quarters."
Harry's "quarters" was a small apartment hidden behind a landscape on the first floor only a few meters from his classroom. Harry himself was the only person who would know the password once he had set it. Unlike most professors, Harry did not intend to stay at Hogwarts every night. He still had a great deal of work to do with the Restore Godric's Hollow campaign and he had a new girlfriend to visit. However, there would be nights, whether it was because of patrols or grading papers, that staying in the castle would be a necessity and in those instances, these few rooms of privacy would be invaluable.
That night, the staff at Hogwarts met for the first time over dinner. Before they ate, Fleur introduced Harry and the new Muggles Studies professor, his old classmate, Dean Thomas, to the rest of the staff. She also announced that Neville would be taking over teaching duties for the first and second year students, making him an Associate Professor rather than an apprentice. With two of his former classmates also on staff, Harry couldn't help but feel comfortable.
All throughout dinner, Harry listened to Neville talk with Xavier Mitchell, the Transfiguration Professor and Head of Slytherin House. Xavier had been in Charlie Weasley's class and had even played against him several times in Quidditch, although Xavier was a beater rather than a Chaser. Harry noted that Xavier reminded him of Daphne or, at least, the version of Daphne that she had projected over the years. He was quiet and spent more time listening to Neville than talking, but Harry found that when he did speak, he often had quite a lot to say.
Harry returned to his quarters that night, although he barely slept. The next day, Harry spent several hours in his office, doing his best to get organized for his first day of class. As the day turned to night, a bell sounded from somewhere in the castle.
The Hogwarts Express had pulled into Hogsmeade Station.
Harry packed up his office for the evening before he raced to the Astronomy Tower and climbed the stairs. From the top of the tower, Harry could see every inch of the Hogwarts grounds. In the distance, Harry could just see the carriages begin to pull away from the train station.
But it was the lake that caught Harry's attention. The night sky was clear and the air was still, which meant that the stars that dotted the sky were each perfectly reflected on the Black Lake below. Joining those stars were dozens of other lights, each of them flickering in and out as they slowly crossed the lake.
A chill went down Harry's spine. He still remembered the first time he'd ever laid eyes on Hogwarts, its windows sparkling, the towers dominating its silhouette against the sky above it. Of course, the tallest tower was The Astronomy Tower where Harry now stood.
As the lights of the boats disappeared underneath the shadow of the castle, Harry made his way back down the stairs to the Great Hall where the second through seventh year students were already seated. Of course, every eye in the room quickly found him as he walked down the center aisle and found a place at the Head Table between Dean and Neville.
Only a few moments later, the massive doors at the far end of the hall opened to reveal Professor Sprout escorting a pack of nervous-looking eleven-year-olds. Just as Harry had done, they all gathered around the stool where Professor Delacour placed The Sorting Hat. Per tradition, The Sorting Hat sang its Sorting Song, although Harry noted that this version was far more chipper than the last few that Harry had heard.
Then, slowly but surely, each new student took their place on the stool and placed the Hat on their head. For the most part, each student was sorted quickly with one exception. One of the last students Sorted was Royal Shacklebolt, the young daughter of former Head Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt. For four minutes and fifty-seven seconds, Royal sat in silence while the Hat deliberated. Moments before she would officially qualify as a Hatstall, The Sorting Hat proudly cried "SLYTHERIN!" and sent Royal on her way.
Harry's memories of that night were a blur, a mix of the memories from his own first year combined with those of his second first year. While Fleur didn't quite have the same flair for the dramatic as Dumbledore (there was no Nitwit, Oddment, or Tweak nor were there threats about anyone dying a painful death), she managed to introduce the new staff and policies without incident before the students dug in. Maybe it was because she always seemed so graceful, but Harry struggled to remember that this was her first time doing this as well.
After a second night of poor sleep, Harry woke early, made his way to The Great Hall for breakfast, and then returned to his classroom. Only a few moments after he arrived, students began to trickle in for his first class. They were first year students, members of Gryffindor and Slytherin Houses in a joint Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Harry noted that the state of their society must have been improving if they thought that putting Gryffindors and Slytherin in the same room and then asked them to aim their wands at each other wasn't an exceedingly terrible idea.
Harry watched his students as they came in. He'd already spotted Hermione's successor. She was a small Indian girl, almost a perfect mix of Hermione and Parvati, her Slytherin robes clearly a size too big for her, and glasses that covered nearly half of her face. However, she immediately found a seat in the front row, took out all of her books and a pen, and then sat and stared at Harry, clearly waiting for instructions. Harry doubted that she was a Muggleborn considering the House that she was in, but he had little doubt that she was going to try as hard as she could.
Harry imagined that elsewhere in the castle, the other professors were asking their students to quiet down. That wasn't the case with Harry. Even before the bell rang to indicate the start of class, his students were silent, each of them staring, waiting for Harry to do something.
Of course, just as he started to speak, two young Gryffindor boys came barging through the doors, out of breath.
"Sorry, professor, sir. We got lost!" the first one squeaked out.
"Please don't take points from us!" said the other.
"What are your names?" Harry asked sternly, doing his best to keep himself from smiling.
"Issac. Issac Ogden," said the first.
"Paul Thorne," the other said nervously.
"Well, Issac, Paul, I imagine that if you had any other professor, they might consider taking points from you on your first day," Harry said before finally breaking. "However, I myself was late the first time that I came to this classroom on my first day. So, if you can promise me that you'll be at your desks on time from now on, I think we can move on."
"Right!" Paul said as he sprinted towards the back of the room to find a seat, Issac hot on his heels. With that distraction taken care of, Harry turned to the rest of the class, all of whom sat in complete and total silence.
"Good morning."
Silence.
"You're allowed to speak," Harry said warmly. "Good morning."
"Good morning!" the class responded a bit too enthusiastically.
"Welcome to your first class at Hogwarts. My name is Harry Potter and I teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. Who here can tell me what that means?"
To no one's surprise, the girl in the front raised her hand immediately.
"What's your name?" Harry asked as he called on her.
"Ishika Patel," she said nervously.
"Ishika, what does Defense Against the Dark Arts mean?"
"It means that you are going to teach us to protect ourselves from evil things."
Harry smiled. "That's quite right. Ten Points to Slytherin. Now, we could spend a lot of time reading lessons out of your book, but I know that you all came here to learn to do magic, right?"
The class looked at Harry with hungry eyes. Clearly, this was what they wanted more than anything.
He understood the feeling.
"I thought so," Harry said. "Today, we're going to learn how to send up green and red sparks. Now, the rest of the week will be a little bit more serious, but today, you get to use your wands."
Harry liked teaching seventh years. He liked that they were practically adults and didn't need to be dragged through every piece of the material. He liked that they learned difficult and complex magic that challenged Harry just as much as it challenged them.
Harry would end up teaching at Hogwarts for over fifty years before Harry would finally give up his classroom for the Headmaster's Office. In that time, he taught hundreds of students and thousands of lessons.
But every year, his favorite lesson was always the same. Every year, on the first day that his first year students wandered into his classroom (which would also remain the same for over fifty years), he taught them how to send up sparks. For some of these children, they'd watched their older siblings or their parents cast magic with ease for years. For others, they'd only learned about the magical world recently. Maybe there was a small part of them that still didn't believe that it was real. That magic was real.
It didn't matter the circumstances. No matter how accustomed to magic a child was, the first time they ever used their wand to intentionally cast magic was one of the happiest moments in their lives, the kind of memory that could be used to fuel a Patronus. After ten years of being a citizen of the magical world, Harry had worried that the magic of magic had worn off for him. He feared that it had just become a part of his life, like paying bills or doing the laundry, even if magic did make those things easier.
But as long as Harry taught at Hogwarts, he never had to worry about that because each year, those students showed him what it was likely to truly experience magic for the first time. While Harry would never again get to cast green sparks for the first time, he could live vicariously through their shared experience.
Harry had always wondered what he would do after Voldemort, if that time ever came to pass. He'd thought about being an Auror or playing Quidditch and he knew that he would have been happy doing either of those things. But the joy that he felt teaching was something else entirely. It was his legacy, a way of passing all of the knowledge that he had learned to destroy Voldemort down to the next generation as a way not to kill but to protect.
At night, Harry would go home and regale Hermione with stories of his students. Then, together, they'd go to bed. Hermione would always fall asleep first, her head on Harry's shoulder. As Harry laid there and stared at the ceiling, his hands running through her hair, Harry felt at peace. Harry felt calm.
After all these years, after everything that he'd lost, he was home.