Chapter Text
From where most people sit, the story of Harry Potter, at least these days, is not so bad.
Look at him: sitting on his sofa in a permanently dim study which no amount of magic can seem to brighten (though he’s working on it). He’s in socked feet, one leg stretched across the cushions, other foot planted on the floor. He’s turning the pages of a book. No, not a book. It’s a tome, its heft held aloft by a handy charm, Harry’s Lumos lighting each line on the page as he goes.
It’s a far cry from risking his life in a full-on wizarding war, or from doing so as an Auror, which he’d done for eight years before he’d gone on what he’d termed ‘my sabbatical’ and which was really more of a self-sacking. He’d given up an eighty-nine per cent solve rate and quit the Aurors only a few days shy of his twenty-eighth birthday.
Harry’s ‘sabbatical’ consists mostly of renovating Grimmauld Place. Not so he can live there comfortably. He has no intentions of living there longterm; though, if asked, he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone where he saw himself living instead. Grimmauld is like the Auror department: something he was supposed to have done, a destination already offered to him on a dingy platter, next to prawn cocktail that’s been sitting out too long to still be appetising (or safe). Both things, his house and his work, clinging to the darkness with which he’s no longer willing to grapple.
The house, though, was given to him with love. It’s not the fault of house or benefactor that his memories of this place haunt him and remind him of what and who he lost, who he was unable to save. He doesn’t want to abandon this creaky, dank thing of hate-turned-love. He wants it to live on, memoryless, for a new generation. He wants it to have the potential of a family, someone’s family.
Figured quickly on Harry’s Muggle calculator, he’s helped approximately twelve hundred and forty-eight people during the course of his tenure with the Aurors, the average being, he guesses, three people per week. It’s likely a modest guess. But over twelve hundred people is worthy of a sabbatical, he hopes.
He’s spent approximately five thousand Galleons repairing his cantankerous home. Probably one thousand of that alone was on Doxy rehoming. (Luna and Hermione ganged up on him when he used the word ‘extermination’ in conjunction with his plans, so now his Doxies have been relocated to, Merlin, who knows, a Jamaican island? A villa in the south of bloody France? They no doubt have it better than he does.) And that’s fine. Harry doesn’t need much to be happy.
He just needs… something else.
Harry took to reading perhaps a couple years into his career as an Auror. It started as a way to pass time when he wasn’t on an active case. He tried mysteries and thrillers (but those were too much like his job, and he always solved them only a quarter of the way in, to Ron’s absolute consternation; not that Ron himself couldn’t solve them and probably quicker, but, as Ron noted, ‘You’ve gone and ruined it for me, mate. I can’t read that one now.’ And thrillers were all Ron Weasley liked to read).
So Harry switched to literature, magical and then Muggle (much to Hermione’s delight, being that she herself turned to literature soon after their Hogwarts years and has published several novels, which Harry enjoyed very much), but then very soon ventured instead into nonfiction: politics, travel writing, cookbooks, cognitive science, humour, finance… only to finally stumble onto history.
History, of all things. And it’s not only history, but magical history he’s become infatuated with. It’s highly amusing to him (and a shock to Hermione the likes of which nearly sent her to St. Mungo’s). He’d only ever known the study of history to be a colossal bore, mostly from his formative years in primary school when he’d wander off into daydreams and, outside the classroom window, a shrub would randomly bloom iridescent flowers along its leaves. Then at Hogwarts… well, it was Professor Binns, wasn’t it? On top of which Harry was being hunted by a noseless maniac with all the attendant madness such a hunt entailed.
He never had parents to urge him to study for the right reasons… so that he would know who he was in connection to this vast, puzzling, hardhearted, and cosmically absurd world. He had relations—the furthest thing from family, really—who urged him into a cupboard under the stairs with the thwacking end of a broom. A broom, of all things. It doesn’t matter that now he’s on passable terms with two-thirds of them; the damage was done.
He thinks of his parents a lot now. He hasn’t fought a monster in nearly a year and none so toxic and all-consuming as Voldemort had been. It’s given him much more time for reflection. It started even before he left the DMLE: a beer with his mates after work and he’d taken to wandering off again in his mind, not prompting shrubs into unseasonal blooms but… wondering what his mum and his dad would think of his life. Of him. Of this constant feeling within him that something’s… tilted, stunted... off.
Quitting his job helped. Finding a love of books and of learning has helped even more. And just now he’s enjoying perhaps his two hundredth book on magical history, this one centring on the magical peoples of Central and South America—when his Floo chimes.
He sets the book down on his coffee table, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Come in!”
“Oi, mate, turn the light on,” says Ron from a hearth-fart of green.
“It is on.”
“Oh, right.”
“Beer?” Harry asks. It’s Friday after all and the end of Ron’s workday. Though now that he and Hermione are actively looking to adopt a child, Ron’s post-shift Grimmauld beers have become fewer and fewer. Now it’s more likely that Harry will be invited to a respectable dinner at theirs where he will play the wobbly third wheel to their fine-tuned motorbike of coupledom.
Not that Harry minds. He loves the unit they’ve become in a way that equals his love for them individually. He’ll bask in the rosiness of their domesticity and gentle snark any Friday evening they wish to share with him. And now that Ron is finished pouting about Harry leaving him (which is seriously how he viewed it when Harry quit), things are genuinely peachy between the three of them. The only sticky topic—even now, three years later—is Harry’s split with Ginny. Seeing as Ginny is happily engaged to Parvati, though, Ron’s displeasure at their separation seems more to do with his having planned Harry’s formal induction into the Weasley brood, the transition from best friend to brother that Harry doesn’t see the point of; Ron’s always been his kin, is the way Harry sees it.
“Finger of Fire and then I have to go.”
“Sure thing,” Harry replies. Then, between cupped hands, “KREACHER!”
“Merlin,” grouses Ron. “I don’t know why you have to summon that git when your drinks cabinet is four feet away, blimey.”
“You know why. He needs to feel he’s helpful, that he’s got a purpose.”
“What, to be a boil on my arse?”
Smirking, Harry opens his mouth to reply, but then Kreacher Apparates in on a rheumatic cloud of magic, and Harry clamps his lips closed instead.
“Master (uncouth barbarian) shouted for Kreacher? Does Master need his guest removed at once?”
“Oi!”
“No, thank you, Kreacher, but if you could fetch him a finger of Firewhiskey, I’m sure he can find his own way out in due time.”
Grumbling occurs with the pouring of Ron’s drink.
“Thanks,” Ron says warily.
“Master’s bidding is my only joy in life,” Kreacher replies with a repulsed quivering of his ears. He bows and Disapparates.
“Merlin,” Ron says, gulping half his drink and plopping down in the armchair, his self-designated station.
“So, what brings you?” Harry leans back into the sofa cushions, arms flung out along the back. “You know my chessboard’s still jinxed.”
“No, it’s not, you just don’t like losing to me.”
Harry snorts. “Anyway.”
Ron shrugs. “This and that. Solved the Bloomburg break-in.”
“Was it rogue house-elves like you thought?”
“A hundred dung-beetles under the Imperius curse. Why there weren’t any fingerprints. And why there were traces of, well...”
“Yeah, I can guess.”
“Glad you quit yet?” Ron tries for good humour, but a cloud of sadness crosses his brow, and Harry gives him a soft smile in return. “Anyway,” Ron goes on. “Hermione wanted me to tell you that Professor Binns is leaving Hogwarts.”
“What do you mean, leaving Hogwarts? He’s dead.”
“Yeah, well, he’s leaving leaving. Through the Veil, she said.”
“Why?” Harry leans forward, elbows on his knees.
Ron shrugs. “Suppose he just got… tired or something.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“So… Hermione wanted you to tell me? Why is that?”
“Beats me,” says Ron. “All I know is I was late for work, and she was angry that I’d forgotten to get today off because we had a meeting with the adoption agency, and she was going to have to go alone and then suddenly she’s telling me to tell you about Professor Binns. You know as much as I do, mate.”
“You missed an adoption meeting?”
“I’m a prat. Thought it was next week instead.”
Harry shakes his head. “Are you close?”
Ron sighs. “I think so. It takes so bloody long, you know? Hermione’s beside herself. In a good way, I mean.”
“And you?”
“I’m…” Ron scratches his head, throws back the rest of his drink. “Harry, I’m scared as fuck.”
Harry laughs. But the look on his friend’s face sobers him. “You’ll be a good dad, Ron. The best.”
Ron blinks, his gaze brightened by drink. “I have to go.”
Harry stands to see him off. They hug, a few sharp slaps on the back, fraternal shoulder squeeze.
“You’ll be at The Burrow a week from Sunday?” Ron checks.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Ron swirls away, back to their flat, back to planning a life, a family. Harry looks at the book lying face down on his table and takes a long breath. He wanders to his drinks cabinet and pours a finger of whisky for himself, urging the curtain open a hair with the backs of his fingers. The streetlights have just come on. Moths compete for kamikaze status, plunking off the sodium shine of the bulbs harmlessly in a bid that looks more slapstick than high drama.
Harry opens the window. “Bridget!”
Moments later, his barn owl soars into sight, flapping to apply her brakes before alighting on the sill and then hopping inside.
Harry sits at his desk, drawing a parchment close and dipping a quill. He scratches out a note. It’s just a note, not anything formal. Still, his fingers tremble a bit as he writes. He remembers writing with a number two pencil in school, before Hogwarts. How had he ever lived without the scrape of an inked nib on sepia parchment?
He signs, folds his note, and then turns to Bridget. “Do you have the energy for the trip? Have you eaten?”
She hoots an affirmative.
“Stay the day in their owlery,” he instructs. “It’s not urgent.”
He sees her off, shutting the window and watching her climb altitude until the clouds swallow her up. He closes the curtains again, and as he sits once more on his sofa and picks up his book… he realises he lied to his bird: the sense of urgency is like smoke in his lungs.
Like cold water striking bare skin after the dare to skinny dip.
Harry suppresses a shiver and reads the same line blindly for the fifth time.
~
She’d agreed to see him on the following Saturday, her return letter crisp to perfection, only the postscript letting slip a little of her happiness at hearing from him:
It’s been too long, Mr Potter. Do leave room for extra biscuits.
-M
The weather on Saturday morning is a superb blend of fair and sweaty, the air almost sweet-smelling after the dew absconds. He takes a few easy Appartions to get there, making stops at some of his favourite places: that espresso shop north of London, Hogsmeade for Honeydukes and a handful of the sweets Kreacher likes best, then outside the castle gates.
He lands on the road, wishing it weren’t so prohibitively far to fly; it would be something… seeing the turrets a few miles out, their reflections waving on the mirror of the lake. Even still, walking up to the gate now… it’s so beautiful it steals his breath.
He sends his Patronus and is soon let in by a young and eager house-elf who identifies herself as Pliff. He can barely keep up with her tiny legs as she sprints toward the castle, her speech as fast as her stride. “You can leave your jacket just inside, the other elves will stow it in that cupboard there, it will be safe you see, it’s wonderful to have you here I’ve heard so much about you, I arrived shortly after the battle and I mended that wall there, yes that one it’s so marvellous to see you Mr Potter, yes it’s just this way as you know.”
His first footfalls on that echoing stone stop him, and Pliff comes to a skidding halt, wringing her hands.
“Is Mr Potter alright sir I could fetch you some tea or, or roast beef, yes, or—”
“No, it’s… I’m fine,” he says. Though he can feel it surging through his legs, the magic of the place. He closes his eyes and relaxes his fingers; it springs to life in his palms.
Hogwarts.
When he opens his eyes again, Pliff looks ill with worry, so he makes his feet take him forward, following her through the entrance hall and up the first set of stairs.
The castle isn’t exactly as he remembers, but perhaps that has to do with its near emptiness, being two months from the start of school. He’s never heard his own footsteps so well, and the paintings look bored to distraction, though several pipe up at his passing. In fact, his arrival quickly travels the artwork grapevine, and by the time he’s at the third floor and nearing the gargoyle which will allow him up to McGonagall’s office, there’s a constant murmur following him, the sound of his own name whispered from the walls.
“The password is ‘sherbet lemon’,” says Pliff.
“Is it now?” Harry asks with a smile.
A tight band encircles his chest for a moment. Did she change it for Harry’s visit? Did she suspect he’d remember? Or has she been honouring Dumbledore with his own whimsical passwords ever since she became Headmistress?
“If sir has everything he needs…” Pliff says.
“Yes, Pliff, thank you. It’s very good to meet you.”
She blushes more than Harry realised a house-elf could and then Disapparates so quickly it’s as though she simply imploded on the spot.
Harry lets out his breath. “Sherbet lemon.” When the gargoyle slides to the side, he steps onto the stairs and ascends.
“Come in!” comes her slightly cracking voice when he knocks. He pushes the door ajar and peeks inside at first; he’s not sure why. He feels twelve years old again, as though he’s been summoned for punishment.
But Professor McGonagall is already coming around the side of her desk, her face brightening with that same smile… the one that makes her look a bit like a mischievous second-year herself.
She brings him through the threshold with two hands on his shoulders and directly into a hug—which is an odd start to what he’s been thinking of as a job interview, not that he minds. She smells of cardamom, and her robes are soft, enveloping him as though he’s still a boy, though he now towers over her.
“Look at you,” she says, pushing him back to arm’s length. “Just look at you. You’re all grown up!”
He laughs. “I suppose I am, Professor.”
“I do like the beard, Harry,” she tells him, and he raises his hand to it self-consciously. It’s short and neat, but he realises she’s never seen him with it. He’s sure he’s blushing.
“You’re looking…” he starts.
“Old,” she finishes for him, already walking back around her desk and pouring two cups of tea.
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
She harrumphs softly. “Should have been. Please sit. Biscuit?”
It’s then that he sees three platters-full of three different kinds of biscuits all littering her desk.
“Thanks,” he says, taking one and eating half in a single bite. This isn’t normal for a job interview either, but he didn’t eat enough for breakfast and he’s starving. Maybe he shouldn’t have turned down Pliff’s roast beef after all.
As he munches, McGonagall sets right in. “So, you’ve heard about Professor Binns.”
“Yes, has he already gone? I’d hope I might—”
“You’re very kind to think of it. There will be a…” She seems stymied for the proper words for a moment. “A ‘retirement in more ways than one’ send-off at the beginning of the school year so that students and teachers alike can say their farewells.”
When Harry shoves the other half of the biscuit into his mouth, she pushes one of the other plates at him. “Please.”
He gives her a self-deprecating, close-lipped (no doubt crumb-sprinkled) smirk and takes two more, sipping his tea in between bites. “I’m sorry,” he says. “They’re very good.”
“They’re here for you to eat, not to look at,” she says in that admonishing tone he recalls in his very bones. Then she sits back and, once he’s got half a biscuit crammed into his mouth again, she asks, “What do you know about magical history, Mr Potter?”
He hesitates and then offers the only reply he can. “Mmmpphhh.”
“I see,” she says, as though he’s properly answered the question. “The list of texts you’ve read is indeed impressive, and I appreciate the inventory you sent, but I must say that, your marks being what they were when you attended Hogwarts yourself, I wasn’t expecting history to be of interest to you. Ever,” she adds, and Harry isn’t sure if he should be amused or insulted.
He swallows the chocolate hobnob, sips his tea again, and dabs his mouth with the napkin provided, clearing his throat. He’s opening his mouth to speak, when she fires her first question at him.
“In what year did Merpeople migrate from Loch Morar to the Black Lake?”
Harry sighs. “Well, it wasn’t a migration exactly. An old and very powerful hedge witch by the name of Cordelia Usher became fed up with the population of Merpeople in the loch, near which she resided in her cottage. I think her complaint was the bad fishing. Anyway, in a fit—some say drunken, but that’s up for debate, I think—she Banished the entire community to the Black Lake. They’ve been here ever since, and I believe the year was… 1673? No, ‘74.”
McGonagall watches him as though he’s about to throw a hex. Then she leans back in her chair, and her lips twitch with a small smile. “Very well. What effect did Dragonpox have on the Third Great Battle of the Giants?”
“It was bad.”
At this, McGonagall barks a laugh before recovering. “I do think it is safe to say.”
Harry sighs, feeling his nerves begin to evaporate as he gives a more detailed accounting of the rampage of the pox through the Giant community of Strasbourg, its effects on local humans and other magical creatures, and the way it helped turn the war in favour of the Giants from Romania who were more effectively inured to the disease.
McGonagall’s questions begin to take on the tone of an interested party in a conversation, and before Harry quite knows it they’re discussing everything under the sun, from famous 15th century wandmakers to the unequalled magic of the Welsh Coven of Alun that inexplicably disappeared off the face of the earth over two hundred years ago.
There are things he doesn’t know. But McGonagall seems unfazed by the deficits in his knowledge They talk for nearly two hours. And he eats eight more biscuits.
“Well,” she says finally. And it seems there’s to be more, but she closes her lips, her brows knitting in consternation.
“If you think I’m not qualified enough I underst—”
She waggles her fingers at him impatiently. “No, it’s not that.”
“It’s not?” Harry’s heart rate has increased slightly, provoking that same feeling as when he first steps onto a crime scene, all the unknowns before they coalesce into evidence.
“Harry,” she says, leaning her forearms on her desk and looking at him earnestly. “Why have you not come seeking the position we both know you were born for?”
It’s an unfortunate choice of words, and he can’t help himself wincing a bit. “It’s a rather unavoidable fact that I was born to die in order to kill Voldemort actually.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, leaning back in her chair once more. “But I think you know what I meant.”
He sighs. “Defence.”
“Yes.”
This feels like the crux of the entire interview, her previous questions but a preliminary. Harry rubs his palms on his trousers and then makes himself meet her gaze. “I need a break from it,” he says.
She lifts a brow, and he goes on.
“I don’t want to be an Auror anymore. I don’t want to fight.” It’s the closest he can come to the truth of it, and he hopes it’s enough because he doesn’t really want to be made to elaborate. He’s not sure what would come out of his mouth.
He releases his breath when all she says is, “Very well.” Then, “Term, as you know, begins on the first of September. I’d like for you to leave here today with Professor Binns’ curriculum, as it will no doubt aid you in crafting your own. I’ll expect your syllabus by Owl no later than the first of August… Professor Potter,” she finishes.
The smile that overcomes him then is… like magic.
He’s on his way through the gates when a familiar deep voice stops him in his tracks.
“Harry Potter,” says Firenze, and Harry turns, a bright laugh of pleasure leaving him at the sight of his friend. He almost forgets himself, taking a step toward him, but then he comes to a halt, clearing his throat, and as is customary, bows.
Firenze bows in return, after which Harry approaches with ease, extending his hand and having it held momentarily (not quite shaken) in greeting.
“How are you?” Harry asks.
“Harry Potter, we have conversed within the last six months. There is no need for such interrogation.”
Harry rolls his eyes. “Humour me. I’m just a wizard. How’s Bane?”
His fawn-coloured flanks glow nearly auburn at the question, and Harry perceives this—he thinks correctly—as a blush. “Bane is…” Firenze seems to struggle for an adjective. “He is a worthy husband.”
Harry stifles his amusement at the description. He remembers their marriage five years ago, having been their only human witness at the event, and the bizarre set of rituals they’d patiently undergone to be wed. It’s still a wonder to him, how slowly and purposefully centaurs engage with their world when he himself is so often reckless. He may never know why they even wanted him at the Joining, as they called it. They promised to tell him in due time, but due time for a centaur could very well mean decades, if not longer.
“And how are Cressida and Finn?”
Firenze’s sigh is a burst of hot air, like that from a horse. “Why must I describe them to you when you have met them both?”
Harry can’t help his smile then. “I don’t know, I guess humans are just curious creatures. You’re my friend, Firenze. It means I want to know about your life, your husband, your lovers…”
“Hmm.” Firenze looks suspicious, his hooves scraping the ground with impatience. But he grants Harry a begrudging reply. “Cressida is away with the other females in the Deep Indigo. Her days are spent in archery competition and her nights in either prophecy or vigorous love-making—”
“Okay!” says Harry brightly, as it’s more than he bargained for, and he feels himself blushing now.
“You inquired,” Firenze says with a perplexed frown.
“Yes, and I’m glad she’s… well. Do you not… become jealous? Of the, uh, ‘vigorous love-making’?” Harry can’t help but ask.
“Jealousy is transient.” Not followed by any explanation, Firenze clearly considers this answer sufficient.
“Fair enough,” says Harry. “And Finn?”
At this, Firenze gives an uncharacteristic little half-grin. “Finn warms my bed properly when Bane is away. And often when Bane is not away.”
If Firenze were human, this would probably be akin to sharing an ale and nudging Harry’s side with his elbow.
“I’m glad you’re happy,” Harry says.
“Happiness is a cloud passing over the arc of the sky. Nothing is permanent.”
“Yes, well, that,” says Harry.
“I am pleased you will be joining me in the Autumn on the Hogwarts staff,” says Firenze.
“Word travels fast.”
“It was foreseen.”
Harry opens his mouth to speak but then shuts it again. He’s not often sought Firenze’s professional advice. Didn’t when he decided to leave the Aurors. Maybe because he didn’t want to know if it was the wrong decision; he just wanted to make it regardless. But now…
“You wish counsel,” Firenze says.
“Not really, I just…” Harry looks back at the castle and sighs. He’s had enough of prophecy for two lifetimes, but... “I suppose I only want to know one thing.”
Firenze bows his head once, waiting.
Harry swallows. “Will there be… danger?”
Firenze breathes in deeply and shuts his eyes. It’s long moments before he opens them again, and it takes a strong hold on Harry’s will to not interrupt the process or elaborate on his own question. It’s not that he’s afraid. He doesn’t really become afraid anymore. It’s more that he’s… tired. And he doesn’t want more of the same thing that his life and his own choices have thrown at him time and again.
There’s an odd look in Firenze’s eyes.
“What?” Harry asks. “Will there be? Danger?”
Firenze’s long, pale lashes blink. “My friend,” he says. “Not the kind you’re used to.”
Harry frowns. “What does that mean?”
Firenze shakes his head. “I can say no more.”
“Oh, brilliant.”
“Harry Potter,” Firenze smiles now, “Hogwarts will welcome you home in ways you cannot expect.” He bows again. “I welcome you.”
“Thanks,” Harry says, still reeling from the weirdness of the message. Perhaps he never should have asked.
“Safe journey back to your bleak house.”
Harry can’t help snorting. But then he bows in farewell too. “Safe journey wherever you’re off to next.”
Without another word, Firenze turns and, hooves not so much as crunching a single fallen branch, disappears back into the forest.
~
Hermione and Ron throw a celebratory dinner for him the next evening, and he spends a comfortable three hours at theirs eating the spiciest curry he’s ever encountered while exchanging old Hogwarts stories, the Wireless playing Weird Sisters classics too softly to be considered cool.
When he gets home though, he can’t sleep, and he, instead, stays up half the night poring over Professor Binns’ notes, some of them so old they predate the Ministry of Magic.
The weeks leading up to the start of term flash by as though merely glimpsed in a Pensieve, and Harry finds himself feeling ill-prepared even the night before he’s to travel. He laments his decision not to arrive ahead of time with some of the other professors—until the next morning. And then he simply can’t lament anything.
The odour of exhaust from the Muggle trains overwhelms him for a moment, and even this triggers such an arresting sense of nostalgia that he has to stand there and breathe it in.
“Budge up!” comes a voice from behind him, a shoulder gently knocking into him as Harry disrupts the flow of the crowd with his stock-stillness.
“Oh, sorry,” he says.
“Just watch your— Oh my God.”
Harry guesses the boy’s a sixth year by his height and the flagrant confidence. A confidence that disintegrates once he recognises Harry.
“Hhh— P-p” The young man seems to run completely out of breath. His eyes go comically round.
“Professor Potter,” Harry says. The idea of a Disillusionment charm, waved off as too much last night, now seems vital. Too late.
“Professor? Oh bugger. I mean shit. I mean, sorry!”
“It’s alright,” Harry assures him. “You are?”
“Andrew Perkins, sir. You’re going to be teaching, sir?” Eyes still huge, face gone ashen. It’s not the response Harry would have chosen.
“Not if I miss the train,” Harry says. “You’d better hurry, too.”
“Right,” Andrew Perkins says. “It’s an honour to meet you, Professor Potter. Merlin…”
“Same, Mr Perkins,” Harry says with a smile and then watches one of his future students bounding awkwardly away.
Harry pushes his trolley forward, Bridget giving a sleepy hoot from under the tarp surrounding her cage. In moments he’s through the brick wall, and he’s once again on the good old nine-and-three-quarters. The red engine rises from its own steam like a phoenix. The whistle blows. Harry hikes his bag up onto his shoulder more securely. And, willing away the most intense of the emotions that wants to come, he boards the Hogwarts Express for the first time in over a decade.
Draco Malfoy, if asked a year ago, would have told you that he dislikes children. This is almost certainly because, as a child himself, he was atrocious, and this personal history with having been an awful child has skewed his perception on the awfulness of children in general. Not that Draco is aware of this. He just rather thinks children are brats. Or he did. His mind has changed somewhat over the course of his year teaching in the very school where he himself had been such a nightmare.
As he leaves his quarters, open robes trailing like a cape behind him, it absolutely does not stop him in his tracks to see the tiny golden flickers all along the glossy black of the lake, meandering closer. Though he does pause and linger at one of the long, thin windows carved into the stone as he momentarily watches their slow progress, like lazy fireflies. For a moment, they reflect sadness back at him, the pregnant silence of a vigil. But then he hears the large wooden doors opening far below and the first little shrieks and sighs of their awe, and Draco takes a deep breath, rolls his eyes, and murmurs, “Monsters,” as he continues down the stairs toward the Great Hall and the Sorting to come.
He doesn’t straighten his silver tie, because he doesn’t need to straighten it. He’s impeccable, and he’s well aware of that fact. As he walks into the Great Hall and his students’ heads turn, he gives no nods of acknowledgement; he certainly doesn’t want to advertise leniency from the outset. Even his prize pupils need to understand that this year will be even more difficult than the last. He doesn’t intend to begin with fraternity, welcome, unity and all that bollocks. He’s no Severus Snape, but he tends more toward that code of conduct than, say, Professor Sprout and her infernal hugs.
His shoes are clicking along the stone at a brisk but unrushed clip when the glimpse in his peripheral vision, just a moment of unruly black hair, makes him first do a double-take—and then halt completely. It’s but a moment’s loss of composure, because it’s only Hagrid and Rolanda Hooch talking animatedly with one another off to the side of the professors’ table. A figment produced by tired eyes too long lingering over his notes with the aid of a dying candle late into the night. Draco exhales and continues on his way. Yet only three steps later, revealed again when Hagrid steps to one side…
Messy jet-black hair. Shine of glasses. Flicker of a lopsided smile.
Lightning bloody bolt.
“Fucking hell.”
Draco doesn’t realise he’s said it aloud until a third year on the Hufflepuff bench next to where he stands snickers uncontrollably.
Draco glances at him. “Three points from you.”
“From Hufflepuff, sir?” the student whimpers.
Draco leans closer. “From you.”
The student’s jaw slams closed.
“Welcome back,” Draco nearly delights in sneering and then catches himself and adds, “Wilson,” onto the end to soften snide into something more grudgingly neutral.
It’s not Wilson that has him sneering.
Draco’s renewed steps toward the professors’ table are slower, more careful, like there may be jinxes en route. He can’t help but slant his gaze back to the very non-figmentary Harry Potter across the hall, now laughing at something Hooch has said, throwing his head back. Draco can hear him easily and doesn’t quite suppress the rather foul look he can feel twisting his mouth and no doubt darkening his entire countenance. Not that he was sunflowers and moonbeams prior or anything. But it’s looking precisely like this—and directly at Potter—that Potter turns his head and sees him for the first time.
Potter’s face transforms under Draco’s assault of a gaze. It’s almost as though he didn’t realise Draco works here, for Merlin’s sake, as though the news of Draco standing here is a bit of a shock, then a more mild confusion, his brows drawing down, and then, all in the space of one or two breaths, tight-lipped resignation. Draco watches all this—this three seconds’ worth of his life—with a thundering heart. The last time they shared this hall, there were bodies everywhere, white sheets stained with blood, tears muffled on shoulders, the ringing silence after the earsplitting rip of spells through the smoky air.
There’s none of that now. This will be Draco’s second return to the school wherein peace has reigned for many years. And yet, watching it all cross Potter’s face—and feeling the tension rise in his own shoulders, knotting in his gut—Draco can very nearly smell it: the rubble, the death, the pain. The relief that Potter had won and the numb feeling of watching those green eyes blink in the aftermath and realising there would be a future with both of them in it somehow.
That future slams into his present now like a Crucio, and Draco’s chest lurches, even as he makes himself take another step toward his place at the teachers’ table. And then another, tearing his gaze from Potter’s.
Merlin help him, for whatever reason he’s going to have to suffer a meal in Potter’s presence, that much is obvious. What the bloody fuck is Potter doing here? Draco has come to think of Hogwarts as his now, and here’s Potter, at the bloody feast, like… Like what? Like they all need him to bless their new school year? Like they need the fucking Saviour to show up, be a figurehead, make the children all starry-eyed so that they can’t even concentrate in the wake of his visit and Draco has to deal with their week-long group crush like some sort of magical referee?
Fuck that.
Draco sighs and takes his seat between Sinistra, ageless as ever, giving her a polite nod, and the empty chair left for the new History of Magic professor. Draco resists looking up to see if Potter is still lingering with Hooch and Hagrid, hitching his robes so he can sit comfortably and crossing his ankles under the table.
He can get through dinner with Potter here. Hell, Draco got through countless meals in this very room with the tosser when he was far more ill-equipped.
“Good summer?” Sinistra asks, already unfurling her napkin into her lap and giving Draco a warm but reserved smile. “Didn’t you travel again?”
“To France,” Draco confirms. “With my mother.” He returns her smile, though he’s itching to look away, to find where Potter intends to sit, though no doubt at the Gryffindor table like some sort of god returned to earth.
“Is she well?” Sinistra asks.
“Yes, thank you.” It’s his standard response and mostly true. She’s as well as a woman can be whose husband disappeared years prior and who she hasn’t heard from since.
Draco’s jaw has clamped and he purposefully relaxes it, smoothing his own napkin over his thighs. The cleared throat behind him sends apprehensive tingles up the back of his neck, and his mind revolts even as he maintains a cool exterior while Potter appears next to him and proceeds to ask, “This seat taken?” his hand on the back of the chair already.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” Draco replies, only a fraction of the bite he wants to let bleed into his voice slipping out. “That’s Professor Binns’ old chair.”
“I know. He retired.”
“Yes, well, that’s reserved for the new History of Magic professor, Potter.”
The words link together oddly, almost fittingly, and Draco’s stomach turns as he realises why—as Potter pulls the chair out from the table and sits in it.
“I know,” Potter says with emphasis. And Draco’s gut plummets.
Professor Potter.
“You…”
Potter gives him an ironic little smile. “Me,” he says.
“No.”
“McGonagall didn’t tell you?” Potter’s napkin unleashed like the sail of a ship, making a little fwap sound that grates on Draco’s last nerve.
Draco scoffs, the words simply not coming. Then, “But you were shit at History.”
Potter shrugs, takes a sip of the water already filling each of their goblets. “Times change,” he says easily.
“But you’re an Auror.”
“Was.”
Draco blinks at Potter’s profile like it’s a mirage. Oh, that it were a mirage! He’s grown a beard, which Draco already knew about from the candid shots of him that sometimes appear in the gossip rags (which he doesn’t buy; he merely thumbs through occasionally). It’s weirdly adult of him, and Draco wonders if he looks similarly matured to Potter’s eyes. The beard may be the neatest thing about Potter though. He’s not even wearing a tie. His black robes are nice enough, but he looks like he did when he and Weasley would go tearing through the halls: dishevelment caught in freezeframe. Potter looks, as he always did, wrong when not set in motion. His whole being cries for action, for movement, while at the same time Draco’s rarely seen anyone so eminently comfortable.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Potter resumes conversationally, “I was nearly as surprised as you are, Malfoy, when McGonagall offered me the position.”
Potter then turns his gaze on Draco’s, and they look at each other over too cramped a space, the arms of their chairs an inch away from resting together. Draco resists the urge to remove his arm from the rest, leaving it there insolently, like a challenge for Potter to try to usurp him.
But in the next moment, it slams into Draco like the aftershock of an earthquake, somehow more real than the larger event: “You’re going to teach here.”
Potter’s lips quirk a bit. He finds Draco amusing, which Draco can’t even work up any fury over; he’s too busy realising that making it through dinner with Potter has now turned to making it through the year with him.
Draco doesn’t even have time to wrestle his face back to his favoured bored-but-managing-it expression, because McGonagall stands and begins her start-of-the-school-year speech. Draco hardly hears it. He stares out over the tables of students, the first years all gathered in the aisle like they’re about to walk to their death sentences, and it’s nearly enough to mollify his tension. Nearly. He can’t stop feeling Potter there next to him, like a bloody furnace, energy rolling off him in steady waves.
Potter is the new History of Magic professor. Potter. Draco wonders if he should worry for McGonagall’s tentative grasp on reality. Surely senility hasn’t yet begun to set in. She’s only a ripe… well, he doesn’t actually know how old she is. Maybe there is cause for concern after all.
Finishing her speech—of which Draco caught approximately three words—she comes around the podium, flicking her wand and Summoning the hat to the stool, probably the same rickety thing Dumbledore had Draco’s year sit on to receive their fates. Draco swallows, resisting the urge to fidget, sticking an arrogant leg out in front of him and purposefully not gripping the arms of his chair. He catches only the briefest glimpse of Potter’s profile out of the corner of his eye—not quite calm, a study in frenetic stillness—before the Sorting begins.
The first two are Ravenclaws, followed by the first Gryffindor (and a lot of cheering), then two Hufflepuffs. Beside him, Potter claps. His magic changes; Draco can feel it: comfort emerging into something deeper. The first Slytherin, and Draco goes tense. It’s Theo’s nephew, Jarvis. Potter claps, his ease unperturbed. Another Slytherin, two Gryffindors. Then Potter leans slightly toward him and murmurs, “Defence?”
Draco politely claps for a new little beaming Slytherin named Samantha Peabody, clears his throat, and discards numerous replies in the space of a heartbeat: ‘For now.’ ‘Until you steal it out from under me.’ ‘Fuck right off.’ ‘I earned this.’ He settles on, “Yes.”
The last Hufflepuff, and then the platters along each table fill with the steaming labour of the kitchen staff, no longer just elves but all sorts. Potter begins to serve himself and then pass down the line. Draco belatedly follows suit.
“Thought you were a cursebreaker.”
Draco spares him a look between spoonfuls of mashed potatoes, then replies through a drizzle of gravy over them. “Times change.” If it’s a good enough answer for Potter… He’s only slightly perturbed that Potter had the wherewithal to follow his line of work, however inaccurately.
“It’s not that I hadn’t heard that you were…” Potter nods to the castle at large, “... here. But… I guess I wasn’t thinking about that when…”
“When you accepted the job? Would you not have then?” Draco doesn’t do anything to disguise the bemusement in his voice. He glances at Potter to see him blush a little. “Am I that terrifying to you?” he can’t help adding, like the poke of a wand between Potter’s ribs. The ease with which it happens is satisfyingly familiar.
“Terrifying?” Potter turns disbelieving eyes on him.
Draco shrugs.
Potter goes back to scooping up roast chicken thighs with a pair of tongs like a Muggle. “You’re a lot less terrifying than five seconds of an interview with McGonagall.”
It strikes Draco that Potter’s done two things with this declaration: he hasn’t denied being afraid of Draco, and in so doing, he’s indicated quite clearly that he doesn’t fear him in the least.
Git.
He’s also right about McGonagall. Draco remembers quite clearly the cold sweat he broke into during his own interview. All those uneaten biscuits.
Potter soon turns toward Hooch on his right and, for most of the remainder of dinner, talks Quidditch. Draco is disappointed with himself at how many times he attempts to eavesdrop. Merlin, all he wants is to retreat to his quarters, start a seasonally premature fire in the hearth, and go over tomorrow’s lesson plans. He hates that his first meal here is, for all intents and purposes, already ruined. He’d like to salvage what he can of the evening, even as he knows he’ll have to go through this over and over again, confronted with the person he hates most in this world at every turn, in the very place he’d thought he could finally get a little respite.
Second most, he thinks before he can stop himself.
They finish dinner and dessert, and Draco checks his watch, dabbing his mouth with his napkin and then tossing it into his plate as he stands. He has no intention of having any kind of parting words with Potter; he’s sure they’ll have to confer about students sooner or later, and he’d rather take his leave in peace for the time being. But he hears the scrape of Potter’s chair, and before he can get away, Potter’s hand grabs his elbow. Instinctively, Draco snatches his arm away, looking back up at Potter with a frown.
Potter sighs. He sticks out his hand. “It’s… something to see you.”
Draco blinks at him. Did he just insert the word ‘something’ as a kind of placeholder because he couldn’t come up with an adjective? Draco finds and effects the bored expression that deserted him earlier. He looks down at Potter’s extended hand and then meets his gaze again while he casually puts his hands in his trouser pockets.
“Why start now?” he asks, then turns on his heel and leaves Potter standing there, hand still outstretched but lowering.
The bored expression transforms into a smirk, but before he’s even escaped the Great Hall, the warm itch up the back of his neck becomes debilitating in its distraction, and it’s all Draco can do not to attempt a completely futile Apparition.