Chapter Text
Harry Potter looked around the messy living room of the Hogsmeade cottage where he'd spent so many of his nights over the past years, cataloguing everything he'd miss. There was the green velvet couch that had so sweetly cradled his head the nights he'd drunk too much to apparate home; there was the overstuffed armchair where he'd curled up on countless evenings, gossiping, joking, complaining about work; there, folded in the corner, was the cot he'd slept on for a month last year, when he'd first gotten out of St. Mungo's; and there, in the doorway, were Ron and Hermione, owners of the cottage, watching him with mingled looks of fondness and exasperation.
"Well," Harry said heavily. "Goodbye forever."
"Oh, honestly," said Hermione, at the same time Ron said, "Bit dramatic, eh, mate?"
"The first Hogsmeade weekend's in October," Hermione said encouragingly. "Just three months away. You'll be so busy you won't even have time to miss us."
“Yeah,” Ron said, “busy giving out detentions to Slytherins."
“No,” said Hermione, “Harry’s not going to be biased like our professors were, are you Harry?”
“Depends on if Slytherins are still shite or not,” Harry said, and Ron cackled. Ten-month old Rosie, perched on his hip, cackled as well, always happy to share a joke. “Anyway, Slytherins will be getting favoritism left and right,“ Harry added, "considering who the bloody potions professor is.“
He was still having trouble getting over the fact that Draco Malfoy was about to be his colleague. The last time they'd seen each other had been the last day of the Battle of Hogwarts nearly thirteen years earlier, and Harry would have been perfectly content to leave it there for the rest of his life. He probably would've managed it, too, if he hadn't been for what had happened last year. Sometimes he still couldn't believe how quickly his life had changed. Just eighteen months ago he'd been the top Auror in the department and a rumored shoe-in to become the youngest-ever Head Auror when Roberts retired; he'd been fast, and strong, and still a holy terror on the Quidditch field. Now he was staring down the barrel of a pity position in academia and tiring from being on his feet for more than five bloody minutes.
"Neville says Malfoy's not so bad anymore," Ron said.
"Yeah, but that's Neville, isn't it? He likes everyone."
“You’ll go see Draco straightaway, though, won’t you?” implored Hermione. “You won’t let your history together get in the way of your healing?”
“Pain potions are hardly healing,” Harry said, sidestepping the question. The answer was no: he had absolutely no plans to limp pathetically into Malfoy’s office and whinge about how much it hurt. He was, at least according to tabloids, the most powerful wizard of his generation. Surely he could manage a few simple pain potions to keep himself going.
"And you've got your cane?" Hermione continued. "I really think you might consider using it, Hogwarts is the safest place you could be, it's so heavily-warded -- but it's also enormous, you'll have trouble getting around..."
"Cane's in the trunk," Harry said shortly. And there it would stay. Even apart from having been in the papers, the injuries to his leg were impossible to hide; all you had to do was watch him limp across a room. Lesser-known, however, and much easier to conceal, were the injuries to his arm on the same side. He had no grip or fine motor control to speak of anymore and his shoulder waged war if he tried to raise his arm above the waist, which essentially only left him with one free hand -- which he had no intention of filling with a cane. If a situation came up, as it was sure to, he wanted to be holding not a cane but his wand.
"Stop lecturing him, 'Mione," Ron said. "Give him a kiss and let him go."
Right on time, the Weasley-Granger’s clock — a less doom-and-gloom version of Molly’s old clock, which had been retired after Fred had died — rung half four, and a chipper squeaking voice said, “Goodbye Harry! Goodbye Harry! Goodbye Harry!”
"Oh," Hermione said, wringing her hands, "all right, I'm sorry. The students are lucky, Harry, I know you'll be brilliant."
Harry himself knew no such thing. Hermione put her arms around his neck, and Harry was gratified to see that she did so less carefully than she might have even a few months ago, and he returned her embrace as she kissed his cheek.
"Thanks again for letting me stay the night," he said. "King's Cross Station would've been a nightmare to manage on this leg, not to mention the train itself."
Although he had a sinking fear that Hermione was correct and Hogwarts would be no easier. All his fond memories of the place had recently turned into memories of how many bloody staircases there were.
He and Ron did an awkward shuffle to exchange a one-armed hug, one of Ron’s arms busy holding a child and one of Harry’s arms busy being useless. Harry kissed the baby on her red-curled head and said morosely, "Goodbye, Rosie. Next time I see you, you’ll be enormous and I’ll have missed your whole precious childhood.”
“Say goodbye to your melodramatic Uncle Harry, who'll see you again before you’ve learned to shit somewhere other than your own trousers,” Ron told his daughter. She let out another hoarse cackle, her one tooth glinting. She'd be a terror when she got older, Harry thought happily.
Outside, the afternoon sun was bright and mellow in the little village. The Hog's Head -- and the passage to Hogwarts that Aberforth, after much persuasion, had agreed to let Harry use ("Once!") -- was only a few blocks away, and Harry's traveling trunk floated along behind him as he moved down the quiet cobblestone streets, so different from the busy London roads he was used to. He thought briefly of Grimmauld Place, left closed-up under Kreacher's care while he was away during the school year, and had to admit he wouldn't miss coming home to that dark relic of a house.
Despite the fact that he was running a bit late, he tried to keep his pace unhurried; difficult for someone who’d once hurried everywhere, but he'd taken enough tumbles in the past year and a half to not tempt fate. His leg ached unrelentingly, a dull throb twisting down the curse line from his hip to his knee, but it was doing a good impression of reliability today, none of the looseness in his knee joint that meant it might buckle at any time. Good; he didn’t want his first impression on his students to include going arse over teakettle in the Great Hall.
Strange, to be going back to Hogwarts again. But Harry's life was nothing if not strange.
:::
Professor McGonagall -- crikey, was he supposed to call her Minerva, now? -- was waiting for him, as promised, on the seventh floor outside the Room of Requirement. Despite her age she looked as stern and stately as ever, peering at him through her spectacles, not-smiling in that smiling way she had, and Harry grinned at her despite himself.
"All right, Potter?" she said.
"Hi, Professor. Thanks for waiting for me."
"I was hoping we'd have more time before the Start-of-Term feast," she said, starting off down the hall with no fanfare, "but we've little under an hour so your tour will have to be quick."
"Tour?" Harry said, palming the wall for balance as he started to limp after her. "I have been here once or twice, you know."
She paused to let him catch up. "Yes, tour, Potter -- first your chambers so you can deposit your trunk --" she eyed the enormous suitcase floating obediently after him "-- and then a quick look at your classroom, so you at least know where you're going tomorrow. Then, of course, the feast."
"Right," Harry said, trying not to look too dismayed. He thought he'd have a minute to himself, to put his leg up and take a few deep breaths, but no, it was all systems go, apparently. And lovely, here was one of the infamous one hundred and forty-two Hogwarts staircases looming before him, a long marble one he remembered hurtling down without a second thought when he was a student here. No railing, of course, excellent. McGonagall was already halfway down by the time he'd managed to take two bloody steps. He was sweating lightly when he reached the bottom, winded from pain and effort, and his trunk nudged him in the back with what felt like sympathy. McGonagall looked at him, flustered.
"It's only now occurring to me," she said, "that I didn't think to -- that is, it was foolish not to have considered -- well, your room's on the sixth floor and your classroom's on the first."
"Ah," Harry said. "That's -- not ideal."
She pursed her lips as she matched her pace to his. "The potions classroom is closer to your quarters, on the third floor," she said. "I'm sure Draco wouldn't mind if I asked him to --"
"No," Harry said hurriedly, "no, that's all right, I'm sure I'll be fine." He'd figure something out, something that didn't involve Draco bloody Malfoy. In the meantime, he resigned himself to leaving early for breakfast each morning, early enough to accommodate five staircases and, let's face it, five little sit-downs between them. He could use a sit-down right now, but such a luxury didn't appear to be forthcoming.
McGonagall stopped in a quiet corner of the sixth floor and took out a key ring much bigger than was demanded by the two tiny brass keys hanging from it, and handed it ceremoniously to Harry.
"Welcome home," she said, with that not-a-smile smile again.
Harry fit the key in the lock and pushed the door open, blinking at the golden evening light that streamed through the large windows.
"This is your office, of course," she said. "Then, through that door and down a small passageway you'll find your chambers."
The office was roomy and comfortable, with a red leather sofa, an enormous maple desk and ornately-carved empty bookshelves. It was supremely professorial, with plenty of space for Harry's imposter syndrome to begin dancing around in it. This was an office for a professor: Harry was not a professor. Harry was good at chasing down dark magic and putting dark wizards in prison, not professing.
"If you'd like to go put your trunk down, I'll wait here," McGonagall said, settling herself on the sofa, and Harry made his way through the door at the back of his office and through a wooden passageway to his rooms.
He grinned as he stepped through into his bedroom. Now, this was more like it. It looked almost exactly like the room he'd shared with Ron in Gryffindor, except with its own private bath and one bed in place of four. A bed which looked so comfortable Harry couldn't help but sit down with a groan of relief. He took out his wand and lowered the trunk to the floor, then flicked it open and accio'd one of his remaining pain potions, downing it in one go despite the atrocious flavor -- and despite the fact that he was supposed to take it with food. Well, it would be fine if he ate within the hour, and dinner was right around the corner.
The potion took exactly two minutes to kick in, and Harry gave himself those two minutes to lie back on the bed and stare up at the canopy. It was surreal being here again, and even more surreal to think that at some point, it would be normal. How long would that take? A week? A month? A year, if he didn't get canned before then?
With a fizzing sensation, the relentless throb of his leg suddenly faded to a much more manageable thrum, and Harry sighed with relief. Then he sat up, straightened his robes, and went back out to face the stairs.
:::
To Harry's delight, Neville was waiting for him outside the Great Hall, beaming in a swirling mass of students. Though he saw Neville regularly, he somehow always managed to forget how unnervingly good-looking he'd gotten, and had to take a moment to transpose the chubby-faced child from his memory onto this tall, handsome man.
"You made it!" Neville said happily. "Can you believe we'll be colleagues?"
"Who'd have thought?"
"How's the leg?"
"Er, good, yeah."
"Hermione's asked me to keep an eye on you, see you don't overdo it," Neville said confidingly, then winced. "And -- she told me not to tell you, oh bugger."
"It's all right," Harry assured him, following him through the doors of the Great Hall, trying not to get trampled by teenagers, "I won't tell her you told me."
"Thanks," he said, sounding grateful, then laughed. "No, Harry -- we're this way."
Harry, by force of habit, had turned towards the Gryffindor table, and he let Neville redirect him up to the professor's table at the head of the room. McGonagall was already there in the Headmistress' position, and Harry had to breathe through the memory of another person sitting in that very chair, twinkling blue eyes, long grey beard.
There were five stairs up to the professor's table, naturally, and Harry took them carefully, thankful for the pain potion that let him appear at least halfway normal for a few hours. He knew his limp was still noticeable, but at least he wasn't the shambling mess that had greeted Professor McGonagall less than an hour before.
He settled into his chair, McGonagall to his left and Neville to his right, stretching out his leg beneath the table with a wince before turning his attention to the scene in front of him.
Merlin, they were young, the students. Young, and loud, shouting hellos at one another, screaming in delight as they embraced, pounding on the tables. He couldn't let himself think of how he'd once been one of them, seated for the first time beneath that starry ceiling, transfixed and overwhelmed and quietly, anxiously thrilled to have at last found somewhere that he might, perhaps, belong.
"Look," Neville nudged him. "It's Malfoy."
Harry steeled himself and looked to the door, searching for a skinny, pale, pointed little weasel, but he didn't see anyone familiar. "Where?"
"Just there, he's coming towards us. Blue robes."
Harry found the blue robes, and blinked. No wonder he hadn't spotted him. Malfoy was still pale, yes, still thin, still pointed, but he was also, unexpectedly, a man. Not a snivelling soot-covered teenager cowering at his mother's side, but a tall, broad-shouldered, strong-jawed, long-striding man.
"Turned out all right, didn't he?" Neville said. "Come Valentines, all the students send him love notes and he gets horribly embarrassed, it's excellent."
"Excellent," Harry echoed. As Malfoy neared, Harry saw he had a tiny, winking diamond stud in one of his delicate nostrils, and for some reason this seemed the biggest change from Hogwarts as Harry had known it.
Malfoy had a tired, inward expression on his face, but when he looked up and saw Harry staring at him, the pointy weasel made a reappearance in the slight disdainful curl of Malfoy's lip, and Harry was glad to remind himself that just because someone had turned out unfairly gorgeous, it didn't mean they weren't still an absolute prick.
Malfoy sat at the end of the table and Harry resolutely did not look at him again. His stomach was growling, and he realized with a jolt of horror that he'd forgotten all about the Sorting -- it would be at least an hour before he'd get a chance to eat. He cursed himself silently. He should've scrounged up something to take with his pain potion; if he didn't get something down soon, the effects would fade as quickly as they had come on.
"Neville," he said. "Have you got a biscuit or something on you? Chocolate frog? Anything?"
Neville dug into his pocket and came up with five linty brown Every Flavor Beans. "I didn't eat them because they're cardboard flavored," he said apologetically, but Harry would take what he could get. He swallowed them quickly, trying not to make a face. Hopefully something was better than nothing.
However, as the Sorting began, and went on, and on, and on, it became clear that five disgusting jellybeans were not exactly what the Healers had meant when they'd specified "food." Harry's leg began to ache halfway through the Ms, and by the time they reached the Zs he was in a world of discomfort from sitting for so long. Normally this was when he'd stand up, pace about a bit, stretch it out, but he couldn't very well do that in front of the whole school.
Everyone began clapping and Harry clapped too, and then McGonagall stood and made a speech and Harry gritted his teeth and tried to smile, hungry and tired and a bit groggy from pain, and then suddenly McGonagall was staring at him -- and so was Neville, and so was everyone, and hadn't he once had a nightmare exactly like this, only naked?
"Again," McGonagall said after a moment, "your new Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher."
Harry realized, with a horror so acute it was almost hallucinatory, that he was expected to make a speech, and there was absolutely no way to get out of it.
He sucked in a breath and put his good hand on the table, levering himself carefully upright and hoping no one noticed the grip he kept on the back of Neville's chair. He looked out into the sea of young faces, turned towards him like sunflowers, and cleared his throat.
"Hello," he said. His voice echoed in the quiet. "I'm -- I'm Professor Harry Potter --"
"No shite!" someone shouted from the Gryffindor table, and waves of nervous laughter broke out.
"Right," Harry said, and risked releasing Neville's chair to push his glasses up his suddenly sweaty nose. Merlin, his leg was killing him. "Well, yes, I'm -- Professor Potter -- your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher -- I know, I know, no shite --" He met McGonagall's shocked eyes and realized that, obviously, he oughtn't to have said shite, but too late, carry on -- "-- and I'm looking forward to getting to know you all, and, and teaching you defensive magic, and -- I hope no one gets hurt. Thank you."
He sat down heavily in his chair, digging his fingers surreptitiously into his hip beneath cover of the table, and after a slightly stunned moment, the students began dutifully clapping. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Malfoy staring at him with quirked brows, and at his side Professor McGonagall muttered, "Let's hope you're a better teacher than you are an orator, Potter."
Harry smiled weakly and Neville, on his other side, said, "Good job!", in the encouraging tones one might use for a child's indecipherable stick figure drawing.
Why -- why -- why had he thought this was a good idea? Why hadn't he stayed home in his own spooky, horrible house with his spooky, horrible house elf, drunk off his arse by the fireplace, chugging pain potions til he couldn't see and living off his friend's good graces until they tired of him and he died impoverished and alone?
That genuinely sounded more promising than what he'd agreed to do, which was, to wit: humiliate himself in front of the wizarding world's bright young minds, plus his esteemed old professor, plus his dear old friend, plus his childhood nemesis.
Dishes appeared across the tables and Harry scowled at them. Too little, too late; where were all these sausages before his potion had started wearing off? But food was food, and he was hungry, and those potatoes looked excellent.
"Pass the peas," Malfoy said from down the table, and suddenly McGonagall was trying to hand Harry an enormous silver tureen of buttered peas and he was trying to take it. Instantly he knew it was a recipe for disaster.
The thing was, Harry wasn't keen on anyone knowing the full extent of his injuries. Only Ron and Hermione knew how useless his left arm really was. Bad enough that every wizard who kept up on the news knew about his leg -- call him paranoid, but he'd prefer to keep it under wraps that he was essentially down not just one functional limb, but two. It wasn't good to broadcast one's weaknesses to one's enemies, and Harry had more enemies than most. He'd managed to keep the damage to his arm quiet up til now and he was dead-set on keeping it from his students and colleagues.
But there was no way he'd be able to hold these bloody peas. He gripped the two-handled tureen with his good hand and made a show of folding his fingers around the other handle, but his shoulder was already seizing up in protest of the movement and his fingers wouldn't cooperate and you didn't need to be Professor Trelawney to predict what was about to happen.
Peas went everywhere.
Everywhere, but mostly on Harry, and the silver tureen clattered down onto a gravy boat so he was covered in gravy as well, lovely, and some mashed potatoes for good measure, because why not?
"Fuck," Harry said far too loudly, "Sorry, oh, bloody hell, let me --"
At least he still had his reflexes. His wand was out and the peas, gravy and mashed potatoes were gone before McGonagall had even finished saying, "What on earth, Potter?"
There was a polite pause, and then replacement peas, mashed potatoes and gravy appeared on the table. Harry swallowed, raised his wand again, and sent the peas floating down the table to Malfoy -- as he should've done in the first place. He'd been too busy panicking about his arm to remember that he was a wizard.
"Sorry," he said again.
"It's quite all right," said McGonagall. "Are you?"
"Tired," he said honestly. And in pain.
"You look a bit peaky, mate," Neville said worriedly.
"I'll be fine after I eat something," Harry said, which would have been true two hours ago. He put a few bites of potato into his mouth to demonstrate, and after a moment, McGonagall and Neville were satisfied enough to stop looking at him. Actually, the food did revive him a bit, though his leg was still shouting for him to get up and stretch it out -- standing for the brief, horrible interlude of the speech hadn't been enough.
Finally, finally, finally, the meal was over, the students had been gathered by the prefects, the professors Harry didn't know had all shaken his hand and introduced themselves, and Harry at last was free to go. It was with some difficulty that he got to his feet, hip stiff as a board, and took an exploratory step before deciding it was for everyone's good if he waited til the room cleared a bit before he tackled those five stairs and the vast expanse of the Great Hall. He didn't even want to think about the five staircases that lay before him and his bed.
"Let me walk you back to your room," Neville said, his face anxious, and Harry knew he was thinking of his promise to Hermione.
"No, go on, I'm fine," Harry said.
"You're not," Neville said stubbornly. "Come on, no one's looking. Take my arm."
But someone was looking: Malfoy was looking. In fact, to Harry's horror, he was coming towards them, and the closer he got, the better-looking he became, which was truly an injustice.
"Hullo, Potter," he said -- same old drawl, but an octave or so deeper. It was amazing the difference an octave could make.
"Malfoy," Harry said, as cooly as a person barely keeping their balance could.
"Looks like we're colleagues," Malfoy said. "For now." He flashed white teeth and Harry flashed his temper.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Haven't you heard? Your position is cursed," Malfoy drawled.
"That curse died when I killed Voldemort," Harry said, and then winced. Really? Was he breaking out the big guns already? "And anyway, Baisley held the job for years."
Malfoy shrugged, looking unconvinced. "Time will tell," he said.
And with that threatening sign-off, he turned and left. The room was mostly empty, finally, and Harry took a brief, staggering step that must've looked as bad as it felt, because Neville resumed staring at him anxiously.
"All right," Harry relented. "If you don't mind just helping me up some stairs? I'm sorry about this, I mistimed my pain potion, stupid mistake. I promise you won't have to be looking after me all the time."
"Harry, don't be silly," said Neville. "The times you've looked after me..."
He gripped Neville's shoulder and let him take some of his weight, and together they made their way slowly down the brief stairs and across the Great Hall. By that time Harry's leg had limbered up enough to let him walk unsupported, and Neville ambled along beside him until they came to the wide, twisting marble steps that led to the sixth floor.
"A railing wouldn't go amiss here," Harry said, leaning heavily on Neville's sturdy arm.
"I think there's a set with a railing in the west wing, I can check for you tomorrow."
"Merlin, am I the first -- what's the PC term -- er -- mobility-challenged person to set foot in Hogwarts?"
"Moody had that wooden leg," Neville said.
"Hang on, sorry, mind if we --?"
They stopped on the first landing, and Neville said, "D'you want me to -- I could levitate you up?"
"No!" Harry said, too loudly. "No, thanks, but -- no."
He'd been levitated in that basement last year, his body spun in circles as they'd cast their agonizing, well-planned curses, making sure it hurt, making sure it could never be fixed. He'd been levitated at St. Mungo's when he couldn't stand, floated from room to room, helpless. He'd thought of the Muggles the Death Eaters had levitated at the Quidditch Cup all those years ago, puppets hanging from invisible strings. No. Mobilicorpus was not a spell he'd allow on himself if he could help it; he knew from all-too-recent experiments with it that he'd be left shaky and twitching for hours afterwards. The help was not worth the horror.
Neville, who'd also seen his fair share of poorly-used levitation, nodded without further comment.
On the landing of the fifth floor, waiting for Harry to catch his breath, Neville suddenly said, "Floo!"
"Gesundheidt?"
"No, the Floo Network!" Neville said excitedly. "I wonder if we can set up Floo stations on each floor -- you've got a fireplace in your classroom, haven't you? And your office, too, I expect. You can't Floo in and out of Hogwarts, but I bet you can Floo within it!"
"Neville," Harry said, hope rising. "That's brilliant."
"I don't know if it will work," Neville said, flushing with pleasure.
"It doesn't matter, it's just -- it's really good of you to even think about it."
"Sorry I didn't think of it earlier," Neville said, releasing Harry as they reached the top of the stairs.
"Well, why should you? It isn't your problem."
Neville shook his head, looking affronted.
"Anyway," Harry said, "I'm all right from here, I think." He paused and said, "You're a good mate, Neville. See you at breakfast?"
"Just like old times," Neville said happily, and bounded away down the staircase, with such ease that Harry had to turn away.