Chapter Text
24 July, 1998
The eighth and final Hogwarts letter addressed to one Harry Potter arrived by owl on a warm, muggy summer evening at the Burrow.
The air was thick with the scent of roasting chicken, mingling with the earthy musk of the garden, which had been worked over for days but still retained the wildness of spring. The hum of crickets drifted lazily through the open windows, filling the quiet spaces between the murmurs and clinks of cutlery. Inside, Harry, Hermione, and most of the Weasleys sat around the dinner table, their shoulders heavy with exhaustion from the long week of hard work. The silence between them was heavy, but comfortable.
They had spent the last several days working in the garden and around the house, tackling the kind of chores that had gone forgotten in war. The Burrow, once full of life and movement, had suffered from neglect over the past year. The windows, though intact, looked cloudier than Harry remembered. The floors creaked louder, as if the house itself was weary. And the charms Mrs. Weasley had once placed on the house to keep things running smoothly had faded over time, as old spells slowly losing their potency. The garden, which had once been a vibrant patchwork of vegetables and flowers, had become a tangled mess of overgrowth. The once-proud rows of vegetables were now choked by weeds, and the gnomes had taken full advantage of the neglect, flinging themselves gleefully into the air.
In the past week, Harry and Ron had spent most of their time in the garden, clearing the weeds from the vegetable patch and taking turns flinging gnomes, trying to outdo each other in what had become a competition of ridiculous proportions. Harry was fairly certain he’d won, despite Ron's insistence to the contrary.
But on this particular evening, as the last bits of daylight began to slip away, the stillness of the moment was broken by a loud crash. The sound was so sudden and sharp that it made Harry’s heart jump into his throat. A large barn owl, looking thoroughly disgruntled, flew through the open window with an alarming screech. Its feathers were ruffled, its wings flapping with an almost indignant fury, as though it had been forced into this errand against its will.
With a sharp shake of its leg, the owl released a small pile of letters, each one bearing the unmistakable seal of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Four letters. Four hefty letters.
"Four letters?" Mrs. Weasley muttered, her voice thick with the kind of confusion. Everyone looked around at each other, feeling much the same. She stood up, moving quickly to gather the post, her brow furrowing as she flipped through them.
"Whassit?" Ron mumbled through a mouthful of chicken, his voice muffled but curious. Hermione shot him a sharp look of disgust but didn’t say anything as she stood to read the letters over Molly’s shoulder. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she let out a little gasp that made Harry’s stomach flip with anxiety.
"Harry, Ron, we’ve got letters!" Hermione said, her voice high with a mix of shock and disbelief. Without thinking, she grabbed the letters from Molly’s hands and began passing them around the table, her fingers trembling slightly as she handed them out.
Ron stared at the parchment in his hands as if he had never received a letter in his life. “Le’es? From Hogwah?”
“Yes, dear, it rather seems so,” Molly replied, her voice strained as she leaned over Ginny’s shoulder, watching her daughter open her own letter. “Oh, good, we have most of these books already…”
Harry, however, couldn’t tear his gaze away from the letter in his own hands. He stared at it as if it were a foreign object, the Hogwarts seal glinting under the soft light of the kitchen. It seemed impossible, and yet here it was, addressed in the familiar elegant handwriting that he recognized so well—Harry Potter, The Burrow Kitchen, Ottery St. Catchpole, England. His heart hammered in his chest, and his hand trembled as he held the parchment.
"Dear Mr. Potter..."
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to invite you back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this coming September.
After the events of last year, an opportunity for a final, provisional year of study has been made available to all students in your class. Although Hogwarts cannot implement an ‘eighth’ year, based on the extenuating circumstances, the school board has unanimously decided to offer year-long apprenticeships to students in your year. These apprenticeships are meant to adequately prepare you for the working world, and although not necessary, it is strongly recommended to complete one, to serve as substitution for your NEWTs.
Apprenticeships will be given in the subjects of Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Charms, Defense against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions, and Transfiguration. Please note that the apprenticeship positions will be appointed by aptitude testing and not by student choice.
There are no required course books or equipment for this term. Equipment lists will be individually determined once one is assigned a position.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Headmistress
“Well,” Ron muttered, first to break the silence. “didn’t see this one coming.”
The others around the table seemed to feel the tension too, but none of them spoke. Mr. Weasley was looking through Ginny’s supply list, his face impassive. Percy glanced briefly at Harry’s letter, then back down at his plate, chewing slowly. Hogwarts. A place that had become so much more than just a school for him. It was home. It had been home during the hardest parts of his life, but now, after everything, a foreign sense of panic, amalgamated with a strangled hope, built in his chest at the thought of going back.
“I need some air,” he said, abruptly standing up from the table, knocking over his chair. He caught Ron and Hermione’s glance at each other as he picked his coat off the couch, the one with his cigarettes, and raced out the back door.
The evening air hit him like a wave, thick with the scent of grass and wood smoke. He reached the large, old oak near the back of the property and lay underneath it, running a hand through his messy hair. The knot in his chest only seemed to tighten as he stared at the letter in his hand. He fumbled for the pack of cigarettes in his jacket, his fingers trembling. Lighting one, Harry inhaled deeply, the harsh smoke filling his lungs and settling a momentary calm over him, a block against the mantra of voices playing in his head.
He lay there, alone, dragging on the cigarette for what felt like ages. Watching the sun setting through the trees, he tried and failed to stamp down that hope curling in his veins, taking take deep breaths against the panic it light within him.
Does it matter? I don't deserve to go back
He didn’t hear them at first, but then Ron and Hermione’s voices broke through the thick silence. He looked up to see them standing above him. “You stormed off pretty quick, mate,” Ron said, his voice a mix of irritation and concern. “Are you okay?”
Harry didn’t answer at first, taking another drag. “Peachy,” he said in a tight voice. He pointedly ignored the hardening in Hermione's eyes as she spotted the cigarette.
Hermione had, to no surprise, noticed his smoking habit almost as soon as he’d picked it up. The three of them spent the summer at the Burrow. After the war, the three of them had agreed that they should stick close together for the time being- their anxieties were too high to let each other out of their sights. Although, as the summer had gone onward, the more than Harry had found Ron and Hermione muttering in corners, casting sidelong glances his way. He’d begun to think it was more that neither of them wanted him out of their sight.
It’s not as if he could exactly blame them. According to reliable sources, he went a bit, as they say, crazy, after the battle. He'd gone missing for a few hours one night, about a week after everything had gone down. McGonagall and his friends had been frantic, naturally. Luna, who was indeed the reliable source on all things crazy, had found him in the Forbidden Forest screaming himself hoarse, face down in the dirt, the entire clearing filled with freshly fallen trees and small brush fires. The air had been charged with his magic, violent and dangerous, yes she dragged him back to the castle resolutely. He had no recollection of it, of course; the days between defeating Voldemort and waking up in a Weasley bed, dirt under his fingernails and in his hair, were blissfully blank. From what he could piece together, however, a streak of insomnia had led to a bit of a breakdown, and after Luna had found Hermione to pass him off to, they’d all ended up here, in the countryside.
The trio agreed to try and find some peace, some “sense of normalcy”. A breath of fresh air. “That‘s all you need, dear,” Mrs. Weasley had said that night as she scrubbed at his hair over the kitchen sink, attempting to wash out the stuck dirt from the nest. “Just a breath of fresh air, and everything’s going to be alright.” He’d heard the quake in her voice, and he remembered wondering how many times she’d washed Fred’s hair in this sink. He hadn’t responded, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing the lump in his throat.
Fresh air he had certainly not gotten. Even in the relative peace of the countryside, Harry hadn’t had a great job of sleeping. He’d frequently wake up to frantic shaking by Ron, or Hermione, or occasionally Ginny, always with a scream dying on his lips. On occasion, he’d be found in random part of the Burrow that he’d decidedly not gone to sleep in. After an incident where he’d woken up to Ron jerking him back from a third story window, he’d had to start sleeping in Ron or Hermione’s rooms.
His face had burnt with indignation and shame when they’d sat him down, away from the others, and told him in hushed tones that they wanted him to sleep with at least one of them, at all times. He wanted to argue with them, given into the hot, acid anger in his chest, tell them that he wasn't a child, that he had never really been a child. But he could hardly argue with their faces, tired and pleading as they were, and he appreciated how much they cared for him. It had helped, in some regard, to have them near. Even so, he couldn’t swallow the embarrassment of it all, or the thought of waking them, confirming their fears. So he’d taken to feigning sleep as long as he could, after they’d gone to bed. Then, once the house was still, he’d crept as quietly as he could, and he wandered.
A few weeks after this rule was implemented, he’d found a long forgotten box of Muggle Winstons in Charlie’s old room, where Hermione had been sleeping. That night, out of curiosity more than anything, he’d gone out back and lit the end with his wand, taking a drag of the cigarette that instantly sent itself careening back out of his lungs in violent coughs. Disgusting, he’d thought to himself, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Yet, the next night, when everyone else was sleeping, he’d crept back out to the porch and lit another. It wasn't pleasant, but it was something to do, something to combat the swell of I can't I can't I can't that sat, so constantly, in his chest. Suddenly, it became his routine until one night he found himself inhaling the acrid smoke, smooth and practiced, into his lungs, and it had just clicked. Something within him shifted, like a rock off his chest, and he could breathe.
Careful as he’d tried to be, Hermione sniffed it out in the first week. “Harry,” she’d said dangerously, her nose wrinkled as she held out one of his t shirts he’d left strewn about. “Tell me you’re not.”
So much for fresh air.
Over the last month, he and Hermione had gotten into plenty of rows about it, but he refused to give it up. After everything, he’d finally found something that set his nerves at ease, quieted the screaming in his mind; a way tangibly, physically hold onto a sense of calm, as fleeting as it may be. So no, not a chance in hell he was going to give it up. Not even for his best mates.
“Harry.” Hermione’s stubborn voice brought him out of his musings. “We’ve talked about this.”
“Indeed we have,” he replied flatly, taking a long drag from the cigarette and watching smoke curl up towards the sky.
She let out a loud huff and glanced at Ron for backup, who seemed to give her an imperceptible shake of the head. Not now. Sensing that she’d lost the battle for the time being, she plopped herself rather unceremoniously beside him on the ground, snatching the pack from the ground. He closed his eyes and took another drag.
“So, you lot out here to tell me to get packing?” He bit out, with more steely anger in his voice than he meant. He regretted it at the look of hurt that passed through Ron’s eyes as he sat besides him, leaning against the tree, but said nothing.
“No,” Hermione said quietly. “Although Ron and I have decided-”
“Oh, Ron and you have decided, now there’s something new,” Harry interrupted, crushing the butt of the spent cigarette into the dirt as he sat up.
“Ron and I have decided,” she continued, “that we are all in this together. We’re either all going to go back, or we’re all going to stay here. So we should talk about it.”
“Right." Harry swallowed the biting retort that rose up in his throat. It did make sense. At this point, they'd become a package deal, relying on one another's presence, although it was mostly Harry who needed them. As much as he hated them constantly over his shoulder, talking about him behind closed doors, sneaking food on his plate, even having him sleep in their beds for Merlin’s sake, he did understand. From the outside, he could see how it looked like he was losing his grip a bit. And hell, maybe he was. "Alright. So?"
“Well,” Ron starts, uncertain. “I can’t speak for Hermione, but I think we should do it. I mean, it’s... it would be nice, to have one year without everything getting mucked up.”
He stared, incredulously, silently at him. He hadn't expected for a moment that Ron would want to go back to school, and he didn't know quite how he felt about it, until Ron uttered those words. The thought of stepping on those grounds again suddenly sent a strong wave of nausea through him. "I don't know," he said after a moment, pressing the heel of his hand sharply into his eyes. "Ron, all the people there, I-" he cut himself off with a strangled sigh. "I don't if I can handle all that right now."
Ron sent him a lopsided grin. "Don't worry about the people, mate. We can beat them off with sticks. You'll hardly notice."
Harry snorted in reply, shaking his head but didn't respond.
It grew quiet, the sounds of the crickets growing louder as the sun set farther in the sky, dipping below the horizon. Hermione finally filled the silence. "Listen, Harry. I don’t know how I feel about it either. Honest!” She said, as the two of them gazed at her skeptically. “I know you expected me to race upstairs and start packing but…I don't know,” she exhaled, running her hands through her bushy hair. “It won't be the same. We’re not-” she paused, pressing her lips together and gazing out at the distance. After a moment, Hermione spoke again, her voice steady. “But I don't want the last memories of Hogwarts to be-” she cut herself off, warm brown eyes flicking to meet Harry's gaze. "I think our last memories there should be good ones. It'll help us move on."
Harry couldn’t meet her gaze. Instead, he stared at the ground, taking a deep breath, fighting the overwhelming emotion that threatened to overtake him. He wanted to scream, to tell them both how he couldn't possibly do it, not with the vice of I cant's belted around his waist, dragging him down, drowning him. The air felt cooler now, the evening growing darker around them.
“So it’s decided then?” He said, flatly, trying his best to keep the stewing emotions out of his voice.
“If you don’t want to go, Harry, then we won’t go,” Hermione replied simply.
He huffed in response, his breath sharp and uneven. He couldn’t bring himself to look at either of them. His eyes stayed fixed on the darkening horizon, the colors of the sunset bleeding into the night. "You don’t know what it feels like to be alive for one purpose, and to fuck it up so royally that half the people you love are dead. I can't be reminded of that daily.” The words tumbled out of him before he could take them back; he opened his mouth to say more, but closed it again, the anger gone as quickly as it had come.
"That's not true, Harry," Hermione finally said, her voice quieter now, but trembling with a kind of heartbreak that made his chest. "But- even if it was, which it's not," she rushed out at Ron's sharp inhale, "are you not reminded of it, wherever you are?"
The words landed like a punch, and Harry’s breath caught in his throat. It was true. Feeling the wounds and the guilt torn fresh every time he heard George sob, quietly, in his room; every time he got an invitation to a funeral or a newspaper asking for a story; waking up to Hermione or Ron peering over him, shaking him awake frantically as hoarse screams filled the room; seeing green lights flashing behind his eyes even as nicotine settled in his lungs. He knew, he could be anywhere in the world and something- the smell of burning food, the elongation of a shadow stretching out just so, a harsh cackle- anything could send him back there.
He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to step back on grounds and see all the damage and smell the smoke still hanging in the air and see the empty spots at the table and hear the echoes in his head, the please don’t kill me's and the avada ked-
Coward.
“Fine,” Harry said suddenly, his voice thick. “I’ll go. We can go.” He said, reaching back to pry the cigarettes from Hermione's grip.
He tore past everyone who sat in the kitchen, ignoring all of the sidelong, worried gazes at him. He ignored the murmurs of Hermione speaking with Mrs. Weasley, and tearing off a bit of parchment from the edge of his letter, he quickly penned a note:
Professor,
Ill be there. Ron and Hermione too.
- HP
He tied it to the barn owl who still sat in the kitchen, staring dubiously at all of them. “Go on, then. Bring it back to Hogwarts.” With a haughty look and a screech, the owl took back off, flying into the night.
'Bloody hell,' Harry thought to himself.
“Harry?” Ginny’s voice came from behind him, hesitant.
Harry didn’t look back. He couldn’t. He wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel. But the ache in his chest hadn’t gone away, and now the knot in his stomach just seemed to have tightened. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the stubble on his chin, the slight roughness of himself that he didn’t recognize anymore.
Ginny stood softly beside him at the window, hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I’ll be there, Harry. Whatever you need, I’ll be there with you.”
He gritted his teeth. He hated it when she said things like that. He hated how kind she could be, how understanding, when all he wanted was to feel something besides the numbness that had been suffocating him. Even after things had ended between them, when he’d broken it off, too damaged to pick the relationship back up. He’d broken down in sobs in her arms the second night he was here, hair wet from where Mrs. Weasley had washed the dirt from it, grief pulsing through him like a curse, like a vice around his chest, and she’d just held him, kind and understanding. He wanted her to push back, fight back, tell him what an absolute failure loser murderer freak he was. But she didn’t. And he couldn’t forgive her for it, even now. Not since that sea of grief had long since settled into a constant, roiling anger in his chest, climbing up his throat whenever it pleased.
He bit his tongue before replying, as softly as he could manage. “Thanks, Gin.” And without much else to say, he headed upstairs to Ron’s bedroom, laying down on the lump mattress and feigning sleep even as Ron came tiptoeing into the room.