The dying light of the setting sun washed over every street in the city of London, bathing everything in colors of golden and orange. White doves—universal symbols of hope and peace circled gracefully above the bell tower of this city.
Along the glistening riverbank, where water reflected the burning sky, young people just off from their work walked in small groups of twos and threes. Smiles adorned their faces as they discussed the amusing incidents of the day now drawing peacefully to a close, laughing about office gossip or making plans for the evening ahead.
The Muggles going about their ordinary lives had no idea that this very city they called home had stood on the brink of complete destruction today. That war had come to their doorstep while they worked and ate lunch.
Harry opened his eyes slowly, staring blankly at the irregular halos of light scattered across the clean glass window by the crimson sunlight streaming through. Dust specks danced in the beams.
It was a long, disorienting moment before he fully realized where he was: Grimmauld Place, in the bedroom he shared with Ron. The familiar cracked ceiling. The old wallpaper. The smell of dust and old magic.
But shouldn't he be at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries instead?
They should have taken him to St. Mungo's, shouldn't they? Because he'd collapsed on the battlefield, unconscious before he even hit the ground. By all rights and proper procedure, they should have sent him for thorough medical examination.
Unless—
The bedding covering him felt stifling and heavy in the warm evening air. Harry shifted uncomfortably, struggling to pull his stiff hand free from beneath the covers where it had been trapped. He used it to prop himself up slowly to a sitting position.
The house was remarkably quiet around him. There was no one else in the bedroom besides him, both beds were empty except for his own.
Ron and the others were probably still at St. Mungo's keeping Mr. Weasley company, maintaining their watch. After all, his injuries had been so terribly severe. He might need his family there when he woke.
Harry was in no particular hurry to get out of bed and face whatever waited downstairs.
Having witnessed the brutal cruelty of war in person for the first time, having taken the battlefield himself and seen people die, he found himself particularly savoring this peaceful world before his eyes.
His wandering gaze fell on the wand resting on his bedside table, and Harry flinched slightly, his shoulders drew in defensively.
But after a moment's hesitation, he slowly reached out and picked up the wand that had been warmed pleasantly by the sun streaming through the window—the wand that had accompanied him for almost exactly four years now, just one day short of their anniversary.
As he stroked the smooth length of the holly wand with gentle fingers, feeling that sense of joy it always conveyed—like the happiness of meeting one's closest and most trusted friend after a long absence, Harry's lips moved, but he remained silent.
His mind flashed back to kneeling in that muddy field, wand clutched in his hand as he casted that mysterious golden-red light toward Voldemort hovering in midair. He remembered the glimpse he'd caught of the shocked faces of the Order members surrounding him, their expressions of disbelief and awe.
Harry shook his head slightly.
The whole world probably thought he'd done it intentionally. Only he knew the actual truth of what had happened.
In that moment, though the burning pain from his scar had still been affecting him severely, making thought difficult, this wand had suddenly clung to his hand as if magnetized. It had actually dragged his arm along to cast the spell at Voldemort.
Harry looked down at the wand that had been his constant companion through four years at Hogwarts, his most trusted ally, yet suddenly felt a severe sense of unfamiliarity with it.
As if he'd never really known it at all.
How had that phenomenon occurred?
A melancholy sigh escaped Harry's lips, echoing through the lonely, quiet room.
From Voldemort's terrified roar of shock or fear, Harry understood with certainty that even the master of his wand's twin brother probably didn't know what had happened or why that magic had manifested.
Perhaps only Professor Dumbledore and Professor Watson knew something substantive about it.
They wouldn't tell him the full truth, though. Harry was certain of that.
Though he hadn't even tried asking yet, Harry was absolutely certain they would keep their knowledge to themselves like they always did.
It took quite a while for Harry to restore proper strength to his stiff legs and feet which had been motionless for hours.
He climbed out of bed reluctantly and put on his worn slippers. He shuffled out of the bedroom with uneven, hesitant steps, still not fully recovered.
There was no one upstairs—Harry determined that easily enough from the silence. The house felt empty above.
He held onto the banister, worn and slightly decayed by the passage of long years, and descended the creaking stairs slowly, one careful step at a time.
Only when he stood in the long hallway on the ground floor, hand still on the railing, could he finally hear voices speaking behind the door leading down to the basement kitchen.
Many familiar voices reached his ears through the wood, making Harry's wooden, emotionless expression warm slightly with relief and hope.
Sirius was all right, and so were Remus and Hagrid—but what about the other members of the Order who'd fought?
The urgency building in his heart gave Harry's tired body renewed strength and purpose. His hand found the cold metal door handle and gripped it.
CLICK!
The very instant Harry turned the handle and began to push, the noisy world behind the door fell utterly silent as though someone had pressed a mute button.
There were many people crowded into the kitchen—more than usual. Of course, that might partly be because Hagrid's enormous body took up so much space all by himself, but the presence of Mrs. Weasley and several of her children still surprised and puzzled Harry deeply.
Why weren't they at the hospital with Mr. Weasley?
"Harry!"
A delighted shriek made many people in the kitchen wince in pain at the volume.
Before Harry could even begin to recover from the assault on his sensitive eardrums, Hermione had already bounded up the few stairs from the table and thrown her arms around his neck in a crushing embrace.
"Cough, cough—"
Harry coughed weakly, struggling for air.
"I'm suffocating, Hermione. Could you—oh, I think you should know, you've been through rigorous training, your strength is probably much greater now than the average girl's—"
THWACK!
Suddenly Hermione shoved Harry away roughly and punched him straight in the face.
"You bloody idiot! You reckless, stupid, thoughtless idiot!"
The punch wasn't light by any measure. Harry immediately grimaced in pain as a dark purple bruise bloomed rapidly at the corner of his mouth.
But Harry didn't get angry or protest the violence. He knew exactly why he'd been hit. He just looked at the furious Hermione with an apologetic, guilty expression.
"Well hit, Hermione."
At the bottom of the stairs, the Weasley children gathered in the kitchen all fell into awkward silence, watching Hermione warily like one might watch an unexploded bomb, clearly afraid of somehow catching the fallout of her rage.
Even Hagrid drew in several sharp breaths.
But one voice spoke up in agreement.
Harry immediately looked down toward the source to see Sirius emerge from behind Hagrid, looking up at him.
"Sirius—"
Sirius's upper body was bare except for white bandages wrapped around his chest in multiple layers, covering what looked like serious injuries. It appeared quite severe, but if St. Mungo's had allowed him to be discharged already, it probably wasn't anything to worry too much about long-term.
The joyful exclamation of relief hadn't fully left Harry's lips before he cut himself short.
Not because of Sirius's visible injuries, but because of the completely calm expression on Sirius's face as he looked steadily at Harry, and the profound disappointment clearly mingled in his eyes.
"Go on down—"
Hermione stepped aside with a gentle push to Harry's shoulder, while the others in the kitchen below remained silent.
Harry descended the remaining steps to stand before Sirius in a kind of trance, moving automatically.
He kept his head down, staring at his own toes, unwilling and unable to meet Sirius's disappointed gaze head-on.
The silence stretched on uncomfortably.
"I assume—"
Sirius finally spoke as he glowered at the top of Harry's head.
"You're not optimistic enough to think I'd be grateful that you charged recklessly onto the battlefield to save me? Or that I'd be proud of you for driving off Voldemort?"
"Sirius—"
Remus standing quietly beside Mrs. Weasley stepped forward slightly to mediate before this could escalate further.
"But the fact is, Harry came to the battlefield out of concern for you, and he did actually succeed in driving Voldemort away—"
Remus paused, looking at Harry with slight suspicion creeping into his expression.
"I must say, Harry, that final blow you dealt Voldemort exceeded many people's expectations. Ron and Hermione told us you'd never displayed such power before in all your time at school. So, were you deliberately hiding it all these years, like Bryan did when he was a student at Hogwarts?"
"It was just an accident—"
Harry blurted out quickly.
He'd known someone would inevitably ask this question, and he had to explain clearly to avoid any misunderstandings about his abilities.
"That wasn't my intention at all—"
Harry drew out his wand to show everyone.
"At that moment, it took control of me somehow and cast that spell at Voldemort."
'The wand controlled the wizard to cast a spell?'
Everyone exchanged confused glances with each other, finding this explanation difficult to accept.
"Is it possible that you've always had this tremendous power hidden deep inside you, Harry, but only today, when provoked by You-Know-Who—"
Ron asked cautiously, his voice was uncertain.
"You've lived with me for four years, Ron—"
The way Ron was looking at him reminded Harry of four years ago, when they'd first met on the Hogwarts Express and Ron had learned he was Harry Potter. That kind of respectful awe.
This look made Harry deeply uncomfortable, so he said somewhat impatiently:
"You know what I'm actually capable of, Ron. Have I ever done anything like that before?"
Ron furrowed his brow seriously, actually beginning to recall carefully through years of their memories.
Sirius and Remus exchanged a glance over Harry's head.
The power hidden within Harry was too mysterious, and the secret connection between him and Voldemort was too profound. Perhaps only wizards with Dumbledore's and Bryan Watson's level of knowledge could provide a reasonable, complete explanation for what had occurred.
"Very well, Harry—"
Remus nodded acceptingly after a moment's consideration.
"I assume you won't mind if I relay what you've told us to Albus and Bryan?"
This question broke the tension somewhat, and the subtle, uncomfortable atmosphere in the kitchen eased slightly.
But Sirius still looked at Harry coldly.
"I think you owe me an explanation, Harry. What exactly made you make such a reckless and irresponsible decision to charge onto the battlefield where you could have been killed?"
Hagrid's bushy beard twitched nervously. He himself had been frightened half to death when he'd suddenly seen Harry on the battlefield today, appearing out of nowhere.
And he'd vowed quite seriously that Sirius would give the boy a good thrashing for the stupidity.
But now that the moment of reckoning had actually arrived, he couldn't bear it. His soft heart wouldn't allow it.
"Sirius—"
Hagrid opened his mouth to intervene.
"Let him speak for himself, Hagrid. He's not a child anymore."
Sirius didn't give Hagrid any chance to plead Harry's case or defend him.
The kitchen fell so silent you could hear a pin drop on the stone floor. Everyone watched Harry face Sirius's anger, their hearts were in their throats.
"I can't keep losing people on this day—"
Harry sniffed hard, fighting back tears. He raised his head, forcing himself to meet Sirius's eyes despite the difficulty. His bright green eyes were glistening with moistness.
"Fourteen years ago today, I lost my mum and dad. I didn't want to lose you too today, Sirius—"
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