After the war was over

PART TWO - FINDING WHAT WAS LOST



It was much later that Hermione sat at the kitchen table cradling a cup of tea. She thought over the events and revelations of the day, trying to get it all straight in her own mind, in order that she could explain it to others. Elsewhere in the house came the sounds of a very raucous bath-time session with Ron and Harry’s voices raised above the joyful sounds that the children were making. The two men were tunelessly singing in unison about five little speckled frogs. Her hand still smarted from where she had smacked Harry hard across the face, as soon as she had recovered well enough to do so.

Her feelings had hurt far more than her hand however when Harry, her beloved Harry had stared at her coolly “Hermione.” He’d said, “I can see that you are upset. But if you ever hit me again in front of my children you will no-longer be welcome in my house.” With that, he had turned away from her and called to the children. “Come on kids let’s go and wash our hands before tea.”

Hermione’s eyes had filled with tears as his smallest daughter took his face in her little hands and looked deep into his eyes. “Why did the lady smack you Daddy? She said, “smacking is bad isn’t it, Daddy?”

“Aye Caitriona, smacking is bad, but the lady is cross with me for going away and not seeing her for a very long time. She didn’t mean to hurt me”. All her anger had evaporated then, and she had deflated like a punctured balloon, sinking back onto the chair from which so had so recently risen. With a deep sense of longing and sadness she had watched him gather his children and march from the room.

Fi MacLeod had then ushered them out of the kitchen. Through the house she’d led them. They passed a comfortable sitting room, distinguished by squishy sofas and shelf after shelf of books, until they reached a “sun-room” filled with basket weave chairs that overlooked the sparkling bay and the Cuillin Mountains. There Hermione tried to calm her churning stomach and still her shaking hands. She had missed Harry for such a long time, they all had. The wizarding world needed him so much, and all that time, all the time she. No. They, had been grieving. He had been living happily in this beautiful place, with his beautiful children, not thinking about them at all.

Fiona’s voice cut into her thoughts “It is not how you think it is.” She said kindly “He would not willingly have left you. You must know that?

Hermione did not know what to think anymore.

“Let me tell you how he came to be here and help you understand.” Fi said, in her soft accent. So her story unfolded, and whilst she told it, the afternoon finished and the evening began. Harry and his children popped in from time to time with tea for them all and with cakes and biscuits. By the time the story was finished Hermione felt chilled to the bone, and angry about what had happened to Harry, and sorry for her actions earlier. She wanted to take him in her arms and make it all better and take away, even just a little of the pain that he had suffered.

Fiona had told them about her childhood friend, Mhairi MacKay, for whom her youngest daughter had been named. Mhairi had discovered that she was magical and had gone away from the Island to Hogwarts and Fiona had been pleased for her and supported her and written often. They had stayed friends and Fiona had gone to Mhairi’s wedding as Mhairi had gone to hers. But whereas Fiona had married a Skianach, a local man, Mhairi had married a wizard.

Fiona had had four children, the youngest somewhat later than the others, the daughter that she had named for her friend. Mhairi had had one child, a boy. That she and her husband John named Remus, after a favourite uncle of his. When he was six the little boy had been bitten by a werewolf, an evil beast that had fallen out with his fathe,r and who had targeted the child deliberately.

After that they saw a lot of Remus in the summer. This far north the nights in June, July and early August were just a few hours long, and that had kept the boy’s transformations to a minimum length. He had played with her daughters and they had all loved and trusted him and kept him safe and apart during full moon. But when he grew older she saw him become sad and lonely. Afraid of what he was and the prejudice he faced. At Hogwarts he had made friends but they had all died or been lost to him, when he was barely out of his teens. One young couple that she had met just once had been murdered in their own home, whilst their child lay sleeping. She never thought to know this child, but he and Remus had appeared one day in her garden, and the state he was in, there was no way she could have ever even thought of turning them away.

Fiona MacLeod considered herself to be a good woman. She had listened to all that Remus told her about the wizarding world and found many things shocking and wrong. Fair-minded and free of prejudice, as she thought herself to be. But she had never thought to see what she had seen that day.

“Terrible things!” She said. “Terrible and cruel, and all of them done to a child.”

Harry had not yet been seventeen when he turned up on her doorstep.

“I didn’t think he would survive the night. I’ve rarely seen worse injuries and I have been a nurse for nearly forty years.

“He had been raped repeatedly, and tortured. His skin was torn and burned. He had open sores, broken ribs and a fractured skull.

“ Both his legs had been broken in several places, when masonry had fallen on him and Remus said that he had had to dig him out from where he was buried in order to bring him here. His magic had been fractured and it took several years to repair itself. For the first wee while though, I think it was only his magic that kept him alive. He was in such pain and the nightmares that he had every night. Time after time he would wake up screaming. He was not well enough to go anywhere.” She said. “Never mind, to a world that would worship him or try to condemn him”

Hermione shivered when she thought of what it must have been like

At some point Harry joined them and it was then, that Hermione and Ron had found that he had still not fully recovered from what had been done to him by Voldemort, and probably never would be. He hid it well, and it had taken them a long time to notice, but he did not know them unless he could see them to read their lips. Harry, they discovered, was deaf. Voldemort had taken his hearing the day of the last battle.

Then Harry had told his story and after he had finished Hermione felt that any words of sympathy she might have spoken would turn to ashes on her tongue. Harry had suffered more than she could ever imagine and the tale of horrendous pain and loneliness just kept tumbling out one horror after the other

“The cell that they kept me in was dark and damp and cold. So cold, even in July. They didn’t give me water much, but as it was very wet down there, I learned to lick the walls when I was thirsty. They tasted of urine and copper and blood.

“When they first took me I was scared but I thought I could brave it out somehow. Then the Dursleys were brought in and I knew I had to get them out. They didn’t deserve to be there no matter what they had done to me. No one deserved that place. My uncle was screaming at me about how it was my fault what had happened it was all because of my filth – that’s what he called my magic.

“I wanted them safe, so I thought of Hogwarts and sort of pushed with my mind. ‘cause I didn’t have my wand, I just had to will them away and the next thing, they had vanished, so the Death Eaters punished me for that too.

“They held me down and beat me and cursed me and then…. Then….”

It was as if Harry were no longer with them. He had his arms wrapped around himself in a gesture of comfort. He was slowly rocking back and forth and his eyes stared at something only he could see. Hermione longed to hold him but as she reached towards him he carried on speaking, so she clenched her fist and returned her hand to her lap. “I was a virgin,” he said, “and there were so many. I was naked down below, they tore my trousers off and they laughed, and they jeered, and it hurt so much.

“I can’t tell you how much it hurt.”

His voice cracked and he swallowed hard. He took a deep breath and a moment later carried on with his story. He told them how frightened he had been, how lonely. He’d thought that it was his fault that he was there, because it had been he who had caused the deaths of Cedric and Sirius and Dumbledore.

“Oh Harry!” Hermione had whispered sadly, but he had not heard her. He was in a dark place, far away from this sunny sitting room.

Snape had come once or twice Harry told them, and somehow his presence had comforted Harry. His words had been harsh. But one time he had given Harry a healing potion and his hands when he touched him were gentle. Harry had known then, even before the final battle, that Snape was on his side. He had written notes to try and protect him and Malfoy, because he had despaired of ever seeing the outside world again, and he thought they were innocent and didn’t want them to suffer. But despite the tortures, Harry had not broken. He could feel the power of his magic growing so he hid it, because of the Horcruxes; he knew they had to be destroyed before he could fight Voldemort.

Finally he had been taken before The Dark Lord to be mocked once again. He was so weak by then. Voldemort had told the boy that Harry had been, that he was going to take his hearing from him, and that on subsequent days he would take his sight and his speech. Finally using a spell to absorb his magic on Harry’s seventeenth birthday. Harry would not be killed, he was informed, instead he would be kept as Voldemort’s plaything for as long as he managed to live.
He had nearly despaired.

But Snape had arrived and had rushed forward. Pretending to take the opportunity to curse Harry he had looked deep into the boy’s eyes and showed him using Legilimency that all the Horcruxes had been destroyed.

All except Nagini.

Then he had lifted his wand, acting as if he were about to curse Harry. Instead, at the last minute, he had turned and cast Avada Kedavra on the snake before being struck down by one of his erstwhile comrades.

All at once Harry had felt a surge of strength and an infusion of courage. He had sensed that he was not really as alone as he’d thought himself to be. Others had been fighting for the destruction of this evil wizard too, and he knew he could not let them down. There was no longer any reason to hide his ever growing magical power, so he had stood up straight and as tall as he could manage. Sent Malfoy - who was cowering in a corner - and an unconscious Snape to safety, and finally after 28 days of imprisonment and pain, let his magic fly free to defeat Voldemort once and for all.

But it was during this last battle, that Harry thought the worst of the damage had been done when; tired of throwing curses, the two wizards had attacked each other’s minds. Voldemort had repeatedly violated Harry’s memories, desperately trying to destroy all the happy ones. Hoping that Harry would have nothing left with which to fight him. But fight him Harry did.

He had gathered together all his feelings of love, his now fragmented memories of his friends, and somehow - he was not completely sure how he had done it himself - he had poured all of the power that these emotions engendered in him, into the ruined, twisted creature that was Voldemort.

Sometime during this denouement of the battle Voldemort had tried to draw forth the magic of his followers. But Harry could not let that happen, so he had sent his own magic in pursuit of evil, and managed to remove the Dark Mark from every Death Eater who felt remorse, or who had not yet given themselves completely to darkness. The last words that Harry ever remembered hearing as the curse that the Dark Lord had used on him slowly took hold, were his own, when he screamed at Voldemort.

“No. No more death Tom. You can’t have them. No one else. Not today!”

He hadn’t been aware that every one outside Riddle Manor had heard his words clearly in their own heads. He hadn’t known that they would never forget the final agonised scream that had eventually been torn from Harry’s throat. He hadn’t heard the strangled cries of the Death Eaters as Voldemort tried desperately to draw on their strength. Or seen the shock waves that had reverberated through the Order of the Phoenix, who were gathered outside, trying to keep the dementors away. Inexplicably, all at once, their Patronuses grew brighter and seemed to gain strength. He hadn’t heard the shouts of surprise as Snape and Draco had appeared from no-where in the midst of this pandemonium, and he hadn’t even noticed, that he was doing all of this magic instinctively, and without a wand.

The power had continued to build. Neither he nor Voldemort were prepared to yield. Until finally, after all else was done, Harry’s magic had proved stronger and Voldemort and Riddle Manor had exploded in a cacophony of power and light and roaring noise.

When Harry had awakened he’d had no memory of who he was, or what had happened, and the only word he had known or remembered for several weeks was “Libellule”.

“Libellule is French for dragonfly,” he said. “I don’t know how I knew that, I just did. A dragonfly visited me in my cell. It must have been lost. But I think it came several times?” He furrowed his brow, trying to remember. “It was so bright and graceful.” He gave a rueful snort and looked up at them sadly.

“I’m so sorry but I don’t remember you, you know? Either of you. I mean I know who you both are. What you were to me, ‘cause Remus told me. But I don’t really remember you. Which means you must have mattered very, very much.

“That’s what Voldemort did to me you see. He left all the sadness and hurt of my childhood. The beatings, the name calling, the fear a..a.and ……..everything else. But he took away the good things. He took my friends.

“I remember how much I loved Sirius, but that love is tainted, because I lost him so soon. Voldemort needed me to recall how much I loved Sirius, so that I could remember the pain when I lost him. It was the same with Dumbledore. But not you two I am afraid.

“He didn’t find my dragonfly though, cause I hid it, deep inside me. That was my one happy memory, the one that helped me win. I thought of the dragonfly and how bright he was. How beautiful. The happiness he gave me and that’s what I used to destroy the evil bastard.

“Forever this time!”

Hermione felt like her spine had been drenched in a bucket of ice water. She and Ron were both frozen to stillness on the wicker sofa on which they sat. The things that Harry had told them were so awful, unimaginable happening to their friend.

Those things had happened to a child!

Hermione tried to imagine how some of her students in the charms classes that she taught, would have coped with what Harry had had to deal with and found that she could not even bear to think of it. They were so very young.

And yet, it had happened to this man. It had happened to Harry and the worst of it was that he really did not know them or have any knowledge of their time together. No happy memories, to counteract the terror and the pain.

Ron stood suddenly and moved quickly towards Harry. Knowing her husband as well as she did, she knew that he meant to hug his friend. Offer some comfort. But as soon as he entered Harry’s line of sight, Harry flinched and gasped. He jumped backwards in alarm, knocking over a chair, sinking to his knees, in what looked like despair and then none of them knew what to do. Ron looked stricken, Harry looked guilty and started to shiver violently, and Hermione burst into tears.

Fi came in at that moment; she took in the scene in her quiet way and went over to her son-in-law. Hermione and Ron watched as she knelt before him on the floor. She waited until he was looking at her and then started speaking and making gestures at the same time.

What is she doing, Babes?” asked Ron, curiously.

“She is talking to Harry using sign language”. Hermione answered; “I think it is calming him a bit.”

“Sign language?” Said Ron

“Ssshhh,” Hermione whispered, though why she needed to be quiet she couldn’t have said. “I think if he is upset like this, maybe it helps? Helps him to concentrate or something?”

“Oh! I’ve never seen sign language before! It must be a Muggle thing.”

Hermione ignored him, she was watching Fiona intently.

“Mo Cridhe,” said Fiona, “it is okay. You will be okay. You are safe here. Do not worry, no one will hurt you”. She gently ran a finger along one of the tear streaks that had dried on Harry’s cheek, and then pulled him towards her. She stroked his hair whilst holding him close and rocking him gently. They sat like that for a while, with Harry’s head cradled against her shoulder. Soon she tenderly took his face in her hands, just like her small granddaughter had done earlier and spoke again. “It is time to fetch the children from the Grant’s house, do you want to go or will I?” Harry watched her lips closely as she spoke and seemed to recover himself a little bit; he gave himself a shake and slowly stood and turned to look at them.

“I am so sorry” he said, giving a small shrug, “I was lost in memories for a while there. Sometimes they just seem a little close. Do you know what I mean?”

“Oh Harry!” Hermione breathed, “Can I give you a hug? Please?” She held her arms out, emphasising her words with a gesture. Seconds later she was in his arms and Ron was hugging him too and Harry was a sort of Harry sandwich squeezed between them being squashed by Ron’s arms and made soggy by Hermione’s tears. For a short while, it was almost like they had never been apart. But all too soon after that for Hermione’s liking, Harry and Ron had set off for the Grants’ house - whoever they were - and Hermione was sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the cry of the curlew on the shore outside, whilst Fi bustled about making something to eat for them all.

“He is not often like that these days you know.” Said Fi as she sat down, startling Hermione out of her reflections. “He used to be. A lot. Had flash backs and woke up screaming from nightmare. But that only happens rarely now. Seeing you both has reopened a few wounds I reckon. Not that I’m sorry you’re here mind,” She said patting Hermione’s hand comfortingly.

“That boy is like a son to me. He is one of the sweetest people I have ever met,and my daughter Mhairi set her heart on marrying him within hours of him being brought through the door.

“She was three years older than Harry and she insisted on nursing him. When he first arrived he didn’t know anything, not even who he was. He had no apparent magic, couldn’t speak. But Mhairi had always liked injured wee creatures ever since she was a small girl, and she fell in love with him and decided that they would be together.

“Mhairi was like a force of nature when she wanted something and Harry might have defeated that evil dark wizard but he didn’t stand a chance against my wee lass. She loved him and looked after him, but I think he only finally began to heal when he held Flora in his arms for the first time. I remember his face softening with wonder and I think that was the first time I ever saw him smile.” Fi’s eyes stared at nothing, she was far away from the moment, looking at the past, just as Harry had earlier.

“He was a good husband to Mhairi though and he loves his children. He is an amazing father, probably because he had such a dreadful childhood himself. He is determined to give his bairns the best, and this house is always full of laughter and fun, despite everything”

“Where is Mhairi?” Asked Hermione curiously, she had not seen any evidence of Harry’s wife yet and all this past tense was making her unsettled.

“Auch, of course you don’t know.” Fi answered flatly “My Mhairi died.” Hermione was stunned

“Mh..Mhairi died?” Hermione stuttered

“Aye, she went down to Edinburgh to celebrate her sister Iona’s birthday and she was killed by a drunk driver in Prince’s Street. Iona never forgave herself yet for losing her wee sister that way, though it was scarcely her fault. I miss her you know and Harry does and the bairns. Finn of course never really knew her, for he was just a wee toot when she died. Since then it’s just been me and Harry raising them.”

“He really has not had the best of times has he?” Hermione said softly.

“No. But he is an optimistic soul, he always seems to bounce back. I reckon he would never have survived this long if he hadn’t been resilient.”

“And what about you? I’m am so sorry you lost your daughter.”

Fi smiled at her sadly. “I do miss her, she was awfully special and I loved her very much, a mother can never replace her child, but I keep busy, I have my other daughters and my grandchildren and Harry of course. Would you like to see her? Remus took a photo of them not long before she died. It’s a wizarding photo, they are all wizarding photos, that’s why I don’t keep them in here where just anyone could see them.”

Hermione nodded and followed the older woman out of the kitchen and into a room next door. This room was obviously a study. It was cozy with red walls and more shelves of books, yet another large window offering a stunning view dominated one wall. On a large wooden desk in front of them stood a sleek new computer and pinned behind on edges of the shelves a plethora of children’s drawings in bright colours. The other walls were covered with photos of the children and Harry and a small blonde woman with elfin features and a bright smile, who just would not look directly at the camera. She and Harry were far too engrossed in each other and in their children to worry about the photographer.

“She hated having her photo taken.” Said Fiona, with a wry smile but she didn’t mind the wizarding ones too much cause she didn’t have to hold still for them. This is my favourite, it is the last one I have of her.” She picked up a heavy silver frame that sat in pride of place on the desk and handed it to Hermione In this photo Mhairi gazed down at a baby in her arms who was obviously a very small version of Finn and then smiled at Harry who looked at her with such love that it made Hermione’s heart clench with sadness. Children who were all pointing and laughing and waving at the camera surrounded the couple, then the woman in the photo turned directly towards the photographer and smiled broadly and it was all Hermione could do not to drop it with shock for Mhairi Potter- MacLeod; Harry’s wife, bore a striking resemblance to Draco Malfoy.


****************************************

When the children were around, the house seemed very full indeed. Hermione realised that it was the presence of these children, which had helped Harry recover from the punishments that he had suffered in his life. They quite simply adored their father, and could not stop kissing and hugging him. Watching him interact with his children it made her sad to think that this gentle, loving man had had to grow up as he had.

At the Dursleys’ trial the details of the childhood that Harry had endured emerged and the wizarding world had been shocked beyond belief. To think of a small child locked in a cupboard, beaten, refused love and affection. To consider that that small child had been the saviour of the wizarding world, the Boy-Who-Lived, if Dumbledore had not died he undoubtedly would have faced the same condemnation that reigned down on Fudge and some of Harry’s teachers that nothing had been done to help and protect him. Even as they protested that they had not known what it had been like for the child, that he had told nobody.

The answer to that of course was if they had looked closely enough then they would not have needed telling. The bruises that he had sported, the fact that he was so undersized, so poorly dressed. The hunger pains had disappeared with time, but Hermione understood that Harry still carried the other scars and indeed probably always would. Knowing Harry as well as she still did, despite the passage of years and distance between them, she knew instinctively that the lack of affection that he had suffered had probably hurt Harry far more than the casual cruelty of his relatives had done.

Looking back she thought that the fact that Harry had been abused should have been obvious to anyone with any knowledge of child welfare; his apparent distrust of authority figures, the fierce independence, the inability to share his problems with others, the huge lack of self-esteem, not to mention his ragged clothes. Harry had always fought for the rights of everyone else but had never seemed to think himself worth defending, even his small stature and seeming inconsistency in magical ability wasn’t that, what did the professionals call it? Signs of an “inorganic failure to thrive?” Hermione flattered herself that she, with her fairly extensive knowledge of child protection, would not have missed those signs, as so many others had seemed to do.

As children she and Ron and the twins had seen Harry’s life as a bit romantic, something to rescue him from, they never thought about how awful it must have been to live through or considered telling an adult how bad it had been for Harry at times. Of course even they, who knew more than anyone, had never guessed at the full deprivation that Harry had suffered. But then no one had ever really looked at him properly back then had they?

He had been just a little boy when he had arrived, wide-eyed and scruffy, new to the wizarding world. They hadn’t actually seen Harry as he was, nobody had. They had seen instead the Chosen One a beacon of hope, not a child. Never a child

But watching him before her this evening she saw that in some ways now at least he was happy. He and the children were laughing uproariously at Ron’s antics at the dinner table. Her husband was clowning about, trying to balance a spoon on his nose, crossing his eyes at the effort. The children had already dubbed him “Ginger Bear” it seemed that Flora had come up with the title taken from one of the battered Enid Blyton books that she was currently devouring. Apparently the characters liked drinking “lashings and lashings of ginger beer” and as there were lashings and lashings of Ron, the name seemed to fit him well. The man in question did not even appear to mind the slur on his fiery locks as the appellation itself had come from the equally red headed Flora.

More chaos erupted as Fi declared it bath-time and the younger children all chorused in complaint. Ron, rising to his feet, increased the noise levels tenfold by roaring loudly in his bear persona and promising a severe tickling to any child not in the bathroom within 30 seconds. The delighted shrieks that met this declaration were enough to burst eardrums.

Squealing and giggling the children ran from the room pursued by a laughing Harry and a growling Ron.

Hermione rose too then and began to help Fi tidy away the dinner debris. It had already been decided that they were staying the night and their things had subsequently appeared in a pleasant bedroom, just along the corridor from the kitchen, waiting for Hermione and Ron to unpack them.

Since her arrival she had been struck time after time by how homely this place was, how tranquil. The warm colours and comfy seating arrangements, the slightly battered air about the house that did not discourage the rampaging children from treating it as a home. The longer she stayed here, despite the huge shocks that she had received today, the more peaceful and relaxed she felt.

Here and there if you knew where to look were the unmistakable signs that this was a magical family. A clock, not unlike the one owned by the Weasleys that told of the whereabouts of the family members took pride of place in the sitting room. The magical photos told the same story in the study. The wards that surrounded the property, that hid the house from those who were not welcome according to Fiona, were proof in themselves that a very strong wizard lived here. If she and Ron had meant harm to Harry or his children then they could have been stood staring in the windows forevermore and they would have seen nothing but an empty field full of thistles and sheep.

Harry had built this house himself it seemed, with concrete blocks, harling and mortar. With magic and with love, and the very stones that surrounded it were imbued with the impenetrable shields created by his mother’s sacrifice. A protection ensured by the presence of her blood in Harry and in Harry’s children.

Even the sadness over the loss of his wife and the mother of the children had somehow been absorbed in this sanctuary. Hermione thought of all the letters that Fi had sent to her office seeking assurances about the safety of her granddaughter and Hermione knew that nowhere in the wizarding world could there be anywhere as safe or as beautiful and serene as this house.

As she sat there at Harry’s battered kitchen table listening to the joyful sounds of his children’s laughter. The splashing and squealing and the mock growls of the “Ginger Bear” that she could hear coming from the large family bathroom. She knew that if she were honest with herself, however much she might miss him, the wizarding world was not necessarily the best place for Harry or his family.

The shock of his return would reverberate for months. Flora and her siblings would undoubtedly be hounded as Harry himself had once been and the family would be public property as far as every one was concerned. Then there would be the approbation from those who had missed him or those who had expected a half grown boy to lead them to a different world from the one that had emerged after Voldemort’s defeat. If he didn’t want this for his family could she really blame him?

So if, she told herself firmly, when they finally did come to talk about the possibility of Flora attending Hogwarts, Harry refused to send his daughter to school or return his family to the magical world there was nothing she could truthfully say to dissuade him. She still cared deeply about him and by extension his children and she knew that she and her fellow witches and wizards owed him so much more than half-truths, stupid laws and the prejudice that currently prevailed in her chosen culture. She looked round the lovely, comfortable kitchen once again and then gazed sadly over the loch outside steeling herself determinedly for the very real possibility that Harry Potter may choose to never again return to the wizarding world.

*In case you are interested Fi’s friend’s name is pronounced “Vari”


Mo Cridhe means “My Heart”. Fi as a native of Skye speaks Gaelic fluently and uses the language from time to time.