𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 2008

A Caller in the Storm

Title: A Caller in the Storm
Team: Fanon
Author: gin_biscuit
Prompt: The Hermit
Wordcount: 8,200
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Harry has left the Wizarding World for good and is living in a hut in Lake District. Life is calm and good, and Harry thinks he finally has everything he needs, but a caller in storm that rages one night might change everything.

It was one death too many. Seeing another small body lying in a pool of blood, hex-marks everywhere, clothes hanging in shreds and smoke still in the air, had sealed Harry's resolve to leave the Wizarding world for good.

It was hard to believe after all the things he had seen, but even Harry Potter had his limits. Eleven years after the final battle Harry was an Auror who couldn't stomach seeing people die, who was single and lonely and as unhappy with life as one could possibly get. In the past year he had ever so often found himself leafing through catalogues that offered 'the most solitary holiday one could ever find', but none of the destinations had offered Harry exactly what he needed.

In the end he had accompanied the small, broken body to the morgue and then packed his things and left for Lake District. It had been surprisingly easy to leave. There had been no tear-filled goodbyes — in fact, there hadn't been any goodbyes at all but for the letters that he had sent — only determination, and that had been enough.

The first nights he had spent in a tent until he found a small real-estate office where he bought a house. The manager had been nice, but Harry hadn't felt guilty about Obliviating him and taking all records of the property with him afterwards. The house itself was more a hut than anything else, tucked away behind a group of trees in the middle of a wide moor. No water connection, no electricity, nothing that required him to have human contact of any kind.

It was perfect.

*******

Harry opened the front door of his home and stretched. Misty mornings like this were one of the things Harry loved about this place. Another was that things didn't change around here. Every morning after he got out of bed he went outside to get some fresh air and check on the chickens he had in a coop out back. He fed them, took out the eggs that they had lain and went back into the house to fix himself some breakfast. Afterwards he would go to his self-made 'bathroom': an attachment to the house he and his magic had made, it held a toilet with vanishing-automatism (there were a couple of things one couldn't live without, after all) and a shower that sucked its water from the rain basin outside.

During the day Harry busied himself with cleaning his hut, taking care of the chickens, hiking and meditating. He had taken meditation up as means to calm down when he had first arrived in Lake District, feeling that he needed to find a way to push the poisonous thoughts out that had dominated him back in London. He had gotten so used to it that he didn't think he could make it without, even though he wasn't plagued by nightmares as often anymore.

Sometimes he would disguise himself and walk to the next village to fetch some groceries, his appearance so indistinguishable that nobody would remember him afterwards. He didn't talk, he didn't have any contact and he liked it that way.

He must have left London more than nine months ago, Harry thought as he stopped at the shore of the small tarn that lay only an hour's hike away from his home. The winter had passed by now and even though it was still cold and a stiff wind was blowing, the first signs of spring were appearing everywhere. Fat, yellow wild daffodils and tiny snowdrops were blossoming in the area and the first green leaves were showing their colours as well. It was breathtaking.