Of Constellations → 𝘥. 𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘧𝘰𝘺

xxxiv. among the ruins

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chapter thirty four

among the ruins

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Seventh Year

The summer before my final year at Hogwarts was unbearably dreamlike.

Mum was unusually emotional for a good part of it, though I couldn't blame her. We didn't talk much about the months I'd been kidnapped, during which Dad nearly worked himself to death doing all that he could to find where I was and rescue me. They had truly thought I'd been in Azkaban.

My parents asked me a few questions, though—I told them that they'd given us plenty of food and I'd used my time to practice magic, but I didn't talk about the darkness or the intolerable dread. I didn't like the way it felt when they got teary-eyed and retroactively worried about me.

Rune had to go on trial along with the Malfoy family. Considering Rune had actively switched sides and fought with us (even before realizing his father had died), he was let off clean.

At their trial, Harry revealed that Draco and Narcissa had each done things to save his life. They were both fined heavily but got no time in Azkaban. Lucius, however, got a year.

After Rune got off, Dad, Mum, and I traveled with him to Norway, where we had a small, subdued funeral for Otto and Harald. Rune and my aunt, Brigid, decided to move to England to be closer to my father and me.

I used most of the summer to catch up with the Hogwarts homework I'd missed and the Ministry held a special Apparation class because no one got a chance to learn.

On the weekends, however, I spent time with Dean and Seamus. And, of course, Luna, Ginny, and Neville.

Everything felt different, though. By August, after the glow and joy had worn off that Lord Voldemort had been defeated, the sheer level of destruction truly sank in.

So many people had died. We were in a war—some of us had fought in it—those things were hard to just move on from and forget. Sometimes, when I wasn't careful, I would remember how I felt in the Malfoys' cellar, or what it was like looking down at the unknowing faces of Fred, Lupin, and my uncle. It would force the air out of me and push me down into residual despair I wouldn't be able to climb out of for hours.

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Upon return to Hogwarts for my seventh and final year, I didn't know what to feel. Everything was quiet and unsure on the Hogwarts Express. It was an almost meditative, sacred sort of silence.

I had been made Head Girl that year. A Hufflepuff named Emmett Orcott was made Head Boy, and after we fulfilled our duties, I sat in a compartment with Ginny, Luna, and Hermione Granger, who was the only one of the trio to have come back to finish at Hogwarts.

The castle had been drastically fixed up since I'd left it last May, though there were still crumbled corridors, broken windows, and dented suits of armor that reminded me every day what we had endured.

But, most of what felt different was for the better.

Hogwarts was safe. Fully, truly, honestly safe. 

And though there was still some house rivalry, Slytherins were not being sidelined quite the same. It was the first year I saw Gryffindors and Slytherins actually becoming friends.