𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆

Chapter 1

Plots

War is strict as Jesus

War is finer than Spring ...

- "Glory," Pippin

At sunset, he came.

She watched the lone figure emerge from the horizon, a dark shape against the red glow of the falling sun. He walked with the sure stride of a man on a mission and she marveled, bemoaned, that this war had made a seventeen-year-old seem so old. The hazy image of a smiling boy, fulfilled by Quidditch and oblivious to war and sacrifice, floated in front of her eyes before dissolving against the shifting colors of the sunset.

Perhaps it was never so. The luxury of innocence had eluded him in so many ways that, even now, when there are so many to mourn, she found herself grieving for what this man - this child - never knew he never had.

She shook her head. There was no time for this frivolity. The figure crossed the grounds to the main doors where she stood waiting. "Professor," he nodded.

For this, she sniffed. "I'm hardly anyone's professor these days, Potter." It had been at least a year since he was short enough that she could look down her nose at him. It was quite disconcerting to have to look up her nose at her former student, though she strove to maintain the same effect. "We're hardly more than a boarding house these days."

Harry looked beyond her at the castle. "How many have come?"

"A few dozen," she admitted. "Not just children, either. Whole families whose homes have been destroyed or who are just too afraid to do anything else have been flocking here." The school year was cancelled after Albus's death, but the staff couldn't bear to close the school's doors to those who needed a place to go.

Harry's jaw clenched for a moment before he schooled his expression. "I wish we could promise it were really safer here. I'm not sure it is."

"It is," she murmured, "as safe as anywhere, I suppose."

The last of the sun settled behind a cloud, and the grounds suddenly seemed much chillier than before. Harry tucked his hands in his pockets and sighed. "What can I do for you, Professor?"

"I'm afraid I've called you out here for unpleasant news," she said slowly, and hated herself a bit for causing his face to fall. They all knew what 'unpleasant' news was these days, as there wasn't really any other kind. 'Pleasant' news, after all, was when you didn't personally know the corpse, so you could at least feign some sort of professional distance, so you could pretend to be a dispassionate passerby for whom the death had no real impact. None of it could be called anything but unpleasant to her anymore, nor, she imagined, to him.

"Who is it?" His voice was monotone.

"Ernie Macmillan," she said. "And Seamus Finnegan."

His eyes closed, and for a moment, she thought he might be fighting back emotion. But a moment later, he met her gaze with dry eyes and a hard expression and nodded once, curtly. "Thank you for telling me in person."

"I thought you'd rather not read it in the Prophet."

"Right," he pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, and she was struck again by how much the summer had aged him. His eyes carried heavy bags and his face was thinner, almost haggard, as though sleeping and eating had become secondary to surviving and fighting and, ultimately, waiting. Her eyes swept over him in a quick evaluation and found bruises and scratches lining his exposed arms, as though he had been fighting wild beasts in preparation for his inevitable battle with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.