The In Between

A New World

Sunlight was peeking through the window at the Burrow, shining across the disheveled room and stretching to the beds where a head of messy dark hair stuck out. Harry Potter lay awake in his friend Ron Weasley's bedroom, waiting for an appropriate time to walk downstairs without worrying Mrs. Weasley, who had taken to checking in on Harry every five minutes to make sure he was alright.

He wasn't of course, but the last thing she needed was to worry about another person on top of her own children, especially since-

Harry rolled over in bed, as if trying to distract himself from the thought of another person who died because of him. Ron's brother Fred. No matter how many times Ron and his family told him it wasn't his fault, Harry could still see Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's red eyes each day, hear Ron's muffled crying each night. Harry's mind continued to whisper the names of the dead, and how it was all because of him.

Fred, Lavender, Remus, Tonks, Sirius........all because of me. If I had just gotten to Voldemort sooner, if I had found out about the horcruxes sooner...

Harry sat up. He needed be awake and forget for a few hours about what happened. He walked downstairs and saw his other friend Hermione Granger already up and reading yesterday's Daily Prophet at the dinner table.

"Good Morning Harry,"

"Hey Hermione."

"Get any sleep last night?"

"Oh, yeah, it was pretty good."

"Harry you're really bad at lying."

Harry smiled and walked over to where Hermione had made a pot of coffee and filled himself a cup.

Hermione lay aside the newspaper and drank a long sip of her coffee.

"I'm not going to try and tell you what to do, but sooner or later you'll have to accept what's done is done. The only thing that can be done now is to make sure the wizarding world heals and that life goes back to normal."

"Mione, you don't mean..."

"Join the Ministry's Wizarding World Recovery Program!"

"I just feel like I'd be no use there, I'm the one who-"

"Caused all this?" Hermione slammed her cup down, "Harry, sure, maybe this was caused because of your prophecy, but YOU didn't cause this. Besides, our program needs leadership, Kingsely is just swamped with work meeting with the nearby Wizarding governments, and I can't get everyone to collaborate on solutions, but you have more authority than anyone right now, except Kingsely of course."

"I'm just not sure."

Hermione took a deep breath. "Well, I'll leave you to mull this over, but sometime Harry you'll have to get back into-"

"W'u ah' yu' guys tahkn' abut?"

Ron Weasley had appeared in the kitchen and was busy stuffing a cold biscuit in his mouth. He looked barely awake in blue plaid pajamas and an Ireland Quidditch shirt. His hair was at the moment, just as messy as Harry's.

Hermione smiled, walked over to the pot, and poured Ron some coffee.

"Just think about it Harry? I've got Ron to join."

"Join whut?" Ron muttered sleepily

"My Recovery Program at the Ministry." Hermione held up another biscuit as if to sweeten the deal.

"Oh, ok." Ron took the biscuit and stumbled to the table to join them

. . . . .