Hogwarts, to welcome you home

In late May of 2001, Harry Potter quietly apparated into Hogsmeade and slipped into Honeydukes. Dressed in unassuming muggle clothes, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, he looked very little like the savior of any world, let alone the wizarding one. He exchanged a quiet word with Ambrosius Flume and disappeared down the cellar steps. Few people had seen him arrive and nobody, not even Mr. Flume, saw him leave.

Headmistress McGonagall had contemplated, while repairing the castle whether it was prudent to close the secret passages to and from Hogsmeade, but magical buildings, especially ones as old as Hogwarts, have ideas of their own, and the castle quickly made it clear that it liked its secret passages exactly where they were. So, a passage still opened behind the One-Eyed Witch in the third floor corridor, out of which, with a curious range of emotions flitting across his face, Harry Potter emerged. McGonagall, waiting in the corridor, smiled at him in greeting.

Minerva McGonagall’s first impression on seeing the Savior of the Wizarding World again after three years was that he looked the same. Bright green eyes, hair that he didn’t seem to even attempt to manage, those same ridiculous glasses. Older, though, healthier, and not tired and frightened anymore. And, perhaps, he looked less like James. Yes, there was that, too. Three years of peace had softened away some of the hardness in his features, and three years of maturity had grown him into his own person, no longer the mirror image of his father.

“It’s good to see you, Mr. Potter,” she said to him.

“It’s good to be home,” he answered, smiling faintly.

They stood silently for a moment, taking each other in.

“To my office?” she suggested, breaking the moment. “Or would you rather see the repairs we’ve done to the school?”

“I think I’d prefer no one knew I was here. At least for the time being,” Harry said, delicately. “So maybe I can tour the school after term ends.”

McGonagall nodded “A wise choice,” and, taking his arm, began guiding him to her office. “You’ve created something of a stir, I must say, Mr. Potter. Disappearing again after the war like that. That horrible Skeeter woman has had quite a field day with speculation, though I dare say, no one believed her more wild conjectures.”

Harry laughed—and that still sounded like James. “What’s she been saying now?”

“I hardly keep up on the latest gossip,” McGonagall said, sternly.

“Oh, sorry, then,” Harry said, clearly not meaning a word of it.

“But Molly Weasley does, and she has been sure to tell me all about it,” she continued. “I believe the latest theory is that you have abandoned all obligations to magical Britain in pursuit of a scandalous relationship with an American witch, supported on the evidence of a single photo of you in New York city.”

Harry swore good-humoredly. “I thought that was a magical camera flash, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Now the Quibbler, which I do subscribe to, has been publishing some very entertaining rebuttals to these pieces. According to Miss Lovegood, you have renounced the title of Chosen One and are sequestered somewhere in the American Midwest, learning the ancient secrets of wandless magic and forming an entirely new branch of magic.”

 “I can always count on Luna to make me sound far more interesting than I actually am,” Harry said fondly. “And she did know where I was.”