Veiled Emotions {Marauders Era}

SALVATION

"I do validate some of the running rumors about me, Shacklebolt, but this of me completely off bonkers hasn't yet come to fruition."

"Then what is it with that request, Harry?" asked Kingsley Shacklebolt to The Boy Who Always Lives, his rich voice now laced with curiosity and bafflement.

His companion just smiled.

"I lost something there last time, so might as well search for it now since no one will attack me. Or would there?" Harry Potter asked in jest, arching both eyebrows in what would be a taunting stance if one did not know better about him.

Kingley just sighed, and with boredom etched on his face he looked back to the floating papers that he had been going through. "What did you lose?"

"My absolute favourite head band!" Harry exclaimed, fervently touching the long locks of his dark hair. "Look at the length of it, Kingsley. It has been getting awfully long nowadays that it gets hard to see sometimes. That band used to keep my head in check, and now I keep trying to steal Ginny's bands but she keeps hexing me. Every single time, Kingsley! You wouldn't want to face the wrath of that woman, trust me."

Shacklebolt looked up at him once again. "You're trolling me."

Harry just rolled his eyes.

"Of course I am, so might as well just give me the damn permission before I find my own way there- again." Harry voiced, his infamous Do-Not-Cross-The-Boy-Who-Lived pointed tone evident in his words.

Kingsley instantly retorted. "Don't dare use that tone on me, Potter."

"Then don't make me use it," Harry huffed, but all the while losing the sarcasm infiltrating his words from the beginning. Hesitantly, he said, "I just... I just need to go there once again, Kingsley. You know I have to."

And with an edge of finality that the Minister of Magic had felt, he leaned. He could not deny such a simple request, no matter how unreasonable it might be. It was not, after all, so frequent to find anyone requesting to enter that ruined place, let alone be it the Saviour of the Wizarding World who took part of its destruction in the first place.

Said Saviour who only shows his face amongst his students nowadays in the familiar grounds of Hogwarts, for even after years of the war having had ceased, the pressure remained the same on The Boy Who Lived. The unwanted fame he had always despised still chased him wherever he went, restricting him from the carefree life he so desperately sought, and leading to drastic consequences on his behalf.

Directly after the war had ended, Harry collectively decided that being a recluse deserved a shot, and contently lived apparating between his newly renovated house in Godric's Hollow and his second home in the Burrow that contained the closest people to family he had. Did he care that the entirety of the wizarding world was awaiting he take the mantle of all revolutionary movements undertaken to cease all problematic affairs in their post-traumatic society?

Not a single ounce.

Which eventually led to an outbreak itself of everyone attacking the selfishness of the Saviour, accusing him of abandoning them in times of great need, greater than the war itself. Some, however, understood Harry's need to detach, and even some main figures demanded the world to silence itself around the man who barely got out of it all, subtext wishing to scream that the Saviour literally had no breath in him to fight anymore.

And finally, after weeks of giving a deaf ear to it all, Harry ultimately relented, but his only form of intervention was his attendance of the falsely trialed, knowing full well what it means to be accused of a crime you did not commit. For that, Harry started vouching for those who deserved literal neck-saving with just his testimony, which was still invaluable to the wizarding community no matter how judged he was.