What Voldemort Left Behind

Chapter 5 - Dumbledore's Army

Harry woke up the next morning as sunlight streamed through the castle windows. He wasn't quite sure when this room of Hogwarts appeared, he'd always assumed they had guest accommodation but this room was a little too personal for just anybody, with the red and gold Gryffindor colours prominent in it and there were pictures on two walls opposite each other. One of the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts as the sun was rising, that he suspected was taken by Colin Creevey as two red headed beaters zoom past leaning on each other to stay awake, a small boy with glasses and messy black hair looking only slightly more alert, and a tall boy who looks like there's nothing else he'd rather do than practice Quidditch at 5am. Oliver Wood had then gone on to play on Puddlemere United's team and eventually retired when he got too old to play professionally, he now worked as the team's enthusiastic manager.
He would come to the Weasley's often to coach Harry's kids when they were young, and later to play friendly matches.
As time went on, Harry's Quidditch skills did not lessen, he was now a faster chaser than Ginny, although he would always prefer seeking.
The other enlarged photograph that the room held was of four teenage boys, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, laughing and looking more carefree than Harry had ever seen. He wondered who had decorated this room, or if Hogwarts had simply created it out of nowhere, that wouldn't surprise him since the castle was so full of its own clever magic. He could stare out of the room's window and see a beautiful view of Gryffindor tower, or further away, the lake.
Suddenly he heard a knock on the door. Harry tensed for no reason apart from bad memories, a second later the door flew open, in the same moment, Harry grabbed his wand from his back pocket. As the intruders stepped into the light he relaxed and replaced his wand.

"McGonagall sent us up to check on you, you're almost late for the DA!!!!" James began with a laugh.

"Dad seriously, how in the world did you arrive on time to save Mum from the Chamber of Secrets but you can't even be on time for a class YOU organized????" Lily added, sounding quite like her Aunt Hemione.

"Okay, okay you two, I promise I'll be there, I won't miss it. I just got a little...... preoccupied."

Lily glanced from her father to the photographs on the walls and Harry could tell she had made the connection to why he was late, she bore a great resemblance to her namesake, his mother, in the way she perceived things, according to Minerva anyway. She was only twelve but had definitely overtaken her brother James in maturity. Lily walked slowly over to a chair and sat down, looking at the picture of the Marauders.

"Dad, you really miss them, don't you?"

Harry nodded and waited for her to continue, she didn't need prompting.

"I know that I never met any of them but I see the way James Sirius smiles, and he has the same look on his face as the originals. I wish I could have got to know them, imagine the pranks we could do at Hogwarts if me and James had the ACTUAL Marauders around. Teddy and Albus are just like Teddy's dad, though I think that Teddy is really like the other ones too. Not Albus so much, he only seems similar to Teddy's dad. What I'm trying to say is that we are like them, you can look at us and see them. It's really not going to make you feel less guilt if you keep staring at this photo thinking you could've done more, but if you look at us it might make you think that you still can do more and you've got us."

Harry couldn't believe how fast she was growing up, and how much she understood that even he couldn't wrap his head around.

"Thank you. Every day I see my dad and Sirius in James, and in you I see my mum and also Luna. I didn't realize at the time why exactly we decided to break the tradition and give you the middle name of someone still living, but now I know. The way you see things is the perfect mix of my mother Lily and best friend Luna."

His daughter beamed with pride, out of his three children she was very much interested in history, not in a pureblood elitist sort of way, but she was determined to learn as much as she could about her relatives and everyone who had died during the wars. She often was able to persuade people to tell their stories when they hadn't felt like it before and helped so many people by listening. They opened up to her and she was able to empathize perfectly with them. Harry felt incredibly lucky to have her as a daughter, but he still felt sad that she tried to help him, he wished he could hide his struggles from his children so they wouldn't suffer with him. He had always hated that other people had to hurt too and that he couldn't just take the suffering himself and leave the world in blissful ignorance. It was only at the age he was now that he had begun to understand how much he went through during his childhood.

Harry sent his children to get ready and soon he made his way down to the great hall, where the class was due to be held. It was already full when Harry arrived, nearly every student and teacher at the school wanted to join in, and many of the students were holding up handmade banners, most commonly with Harry's name or Dumbledore's Army written on them. One of the fancier looking ones had a beautifully detailed drawing of a phoenix flying across it, unmistakably Fawkes.
The students and teachers cheered as Harry walked in, some even threw gifts such as chocolate frogs or elaborately decorated magical cakes which Harry assumed the children's parents had sent. Harry smiled and thanked them, but awkwardly handed the pile to Neville, who set them behind the high table. The room was suddenly silent as Harry started to speak.

"Hi, today I'm going to teach you all how to cast a patronus. For any of you that don't know, this is a positive light that can defend you against dementors. Dementors are quite rare nowadays, during the war they were everywhere, but now since a lot of the darkness has gone away, there are hardly any dementors left. It's always good to know how to defend yourselves though as they still exist and it's better learning the spell and being prepared than being left defenseless. I've always hated dementors myself, if they get too close they can leave you with only your very worst memories. The worse memories that you have, the more they will affect you so lots of your parents and my friends who were fighting in the war, or even just were alive at this time, will have a lot of bad things that the dementors can remind you of. The main way to recognize dementors is from the cold in the air, it feels like everything freezes all of a sudden, it's an unnatural cold, it just appears out of nowhere. You will start to have thoughts of your worst memories and see big black cloaked figures floating. They won't be able to talk and you won't see a face. Now, would Nev...... I mean Professor Longbottom mind demonstrating for me? Neville is very good at this spell, it's all about focusing on your happiest memory." Neville joined Harry and casted his spell. The herbology professor's patronus danced around the room and students gasped and pointed, most of them had never seen one before.

"I don't expect anyone to cast the spell today, most wizards are unable to, however without the presence of a dementor someone might be capable of achieving a tiny wisp of white light. This is very high level magic, you don't learn this at Hogwarts but since it is one of my best spells, I find it easier than a lot of them, I thought I might as well teach you it."

As the students and teachers attempted the spell, Harry walked around and corrected their movements and encouraged them to think happy thoughts.  He truly loved teaching this spell as it required people to think of their best moments, Harry still struggled to feel happy this long after the war, but when he cast his own patronus for another demonstration, he was in such a good mood he didn't even need to remember a different time.