FicWad

The first thing I felt was the light.

Not the weight of the day. Not the familiar tightness in my chest that usually settled there before I even opened my eyes. Just light—soft and golden, bleeding through the tall windows like it had been waiting for me. It crept across the floorboards in slow, lazy bands, catching on little motes of dust spinning through the air. They hovered there, suspended—tiny glimmers drifting in silence. Like spells, but harmless. Still.

And for the first time in longer than I could name, I didn’t want to move.

Outside, the world had already started turning again. I could hear it, distant but steady—someone dragging a chair across a patio, tyres grinding over gravel, a laugh tossed on the breeze. The sort of laugh that had no reason to be wary. Light. Full. Real.

It sounded like someone else’s life.

I sat on the edge of the bed, bare feet brushing the wooden floor. Cool to the touch. Familiar. I stared down at my hands, flexing them once, then again, as though trying to feel something important slipping away between my fingers.

I didn’t know if I’d ever woken up like this before. Without a plan already forming in the back of my mind. Without the beat of urgency drumming beneath everything. No battle waiting. No mission. No prophecy.

Just light.

The room looked different in the morning. Gentler, somehow. Like it had been softened overnight. The Quidditch posters on the far wall stirred in the breeze coming through the open window. Krum yawned and stretched over his broomstick, drifting in slow, lazy arcs, arms tucked behind his head like he hadn’t a single concern in the world.

I envied him.

That ease—that sort of effortless existence where no one expected you to save anything but your own match. To just be. That was freedom, wasn’t it?

My owl shifted on her perch in the corner, feathers fluffed up like she’d been awake longer than I had and wasn’t particularly impressed by my slow start. She gave a low hoot. Not urgent—just a nudge. A little reminder that time was still ticking, even if I’d tried to forget it for a morning.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, though my voice came out hoarse and rough. I hadn’t meant to speak. The quiet felt too sacred somehow—like I oughtn’t break it before the day had fully settled.

I crouched by the trunk at the foot of my bed. It was still half-packed, like everything else in my life—half-sorted, half-settled. Shirts wrinkled into corners, books stacked with no real order, bits of parchment curling at the edges. A few empty chocolate frog wrappers. The remains of a life that kept starting and stopping again.

I didn’t bother picking anything carefully. I grabbed the nearest clean-enough shirt and pulled it over my head, not really caring what it was. It didn’t matter. Not here. Not today.

The stairs creaked beneath my feet as I padded down, barefoot, quietly. But the sound wasn’t jarring—it wasn’t a warning. More like a recognition. A soft ah, there you are. Like the house had noticed me. Like it remembered.

It wasn’t Hogwarts. Not even close. But it felt… safe. Worn in. Lived in. The edges were scuffed, the corners softened by time and warmth, not polished or perfect. It felt like a place that had known laughter. Loss, too. But more importantly, the kind of laughter that came back anyway.

And then the smell hit me.

Toast. Butter melting into it. Something sweet—was it cinnamon? Or cloves? There was tea in the air too—strong and earthy, the kind Remus always brewed. It wrapped itself around me as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

I didn’t speak at first. Just stood in the doorway and let it sink in.

Remus was already by the stove, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, wand lazily stirring the kettle where it floated over the blue flame. The scent of rosemary mingled with the others now, rich and grounding. He looked… relaxed. Not completely—he was never completely anything—but there was something softer in the lines of his shoulders. A stillness I didn’t often see.

He moved like someone who had finally stopped running. Even if just for the morning.

I didn’t want to interrupt. It felt wrong to. I just watched him for a moment, sunlight warming the floor beneath my feet, and let myself believe that maybe, maybe this could be enough.

Not forever. But for now.

“Good afternoon, Harry,” Remus said, not turning around. There was a small smile in his voice—just enough to tell me he knew exactly how long I’d been lying there upstairs.

I huffed a laugh. “It’s barely morning.”

He turned slightly, one eyebrow raised. “It’s nearly noon.”

I shrugged, but the corner of my mouth twitched. He passed me a mug with the same fluid, practised movement I remembered from so many mornings. Like he’d done it a hundred times before. Like this was routine, not rare.

The tea was just right. Slightly sweet, with a trace of chamomile laced beneath the stronger herbs. Calming. Thoughtful. Of course he knew what I needed before I did.

He always had.

We didn’t speak straight away. Just stood there, in the quiet hum of the kitchen, sipping tea while the world outside drifted along without us. I could hear birdsong. The low crackle of the fire. And somewhere beyond the trees, someone strumming a tune lazily on a wireless.

It didn’t feel like war. It didn’t feel like an aftermath. It just felt… like a day.

“Toast?” Remus asked, his tone light, almost offhand, but not unkind. “Or feeling fancy today—scrambled eggs?”

“Eggs,” I replied, a bit too quickly. It wasn’t about being fancy. It wasn’t even really about the eggs. It was the choice. The ritual. The simple comfort of someone standing at the stove, asking what I wanted—not what I needed to survive. Not how I planned to defend myself. Just… eggs.

I leant against the counter, one hip pressed into the warm wood, and let my eyes wander to the window. Outside, the village carried on as though nothing had ever gone wrong. As though no one had ever vanished in the night or fallen in the woods or been hunted for their name. Gardens bloomed in bright little bursts of pink and yellow. A neighbour knelt in hers, trimming a hedge. A dog ambled past the postbox, tail wagging. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang. Maybe from a bakery or a clock tower. I didn’t know. But it was… normal.

Blissfully, utterly normal.

And none of them had any idea who we were. What we’d seen. What we carried. We were just shadows at the edge of their quiet little lives.

For a while, neither of us spoke. The gentle sounds of cooking filled the silence instead—the faint pop and sizzle of oil heating in the pan, the scrape of a spoon against ceramic. It should’ve felt hollow. But it didn’t. It felt like the house itself had stilled—like it was listening, waiting, holding its breath alongside us.

Of course, Remus was the one to break it. Always too observant for his own good.

“You’re quiet today,” he said softly. Not accusing. Just noticing. Like he always did.

I hesitated, fiddling with the chipped edge of a tea mug Remus had left by the sink. I didn’t want to lie. But I didn’t want to explain either.

“It’s nothing,” I said, and winced the moment the words left my mouth. Even I didn’t believe them.

Remus didn’t press. He never did.

But somehow, that made it worse.

The words slipped out before I could swallow them. “Just… a bad dream.”

He stilled for half a heartbeat. Not dramatically—just a quiet shift of the shoulders, his head tilting slightly, as though tuning in more closely. He didn’t speak straightaway. Didn’t fill the space with reassurances or platitudes. He simply turned towards me, slowly and carefully, and looked.

“Harry,” he said gently, “that’s not nothing.”

And then he stepped closer, one hand reaching out to lift my chin—not roughly, not to demand attention, but with a kind of carefulness that made something in my chest ache. Like I was still that boy who flinched at kindness because he didn’t know how to hold it.

There was something grounding in his touch. Remus saw me—not as a symbol, not as a responsibility. Just… me. Scarred and tired and trying. And that was somehow worse. Because it made me feel real.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and his thumb brushed just beneath my jaw before he let go. “I know it’s not easy. Especially not here. Especially not now.”

I looked at him properly then. The lines on his face were deeper than I remembered. The skin beneath his eyes was bruised with shadows that hadn’t faded with sleep. He didn’t look like someone who’d had a restless night. He looked like someone who had given too much away. Again and again. Like the world had chipped away at him in tiny, quiet pieces.

He turned back to the stove and stirred the eggs, and something about the motion felt final. A full stop, softly spoken.

“We’re only here temporarily,” he said, his voice barely louder than the wind slipping through the open window. “You know that.”

I nodded, and something inside me twisted.

Of course I knew. We never stayed long. We never could. No matter how safe the walls felt, no matter how many breakfasts we managed without news or fear, it was always borrowed time. Another waystation. Another maybe. Another almost.

“I just…” I started. But the rest caught in my throat, thick and clumsy.

I just want to stop running. I just want to breathe without checking over my shoulder. I just want this to be real.

Instead, I dipped my head in a tiny nod. Barely there. I hoped it said everything I couldn’t quite shape into words.

Remus noticed. He always did.

“There’s no need to rush,” he said after a moment, softer now. “We’ve time to talk. Later.”

Later.

The word settled in the air between us. Not a promise. Not quite. But something close. Something I wanted to believe in.

Later meant we were still here. Meant there might be a tomorrow. Meant maybe—for once—nothing had to explode or vanish or end.

I clung to that.

It was all I could do.

Living with Remus had started as a precaution. A strategic move. Dumbledore’s orders, in the end. A safe house for a marked boy who couldn’t walk down a street without being noticed. But the truth was messier. He’d taken me in because he cared and because no one else had thought to. Because he understood what it was to be hunted for something you couldn’t change.

But knowing that didn’t make it easier.

He said it was for my safety—and maybe it was. But every day I stayed, every night I took his bed while he fell asleep on the worn old armchair in the sitting room, I felt the guilt prickle at me. Felt like I was stealing something from a man who’d already lost too much.

And then there was the other truth. The quiet, terrible one.

The moon was still weeks away, but I could feel it. Hanging over us. Like a thread pulled taut.

It showed in the way he winced when he thought I wasn’t watching. In the stiffness in his shoulders. The way he flinched from sudden noise.

We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t need to.

But I saw it. And it scared me, because I knew he’d carry that pain quietly, without asking for help. Just like I did.

And maybe that’s why we kept orbiting each other like this. Not quite family. Not quite strangers. Two wounded things trying not to bleed on each other.

Morning spilt through the curtains in long golden shafts, cutting through the hush of the cottage and landing gently across Remus’s face. It cast faint shadows beneath his cheekbones, carving out the tiredness etched into his skin. His shirt hung off him, thin as parchment and washed so many times it had turned from blue to grey and then to a sort of weathered nothing. His trousers sagged slightly at the waist, held up more by habit than fit. He didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a protector. Not the kind the books described, with gleaming armour and bold declarations. He looked… worn. Threadbare, like his clothes.

But dignity clung to him anyway—quiet, unshakeable. A kind of strength that didn’t need to shout. The kind forged not in glory, but in the long hours after the fight, when the world goes quiet and the weight comes back heavier.

I watched him in silence, the movement of his hands—slow, careful—as he turned the eggs in the pan. There was grace in it, strange as that sounded. The kind of grace people earned after a thousand tiny defeats and the refusal to stay down through any of them.

And I wondered—not for the first time—how someone so worn thin could be the one meant to keep me safe. How he could carry both his own pain and mine when it was clear he could hardly stand up under the weight of his own.

I looked away, guilt and embarrassment prickling up the back of my neck. My eyes landed on the mirror above the sink—its glass cracked through the middle like lightning had split it once and no one had bothered to fix it. My reflection stared back. Pale. Too thin. Hair sticking out in every direction, more untameable than ever. My glasses, askew, perched uselessly on the bridge of my nose.

And the eyes. Always the eyes.

People said they were my mother’s. Said it like it was a comfort. But all I saw in them was weight. Expectation. A legacy I hadn’t chosen, stitched into every glance, every conversation, every whispered Harry Potter spoken like a question I didn’t know how to answer.

Remus turned from the stove and placed a plate in front of me—scrambled eggs, neat and steaming, like a quiet offering. He took his own half-finished plate and rinsed it at the sink, every movement tidy, measured. Like he needed to keep things in order, or else something else—something deeper—might unravel.

He crossed to the window seat with a slow exhale and sank down, the old bench creaking softly beneath him. With a flick of his wand, the Daily Prophet flew across the room and unfolded itself in his lap. He didn’t open it like someone hoping for news—he opened it like someone bracing for a blow.

“What’s new?” I asked, knowing full well what would be staring back from the front page.

He didn’t answer straight away. Just tilted the paper so I could see.

The headline didn’t matter. The photo told the story.

Ash and ruin stretched across the frame, walls collapsed inward like broken ribs. Black smoke billowed from what had once been a home—or maybe a school or a Muggle café. It was hard to tell. And above it all, hanging in the sky like rot in a wound, the Dark Mark.

Green. Twisting. Cruel.

I stared at it until the image started to blur, and still I couldn’t look away.

“Muggles live in fear now,” Remus said finally, his voice low and fraying at the edges. “Even in the smallest villages. Nowhere’s untouched anymore.”

The guilt surged sharp and immediate. I glanced around the kitchen—the scent of rosemary toast still hung in the air, the warmth of the sun on my skin, the softness of the wooden floor beneath my bare feet. All of it felt wrong. How dare we have peace, even this sliver of it, when others had none?

“What can we do for them?” I asked quietly, almost to myself. “While we sit here, safe and hidden, they’re out there… dying.”

Remus turned his head slowly, his eyes unreadable—shadowed, guarded. Not unkind, but far away. Like something in him had gone to ground and didn’t want to be pulled back up.

“Your path has already been laid out before you,” he said at last. “Even if you can’t see it yet.”

The words landed cold and heavy. They were meant to reassure, I think. But they didn’t.

I didn’t want a path. I didn’t want prophecy or pre-written endings. I wanted freedom. Choice. I wanted the right to be ordinary. To decide for myself who I’d be—not who the world had decided I was meant to be.

But that had never been mine, had it?

I looked back at the paper, that image of smoke and green light, and the fear came crawling in again—slow, invasive. Not just for me. For all of them. For the people who still looked at me like I might have the answer. Like the name Harry Potter meant safety.

But I didn’t feel safe.

And I wasn’t sure I could save anyone.

“They’re scared,” I murmured. “All of them. And all we do is sit here. Watching.”

For a moment, Remus didn’t speak. He folded the paper in his lap slowly, pressing down the crease with care, then set it aside. His expression was hard to read—blank, almost—but his voice, when it came, was gentler than I expected.

“Fear can freeze people,” he said. “Stop them from acting. But it can also drive them to do things they never thought they were capable of. You’ve seen that. You’ve lived it.”

I swallowed. The lump in my throat was sudden and stupid and made of far too many things.

“And you’ve done more than just act, Harry,” he added. “You’ve given people something to believe in. You’ve given them hope.”

Hope.

The word struck something raw in me. Too delicate. Too dangerous.

Images swam up unbidden—faces I couldn’t stop seeing, even when I closed my eyes. People who’d followed me. Believed in me. Fought beside me.

Died for me.

And still, I was here.

And that, more than anything else, was what made it so hard to breathe some days.

“I don’t feel like hope,” I whispered. “I feel like a mistake. A name in a story I don’t know how to finish.”

Remus turned fully now, watching me with that quiet intensity of his. Not judging. Not pitying. Just seeing. Seeing too much.

“There has to be something we can do,” I said again, louder this time. It spilt out of me, messy and desperate. “Anything. I can’t just sit here. I can’t wait. Not while people are—while they’re—”

My voice cracked. I didn’t care.

He smiled—but it wasn’t the sort of smile that reached the eyes. It lingered only at the corners of his mouth, pulled slightly by some memory that never quite let go.

“Perhaps,” Remus said softly. “But it starts here.” He tapped his chest, two fingers against his heart. “Changing the world begins with learning to change yourself.”

Outside, the wind pushed against the trees, their bare branches scraping lightly against the windowpane—shivering, almost, like they’d overheard him and weren’t sure what to make of it.

“Master your magic,” he continued, voice quiet but steady now. “Not just the incantations, Harry. That’s the easy part. Learn control. Precision. Learn to lead, not simply react. Become the sort of wizard who can carry what’s coming—and survive it.”

I hesitated. My throat felt tight again.

“Do you really think I can?” I asked. I hated how small my voice sounded.

“Yes,” he said, without missing a beat. No hesitation. No doubt. Just yes—like it was the only answer he could possibly give.

“But not all at once,” he added gently. “Today, practise the spell I showed you. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about what comes next. One footfall at a time, Harry.”

There was something in his tone—firm, certain—that pulled me back from the edge. Not away from the war or the fear, exactly, but back to something solid.

One step.

One breath.

One spell.

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. The tightness in my chest eased slightly, like a knot beginning to come undone. The wind still howled through the trees outside, but in the cottage, the warmth held fast.

The village moved at its own pace—slow, deliberate, like the ticking of an old clock that refused to rush. Ottery St Catchpole had a rhythm born of long memories and older walls. Stone cottages pressed close together. Ivy crept lazily up chimneys. Smoke curled from hearths. And the mornings came cloaked in birdsong and the scent of jasmine or damp earth, depending on the weather.

People waved when you passed. They stopped to chat, to ask after the weather, the price of eggs, and whether the baker’s daughter had finally married the smith’s apprentice. Milk bottles sat unattended on doorsteps. Dogs lounged in sun-dappled patches, unbothered by the comings and goings of the world.

But even here, you could feel it—that quiet buzz beneath the calm. The sideways glances. The questions that never made it past polite smiles. They didn’t know who we were—at least, not exactly—but they knew we weren’t locals. Knew we didn’t belong.

A boy who looked too hard at everything. A man with scars on his face and shadows in his eyes.

We weren’t guests or cousins come to visit.

We were ghosts in borrowed clothes, haunting the edge of their peace.

Sometimes, when the wind came from the east, I swore I could hear it—the faint crack of Disapparition, the cruel laughter of Death Eaters woven through the trees, the distant murmur of a world fraying at its seams. But up here on this little rise, looking down at the windmills and wheat fields, it all felt like it belonged to someone else’s story.

I wanted to believe it could be ours. That peace could last more than a moment.

Remus’s voice broke gently through my thoughts.

“Do you agree, Harry?”

I blinked. “Sorry—what?”

He was watching me, not with frustration, but with that quiet tiredness that had become part of him. The look of someone who had learnt, long ago, that most answers aren’t found in books or spells—but in surviving.

“We were speaking about Hogwarts,” he said evenly. “About keeping a low profile.”

Right. Hogwarts.

The return.

It felt… off. Like trying to fit back into a jumper I’d outgrown. I couldn’t imagine myself roaming those corridors again, slipping back into House routines and lesson timetables, pretending I was just another student when I wasn’t. Not anymore.

But Dumbledore had arranged it. Said it would keep us safe—for now. Said there were things we’d need to learn and others we’d need to find.

The castle was protection, yes—but also a prison of sorts. A fortress made of stone and history, where every step echoed with what had come before.

Remus cleared his throat. “You and I will be there in different capacities. Student. Staff. That gives us access, yes—but also scrutiny. Hogwarts is full of secrets, Harry. You’ll need to keep your eyes open.”

I nodded slowly. The weight of it settled over me like a cloak pulled tight around the shoulders. “Sounds thrilling,” I muttered, though part of me meant it.

Somewhere deep down, the thought of returning to Hogwarts—despite everything—sparked something dangerously close to hope.

Remus caught it. Of course he did.

“Enthusiasm,” he said wryly, “can be useful. But dangerous, too. Attention brings questions. Questions you may not be ready—or safe enough—to answer.”

I exhaled, rubbing the back of my neck. “Alright. I’ll keep my head down.”

“Self-control,” he corrected gently. “Not silence. Not hiding. Just… awareness.”

I knew he was right. He was always right, damn him.

But that didn’t mean it was easy.

My name followed me everywhere. It arrived before I did, carved into headlines and whispered in corridors. I didn’t know how to hide. I only knew how to be seen—and then dissected, judged, and expected.

“It’s just… harder for me than it is for you,” I said quietly, without looking at him. “You’ve always known how to disappear into a room. I’ve never had that luxury.”

For a moment, he didn’t reply. Then he turned to face me fully, and when he spoke, his voice was lower, steadier.

“It’s not about luxury, Harry,” he said. “Or ease. It’s about necessity.”

He paused, and the silence between us felt heavy. Not awkward—just full. Brimming with everything we weren’t quite saying.

“Sometimes,” he added, “the only way to survive is to become smaller than the danger that hunts you. Not forever. Just long enough to outlast it.”

His words sank in slowly. I didn’t respond right away. Just stood there, feeling the weight of it settle next to all the others.

It was one more truth I didn’t want—but couldn’t ignore.

There was a softness in Remus’s eyes that caught me off guard. Not the softness of someone offering comfort or kindness—no, it was quieter than that. More knowing. The sort of look you only wore after years of witnessing too much and saying far too little. A gaze shaped by restraint. By loss.

“You’ve done hard things before, Harry,” he said, his voice low and measured. “Harder than this. And you’ll do more—because you must. But don’t forget… there’s strength in patience, too. In knowing when to wait.”

I opened my mouth to speak—something sharp, maybe. Something tired. I wanted to say I was done with waiting. Tired of crouching in shadows and pretending I didn’t care that the world was splitting apart. Tired of watching others fight and fall while I remained hidden behind curtains and spells and plans I didn’t understand.

But I saw it then—the faint tension around his mouth. The new lines were etched into the skin just above his brows. The flicker of worry he hadn’t quite managed to mask.

And the words died in my throat.

“If anyone can do it,” he said simply, and that was all.

No speech. No fuss. Just quiet certainty. The kind that settled somewhere deep.

I turned towards the window again. The village outside basked beneath the morning sun, rooftops bathed in that soft, golden light that only seemed to appear just after dawn. It streamed through the clouds like something precious leaking from the sky.

And for a single, weightless moment—everything held.

One breath at a time, I told myself.

One day at a time.

I would blend in. I would play the part. I would become whatever the world needed of me—even if I didn’t know who that was anymore. Even if every part of me ached to be someone else entirely. Someone unburdened. Unmarked.

Remus moved through life with a rhythm—measured, deliberate, maddening. His calm had nothing to do with ease. It was learnt. Rehearsed. Survival, honed sharp like a wand tip in a duel. Watching him sometimes felt like watching someone who had memorised the rules of a game designed to break people—and had learnt how to play without blinking.

And me?

I was still fumbling for the instructions.

He wore his disguises like second skins. Names that weren’t his. Jobs that weren’t real. He slipped into these false lives like slipping on an old coat—familiar, well-worn, made to fit. He knew how to disappear properly, how to occupy space without drawing notice.

It grated on me, that grace.

While I struggled under new names and borrowed smiles, he settled. He made it look effortless—this life on the run. But I didn’t want effortless. I didn’t want rehearsed smiles or half-truths spoken through gritted teeth. I wanted connection. Something raw and real. A laugh that wasn’t filtered through fear. A touch that didn’t flinch. A story shared in the open, without glancing over our shoulders.

Sometimes—on long walks through Muggle parks, or seated across from each other in little cafés that smelt of coffee and dust—I let myself pretend. I’d sit there, fingers curled around a mug, and think, Maybe this is what being normal feels like. Just a boy with a scar and a headache. No prophecy. No war.

But fantasy has a way of cutting back. The more I reached for it, the more danger slithered in behind me. And always—always—Remus would notice. He’d give me that look, that silent warning, and then we’d leave. No argument. No explanation. Just another door closed behind us. Another house abandoned. Another not-quite-life left behind.

This time, he promised, was different.

But Hogwarts didn’t feel different. It felt like a memory. Like something I’d once known but no longer fit inside. The thought of going back—to those halls, those staircases, those endless, echoing rooms—didn’t fill me with comfort. It filled me with something that felt too much like grief.

Even as Remus spoke of protection, of permanence, something deep inside me recoiled.

Because I didn’t believe in safety. Not really.

And a school filled with sharp-eyed students and portraits that never slept didn’t feel like a sanctuary.

It felt like a trap.

Still—his voice, always calm, always so maddeningly certain, anchored me.

“Hogwarts is the safest place for you,” he said. “The Headmaster has protections you can’t yet imagine. If you stay within its walls… you won’t have to keep running.”

I wanted to believe him. Honestly, I did.

He told me to get changed. I nodded.

I went upstairs. Opened the trunk at the foot of my bed. The hinges squeaked the same way they always had. Familiar. Almost comforting.

Inside, my robes waited—folded, neat, and undisturbed.

I shrugged them on. The sleeves were too short now, the hem hanging awkwardly. I’d grown—taller, leaner. More angles than curves now. The fabric hung off me like something meant for someone else.

Or maybe it wasn’t the robes that didn’t fit.

Maybe I was the thing that had changed—stretched and frayed and thinned at the edges.

I stared at myself in the mirror. The boy looking back wasn’t quite the one I remembered. There was something in the eyes. Something that hadn’t been there before.

A wariness. A weight.

Maybe that was what war did to you. Not all at once, but slowly—until one day, you couldn’t quite remember what it had felt like not to be afraid.

I smoothed the front of my robes and turned away from the mirror.

It was time to go.

Even if part of me still wasn’t sure where I was going back to.

Downstairs, Remus was already waiting.

Gone was the tattered traveller who’d drifted through too many half-lives. In his place stood someone altogether more composed—his robes crisp and dark, cuffs neatly buttoned, his collar pressed. Still, the wear clung to him, quiet but unmissable, stitched into the curve of his shoulders and the grey threaded through his hair. His eyes—those watchful, world-weary eyes—hadn’t changed. Eyes that had seen too much and remembered it all.

He stepped forward without a word, reached out, and straightened my tie with hands that were far steadier than mine had been. His fingers moved deftly, practised—like someone who’d done this before, for someone else, a long time ago.

In the hall mirror beside us, I caught a glimpse of myself.

The reflection startled me.

There was the Hogwarts crest, stitched bright against black robes I hadn’t worn in too long. A school hat perched awkwardly atop hair that refused to behave. It looked—wrong, somehow. Too neat. Too formal. Like a costume meant for someone else.

I didn’t look like Harry Potter.

I looked like a boy pretending to be Harry Potter. A ghost dressed in school colours.

“There,” Remus said at last, with a faint huff of amusement. “From wandering nomad to prestigious schoolboy.”

I flinched, just slightly, at the words.

Wandering nomad.

The phrase landed harder than it should’ve. Not because it wasn’t true—of course it was—but because of how casually he’d said it. Like it was a badge or a nickname. I couldn’t tell if he meant it kindly or if it was simply a truth too worn to sting anymore. Either way, it sat on my chest like another weight I didn’t know how to carry.

“I’m not sure about this,” I said, my voice low and uneven. “What if I’m not ready?”

He paused, the faint trace of humour in his face fading. Then he stepped in, close enough that I could see the slight tremble in his jaw, the soft strain at the corner of his mouth.

“You are,” he said quietly. “I’ve watched you, Harry. I’ve seen every step you’ve taken—every choice you’ve made, every burden you’ve shouldered. You’re stronger than you think. And ready or not… this is the next step.”

It was meant as encouragement—I knew that. But it rang in my ears like something heavier.

You’re stronger than you think.

You’ll do great things.

People said that sort of thing to me a lot. I never knew how to answer. It always sounded less like a compliment and more like a prophecy. A verdict passed down from somewhere above me. Not a choice, but a sentence.

“I don’t want to be someone who’s supposed to do great things,” I muttered. “I just… I want to feel like I belong somewhere again.”

Remus didn’t speak straight away. He just looked at me, and there was something in his gaze—something steadying. Something that didn’t ask anything of me.

“You do belong,” he said. “And not in the shadows, Harry. Not anymore.”

My throat tightened. I looked away.

“What if something goes wrong?” I asked, quieter now. “What if I can’t keep it together in there? What if I bring danger with me?”

He answered at once. “Then we’ll face it. Hogwarts isn’t just a school. It’s a stronghold. It’s where hope has always begun again. And it’s where you’ll have the space to be, not just survive.”

His faith in that place—that it could hold me, heal me—was hard to understand. It was the kind of belief I hadn’t been able to reach for in a long time. Not with everything that had happened. Not after what I’d seen.

Still… I wanted to believe it. I needed to.

“But it still feels dangerous,” I admitted. “Like stepping into the centre of something I’m not ready to carry.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder, firm but not heavy. Grounding.

“That’s why I’m here,” he said, simply. “And that’s why Dumbledore’s watching. You’re not alone this time, Harry. You don’t have to be.”

The words sank into me slowly. They didn’t make the fear vanish. But they dulled it—took the sharpest edge off.