The Winter vacation dragged on, and from what Harry was reading in the papers, so did Fudge’s coma.
The entire debacle was starting to worry the public more and more since a country couldn’t really do without an acting minister for very long. It was a post that was necessary to weigh in on the budget, departmental conflicts and many other things.
Ten days or so after Harry had met Dumbledore and after the man had fallen comatose, the decision was finally reached to choose an interim minister until the real one either woke up, or was medically determined to be a hopeless case.
Unsurprisingly the interim minister ended up being Barty Crouch, the man who’d been minister for more than a decade before Fudge.
It was somewhat unclear if the man was happy about it since he had, for all intents and purposes, sort of accepted retiring to the department of magical games after battling to stay in the broader political arena and losing.
Harry for his part didn’t have much hope for Fudge making a miraculous recovery since the man had been under Voldemort’s influence for many years now and it was unclear if there was much of Fudge left inside of him.
Also, well, a comatose person being found in Azkaban was all well and good if one didn’t consider the dementors that inhabited the place.
Appearing to be comatose was a symptom eerily similar to someone who’d received the smooch of death. The newspapers just likely weren't bringing that theory up because it would spread mass panic.
After all, if the dementors were willing to go after the minister, who was safe?
This and many other questions were things Harry didn’t have time for anymore so he decisively chucked the morning’s edition of the Daily Prophet into the bin at Charing’s and boarded the Hogwarts Express.
Today he and many other students were returning to a thankfully basilisk-free Hogwarts, in a now thankfully Voldemort-free Britain.
For all that Slughorn had died, it seemed that the situation in Britain had improved vastly, which Harry didn’t really know how he felt about.
Someone who did know how they felt about it however, was his blonde friend Penny, whom he found sobbing red-eyed in a compartment.
“I can’t believe he’s dead,” she wailed as Harry entered and put away his trunk.
The red-head awkwardly sat down next to the girl and put an arm around her shoulder.
“He’s, uh, in a better place now,” he muttered quietly as Penny used his sleeve to blow her nose, likely mistaking it for her own.
“He had so much to live for!” the girl exclaimed.
Well considering how long wizards could live sometimes, Slughorn really had died in the middle of his life, so the man dying was definitely something of a wasted potential. He’d been a very competent if biased potions professor after all, and thus could have taught many more generations if he’d been alive.
He patted Penny on the back, at a loss of what to say. Her and Slughorn had been closer, in a way the relationship mirroring the one he’d had with Flitwick.
To his knowledge Slughorn had provided Penny with a practice room, ingredients, guidance and assistance in advancing one grade without ever asking for anything in return. Well, maybe becoming a permanent fixture at his parties was the cost, but that was hardly mentionable as those were a good networking opportunity regardless.
The next person who entered the compartment was a glum-looking Cedric.
“Worst winter vacation ever,” the boy told the two friends, hugging it out on the seats before plopping down himself and burying his face in his hands.
“I didn’t know you were also that close to professor Slughorn,” Harry prompted, somewhat confused.
Cedric flinched. “Well that’s horrible as well, innit, the cherry on top of the shit sundae.” He shook his head. “What I meant was that my dad was running around the whole two weeks after the thing with Fudge happened. I barely saw him, might as well have stayed at Hogwarts,” he muttered.
“And your mum?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.
“She was all anxious about it, I just spent the whole time flying outside and popping by the Weasleys. Nearly froze my buttocks off too since I’m not allowed to use even a warming charm outside of Hogwarts,” he grumbled while shivering theatrically.
“You poooowww baby,” Harry crooned, lifting his left unoccupied arm and bidding the boy to join the cuddle pile. “Come to papa, Cedwic!”
The brunette threw him a look of disgust before demonstratively looking out of the window.
“Suit yourself,” Harry grumbled.
“How was Spain?” Cedric asked. “Any hot birds?”
Harry shook his head, before pausing.
Cedric shot up at the hesitation. “You dog!” he exclaimed. “Everyone in Britain was suffering from the news apocalypse and you were tearing it up over the channel?” he asked.
Harry raised both arms defensively before using his right to cross himself in the sign of the eternal shepherd. “Cross my heart and swear my soul, I’m as pure as virgin Mary,” he said with a serious nod. “Believe it or not the only woman I spent the vacation with recently lost her whole family in an airplane crash and we mostly spent our time discussing political philosophy!” As for what happened that one time after the third bottle of wine. Well, there’s a reason why the French had a saying. ‘Apres la troisieme, J’obliue.’
Cedric stared at him with a deadpan look. “Any conclusions?” he asked eventually.
Harry hummed and scratched his chin. “Well, all I can truly say is that with great power comes great responsibility,” he eventually said with a solemn nod.
-/-
It was after Harry stepped down from the Hogwarts Express that he thought about the article he’d originally met Skeeter to discuss at the start of the discussions.
The one about his and Snape’s contributions to defeating the basilisk.
The entire thing had been derailed somewhat by the picture of Fudge with the locket that she’d shown him, which he’d promptly ripped out of her hands back then.
Ever since the news cycle had been dominated by reports of dead professors, napping aurors, escaped convicts, comatose ministers and panicking politicians.
Instead of before Christmas as had been intended, the article would appear sometime this week.
After that Harry’s time at Hogwarts, under scrutiny as it had been recently due to the duelling debacle, would likely become even more intense.
“Who do you think’s going to step in as potions professor?” he eventually asked as the trio of friends finished disembarking from the thestral-drawn carriages and traversed the castle to sit down at the Hufflepuff table.
“Isn’t Snape a potions master?” Cedric asked, before frowning and looking up at the great hall ceiling which was showing the slowly rising snowstorm happening outside. “It’d be a shame to lose him as a defence professor though.” He looked up at the professor’s table, at the afore-mentioned dark-haired man who was whispering something to the aged headmaster sitting to his right. “Dumbledore looks like he aged ten years,” Cedric commented, switching topics.
Harry turned his head to look at Dumbledore, who suddenly turned his head and twinkled his eyes at him.
“Looks the same to me, too cheerful even,” he complained quietly with a grimace. His relationship with the headmaster was becoming more and more complicated, for all that he hoped he was the only one who knew about that.
It almost made him want to delay the creation of the Book of Eibon to give himself a break from the man.
Alas, a pensieve was too important and it was going to be full speed ahead.
A hand went up his neck, where a newly delivered time-turner hung. McGonaggall had pulled him aside for a moment as the students had been entering the castle and unceremoniously pressed it into his hand.
It was good to have it back, but for some reason he got the feeling that next year would be the last year he’d have the privilege. After that he’d be done with his Arithmancy and Transfiguration N.E.W.Ts and likely wouldn’t be able to justify continued use. Especially with the fact that he would also drop history after the O.W.L and never look back. Three classes down his schedule would look too threadbare for anyone to agree on giving him a time-breaking artefact to deal with it.
That meant he’d have to get as much use out of the thing as he could.
The great hall suddenly quietened as Dumbledore stood up from his ornate chair and lifted a cup to strike it with the dull part of a knife.
“May I have your attention please,” the man said softly.
The Slytherins, who were usually to last to quiet down, perhaps as an act of defiance against what they saw as a political opponent first and foremost were the first ones to fall silent for once.
“As many of you are already aware, we must contend with passing the second half of the school-year without the presence of one of our longest serving professors and the head of the house of Slytherin. Professor Slughorn has unfortunately passed away under circumstances that still require clarification. Unfortunately, we cannot do without a potions professor for very long, so I will temporarily be stepping in as a temporary replacement while we find a more permanent solution for next year.”
Some students started whispering, but quickly stopped when nobody reciprocated.
“Professor Snape has graciously offered to step up as the temporary head of house for Slytherin, the specifics of which you will discuss in your common room after the feast. As for the rest? There are no more announcements, just the promise that at a time of change and political turbulence, Hogwarts will continue to serve as a bastion of stability in these trying times.” He lowered his head. “Now, if you please, a minute of silence for those who have given everything for this institution and ended up paying the ultimate price,” he said cryptically.
Harry, along with the rest of his student body lowered his head to look at the empty table in front of him.
He didn’t know when, but at some point he’d started biting his lip, causing blood to well up and drop onto his robes.
His fists were clenched and there was one question tumbling through his head.
How many more? How many more people would have to die before this silent war would finally end?
Charlie Weasley and Horace Slughorn.
Both people who should have lived in the original timeline, but who’d died instead.
Voldemort’s horcruxes had been destroyed many years early, but the shade was still out there somewhere, as was his most cowardly servant.
Harry only hoped that nobody else would have to die, because if they did, then he would have to question if his inclusion in the timeline had been more of a detriment than a benefit.
If he was the curse that shifted everything for the worse… He didn’t know how he would end up dealing with it.
-/-
After the Hufflepuffs had trudged back up to their common room and gotten the welcome back speech from professor Sprout as well, Harry first thought that he would use the time turner to spin back and start work immediately.
Then he finally sat down on his bed and thought better of it, deciding to give himself just one last day of rest.
Tomorrow the classes would start, the extra-projects would work into his free-time and his responsibilities would weigh down his shoulders.
Thus he cleaned himself, got dressed in his pyjamas, laid down in his black and yellow four-poster bed and cracked open one of his favourite books, the little prince, for his yearly reread.
Which of course was the point that Dobby popped to his bedside and looked at him with bulging eyes.
“You said to notify you immediately,” the house elf said before Harry could even have the chance to groan. “But a thunder storm has finally arrived in Jersey.”
“That’s… a good thing,” Harry eventually managed to say through a strained smile before getting up and changing back into his robes.
Once more, unto the breach… Or something…
-/-
Harry reappeared on the stormy shores of Jersey, an island that realistically speaking really should belong to France.
He wrapped himself more tightly in his cloak and followed Dobby as the house-elf led him past the almost fading Notice-Me-Not ward left on the cave and entered the dark and the dank.
Maybe finishing the animagus transformation would be good, although the immediate trip to Azkaban that he’d promised was definitely something that would further strain his emotional capacity.
One additional benefit would be that he could finally stop incanting “Amato Animo Animato Animagus” at every sunrise and sunset, an incantation that had produced a second heartbeat inside his chest several times already, which was honestly kind of a gross feeling Harry could do without.
Now the only thing he needed was…
The sky flashed with lightning and the rolling sound of thunder hit the cave and echoed endlessly within after the light faded.
Harry walked further into the cave, casting a water-repelling charm on his shoes so as to not get wet.
It wasn’t a large space, perhaps as large as the Hufflepuff common room.
In other words, just large enough that the potion could be hidden deep enough to avoid the sun, the eyes of any wizard peeking in and the tide if it ever decided to rise high enough to sweep away literal months of effort.
He stepped behind the last rock, Dobby having taken a respectful backseat that was really unnecessary considering how little Harry was paying him.
A blood-red potion phial greeted him and a smirk hushed across Harry’s face.
He picked up the vial and looked at it.
Then he raised his wand and dispelled the lingering magic he and Dobby had cast on the cave.
“To the clearing, fast,” he said, turning to his servant, disippating before he even completed the turn.
-/-
AN: It's morphinnnnnnnnnnnn timmmmeeeeee!