They go Diagon Alley, the three of them in a tight nervous group. Harry and Hermione say it’s because Harry needs to get some money out but when Mr and Mrs Granger offer to pay Harry says no. “I need to do this. I can’t let them win.”

“Who?” asks Mr Granger.

“Anybody.”

Erasmus wonders if Harry’s been fighting so long he’s forgotten how to stop. It’s a test. Harry and Hermione, they’re testing themselves. Always testing. Always pushing. And he goes with them because... he doesn’t know why. Because he wants to be as brave as them, because he wants to test himself. Because he’s not going to hide.

He hates it. It’s not the magic, which is horrible enough, magic everywhere, drowning him. But that’s not the worst. The worst is the people. People staring, whispering, shaking hands with Harry – and always asking the same question: How did Voldemort die?

And the reporter. The reporter. He doesn’t know how she finds them so fast but she is there, eyeing Harry with a rapaciousness that makes Erasmus uneasy. He wants to remember, yes, but he doesn’t want to have his memories splashed across the papers for the world to look at. Harry doesn’t deserve this.

She flourishes her quill and smiles toothily, sublimely unaware of the three of them flinching as she focuses on Harry. “What do you have to say about Snape now he’s escaped – and nearly killed Dumbledore in doing so.”

“He didn’t nearly kill him!” The reporter dismisses this attempt at accuracy. Harry’s jaw tightens and the anger flares brightly in his eyes. “I’m glad he’s free.”

The reporter actually looks shocked, like a real human being instead of an insatiable shark. “He’s a Death Eater!”

“He saved my life!” Harry grits out. “He tried to die for me!”

He storms off, Hermione and Erasmus right behind him, and even a reporter has no chance of following them.

Erasmus never asks, like the others do. He knows he has no right, knows that if Harry doesn’t talk then he shouldn’t be pushed because Erasmus knows how much it can hurt to talk and he won’t do that to Harry.

But sometimes he looks at Harry, thin fourteen year old with demon-haunted eyes, and the question rises up unbidden. How did you defeat Voldemort?

-

Harry knows he shouldn’t have gone to Diagon Alley. It was stupid; he should have known better. And so they flee, away from the questions and the adulation and the magic, even though they never made it to Gringotts. Back home, away from the streets and the magic and the prying eyes and the nagging questions, the same question over and over again. Back home and the house reaches out to him in welcome and Harry almost weeps because this is home, this is safety, this is his shelter. No one follows him as he runs up the stairs and he’s glad of it. He needs this moment alone with no one but the house and the sound of their voices as they put things away downstairs.

There’s no one in his room asking questions of him. No one demanding the answers he cannot give them. He soaks up the undemanding silence and wishes he could stay here forever. He can’t, of course.

“Harry?”

“What?” he snaps, and instantly regrets it. Mr Granger isn’t the one he’s angry at.

Mr Granger just pats him on the shoulder. “Mrs Carter’s here.”

Harry winces; Mr Granger’s hand tightens on his shoulder in silent comfort. For one moment a vast, deep envy wells up inside him for Hermione, who grew up with this support, with this love. Why couldn’t he have had this? Didn’t he deserve it too? But he has it now, even when he doesn’t deserve it. That has to be worth something.

He takes a deep breath and goes downstairs to face the counsellor.

“I hear you had a... bad experience this morning,” she says carefully.

Harry scowls down at his hands in his lap, not wanting the memory. He hates them. He hates them. Always pushing, always demanding. He murdered for them, what more do they want from him? Why can’t they all just leave him alone? Hasn’t he done enough? Does he have to give them every last piece of himself, all those shattered shards he’s gathered up so carefully?

It cost him nearly everything to destroy their monster and he’s worked so very hard to build it all back up again, to try and put himself back together. One good push and it will all come toppling down. Why do they keep trying to push?

“Why do they disturb you so much?”

“Because they want to know everything. Everything. And I – can’t.”

“Can’t? or won’t?”

“Can’t. I can’t.” He looks at her desperately. “I just can’t.”

“I don’t blame you.” It’s only a figure of speech really, but she takes the words and returns them to meaning and suddenly it’s there: she doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t get angry at him for not telling her everything, she doesn’t dig and demand and ask-ask-ask.

The relief of that almost makes him cry. And frees his tongue enough to say, “I wouldn’t tell them even if I could.”

“Why not?”

“Because they would hate me.”

“Why would they hate you?”

“Because I’m a murderer.”

“You’re not a murderer, Harry,” she says gently.

Harry just looks at her. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

-

Erasmus is still shaking, even though it’s half an hour since he left Mrs Carter. Hermione is playing scales on the piano, over and over and over, as if the repetition can take away the pain. Crookshanks is affronted – he can’t sit on her when she’s playing the piano – and sits on Erasmus instead, kneading his knees vigorously and turning his back on Hermione. Erasmus buries his fingers in the cat’s fur and tries to concentrate on the texture, on not feeling anything at all.

Harry comes out, pale and thin, looking like he’s fading away. Hermione’s fingers go still on the piano keys.

“Are you okay?” Erasmus asks uselessly.

Harry shrugs tiredly and runs his hands through his hair, exposing the scar that burns like a brand on his forehead, the scar that everyone today looked at before they ever looked at Harry. Erasmus has seen it a thousand times before but this time he actually looks at it. Stares at it. “Who are you?” he asks.

Harry looks at him, green eyes solemn and dark underneath the lightning bolt brand. And finally he says, “I don’t think I know anymore.”

Anger flares up in Erasmus’s chest, startling in its suddenness. Harry has memories. How dare he say that! Erasmus is the one who doesn’t know. But Harry hasn’t finished speaking.

“They made me into their weapon. Now they don’t need me anymore. So what does that make me?”

“You’re not a weapon, Harry,” Hermione says, sharp and fierce as she shuts the piano lid with an angry snap.

“No?” He’s not arguing. He’s pleading.

Erasmus goes cold. How can Harry possibly think that—

“I killed their monster for them. That’s all they needed from me.”

Erasmus looks at him, pale and fading, and feels a sudden, heart-stopping fear that now Harry thinks there’s no reason for him to be alive. It’s one thing to know himself half-ready to die, he’s not ready for Harry to be the same. To be as broken, as weak.

Harry glares at him, but it’s not really anger, it’s pain, pain, pain. Pain that makes him lash out. Erasmus knows about that all too well. “Do you understand?” Harry demands. “I didn’t kill him, I destroyed him. Murder... I think I could have handled murder. Murder is just taking a life. I took his soul.” He turns away, stares fiercely out the window. “I’m a dementor.”

Erasmus is quiet for a very long time. And then he says, “I would have done it.”

Harry laughs bitterly. “No. You wouldn’t. Because you don’t understand.”

Erasmus matches anger with anger. “Then make me understand!”

“I can’t!” It is a wail of the deepest despair. “You’ll hate me! If Snape had known what I was going to do with his magic he never would have given it to me. If all those people out there knew what I did they wouldn’t want to give me medals. I don’t want you to hate me, Erasmus.”

All this time he’s been worrying about Harry hating him and Harry’s worried about being hated. Erasmus’s world is turned on its head.

“I don’t hate you, Harry.” They both jump and turn to Hermione. Her chin is up, her eyes are narrowed, and her arms are folded. “I know what you did and I don’t hate you. You’re not a dementor. You’re not evil. And I don’t hate you.”

-

I don’t hate you, she says. And Harry believes her with a simple, childlike faith. Hermione has never lied to him. Hermione always tells him the truth.

He sobs, just once, choking on it and not caring. He’s a dementor, he knows he is, knows how terrible it is what he did, but it’s acceptable because Hermione accepts it. Hermione accepts him. It’s okay then, everything’s okay. Not great, not perfect, but okay. And Erasmus deserves more than his anger, so Harry turns back to him and gives him a weak smile of apology.

“I’m not normal. Nothing about me is normal. It never will be. Even for a wizard I’m not normal. I can’t use a wand. Not like everyone else.” He holds out his hands with the thick ropey scars across the palms so that Erasmus can inspect them. “This is my wand.” Erasmus stares. “And the magic, it comes so easily. Even when I’m terrified of it. I want to be normal but I can’t be normal.”

I can’t be normal. He’s never admitted that before. Never admitted that maybe this is normal for him, that maybe he can’t go any further. And it hurts, it hurts like an angry burning wound through his heart, but somehow it’s also a relief. He’s not normal, he’ll never be normal. And that’s okay, because it is who he is. Hermione loves him anyway. Mr and Mrs Granger like him all the same. Mrs Carter accepts him just as he is. And Erasmus, Snape, Erasmus is still here, not running away.

Epiphanies are strange things. Scary and uplifting all at once, world-changing yet so simple. Harry almost smiles. “I’m not normal,” he says. “And it’s okay.” He sits down and looks at Erasmus. “I’m going to tell you what I did.”

“You don’t have to—”

“You deserve to know. You were there.”

So Erasmus listens, as Harry tells for the first time how Voldemort died.

-

-

The Death Eaters weren’t laughing anymore. The circle closed in. Harry heard Snape swear very very softly, almost like a caress. Curses flew. In a slow motion, dreamy world, Harry saw them coming. He lifted his hands gently, easily, as if he had all the time in the world, and the magic poured through him. It filled him up, joyfully, unrestrainedly, and flowed out of his hands at a thought, so much easier than when his wand had been separate from him.

The curses rebounded off the shield, ricocheting back onto Death Eaters and dropping a number of them right then and there.

It all seemed so easy, so perfect. He was invincible.

Then the world sped up. The Death Eaters attacked again. And the spells dug into the shield as if into his skin, the pressure built up – and under the combined effort of the Death Eaters even the phoenix shield fell. It dissipated in a backlash that drove through Harry’s body and made him howl.

Somehow none of the spells hit him, but Snape went down, Hermione went down. Snape was frighteningly still, but Hermione, crumpled at Harry’s feet, tried to rise.

“Enough!” The Death Eaters paused at Voldemort’s order. “Surrender, Potter, and perhaps we will allow you a painless death.”

He was lying, Harry knew it. Voldemort was going to make them pay, and Snape and Hermione were already fallen. But Harry wasn’t just scared now, he was angry. And the power, the power of three joined magics, was still his.

The history books might later talk about his determination to save the world from the return of one of the most feared Dark Lords, about his courage, about how he was a Hero. But the truth was he was just a scared boy who desperately wanted to save the two people at his feet. He didn’t care about the world, he didn’t care about anything other than this moment and this fear. Voldemort could have had the world if only he’d left Hermione and Snape alone. But he didn’t, and so the course of history was changed.

There was no logic in it, only fear and anger and horror and the most recent spell Hermione had taught him: “Accio soul!”

The results were horrifying.

Voldemort stiffened, shuddered, collapsed. As his Death Eaters cried out in disbelieving horror, grey mist oozed out of his skin, sickly and foul, rising up above his spasming body. The mist fought and writhed, trying to return to its home, but Harry clenched his hands around his wand-scarred palms and willed the spell onwards. He channelled all his magic, all Snape’s magic, all Hermione’s magic, into this one final battle, knowing that if he lost they were all dead. The mist poured out faster, forming the shadow of a body, a man, while Voldemort screamed in agony. He felt Voldemort dying. Felt the destructive magic as if he, Harry, was the one being dismantled atom by atom. He screamed in horrified agony but he didn’t give up.

For Hermione. For Snape. For the two people that made up his world in this moment, the two people who stood by him, the two people who had given him for one shining moment a place to belong.

The mist grew solid, formed a real body that writhed in pain, reaching out to Harry, begging, pleading.

“No!” Harry screamed, and the soul-ghost exploded.

With one final unearthly shriek Voldemort was dead. Gone. Destroyed.

Harry stared at his dead body and shook like a leaf. Then he looked up. The Death Eaters were staring at him. Not in anger, not in fury, not in hatred. In fear. Fear of what he had done. Fear of him.

One fled, then another, then all, the sharp cracks of apparation around him like machinegun fire, and Harry realised the truth of what he had just done. The horror of what he had just done.

What had he done?