I woke to sunlight lying across the floorboards.
For a moment, I stayed where I was.
There was no tightness in my chest. No feeling that I had forgotten something important. There was only the morning light, warm enough to reach the end of the bed as it streamed through the tall windows. Dust drifted through it, turning slowly in the air.
I did not move.
I could not remember the last time I'd woken without thinking about what had to be done next. There was always somewhere to go, someone to find, or something to be ready for.
This morning, there was only silence.
I wasn't sure I trusted it.
Outside, the village was already awake. Somebody scraped a deckchair across a patio. Tyres crunched over gravel somewhere beyond the garden wall. A burst of laughter carried from a house further along the lane before fading again.
I sat up and rested my feet on the wooden floor.
The boards felt cool against my skin.
I looked down at my hands and opened and closed them. I ought to have had a plan already. I usually had three. But I couldn't think beyond getting dressed.
In daylight, the room looked different.
The Quidditch posters on the wall stirred as a breeze slipped through the open window. Viktor Krum was banking on his broom, his expression as grim as ever.
I watched him for a moment.
Playing Quidditch had once been enough. I'd never thought about anything except catching the Snitch and hearing the crowd afterwards. That felt a long way off now.
Hedwig shifted on her perch in the corner. Her feathers were fluffed, and she looked at me as though she'd been awake for ages. She gave a quiet hoot.
I smiled before I could stop myself.
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered.
My voice sounded rough after sleep.
I crouched beside the trunk at the foot of the bed.
It was still only half unpacked. T-shirts were folded beneath a pile of books that had slipped sideways. Rolls of parchment stuck out between them, and a couple of empty Chocolate Frog wrappers had found their way into the corner.
I had been living out of trunks for so long that I wasn't sure I'd ever really unpacked anywhere.
I reached for the first clean shirt I found and pulled it over my head.
It would do.
The stairs creaked beneath my feet as I went downstairs.
And then the smell reached me.
Fresh toast with butter melting into it. A hint of spice, perhaps cinnamon or cloves. Strong, earthy tea, brewed the way Remus always made it. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, the warmth of it filled the hall.
I did not say anything at once. I stopped in the doorway and let myself take it in.
Remus stood by the hob with his sleeves rolled up. His wand kept the kettle turning as it hovered above a blue flame. Rosemary had joined the other scents, sharp and familiar. He looked comfortable for once. There was no strain in the way he held himself, only a quiet stillness that I had learnt was rare.
His movements were slow and unhurried.
I did not want to interrupt him. It felt wrong to break the silence. Moments like this never seemed to last long. I stood where I was, watching the sunlight spread across the floor between us, and wished that, just for a little while, the world outside could wait.
"Good afternoon, Harry," Remus said without looking round.
There was a smile in his voice. He knew perfectly well how long I had been awake. He had probably guessed I had been lying upstairs thinking instead of sleeping. He always seemed to notice things like that without asking questions.
I let out a short laugh.
"It's barely morning," I said, though neither of us had paid much attention to the time for days. We slept when we could and stayed awake when we had to.
He glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised.
"It's nearly midday," he replied. "I thought you might appreciate the good news."
I shrugged, though I could not stop the corner of my mouth lifting.
"I suppose that's one way of looking at it."
He picked up a mug and handed it to me with the same easy movement I remembered from every safe house we had shared. It felt so ordinary that, for a moment, I could almost forget why we kept moving from place to place. We could have been back at our previous place in London before everything fell apart, or in one of the Order's other houses between missions, with nothing more pressing to think about than breakfast.
I wrapped my hands around the mug. The heat soaked into my fingers.
The tea was exactly right. Slightly sweet, with chamomile beneath the stronger herbs. He had made it the way I liked without needing to ask.
He had always done things like that.
I remembered one of the first safe houses after Voldemort returned. The curtains had stayed shut from morning until night, and I had been too young to understand why everyone spoke in low voices or why every knock at the door made somebody reach for their wand. Even then, Remus had somehow known how I took my tea.
Some things never changed, no matter how much everything else did.
We drank in silence while the world outside carried on without us. Birds sang somewhere beyond the open window. The fire crackled behind Remus. Far off, beyond the trees, I caught the faint sound of music drifting from someone's wireless.
"Toast?" Remus asked in a casual voice. "Or are we feeling extravagant? Scrambled eggs?"
"Eggs," I said before I had a chance to think.
The answer came out too fast.
It was not because scrambled eggs felt like a luxury. I just did not want him asking whether I had any appetite. If I answered quickly enough, perhaps he would leave it there.
I leant against the counter, resting one hip against the warm wood, and looked out of the window.
Outside, the gardens were full of late summer colour. A neighbour knelt beside a hedge, trimming it with careful strokes. A dog wandered past the post box, its tail wagging as though it had nowhere in particular to be. Somewhere farther off, a bell rang. It might have come from a bakery or a clock tower.
The window latch clicked each time the breeze caught it. Last night's cold still lingered in the flagstones by the back door. The kitchen clock read twenty past eleven, its second hand ticking on as steadily as ever.
I wondered what it would be like to look at the world and see only what was in front of me. I could not remember the last time that had been enough.
We cooked without speaking for a while.
The oil hissed as it heated in the pan. Eggs cracked against the bowl. A spoon scraped softly against the ceramic as Remus beat them together. The sounds should have left the room feeling empty, yet they did not. The silence was easy. It did not ask anything of either of us.
Remus broke it first.
"You're quiet today," he said.
Of course he had noticed.
I hesitated, my fingers drifting to the chipped rim of the mug beside the sink. I turned it a little without really thinking.
I did not want to lie to him.
I did not want to tell him the truth either.
"It's nothing," I said.
The words sounded hollow the moment I heard them. I did not believe them, and I knew Remus would not either. Somehow that made them worse.
Before I could stop myself, I looked back towards him.
"Just a bad dream."
He paused, tilting his head as though he were listening for something. His shoulders shifted a little, but he did not hurry to answer or fill the silence. After a moment, he turned to face me.
"Harry," he said quietly, "that's not nothing."
He stepped closer and rested a hand beneath my chin, lifting it just enough for me to meet his eyes.
The gesture caught me off guard.
He was not trying to force an answer out of me. He only wanted me to look at him. Somehow that made it harder to hide.
His hand was warm and steady. He did not look at me the way so many other people did. There was no Chosen One in his eyes, no expectation that I ought to know what to do next. He was only looking at me.
I wished that made things easier.
"I'm sorry," he said, his thumb brushing lightly beneath my jaw before he lowered his hand. "I know it's difficult."
I held his gaze for a moment.
The lines around his eyes seemed deeper than I remembered. He looked tired. There were shadows beneath his eyes that no night's sleep was likely to put right. I wondered whether he had slept much at all.
He turned back to the hob and stirred the eggs.
"We're only here for a while," he said. His voice was a little louder than the breeze coming through the open window. "You know that."
I nodded.
Of course I knew.
We never stayed anywhere for long. It did not matter how safe a place seemed or how ordinary the days felt. Sooner or later we packed our things, covered our tracks and moved on before somebody else found us. That was how it had to be.
Even so, my stomach tightened.
"I just…"
The words would not come.
I wanted one place where I did not have to think about leaving before I'd even unpacked my trunk. I wanted to wake up without wondering what might be waiting outside the door. For one foolish moment, I wanted to believe this cottage could be more than another stop on the way to somewhere else.
I dropped my eyes and gave a small nod instead.
It was all I could manage.
Remus understood.
He always seemed to know when I had reached the point where talking would only make things harder.
"There's no need to rush," he said after a moment, his voice quiet. "We'll talk later."
He picked up my empty mug, tapped a finger against its rim, and set it beside the sink.
Later.
It was not much.
But I found myself holding on to that. Lately, it seemed I was holding on to whatever I could.
Living with Remus had begun as a precaution. It had been one of Dumbledore's plans. Another safe house for a boy the world believed was dead, a boy who was never meant to be here at all.
It had sounded simple when Dumbledore explained it.
Remus had taken me in because he cared. He had not hesitated. Nobody had needed to persuade him. Perhaps that should not have surprised me. He knew what it was like to spend your life hiding because of something you had never chosen.
Knowing that did not make it any easier to accept.
He always said I was there because it was safer. I knew he believed it.
Even so, every morning I woke under his roof, and every night I went to sleep there, I wondered how much I was asking of him. It felt as though I had walked into the middle of a life that had already demanded too much from him.
There was something else neither of us ever mentioned.
The full moon was still weeks away, but we both knew the date without having to think about it. It was there in the background of every conversation. I saw it in the way Remus favoured one shoulder after a long day, and in the brief winces he tried to hide. Sometimes a sudden noise made him look round before he caught himself.
I noticed every time.
He rubbed his forearm once, then lowered his hand when he realised I had seen.
I looked away.
I knew he would rather carry the pain than ask for help.
I understood that better than I wanted to.
Perhaps that was why we gave each other space around the house. We were not family, though there were moments when it almost felt that way. We were not strangers either. We were simply two people who had learnt to carry too much on our own, each trying not to become another burden for the other.
Morning light filtered through the curtains and fell across Remus's face. It picked out the tired lines beneath his eyes and the hollows in his cheeks. His shirt hung loose on him. The blue had faded after years of washing until it was difficult to say what colour it had been to begin with. His trousers sat low enough that the belt did more work than the cloth itself.
Most people would have looked at him and seen only a quiet, worn-out man.
They would have been wrong.
He stood with his back straight and his chin level as he cooked. There was nothing forced about the way he held himself. It came from years of carrying on because there had never been another choice. He had survived things that would have broken most people, and still he found the patience to make breakfast as though it mattered.
Perhaps it did.
I watched without speaking.
He turned the eggs with slow, careful movements. He did not waste anything. Not the food, not his energy, not the silence between us.
I found myself wondering, not for the first time, how someone who looked so tired could still be the person making me feel safest.
Then I remembered that perhaps it was because he knew what it was like to keep going when you were exhausted.
No one understood that better than Remus.
I looked away.
The heat creeping up my neck made me glad Remus had turned back to the sink.
Above it, the mirror was cracked from top to bottom. Nobody had bothered to mend it. My reflection looked back at me from either side of the break.
I looked pale. Thinner than I remembered. My hair still stuck up in every direction, no matter what I did with it. My glasses sat crooked on my nose, as though they had given up trying to stay straight years ago.
Then my eyes caught mine.
People always noticed them.
Remus had told me more than once that they were my mother's eyes. Moody had said the same the first time we met. So had Mr Ollivander, Shacklebolt and plenty of others.
They always meant it kindly.
I never knew what to do with it.
Sometimes it felt as though people looked into my face hoping to find someone else.
Remus turned from the hob and placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me.
"There you are."
"Thanks."
He gave a small nod before taking his own plate to the sink to rinse the pan. Every movement was calm, as though there was no reason to hurry.
I picked up my fork.
The plate was warm beneath my fingers. Steam curled up past my face. The eggs were soft, with just enough butter and a little salt. I ate because I knew I should. After the first few mouthfuls, I realised I was hungrier than I'd thought.
I took a sip of tea. The handle of the mug was still hot, though not enough to make me let go.
Remus crossed to the window seat and lowered himself onto the old bench. It creaked beneath his weight. With a flick of his wand, the Daily Prophet floated across the room and settled into his hands.
He did not open it straight away.
Instead, he looked over the front page as though he already expected what he would find.
"What's new?" I asked.
The question was pointless.
Neither of us expected good news anymore.
He did not answer at once. Instead, he tilted the paper so I could see it.
The headline barely registered.
The moving photograph told the story well enough.
Smoke drifted across the picture. A figure stumbled through the edge of the frame before disappearing behind the haze. Broken glass caught the light for a moment, then vanished beneath another cloud of smoke.
"When did that happen?" I asked.
"This morning," Remus replied. "It's in today's edition. Two attacks. One near a market. The other along a village lane."
I looked closer.
Walls had folded into heaps of stone and timber. What had once been a house, or perhaps a Muggle café, was impossible to recognise now. Ash covered everything.
Above the wreckage floated the Dark Mark.
Green.
It twisted across the sky as though it belonged there.
I kept staring.
After a while, the photograph blurred before my eyes, but I could not make myself look away.
Remus let out a slow breath.
"Muggles live in fear now," he said at last, his voice low with exhaustion. "Even in the quietest villages. There's nowhere safe anymore."
His words settled heavily in my chest.
Guilt came at once. I looked around the kitchen. The scent of rosemary and toast still lingered in the air. Warm sunlight reached across the table and fell over my hands. The old floorboards felt solid beneath my feet.
None of it seemed right.
How could we be standing here with warmth, food and shelter when other people had none? How could I be safe while families I would never even meet were running for their lives?
"What can we do for them?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. I was not even sure whether I meant Remus to answer. "While we sit here, safe and hidden, they're out there dying."
Remus turned to look at me.
His expression gave very little away. He did not look cold, but he seemed guarded, as though he had already decided there were things I was not ready to hear. It reminded me of Dumbledore. There was always another piece of the truth waiting somewhere beyond my reach.
"There's a plan for you," he said after a pause. "Dumbledore has organised things. You will understand in time."
A plan.
That word made something inside me tighten.
Dumbledore had arranged for me to be hidden away, to train under protective wards where Death Eaters could not reach me.
The wards were meant to protect me.
But they had never made me feel protected.
I did not want another arrangement made on my behalf. I was tired of hearing about prophecies, plans and the future other people had chosen for me. I wanted the chance to decide for myself what sort of life I would have. I wanted the freedom to choose who I became instead of living as the person everyone expected me to be.
But when had that ever been my choice?
Ever since I had learned I was a wizard, it had felt as though every path had already been laid out before me.
My eyes drifted back to the newspaper.
The moving photograph showed smoke rolling through the streets. Green flashes of light burst through it, followed by people running in every direction.
The fear returned. It was familiar enough now that I recognised it the moment it settled in my chest.
I did not feel safe anymore.
And for the first time, I was not sure I could save anyone.
"They're scared," I murmured, unable to tear my eyes from the photograph. "All of them. And all we do is sit here."
I swallowed.
"Just watching."
For a long moment, Remus said nothing.
He folded the newspaper with care, smoothed the crease with the palm of his hand, and set it aside. His face remained unreadable. He did not look away from it straight away, as though he was giving me time to think. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before.
"Fear can stop people," he said. "It can make them freeze. But it can also drive them to do things they never believed they were capable of. You've seen that for yourself. You've lived through it."
I swallowed.
A tightness caught in my throat before I understood why. It was only a word, yet it seemed to pull at something I had been trying not to think about.
"And you've done more than act, Harry," Remus continued. "You've given me something to believe in. You've given me hope."
Hope.
The word settled heavily between us.
Faces came into my mind before I could stop them. People who had stood beside me, trusted me, and never made it home again.
Why should anyone look at me and see hope?
I was still here.
They were not.
Some days that truth felt harder to carry than anything else.
"I feel like I'm a mistake," I said, so quietly I almost wondered whether Remus had heard me. "Just a name in a story I don't know how to finish."
Remus turned towards me.
He watched me with the same calm attention he had shown ever since we had sat down. There was no judgement in his face. There was no pity either. He simply listened.
I looked away before I could hold his gaze for long.
"There has to be something we can do," I said again. The words came faster now, as though they had been waiting to escape. "Anything. We can't just stay here. I can't sit and wait while people are…"
The newspaper flashed across my mind again. Smoke. Green light. Frightened faces.
"…while they're dying."
My voice broke.
I did not care.
Remus gave a faint smile, but it never reached his eyes. They remained thoughtful, carrying the same tiredness I had noticed ever since he arrived.
"Perhaps, Harry," he said. "But change begins here."
He rested two fingers against his chest.
"Changing the world begins with learning to change yourself."
The wind stirred outside.
Bare branches scraped against the window and made the glass rattle for a moment. The sound faded as quickly as it had come, leaving the kitchen quiet again.
"Master your craft," Remus continued. "Not only the incantations. Anyone can learn words if they practise long enough. Learn restraint. Learn precision. Learn when to act and when to wait. Learn how to lead instead of simply reacting to whatever is put in front of you."
His eyes held mine.
"Become the wizard who is capable of carrying what lies ahead, and of enduring it."
I hesitated. My throat tightened.
"Do you really think I can?" I asked.
I hated how uncertain I sounded.
"Yes," Remus said at once.
There was no pause. No trace of doubt.
"But not all at once," he continued. "Today, practise the charm I showed you. Tomorrow, we'll speak about what comes next. One step at a time, Harry."
There was something about the certainty in his voice that settled me. It did not make the war disappear, and it did not silence the fear that had been following me for months. It simply reminded me that there was still something I could do today.
One lesson.
One spell.
One day.
I nodded.
The tightness in my chest eased enough for me to draw a full breath.
Outside, the wind still moved through the trees.
Inside the cottage, the fire crackled, and the warmth stayed where it was.
Life in the village carried on at its own steady pace.
Ottery St Catchpole had been shaped by years of ordinary routines. Stone cottages stood close together, their chimneys wrapped in ivy. Smoke drifted from fireplaces throughout the morning. Some days the air carried the scent of jasmine from the gardens. On others, it smelled of damp earth after the night's rain.
People greeted one another as they passed. They stopped to ask about the weather, the price of eggs, or whether the baker's daughter had finally married the blacksmith's apprentice. Milk bottles waited on doorsteps until somebody brought them inside. Dogs lay in warm patches of sunlight without paying much attention to the people walking past.
It looked peaceful.
I wanted to believe it really was.
But beneath it all, I could feel something else.
People glanced at us for a little longer than they did everyone else. Conversations paused as we passed before beginning again. Their smiles were polite, but I knew they were wondering who we were.
They did not know our names.
They only knew we did not belong.
A boy who watched everything around him.
A man with old scars across his face and shadows beneath his eyes.
We were not relatives visiting for a few days.
We were strangers wearing borrowed clothes and keeping to the edge of the village.
Sometimes, when the wind came from the east, I thought I heard it.
A distant crack that sounded like Apparition.
Voices carrying across the fields.
A shout that vanished before I could tell where it had come from.
Perhaps I imagined some of it.
Perhaps I did not.
Either way, it reminded me that the war had not stopped simply because this village seemed untouched by it. There were still people searching. There were still people who remembered my name.
I looked out through the cottage window again.
I wanted to believe this peace could belong to us.
I wanted to believe it could last for more than a little while.
Remus's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
"Do you agree, Harry?"
I blinked and looked up.
"Sorry. What?"
He was watching me. There was no irritation in his face, only the quiet tiredness I had begun to recognise. He looked like someone who had spent years learning that some battles could not be won with clever spells or quick answers. You simply kept going because there was no other choice.
"We were speaking about Hogwarts," he said. "About keeping a low profile."
Right.
Hogwarts.
The name still felt unfamiliar, even though I had heard it countless times.
I tried to picture the castle from everything people had told me. Remus had spoken of ancient stone walls, hidden corners and centuries of history. Dumbledore had described it as the safest place left for us. Others had spoken about it with fondness, as though it was more than a school.
I wondered what it would really be like.
Would it feel like any other school? Would I ever stop feeling like an outsider there?
Dumbledore had arranged for us to go.
He believed Hogwarts would keep us safe for now. He had said there were things I needed to learn that could not be taught anywhere else. Remus would be there as a member of staff, visible enough for the school to find him if they needed to.
As for me, I was still the one no one remembered.
That should have made things easier.
Instead, it made me wonder how long I could keep pretending to be someone ordinary.
Remus cleared his throat.
"You and I will be there in different capacities," he said. "You as a student. Me as a member of staff. That gives us opportunities, but it also means people will notice us. Hogwarts is full of secrets, Harry. Keep your eyes open."
I nodded.
My shoulders tightened before I realised it.
"Sounds absolutely marvellous," I muttered.
Part of me meant it.
For all the danger waiting outside these walls, Hogwarts sounded like somewhere people still laughed, learnt, and carried on with ordinary life. I found myself wanting to see it, if only to discover whether it could really be the place everyone spoke about.
Remus caught the change in my expression.
Of course he did.
A faint smile touched his face.
"Enthusiasm can be useful," he said. "It can also be dangerous. Attention invites questions, Harry. Questions you may not be ready to answer."
His smile faded.
"And some questions would not be safe to answer at all."
I let out a slow breath and rubbed the back of my neck.
"Alright," I said. "I'll keep my head down."
"Self-control," Remus corrected. "Not silence. Not hiding. Just awareness."
I knew he was right.
That was the irritating part.
It did not make any of it easier.
"It's harder for me than it is for you," I admitted, keeping my eyes on the table instead of looking at him. "You always seem to know how to fade into the background. Once I start using my real name, I won't have that."
For a moment, Remus said nothing.
When he spoke again, his voice was calm.
"It isn't about comfort, Harry. It's about necessity. Besides, no one at Hogwarts will recognise your name. Dumbledore has made certain of that."
He paused, letting the words settle.
"Sometimes the safest thing you can do is attract less attention than the people searching for you. Not forever. Only until the time is right."
I thought about that.
It was another lesson to remember, another rule to carry with me. There seemed to be more of those every day.
Remus watched me in silence.
There was something in his expression that caught me off guard. It was not pity, and it was not reassurance. It was the look of someone who understood what it cost to keep going. He had lived through loss. He knew there were some things you carried because there was no choice.
"You've managed difficult things before, Harry," he said. "Harder than this. You'll face harder things again because you must. But don't forget that patience takes strength as well. Sometimes the hardest choice is knowing when not to act."
I opened my mouth.
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to tell him I was tired of waiting. Tired of hearing about plans that never seemed to include me. Tired of sitting behind wards while attacks carried on somewhere beyond them. People were being hurt while I stayed hidden, learning spells and waiting for someone else to decide when I could finally do something.
The words reached the back of my throat.
Then I looked at Remus.
I noticed the new lines around his eyes. I noticed how tired he looked, and the worry he had been trying to keep from showing.
The argument died before I could speak.
I closed my mouth again.
For once, I let the silence remain.
"If anyone can do it," he said simply.
That was all.
No speech. No fuss. Just quiet certainty.
I turned back to the window. The village lay beneath the morning sun. The rooftops had taken on the bright light.
For a moment, everything was still.
One breath at a time, I told myself. One day at a time.
I would blend in, keep my head down, and do whatever had to be done, even if I no longer knew who I was. Even if part of me wished I could be someone else. Someone without a scar. Someone who was not carrying the weight of a war wherever he went.
Remus moved through life with a steady rhythm. Every step seemed considered. Nothing about his composure felt natural. It was something he had earned over years of hardship. He had learnt when to speak, when to stay silent, and when to disappear into the background. Years of fighting and surviving had taught him those lessons.
Watching him, I could see the difference between us.
He already knew how to live like this.
I was still learning.
He slipped into cover as though he had been doing it all his life. He knew how to become another face in a crowded room. He knew how to stand without drawing a single glance.
Part of me hated how easy he made it look.
While I struggled with borrowed names and smiles that never felt like mine, he settled into each new place without hesitation. Maybe it was never easy for him. Maybe he had simply done it so many times that it no longer showed.
I did not want to live like that forever.
I did not want conversations that stopped whenever somebody walked past. I did not want every answer measured before I spoke it. I wanted something ordinary.
A laugh that was not cut short because somebody might hear.
A hand on my shoulder that did not tense at every sound.
A story told without anyone checking who was listening.
Sometimes, during our walks through Muggle parks, or while we sat opposite each other in small cafés that smelt of coffee and old wood, I let myself imagine it.
I would wrap my hands round a warm mug and think, Maybe this is what normal feels like.
Just another seventeen year old having breakfast before getting on with the day.
No prophecy.
No Voldemort.
No war.
But those thoughts never lasted.
The more I let myself believe in them, the harder it became when we had to leave.
Remus always noticed.
He would catch my eye, give the smallest shake of his head, and I knew it was time to go. He never needed to explain.
We would leave another place behind.
Another name.
Another life that had never really been ours.
This time, he said, would be different.
But Hogwarts did not feel different.
The thought of those corridors, moving staircases and echoing halls did not bring the relief I thought it should.
Instead, my chest tightened.
Even while Remus spoke about protection and rules, something inside me held back.
I wanted to believe him.
I just did not know how.
I had stopped believing anywhere was truly safe a long time ago.
Hogwarts was full of people. Students noticed things. The portraits watched everything that happened in the corridors. They listened. They talked. I had learnt long ago that very little stayed secret inside that castle.
It did not sound like a place where anyone could disappear.
Still, Remus's voice never changed. It stayed calm and certain.
"Hogwarts is the safest place for you," he said. "The Headmaster has protections you cannot yet imagine. If you stay within its walls, you will not have to keep running."
He was talking about the castle's wards. Ancient magic. Powerful charms layered over centuries that protected everyone inside.
I wanted to believe every word.
I really did.
"Time to get changed," Remus said.
I nodded.
I went upstairs and opened the trunk at the foot of my bed. The hinges gave the same familiar squeak they always had.
Inside, my Hogwarts robes lay folded in neat piles, exactly as I had left them.
I pulled on the first set.
I looked up at the mirror.
The boy staring back was familiar enough. Untidy black hair. Green eyes. Round glasses. The lightning scar cutting through my fringe.
But something had changed.
I could see it in my face.
I looked older than I remembered. Not by much, but enough. There was a guarded look in my eyes that had not been there before. I could not remember when it had appeared.
Maybe it had happened so slowly that I had never noticed.
After everything that had happened, I was not sure anyone could come through it unchanged.
I rubbed a crease from the front of my robes and looked away from the mirror.
There was no point standing there any longer.
It was time to go.
Even so, I could not shake the feeling that I was going to a place that didn't quite belong to me.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Remus was already waiting.
His robes were dark and neatly pressed. His cuffs were fastened, and his collar sat straight against his neck.
The years had left their mark on him. His shoulders carried a constant stiffness, and there was more grey in his hair than there had been when I first knew him.
His eyes looked as watchful as ever.
He stepped towards me without saying anything and reached for my tie.
I stayed where I was while he straightened it.
His hands were steadier than mine. He worked with quick, practised movements, as though it was something he had done many times before.
For a second, I found myself wondering who had stood in front of him like this before me.
In the hall mirror beside us, I caught sight of myself.
The Hogwarts crest stood out against my black robes. My tie was straight for once, and the pointed hat sat awkwardly on top of my hair, which refused to lie flat no matter what I did.
I stared at my reflection.
Something about it did not feel right.
I recognised the face looking back at me, but it did not feel like mine. It was as though I had put on somebody else's life along with the robes.
"There," Remus said at last, letting out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh. "From wandering nomad to certified schoolboy."
I felt myself stiffen.
Wandering nomad.
He had not meant anything by it. I knew that.
Still, the words settled somewhere deep inside me.
That was what we had been doing, after all. Moving from place to place. New names. New faces. Never staying long enough for anyone to remember us.
I had stopped counting how many times we had packed our things before dawn and left without saying goodbye.
"I'm not sure about this," I said. My voice came out quieter than I meant it to. "What if I'm not ready?"
The hint of amusement disappeared from his face.
He stepped a little closer. I could see the tiredness in his eyes and the tightness around his mouth that never seemed to leave him.
"You are," he said. "Harry, I have watched you. I have seen every choice you have made and every burden you have carried. You are stronger than you think. Whether you feel ready or not, this is the next step. I know you will do great things."
I looked away.
He meant every word.
That almost made it harder to hear.
People had been telling me things like that for as long as I could remember. Moody had said I was famous before I even knew what Hogwarts was. Dumbledore always seemed to expect more of me than I thought I could give. Even strangers looked at me as though they already knew who I was supposed to become.
None of it had ever made me feel any more certain.
"I don't want to be someone who's expected to do great things," I said, barely above a whisper. "I just want to feel as though I belong somewhere."
The words hung between us.
I had not meant to say them out loud.
But once they were there, I knew they were true.
Remus looked at me.
"You belong," he said. "And you won't be hiding any longer, Harry."
My throat tightened.
I dropped my eyes.
"What if something goes wrong?" I asked. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to. "What if I can't keep it together in there? What if I bring danger with me?"
"Then we face it," he said without hesitation. "Hogwarts is more than a school. It is a place where you can begin living again instead of spending every day trying to survive."
I wanted to believe him.
I really did.
But it was hard.
Too many places had felt safe until they weren't.
"But it still feels dangerous," I admitted. "I'm walking into something I don't think I'm ready for."
Remus rested a hand on my shoulder. His grip was firm enough to steady me without holding me in place.
"That is why I'm here," he said. "And it is why the Headmaster is watching over the castle. Harry, you are not alone this time. You do not have to carry everything by yourself. We will protect you."
I let out a slow breath.
"What if Hogwarts isn't safe?"
His expression did not change.
"Then we shall do everything we can to make it safe."