~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 601ch | 1002ch | 2005ch Resets Monday!
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This was already the fifth time Harry had taken out his phone during work hours.
With practiced ease, he scrolled to Chloe’s contact and stared at the string of numbers.
They had exchanged details after their third session ended.
Harry didn’t know how she did it, but she had seen through every one of his disguises with ease.
“Harry, if you ever have a very difficult day, if you feel pain so overwhelming you can’t breathe, if you need my help — please use this number to contact me.”
Chloe had looked at him as though she were saying something perfectly ordinary, her gaze as gentle as ever.
Harry told himself he must have been imagining things.
How could she have guessed what he’d done?
Maybe other clients of hers had behaved in similar ways, and she was simply taking precautions.
But even so, her eyes shouldn’t have been that calm.
As if what he’d done wasn’t shameful.
As if it were something worth forgiving.
“Alright.” Harry nodded mechanically.
When he turned to leave, he caught her gaze lingering on his right arm.
“You — how did you know?” His back to Chloe, Harry hesitated before asking.
“A certain ability that comes with being a counselor?” Chloe answered softly.
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: “This isn’t shameful, Harry. It’s just… very bad for yourself.”
Today hadn’t been a difficult day.
The matter of Robards Avery was being handled steadily, and Rita Skeeter was too consumed by the fire to have any time left to spread rumors about him.
And yet Harry kept feeling the urge to send Chloe something.
Chloe had said that, per the rules, they were to keep their distance outside of session hours.
“You’re coming to the dinner at The Burrow tonight, right?” Hermione knocked casually on the door and walked in.
“Yes.” Harry nodded.
“You didn’t hesitate for once.” She raised an eyebrow in surprise, setting an envelope down on his desk.
She was holding an identical one herself.
“Because… I’d guess Molly misses me.” Harry shrugged.
“Guessing something that obvious doesn’t prove you’re any smarter than Ron.” Hermione curled her lip, then quickly added, “Don’t tell Ron I said that.”
“Mm-hmm. I’ll tell him you privately praised him as extremely clever and very reliable.”
“Keep that one buried — his head will swell straight to the sky.” Hermione tried to hide her smile.
She failed.
“A letter from Neville?” Harry picked up the envelope, surprised.
Neville usually kept in touch through the Floo Network or a Patronus; except during the Christmas holidays, they never wrote letters.
“I have one too.” Hermione had already torn hers open and was staring wide-eyed.
“Merlin! Neville and Hannah are engaged!” She held up the wedding invitation, the corners of her mouth turning faintly downward, looking as though she might cry.
“Oh… goodness…” She gazed at the invitation with warm relief.
“They’re the second couple to be getting married, after George and Angelina.”
Harry stared at it in disbelief as well.
“Really… nobody expected those two to end up together, did they?”
“The war changed so much.” Hermione smiled with a touch of sadness.
“If it hadn’t been for that battle, maybe they would have shown signs even sooner? Or maybe, without that battle, they’d have spent their whole lives as barely-acquainted classmates.”
“But… D.A. finally has some good news, doesn’t it?”
After the battle, Harry and Ron hadn’t gone back to finish their seventh year.
They’d walked straight into the Ministry of Magic without a second thought and become trainee Aurors.
A year of hard work earned her grades everyone envied, and she scored highly enough to be taken on by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
She’d actually had better options at the time, but she’d insisted on staying there to fight for the rights of house-elves and other non-human beings.
Until recently, when Kingsley Shacklebolt had transferred her to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to help repeal the old laws that favored pure-blood wizards.
Most of the other D.A.
members had also gone back to repeat their seventh year, and it was no exaggeration to say that in that year, apart from learning to recognize, resist, and counter Dark curses, they had learned almost nothing else.
Neville had stayed on at Hogwarts after graduating, becoming the Herbology professor.
Hannah had taken over The Leaky Cauldron and become its proprietor.
Harry didn’t even know how those two had gotten together.
One day Neville had called them all to The Leaky Cauldron for drinks, and simply announced their relationship.
After graduation, contact among the D.A.
members had dwindled considerably.
Some had disappeared from sight entirely.
Lavender Brown had been saved and healed, but the scars left by the werewolf remained on her face.
Once her injuries mended, she vanished completely.
Cho Chang, after graduating, had apparently gone on to a Muggle university, and after that, all contact was lost.
The wounds the war had left didn’t end when the war did.
They went on affecting everyone.
Harry looked at the date on the invitation and shook his head.
“Not long after George’s wedding… people seem particularly fond of summer weddings.”
“Maybe it’s… because every other time of year is too cold…” Hermione pressed her lips together.
“Though, if it were me, I’d want the wedding in autumn.”
“I’ll pass that preference along to Ron.”
Harry received an eye-roll from Hermione in return.
➤ Next: Debts and Letting Go