Parting Ghosts (Harry Potter, Snape/Harry)

Hogwarts seemed to have shrunk in the years since the war. Harry knew that it was his perception that had changed rather than the building, but part of him couldn’t let go of the idea that somehow the magic in Hogwarts had actually made the castle smaller, as if the loss of Professor Dumbledore and the ravages of the final battle with Voldemort through its halls had made the castle less than it once had been. It was less, though not by any measurable quantity. It was also, at the same time, more and different, no longer the place of adventure and danger that he’d known as a child, but someplace safe and familiar that he could count on while he figured out what to make of the years he’d been left with. Everything seemed different through the eyes of an adult – buildings, people, responsibilities.

Adult. The word seemed so strange. It was a stage of life he’d never expected nor hoped to reach, and now that he was there, permanently stuck there along with all the expectations of responsibility that it entailed, he was lost on where to go. Well, the literal where had been obvious. There was only one place Harry felt he could go – home, not to that small house on Privet Drive with the cupboard under the stairs and locked doors, or to his godfather’s old house still full of voices from the past, but rather Hogwarts, the only home he’d ever really had.

Harry let his hand trail along the cold stone walls as he moved through the dark corridors. He felt like a restless ghost wandering the halls, one of the war-dead who kept moving, kept living because he didn’t realize he was dead. As he turned the corner, his back stretched, pulling at the mostly healed wounds on his back. He wasn’t dead yet.

A small wisp of light, barely more than a candle flicker, floated ahead of him, the light wavering whenever his mind wandered. It felt good to be back at Hogwarts, right somehow, as if Hogwarts had been waiting for him while he muddled around in the outside world, trying and failing to figure out what to do with the remainder of his life. He’d been surprised at Professor McGonagall’s – now Headmaster, though his brain had yet to fully associate that title with his former Transfigurations Professor – enthusiastic response when he’d owled to ask if there might possibly be an opening at Hogwarts. He had students of his own now, in a legitimate capacity. Part of him still felt like he was with Dumbledore’s Army, like he should be teaching his students in secret from the Room of Requirement.