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About a year and a half had passed since the end of the Second Wizard War. It would take a long time, but the wizarding world would soon heal. All of this would never have been possible thanks to the hero who had defeated the fearsome Dark Lord: Harry Potter.
Harry Potter, the boy who left.
After killing the fearsome tyrant and his deatheaters, the young man simply disappeared.
No one knew what had happened to him; even the Ministry was in the dark. Not even the infamous Unspeakables were able to track him down.
He had simply vanished.
Minerva McGonagall sighed, pacing in a circle in her office as Headmaster of Hogwarts. It was a position she felt she had earned after years of service, yet she wanted to do more for her beloved castle.
She hoped to give the post of Defense Against Dark Arts to her former Gryffindor student and hero of the wizarding world. It would have been a true joy!
But she didn't know what had happened to him either.
She had written to some of his old friends, especially the two who had helped him: Hermione Granger, who was currently working in the Ministry offices, and Ron Weasley, who had obtained the position of Auror after his exploits.
They knew nothing about it either.
And yet they were his best friends! They were the famous golden trio! Even that charlatan Rita Skeeter in her book on the Potter story couldn't deny their unshakable friendship!
Minerva even stooped to asking for help from that insufferable gossip of a journalist, to no avail.
Harry Potter had disappeared.
Minerva looked up at the portraits of the other headmasters who had preceded her.
One in particular, Albus Dumbledore, was sleeping peacefully. The old man was like a kind grandfather to the heroic boy...
"Oh, Albus, if only you were here..." Minerva wiped away a tear. "I bet you could find the boy in a heartbeat!"
The sleeping Albus stirred for a few seconds. He pointed to his old desk, which, as if by magic, opened a long-sealed drawer. Shortly afterward, the old man went back to sleep as if nothing had happened.
"Merlin's beard!"
"I hope this is the right path, Albus."
The strange and mysterious trinket she had found had brought her to the town of Forks, in the United States of America. Minerva couldn't believe her pupil had traveled to such a place; it was rumored that extremely dangerous vampires and werewolves lived there.
The old headmaster, fascinated, noticed a boy with very pale skin and a face that vaguely reminded her of one of her old Hufflepuff students.
She shrugged, stopped prevaricating, and continued on her way.
After a few minutes, she reached a more isolated part of town, where a modest wooden house stood. It wasn't much different from the other ordinary houses she had seen before, but this one gave off a strange aura.
It was just a feeling, but there seemed to be something sinister and out of place about that place. Albus couldn't be wrong; she had to trust him! She took courage and approached.
Minerva gasped when she saw a skull-like head resting above the door. She calmed down shortly after, realizing it was just a door knocker. She used it and knocked on the door.
"Just a moment, I'll be there!" said a feminine voice, as graceful as a nightingale, from inside the house.
The door opened, and the old Transfiguration professor was stunned.
"Professor McGonagall! What are you doing here? I wasn't expecting you at all!" said the stunning young woman with wavy, curly wheat-blond hair and several scratched scars decorating her clean-cut face.
Minerva opened and closed her mouth without saying a word. She remembered her cheerful, carefree Gryffindor student Lavender Brown well.
She remembered her dead.
Minerva was still in shock, sitting in a nondescript armchair, waiting for Lavender to finish making tea.
The elderly professor remembered perfectly the day of the Battle of Hogwarts, all those innocent victims due to one man's wickedness and madness.
Lavender was among those victims, mangled by the werewolf Greyback.
Minerva had seen the body, she was certain of it.
"Can you tell me how you found us?" Lavender asked curiously, bringing tea and biscuits on a tray.
That question jolted the professor. "Oh, I...I was looking for Mr. Potter. I asked his best friends, but they didn't know where he'd disappeared to either, so I asked Albus's painting, and he...he gave me this."
She showed the trinket to the other woman. "And I came here." Lavender seemed to frown at the sight of that instrument.
"Oh, I see...well, it doesn't matter." Lavender smiled and began to drink her cup of tea.
"So, um...I don't mean to be rude, but is Mr. Potter here?" Lavender nodded.
"Of course, he'll be back in a bit. My ArryArry's been so busy with work lately!" The blonde giggled, her cheeks turning a light shade of red.
"...'My ArryArry'?" the professor asked, even more confused. "Yes, we're married."
Lavender showed her wedding ring and with the same hand pointed to a photo on the bedside table.
It was Mr. Potter as Minerva had never seen him before. Dressed in a black tuxedo, taller, his eyes colder and more determined. A faint smile slid across his face, while the bride, dressed in white, couldn't hold back tears of joy.
And yet, something was off about that photo. It seemed like a shadow was cast behind the newlyweds, at times it seemed almost unnatural, and...
"I look terrible in that photo! And yet Harry still wanted to keep it, that dummy!" Lavender commented embarrassed, hugging herself in his sweater.
That brief movement caught Minerva's attention, and she noticed more scars on her hands. Scars that were on her corpse.
"And tell me, this wedding was...yeah, well, does anyone know you're married or that you live here?"
"Oh well, apart from Pav, almost no one knows we're here. We moved for a quieter life and for my... my 'condition,' you know." Lavender's smile turned slightly melancholic.
"Why Forks?"
"Harry and I learned about this place and a tribe of Native American werewolves. They're very kind people, they've helped us a lot."
"Oh. And they know about Potter's fame, right?" Minerva asked worriedly. "They swore never to tell anyone about our presence here, and I beg you to do the same." Her former student pleaded in a sweet voice.
"Of course." Minerva reassured, still unable to calm the uneasy feeling she felt in that house.
"...So Weasley and Granger deliberately lied to me? They're his best friends, I doubt they don't know the truth!"
Minerva didn't expect a loud, resounding laugh at that question. The elderly professor pursed her lips and gave her a glare, just like when she used to teach.
"I'd like an explanation about this, not laughter."
"Why would Harry tell Weasley and Granger about us? They're not his 'best friends'!"
Minerva's eyes widened. "What, they're not?! But they were the golden trio, I remember it very well!"
Lavender held back her laughter.
"Come on, Professor, you don't believe the nonsense Skeeter writes, do you?"
"It's not nonsense! I remember, they were inseparable at school!"
Lavender stopped laughing and became more serious.
"Do you really remember, Professor?" Minerva sat up straighter, not liking the way her ex student had asked the question.
"Well, of course! For example...for example, in their first year, I punished the three of them for their night expedition!"
"On that expedition, you also punished Longbottom and Malfoy. Let's be honest, it doesn't seem to me that Malfoy and Potter were great friends at all, do they?"
Minerva hadn't expected the promptness and coldness in that response. The professor took a sip of her tea, searching through the fragments of memory.
She was certain of it, she couldn't be wrong!
"AH!" she exclaimed, recalling something interesting. "In their second year, Weasley and Potter were detained for arriving at Hogwarts in a flying car! And...and I'm sure Mr. Weasley mentioned spending that summer with Potter!"
"The miserable ravings of a liar. Only Weasley came by the flying car and was detained for it; Potter waited in that damned station all day. The man who took him to the castle was the same man who later detained him for not taking the express, Professor Snape."
Minerva stiffened, feeling her body hit by a boulder. "But...but that summer..."
Lavender looked at the bottom of her teacup, trying to hide her sadness.
"No one came to save him that summer."
A silence fell over the room, and the feeling of unease Minerva had been feeling since that morning grew stronger.
"But...but in his third year, Potter was very upset about having a fight with Miss Granger..."
Lavender snorted at that name. "Potter was pissed because the equivalent of an acquaintance had gone to the trouble of having one of the few gifts he'd ever received confiscated."
Minerva remembered that day, how worried Granger'd been for one of her best friends.
But now that she thought about it, she never got to hear Potter's version of events...
"Potter saved Granger from the troll in her first year, and-" "Potter would have saved anyone in that situation." Lavender interrupted her immediately.
"Perhaps...perhaps in fifth year..." "The year you, Professor, told him to suffer the abuse of that shrew Umbridge in silence, right?"
Minerva glared at her. "That was the year Potter founded Dumbledore's Army. And at the end of the year, he took his most trusted members to the Ministry of Magic, and I don't remember you being there, Miss Brown."
Minerva smiled, satisfied that she had remembered all that. Yet the dig didn't seem to have struck the woman in front of her at all.
"That day, Harry thought he was losing Sirius forever, and he told me he would never risk losing the other person loved most in the world." Lavender's cheeks flushed bright red, and her lips quirked into a faint smile.
"Since when did you two...you've been so close. I remember you dating Mr. Ronald Weasley in sixth year." Minerva was certain the look in front of her could be more deadly than a dark spell.
"Ronald and I never dated, it was just a stupid rumor." Lavender retorted, offended.
"Anyway, we started dating in our third year. You know, sometimes I'd sit next to him during Divination, one conversation would lead to another, and then... yeah, something would click." Lavender giggled.
"I loved Harry, especially that intimate, personal side of him that he never showed anyone, only me. Shy, brave, heroic, and why not, sometimes a little dark and mysterious. And other times, a little silly!"
"Wait! Since... since the third year?" Lavender nodded. "So you also knew about Sirius Black?"
"Obviously, Harry and I helped free him!"
Minerva looked at her, confused. "No, I remember it was Miss Granger who—"
"Did you actually see her, or do you just remember what the headmaster told you?"
Minerva fell silent. Why would Albus lie to her like that?
"I don't blame her. Harry never told anyone I helped him break Sirius out that night. I still remember when we kissed in the moonlight and—"
"And what about the following year? I remember Potter dancing with Miss Patil at the Yule Ball!"
"Our relationship was always a secret. Harry was afraid they'd hurt me if it got out. So we asked Pav as a favor if she could dance with him in front of all those people. That was just a show; Harry and I actually danced later, in front of the fire in our common room..." Lav began to hum, the memory still vivid in his heart.
Minerva, on the other hand, was in shock, too many truths at once. This situation was far too strange and mysterious.
"Forgive me, but... why did Potter run away? He's still a celebrity, a symbol of the wizarding world!"
"Harry didn't want that fame, he never cared about it. Nor did he want to continue surrounding himself with fake people, people who never bothered to help him, like Professor Dumbledore himself."
Minerva felt as if her heart had been pierced. "P-Professor Dumbledore?" "Unfortunately, yes." Lav pulled his sweater tighter. "He...he forced Harry to live in a toxic and abusive environment, never caring about him...not to mention monitoring his every move with strange struments, like the one you found. To make sure he didn't run away, that he didn't rebel—"
"ENOUGH!" Minerva screamed and realized shortly afterward what she'd done. "I'm sorry, Miss Brown...it's just that Dumbledore...he..."
Minerva remembered perfectly the night they left Harry on the Dursleys' doorstep. She still remembered how bad an idea it seemed, and Dumbledore reassuring her, telling her it was for his own good.
"He...he couldn't have done such a thing..."
Minerva felt stabbed, shaken, betrayed. Dumbledore had always been an eccentric man, but never a monster!
She still fondly remembered their last discussion, the day before he died...
..
"Albus, you shouldn't push yourself so hard." She admonished him in his office. "I won't change my mind, my dear friend. Tomorrow is a very important mission!"
"Is it really that important? More important than your health?" she asked worriedly. "If it can defeat the Dark Lord, yes, absolutely." Minerva snorted. "Isn't there any other way?" She snapped, and Dumbledore rubbed his beard.
"Well, unless you have the Deathly Hallows in your hands, I think it's impossible." Minerva rolled her eyes and smiled.
"Albus, please, we're not talking about a stupid fairy tale!"
"A stupid fairy tale indeed... a stupid fairy tale that makes it clear that no man can bend death to his will! And yet... and yet if one could..."
Minerva looked at him worriedly, but the man gave her his usual grandfatherly smile, comforting her.
"So we ran away after the battle," Lavender said, rousing Minerva from her memories.
"Run away? Oh, yes, right." Minerva almost laughed; a dead couldn't just get up and leave suddenly. "Miss Brown, you...what do you remember about the battle?"
Incredibly, that question seemed to shake Lavender, making her darken.
"I...I don't remember much, you know? It was truly a horrible event that I'd like to forget."
"Please, tell me," Minerva pleaded.
"Well, I remember...I remember fighting with the other members of the Order against the Death Eaters, Greyback biting me, and...and then I remember fainting, I think."
"Fainted?"
"Yes, I... I remember having a strange dream. My body felt as if I were floating on a river, along with other people. It was so weird and so... comforting, in a strange way. And then..." she looked down, her cheeks turning bright red again.
"And then I remember Harry lifting me up in his arms, carrying me away. When I woke up, I found myself in his arms, walking in the forest..."
Minerva felt her blood run cold.
"There is no man who can bend death to his will! And yet... and yet if one could..."
Minerva looked again at that photo of Potter's wedding. That shadow behind them... that shadow was...
Death.
In every photo on that bedside table, the shadow of the grim reaper was present.
Minerva stood up abruptly, trembling and frightened.
"N-no...it's not possible..."
She felt someone's presence behind.
"Darling! You're back!"
Minerva turned and found herself face to face with Harry Potter.
He was profoundly changed from how she remembered him, or thought she remembered him.
He had grown taller, his black hair had become wilder and more unruly, his features had become sharper...
And his eyes, his green eyes, had become deadly.
They were eyes filled with rage.
"M-Mr. Potter! I-I...I-I..."
"How did you find us?" he asked coldly and sharply.
"Dumbledore...he...he gave me this..." she hesitantly placed the damned trinket into the young man's hand.
"Tsk, he continues to haunt me, huh?"
Harry closed his hand, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Minerva stammered, fearing for her life.
The young man she thought she knew looked her straight in the eyes.
"Leave." He ordered, and all of Minerva's Gryffindor courage disintegrated in an instant.
"O-of course! R-Run!" The old woman didn't need to be told twice, running away from that scary place...
Lavender had stood up, putting her hands on the hips.
"Look, I had the situation under control! You didn't have to do that—huh?!" Harry had hugged her, and Lavender found her face on his chest.
Was her Harry...was he shaking?
Lavender hugged him back. "Darling, it's all right. I'm here."
Harry hugged her tighter, as if afraid she would disappear.
"I promised you I'd always be by your side...remember? It was at our wedding. 'From this day forward...until death do us part'."