Harry Potter and the Year of Surprises by erinpotter

Telling The Story

Not Mine guys

---------------------------------

The next day Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Draco sat around in their tower. No one could bear going out. They knew that there was a mass of students and reporters waiting to ask any of them questions. For them, getting Hermione, Ron, Ginny or Draco would have been great, but getting Harry would have been like hitting the jackpot. Harry didn’t know what to do. Part of him wanted to go out there and tell the world how he had defeated Lord Voldemort, but part of him wanted to stay cooped up in his solitary place with his friends for the rest of his life. He knew that some time soon, he would have to face them. Petunia had come up to see him that morning before there was a big crowd, but apart from her and Draco, he wasn’t letting anyone in. There was no one else he wanted to see.

Suddenly, the door burst open and in marched,

‘Professor Dumbledore! Holy shit, I'm so sorry! I forgot all about you? Were you okay? Where did he send you?’ Harry exclaimed, annoyed with himself.

‘Calm down, Harry. I was fine. He just sent me to my office, but the binding charm was still on me so I had to send Fawkes to get some help. By that time, you had killed Tom and had disappeared up here.’

‘So you were fine?’

‘Harry, I'm a big boy. Don’t worry about me! And as you can see, I am completely healthy. Well, physically anyway.’

They all laughed, for the first time that day.

‘Harry you do know that you will have to tell them soon, don’t you?’

Harry knew he was referring to the whole wizarding world. ‘Yeah I know. I just don’t want to. Can't you do it for me?’

‘No way Harry. Tell me this; how can you be brave enough to kill the most powerful dark wizard ever, and not have the courage to tell anyone about it?’

‘I don’t know…I'm not good with crowds…’

‘Very funny Harry. Now, you’ve got a few visitors who want to see you, and then after you greet them, would you mind telling me, and possibly them, what happened last night.’

‘Yeah, I guess it’ll be a start. Let them in.’

Dumbledore waved his wand towards the door and it opened. Harry saw a mane of red hair flying at him. He knew it was Mrs Weasley. He prepared himself for one of her hugs. He obviously didn’t prepare hard enough because he was pretty sure a few of his ribs were crushed. Then he met Remus, Tonks, the babies, the Weasley twins, Arthur, and finally Sirius, who got him into a hug and held on so tight, Harry thought he was never going to let go. When he finally did, he had a tear in his eye.

‘Harry, I've never been so proud of you. You are a credit to anyone who has ever met you. Thank God you did it. We all knew you would, but now you have and it's just…just…brilliant!’

‘It's no big deal.’

‘Fuck off, Harry!’ Sirius said, laughing and punching him playfully on the arm. He sat down on the settee beside his godson.

‘Okay, Harry.’ Dumbledore said. ‘Are you ready?’

Harry took a deep breath. ‘Well, when Voldemort sent you away, we got into this big battle…’

When Harry had finally finished his heroic story, there was not a dry eye in the room. Even the Weasley twins were rubbing their eyes and hadn’t made a joke all through Harry’s rendition of his battle with Voldemort.

‘Impressive.’ George said.

Fred nodded. ‘Bloody brilliant! Great job, Harry. I knew you were the right candidate!’

Everyone laughed. ‘We all did, Fred. We all did.’ Dumbledore said, before standing up. ‘When will you be ready to face them?’

‘Now. I'm going to do it now.’ he insisted.

‘Are you sure? You can wait for a while, you know.’ Sirius told him.

‘I'm sure. I just want to get it over with.’ 

Harry stood up and walked towards the door. Sirius, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Draco stood behind him, waiting to go out and face the public with him. Dumbledore left the room first to tell the crowds what was happening. Harry heard the cheering and then it all quietened down. He waited as Dumbledore cam in.

‘You still have time to turn around. You can leave it for a few days if you wish.’ he said.

‘Nah, I've got the crowd all hyped up. We don’t want to upset them.’ Harry smiled and took the first step forward.

He walked through the door and noticed the immense amount of people there. He had no idea why Dumbledore had let all those outsiders in. most of them were reporters, but Harry could make out a few people he recognised. Tom from the Leaky Cauldron was there, as were Cedric Diggory’s parents. Dumbledore had conjured a podium for Harry and his friends to stand on, so that they didn’t get attacked by the mob of witches and wizards below them. Harry pointed his wand to his mouth. ‘Sonorous.’

He stood as everyone burst into a round of applause and a lot of cheering was going on. Harry could make out Erin in the crowd, smiling, clapping and cheering with the rest. He sucked all the energy from his crowd, a deep breath and

‘Er…hi.’ 

An immense round of applause once again filled the air and Harry tried to stop it by putting his hands up.

‘How about no more clapping?’

Everyone booed.

‘Well then, how about no more clapping till the end?’

At this everyone cheered for a moment or two and then there was silence, everyone was waiting for Harry to start.

‘Well, first of all, I think we owe a great deal to all the teachers and senior pupils who helped battle with the death eaters last night. They were truly amazing! They did half my work for me!’

A few people laughed and then the noise did down again. 

‘Am…I know all you want to hear about is how I killed him, so lets get it over with. He was in the prefects’ bathroom when I arrived at the school, I know I shouldn’t be saying this but I sneaked into Hogsmeade and first saw the dark mark when I was admiring to the castle.’

A few more people laughed and Harry saw McGonagall shaking her head.

‘Sorry Professor. Well, after that I rushed up to the castle, unaware that my feet were actually moving. I knew this was it. I'd have to kill him now. So I ran up to the castle and found him in the bathroom. He had Dumbledore in there and he was tied up and I told him to let Dumbledore go. He did and we got into a big battle. I wasn’t confident enough to block some of his more powerful spells so I spent a lot of time dodging the spells. I got him once, but it was a useless jelly-legs jinx.’

There were a few scattered laughs but most people were hanging onto every single word and were too immersed in writing everything down to laugh.

‘And then finally I knocked him out, broke his wand and killed him.’

It was such an anti-climax from what he had been saying that a few people tutted and sighed. Harry smiled; he hadn’t wanted to tell them how heroic he had been or how it had been a big struggle in the end, because he hadn’t been and it hadn’t been. Or so he thought. 

‘And that’s it. He’s gone…dead…never coming back.’