A/N: This fic takes place five years after Harry's last year at Hogwarts. Timeline wise, it goes A/U after his sixth year, so in this universe, the events in Deathly Hallows never happened.

This Used to be My Playground

It's amazing how our own point of view can shape our perceptions. Harry remembered how he felt the first time he saw Hogwarts. He was only 11 years old at the time. The ancient castle, made from seemingly impenetrable cold stone, loomed overhead like a thunder cloud. It was almost intimidating. Even as a boy of 11, Harry had the sense that it had been there forever, and that it would be there still, even after Harry was gone from this planet. Harry was filled with wonder at the history and beauty of the whole thing, nervous about what his new life would bring, nervous that he would not cut it. He needed to prove that he deserved a life like this, that he was worthy… That first time he saw Hogwarts, he was filled with awe.

Each year when he returned, Hogwarts appeared different even though it was exactly the same. The same towers scraping against the same sky, the same stone gargoyles looking down at him from above, the same walls of ancient rock; it all looked identical, but seemed so different to Harry. The cold intimidation had been replaced by a warm feeling of belonging. No matter what he had to go through with his family, he knew he would always belong at Hogwarts. He was accepted and embraced at Hogwarts. The towers now held memories, like sneaking illicit dragons out of the castle at midnight, stolen kisses between lectures, and the time during astronomy class when Seamus had coated Professor Sinistra's telescope eyepiece with shoe polish and Parvati had wet herself laughing. Where the gargoyles had once seemed threatening, they now seemed to be there to protect him and all that he cared about. The ancient stone walls now connected him to a proud history. Thousands of wizards had passed through these halls, and thousands more would pass after Harry was long gone, and Harry had a link to all of them. For a boy who had no real memories of his real family, and was despised by the relatives who had raised him, that sense of connectedness was never taken for granted.

During the last battle of the war, when the sacred halls of Hogwarts had been invaded by Death Eaters, when Harry had watched so many good people die within these very walls to fight for what was really right, when Harry watched these stone towers, towers that had once seemed so permanent that he could have sworn that they were part of the earth itself, crumble under an onslaught of dark curses, Hogwarts seemed different still. The preciousness of the history seemed so much more important when everything Hogwarts stood for was on the brink of vanishing. Hogwarts itself was on the brink, but there was a purpose to all of the death and destruction. These people were laying their lives on the line to protect it and everything it stood for.

They seemed to have rebuilt that tallest tower. Harry couldn't decide what he thought of that. It looked like it had always looked, there was no visual indication that it had ever been damaged, which unsettlingly clashed with his most recent memory of the place, when the tower lay in pieces, spread out at the base of the castle like fallen leaves. The urgency that the moment had entailed hadn't given him time to really process what was happening, and afterwards there were the dead to deal with, victory feasts, and Harry still hadn't the time to think about the destruction of the tower beyond the three people who had been crushed beneath its weight when it fell. Now seeing it fully intact, Harry had to remind himself that his memory of that last battle was accurate, and that the tower had indeed fallen. He was also shaken with the thought that perhaps these stone towers weren't as permanent as he had thought they were. He wondered how many times in the past the castle had been magically repaired after suffering some devastating blow.

Finally, Harry settled on the decision that students in the years to come deserved to make memories of Hogwarts as the ancient magical haven that it is, and not a fallen icon of years past. Harry made his way up to the aged oak front doors, and paused only momentarily before entering his old alma mater. Walking into the great hall, Harry was struck by that eerie feeling you get when you see a place, usually filled with people, deserted. Harry had seen these halls empty before, but that was usually in the dead of night when he could be found sneaking around with Ron and Hermione. Now, in the mid morning sunlight shining through old stained glass windows, when the only perceivable movement in the hall was of dust particles floating lazily in the rays of that sun, the eerie feeling flooded his consciousness full force.

Harry pulled out a certain aged bit of parchment, and his wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." He scanned the map and confirmed that there was not another living soul in the school, aside from the troops of house elves going about their daily chores. This filled him with the sudden urge to run through the halls singing vulgar school-boy songs at the top of his lungs. With a grin he pushed his childish urge out of his mind and made his way to the room at the base of Gryffindor tower, the room that would, from this point on, be his private chambers.

He had a few hours to unpack. Minerva wouldn't be arriving until that afternoon, and he suspected that he was the only faculty member who would be staying the summer at Hogwarts. His future colleagues probably had families and loved ones they wished to spend time with over the summer, before being forced to spend so many months away from them during the school year.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box the size of a sugar cube. Stooping to place it in the ground in the corner, he pointed his wand at it and whispered, "engorgio." The box grew into a very large steamer trunk. He reached into the trunk and began taking out his belongings, including a bed, table and chairs, a sofa and two wingbacked chairs, a wardrobe, and a shelf full of books. After all of these were in place, he pointed his wand at each of them, removing the feather light charm he had put on them to make arranging his new room easier. He then pointed his wand at the steamer trunk again saying, "Reducio." He picked up his sugar cube –sized trunk and made his way down to the dungeons, where his new office would be. Repeating the same process in that room, he removed another bunch of shelves full of books and all manner of dark detectors he had collected over the years, a desk and couple chairs, and a ficus. He reduced the steamer trunk again, and put it in the top drawer of the desk.

Not knowing what to do since he still had a few hours until Minerva would be at the Three Broomsticks to meet with him, he decided to explore Hogwarts. He took the map out again, scanning it for any ideas. He really fancied exploring now. Although he had spent seven years of his life thinking of this castle as home, most of his explorations of the place had been tinged with some sense of urgency. Running through halls to get to a class, hiding from Filtch or Mrs. Norris, night time escapes into the castle under an invisibility cloak, always attempting to keep as quiet and small as possible as to avoid getting caught and punished. Then during the last battle, running through the halls fighting off curses and attempting to pull the wounded to safety, and his last confrontation with Voldemort down in the Chamber of Secrets. He had never had an opportunity to go where he wanted, when he wanted, without a feeling of foreboding on his tail. Now he felt free to roam at a leisurely pace, and that is what he'd do.

As he walked through the halls of Hogwarts he found himself seeing the castle anew yet again. As new professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, head of Gryffindor house, and after his varying past experiences in the castle, he was surprised to feel within himself a new sense of foreboding, totally unrelated to the life-threatening fear that had followed him around during his first seven years living in this castle. Now that the education of young witches and wizards was in his hands, he felt like he should be walking around the castle in confident self-assurance. He had the responsibility to help teach Britain's future wizards and witches how to hold their own in situations involving dark wizards, and every other nasty thing that might come along. He should feel more grown up, so why did he feel like a helpless eleven year old again, scared shitless by this new life that lay before him?

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Minerva McGonagall sat at a table in the back of the Three Broomsticks, sipping her mead, waiting for the arrival of the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. She had been tempted to order a firewiskey, in an attempt to deal with what she was about to have to do, but she figured she best have her wits about her. She felt somewhat guilty, she hadn't been entirely forthright. She doubted he would have taken the job if he had known… Still, it was for his own good.

She had hired him based on his talent; there was no doubt about that. Even as a young boy, he had taken to the subject like a fish to water. Sad, that a child so young should have even had a chance to prove his penchant for fighting all things dark and evil, but prove it he did. Repeatedly. He was also one of the more qualified people she could think of for the job. After helping him through his NEWTS, just as she had vowed she would in his fifth year, he had been accepted into the Auror training program. He proved himself once again, consistently top of his class in all things involving fighting the darkness. He had graduated the program with highest honors, received his Auror qualifications, and then proceeded to take a job in a muggle record shop.

She understood how he might not want to be an Auror any more. He had fought and killed the worst dark wizard in half a century, the dark wizard who had single handedly destroyed Harry's life and all who were important to him, all before Harry was officially a fully qualified wizard. His fighting days were behind him before he had had a chance to even live his life. But still, why had he gone through the Auror training if it wasn't what he had wanted? She hoped he hadn't done it out of some sense of obligation to the wizarding world. The responsibility to vanquish the dark lord had been hoisted onto his shoulders without his consent, perhaps it had left it's residue in his mind, and he couldn't escape the push to be a hero.

The job at the record shop hadn't lasted long before the hero had struck again, and Obliviators had had to be called in to erase from several muggle's minds the memory of Harry levitating a van that had overturned and trapped a toddler underneath as he showed up for work one Saturday morning. After the record shop had been a delivery job, and the need for the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Office to explain away a stack of pizzas seen falling off the back of a flying motorbike. Minerva didn't even want to think about his brief stint as a dog walker that had culminated in a prank involving the Weasley twins, 20 dungbombs, and a very crowded park in a muggle neighborhood. Since then, it had been agreed by all that Harry should stay away from all things muggle, but as he still garnered stares and whispers, and more than his fair share of adoring glances and spiteful sneers while in the wizarding world, he had taken to never leaving the flat in Diagon Alley he had shared with Ronald and Hermione Weasley.

It was actually his friends who had contacted her. They were concerned over his increasingly hermit-like behavior, and she was inclined to agree. She knew money wasn't a problem for him, but it wasn't good for someone so young to be so... In their five years since leaving Hogwarts, Harry's cohorts had mostly paired off, some of them, like the Weasleys, were already having children. They had careers, they had lives. It seemed that Harry, once he had defeated Voldemort, had figured his life complete, his purpose served, and was simply waiting for the end. No one should give up on life by the age of 23. Minerva saw Harry as the answer to her newly opened Defense post, and hoped that she could break him of his reclusive behavior in the process.

The pub suddenly grew quiet, which could only mean one thing. Minerva looked up and saw him entering. An uncomfortable smile fixed on his face as he scanned the sea of faces turn to him, whispering. Minerva signaled him, and he made his way to the back of the pub. She remarked to herself that he seemed impervious to the dreamy glances that random witches shot him as he passed. The fact that he was Harry Potter, newest savior of the wizarding world, would have been enough to draw the longing stairs, even if he had looked like Gregory Goyle. Merlin knows, after his defeat of Grindelwald, Albus had received numerous love letters from random admirers, and he had already been 90 years old at the time. It didn't help Harry that he had grown into a very handsome young man, strikingly handsome, actually. Even had he not saved them all from Voldemort, he would have had his admirers. After a while, the patrons of the pub went back to their own business, only those closest to the headmistress of Hogwarts and her newest staff member continued to glance at them while simultaneously trying to appear uninterested.

"Hello, Minerva."

"Hello, Harry."

They greeted with a handshake that turned into a hug before they both sat on opposite sides of the table.

"Did the move go well?"

"Yeah, it was okay. With all the moving recently, I've had lots of practice."

"You mean your move from the apartment you shared with the Weasleys' to the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Well that, and…oh, but you don't know yet, do you? They've just found out they're having twins! There was no way that tiny flat was going to be big enough for four people, two of them a set of Weasley twins. They just bought a house at Ashover in Derbyshire. I helped them move last weekend."

The look of horror on Minerva's face confused Harry, until she explained. "Another set of Weasley twins?"

"Oh, yeah! When he found out, Ron called his mother looking for sympathy. She just laughed at him, maniacally."

"Lord, help us all."

"Yeah." Harry chuckled and it struck Minerva how incredibly handsome and charming he really was. She was enjoying their easy camaraderie, which made her dread even more the news she was about to have to spring on him.

"Well, we have hired a new caretaker, but he won't be arriving on site until mid-August. Hagrid is still on vacation with Olympe, and he will also not be back until August."

"That's alright, really. I quite fancy some time to myself."

Oh, no. Here goes.

"Actually, we have two additional new faculty appointments this year. Transfiguration and Potions. The new potions professor will actually be arriving tomorrow."

"Oh, anyone I know?"

She had to look away from those strikingly green eyes as she spoke, "Draco Malfoy."

"What?!?!?!" His growl drew more stares from the nearby pub-dwellers.

"Harry. You've been locked away from civilization for so long; the company could do you good."

"I'd rather room with one of Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts."

"Now, really. Don't you think it is time to put aside these schoolboy rivalries? You know that he has been on our side since…" She couldn't believe, even after six years, that it could still hitch her breathing like this.

"The death of Dumbledore." Harry finished her sentence for her.

"The man sacrificed a lot that night, all for Draco's sake. He may have been a batty old codger-," she blew her nose loudly, "but he was an excellent judge of character. And Draco has proven Dumbledore right many times over since then."

Harry grumbled to himself, but his experience in war had taught him to recognize a losing situation, and Harry saw that Minerva would not be swayed from her position here. A half hour later, as he made his way back up to the castle that was now his home, Harry couldn't help thinking to himself, 'There goes the rest of MY relaxing summer.'

End Chapter One

TBC

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A/N: If you know what kind of writer I am, you know what to expect from this fic: There will be drama, humour, romance, intrigue, and it will take me bloody ages to update. Sorry.