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Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition – Season Seven – Round Eleven

Captain for the Tutshill Tornados

Round 11

Captain Prompt: Transfering to different school

Things We Lost

"Nervous?"

Harry looked away from the imposing dark wooden door and shrugged. "Should I be?"

"No one would blame you if you were," Hermione said, glancing at the others behind them. "I think most are."

On her other side, Ron snorted. "I think they're more worried about having all of us here." His expression darked, fists clenching at his side. "You heard what they were saying. As if it's our fault. As if we ever wanted this."

"Calm down," Neville said, leaning forward. "Don't want to give them a reason to say they were right, do you?" He glanced at the two wizards flanking the door Harry had been staring at. "McGonagall pulled a lot of strings to make this happen."

Ron grimaced, bowing his head. Harry could see him whispering under his breath—counting backwards from ten, trying to keep control of his magic. Harry looked away. He remembered a time—not so long ago—where none of them had to resort to such methods.

There was a knock on the door, and they all snapped to attention. Harry sneered as the two wizards' hands went to their wands.

One of them cleared their throat. "It's time."

Harry straightened and marched towards the door, the others following him.

"Pathetic," he muttered as he passed the two wizards who were gripping their wands tightly—weariness, fear coating the wizards at the mere sight of them. The wizards flinched and Hermione glared at him, but he didn't care. He was done with all of them. Ron had been right to be angry.

Harry contained a grimace as he walked into the hall. It was achingly familiar and at the same time so completely different that he just wanted to turn around and walk away. Four long tables filled the hall, and it ached seeing the similar colored banners hanging over them. He kept looking forward, even as he saw Hermione's steps falter and her breath hitch as they fully entered the Great Hall.

He stopped in front of the long table filled with professors, the others lining up beside him—all fifteen of them, sixteen counting him; the only ones that had been able to come back to Hogwarts. If only they had known they wouldn't be gracing Hogwarts' walls as students again…

They stood out like a sore thumb. Their black robes a dark cloud among all the blue and cranberry littering the Great Hall, even the professors had those colors on their robes.

The headmaster stood up, his eyes warm as they roamed over his students—Harry didn't miss the way they darkened as they stopped on them. Harry knew that the man had been one of the most vocal about accepting them into Ilvermorny.

Harry tried to understand their concerns; however, he couldn't overlook the utter disregard some of the professors had shown for his friends, as if they were worth less just because they had been forced to live through Voldemort's reign. They had looked at their scarred appearance and judged them unfit to mix with their perfect students. They hadn't even been allowed to be sorted—they claimed there was no point in it, considering they would be graduating that year.

Harry sneered, as if they would have wanted to be sorted. Hogwarts would always be their school, their home. He clenched his fist, another thing Voldemort had taken from them—they would never be Hogwarts graduates. He would never have that in common with his parents, with Sirius.

Hermione's small hand slipped into his, and he took a deep shuddering breath. He focused back on the Headmaster, only then noticing he had missed half of the man's speech.

"As such," the man was saying, "after the small altercations that happened in Britain, we opened our doors to these students so they may finish their schooling in this proud institution."

Harry snorted, and all eyes from the head-table snapped to him.

"You wish to say something?" the Headmaster asked.

Harry stared right at him, his hand twitching in Hermione's grip.

"I just find it funny you would call a war a 'small altercation'."

The Headmaster smiled, and Harry hadn't seen such a condescending look directed at him since Umbridge.

"My dear boy," the Headmaster said, and Harry clenched his jaw. "I would hardly call it a war. There was one so-called battle between a handful of wizards. Truly, more of a skirmish than anything else."

Magic snapped around them, and Harry heard a muffled screech coming from the students.

"Right," Parvati said, a vivid scar going from her left temple down to the left corner of her lips, "a small skirmish. All those people, our friends and family and hundreds of Muggleborns—children that never even had the chance to learn magic—died because of a small skirmish. How silly of us to call it a war."

The mutterings of the students grew in pitch until the Headmaster let out a sharp bang with his wand. The students quieted; however, Harry saw several of his friends twitch, their hands instinctively going towards their wands. The professors leaned forward—a couple of them even took out their wands—and the Headmaster cleared his throat.

"Yes, well, an unfortunate situation. We all feel deeply for your loss, I assure you." He smiled at them, though it quickly faltered when none of them returned it. He cleared his throat once more. "As I was saying, we have opened our doors to these students, and welcomed them to Ilvermorny. I am sure you will all do your very best to make them feel welcomed." He smiled at his students, who clapped and cheered, and Harry closed his eyes.

The scene overlapped with those from Hogwarts, and his heart clenched. He turned, making his way towards a small table that had appeared at the very back of the Great Hall—sixteen places set as far from the other students as was possible—and took a seat. As food appeared on their table, he shared a look with his friends.

This place would never be home.

—

"What are you doing?"

The shriek echoed around his head, bringing blessed moments of lucidity. He straightened up, blue and cranberry taking place of black robes and silver masks. Neville stood beside him, wand drawn, scowl made more pronounced by the livid scars.

"They attacked us," Neville replied, wand steady and pointed at the four seventh year students in front of them.

"We didn't!" one of them argued.

"It was only a hair color changing charm. A prank," another said.

Neville rolled his eyes while Harry tried to get his heartbeat back under control.

"Because it's such a brilliant idea to curse war survivors in the back," Neville snarked.

Meanwhile the professor had reached them, glaring at him and Neville. "Be that as it may, Mr. Longbottom, we do not react in such a way! You could have seriously hurt them if that cutting curse had hit."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "They tried to curse us. Should we have done nothing?"

The professor—Harry thought he was the Charms professor, Jonas? He was sure it was something along those lines—rounded on him. "I certainly don't think you need to try and kill them for a harmless prank! I knew it was a mistake to allow you into our school. You are in no condition to interact with regular students."

Harry flinched, colliding with Luna who had appeared at their side, slowly followed by their other friends.

"We are regular students," Ginny said, frowning at Jonas. "You can hardly blame us for having such reactions. It might have been a small skirmish for you, but it was torture for us. We had to fight to stay alive, we had to k—." She snapped her mouth shut, closing her eyes, and for a fraction of a second, Harry saw Jonas expression soften, but then his expression closed off once more.

"Be that as it may, it is still unacceptable behavior. Detention, for both of you, one week, understood?"

Harry swallowed back the retort he had on the tip of his tongue.

"Understood," he said, Neville nodding along with him.

"Come along," Luna said, taking his hand and almost floating down the corridor, "we'll be late for class."

He let himself be dragged along, allowing Luna's special brand of comfort to soothe his fraying nerves.

—

"Mr. Weasley!"

Ron's head snapped up, wand dropping into his hand, and the professor sneered at him.

Harry recognized the sneer easily, though it had nothing on Snape's patented sneer they had been subjected for the last six years. Thomson, their Transfiguration professor, hadn't mastered the level of derision Snape could pack into his sneer.

"I don't know to what standards you were accustomed to at Hogwarts." Harry would have been impressed by the level of scorn he managed to say Hogwarts with, if he hadn't been itching to curse him black and blue. "However, we here at Ilvermorny, expect better of our students. We expect you to pay attention!" Thomson huffed at Ron. "Even from so-called war heroes."

Harry, knowing Ron as he did, could have prevented the following from happening. Though, truth be told, he had no desire to do so.

Ron jumped up from his seat, wand pointed straight at Thomson. "Shut up," he snarled.

And he really wasn't surprised when the rest of the Hogwarts students jumped up as well when Thomson drew his wand.

Ron was shaking, and Harry stepped closer to him, slowly laying a hand on his shoulder—it was as much a support for Ron as it was to restrain him. As much as he hated every minute spent in this cheap imitation of Hogwarts, he knew McGonagall had been trying to do her best for them, and they respected her enough not to throw her concern in her face.

"You have no idea what it's like! You don't know what we lost! What we had to give up!" Ron's wand sparked. "Hogwarts was our home!" He shuddered, wand arm wavering, and Harry stepped closer, offering all the comfort he could. "We'll never be Hogwarts graduates," he whispered, and Hermione flinched so hard on his other side that the chair she had been nearest to rattled. "I'll never be able to walk into Hogwarts to see my children and not see the ghost of my brother lying broken and bloody in that corridor. I..." He took a shuddering breath and collapsed in on himself, soundless sobs wracking his body, and Hermione and Ginny rushed to his side, holding him tight as if they were the only thing stopping him from breaking into tiny, little pieces.

Harry stepped forward, shielding them from Thomsons' shocked gaze. He could feel the others walking closer to them—Neville, Luna, Dean, Seamus, Parvati, Padma, Susan, Hannah, Terry, Ernie, Justin, Blaise; Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin—a unity to them that had been missing before the war, before Voldemort.

"Hogwarts standards… you'll never understand them," Harry said. "We're not a school. We're family. We lost family. No matter how everyone wishes for us to start over, to get better… it's not a new school that will make us better. You have a lovely school." Harry smiled, sharp and bitter and full of teeth. "And it will never be anything more than a school."

He reached for Ron, helping Hermione and Ginny to hold him up, and, as a unit—a family— they walked out of the classroom.

They would get better, they would heal, he knew that. Not because of this new school, but because they were together, and Hogwarts had taught them that together they could do anything.