Disclaimer!: So I don't own any of this. Wish I did, but definitely don't. It's all JKR's and WB's so props to them.

A/N: This is my first ever fic and I have no idea about chapter legnths or formatting or anything so review and tell me about anything you found irksome, disgusting, or (hopefully) delightful!

Here goes nothing...

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"Are you sure?" said Ron. There was the faintest trace of longing in his voice as he looked at the Elder Wand.

"I think Harry's right," said Hermione quietly.

"That wand's more trouble than it's worth," said Harry. "And quite honestly," he turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, "I've had enough trouble for a lifetime."

--DH (pp. 749)

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Harry walked down the familiar halls to Gryffindor Tower. Only when he reached the portrait of the Fat Lady (who was currently rubbing her feet, which Harry suspected ached from running about the castle all night), he realized that he didn't know the password.

"Er, I don't…. er," he spluttered half of him too tired to finish the sentence the other half worried that he'd have to go find another student to let him in.

"Know the password?" she finished. "Just go." And, with a yawn, she swung open, revealing the scarlet and gold common room. It was presently empty seeing as everyone in the castle was feasting, grieving, and celebrating in the Great Hall, so with one look at the plush seats and scarlet wall hangings, he started up the staircase to the boys' dormitories.

Kreacher did, in fact, have a rather large sandwich waiting for Harry upon his return to Gryffindor Tower. It was, possibly, the most delicious sandwich he's even eaten. Although, he had a sneaking suspicion that everything might taste a little better now that Voldemort was gone. 'And everything feels better, too,' he thought has he slid beneath the soft sheets and into a dreamless sleep; the first he's had in many years.

When Harry woke again, it was to an all too familiar sound.

"Honestly Ron!" called Hermione in a hushed, annoyed tone. "Be quiet! Let him sleep! We've just spent months in the wilderness only to battle Death Eaters all night, and you're not the least bit tired? You're worried about finding your favorite Chudley Cannons shirt! If you'd just double checked everything you packed last year, we could've avoided this whole situation! Accio! "

A bright orange shirt wriggled free from under a table near Dean's bed and floated into Hermione's outstretched arms. She handed it over to Ron.

"Bloody know-it-all," muttered Ron, obviously flustered from the barrage of reprimands Hermione had just thrown at him. "We should wake him up soon anyways! It's nine o'clock at night! He's slept twelve hours and you, of all people, know that if he finds out we let him sleep while the rest of the Order and the D.A. were repairing the castle he'd be furious."

"Repairing the castle?" Harry asked groggily, feeling around for his glasses.

Hermione threw a glare at Ron and answered. "Well, with the giants and all the curses thrown around last night you didn't expect it to be good as new, did you? First they're getting the bodies taken care of-" she stopped, looking at Ron as if she'd offended him, but, without noticing, he picked up where she left off.

"We only just got back from the Great Hall. We fell asleep in the common room for a few hours until Ginny came to tell us that Kingsley was taking Vol- Voldemort…. away. That's why I came up here. I wanted to tell you in case you wanted to be there. Had to tell this one," he nodded to Hermione, "and Ginny that I was coming to get a clean shirt. She followed me anyways. Didn't want me to wake you up since you looked so damn peaceful, mate."

"This one?" Hermione asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Well, we'd better go then, right?" said Harry grabbing his wand and slipping into his trainers. He crossed to the door but it swung open before his hand was on the knob. All at once Ginny's eyes widened and she flung herself into his arms. Overcome with her flowery scent and soft, red hair, Harry closed his eyes to take it all in. He didn't ever want to let go.

"Hello," she said as she stepped back and grabbed Harry's hand. "You three going to help clean up? They've only tackled the first floor of the hospital wing so far, but it's like the summer Grimmauld Place all over again. Only this time mum has McGonagall on her side."

Ron shivered at the thought. "It's only fair, isn't it? We did make the mess," he pointed out, pulling his Chudley Cannons shirt on and putting his arm around Hermione. "Well, at least, I'm fairly certain; we won't run into any doxies this time."

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On their way down they passed Neville, Luna, Dean, and Seamus asleep on various cushy chairs scattered about the common room. Neville was still clutching Gryffindor's sword to his chest and Luna had a copy of The Quibbler sprawled on the floor next to her empty hand.

"Why didn't they just come up to the dormitory?" Harry asked, looking at his three roommates and Luna.

"Didn't want to wake you up, mate," Ron said simply as they passed through the portrait hole. The Fat Lady was currently sipping an enormous glass of wine with her friend Violet.

"Horry Patter!" she exclaimed. "My favorite Gryffin-" she hiccupped. "Gryffindor! You-Know-Who, defeated at last!" she and Violet laughed hysterically until Violet toppled over her chair and the Fat Lady struggled to pull her up.

"Thanks," Harry called over his shoulder as Ron, Hermione, and Ginny giggled. They made their way through the seventh floor, passing what remained of Flitwick's office and, across the corridor from the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy, the blank stretch of wall that Harry knew to be the Room of Requirement. They were halfway down the marble staircase leading to the sixth floor when they saw Filch boarding up hole in the wall and the remaining laughter died. The school was in pretty bad shape.

Noticing Harry's grim expression, Hermione started a conversation.

"Remember when the password was 'abstinence' because those two had too much to drink over the holidays?" she asked, grinning as she remembered the Fat Lady's Christmas indulgences.

"At least she sobered up enough to keep her job!" said Ron. "Remember in third year when she was too scared of Sirius and Sir Cadogan was the only one 'brave' enough? He kept changing the password every day and even then the prat was still stupid enough to let Sirius through!"

They passed the statue of Boris the Bewildered that held the secret entrance to the Prefect's bathroom. Harry thought, for a moment of Cedric.

"You know," said Ginny, snapping Harry back to reality. "I never understood that. Why does a picture have to be brave? All they have to do is say 'Password?' and let you through. No harm will come to them as long as someone around can repaint-" she stopped as they came to the statue of Gregory the Smarmy. "Remember when Fred and George made the swamp here before they left?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," the answer came from Ron's voice. "Filch and Umbridge spent weeks trying to fix it. Come to think of it, they didn't get it out until Dumbledore was back, did they?" he asked grinning.

"I always reckoned that McGonagall, Flitwick, Snape…all the professors could've gotten rid of it in a second," Harry said, still staring at the floor where the swamp had once been.

After a few minutes Ron trotted down the staircase to the fourth floor. "Shortcut?" he asked pointing at the narrow steps with the trick step that Neville always forgot about.

"Nah" said Harry. "I want to see all the damage and," he grinned pointing at the entrance to the library, "our little sentimental tour wouldn't be complete without visiting Hermione's second home."

The library had hardly escaped the battle. Madame Pince was even more uptight than usual, trying to put all of the books back where they belonged. She shooed them away as soon as they'd put one foot into the entrance.

They started toward the stairs to the third floor corridor, but not before seeing a narrow, dim hallway leading to what Harry and Ron knew as the room where the Mirror of Erised was once stored.

Once they were on the third floor, the damage from the battle began to show even more. The forbidden corridor where Fluffy, the three-headed dog, had once called home was gone, leaving only a large hole at the foot of which grew a large patch of Devil's snare. Harry was glad to see that the statue of the humpbacked witch and the trophy room were still in tact. The old witch helped him sneak into Hogsmeade when he wasn't allowed and the Trophy room had been the sight of Harry, Ron, and Hermione's first "after-hours escapade," when they snuck out to duel Malfoy in first year. They heard Peeves still singing from the direction of the armor gallery and the Charms corridor was non-existent, so they made for the stairs down to the second floor.

Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was flooded.

"Nothing new there," said Harry. "You'd think she'd be happy today of all days. But I guess gloom has worked for the last fifty-five years, why stop the tradition now?"

"Thank goodness," Ginny exclaimed as she tapped the old suit of armor outside what was the Defence Against the Dark Arts professors' office. "Amycus Carrow turned this office into a torture chamber, it looked to grim that it would be far easier to just rebuild it than have to touch that horrible stuff and get it out."

Harry closed his eyes and remembered the former professors who called this their office. In his memory, Lockhart's portraits smiled and waved at him with their straight white teeth and shiny golden locks. Then he thought of Umbridge's wall plates with the foul mewing kittens and her frilly doilies. He briefly recalled Moody's huge Foe-Glass and Dark Detectors everywhere and Lupin had set a grindylow tank in the corner as well as many other cases with creatures like boggarts and hinky punks. He stopped. It was too terrible to think about what happened to these particular professors.

Harry slowed at the top of the steps that lead to the main floor. The hospital wing's main entrance lay ahead.

"Lavender's in there," Ginny said. "I visited everyone this evening. She got bit by Greyback even worse than Bill last year. Hermione, if you hadn't cursed him when you did she might've died."

"Well," said Hermione. "It was actually Professor Trelawny, too. I cursed Greyback, but it wasn't enough. He was standing up again and then Trelawny launched this crystal ball right at his head and he was out cold.

"I guess she isn't that batty," she said smiling.

"Don't get me wrong," she added quickly seeing the looks on Harry and Ron's faces. "Divination is still the woolliest subject of them all."

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The four of them followed the small crowd that was now surging towards the Great Hall. 'Ron wasn't the only one who woke up his friend to come down and see this,' Harry thought as he watched the tired Dean, Seamus, Neville, and Luna being pulled into the room by an ecstatic Ernie Macmillan.

When they finally got in, Harry led them all towards the rest of the Weasley family. Mr. Weasley looked up from patting his wife on the back and greeted them with a small smile. Molly, on the other hand, saw the four of them and pulled them into bone-crushing hugs.

"Mum!" Ron yelped as she turned on him. "You've only just seen me ten minutes ago!"

Bill was sitting next to Fleur who rested her head on his shoulder and Charlie, who must have shown up early this morning when the grounds were open to everyone, had his arm around his brother Percy.

Harry wondered, for a moment, why Charlie hadn't been there last night. Being in Romania probably complicated the length of time it took for him to get the message, and Neville's grandmother had closed off the only entrance only minutes after the battle had begun.

It didn't matter. He was here now and that was probably for the best seeing as he was comforting Percy. After killing Rockwood and many other Death Eaters last night, he now had nothing to occupy his mind. Now, with his hair sticking out everywhere and his glasses smashed, had taken to rocking back and forth, looking at Fred's body, and murmuring "My fault…. If only-"

George was, understandably, the worst of all. He knelt at what Harry believed was his twin's head (he wasn't sure seeing as the whole body was wrapped in a dark blue cloth) and stared blankly at the opposite wall.

"Excuse me," came the low rumble of Kingsley Shakelbolt's voice from the Head Table. "We are now going to begin repairing the castle, after which we will be moving the deceased and transferring the injured to St. Mungo's. Anyone who is able-bodied and up to the task, I implore you to lend a hand.

"Also, Madame Pomfrey is now allowing visitors into the hospital wing, but I warn you, only the first floor of it is usable so do not venture onto the higher levels, or, for that matter, anywhere boarded off in the school, until we've finished out repairs."

Everyone, including George and Percy, stood. There were bigger things at the moment. They had responsibilities to the Order, the D.A., the school…. each other.

With the whole Great Hall casting "reparo" everywhere, the school was mended within a few hours. It was now time to move the bodies. Voldemort's was cast, rather unceremoniously, into a fire in one of the Great Hall's antechamber. Inconspicuous and ordinary, this disposal of the most evil and self-proclaimed "greatest sorcerer," was quite alright with everyone. Anything, just so it was finally gone.

Aurors gathered the bodies of Death Eaters and put them on a cart. Harry didn't know where they were going and didn't much care. The people he cared about were Colin Creevy, who's younger brother Dennis had brought their muggle parents to collect his body, Lupin and Tonks whom Andromeda Tonks would be taking when she arrived this afternoon and, finally, Fred, whom was currently being prepared for traveling home with his family to The Burrow.

"Ready?" Hermione asked, tugging at his arm as she and the Weasleys made for the fireplace.

"What? No. My things?" he stammered.

"Please Harry," she smiled as she shook her beaded bag in his face. "And you call me your best friend. Have a little faith in Ron and me. We'll always be here to take care of you.

"Well," she frowned as she watched Ron stuff a hefty bacon sandwich down his mouth before disappearing into the fire with a pop. "At least have a little faith in me."

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A/N: Sooooo? What'd you think? I'm okay with it. I had to get all this stuff in before I started the good stuff. As soon as we're through with funerals I'll begin with their career choices, romance, and some good old godfathering. Check back for an update later this week!