It was the morning after the biggest battle the wizarding world had ever seen, and the dust had yet to settle at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft & Wizardry. The hurt and loss in the air was palpable, though small glimpses of euphoric relief occasionally shone though when loved ones finally found each other amidst the carnage and the rubble. The sun had risen high that morning, seeming to be shining brighter than it had done in over a year, yet only serving to highlight the destruction the fighting from the night previous had wrought.

Harry Potter sat alone in his old dormitory, his head in his hands and his wand by his side. He'd spent much of the early hours of the morning doing his best to avoid the watery eyes and gentle grateful smiles of his fellow survivors, choosing instead to wander the perimeter of the castle walls looking for the injured, or dead, lying out in the grounds. He was happy to have found more needing Madam Pomfreys help than he did needing a casket, but still, seeing the bodies of his fellow students, and of those in the opposing faction, made his head swim with pain and unanswered 'what ifs'. What if he'd gone to the Forbidden Forest sooner? Would that have saved some of the losses? What if he'd located all the Horcruxes earlier? Would the battle have happened away from the school, sparing the lives of so many? What ifs that could never be answered, but that he could never dismiss out of mind.

He'd avoided the Great Hall as far as possible, taking the wounded to the entrance hall of the castle where small groups of people were taking them from him and over to the triage area to be treated by the Mediwitches & Wizards sent over from St Mungos Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. The dead he'd simply covered with a white sheet, before levitating them into the school to be reunited with their grieving families. Each time he'd gone into the school he'd been met with watery looks and smiles that could never reach the givers eyes, quiet expressions of thanks and claps on his shoulders that to which he had no idea how to respond.

His overwhelming thought during all of this was that it was he who should be lying on the cold stone floor of the hall, covered in a white sheet, not his friends, not his fellow students, not his teachers. He'd been hit with the killing curse, for a second time, and survived, for a second time. It was more than he could bear to look in the direction of the Weasley family and see that shock of red hair and the still features of Fred lying there on the floor. He knew too where Tonks & Remus were laid out and studiously avoided that area, he knew he'd shed tears for them but felt now was not the time to share them with this audience, not when he - the Boy Who Lived - had lived again where so many hadn't been as lucky as he.

"Harry?", a voice queried from the bottom of the stairs outside his dorm room. "Harry, its me, Hermione. I've been looking all over for you, please come down here. I really need to speak to you, to see you."

"I just need a little time Hermione, just a little time on my own", he replied.

"Please Harry? I understand, I do, I wouldn't ask but its just I... I can't. I can't be alone right now" she let out the burst of sobs she'd been holding in. "Please just come sit with me for a while, we don't have to talk… there's, there's just no-one else I can turn to right now. Please?"

Harry lifted his head from his hands and picked up his glasses from where he'd left them on his nightstand. He reached for his wand and put it in the back pocket of his jeans. He took a deep breath and slowly looked around the room he'd called home while here in the castle walls. He'd thought upon leaving last year that he'd never see this place again, yet now he was here it felt like coming home again, though tainted as it was by the events of the previous night. He knew he'd never return after today, and leaving again now was bittersweet. His best and worst memories were bundled up within this castle and the room he stood in now had been his own little part of that. He was happy in a way that'd he'd been able to come back to his room at Hogwarts, getting a small sense of satisfaction from both starting and completing the path he'd been on for the past 7 years within these wall. During the past year he, Ron & Hermione had spent on the run, he found when he thought of Hogwarts, he'd thought of his room here. His comfortable four-poster bed, the warmth of the comforters, and how often his adventures had started out here, and ended back here where it felt safe.

With a deep sigh he took one last look around the room, smoothed down his sheets and said a silent goodbye to the room that'd come to mean so much to him over the past seven years, where everything he knew about who he was and where he fit into this world had begun and now, had ended.

A/N - Its just a short one so I could get something up, having never used FF upload before I thought I'd give it a try! Future chapters will be around 3 times as long, and I have the next few planned out ready to put to pixel.