Trying really really hard to get this collection knocked out. Have had this idea bouncing in my head for several years, and I'm not sure it turned out exactly how I wanted it, but?

XXIII. War
-— Bill hears the news over breakfast.
November, 1981

It starts as a low murmur throughout the Great Hall.

Bill's eleven years old, and he doesn't read the newspaper. He's tired, and hungry, and digging into the pile of hash browns on his plate, and so he doesn't notice or care when there's a larger flurry of owls than normal, when the older students' voices around him are growing steadily louder.

He looks up, briefly, when someone behind him starts crying. There's more sympathy in his heart than surprise. Even in the first two months of his Hogwarts schooling, this has not been an uncommon occurrence. Students pulled out of class to be told relatives and friends have been killed—kids like him reading the obituaries in the newspaper, way too young to be so scared.

There's a war going on. But Bill has been doing his best to avoid it.

(He's been lucky enough, so far. He tries not to think too hard about his relative safety compared to Mum and Dad and all his siblings—especially brand new baby Ginny, born weeks before he left on the train.)

(He can't think too hard on the war, or what it could do to him. If he does—)

It's not surprising that someone behind him is crying. But he takes notice when there are more sobs, coming from all around the Hall.

People are laughing, too. People are laughing like they never have, these last two months, and that is enough for Bill to pick up his head and listen.

Dumbledore is absent from the staff table, as are McGonagall and Hagrid. But the rest of the teachers are there: Slughorn has his head in his hands; Sprout and Flitwick are hugging. As Bill watches, the Defense professor stands abruptly, a newspaper crumpled in her grasp, and all but runs out of the Hall.

The murmurs are growing louder, transforming into yells and hollers as people gain confidence in the words they're saying. Bill listens. Then, he blinks, rubs at his ear for a moment, and listens again.

"The war is over!" someone from the Ravenclaw table says, their voice magnified by some charm he hasn't learned. Bill finds that his hands are shaking. "You-Know-Who is dead!" a Slytherin adds, sounding nearly giddy, and some bright student thinks to splash the front page of the Daily Prophet against the wall.

It's there, in big, bold letters—a full-page spread proclaiming the end of the war, shouting the miracle that happened on Halloween night in Godric's Hollow.

Bill met Lily and James, once or twice, when he was younger and before they got too deep in the war. He reads the fine print, and sees that they are dead, that their baby son Harry killed the darkest wizard to ever exist.

He feels like he should grieve for them. But all he can feel in his heart is the euphoria that his parents and his siblings will not go the same way.

The staff is making a half-hearted attempt at order. Professor Slughorn—de facto headmaster, with Dumbledore and McGonagall gone—has magnified his voice as well, doing his best to shout over the increasing hysteria of the Hall.

It's a lost cause. Bill feels white noise growing steadily between his ears, and feels his eyes watering, and he finds himself suddenly on his feet. When the nearest student—an older Hufflepuff girl with tears streaming down her face—grabs him in a suffocating hug, he finds himself swept away in the mania, embracing her back with everything in him.

The war is over, and Bill feels himself crying and laughing all at once, hysterical sobs wracking his body at the relief. He is only eleven, but he knows exactly what this means. He is only eleven, but he's sure this will be the happiest moment of his life.

The war is over, and every thought that isn't that is swept from his mind as the relief consumes his heart.