{"id":281088,"date":"2018-10-12T19:29:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T19:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/12\/marauders4evr-harry-isnt-quite-out-of-his-teens\/"},"modified":"2018-10-12T19:29:25","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T19:29:25","slug":"marauders4evr-harry-isnt-quite-out-of-his-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/12\/marauders4evr-harry-isnt-quite-out-of-his-teens\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

marauders4evr<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Harry isn\u2019t quite out of his teens when it fully hits him\u2014the war, the blood and the guts spread across the corridors of Hogwarts, the screams and sobs, the nightmares, the shadows that never seem to leave him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too much.<\/p>\n

He gets a flat in London\u2014Muggle <\/i>London. Hermione and the Weasleys give him space. Kingsley ensures the wizarding world gives him privacy. Not that some aren\u2019t reluctant. Rita Skeeter releases articles every day, wondering when their Boy Who Lived will return.<\/p>\n

But Harry doesn\u2019t see those articles.<\/p>\n

He tries to forget who he is for awhile.<\/p>\n

His flat is cozy. He stuffs it with plants and paintings and books. He has a cat (or three). He wears sweaters and blazers with corduroy pants. He goes to the market every morning to buy fruits and vegetables. That\u2019s where he meets the kindly old woman who lives down the street.<\/p>\n

She lived through World War II and so many other wars, wars that Harry has never experienced but can only imagine.<\/p>\n

She goes to his house and she goes to hers. There\u2019s always tea and small cakes and dinners and cocoa\u2014apparently she believes that a teenager needs cocoa\u2014and baking and reading and knitting.<\/p>\n

Harry uses magic to brew the cocoa one day, not realizing that she\u2019s standing in the doorway. She calms him by telling him that she knows all about magic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their conversations shift after that. They talk about their favorite creatures and how hard it was to watch them perish before their eyes. They talk about the wall that seemingly gave way to let them enter the magical world. They talk about lions and friends and family and love and betrayals and life and death.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did you leave?\u201d Harry asks one day.<\/p>\n

She pauses, a hand resting on his cat\u2019s head. After a moment, she looks up with a heaviness in her eyes, a heaviness that Harry sees when he looks in the mirror everyday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was young,\u201d she says.\u00a0\u201cYounger than you are now. But I had already grown up. I didn\u2019t want to leave, not really, but it became too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you regret it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome days I do, some days I don\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a few months later, when he\u2019s helping her shovel the first snow from her walkway, that he asks,\u00a0\u201cDid you ever try going back?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if I wanted to, I couldn\u2019t,\u201d she says, shoving a cup of cocoa into his hands.\u00a0\u201cI was shut out as soon as I hesitated.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pauses, nearly dropping the cocoa, before whispering,\u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about you?\u201d She escorts him inside, her cane tapping against the floor that he\u2019s magically heated to warm her feet.\u00a0\u201cWould you be welcomed back?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yeah,\u201d Harry says.\u00a0\u201cTil they turn on me because they don\u2019t like the color of my shirt or because I sneezed the wrong way or because\u2014you name it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She laughs and he smiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine that,\u201d she softly says.\u00a0\u201cRulers of our worlds and we\u2019re not even allowed in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He does go back to the wizarding world, of course, but he never forgets his London flat. He visits the street from time to time, knowing that Susan Pevensie will be there, ready to push a cup of cocoa into his hands.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

marauders4evr: Harry isn\u2019t quite out of his teens when it fully hits him\u2014the war, the blood and the guts spread across the corridors of Hogwarts, the screams and sobs, the nightmares, the shadows that never seem to leave him. It\u2019s too much. He gets a flat in London\u2014Muggle London. Hermione and the Weasleys give him … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[151,8658,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}