Chapter Text
Harry Potter had always been single-minded; it was very difficult to disabuse him of an idea once he got a notion in his head. However, there were two women in his life that were up to the challenge, and they both stood before him, arms crossed. He looked up at them from his seat on the sofa with great concern.
The first woman was his own wife, Ginny Potter. Normally, he and Ginny were a team, and they operated as a single unit. “Harry and Ginny,” people called them, or “The Potters.” Today, that general rule had clearly been set to the side.
Ginny wore a menacing scowl, hands braced threateningly on her hips, a near-replica of her own mother, Molly Weasley. Her fair skin was slightly sunburnt and heavily freckled; her fiery, shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a ragged ponytail, as windswept as if she’d just hopped off a broomstick. In fact, she likely had: Ginny had become the Flying Instructor and Quidditch Referee at Hogwarts once old Madam Hooch finally retired.
Though Harry found Ginny to be quite fearsome at times—like when she hexed Harry in the bollocks for pretending to forget their wedding anniversary, or her stormy expression whenever Molly gave her unsolicited parenting advice—he also loved her deeply, and their marriage had never lost its romance. He therefore found her face completely charming, even in her moments of rage, which undercut most of the dread he might otherwise feel at the moment.
For the other woman, this was not the case. Hermione Granger was one of his two best friends, and she was married to his other best friend, Ron Weasley. Unlike Ginny, Hermione was immensely terrifying at all times. Her wild, frizzy hair circled her head like a halo, as if she were the Angel of Death herself, and her sharp brown eyes were drawn into narrow slits. She loomed over him with a sour frown, holding a rolled up newspaper in her hand. Harry was willing to bet his life that she was the one with the bone to pick and feared that the newspaper would be used as some kind of weapon. In that particular moment, he thought Hermione looked very similar to how the Grim Reaper must look, if he’d lost the scythe and had an electric shock.
“I’ve had enough of your nonsense, Harry James Potter,” Hermione said in a stern voice, stepping forward another inch. “It’s been nearly twenty years, and I’ve let you have your fun. But this ends now.”
This proclamation startled Harry—he hadn’t known he’d been on any kind of deadline, and he greatly feared whatever event was apparently due.
“It is past time,” she continued, “to re-open the public access to Hogwarts. You’ve gone off the deep end, and I’ve absolutely had it.”
Understanding crashed over Harry as if a bucket of water had been dumped over his head. Hermione wanted to argue about the only matter on which Harry refused to relent. This little pre-planned shakedown made sense, now; they wanted to challenge his manifest, his one true creed. Harry had listened to arguments about the decision over and over with nearly all of his friends, but on this one topic he remained everlastingly stubborn. They had all been quiet on the matter for years; Harry thought his friends had moved past it. Clearly not.
It seemed Hermione had simply been gathering the troops.
“Hermione’s right,” Ginny added traitorously. “It’s getting ridiculous.”
He looked away from them both and surveyed the room. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, the view overlooking the sleepy activity of Hogsmeade village. Over their fourteen years in this house, they’d made it a home. Soft seats, cushy blankets, and warm rugs covered the room, as well as innumerable family photos. Scuffs from the children’s antics and roughhousing were all over the walls.
There was some clutter, too. Magical story books, old homework assignments, and lost Quidditch gear could be found in the cushions of the sofa, stuffed behind lanterns, and squirrelled away into all corners of the room, no matter how many times Ginny and Harry tried to tidy up with or without their wands. Last week, Harry had found a dummy that must have been seventeen years old that had somehow been flattened and attached to the back of his painting of the Hogwarts landscape.
It was exactly the kind of home that Harry had always wanted to raise his children in. Warm, inviting… safe.
“The rule isn’t ridiculous, Ginny,” Harry muttered through clenched teeth. “It’s necessary. ”
After the Second Wizarding War, Harry had barely spent two years as an Auror before realising that he’d had more than his fill of chasing villains. Ginny had just become pregnant, and Harry was having vivid nightmares about leaving his child an orphan, just as his parents had left him one. Which hadn’t exactly been their fault, of course—his parents had been murdered by one of the most evil Wizards of all time, Lord Voldemort. But people didn’t tend to orphan their children on purpose, did they?
He had become an Auror out of a sense of duty. He was Harry Potter: the boy who nobly ran toward danger, putting others before himself, always sacrificing everything.
But when he’d lay in bed in the dark of night, sweating from another nightmare, and stared at Ginny’s sleeping form, the curve of her belly just visible under the sheets… No. He’d played hero on behalf of the world long enough. Now, he wanted to be a hero for his wife and children.
How could he put his life at risk every day and possibly leave his new family behind? How could he choose such a hazardous profession, when he’d already served his time in battle—already died and been brought back to life for it?
It wasn’t worth it.
So Harry had quit, and for a while he had stayed home with the kids in blissful fatherhood.
By the time Lily had been born, James was five, Albus was nearly three, and they felt that their family was finally complete. Sure, he could do without ever changing another nappy, he was always a bit frazzled, and chasing after three magical toddlers sometimes felt more challenging than facing dark wizards. But those were details. He didn’t mind being the only wizard at the mums and toddlers playground, and he didn’t miss work, because he had exactly what he had always wanted: unlimited time with family.
Except: the thought never left the back of Harry’s mind that one day, his three precious children would leave him, and they would have to attend Hogwarts, too. The older the children got, the more Hogwarts felt like a great, looming time-bomb, forever ticking. The day after James’s eighth birthday, Harry had one of his classic meltdowns knowing that his eldest child only had three years left at home.
There’s no place safer than Hogwarts, people used to say in his childhood. As an adult, Harry thought that claim was rather absurd. His own experience at Hogwarts led him to believe that he would have probably been safer nearly anywhere else. In the short span of his first three years alone, he had encountered a three-headed dog (with nothing but an Alohomora!) a blood-thirsty Basilisk, and a homicidal professor, not to mention the casual existence of moving staircases (dangerous!) and a murderous tree (unnecessary!). His time there had not been acceptable.
No. If Harry’s own progeny were to live in that castle, he decided, then he’d personally check every last broom closet himself first. Thus, Harry finally accepted a role as the Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor, which Minerva McGonagall had been asking him about for years. And as his neverending side project, he started making Hogwarts an acceptable future home for his children.
The steady tap of Hermione's foot on the hardwood floor snapped him out of his musings. Harry met her defiant expression with one of his own.
“Look, Hermione, Ginny—it isn’t about me, is it?” Harry said stubbornly. “The teachers and the students all get on just fine. So what if adults are banned from the grounds? Hogwarts doesn’t exist for them, and neither do my rules. Everything is for the children. For their safety and security.”
“I think your rules do exist for you,” Hermione said matter of factly. From her tone, Harry deduced that she felt she’d already won. “So you’ll feel safe, possibly at the expense of stifling the students!”
“Bit rich, coming from you,” Harry pointed out. “You’re the one who insisted on the rule in the first place.” Hermione did have the grace to look only slightly abashed, though he doubted she intended to relent.
Indeed, with her Muggle background, Hermione understood just as well as Harry the true absurdity of Hogwarts. She had been more than happy to embark on a mission to purge the school of any and all dangers by Harry’s side.
“It was going to be temporary, Harry. I never expected you to take it this far.”
“You were right there with me when we came up with the magical background check for students and teachers—"
"—well that was necessary! Dumbledore would have let just about anyone in to teach, you’d think a mountain troll behind a trench coat and sunglasses would’ve been next—”
“You went absolutely off the plot! Not that it bothered me, mind, but I thought you were about to transfigure into Mad-Eye Moody any day and start shouting ‘constant vigilance’ at the top of your lungs—”
Ginny, forgetting her temporary team re-assignment, jumped in. “That’s true Hermione, it was so thorough that nobody even believed Harry had worked on it too. And then the age line around the Forbidden Forest, the emergency drains and showers in the potions room, the staircase problem, the…” She trailed off when she realised the other two were both glowering at her.
“I can be intelligent on occasion,” Harry said grumpily.
“Let’s not forget why we’re here, Ginny,” Hermione hissed. “Because I might have been thorough, but I’m not the one who built an impenetrable little kingdom.”
Ginny relented, and Harry’s moment of support vanished quicker than Ron when a nappy needed changing. “She’s completely right, Harry, you took it much farther than Hermione ever did.”
Hermione had been an Unspeakable at that time and therefore couldn’t always be around, but Harry went even further on his own. He spent nearly five years searching every nook and cranny, hissing things in Parseltongue and tapping on items, looking for other dangerous artefacts hidden in the school halls. He updated the Marauders Map and hung it in his office, and he personally ensured every secret passage was warded.
When he’d fired Filch, he’d found the crazy old man’s scrapbook on ‘Past and Future Detentions: A Reminiscence and Wish List’ and nearly fainted. The man’s unhinged notes about revamping the dungeons, along with Harry’s own memories of Umbridge, left Harry in fear of what other future teachers might dream up. Filch’s loving records of who had been given detention, why, and the punishment they had received had made his green eyes widen in shock. A midnight trek through the Forbidden Forest as a first year had seemed tame in comparison to some of the ideas he saw.
From then on, Harry had personally supervised every detention he could until he was able to re-write some standard rules that actually made sense. That had led to a revamping of all the rules at Hogwarts, including every category of infraction, punishment, and general safety situation he could think of.
Ron had said that Sirius and Harry’s father would have thought he’d gone bonkers. “We all turned out just fine, mate… Wizards can fix things,” he reminded Harry.
Harry didn’t care.
He had lost a mother, a father, a godfather, friends, grandparents, and he was determined not to lose his children. Nor his wife, who had just accepted the Quidditch post.
Of course, age lines, rules, restrictions — none of this helped with adults who remembered a wilder time.
So Hermione Granger had suggested the final rule on Harry’s list: no adults allowed on Hogwarts grounds, ever, who weren’t students or teachers.
And now, yet again, she wanted to take it all back. Harry stared at Hermione, feeling quite betrayed.
“Harry.” His wife’s soothing voice cut into his tumultuous thoughts. “Just listen to Hermione. There are so many benefits to guest speakers, to allowing visitors. For everyone in the school. Hermione has told me her whole plan… you know if she made it, then it would be thorough, right? We’ll start so small…”
Harry grunted and looked back down at the copy of Magical Castle Defence in his lap. He didn’t want to be swayed so easily, but he had started to notice a decrease in the funds and quality of lesson plans as tours and professor meetings were routinely denied over and over.
Hermione sensed weakness and pounced. “You see it too, then? The parents, the lessons, the funds —”
“Why don’t you force Minerva?” Harry grumbled. “I’m only the Deputy Headmaster.”
A loud puff of air left Hermione’s lips. “Even I can’t force that woman to do anything,” Hermione said. Even after all these years, her tone was reverent, if somewhat miffed.
“And you know why,” she added in a nasty tone. “She says she won’t go against your wishes. Even if you are obsessed .”
“The kids—”
“Harry, Lily graduates in a month. I understand that you can’t be objective about them. That’s why I’ve waited… but it’s over now. Be objective, and tell me you understand the situation at hand. Tell me you see it.”
Harry slumped a little further in his chair, because he knew that Hermione had him. She knew too. He could see it in the way her eyes glinted with triumph, the way she tossed her curly frizz over her shoulder with satisfaction.
“Start small, then?” Harry asked reluctantly.
Hermione tossed a newspaper clipping into Harry’s lap, on top of his defence book. He pushed his glasses up his nose and read the headline. “World Gobstones Tournament: Where Next?”
Harry looked up at Hermione, incredulous. “How on Earth is this small? I thought you meant a tour for the Hogwarts Board!” He looked to Ginny for support, but apparently support was not in the cards today.
“Hermione thinks—and I agree—that it should be an event. A reopening of sorts, to make it seem more intentional and less like you’ve… well, been bullied. Plus, it’s in the summer, so no children are afoot.”
Harry let out a loud, annoyed grunt in Hermione’s direction to let her know how he felt about that. “Someone could sneak around, make alterations on the inside of the castle, plant a curse… Anything could happen!”
Hermione sighed and shook her head. “Honestly, Harry, it's Gobstones. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I’m glad you’ve accepted my way of thinking, Harry,” Hermione said snottily as her heels click-clacked down the Hogwarts hall. As part of their truce, Hermione had agreed to organise the Gobstones Event herself. To Harry’s way of thinking, it was both an extra layer of protection and a bit of penance.
“Right,” he said glumly.
“Of course, I knew you would have to agree, in the end…”
Harry had to remind himself that Hermione was brilliant, loyal, compassionate, and had quite literally taken on a second job for free, for years, in her efforts to help him overhaul Hogwarts… just because he had asked. Because at the moment, he rather hoped she’d stumble and fall on her face.
“It’s a good model for future students to see adults of all kinds working together. The National Gobstone Association is very mild and scholarly, and people treat Gobstones as a bit of a joke, you know. So it’s a ‘Welcome Back’ event that’s very low-stakes, and safe too. A bit childish almost, but that’s quite fitting for a school, nothing like the ridiculous Triwizard Tournament, I mean really…”
Hermione said all of this very fast as she walked beside Harry, who, despite having much longer legs, could barely keep up with her brisk pace.
"So who's signed up for this thing, again?" Harry asked. “Could have done with a little extra warning.”
Hermione reached into her bag and thrust a piece of paper in his face. "Maybe if you’d spent an hour checking your post instead of snooping about the wards for the hundredth time, then you would have seen all the letters I sent with the invite list.”
“I s’pose,” Harry muttered, shooting Hermione a moody glare. In actuality, though he was in no mood to tell Hermione, Harry felt that his willingness to leave the invite list entirely in her hands was an impressive display of trust.
“Well, it’s all the normal ‘A-List players,’ of course, and the rest of the spots were reserved for local community members. It’s a nod to the host country,” she explained. “Each country has sent its national champions, but this year a full sixteen spots were reserved for political and celebrity players in the UK...”
Harry supposed that with the grand re-opening of Hogwarts, it was an unusually hot ticket this year. He scanned the list while Hermione continued on about the history of local invitees in Gobstone tournaments.
A weird mish-mash of people had signed up.
He was pleased to see some of his old Dumbledore’s Army friends on the list, and he felt proud that most of them had legitimate invites.
Luna Lovegood had secured a spot as head of the Quibbler. Dean Thomas, who had been one of his roommates for six years, had become the premiere magical artist in London. Ernie MacMillan was the Ministry’s legal counsel. Angelina Johnson, his old Quidditch mate, now Captained the Wimbourne Wasps. Padma Patil was the head of St. Mungos.
He recognized a few non-D.A. members as well. Draco Malfoy, annoyingly, had secured a spot simply for existing as a bag of gold with legs. Pansy and Blaise Zabini appeared to have come as a couple, now a famous singing pair.
He saw ‘Kingsley Shacklebolt - Former Minister of Magic’ on the list too and smiled at that. But then—
“Rita Skeeter!” Harry cried, interrupting Hermione’s long-winded lecture. “Have you lost the plot!”
Hermione grunted. “I tried to stop that one. Not much to be done, but…” She paused at the entrance of the Great Hall and pulled Harry to the side, then opened her infamous beaded handbag and pulled out a glass jar. “I sent her one of these yesterday, as a little reminder.”
A good friend, Hermione was.
Hermione peered at Harry for a moment like a nurse inspecting her patient, her brown eyes darting back and forth as if reading a concerning book. Then she tapped the guest list again. “Is this alright?”
“I think so… It’s nice there are a lot of sign-ups from our Hogwarts year!”
Hermione smiled and swept a stray hair off her cheek. “Well, I did give a bit of preference when approving the locals… I thought it might help you feel just a bit better.”
It really did.
On that cheery note, Harry followed her into a transformed Great Hall.
The Hall looked the same as always in some ways: stone, gothic walls looming high above Harry’s head, with bright candles hovering above; the wide ceiling charmed to look like the sky, today reflecting an orangey-gold Autumn sunrise; the head table, where teachers usually sat, presiding over the room below.
However, the four long, room-filling tables, where Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor sat, had been moved or vanished. Instead, a plethora of Gobstone courts had been carefully measured out into sections and spread out across the floor, with space in between each row for contestants to walk. And of course, the room was filled with enthusiastic Gobstoners, clearly distinguishable from the local players milling about.
Harry spotted Kingsley Shacklebolt wandering around, looking thrilled to simply be in the castle, smiling up at the ceiling. Harry felt a slightly guilty pang.
Meanwhile, the World Championship contenders were dressed up like they were attending a Muggle Comic Convention. Many of them had nerdy custom robes—one player had stitched “I’d rather be playing Gobstones,” on the back of his robe; several were wearing rather unstylish domed hats that flashed the words ‘Let’s Get Gobstoned’ in bright colours. There were innumerable scarves, pins, and even drinking canisters that all followed the Gobstones theme.
Harry didn’t have time to observe more, though. Once the two of them were noticed, the occupants of the room broke into polite applause. Ron, whose unmistakable red hair shone like a beacon in the back of the room, gave Harry a standing ovation with a mischievous grin.
Hermione ignored all of it and hustled Harry along to the front.
Rita Skeeter was also milling about with a gossip hungry look in her eye. Upon sighting her, Harry immediately ducked his head down to avoid eye contact. He wished she were banned from the school grounds.
Hermione noted the motion. “The judging area up front will always have a small ward where you can stay if you don’t feel like talking to anyone. No one can get inside except for you, me, Ron, and the judging official,” she told him as they walked to the head of the room. Indeed, once they reached the high table, he felt a small, cold shiver down his spine as he stepped through one of Hermione’s quintessential repelling wards.
“Now, I’m going to give the introduction, and you just stand there, to my left,” Hermione instructed. “Do you need me to summon Ron up for moral support?”
Harry threw her the darkest look he could manage. “I’ll be fine.”
Hermione shrugged. “I only want to help.”
Before Harry could work out how to respond, she strode up to the podium and tossed her curls behind her shoulders. She was wearing a very Muggle-looking business suit, but Hermione had assured Harry that the style contained many nods to modern witch attire. Not that he cared in the least—he would have to take her word for it.
At last, Hermione cleared her throat and cast a Sonorus.
“Hello, and welcome all! I want to thank all of you for coming to the Annual World Gobstones Event, both professional and local players,” Hermione announced to the room. “It is our honour to host right here at Hogwarts—” The crowd interrupted at this to break into an enthusiastic cheer.
“Finally!” someone called out. Harry looked down and shuffled his feet, his guilt resurfacing yet again.
“—Right, very good. Well, thank you to Assistant Head and Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor Harry Potter for opening the school to visitors for the first time in nearly twenty years!”
The room surged with a second round of applause and cheers.
“Will we hear from the great Harry Potter?” shouted a high voice. Harry felt his cheeks turning red. All eyes in the room turned to him, and from this angle, the room suddenly seemed more intimidating and full, somehow. At once, irritatingly, Harry did wish that Ron was up here with him. Harry sent Hermione another dark look for being right earlier.
Hermione faltered for a moment. “Ah Harry… Is here as an observer, and will not be speaking today.”
“But can we meet him?” asked another loud voice. Harry burned with embarrassment.
“Only the winner!” Hermione jokingly replied.
Harry saw more than a few heads perk up interestedly. Harry was no stranger to stares by now, but he could have done without that particular promise. “‘MIONE,” Harry hissed, purposefully using her most hated nickname.
She shot him an apologetic look. “Right, well… I suppose I’ll move on to the rules then…” Hermione stretched her fingers and then grabbed the Book of Gob.
At once, with a trusty rulebook to follow, Hermione once again held her head high and spoke with authority. Harry noticed she wasn’t even looking at the book—classic Hermione, he thought fondly, before he remembered he was still peeved about her little winner’s promise. He always felt so awkward, even this many years later, when he was meant to perform as ‘The Boy Hero’.
He zoned out her words, not caring to listen. Every wizarding child eleven and above knew the rules anyway; in fact, even Muggle-born children knew the main bit. It was only Marbles, after all. Fifteen gobstones, toss yours into the ring, knock the opponent’s gobstone back out. The only real difference was that if a player had a marble knocked out of the ring, they would be sprayed in the face with a foul-smelling liquid.
Hermione finished her explanation, then waved her wand to set the hovering timers.
“And with that… Let the games begin!” Hermione cried.