Chapter 78 — The Crossing
Hermione's knuckles were white on the train window; the rain smeared London into watercolor streaks. Beside her, Harry watched without looking away from the same glass, the light from the carriage lamps catching the thin silver scar at his temple. He had learned to carry that scar differently over the past months—not as a wound that defined him, but as a map of where he'd been, and a line to where he might go.
"You're going quiet again," Hermione said. Her voice was small. She turned to him fully and found the boy who had been a child in a cupboard, grown now into someone who made decisions with the weight of others at his back.
"There's a lot to fix," Harry said. "Not everything can be undone. But I can try." He was thinking of the promises he'd made—promises he'd whispered into nights full of ache—that the people who had been broken would be healed, and the people who had hurt would learn what it meant to be human in a world that still practiced cruelty.
It had started small: a letter here, an unexpected return of a trinket taken from a childhood wound, a small public correction given to someone who stole another's glory. It would end big. He had the plan and he had allies—Tonks who laughed like a bell and grim-faced Andromeda who brewed tea like a potion. He had people who had forgiven him things he hadn't even realised needed forgiveness. Most of all he had Ginny, with storm-bright eyes and hands that could steady him.
The carriage smelled faintly of lemon drops and old books. A boy in the opposite seat read about dragons; a mother soothed a toddler to sleep. The world outside moved in swells and everyday miracles, and Harry had to decide when it was his time to push. He would not let fear be the deciding factor.
"You sound like Dumbledore," Hermione said abruptly, and the slight smile that pulled at the corner of her mouth made Harry laugh.
"Not the speeches," he said. "Just the urgency."
He touched the sleeve of his jumper and felt the warmth of his wand case clipped to his belt. The events that must unfold were set in motion: letters written in careful ink, voices turned to convincing, and a small group of people who trusted him with their safety. They would cross the line between the quiet lives they had rebuilt and the trouble that waited—a deliberate crossing, not a stumbling.
A few seats down, Ginny leaned close over a charmed map and traced a route with her finger. She looked up when Harry's laugh filtered across the carriage. Her face was open and sure, the expression of someone who had chosen him again and again. Harry squeezed her knee with a gentleness that felt like an answer.
They disembarked into the rain. Hogwarts's black silhouette swallowed the horizon and the air around them went silver with possibility. The castle could be a refuge, a staging ground, or an audience. For tonight it would be a haven.
"I don't want to go in as an army," Hermione said, voice low as they crossed the stone bridge. "We go in as people. Let them not be surprised by force. Let them be surprised by care."
Harry nodded. That had always been what he wanted: to fix, not simply to punish. If justice demanded stringency, then let it be tempered with mercy served in measured doses. The people who had hurt others had to be held to account—but not in ways that remade them monsters. He would expose lies and greed, return what was taken, and offer a way forward that might not always be accepted—but the chance would exist.
Tonks materialised at the courtyard, hair a patchwork of turquoise and joy. "You lot look like funeral attendees," she said, but she was the one smiling broadly. "Nope. Tonight's the night we start the rollbacks. Gentle at first. Then swift."
Ginny took Harry's hand. That was all the permission he needed.
They walked into the castle together, the sound of their footsteps a tiny chorus promising a beginning.