Harry Potter had been turned into a paragraph.
Adrian discovered this because someone had printed the paragraph six feet tall.
It stood beside the path leading toward Hogwarts in black lettering on a temporary memorial board.
Students, families, Ministry officials, reporters and survivors moved around it in slow clusters, most dressed more formally than the afternoon required.
Adrian stopped in front of the board.
At the top:
THE BATTLE OF HOGWARTS
Beneath it:
REMEMBRANCE AND RECONSTRUCTION
Then the paragraph.
Adrian read.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had returned to Hogwarts on the night of the battle and led the final resistance against Lord Voldemort.
True.
He had willingly faced Voldemort to protect the defenders of Hogwarts.
Also true.
His courage had broken the Dark Lord's power and inspired those around him to stand against tyranny.
Less precise.
He had returned from apparent death and defeated Voldemort in the Great Hall before assembled witnesses.
True again.
The final sentence was simpler.
His victory ended the Second Wizarding War.
Adrian looked at it for a while.
People passed behind him.
Shoes on gravel.
Low conversation.
A child asked where the toilets were.
Someone else complained that the press area had been moved again.
Nothing on the board was exactly false.
That was what made it good.
"Admiring the writing?"
Adrian turned.
Anthony Goldstein stood three feet away wearing dress robes he clearly disliked.
His collar had been adjusted badly.
"You've done that wrong," Adrian said.
Anthony looked down.
"The memorial?"
"Your collar."
Anthony touched it.
"Michael did it."
"That explains nothing."
"It explains malice."
Adrian fixed the fold with two fingers.
Anthony glanced at the board.
"You weren't answering."
"I was reading."
"That dangerous?"
"Occasionally."
Anthony followed the text.
When he reached the end, his mouth changed.
Not much.
"Harry won."
"Yes."
"Voldemort died."
"Yes."
"So?"
Adrian looked at him.
Anthony raised both hands.
"I know that face. I'm not arguing. I'm identifying the trap before stepping into it."
"You've improved."
"War."
That ended the joke more quickly than either intended.
Anthony looked toward the castle.
The western scaffolding remained, though one level had disappeared since Adrian's last visit. White cloth hung between several temporary posts on the lawn. Rows of chairs faced a low platform built near the edge of the courtyard.
Not the final memorial.
McGonagall had made that clear in the invitation.
The permanent one was still being argued over.
Today was officially a Remembrance Assembly for the Fallen and Surviving Defenders of Hogwarts.
Officially.
Anthony adjusted one cuff.
"You sitting with Ravenclaw?"
"I hadn't decided."
"That means no."
"Probably."
"Michael saved you a seat."
"That was inefficient."
"He knows."
Anthony started toward the chairs, then stopped.
"You coming?"
"In a minute."
"Don't spend the entire thing correcting punctuation."
"I hadn't noticed any."
Anthony frowned.
"Now I'm worried."
He left.
Adrian looked at the board once more.
He did not disagree with what it said.
That was important.
Harry had done those things.
But Adrian remembered Harry walking into the forest knowing what waited there.
No crowd.
No speech.
No visible triumph.
He remembered the hours before that.
Neville.
Ginny.
Luna.
Students carrying injured people through corridors.
Teachers holding doors.
House-elves.
Parents.
Children who had no business being called defenders because calling them defenders made it easier to forget they had been children first.
He remembered Snape dead in the Shrieking Shack while almost everyone in the castle still believed him a traitor.
He remembered people running.
People hiding.
People failing.
People returning.
The board had not denied any of that.
It simply had no room for it.
Adrian left it where it stood.
The chairs had been arranged badly.
Not physically.
Politically.
Ministry officials near the front.
Hogwarts staff beside them.
Families of the dead in reserved rows.
Surviving students grouped loosely by House and year, though McGonagall appeared to have rejected any attempt to separate them too rigidly.
Press farther back.
The Potter problem occupied the front left section.
Harry sat between Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.
Adrian noticed that Harry's chair was not quite aligned with theirs.
Half a foot farther forward.
Possibly accidental.
Probably not.
A photographer crouched near the aisle trying to obtain an angle that included Harry but excluded the back of a Ministry official's head.
Harry saw him.
His expression suggested familiarity rather than irritation.
That was somehow worse.
Adrian sat beside Anthony three rows behind the main student section.
Michael Corner leaned over from the other side.
"You came."
"So did you."
"I was invited."
"So was I."
Michael stared.
Anthony whispered, "Excellent reunion."
Stephen Cornfoot arrived last and sat down beside them with his hair still damp.
Anthony looked at him.
"Did you bathe specifically for the dead?"
"I overslept."
"Better."
Stephen noticed Adrian.
"Vale."
"Cornfoot."
"You look exactly the same."
"That seems biologically unlikely."
"See? Exactly the same."
McGonagall stepped onto the platform before Anthony could answer.
Conversation reduced itself.
Not instantly.
Hogwarts had survived too much to obey silence with the old reflex.
It came in pieces.
Whispers.
Chairs scraping.
A cough.
Then quiet.
McGonagall stood at the lectern.
No banners behind her.
Only the castle.
Good choice.
She began with names.
That surprised Adrian.
No introduction.
No political framing.
No victory.
Names.
Fred Weasley.
Remus Lupin.
Nymphadora Tonks.
Colin Creevey.
Severus Snape.
Others.
Some names Adrian knew.
Some he remembered only from corridors.
Some not at all.
Each received the same pause.
Snape's name created a change in the crowd.
Barely audible.
A movement rather than a sound.
Confusion had physical texture when enough people shared it.
McGonagall continued.
No explanation.
No defense.
His name had been included.
That was all today required.
When the list ended, she spoke about the school.
Not Hogwarts as a symbol.
The actual school.
Broken classrooms.
Missing books.
Families who had not yet decided whether their children would return.
Students who woke from nightmares.
Teachers who had not slept properly.
Sections of the castle still unsafe.
She thanked the reconstruction crews.
A mason near the back looked horrified by public recognition.
Adrian approved.
Then came the Ministry.
Kingsley Shacklebolt spoke for twelve minutes.
Adrian knew because Anthony checked his watch at minute nine and sighed.
Kingsley was good.
That complicated things.
He did not speak like a politician pretending nothing had gone wrong.
He mentioned Ministry failure openly.
Not every failure.
Enough to matter.
He spoke about restoring lawful government, rebuilding institutions, honoring the dead, and ensuring that the abuses of the previous administration could not happen again.
Applause followed.
Earned, mostly.
Then he began speaking about Harry.
Adrian looked toward the front row.
Harry's shoulders changed before his face did.
A small tightening.
He knew what was coming.
"Many stood against Voldemort," Kingsley said. "Some publicly. Some quietly. Some with wands. Some simply by refusing to become what was demanded of them."
Good.
Adrian listened.
"But history will remember that one young man stood at the center of that resistance from its beginning to its end."
There.
Harry lowered his eyes.
Kingsley continued.
He called him:
"The Boy Who Lived."
Expected.
"The man who returned."
Less expected.
"The champion of a generation that refused to surrender."
Anthony shifted beside Adrian.
"The symbol of resistance."
Harry looked toward Hermione.
She was not watching the speaker.
She was watching Harry.
"And ultimately, the young wizard whose courage brought victory."
Applause began before Kingsley had fully stepped back.
People stood.
Not everyone at once.
Enough.
Harry remained seated for perhaps two seconds too long.
Then Ron said something to him.
Harry stood.
The applause became louder.
Reporters lifted cameras.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
Adrian watched Harry's face.
He smiled because the situation required one.
Not falsely.
That was important too.
Harry could appreciate what the applause meant and still dislike what it made of him.
Those ideas were not contradictory.
Harry raised one hand briefly.
The gesture made the applause worse.
Stephen murmured, "Mistake."
Anthony whispered, "Catastrophic."
Harry sat again as quickly as dignity allowed.
The ceremony continued.
Adrian heard most of it.
A former member of the Order spoke.
Then a parent.
Then Professor Flitwick.
The speeches shared certain words.
Courage.
Sacrifice.
Victory.
Unity.
Defiance.
Hope.
No one said hunger.
No one said terror.
No one said that children had learned which floorboards creaked outside the Carrows' offices.
No one said some students had cooperated because they were frightened.
No one said some of those same students had later helped somebody.
No one said people had made decisions at eight in the morning they regretted by lunch.
Those things were not appropriate for a memorial assembly.
Perhaps they shouldn't have been.
Adrian understood that too.
A memorial was not an archive.
The mistake would be asking one to perform the work of the other.
He looked toward the side of the platform.
Another board carried photographs of the battle.
Harry appeared in six.
Ron in three.
Hermione in four.
Neville in two.
Dozens of other faces once, if at all.
Again, not invented.
Selection.
That was all.
Selection had consequences without becoming conspiracy.
Adrian disliked that sentence enough not to write it down.
Professor Flitwick finished speaking.
Another round of applause.
A choir began.
The song was unfamiliar.
Probably written for the occasion.
Anthony leaned closer.
"Are you doing it again?"
Adrian kept looking forward.
"Doing what?"
"The face."
"Mrs Whitmore has also claimed I possess one of those."
"You possess several. This one means you're disagreeing with a room."
"I'm not."
Anthony glanced at him.
"That is somehow more alarming."
Adrian looked toward Harry.
Harry was already looking back.
Across three rows and a wide aisle.
Directly at him.
No hesitation.
Harry's eyes narrowed slightly.
Adrian looked away first.
After the ceremony, the lawn became unusable.
People who had been arranged into rows reorganized themselves into clumps.
Families found old teachers.
Former students found one another.
Reporters hunted anyone whose name might survive a headline.
Ministry officials appeared to develop urgent conversations whenever cameras approached.
Adrian stood near the edge of the courtyard with a paper cup of tea that had been brewed aggressively enough to qualify as punishment.
Michael had disappeared.
Stephen had been captured by two former Gryffindors.
Anthony was talking to a Ravenclaw Adrian vaguely recognized from the year below them.
Adrian preferred the tea.
"Vale."
He turned.
Harry stood beside him.
No reporters.
That was the first useful detail.
The second was that Ron and Hermione were some distance away speaking to Professor Flitwick.
Harry had loosened his collar.
The polished public symbol now looked mildly strangled by formalwear.
"Potter."
Harry looked at Adrian's cup.
"Is that safe?"
"No."
"Good."
He took another cup from the nearby table anyway.
Drank.
His face tightened.
"That's awful."
"Yes."
Neither spoke for several seconds.
People moved around them.
Someone nearby was laughing.
A camera flashed farther across the lawn.
Harry looked toward it automatically.
Not at the camera.
At who it was aimed at.
Then back at Adrian.
"You kept looking at the boards."
"Yes."
"And the speeches."
"That is generally what one does during speeches."
Harry ignored that.
"You looked like Hermione when someone misquotes a book."
Adrian glanced toward Hermione.
"She makes a different face."
"You've studied this?"
"No."
Harry drank the terrible tea again.
For some reason.
Then he said, "What do you think they got wrong?"
There it was.
No defensiveness.
No fishing for reassurance.
He actually wanted to know.
Adrian looked toward the board by the path.
From here he could see only the title.
REMEMBRANCE AND RECONSTRUCTION
He thought about the paragraph beneath it.
About Harry at the center.
About every statement that had been true.
About all the things left outside the frame.
"Enough."
Harry waited.
Adrian did not continue.
After a moment Harry nodded.
Not agreement exactly.
Recognition.
"Yeah."
He looked at the tea.
Then emptied the rest onto the grass.
Adrian approved again.
Harry said, "They make it sound cleaner."
Adrian glanced at him.
That was more than he had expected.
"Most endings do."
Harry gave a short laugh.
"No one who was there thinks it was an ending."
"No."
Another pause.
Harry's attention moved toward the memorial photographs.
His own face among them.
"You know what bothers me?"
Adrian waited.
"They keep saying I led everyone."
"You did lead people."
"Sometimes."
"Yes."
Harry looked at him.
"That was very supportive."
"I wasn't attempting support."
"I know."
Good.
Harry shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Neville stayed here. Ginny stayed. Luna. McGonagall. Everyone in the Room. People kept fighting when they thought I was dead."
"Yes."
"And then someone writes 'Harry Potter led the final resistance' because it's shorter."
"Also easier to print."
"That too."
Adrian looked at him.
Harry did not appear angry.
Tired perhaps.
Not of attention itself.
Of translation.
Being converted into something easier for strangers to use.
Adrian knew that sensation from the opposite direction.
The world forgot him.
The world could not stop remembering Harry.
Both produced distortion.
He did not say that.
Too neat.
Harry looked back toward him.
"Why 'enough'?"
Adrian considered whether to answer.
Then:
"Because none of it has to be false."
Harry's expression changed.
Small.
Understanding arrived slowly rather than dramatically.
Adrian continued.
"If something false is written down, eventually someone can prove it false."
"Usually."
"Sometimes."
Harry waited.
"If everything written is true," Adrian said, "people stop asking what was left out."
Harry looked toward the memorial board again.
He did not answer.
Adrian regretted the sentence slightly.
It sounded too complete.
Life had spent years teaching him to distrust complete sentences.
So he added:
"That doesn't mean everything belongs on a memorial."
Harry glanced back.
"No."
"Or in a speech."
"No."
"People would leave."
Harry smiled.
"Definitely."
Good.
Less clean.
Harry looked across the courtyard.
Hermione had finished speaking to Flitwick.
Ron was now attempting to obtain food from a table guarded by a witch from Hogwarts catering.
Harry said, "I should go rescue Ron."
"From what?"
"Rules."
"That seems beyond you."
"It usually is."
He started away.
Then stopped.
"Vale."
"Yes?"
"Enough is a very annoying answer."
"I know."
Harry nodded once.
Then left.
Hermione noticed Harry coming back because Ron had begun arguing over sausage rolls.
That was not unusual.
Harry's expression was.
Not upset.
Thinking.
Hermione accepted a napkin from Professor Flitwick, thanked him, and moved toward Harry.
"Where were you?"
"Talking to Vale."
Her eyes moved automatically toward the edge of the courtyard.
Adrian Vale was still there, standing alone with an untouched paper cup.
Of course.
"What about?"
"The memorial."
Ron secured two sausage rolls and joined them.
"Did he insult it?"
"No."
"That would've been quicker."
Harry looked once toward the boards.
"He said they got enough wrong."
Hermione frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"I asked."
"And?"
"He made it more complicated."
Ron bit into a sausage roll.
"Also sounds like Vale."
Harry almost smiled.
"He said it doesn't have to be false."
Hermione looked at him.
"What doesn't?"
"The version."
Harry shrugged.
"The speeches. Me. All of it."
A reporter called Harry's name from across the courtyard.
He visibly reconsidered existence.
Ron said, "Run."
Harry did.
The reporter followed.
Ron followed Harry, possibly because watching the attempt promised entertainment.
Hermione remained where she was.
Only for a second.
Her eyes returned to Adrian.
He had put the tea down.
Anthony Goldstein had joined him.
Whatever they were saying looked ordinary.
Nothing important.
Hermione had known Adrian for years.
Not closely.
Enough to know that when he noticed something wrong, he rarely announced it before he understood why.
She looked toward the memorial board.
Then back toward him.
A Ministry witch asked Hermione a question about tomorrow's reconstruction meeting.
The moment passed.
She answered.
By the time she looked again, Adrian was gone.
She remembered the conversation anyway.
She did not yet know why.
End of Chapter 116.