The last week of the Hogwarts school year always carried a particular quality that Adrian had co to recognize over his ti teaching—a strange mixture of exhaustion and excitent, of endings and beginnings all tangled together into sothing bittersweet and unavoidable.
The castle itself seed to feel it. The ancient stones were holding their breath as students packed trunks and said goodbyes and made promises to write that so would keep and others would forget by mid-July.
Adrian stood at his office window on the final Thursday of term, watching students cross the grounds below in small groups.
Fifth-years walked with the slightly shell-shocked expressions of people who'd just survived their O.W.L. examinations and weren't quite sure what to do with themselves now that the ordeal was over.
You could tell them apart from the others by the way they moved—a little dazed, a little proud, not yet certain which. Younger students ran and shouted with energy of children who knew that freedom was only days away.
Even the creatures in Hagrid's paddocks seed to sense the approaching sumr, their movents were more restless than usual, the Hippogriffs in particular pacing the fence line with sothing that looked very much like impatience.
Three weeks had passed since Voldemort's defeat. Three weeks since the battle at the plantation, since Harry's healing, since Ariana had opened her eyes in that hospital room in New York.
Three weeks of Ministry investigations and Order celebrations and Daily Prophet articles and all the exhausting machinery of consequence and aftermath. He'd given statents and signed docunts and attended etings that could have been letters, and beneath all of it, life had quietly continued—classes to finish, grades to submit, students to see safely to the end of their year.
And now, sohow, it was nearly over. The school year was ending. Students would board the Hogwarts Express in two days, and the castle would fall into its sumr quiet, and Adrian would need to decide what ca next.
His office was half-packed already. Books were sorted into stacks—so to keep, so to donate to the Hogwarts library, so to take back to the plantation. Papers were organized into folders and files. The small accumulated debris of a year of teaching carefully categorized and contained. It looked like an ending, this organized dismantling of the space he'd occupied.
He wasn't sure yet if it was.
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Co in," Adrian called, turning from the window.
Harry entered, followed closely by Ron and Hermione. All three looked healthy and happy in a way they hadn't at various points throughout the year—Harry especially.
His green eyes were clear and bright without the shadow of Voldemort's presence lurking behind them. His famous scar was now just smooth skin on his forehead. He had been watching Harry carefully for days, and he could see the difference plainly.
"Professor Westeros," Harry said, then seed uncertain how to continue.
"Harry," Adrian replied warmly, gesturing to the chairs arranged before his desk. "Ron, Hermione. Sit, please. I assu this isn't about any late assignnts, since I've already submitted all final grades?"
Hermione managed a small laugh despite the evident emotion on her face. "No, sir. We just wanted to..." She trailed off, looking to Harry.
"We wanted to say goodbye properly," Harry finished. "And thank you. Again. For everything."
Adrian settled into his own chair behind the desk, studying the three of them.
They'd been through so much this year, things that most adults would have found unbearable and they'd co through it, not unscathed. Scars left marks even when they healed. But they were here, sitting in his office in the afternoon light, making plans for sumr and looking, unmistakably, like people with futures ahead of them.
"You don't need to keep thanking , Harry," Adrian said gently. "You've said it several tis already, and I believed you the first ti."
"But we do need to," Hermione said with her usual intensity. "What you did—defeating Voldemort, healing Harry's soul, protecting all of us—it's not sothing we can just move past without acknowledging properly."
She pulled a wrapped package from her bag. "We got you sothing. As a thank you gift."
Adrian accepted the package with so surprise, unwrapping it carefully.
Inside was a book—a beautiful leather-bound volu with his na embossed on the cover in gold letters.
He opened it to find page after page of photographs and notes, mories from the school year. Pictures of students in his classes, candid shots of creatures they'd studied, even a few images of the Treants in the Forbidden Forest. Scattered among the photos were handwritten ssages from what looked like most of his students—thank-you notes and good wishes and mories they wanted to share.
"Hermione organized it," Ron said quickly. "Got people to contribute photos and notes, though most of it ca from Colin and his brother. It still took her ages."
"It took three weeks, not ages," Hermione corrected, but she was blushing. "I wanted to make sure we captured the whole year properly."
Adrian turned the pages slowly, genuinely moved.
Here was Hannah Abbott's careful handwriting describing the day they'd worked with Kneazles. There was Dean Thomas's artistic sketch of a Bowtruckle, rendered with surprising accuracy and care. Neville had contributed a pressed flower from one of their outdoor lessons with a note.
Near the back, soone—he suspected Seamus had written a single sentence in enormous letters: Best professor we've ever had, and that includes the one who turned out to be possessed.
"This is..." Adrian laughed and said. "This is wonderful. Thank you. All of you."
"There's sothing else," Harry said, reaching into his own bag.
"Just from , this ti." He pulled out a smaller package, handing it across the desk.
Inside was a frad photograph—the one from the hospital wing on the day Harry had woken, taken by Colin with his ever-present cara.
It showed Harry sitting up in bed, grinning weakly but genuinely, with Ron and Hermione on either side of him. And in the background, barely visible, was Adrian sitting in a chair looking absolutely exhausted but relieved, his head tipped back slightly, his eyes closed.
He didn't rember anyone taking a photograph that day. He barely rembered sitting down.
"I wanted you to have it," Harry said quietly. "As a reminder that you saved . That you brought back when I thought I was lost forever."
Adrian looked at the photograph for a mont.
The exhausted figure in the background didn't look like soone who had won sothing. He looked like soone who had barely held on.
Looking at it now, from weeks of distance, he thought he understood sothing that hadn't been clear at the ti: relief and victory were not the sa feeling, and he'd only had one of them in that room.
"Thank you," he said, setting the fra carefully on his desk where he could see it. "Both of you. All three."
They sat in comfortable silence for a mont, the weight of the year and everything they'd been through was settling over them without heaviness.
"What will you do this sumr?" Adrian asked, deliberately lightening the mood. "Besides avoiding trouble, which I suspect is impossible for you three."
Ron grinned. "Mum's already planning a massive celebration at the Burrow. Apparently defeating You-Know-Who requires at least three different kinds of pie and a garden party. She's been writing lists for two weeks."
"I'm spending most of the sumr studying," Hermione said, which surprised no one.
"But I'll also be visiting my parents and trying to explain to them why it was in all the newspapers without actually explaining most of what happened. They'd be scared if I told them the truth. I'll have to find sothing between the full truth and a lie, which is harder than it sounds."
"And I'll be at the Burrow with Ron," Harry added. "Sirius is taking to Diagon Alley next week to get my school supplies early, and he ntioned maybe doing so traveling together later in the sumr. Nothing's specific yet. He just said he wanted to show places."
"That sounds excellent," Adrian said sincerely. "You all deserve a peaceful sumr after the year you've had."
"What about you, Professor?" Hermione asked, leaning forward with evident curiosity. "Will you be coming back next year? To teach?"
It was the question Adrian had been avoiding answering, even to himself. Not because he didn't have thoughts about it, he had too many thoughts about it, all of them pulling in slightly different directions but because committing the answer to words felt like it would make it irreversible before he was ready.
He looked at the three of them, these students he'd co to care about, these young people he'd fought to protect, and realized he owed them honesty rather than deflection.
"I don't know yet," he admitted. "There are things I need to figure out. My sister's continued recovery, what it ans to be changed in the way I've been changed." He paused, trying to find the words for sothing he hadn't quite spoken yet, even to himself. "Teaching here this year was more than I expected it to be. I wasn't prepared for that, and I'm still working out what to do with it."
"You'd better co back," Ron said with uncharacteristic seriousness. "You're one of the good ones."
"If you do co back," Hermione added, more practically, "I intend to take every advanced course you offer. I've already looked at what the N.E.W.T. curriculum could include if you expanded it. I may have written so notes."
"Of course you have," Ron said.
"They're very organized notes," Hermione said, not defensively at all.
They talked for a while longer about smaller things—sumr plans, O.W.L. results (Hermione had done brilliantly, as expected; Ron had done better than he'd feared, which was perhaps equally important), Ron's ongoing campaign to convince his mother that he needed the newest Cleansweep broomstick on the market.
Eventually, they rose to leave, and Adrian walked them to the door of his office.
"Goodbye, Professor Westeros," Hermione said and then, surprising them both, she stepped forward and hugged him fiercely. "Thank you for everything. For teaching us, for protecting us."
"Take care of yourselves," Adrian said, returning the hug briefly before stepping back. "All three of you." He waited until Harry t his eyes. "And Harry—you're free now. Don't forget to enjoy it."
Harry nodded, his expression complex but ultimately hopeful.
Ron stuck out his hand for a firm, decisive handshake.
After they left, Adrian stood in his doorway for a mont, listening to their voices fade down the corridor until they turned a corner and the sound disappeared into the ordinary noise of the castle.
He stood there a mont longer, even after the quiet returned.
Whatever he decided about next year, he knew he'd made the right choices this year.
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