You're Not a Horse, Harry!

Number 34

It was rather remarkable how easy life became at Hogwarts for Harry now that both Voldemort and Dumbledore were gone. Even the Ministry stopped slandering Harry at every turn, which meant that a large part of the students who'd been shunning him that year also seemed to lose interest in Harry's comings and goings.

In fact, Harry couldn't recall ever having felt so at peace before, not just in Hogwarts, but in general. Harry attended classes, spent time with his friends, went to meet Jor every morning, chatted with his parents on his phone, texted with Bucky and Clint and Tony and he enjoyed playing Quidditch again after the previous year's hiatus.

Dumbledore's sudden demise and Snape's arrest had caused quite a bit of chaos for the remaining staff. Potions classes were cancelled for a whole week until a man named Horace Slughorn took over teaching Harry's least favourite subject. Slughorn was nice enough, certainly a sight better than Snape, but he kept inviting Harry to dinner parties which Harry kept expertly evading.

McGonagall became the new headmistress, but since she couldn't find a replacement on such short notice she still kept teaching Transfiguration. At least Flitwick took over her responsibilities as Deputy Headmaster.

As it turned out, McGonagall also kept her job as Head of Gryffindor House for the time being, until a suitable replacement for that role could be found. Harry didn't realize this until one evening in February when McGonagall showed up in the common room, something she rarely did.

"Since I am still your Head of House and I know you best," McGonagall said as she stood in front of the fireplace, "I shall be having private meetings with all fifth year students to discuss your choices of NEWT classes and to give you career advice. The times for each individual meeting are posted on the announcement board." And with that, McGonagall turned around and marched straight back out of the common room again, looking more than a bit harried.

"We're still going to become Aurors, right?" Ron asked as he gave Harry a hopeful look.

"Er..." Harry's throat was suddenly bone-dry and he swallowed a few times before he could speak again. "I'm not sure, actually."

"What do you mean?" Ron leaned forwards in his seat as he stared at Harry with narrowed eyes. "We agreed to that last year, remember?"

"Last year I didn't know I had a family," Harry said with a helpless shrug. "Who all live in New York."

"You want to move to America after your NEWTs?" Hermione asked, sounding just as shocked as Ron looked.

"Well, yeah." Harry looked between his best friends, willing them to understand how important this was for him. "I like living with my family and I'm sure Tony will give me my own suite once I'm an adult, so I don't have to keep living with my parents."

"But what will you do for a living?" Hermione asked while Ron kept opening and closing his mouth without saying a word.

"Dunno." Harry had ideas but he'd yet to discuss those with the relevant people. He was still only fifteen. He didn't have to decide on the rest of his life right there and then. "I've got time to choose something."

Huffing, Hermione shook her head. "It's important that you at least have some idea what you want to do, Harry. How else will you pick your NEWT classes?"

What did NEWTs matter when Harry had his mother to teach him all the magic he wanted? Not to mention his grandmother and his brother were also instructing him on specific branches of magic, things one couldn't even learn in the wizarding world.

Fuck, the more Harry thought about it, the more he realized that his future wasn't in the wizarding world at all.

Technically he wasn't even a wizard. He wasn't even human. He was a mix of Jotun and Aesir, able to perform magic witches and wizard could only dream of. Well, once he'd studied and learned those kinds of magic, of course. But the point was that Harry didn't even really belong in the wizarding world, no matter that he loved it and enjoyed spending time in it.