-+- Is the past ever really behind us? -+- [for cropcircles]

“Mr. Potter! Mr. Potter! Do you have time to answer a few questions for the Prophet?”

It was the same every day, but ignoring reporters was getting harder and hard to do recently. They were so persistent! He could hardly get from his small flat to the Ministry anymore without getting swarmed by reporters. What did they have to report about? Nothing bad was going on right now, so why did they have to pester him so early in the morning? One would think he’d be used to it by now, but Harry Potter had never gotten used to the constant publicity. In all actuality he hated it, and so he ignored the reporter as he entered the Ministry in silence.

Harry had thought that after Voldemort was defeated he could have a normal life, sure, there would be a lot of attention on him, but that had been six years ago. Now it was just annoying. The stories were redundant, and mostly about his personal life. It was no wonder that Harry really didn’t go out much or have much of a social life! Not that he could really blame the reporters for all of that. He just wanted some time alone sometimes, but that rarely happened. Harry still enjoyed spending time with his old school mates, but even that didn’t happen as much anymore. Everyone was busy. Life moved on.

He spent most of his time with Ron and Hermione, but a lot of times that would just make him feel like…well, they needed some time to themselves of course. Ginny was still great, but she had a very different view of relationships than he did. She had made it quite clear that an ‘exclusive’ relationship did not work for her. She said he was a bit too ‘clingy’ sometimes. Harry tried not to feel offended by the comment because she didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but he wasn’t really a pro at actual relationships. It had taken him seven years to really trust his friends, so thinking about things like love and marriage were intimidating and made him panic sometimes. He either excluded himself from people or he clung to them…There wasn’t a lot of grey area for him. He also understood that Ginny was not going to be around a lot. She was playing quidditch for the Holyhead Harpies now, so that took a lot of her time and she loved to go to team events and parties. That meant that she wanted things to be a bit more flexible in their relationship so she wouldn’t feel so guilty. Anyways, that’s the conclusion that Harry had come to a while back. Slowly but surely, he was getting used to that sort of relationship.

To be honest he was sort of jealous of Ginny’s freedom, and especially of her being able to play quidditch for a living. He had been tempted to try out for a team, but that had been stopped quickly as the Ministry had expressed greater interest in him. In school he had wanted to be an auror, and that was what he did now. However, that was no longer such a great thing. He was getting tired. He’d spent more than half of his life fighting bad guys, and it was wearing him out. He knew the Ministry wanted him to work for them mostly to keep up appearances. Apparently it made people feel safer knowing that their ‘savior’ was still keeping watch over their safety.

Harry Potter was getting burnt out, and it was starting to show more. Not that he was letting himself go, but he really didn’t focus so much on his appearances. Well, he hadn’t done much to begin with, but he was not going to change his style to fit what others wanted him to look like. His hair still looked so messy that some wondered if Harry owned a comb, and some were really wondering if that was really just how his hair laid on his head. He did keep his face clean shaven, but only because he was not one who could grow facial hair in a good way…It sort of grew in patches: Not attractive at all. His clothes always looked like they were too big for him, but Harry had tried to get used to clothes that actually fit. However, after so many years of wearing Dudley’s hand-me-downs he didn’t find clothing in his size to be comfortable. Harry still wore his same old circular rimmed glasses that still fit his persona, but he was seriously considering finding an alternative to his glasses as they tended to be such a hassle when he was on Ministry business. Even though Harry was technically unhappy, that didn’t mean he was going to do anything to really change it. He convinced himself that he was content enough. If things changed, they changed. If things stayed the same, then he’d live with it.

Walking through the Ministry early in the morning was sort of nice as it wasn’t overly busy, so he could get to his office quickly before getting bothered by too many people who just wanted to talk to him. Harry was never one to brush someone off who just wanted to have a regular conversation, but he had learned that those reporters were starting to learn how to blend in with just ‘regular’ people. Now he wasn’t sure who was trying to just be nice and who was trying to get a story on him.

He strode down the dark, tile floor hallway to the elevator which took him a short distance to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He picked up his messages from Barbara the head secretary of the department, then sighed as he finally managed to sit down behind his desk in his small office. The desk looked to be about as haphazard as Harry’s hairstyle. It was littered with various paperwork, most likely some reports that were never going to be turned in, and old articles from the Prophet that had actually been somewhat interesting or part of an old mission. Why did he feel so exhausted already when it was only nine o’clock in the morning and his day hadn’t really started yet? “Maybe nothing will happen today…” Perhaps he could just hide in his office, and no one would bother him…Not likely to happen, but even Harry Potter could go one day without needing to be somewhere, right?