17Summary: Harry Potter, the saviour of Light, finds himself balancing somewhere between what he is and what he should be. The good thing about hitting the rock bottom is that the only way is up. And if he has to drag Draco Malfoy with him on his way up, well, then he will.
Disclaimer: I write fanfiction, which quite clearly implies that nothing here is mine and I make no money.
Warnings: there will probably be slash, somewhat dark themes due to war and all that, a possibility of crude language and a high chance of stupid fluff because I can't seem to help myself. Also, lots of spelling and grammar mistakes since my proof-reading skills are atrocious. Sorry about that.
A/N: This is something I've been using to fend off writer's block every now and then. Since this story has been written purely for my own personal entertainment, don't expect a literary masterpiece here. This first part is complete and I've stared a few of the others, but updates will be very slow, because this fic is no way a priority. In Death, Standby remains my main interest and this one I will write whenever I feel like it. If the title didn't tip you off, there will be approximately 5 (short) chapters in total.
Other than that,
Enjoy!
…o0o…
Four And Half Seasons
Part I
Summer 1998
…o0o…
When Harry Potter lives, he does so with every inch of his being. He loves with his whole heart and fights with his entire soul.
When Harry Potter dies, he does so with silent acceptance because that is the honourable thing to do.
But the world is a cold-hearted bastard and nothing is enough to satisfy its hunger for irony. So, Harry keeps on living and Voldemort dies instead.
Harry doesn't quite know what to do after that.
...
Uncertain weeks follow the Battle of Hogwarts.
Everyone is grieving and no one is quite sure if celebrating is appropriate. Relief is allowed, but even then it is present only in careful, barely-there smiles. The Ministry tries to rearrange itself; families attempt to move on with what little they have left; people are desperate to pull themselves together and to move onwards, leaving the sadness and desperation behind.
Harry stands in the middle of it all, awkward and uncomfortable like the teenager he is, while people look up to him with wonder in their eyes. No one seems to understand that Harry just didn't die and everything else that happened was nothing but a great string of accidents and freak coincidences. No one understands anything, least of all Harry himself.
"I hope you know, Mr. Potter," says Professor—no, she's the Headmistress now—McGonagall only hours after the Battle, "That my door is always open."
Harry forces on a slightly deranged smile and assures that everything will be fine. He will be fine. The entire world will be just fine. Fine, fine, fine, he repeats the word like a broken record, until McGonagall starts to look even more concerned. He flees her office as soon as excuses come to him.
"Should you ever wish to lift the veil of mystery on these tragic times, Mr. Potter," says the journalist from the Daily Prophet and fixes on an appropriately emphatic expression, "We will always have time to hear your side of the story." And despite everything, Harry doesn't punch the reporter in his sleazy face. Barely.
"Harry, you know, you can come to me anytime, don't you?" Hermione reminds him, as sadness and worry twist her features. They both know that Harry will never take her up on her offer, but neither of them addresses that invisible wall that stands there right between them.
"Mate. . . I just. . . You know," Ron mumbles and shrugs. Of course Harry understands, but he doesn't reply, because in the end Ron understands, too.
Talk, talk, talk, it's all that people seem to be expecting from him now. But Harry doesn't want to talk. He wants to scream and break things and curl into himself afterwards and just forget. That is what he wants and eventually he decides that it is what he deserves.
And so, Harry disappears.
He withdraws into the Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, lies on the dusty sitting room floor for two days and stares at the ceiling. On the third day, Kreatcher tells him to move and smears dust around with a filthy mop for a while. Harry doesn't know what to do with himself during this unexpected interruption, so he merely lurks nearby. When the house elf is done, he nods his head curtly; a strange pop of its wobbly head. It is a clear permission for Harry to continue whatever it was he had been doing before.
All Harry can do then is laugh. He laughs until he cries and then he keels over back onto the floor and laughs some more.
It takes a few more hours, but eventually the mirth and the soul-deep desperation subside. Harry gets up slowly and asks Kreacher for some tea.
...
The problem is that, in the very end, the world is still the same but Harry himself is something different.
He has served his purpose. Most of the time he feels like he's living on borrowed time and the rest of the time he wonders if he's living at all. All the waiting is driving him insane, especially since he has no idea what he's waiting for. Time passes unbearably slowly when there's nothing to do and no reason to run anymore.
"Don't run from , run to ," says wisely the Black woman dressed in scarlet silks and enclosed in golden frames. Judging by her attire, she probably never ran in her life when she still lived, so she certainly should be giving such advice in her death. When Harry flips her the bird, another painting begins to fling Harry insults he has never heard before. They seem as bored as Harry feels, so Harry doesn't mind.
Everything falls into a strange balance, where Harry haunts the abandoned house so long that it is no longer abandoned and but the signs of life slowly spread through time and dust and memories. Eventually the paintings, the last remnants of the Blacks, accept his presence and Harry becomes one of theirs. The thousand eyes are ever watchful, but not so much judging anymore.
When Mrs. Black moves on from constant screaming to sharp words and deep sneers, Harry knows he's very far gone. Thus, he hides in the dusky silence of Number Twelve and counts the seconds, minutes, hours, and days ticking away.
...
It's mid-June when he remembers the Dursleys.
When Harry arranges their return to their home and is there to welcome them, too, he isn't naive enough to expect gratitude. His uncle shoots him one cold look and shoves past Harry into the house, as if Harry weren't even standing there on the front steps of Number Four Privet Drive. His aunt, however, stops to give him a slow, searching look, before her lips tighten into a stern line.
"So, you live," Aunt Petunia says, no emotion entering her tone.
Harry offers her a wry little smile. "That's what I do."
His aunt's lips purse with displeasure, but she offers a stiff nod of acknowledgement. She picks up a box full of her personal items, before stands up tall and sure and says, "After this day, I never want to see you on our doorstep again."
"And you won't," Harry promises wholeheartedly. He helps his aunt carry the boxes and bags into the house, because it seems like the thing to do. Aunt Petunia doesn't as much as glance at him again, but Harry can't bring himself to care. Instead he grasps greedily that small sign of normality and allows himself to bask in it for the brief while.
When Harry stands outside of his relatives' house for the last time and stares at the familiar silhouette of the house, he doesn't feel anything at all. If it was a wish for closure that brought him here, then he will leave empty-handed. Under Harry's gaze, the front door cracks open and Dudley steps through into the yard. He digs through his pocket for a moment, brings out a cigarette and lights it.
"That's an awful habit," Harry tells him.
His cousin grunts a noncommittal answer and draws the smoke in.
"So, um," Dudley begins, more hesitant and awkward than Harry has ever seen him before, "What happened to that. . . bad guy?"
"I killed him," Harry tells simply. It feels strange to say the words aloud; somehow they make it more final.
"Oh, that's good," Dudley replies and nods a little. "Are you alright? You look a little. . ." He makes a vague wave with his left hand.
"Yes, well, he killed me first," Harry tells and takes pleasure in the flash of horror on Dudley's face when the information sinks.
Dudley stammers for a moment. "Erm, well, I'm glad you're better now?" he manages to force out, eventually.
Harry glances at him. "Yeah, me too," he mutters bitterly.
They spend the next few minutes in silence, Dudley smoking and Harry just standing there, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
"Well, see you around then," Dudley says finally, when he's done and nods at Harry before he disappears into the house again.
Harry stares after him for a second, before smiles a little, a relieved little grin.
"No, you won't," Harry says and Disapparates.
...
Eventually Harry comes to think of Grimmauld Place as something more than just an old house.
One day he notices that he always drinks his tea from the same mug, simply because it's his favourite. The soft nook of the sitting room sofa becomes his favourite spot, because it's close enough to the fireplace to fight of the eternal chill of the house and slightly more comfortable than the antique chairs. After some time, he doesn't have to rummage through all the cupboards in the kitchen, but he starts to find what he is looking for without even thinking about it. He picks up the habit of drawing images into the dust that covers the windows in the second floor hallway.
He settles into one of the upstairs bedrooms. He doesn't spend much time there, only sleeps there when he feels up to it, and yet, somehow his stuff migrates from his trunk and spreads haphazardly around the room without him noticing. There are his few school books, tossed all around the desk in front of the window. The invisibility cloak lies on a chair next to it. His clothes are sewn across the floor. Whenever Kreacher sees it fit to put them away into the wardrobe, Harry can never find them.
It might not be perfect, but it something to call both: his and home.
After all, he has nowhere else to go, so it seems only reasonable.
...
In the beginning of July Hermione and Ron leave for Australia.
Hermione is determined to find her parents, whereas Ron is determined not to let her out of his sight for that long. They are young and hopelessly in love. Just being in the same room with them feels like intruding on something intimate and private. Therefore, when they ask Harry to tag along to wherever they are going, her refuses politely. He is a nice friend like that.
"You'll be alright, won't you Harry?" Hermione asks the night before they are due to depart.
Harry offers a reassuring smile that he has honed to near perfection and says, "Of course I will."
She doesn't look particularly reassured; a slight frown still mars her brow.
"Promise me you won't lock yourself up to that awful house for all summer," she demands and gives Harry such a concerned look that he can't help but feel guilty. She worries, he knows, and she knows him too well to buy his excuses.
"I won't," he promises and can't even tell if it's a lie or not.
"Yeah, mate. If you don't watch it, you'll end up like Kreacher," Ron says and grins. "Just imagine the headlines."
Harry laughs along with him, but even to his own ears that laugh sounds hollow and deranged.
They eat dinner together that night and pretend that everything between them is like it once was. They are three friends in a childishly simple and easy friendship, nothing more and nothing less. They joke and laugh like teenagers they are, but underneath it all they are still three war veterans, solemn and worn out by death and darkness and destruction. Voldemort's ghost sits at the table with them, silent and daunting, but just for tonight they are happy to ignore it.
The next day they are gone off to Australia.
Harry remains right where he is, stagnant, stuck in the past.
...
When Harry receives an unwelcome letter from the Ministry, he almost leaves it unopened. It sits on the sitting room table for three days, before Harry reluctantly reaches for it and cracks the seal open. One glance and Harry can already tell that it is an invitation of some kind and he is already walking towards the fireplace, ready to burn the wretched thing, before he actually begins to understand the words that stand on the parchment.
A memorial to the fallen, the letter says, and Harry's heart aches. When his knees give out, there's an uncomfortable dusty armchair to catch him. He sits there for good ten minutes, head buried in his hands and harsh breaths tearing at his throat. Then he reads it again.
His reply is simple enough.
I'll be there.
-H.P.
...
It's a complete disaster of course. Too many people are squeezed into the small square on the Diagon Alley and they swarm and hover like a sea of restless flesh. Harry stands in the middle of it and something alarmingly close to panic strangles at his throat. After weeks of being surrounded by paintings alone, these masses of real, living people are just too loud and too alive for him to handle. His hands shake, but he hides it by stuffing them in his pockets.
He shoots a look at the Minister who's standing next to him.
"Pretty good turn up, isn't it?" Harry says and can't quite hide the nervous waver in his tone.
"Are you up to this?" Kingsley asks as his large hand settles comfortingly onto Harry's shoulder. "We will not force you to speak, if you do not want to."
Harry draws in a ragged breath, but nods anyway. "I can do this."
When he steps onto the little stage in front of the memorial that has yet to be revealed and looks upon the expectant faces before him, he isn't so sure anymore. He digs out the small slip of paper from his pocket and stares at the words written there in his wonky handwriting. They seem so insufficient now. He rips up the paper and tosses the pieces into the wind. An awkward shuffle runs through the audience, but Harry ignores it.
"I wrote some pretty words about loss," he says, "Meaningless words about what is true grief."
He says, "But I think you are the last people I need to lecture about grief and loss. You already know all about them or you wouldn't be here today."
He stops to take a look over his shoulder at the memorial and nods a little at the person in charge of it. The white cover falls off to reveal a simple and elegant marble stone. Onto its surface are carved the names of the fallen. Harry sighs a little; relieved. He had feared that the Ministry would go for something ostentatious and ridiculous, and both of those things were something the wizarding world definitely didn't need in times like these.
Harry turns back to his audience and speaks, "Somewhere upon this ridiculous rock there are actually important names. All these people were important to someone. They were our family, friends, loved ones, old school mates, co-workers… Each of these names has a story; who they were, what they did, who loved them, what they dreamt about.
"Voldemort's only dream was immortality. In a way he succeeded, because after all the terror and pain and grief he caused we will probably never forget about him. The only thing we can do now is to make sure that those who fought him will be just as immortal. We can remember, not just the end but the rest of their story, too."
He doesn't know what more to say, so he stops there and steps aside. A moment of silence passes, before some starts clapping slowly and hesitantly. It isn't an impressed applause that follows, but one that's full of silent sadness and understanding.
Harry feels sick to his core at how utterly trivial and pretentious this all seems. All these people have faced with death and grief, and here Harry stands throwing empty words and lies in their faces. Harry doesn't want to remember. More than anything he wants to forget.
Kingsley slaps a hand onto Harry's shoulder in passing, when he takes his turn on the stage. It takes some effort, but in the end Harry doesn't throw up on his shiny shoes.
...
Harry stands in front of the memorial and stares at the names. So many of them rang familiar in his mind, but even more of them are unknown to him. Strangers, all of them are dead, because Harry couldn't stop Voldemort sooner.
A gentle hand touches his shoulder and Harry startles nearly violently. He looks over his shoulder into the face of Andromeda Tonks.
"You spoke beautifully," she says and offers a ghost of a smile. In her arms, young Teddy Lupin gurgles an agreement and reaches for Harry's glasses with a wavering, aimless hand.
Harry has to tear his eyes away, because the sight of the child makes him nauseous with grief. "Thank you," he rasps out.
He takes a few calming breaths, before he turns to look at Andromeda again. "If there is anything at all you ever need when taking care of him, come to me, alright? I will do my best to help in any way," he says sincerely and forces himself to glance at Teddy's innocent round face again. Teddy blinks once and his eyes bleed from brown to startling cerulean blue. And iron hand crushes Harry's heart and suddenly it's hard to breathe.
"Thank you," Andromeda says in turn and nods slightly. Then her eyes wander over Harry's shoulder onto the memorial and lock upon a name there. She reaches out with a shaking hand and runs her fingers over the name of Nymphadora Tonks. Harry glances at her from the corner of his eye and Andromeda looks right back. Her face is vacant, eyes empty. The resemblance to Bellatrix is tantalising and absolutely horrifying.
"Whether we won or lost, everything has gone to hell anyway," she says. She cradles young Teddy Lupin tighter in her arms—as if that simple gesture would be enough to protect the child from all of it—and walks away without another word or backwards glance.
Harry stares after her and her words ring hard and true in his ears.
...
Eventually Harry goes to Ginny. Of course he does.
She is the last ray of sunshine left from the time when Harry still remembered how to live. She is the last memory Harry has of the time when everything was better. Back then Harry loved her, or at least thought he did. Back then she was hope in the form of flesh and blood and happy smiles.
"Ginny," he says to her, desperate and pleading. A plea for help, for any kind of guidance she can offer.
"Harry," she replies curtly and the memory of her, the weak dream of hope, cracks like a crystal ball hit with a shattering charm.
She is not the girl Harry remembers. Before him stands a woman who has seen the War just as close as he has. She has grown harder and colder. Her optimism, that used to move mountains, has faded into calm realism. She is no longer hope, a dream, but reality and a very steady truth . Harry isn't sure he's ready for the reality, when just processing the past seems to take everything he has.
"How've you been?" Harry forces himself to ask, even though there's barely enough breath left in his body to form the words.
"I'm fine. You?"
"Yes, I'm fine, too."
And again everything is fine, fine, fine, when nothing is and never will be. She offers a shade of her old smile and understands. She understands but can't fix it because she doesn't have the answers Harry is looking for. So, Harry leaves and he is now missing something he still had when he arrived.
It might very well be the last shard of his broken soul, Harry concludes and thinks of Voldemort.
...
And so, when everything else has failed, Harry does the first and last thing he can think of and searches for Voldemort.
Perhaps he is mad. Not just a little bit mad, like most people seem to be, but godforsaken batshit insane.
When he arrives at the Ministry, gazes follow after him, hesitant greetings and endless questions run from each pair of lips. It seems that everyone pauses in the middle of their daily life just to stare how Harry Potter walks through the Atrium. Harry hurries his steps until he is at half run; his only desire is to leave as soon as possible.
He makes his way directly to the Minister's office, stopping outside the room to be greeted by a bored looking young wizard.
"Do you have an appointment?" the young wizard drawls and Harry stops to stare.
"No," he admits.
"You can request an appointment either by a letter two weeks in advance or if your business is urgent—"
Harry cuts him short before he makes it to the end, "It's about Voldemort."
It's like killing flies with the Killing Curse, ostentatious and utterly unnecessary, yet oddly effective. The young man freezes, draws in a couple of sharp breaths and then stammers over incomplete sentences. It is almost like Harry just punched him in the face and the young assistant can't quite figure out how or why that came to pass.
"I would like to see the Minister now," Harry tells him, pretending confidence he doesn't feel.
"I. . . Well. . . Of course. . ." the man tries and makes helpless gestures with his hands.
Harry sighs and firmly tells him to sit down. Then without further ado, he opens the door and steps into the Minister's office. Kingsley sits behind the desk, skimming over stacked piles of documents. When he looks up, there is a flash of surprise that quickly fades into polite interest.
"Ah, Mr. Potter," he says, nodding at the chair opposite from him, "I cannot say I was expecting you, but the surprise is most pleasant."
"I have to find Voldemort," Harry tells the Minister of Magic, without bothering to sit down.
Minister Shacklebolt freezes on his chair, a frozen mask of confusion and poorly hidden worry taking over his face.
"Harry," he starts, carefully placing his quill on the table and clearly weighing his words, "I do not know where this is coming from, but You-Know. . . Vol. . . Voldemort is very much dead."
Harry scoffs. "I know that much. I'm not yet quite mad enough to think otherwise."
Kingsley looks oddly relieved for a moment, before he asks, "Then what do you mean?"
"His remains. I know none of you knew what to do with them," Harry says, firm and certain in his decision. "I can take care of that."
Kingsley stares at him for a while, wordlessly, concern evident on his face. He carefully looks over Harry before he speaks and even then the words are reluctant.
"Harry," Minister Shacklebolt sighs and looks at him gravely, "You don't have to do this. You have done more than your part and no one would ask this of you."
Harry thinks about it for a while. When he speaks, all he says is, "I think this is something I have to do for myself."
Kingsley hesitates, before nods barely notably. "So be it."
...
In the attic of Number Twelve Harry finds a small silver chest decorated with green stones. In that box he secures the ashes of the Dark Lord Voldemort and then he takes that chest and everything in it—and everything not in it, but yet somehow attached—to the only possible place he could take them.
Hogwarts still lays in sizzling ruins for most parts, but it seems to be slowly reconstructing itself, stone by stone, tile by tile. When Harry walks through the familiar hallways and under high reaching arches, no one is there to stop him. No living being appears to be present, no ghost floats past. Painted eyes follow his journey through the castle, but even the portraits remain silent.
He finds Myrtle in the first-floor girls' bathroom. She sits on one of the sinks and seems to be frowning at the shattered windows on the opposite wall. When Harry arrives she turns to look, but doesn't say anything. Harry stares back and wonders what to say.
"What have you got there?" she asks finally with her high, shrill voice and cocks her head to one side curiously. "The castle seems wary."
Harry lowers his eyes to the silver chest. "It's. . ." He doesn't finish, merely shrugs hopelessly.
"Why did you bring it here?" Myrtle asks and floats closer.
"It seemed like the right place."
"Here?" Myrtle asks and glances around at the leaking pipes and gurgling sinks.
"No. Down there," Harry says and nods towards the one sink that matters now, in the end, the beginning.
"Oh," Myrtle says and purses her ghostly lips.
Harry draws in a breath; lets it out as a heavy sigh. "Myrtle, do you know why you died?"
Myrtle blinks, surprised. "I died because. . . the eyes were there. I told you once."
"I mean, why not how ."
Myrtle turns around, floats back and forth restlessly and wrings her hands. "They say the Chamber was opened. And I died because of that. I don't really know if it was true or not."
"It was opened, and in this box I have what's left of the one who opened it. Myrtle, your murderer is dead," Harry tells. He isn't sure why he feels the need to explain this, why he wants Myrtle to understand.
Myrtle looks at him and tilts her head, considering. When she speaks, her voice is meek. "I wish he had lived. It feels like he is somehow closer now."
Harry doesn't have a response to that.
He leaves her without another word, but then again, she seems equally unwilling to continue.
Harry makes his way down to the Chamber, into its eternal clammy chilliness. He rips a hole into the floor with magic and places the silver urn there, before sets the stone tiles back. It doesn't look like a remarkable grave, but just being buried in the Chamber of Secrets is probably more than Voldemort deserves.
Harry crouches down and runs his fingertips across the cool stones. He presses the tip of his wand against the grey stone floor and carves in the words:
Here lies
Tom Marvolo Riddle
The Last Heir of Slytherin
It's a childish jibe to use his real name, but it seems somehow appropriate in Harry's opinion. He stands there for a moment, wondering if he should say something, make some kind of a gesture or just leave and never return. Instead, he crouches down once more and adds carefully, hesitantly, the words:
May Death offer his soul peace Life never could.
When he walks away, he takes care not to look back. He is leaving, never to return, but somehow it feels like he is leaving something behind too. It is almost as if buried in that cold, shallow grave there is some tiny part of Harry, too.
No matter how hard Harry tries to shake the unwelcome thought, it hounds after him even when Hogwarts' halls change into the dark corridors of his home.
"I'm a fucking wreck," Harry whispers into the silence of the Number Twelve.
Mrs. Black sneers down at him and agrees.
...
Then, when Harry has all but given up, the wind brings him an owl and that owl carries a letter. Out of all the unlikely people who might write to him Mr. Ollivander is the last, but it is his curiously messy signature that stands at the bottom of the letter. Harry reads it, twice, before sets it down with shaking hands and the future stretches before him with peculiar, unexpected clarity.
When Harry writes a response, it consists of a single word.
Alright.
…o0o…
-tbc-
…o0o…
