THE BOY WHO LIVES (R) BY IAMSHADOW
Title: The Boy Who Lives
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Gen, Harry-centric, with mentions of post-DH canon pairings.
Word Count: 3,211
Rating: R
Warnings: EWE. Angst. Violence. Self-harm and attempted suicide.
Summary: Harry comes to realise the repercussions of an important decision.
A/N: Okay, this one's grim. It's grim, and bloody, and unrelenting. It's almost entirely Harry, with occasional mentions of others, and the timespan is sparse and long. Consider yourself warned, because this is Angst with a capital A, and probably EVEN merits an all-capitals ANGST warning.
Oh, and please excuse the excessiveness of *THREE* DH excerpts at the beginning. I had to put all three in, because I felt they were all necessary.
'Those of us who understand these matters, however, recognise that the ancient story refers to three objects, or Hallows, which, if united, will make the possessor master of Death.'
...'When you say "master of Death"-' said Ron.
'Master,' said Xenophilius, waving an airy hand. 'Conqueror. Vanquisher. Whichever term you prefer.'
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 21
~~~
'Well, where do you think we are?' asked Harry, a little defensively.
'My dear boy, I have no idea. This is, as they say, your party.'
Harry had no idea what this meant; Dumbledore was being infuriating. He glared at him then remembered a much more pressing question than that of their current location.
'The Deathly Hallows,' he said, and he was glad to see that the words wiped the smile from Dumbledore's face.
'Ah, yes,' he said. He even looked a little worried.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 35
~~~
'I've got to go back, haven't I?'
'That is up to you.'
'I've got a choice?'
'Oh yes.' Dumbledore smiled at him. 'We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to...let's say...board a train.'
'And where would it take me?'
'On,' said Dumbledore simply.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 35
***
The morning after was the first sign, though he was not to know its import for many years.
Madam Pomfrey’s wand drifted over his body slowly, before her mouth firmed into a line and she met his gaze, her eyes unreadable.
“You can go, Potter. You’re fine.”
And she was right. After he washed off the crusted filth of mud and sweat and other people’s blood, he saw for himself. His skin was unmarked, without a single scratch or bruise marring its whiteness.
***
There were other, smaller signs after the first, but they went unnoticed, unremarked upon, and he blinded himself to their significance. But then there came the day when he could no longer ignore them.
The raid on Knockturn Alley had gone as smoothly as could have been expected, until they broke open the door of an apothecary. Momentarily disoriented by the gloom, Harry had stood, outlined in the open doorway as a harsh voice shouted, “Avada Kedavra!”
He had felt the spell brush past him like an icy gust of wind and responded with a Body-Bind, neatly capturing his attacker.
“You’re alive,” murmured Ron, who stood behind him, pale and shocked, his wand held loosely in limp fingers.
“Of course I’m alive!” retorted Harry. “Ron, he missed.”
Ron shook his head. “No. No he didn’t.”
And reached out to touch the fist sized patch over Harry’s heart on his Auror’s robes where the repulsed curse had charred the fabric black as coal.
***
“Did you know this would happen?” Harry demanded.
Dumbledore’s portrait looked down at its steepled fingers, rather than into Harry’s eyes. “It was a possibility, given the legends surrounding the Hallows.”
“Well, I don’t want it,” Harry said, the words sounding childish and petulant, masking the terror behind them.
“I fear there may be nothing to be done about it,” Dumbledore replied, a mixture of shame and regret written on his face. “The Hallows gave you a choice, when you stood on the threshold of Death.”
A chill washed through Harry and he barely heard the end of the sentence, though he knew every word was being engraved on his heart.
“And you chose life.”
***
He tried to deny it to himself. He went about his life, smiling, joking, working.
Ron was his best man when he married Ginny, and he was Ron’s best man when Ron married Hermione.
And if the day at Knockturn Alley had caused an uncertainty, a distance to enter their friendship, they never spoke of it.
***
The mood amongst the Aurors towards him changed so gradually, he wasn’t aware how deeply things had festered until he walked in one morning and the room snapped and crackled with resentment.
He dropped his Muggle-style briefcase on his desk, and asked one of his hostile observers what was happening.
“Doughty got hurt last night,” Ellis informed him, aggression oozing from every pore.
“Is he going to be alright?” Harry asked, keeping his voice level.
“No,” Ellis said curtly. “He lost a hand, and he’s blind in one eye. Nothing the Healers can do about it.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Harry said sincerely. He meant it. Doughty was a decent man, and a good Auror.
“It should have been you,” Ellis said bluntly, and there was a murmur of agreement from one or two others nearby. “It was your mission.”
“It was my wedding anniversary,” Harry said quietly. “Doughty offered, I didn’t ask him to take it for me.”
“He’s got a wife and two little girls,” snarled Ellis. “Now he’s a cripple on a pension, without enough money to pay for the prosthesis. It should have been you out there, getting blown up. You’re the wonder kid. You’re the one who can’t die.”
Harry’s head snapped up at this.
“What, you thought we wouldn’t notice?” Ellis sneered. “You shrug off the Killing Curse; you get cut to ribbons and heal within hours without magic. And you’ve been in the Department for six years, and you still look like a bloody school kid. Your mate Weasley over here looks twenty-five, but you don’t look a day over seventeen.”
Harry glanced at Ron, only to discover his ‘mate’ staring determinedly off at some point well away from Harry. He’d known this was coming, and he looked guilty. Good.
Harry handed in his resignation that afternoon. It wasn’t like he needed the money, after all.
He stopped in at Gringotts on the way home and arranged an anonymous transfer of a large sum of Galleons to Doughty’s account. It would be more than enough for the artificial hand, and if he lived frugally, it would keep his family comfortable for the rest of his life.
***
Ginny curled up on the far side of the bed, and moved away from his touch.
“I’ve got my period again,” she informed him, her voice cold.
They’d been trying, at first casually, then determinedly for the last two years to get pregnant. Their sex life revolved around fertility charts, potions, regimented schedules and conception friendly positions.
Finally, Harry secretly went to a Muggle doctor while Ginny was away reporting on a Quidditch match in Sweden.
“I’m sorry, Mr Potter,” the white coated man informed him in a cool, professional tone, “but it isn’t good news. Our initial tests suggest that your sperm count is low, very low, in fact. You say you and your wife have been attempting to conceive for how long?...Hmmm, well, I’d like to run a few more tests. Blood, to begin with, but I have to be honest with you, Mr Potter,” he admitted, peering piercingly over his spectacles, “It is my opinion that it is highly unlikely that you and your wife will be able to conceive in the usual manner. I’ll give you some brochures…here. IVF is an option many people choose. You can select an anonymous donor, or make arrangements with someone known to you. There’s also adoption, of course. Plenty of alternatives out there for young people like yourselves looking to start a family.”
Harry threw the pamphlets into a bin once he got out onto the street. He never went back for the other tests.
Once Ginny got home, he told her he wanted a divorce.
Her sobs were terrible, broken sounds, but he held firm to his self control. Ginny deserved a family, and he couldn’t give her one.
“Did you ever love me?” she asked, looking up at him, her light brown eyes huge and filled with tears.
Yes, he thought, with all my heart.
“No,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
He left and slept in a hotel that night, taking nothing with him but the clothes on his back, his Invisibility Cloak, his broom and a framed photograph of his wife.
Ron tracked him down a week later and beat him to a pulp. Harry just took it, refusing to allow himself to hit back. He clung to the pain, relished it, revelled in the bruises, even as they changed colour and faded back to pale before his eyes.
***
Pain became an obsession. How much could he take? What could his body repair? How quickly?
He sliced his arm; at first, shallow cuts that healed within moments, but he gradually built up enough courage to progressively deepen the gouges until he exposed tendon and muscle and bone in all their messy glory. He watched through a haze of pain, endorphins and alcohol as the bleeding stopped, the separated muscles twisted and rejoined like cords of rope and his skin closed up seamlessly, without leaving a single scar.
One day he even severed a fingertip, not once, but several times, and observed it being drawn back to the bleeding stump as if by a magnetic pull. He experimented; placing the gruesome fragment of flesh at greater and greater distances from himself.
Finally Harry locked it in a box, where it tapped and knocked for half an hour before falling silent. An unusual tingling sensation made him look down at his mangled finger, and he watched with morbid fascination as a new fingertip slowly grew like a mushroom, complete with a perfect, glossy fingernail.
When he opened the box, it contained nothing but a small pile of an oddly-textured, odourless grey dust.
***
“I’m going to try to reunite the Hallows again,” he told Dumbledore’s portrait. “I asked McGonagall. She said I can live here for a while, if I need to.”
“Headmistress McGonagall,” Dumbledore gently corrected. “And of course, she would make you welcome, if you feel this avenue of exploration will help you.”
“You don’t think it will,” Harry stated. He didn’t need to look up to know Dumbledore was sadly shaking his head.
On the way out of the castle, he pushed roughly past a Ravenclaw prefect, ignoring his indignant squawk.
“Oi, you! What’s your House? Why aren’t you in uniform?”
Harry flipped a rude gesture and kept walking, but smirked when he heard the boy take a wild guess and shout after him, “Five points from Slytherin!”
***
In the end, he didn’t live much in the castle. He spent most of his time out of doors, even in the depths of winter. Frostbite, though excruciating, wasn’t a problem when his fingertips conveniently re-grew themselves.
He criss-crossed the Forest, searching fruitlessly for the Stone that had slipped from his fingers all those years beforehand. The Centaurs tolerated his presence, but offered no help in his quest. Any requests he made for assistance they rebuffed, stating reasons to do with repercussions, impartiality, the position of the stars and planets in the heavens. Harry stopped asking, and the Centaurs let him be. The other creatures kept their distance. The unicorns were shy at the best of times, but the Thestrals avoided Harry, taking to the air in fright if he came too close.
He learned from his self-enforced exile that he could survive without food and water indefinitely, though the lack of it left him irritable and dizzy, and his stomach acidic. He didn’t need it, but he craved it, and the desire for roast meat and potatoes, butterbeer and treacle tart would drive him back to the castle every few weeks, like clockwork. He would sit in the kitchens and allow the House Elves to fuss over him rather than tolerating the Great Hall, where students and teachers alike would stare at the wild boy with his dirty face, ragged clothes and shaggy hair full of mud and leaves.
***
Desperation drove Harry to do what he would previously have considered unthinkable. He truly loathed himself the day he broke Dumbledore’s grave anew and took from his Headmaster’s skeletal hand the Elder Wand.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, as respectfully as he could, before mending the Tomb seamlessly.
Though he hadn’t yet found the Stone, perhaps the Elder Wand could help, somehow.
***
Seasons turned, Harry searched, and the Stone remained elusive. He even ventured into the lair of Aragog’s progeny, just in case they had taken it for themselves, lured by its magical aura.
Nothing.
Once, during one of his rare visits, he thought to ask Dumbledore’s portrait what Nicholas Flamel had done with his nearly seven hundred year-long lifespan, and Dumbledore had kindly told him about his friend’s research and experiments, his passionate love of study and scientific debate.
As a result, Harry found himself spending less and less time in the Forest, and more time tucked away in a carrel towards the back of the Library, poring over ancient tomes. Though he’d never been a scholar, he began keeping neat parchment scrolls of notes, recording interesting facts and spells, archaic knowledge that piqued his curiosity, anything that might help him, somehow. He spoke to no one save Madam Pince’s successor, a grim woman as taciturn as he, who only cared that he returned the books promptly and in good condition.
It was a quiet, tentative kind of solitude that was pleasant enough while it lasted.
***
But there came the day when things changed, of course. When a startled gasp tugged him from his study of a particularly massive volume, poorly translated from some Germanic language.
“Merlin,” the person breathed. “I knew, of course...they said...but I didn’t know...”
Harry looked up at the middle aged man with familiar features and dark hair liberally threaded with silver.
“You look...I wasn’t expecting...” the man continued, his face incredibly pale, his tongue darting out to lick his lips nervously. “You look just the same.”
Harry didn’t say anything. He’d gotten out of the habit of speaking while living in the Forest, and he didn’t see the point in replying to such an abysmally stupid statement.
“You don’t recognise me, do you?” the man assessed correctly, cocking his head, a slight smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “It’s Neville.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “You can’t be,” he said without thinking, his voice scratchy and thin from disuse. “You’re too old.”
Neville laughed good-humouredly, the creases around his mouth and eyes deepening as he smiled with genuine amusement. “I’m forty-five, Harry. I’m hardly ancient.”
Harry felt the blood drain from his face. He felt sick; terribly, terribly sick.
Too many years...he thought wildly. How many years?
“How long?” he forced out.
The stranger who was Neville laid a gentle hand on his arm. “It’s been a long time, mate,” he said softly. “I think a lot of people think you’re dead, or not in Britain anymore. I knew you were here, because of the staff, and the students talk, of course. You’re a bit of a legend of Hogwarts, you know, like a living ghost. I’ve worked here for ten years, and I’ve never seen you.” He shivered delicately. “You gave me quite a turn.”
“I’m sorry, Nev,” Harry said automatically.
“It’s alright,” he said, with a crooked smile, his colour almost back to normal. “It’s just one thing to hear that you haven’t aged, and another to see it for myself.”
***
They walked to the Three Broomsticks and found a private enough table at the back of the room.
“Firewhiskey, please,” Neville asked the unfamiliar landlord. “A bottle and two glasses.”
The man glared sharply at Harry, looking him up and down.
“He’s of age,” Neville said, with an edge in his voice. “Give me some credit, Liam. My wife owns a bloody pub, I know the law.”
That seemed to satisfy him, because he vanished and reappeared promptly with the alcohol, took Neville’s gold and left them to their own devices.
Harry reached reflexively into his pocket to pay Neville back, before realising he had no money. He hadn’t touched so much as a Knut in almost twenty years. To cover his discomposure, he took a large mouthful of Firewhiskey and asked, “You’re married, then?”
They talked, though much of the time was marked by long, comfortable silences. Neville didn’t try to ask Harry questions, and only offered information in small, digestible morsels.
Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley were engaged. Ron and Hermione’s eldest was sitting her NEWTs this year, while Ginny’s eldest was sitting his OWLs next year. Harry didn’t ask who Ginny had married, and Neville didn’t tell him, for which he was grateful. George’s eldest, Fred, turned eleven last week...
When the weight of personal information began to grow overwhelming, Neville tactfully steered the conversation to Quidditch and the latest broom models. It was safe territory in theory, but the changes and differences in both from the time he last followed them with any interest compounded just how far removed he was from the world.
***
The next day, at dawn, he tried to drown himself in the Lake.
He immersed himself slowly in the freezing water, each stride forward sending him deeper, until he stood on the bottom and breathed deeply, inhaling as hard as he could.
It hurt, more painfully than any injury he’d suffered in a long time. But his lungs filled with water, and he didn’t die. He didn’t even go giddy, or choke, or pass out.
Harry wandered about in the forest of weed for several hours, lazily repelling the odd Grindylow with his wand. Though he kept an eye out, he didn’t see a single Merperson or the Giant Squid.
Eventually he got bored and wandered back to the shoreline. There, he wrestled his insanely heavy, clumsy body back onto dry land and vomited murky water for what felt like five minutes before he could breathe again.
***
Self-destruction became Harry’s new goal. He was no longer looking for a Cure, he was looking for an End. The End.
Poisons, he found out soon enough, just made him vomit. Hanging he didn’t even bother with, because if drowning hadn’t worked, then strangulation wouldn’t, and he didn’t fancy dangling until somebody wandered in and cut him down.
Throwing himself from his broom sounded well and good in theory, but waiting for most of his bones to knit and realign themselves, all the while spitting up blood from the punctured lungs, was agonising. It was a good half hour before he could stand. He decided firmly against a second attempt from a greater height.
And even the Killing Curse, cast with the Elder Wand pressed firmly with his temple, and a true, full and pure desire to die, did nothing. He even tried holding his holly and phoenix feather wand in his left hand, and pressing them both to his heart, while he uttered the incantation.
Apparently, against the combined magic of the Hallows, the most powerful wand in the world and the most Unforgivable of Curses was useless.
***
In the end, he did the only remaining thing he could think to do.
Using the Elder Wand and his Cloak, he crept into the Ministry of Magic after hours, and travelled down into the bowels of the building and the Department of Mysteries.
“Point me,” he whispered, in the round room of doors. The Elder Wand spun neatly on his palm, indicating a door to his far left. “Alohomora.”
There it was, the crumbling arch, the tattered Veil. He could hear them, hear the voices calling him, luring him on, and he felt a joy, a wild elation. He knew, as he ran down the stairs, that he was going to be free. Knew, as he climbed up onto the dais, that this would be it, the blessed release.
Harry ran headlong into the Veil and...
...bounced back, sprawling onto the floor.
For a moment or two, he lay there, stunned, his head pounding. Then he crawled over to the archway, and reached out one trembling hand to touch the Veil, which rippled and fluttered as if in a non-existent draught, from behind which the voices murmured louder than ever.
And although the Veil looked insubstantial, against his fingertips it was as hard and unforgiving as stone.
“No!” Harry wailed, pounding his fists against the cloth. “No! Let me in, you fucking thing!”
He threw himself bodily against the inflexible Portal, over and over, his body bruising and healing and bruising again, his torn and broken fingernails mending themselves neatly as he cursed and shouted and begged all the gods and devils he could name for the oblivion of Death.
None heard him.
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Gen, Harry-centric, with mentions of post-DH canon pairings.
Word Count: 3,211
Rating: R
Warnings: EWE. Angst. Violence. Self-harm and attempted suicide.
Summary: Harry comes to realise the repercussions of an important decision.
A/N: Okay, this one's grim. It's grim, and bloody, and unrelenting. It's almost entirely Harry, with occasional mentions of others, and the timespan is sparse and long. Consider yourself warned, because this is Angst with a capital A, and probably EVEN merits an all-capitals ANGST warning.
Oh, and please excuse the excessiveness of *THREE* DH excerpts at the beginning. I had to put all three in, because I felt they were all necessary.
'Those of us who understand these matters, however, recognise that the ancient story refers to three objects, or Hallows, which, if united, will make the possessor master of Death.'
...'When you say "master of Death"-' said Ron.
'Master,' said Xenophilius, waving an airy hand. 'Conqueror. Vanquisher. Whichever term you prefer.'
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 21
~~~
'Well, where do you think we are?' asked Harry, a little defensively.
'My dear boy, I have no idea. This is, as they say, your party.'
Harry had no idea what this meant; Dumbledore was being infuriating. He glared at him then remembered a much more pressing question than that of their current location.
'The Deathly Hallows,' he said, and he was glad to see that the words wiped the smile from Dumbledore's face.
'Ah, yes,' he said. He even looked a little worried.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 35
~~~
'I've got to go back, haven't I?'
'That is up to you.'
'I've got a choice?'
'Oh yes.' Dumbledore smiled at him. 'We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to...let's say...board a train.'
'And where would it take me?'
'On,' said Dumbledore simply.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 35
***
The morning after was the first sign, though he was not to know its import for many years.
Madam Pomfrey’s wand drifted over his body slowly, before her mouth firmed into a line and she met his gaze, her eyes unreadable.
“You can go, Potter. You’re fine.”
And she was right. After he washed off the crusted filth of mud and sweat and other people’s blood, he saw for himself. His skin was unmarked, without a single scratch or bruise marring its whiteness.
***
There were other, smaller signs after the first, but they went unnoticed, unremarked upon, and he blinded himself to their significance. But then there came the day when he could no longer ignore them.
The raid on Knockturn Alley had gone as smoothly as could have been expected, until they broke open the door of an apothecary. Momentarily disoriented by the gloom, Harry had stood, outlined in the open doorway as a harsh voice shouted, “Avada Kedavra!”
He had felt the spell brush past him like an icy gust of wind and responded with a Body-Bind, neatly capturing his attacker.
“You’re alive,” murmured Ron, who stood behind him, pale and shocked, his wand held loosely in limp fingers.
“Of course I’m alive!” retorted Harry. “Ron, he missed.”
Ron shook his head. “No. No he didn’t.”
And reached out to touch the fist sized patch over Harry’s heart on his Auror’s robes where the repulsed curse had charred the fabric black as coal.
***
“Did you know this would happen?” Harry demanded.
Dumbledore’s portrait looked down at its steepled fingers, rather than into Harry’s eyes. “It was a possibility, given the legends surrounding the Hallows.”
“Well, I don’t want it,” Harry said, the words sounding childish and petulant, masking the terror behind them.
“I fear there may be nothing to be done about it,” Dumbledore replied, a mixture of shame and regret written on his face. “The Hallows gave you a choice, when you stood on the threshold of Death.”
A chill washed through Harry and he barely heard the end of the sentence, though he knew every word was being engraved on his heart.
“And you chose life.”
***
He tried to deny it to himself. He went about his life, smiling, joking, working.
Ron was his best man when he married Ginny, and he was Ron’s best man when Ron married Hermione.
And if the day at Knockturn Alley had caused an uncertainty, a distance to enter their friendship, they never spoke of it.
***
The mood amongst the Aurors towards him changed so gradually, he wasn’t aware how deeply things had festered until he walked in one morning and the room snapped and crackled with resentment.
He dropped his Muggle-style briefcase on his desk, and asked one of his hostile observers what was happening.
“Doughty got hurt last night,” Ellis informed him, aggression oozing from every pore.
“Is he going to be alright?” Harry asked, keeping his voice level.
“No,” Ellis said curtly. “He lost a hand, and he’s blind in one eye. Nothing the Healers can do about it.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Harry said sincerely. He meant it. Doughty was a decent man, and a good Auror.
“It should have been you,” Ellis said bluntly, and there was a murmur of agreement from one or two others nearby. “It was your mission.”
“It was my wedding anniversary,” Harry said quietly. “Doughty offered, I didn’t ask him to take it for me.”
“He’s got a wife and two little girls,” snarled Ellis. “Now he’s a cripple on a pension, without enough money to pay for the prosthesis. It should have been you out there, getting blown up. You’re the wonder kid. You’re the one who can’t die.”
Harry’s head snapped up at this.
“What, you thought we wouldn’t notice?” Ellis sneered. “You shrug off the Killing Curse; you get cut to ribbons and heal within hours without magic. And you’ve been in the Department for six years, and you still look like a bloody school kid. Your mate Weasley over here looks twenty-five, but you don’t look a day over seventeen.”
Harry glanced at Ron, only to discover his ‘mate’ staring determinedly off at some point well away from Harry. He’d known this was coming, and he looked guilty. Good.
Harry handed in his resignation that afternoon. It wasn’t like he needed the money, after all.
He stopped in at Gringotts on the way home and arranged an anonymous transfer of a large sum of Galleons to Doughty’s account. It would be more than enough for the artificial hand, and if he lived frugally, it would keep his family comfortable for the rest of his life.
***
Ginny curled up on the far side of the bed, and moved away from his touch.
“I’ve got my period again,” she informed him, her voice cold.
They’d been trying, at first casually, then determinedly for the last two years to get pregnant. Their sex life revolved around fertility charts, potions, regimented schedules and conception friendly positions.
Finally, Harry secretly went to a Muggle doctor while Ginny was away reporting on a Quidditch match in Sweden.
“I’m sorry, Mr Potter,” the white coated man informed him in a cool, professional tone, “but it isn’t good news. Our initial tests suggest that your sperm count is low, very low, in fact. You say you and your wife have been attempting to conceive for how long?...Hmmm, well, I’d like to run a few more tests. Blood, to begin with, but I have to be honest with you, Mr Potter,” he admitted, peering piercingly over his spectacles, “It is my opinion that it is highly unlikely that you and your wife will be able to conceive in the usual manner. I’ll give you some brochures…here. IVF is an option many people choose. You can select an anonymous donor, or make arrangements with someone known to you. There’s also adoption, of course. Plenty of alternatives out there for young people like yourselves looking to start a family.”
Harry threw the pamphlets into a bin once he got out onto the street. He never went back for the other tests.
Once Ginny got home, he told her he wanted a divorce.
Her sobs were terrible, broken sounds, but he held firm to his self control. Ginny deserved a family, and he couldn’t give her one.
“Did you ever love me?” she asked, looking up at him, her light brown eyes huge and filled with tears.
Yes, he thought, with all my heart.
“No,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
He left and slept in a hotel that night, taking nothing with him but the clothes on his back, his Invisibility Cloak, his broom and a framed photograph of his wife.
Ron tracked him down a week later and beat him to a pulp. Harry just took it, refusing to allow himself to hit back. He clung to the pain, relished it, revelled in the bruises, even as they changed colour and faded back to pale before his eyes.
***
Pain became an obsession. How much could he take? What could his body repair? How quickly?
He sliced his arm; at first, shallow cuts that healed within moments, but he gradually built up enough courage to progressively deepen the gouges until he exposed tendon and muscle and bone in all their messy glory. He watched through a haze of pain, endorphins and alcohol as the bleeding stopped, the separated muscles twisted and rejoined like cords of rope and his skin closed up seamlessly, without leaving a single scar.
One day he even severed a fingertip, not once, but several times, and observed it being drawn back to the bleeding stump as if by a magnetic pull. He experimented; placing the gruesome fragment of flesh at greater and greater distances from himself.
Finally Harry locked it in a box, where it tapped and knocked for half an hour before falling silent. An unusual tingling sensation made him look down at his mangled finger, and he watched with morbid fascination as a new fingertip slowly grew like a mushroom, complete with a perfect, glossy fingernail.
When he opened the box, it contained nothing but a small pile of an oddly-textured, odourless grey dust.
***
“I’m going to try to reunite the Hallows again,” he told Dumbledore’s portrait. “I asked McGonagall. She said I can live here for a while, if I need to.”
“Headmistress McGonagall,” Dumbledore gently corrected. “And of course, she would make you welcome, if you feel this avenue of exploration will help you.”
“You don’t think it will,” Harry stated. He didn’t need to look up to know Dumbledore was sadly shaking his head.
On the way out of the castle, he pushed roughly past a Ravenclaw prefect, ignoring his indignant squawk.
“Oi, you! What’s your House? Why aren’t you in uniform?”
Harry flipped a rude gesture and kept walking, but smirked when he heard the boy take a wild guess and shout after him, “Five points from Slytherin!”
***
In the end, he didn’t live much in the castle. He spent most of his time out of doors, even in the depths of winter. Frostbite, though excruciating, wasn’t a problem when his fingertips conveniently re-grew themselves.
He criss-crossed the Forest, searching fruitlessly for the Stone that had slipped from his fingers all those years beforehand. The Centaurs tolerated his presence, but offered no help in his quest. Any requests he made for assistance they rebuffed, stating reasons to do with repercussions, impartiality, the position of the stars and planets in the heavens. Harry stopped asking, and the Centaurs let him be. The other creatures kept their distance. The unicorns were shy at the best of times, but the Thestrals avoided Harry, taking to the air in fright if he came too close.
He learned from his self-enforced exile that he could survive without food and water indefinitely, though the lack of it left him irritable and dizzy, and his stomach acidic. He didn’t need it, but he craved it, and the desire for roast meat and potatoes, butterbeer and treacle tart would drive him back to the castle every few weeks, like clockwork. He would sit in the kitchens and allow the House Elves to fuss over him rather than tolerating the Great Hall, where students and teachers alike would stare at the wild boy with his dirty face, ragged clothes and shaggy hair full of mud and leaves.
***
Desperation drove Harry to do what he would previously have considered unthinkable. He truly loathed himself the day he broke Dumbledore’s grave anew and took from his Headmaster’s skeletal hand the Elder Wand.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, as respectfully as he could, before mending the Tomb seamlessly.
Though he hadn’t yet found the Stone, perhaps the Elder Wand could help, somehow.
***
Seasons turned, Harry searched, and the Stone remained elusive. He even ventured into the lair of Aragog’s progeny, just in case they had taken it for themselves, lured by its magical aura.
Nothing.
Once, during one of his rare visits, he thought to ask Dumbledore’s portrait what Nicholas Flamel had done with his nearly seven hundred year-long lifespan, and Dumbledore had kindly told him about his friend’s research and experiments, his passionate love of study and scientific debate.
As a result, Harry found himself spending less and less time in the Forest, and more time tucked away in a carrel towards the back of the Library, poring over ancient tomes. Though he’d never been a scholar, he began keeping neat parchment scrolls of notes, recording interesting facts and spells, archaic knowledge that piqued his curiosity, anything that might help him, somehow. He spoke to no one save Madam Pince’s successor, a grim woman as taciturn as he, who only cared that he returned the books promptly and in good condition.
It was a quiet, tentative kind of solitude that was pleasant enough while it lasted.
***
But there came the day when things changed, of course. When a startled gasp tugged him from his study of a particularly massive volume, poorly translated from some Germanic language.
“Merlin,” the person breathed. “I knew, of course...they said...but I didn’t know...”
Harry looked up at the middle aged man with familiar features and dark hair liberally threaded with silver.
“You look...I wasn’t expecting...” the man continued, his face incredibly pale, his tongue darting out to lick his lips nervously. “You look just the same.”
Harry didn’t say anything. He’d gotten out of the habit of speaking while living in the Forest, and he didn’t see the point in replying to such an abysmally stupid statement.
“You don’t recognise me, do you?” the man assessed correctly, cocking his head, a slight smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “It’s Neville.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “You can’t be,” he said without thinking, his voice scratchy and thin from disuse. “You’re too old.”
Neville laughed good-humouredly, the creases around his mouth and eyes deepening as he smiled with genuine amusement. “I’m forty-five, Harry. I’m hardly ancient.”
Harry felt the blood drain from his face. He felt sick; terribly, terribly sick.
Too many years...he thought wildly. How many years?
“How long?” he forced out.
The stranger who was Neville laid a gentle hand on his arm. “It’s been a long time, mate,” he said softly. “I think a lot of people think you’re dead, or not in Britain anymore. I knew you were here, because of the staff, and the students talk, of course. You’re a bit of a legend of Hogwarts, you know, like a living ghost. I’ve worked here for ten years, and I’ve never seen you.” He shivered delicately. “You gave me quite a turn.”
“I’m sorry, Nev,” Harry said automatically.
“It’s alright,” he said, with a crooked smile, his colour almost back to normal. “It’s just one thing to hear that you haven’t aged, and another to see it for myself.”
***
They walked to the Three Broomsticks and found a private enough table at the back of the room.
“Firewhiskey, please,” Neville asked the unfamiliar landlord. “A bottle and two glasses.”
The man glared sharply at Harry, looking him up and down.
“He’s of age,” Neville said, with an edge in his voice. “Give me some credit, Liam. My wife owns a bloody pub, I know the law.”
That seemed to satisfy him, because he vanished and reappeared promptly with the alcohol, took Neville’s gold and left them to their own devices.
Harry reached reflexively into his pocket to pay Neville back, before realising he had no money. He hadn’t touched so much as a Knut in almost twenty years. To cover his discomposure, he took a large mouthful of Firewhiskey and asked, “You’re married, then?”
They talked, though much of the time was marked by long, comfortable silences. Neville didn’t try to ask Harry questions, and only offered information in small, digestible morsels.
Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley were engaged. Ron and Hermione’s eldest was sitting her NEWTs this year, while Ginny’s eldest was sitting his OWLs next year. Harry didn’t ask who Ginny had married, and Neville didn’t tell him, for which he was grateful. George’s eldest, Fred, turned eleven last week...
When the weight of personal information began to grow overwhelming, Neville tactfully steered the conversation to Quidditch and the latest broom models. It was safe territory in theory, but the changes and differences in both from the time he last followed them with any interest compounded just how far removed he was from the world.
***
The next day, at dawn, he tried to drown himself in the Lake.
He immersed himself slowly in the freezing water, each stride forward sending him deeper, until he stood on the bottom and breathed deeply, inhaling as hard as he could.
It hurt, more painfully than any injury he’d suffered in a long time. But his lungs filled with water, and he didn’t die. He didn’t even go giddy, or choke, or pass out.
Harry wandered about in the forest of weed for several hours, lazily repelling the odd Grindylow with his wand. Though he kept an eye out, he didn’t see a single Merperson or the Giant Squid.
Eventually he got bored and wandered back to the shoreline. There, he wrestled his insanely heavy, clumsy body back onto dry land and vomited murky water for what felt like five minutes before he could breathe again.
***
Self-destruction became Harry’s new goal. He was no longer looking for a Cure, he was looking for an End. The End.
Poisons, he found out soon enough, just made him vomit. Hanging he didn’t even bother with, because if drowning hadn’t worked, then strangulation wouldn’t, and he didn’t fancy dangling until somebody wandered in and cut him down.
Throwing himself from his broom sounded well and good in theory, but waiting for most of his bones to knit and realign themselves, all the while spitting up blood from the punctured lungs, was agonising. It was a good half hour before he could stand. He decided firmly against a second attempt from a greater height.
And even the Killing Curse, cast with the Elder Wand pressed firmly with his temple, and a true, full and pure desire to die, did nothing. He even tried holding his holly and phoenix feather wand in his left hand, and pressing them both to his heart, while he uttered the incantation.
Apparently, against the combined magic of the Hallows, the most powerful wand in the world and the most Unforgivable of Curses was useless.
***
In the end, he did the only remaining thing he could think to do.
Using the Elder Wand and his Cloak, he crept into the Ministry of Magic after hours, and travelled down into the bowels of the building and the Department of Mysteries.
“Point me,” he whispered, in the round room of doors. The Elder Wand spun neatly on his palm, indicating a door to his far left. “Alohomora.”
There it was, the crumbling arch, the tattered Veil. He could hear them, hear the voices calling him, luring him on, and he felt a joy, a wild elation. He knew, as he ran down the stairs, that he was going to be free. Knew, as he climbed up onto the dais, that this would be it, the blessed release.
Harry ran headlong into the Veil and...
...bounced back, sprawling onto the floor.
For a moment or two, he lay there, stunned, his head pounding. Then he crawled over to the archway, and reached out one trembling hand to touch the Veil, which rippled and fluttered as if in a non-existent draught, from behind which the voices murmured louder than ever.
And although the Veil looked insubstantial, against his fingertips it was as hard and unforgiving as stone.
“No!” Harry wailed, pounding his fists against the cloth. “No! Let me in, you fucking thing!”
He threw himself bodily against the inflexible Portal, over and over, his body bruising and healing and bruising again, his torn and broken fingernails mending themselves neatly as he cursed and shouted and begged all the gods and devils he could name for the oblivion of Death.
None heard him.