Never Existed.
The classroom was dimly lit, dust motes swirling lazily in the air as the students gathered in a loose semi-circle. The wardrobe at the front of the room rattled ominously, the sound like distant thunder.
Harry stood near the back, arms loosely crossed, watching as Lupin explained the nature of Boggarts.
The lesson itself was simple: face your fear and turn it into something ridiculous.
Easy enough.
But Harry wasn’t sure what his fear was.
He had never seen a Dementor before that train ride, but they hadn’t inspired fear—only cold, only memories. The Basilisk hadn’t frightened him. Not even Voldemort’s shade, in his strange not-death, had stirred true terror in him.
Fear.
What did he fear?
The line moved forward. Neville. The Boggart twisted into Snape, only to be humiliated into wearing his grandmother’s clothing. The class laughed. Dean’s fear became a severed hand, which scuttled like a spider before he turned it into a rubber chicken. Parvati’s became a massive cobra, easily countered with a jack-in-the-box.
And then—
“Potter, you’re next.”
Lupin’s voice was gentle, but expectant.
Harry stepped forward, face blank. The wardrobe creaked open—
And the Boggart shuddered.
It twisted, rippling as if uncertain, as if searching.
And then—
The laughter died.
Because what stepped forward wasn’t a shape the others could recognize.
It wasn’t a Dementor, or Voldemort, or the Basilisk.
It was—
Him.
A second Harry.
But this one was wrong.
His face was twisted, hollow, empty. His skin was waxy, lifeless, like a corpse left too long in the dark. His eyes—no green, no color, just **void.**
And his mouth—
A slow, curling smile, unnatural and *wrong*.
The Boggart-Harry tilted its head, the motion eerily smooth, almost serpentine.
Then it spoke.
“You don’t exist.”
The words weren’t loud, but they slammed into him like a blow.
“You never did.”
A whisper. A fact.
And Harry—
He couldn’t move.
He had faced death, had walked through fire, had seen the worst of humanity—
But this?
This was the fear he never let himself think about.
The idea that he was *nothing*. That without his masks, without his roles—he was a void, a hollow thing pretending at being human.
“No one will ever see you.”
Lupin moved. “Riddikulus!”
The Boggart shattered into mist, curling back into the wardrobe with an eerie wail. The door slammed shut.
Silence.
Everyone was staring.
Harry blinked once, then twice, before his mask **snapped** back into place.
His expression smoothed out, his stance returned to loose indifference. He turned to Lupin, voice steady. “Guess I failed, then.”
Lupin frowned, but didn’t press.
The lesson continued.
But the room still felt colder.