The Price of Forever
The Price of forever
Death was beautiful, devastatingly so - the kind of beauty a person held on their deathbed as they clung to life, sallow and depressing and beautiful for a single fleeting moment
, it was the beauty of fading ink on a cherished letter -the kind that smudged if you tried to hold on to tightly.
Death felt like the silence after the final page of a book was turned - full of memories and meaning, but unmistakably over,
It carried the beauty of footprints in the sand, slowly swallowed by the tide, leaving only a memory that someone had walked there once.
When Harry saw it, his breath caught- sharp and uneven. A choked sob slipped past his lips, unbidden. His hand trembled at his side, curling into a fist as though the simple act of holding himself together would stop the ache unfurling in his chest. A tear, cold against the emptiness, trailed down his cheek and vanished into the void below.
“Oh…” Harry whispered, though there was no one to hear. “Oh, you’re beautiful.”
The words felt strange, but he meant them. There was no other way to describe what he saw - what he felt.
A shape emerged from the formless dark. It wasn’t skeletal, nor cloaked in shadow. Death looked human, though its features shifted in the dim, impossible to define. It was less a figure and more a presence, as though the concept itself had taken form..
Death’s eyes- if it could be called eyes- held him gently, as though it understood the weight of all he had carried. Harry swayed, exhausted in ways he couldn’t explain.
A cold hand - softer than he had expected - pressed against his shoulder. Familiar.
“Why are you here?” Death’s voice was calm, lacking judgment. It didn’t ask in condemnation but with quiet curiosity, as if Harry’s presence was an unexpected visit from an old friend.
Harry’s lips parted, but the answer did not come immediately. He glanced down at his palms, empty as they had always been.
“Because I want to live,” he finally said, the words trembling but certain.
Death regarded him In silence, tilting its head as if considering the answer. For a fleeting moment, Harry thought he saw something like sorrow flicker in its expression - an emotion far too human for what it was.
“To live is to die, Harry Potter,” Death replied softly. “And to die is to live again. Are you ready to pay the price for such a wish?”
Harry’s gaze did not falter. “I already have.”
The shadows around them shifted, curling like smoke. The void faded, leaving only Harry and the lingering touch of Death’s hand.
He remembered, then, the weight of the Hallows in his grasp. But they were gone now. Scattered.
The Elder wand lay sealed away, cradled in Dumbledore’s tomb beneath the cold stone of Hogwarts grounds.
The Resurrection Stone rested in the Forbidden Forest, buried in layers of fallen leaves and untouched by human hands.
The Invisibility Cloak still hung in his cupboard, draped carelessly over the edge of a chair, like any ordinary piece of fabric.
Harry felt none of them. And still, Death followed him.
Perhaps it always had.