The Garden at the Edge of Nowhere.
Harry decided to practise Occlumency in his free time, and his mind seemed to have taken the shape of a Cathedral.
However Harry hadn't expected there to be an outside.
The cathedral had always felt endless, stretching in all directions yet leading nowhere. But today—perhaps because he willed it, or maybe because the realm had shifted—there was a door.
It was old, wooden, and slightly ajar. Light, real and golden, seeped through the crack.
Harry hesitated before pushing it open.
Beyond the door lay a small garden.
It was nothing like the grand, endless emptiness of the cathedral. The garden was alive—wild, unkempt, but breathing. Tall grass swayed gently despite the absence of wind, flowers bloomed in colors that did not belong to any one season, and a narrow stone path led through it all, stopping at a single bench beneath an old, twisted tree.
Harry stepped forward, bare feet sinking into soft earth.
It was quiet. Peaceful.
He knelt, reaching out to a flower that stood out among the rest. A simple thing—pale purple petals, delicate and thin.
His fingers brushed against it, and for a moment, he thought of every world he had walked through. Every life he had lived.
He thought of battlefields and empty corridors, of laughter in candlelit rooms and screams swallowed by the void. Of friendships that burned bright and faded, of lives lost and forgotten.
He thought of how, once, he had been just Harry.
A boy with too many burdens but still human.
And now…
Now he was something else entirely.
Something vast, something eternal.
He plucked the flower from the ground, holding it gently between his fingers.
I want to live simply again, he thought, twirling the stem slowly.
A quiet, foolish wish.
He had given that up long ago.
The flower pulsed softly, as if breathing. As if listening.
Harry closed his eyes and sighed.
Then, without another word, he tucked the flower behind his ear and sat on the bench, letting the strange warmth of the garden settle around him.