All For Death

Harry had always thought a lot about how he would die. He’d imagined he would die for the people he loved, again. Some noble sacrifice perhaps. Another to add to his list. A fitting end for the tragedy that is Harry Potter’s life—a moment they would write about in novels and bylines, book-ending his cursed first brush with death with his last. He’d even considered being offed by the killing curse to provide the full circle moment.

After finding himself in a white King’s Cross station with the withering skin lump Voldemort and arguably the most manipulative fucker in the world, Harry had figured he’d head back to his friends, help with the after-effects of the War in some abstract way, settle down with Ginny and eventually send off his own children to Hogwarts. Only, he’d returned from death and found out rather quickly that version of his life was never going to happen—rightfully so he supposes, seeing as he fell right back into the old man’s twisting traps by deciding to come back in the first place. He really should have considered the possibility of a peaceful death a bit more.

So he had fallen back into the world with a new scar on his chest and a coldness deep inside. A darkness wrapped around him that was simultaneously comforting and horrifying. Ginny left him rather quickly. Said he was different now: too disconnected, too withdrawn, too uninterested. Harry couldn’t help it that life was dull in comparison to the great beyond.

How was he meant to exist now, having felt the pure ecstasy of death? The peace brought in that white room? He’d laid awake every night, chilled arms wrapped around Ginny’s lithe frame as though she could ever instill warmth in him again, and he would dream of death. Not the abstract concept of death, but his lived experience of it: the green light that burst on his sternum and slithered between the cracks of his atoms stopping his heart instantly.

He would dream of Death, too.

The being Death—if they could be called such. The concept of them at least, with bones for fingers and a face that alternated between the constellations of deep space and the faces of all the dead he knows: his parents, Fred, Sirius, Remus, Tonks, and hundreds of others, perhaps even thousands. People he’d seen once in passing. A muggle with amazing curly hair and shining white teeth who had once waited outside a cafe for him even though he never showed. A wixen he passed on the street and smiled to. Friends and family and strangers alike, rotating across the face of an impossibly tall creature wrapped in a cloak of invisibility with bones for a body.

So, yes, Harry was well acquainted with Death in all their forms, so he had, rather naturally, spent a considerable amount of time in the last few years considering his death.

After Ginny left him—they tell everyone it was a mutual decision, though it was rather obvious to everyone who knew them that Harry was listless and Ginny had decided enough was enough—Harry decided to skip eighth year and join the Aurors with Ron. He figured, why not use these Dark Lord vanquishing skills for use? Track some elusive Death Eaters and skip all that ruddy study shite.

Ron was pretty into the Aurors gig and he took to it naturally, slipping into a confident space between leader and strategiser, using his experiences from the war easily. He lived up to his mistakes, grew from them, developed into something more than who he had been at seventeen. Harry, on the other hand…

Well, he’d always had an issue with following orders. It was a morbid joke between the three best friends that the Ministry needed to be better at manipulating Harry’s saviour complex if they wanted him to be more effective at his job. He’d become a sort of enigma member who was perpetually without a partner, since Ron was often in charge of their missions from headquarters, moving the Aurors around like pawns on a chess board.

It was due to this fact that Harry found himself dying.

Truth be told, he was a bit miffed at how he was going out. It was a routine assignment. Easy. Simply a scout assignment at an abandoned Death Eater hub. It had been cleared out weeks ago. Harry had been sent because he’d been pissing Ron off asking for extra assignments all week, so Ron had thrown a random case file at Harry and said “go check this out then, you bloody git”.

Normally, Harry could have done it with his eyes closed, both hands tied behind his back, and a dementor sucking his soul. But he hadn’t really been normal lately. Hermione had definitely noticed—she’d narrowed her eyes at him a few too many times recently. He’d been spiralling just a tad. Maybe there was a slight drop of alcoholism. Nightmares. Some muggle affliction called PTSD that Hermione ranted at him about often. Both his friends knew he’d died that day in the forest, but he’d never talked about the weird hole it left in him. The emptiness. Harry had considered tracking down a dementor just to see if he even had a soul left to suck. Sure didn’t feel like it.

So, instead, he’d begun to fill that gaping darkness with drugs and alcohol and late night forays into the muggle nightlife. He added on extra work for good measure. He needed to keep himself busy so the missing thing in him didn’t catch up, so he couldn’t feel the bones wrapped around the back of his neck, so he couldn’t sleep and dream of that perfectly peaceful moment when Death pulled him into their embrace and warmed him from the inside.

That’s how he found himself in an ex-hideout of Death Eaters, bleeding out because he’d apparated into the wrong spot due to his slight inebriation, impaling himself on the spear of a dastardly ugly suit of armour with spikes for shoulders and a black tinge to the metal. Really, it was a shitty way to go. The biography sales would definitely be impacted with such a lame ending to the Boy-Who-Vanquished. Impaled by a tipsy apparition. Hermione would have a fit if she knew he had been apparating after a few drinks—or that he had been drinking before work.

He coughed at the thought of Hermione, blood sputtering from his mouth and dribbling down his chin. The action pushed his weight down more and his body sunk closer to the floor, the spear poking through his back and out the front of his stomach. He closed his eyes and thought about those loose tendrils of happiness he knew were there in him, somewhere. He didn’t have long left now if the lack of pain was any indicator.

He clasped those few happy memories he stored: Ron, Hermione, and him, curled together on Ron’s bed at the Burrow; a memory of him dancing with Luna, decked out in her wedding dress, her new husband Neville spinning Ginny around nearby; the first time he grew enough balls to visit his godson and Teddy had hugged him with all the strength such a tiny body could muster. The memories developed into a misty stag and Harry couldn’t help the tear escaping as he looked at his patronus, the embodiment of everything good in his life and his magic, those few things untainted by that gaping darkness he couldn’t escape.

“‘m sorry, ‘mione, ‘on.” His words sounded more like gargles with the blood clogging his throat, but he tried anyway. He knew they wouldn’t get to live in peace if he died without at least sending some message of goodbye. “I ‘idn’t—mean ta… Love youse. Tell Te—” his patronus left with a huff, not letting him finish his message.
Harry would be pissed about it, if he had the strength to muster such an emotion. Here he was on his death bed and the manifestation of his happiest memories decided he was taking too long to warble out his death message. He chuckled at the fucking audacity and, well, it was just his thing, wasn’t it? Life had always been some weird uphill battle of the worst odds for him.

Harry’s not sure when he passed out or really if he even did. He could have been disassociating, because he was sure his eyes never closed. He had been quite intrigued by the wall across from him. It had the most interesting wallpaper, a mixture between leaves and curling flowers he thinks. Or maybe it was paisley print? Although that one spot really looked like a man on a horse.

It was with the abrupt crack of apparition nearby that he was jolted back into awareness.

“Harry! Oh god, Harry! What have you done?!” Hermione was by his side in a second waving her wand around, diagnostic panels popping up left and right in front of her as a second crack of apparition left Ron standing behind her with horror on his face.

“Salazar’s tits, Harry!” He rushed over, face white as he realised the extent to the injuries. “Hermione…” Ron said slowly, quietly, horror on his face.

“Shut up, shut up,” Hermione whispered angrily her wand curling in the air as she waved blood from Harry so she could see the wound.

“‘mione,” Harry whispered. “‘m sorry.”

“Stop! Don’t!” Hermione replied, tears dripping from her eyes. “Just shut up and let me heal you.”

Harry closed his eyes and smiled a little. “Ron, thnnnk—”

“Shhh, mate.” Ron knelt next to him and brushed the hair on his forehead back. “We’re here. It’s gonna be okay.” Harry met his eyes, so filled with love and concern, and he thought about that young boy on the train who had taught him about a whole new world. He closed his eyes again to Hermione’s magic washing over him, bathing him in her fiery power.

Harry felt like maybe it would okay.

“I did not expect to meet you again so soon, Master.”

Harry looked up into the constellations of Death and frowned.

“What do you mean? We haven’t met before.” Even as he said it, Harry was sure that wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t remember meeting Death but they were familiar to him. Like an old friend he had forgotten. A memory once obliviated.

“You may not remember, Master, but your soul does.”

The after life wasn’t as white as he remembered it being. Not so peaceful, either. It could be the imposing figure of Death bent over him, crowding him, or even the way the edges of his vision blurred into obscurity as though unable to see the room around him. Even the floor felt transient. He could be floating in space or grounded in a room, both and neither were true.

“Rest, Master. Take your time.”

And Harry felt the bone-deep weariness buckle his knees so he dropped, allowing his body to become weightless in the realm of nothing and something around him. He looked up at Death now, watching as it cocked its head to the side, shrouded in something that could be invisibility but might be shadows. Death eventually moved, scooping Harry from the floor and cradling him in its boney hand, placing him in its sternum, suspending Harry where Death’s heart could have been if they were human.

“Visit me again, Master, should you desire a moment of rest.”

Harry woke with a deep shudder—a breath so deep he felt the unused corners of his spongey lungs reinflate with force. He looked down at his chest where a weight rested, only to get an eyeful of Hermione’s curls as she stared at him with her mouth open, face puffy from crying. Ron was just visible over her with a look of dawning horror.

“What the fuck,” Harry ground out, letting his head drop back down to the ground as Hermione began thumping her fists on his chest in anger, right over the wet patches her tears had left on him, cursing him out.