Spider Monkey
Harry can’t breathe.
His lungs are broken. Maybe they’ve collapsed? It feels much like when he impaled himself and one lung couldn’t inflate. The air gasps into his mouth in giant gulps, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. His hands shake as he tries to get the motorbike to start. He should just leave it behind. Apparate home.
Home?
The idea makes him burst into a fit of giggles. Grimmauld is home, maybe. But Forks certainly isn’t. What good is a house—home?—if everyone he loves is dead—or will be dead—and he’s the Master of Death—but really they’re the master of him, since they refuse to let him die, refuse to let him age with his friends and godchildren and to live a life with wrinkles and a sore back and grey hairs.
Harry jolts back to reality at the touch of icy fingers brushing against the feverish skin of his curled white knuckles. Harry is back to reality, back to the school, back to the lack of oxygen in his lungs and the fact Bella said his name.
His name.
Edward doesn’t speak. He locks eyes with Harry instead and moves his shoulders in an overly exaggerated way, breathing in and out slowly, five seconds each, his fingers softly moving along his skin, leaving ice cold trails. Harry matches Edward’s breathing actively, the familiar routine of something Hermione has done for him many, many times before. He keeps his eyes locked with Edward’s molten gold, his fingers twitching beneath the vampire’s chilled hand. It takes a while. A few minutes, at least. But Harry eventually feels his lungs fully inflate and the claws in his chest release to the point he can feel his lungs inflate again, and the rough grip of Death on his neck loosens.
He doesn’t remove his hand and neither does Edward, whose touch is not cold any more. It’s warm, soft, like the touch of someone more alive. It’s a cruel joke, almost. That Edward is dead and now warm, and Harry is alive and now cold. He can’t stop the shiver from hitting him as the adrenaline and panic recede from his body and Edward jerks his hand back, an apology in his eyes.
Harry wishes Edward had kept his hand there a bit longer. It anchored him to this world. Now he feels as though he could float away any second. As if he could disappear between the passing of years into nothing more than legend. Nothing more than a name in a children’s book. Nothing more than a myth about the Boy-Who-Once-Lived-And-Died-And-Disappeared.
“What is it, James?” Edward asks softly, voice a whisper like he’s afraid to disturb Harry’s thoughts.
“Don’t,” Harry gasps. “Please don’t call me that.”
Harry knows he’s being unreasonable. That Edward doesn’t know any different and that the name James is just that—a name. His name, even. His middle name and his father’s name and a name he decided would be a bit like an inside joke to use. It had seemed funny at the time, but now it feels suffocating. James. Who even is James? Merlin, who even is Harry?
Does he ever get to be Harry again? Truly? Because James Granger is just the first in a long list of fake names and fake IDs and fake families. He is the first stop of a century-long plan in which Harry Potter ceases to exist, apart from within memories and stories, until one day his life becomes a thing of legend, like Merlin himself.
And there he will find himself, undead and unnamed.
“What should I call you?” Edward asks, his head cocked to the side and his hands curled into fists.
Harry wonders if Edward’s angry. Still, he shakes his head. He can’t be called Harry. But he doesn’t want to hear the name James right now either. Edward seems to understand because he doesn’t ask again, barely even moves, simply stands and waits.
“Bella is coming,” he says eventually, after a long silence.
Harry shakes his head. “I don’t—” he stutters, stops.
“Come with me,” Edward offers, holding his hand out.
Harry looks at it. Decides not to let himself think about it. He takes a deep breath and kicks his leg off the motorbike, unseating himself, holding onto Edward’s hand. Edward leads him to a silver car quickly, one Harry has seen the Cullens congregate around before. He finds himself seated rather suddenly, and between recognising the door closing and blinking, Edward appears in the driver’s seat, engine on.
He wastes no time in taking off. Harry spots Bella through the side mirrors standing on the steps of the high school, watching the car drive away. Raw guilt floods him as he watches her face recede in the mirror. She has become something of a friend in the few days he’s known her. They have an understanding on both wanting to avoid the new-kid-limelight and helping each other do so. Godric, even mentioning his name stemmed from Bella trying to distract the table and change the subject for him.
She’s a muggle for Merlin’s sake—how was she supposed to know he is actually Harry Potter from the books of her obviously magical friend? Who shouldn’t be talking about such novels to muggles in the first place, anyway. Harry shouldn’t have overreacted the way he did, but it had taken him by surprise so much, to hear his name spoken in a town he’d never though he’d hear it, surrounded by people who shouldn’t know it, at the beginning of a journey he’s just realised will leave him without it.
And, of course, came the existential crisis and the urge to end it all. Literally. To crawl back to Death for a reprieve from it all. To be cradled in their chest and smothered from his senses and to sleep. Merlin, how he wants to sleep, to rest in a way he never gets in a bed, only in Death itself.
Edward jerks his head to Harry with a frown.
“What?” Harry asks.
“I thought—” Edward stops himself and shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Edward doesn’t talk again, simply drives the car at a speed Harry is sure Chief Swan would disapprove of. Harry feels Edward’s curious graze against his mental shields every now and then. He doesn’t know what it is about this particular half-muggle vampire that he finds so infuriating, so annoying, so intriguing. He can’t stop himself from searching a room for Edward. From wanting to run away from Edward but also finding himself drawn to him like a magnet. The mind-reader seems the same in many ways—curious to a fault, maybe, but cautious and unsure. As if fighting warring instincts to simultaneously be closer and further away.
Harry doesn’t bother asking where they’re going. It doesn’t matter to him, really. He can simply apparate home should he choose. He wants to, but it’s easier to stay with Edward. To go home is to be with Kreacher, who will ask too many questions, and then the desire to kill himself will be harder to resist. He’s not even sure why he bothers resisting. For Ron and Hermione, he supposes. Because they ask every time. Because they worry and Kreacher worries. There are not many other reasons.
The minutes he gets with Death are some of his most peaceful. His least painful. He almost wonders if it wouldn’t be better to have some sort of permanent death contraption, that simply continues to kill him each time he’s revived—a perpetual nap with Death, which he thinks could be almost comparable to the time he experienced true death.
Harry still can’t figure out why Ron and Hermione are so against his twenty-minute jaunts with Death. The worst that can happen is that he doesn’t come back, and in Harry’s opinion that’s actually the best case scenario. For some reason Hermione and Ron don’t see it like that. They don’t want to see him die—but they can’t understand that Harry doesn’t want to watch them die either. To watch them, and his godchildren, and their children, and their children’s children, die. Why is it so hard for them to watch him die, knowing he’ll come back, when he has to watch them age and die at an achingly slow pace, knowing they will never come back and he will never get to join them?
“What are you thinking about?”
“Death,” Harry responds almost intuitively. Edward’s hands clench on the steering wheel and it creaks under the pressure. “Where are you taking me?” Harry asks instead of giving Edward time to comment on his morbid thoughts.
“Why are you thinking of death?”
Edward doesn’t seem to understand the human habit of changing the subject and graciously allowing someone to do so.
Harry shrugs. “You don’t?”
Edward doesn’t respond for a minute. “We’re going to the mountains. There’s a spot I like to go, when I need to clear my head.”
Harry hums and looks back out the window, watching the green trees speed by. It reminds him of flying. High-speed races over the Forbidden Forest.
“What are you thinking about now?”
“Flying.”
“Like in a plane?”
“No,” Harry turns to look at Edward, meeting his confused golden eyes that are glued to his face and not the road. “On a broom.”
Edward furrows his brows. “Really? Wizards fly on brooms?”
“Watch the road. And yes, we do.”
“Is it difficult?”
“For some people.”
“For you?”
“No.” Harry smiles, just slightly. “For me, it was like breathing.”
Edward makes a sharp turn and brings the car to a dirt side road. “Was?”
“Are we here?” Harry asks instead as Edward cuts the engine.
“We have to walk from here,” Edward replies, a frown on his face.
Harry doesn’t really want to walk but anything is better than being back at school, so he hops out and follows Edward along a small, barely noticeable path up the mountain. Some of the path can hardly be considered a path, with the forest growing over the dirt, rocks and roots jutting from the ground.
“What did you mean by was?” Edward asks, waiting a few metres ahead, watching as Harry clambers over a root system. “When you said flying was like breathing.”
“Just that it was,” Harry huffs out.
“So it’s not any more?”
Harry stumbles on a loose stone as he climbs and Edward is there, hands out, ready to catch him. Harry doesn’t need catching, but he finds it oddly comforting anyway. People rarely offer him help any more. They haven’t in years. Only Ron and Hermione do. Ron said it was because people feel awkward around him now—he’s the wizard who defeated Voldemort, multiple times at that. What help could they possibly offer him?
A lot, in Harry’s opinion.
“I don’t fly much any more.” He does fly sometimes, but only with Rose and Teddy. It barely counts. It’s more like hovering than anything else.
“Why not?” Edward asks as he flits ahead and stops, waiting again for Harry.
“I guess…” Harry stops to think about it.
He knows why he stopped flying. Because he didn’t want to continue flying and override those memories he has. All the great times he has of flying with friends, at the Weasley’s house playing pick-up Quidditch, or winning the House Cup at Hogwarts.
It started because of something Hermione said one day, a throwaway comment in the midst of her studies.
“Memories are finite you know,” she’d said. “If you’re alive for long enough, surely your brain will begin to forget old memories to make room for new ones.”
So, Harry stopped flying. He stopped visiting Hogwarts. He stopped doing anything that might end up overriding a previous memory he holds dear—like visiting the Burrow or shopping in Diagon. He started a collection of memories like Dumbledore, copying then into small jars lined on a shelf in the basement of Grimmauld, next to his own pensieve from the Potter vaults. Just in case. Because he’d hate to find out one days his memories have been lost, but to not even know what has gone missing.
“I just lost interest in it.” Harry knows Edward doesn’t believe him because of the way Edward frowns at the ground and lets out a small sigh. Edward seems to frown a lot when Harry is around. “How much further?”
“An hour.”
“An hour?!” Harry exclaims.
“We could run there. It would be faster,” Edward says.
“Run?! Are you insane? I can barely walk up this.”
“I can carry you.”
Harry stops hiking and considers it. Being carried by Edward sounds rather awkward but continuing to hike this mountain sounds horrendous, especially for another hour. On most days he would probably relish the hike and enjoy the slow passing of time, that aching in his muscles that he learns to appreciate as being alive—even when he wishes he wasn’t. It’s his therapy task as well, one he promised Hermione he’d continue whilst in Forks. But today Harry finds he would rather return home and crawl into bed. He doesn’t want to hike and he definitely doesn’t want a reminder of being alive.
“Alright. Let’s run.”
Edward looks shocked for only a millisecond. He manages to hide it quite well, really. He appears next to Harry with his vampire speed—which Harry is really beginning to think Edward’s much too comfortable showing in front of him—and stands there, hands hovering as if unsure where to touch him. Harry rolls his eyes and steps forward, looping an arm over Edward’s neck and jumping up. Edward catches him automatically, scooping his arms beneath Harry’s knees and holding him princess-style.
“Er, how’s this?” Harry asks after a few seconds of silence. Edward’s hands tighten on his thighs and release.
“Let me put you on my back,” he says slowly. “It’s easier.”
And Harry finds himself flipped around and hooked onto Edward, pressed up against his cold spine. Edward doesn’t provide any instructions like ‘hold your breath’ or ‘don’t let go’, he simply takes off, leaving Harry breathless and gasping to hook his arms around Edward’s neck tighter. It’s exhilarating. Faster than he’s ever travelled before. Faster even than when he experienced Voldemort’s unsupported flight.
The world passes by in a blur, blending into a haze of greens and browns. What does Edward see? Is it a blur for him, or is it clear as day? Harry can barely pick out trees in the mask of colours surrounding him and he struggles to inhale, the air whizzing past him and pushing from his lungs faster than he can truly grasp. His brain feels so human now, so slow and unprepared. Edward stops suddenly but doesn’t let Harry down.
“We’re here,” he announces, as if Harry couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see the meadow in front of them, filled with flowers and sunlight. Long grass sways in the breeze but patches are worn down, flattened where they’ve been grazed on by wildlife. “Can I put you down?” Edward asks after a minute.
“Oh. Uh, yeah.”
Harry releases the death grip he has on Edward’s neck. It’s a good thing Edward has an unnaturally strong neck, as Harry’s sure he would have choked to death otherwise. Edward slowly lowers him down and his legs wobble a bit from the adrenaline dump.
“So, this is your spot?” Harry asks, taking a tentative step forward and hoping his knee doesn’t buckle.
“Yes.”
Harry turns back to look at Edward. He stands stiff as a board, hands curled into fists beside him and face crunched into a complicated expression. Harry cocks his head to the side and debates asking. He turns around and continues walking instead.
“You come here often?”
“Nearly every night.”
Harry explores the meadow, Edward’s heavy eyes on him the entire time, picking his way between the grass and stopping to inspect the flowers. Harry wonders why Edward brought him here if he was going to be so aloof about it. It’s a beautiful meadow. Maybe just what Harry needs—a place away from all the muggles, high up the mountains where they can’t bother him. Can’t find him. Can’t remind him. The sun shines through the trees and Harry finds a spot to sit and lay back, crossing his arms beneath his head and closing his eyes in the rare sunlight.
Eventually Edward sidles over with quiet yet undeniably purposeful steps. He stops a few metres away and Harry eventually cracks an eye open to stare at Edward, just barely covered by the shade of the trees.
“Are you joining me?” Harry asks, patting the ground beside him.
He can’t tell if Edward is hesitating or if he truly hasn’t heard what he said, because Edward stands so still. Harry wonders if somehow Edward has been so distracted by something else in that over-active mind of his that he managed to miss what Harry asked. Until Edward steps forward, then Harry knows that Edward wasn’t distracted, he was hesitating. Harry opens both eyes to get a better view.
“You’re sparkling,” he says as Edward lays next to him. “Is that normal for half-muggle vampires?”
“Yes,” Edward replies, crossing his hands over his chest. He lays stiffly, rigid like a rock, skin glittering under the sunlight. It shimmers, silvery and ethereal, like unicorn blood under moonlight. It reminds Harry of the swirls in a pensieve and the flashes of light reflecting off the stone sitting on his bookshelf at home, like the shimmer of his cloak before it falls into place.
“It’s rather pretty,” Harry says, turning his head back to them sunlight and closing his eyes.
After a minute, Edward softly replies, “Thank you.”