Bed Bugs
Harry finds the rest of the week goes rather smoothly after his slight breakdown. Edward doesn’t bring up their afternoon in the meadow. Harry had eventually fallen asleep curled into Edward’s side, until the night grew dark and cold and he woke up shivering, apparating home with a small thanks whispered to Edward.
He’s rather grateful for Edward letting the odd moment slide. Bella doesn’t mention his abrupt escape from the school either, but Harry feels her curious brown eyes darting between him and Edward all week. Jessica has no such reservations, asking where they’d both disappeared to rather loudly. Harry learns Edward is rather smooth with his lies, and quite skillful at impromptu gaslighting.
Harry also notices a small change in Edward’s behaviour after their afternoon in the meadow—Edward stops calling him James. Instead, Edward words his sentences to avoid needing a name, or ensures Harry is looking directly at him when he speaks. Harry would be lying if he said he doesn’t appreciate it.
Edward stops asking questions in every free moment, but he takes to steering the lunch table conversations in rather odd directions in obvious attempts to get others to ask Harry the questions he wants to know the answers to. Harry actually begins to feel a bit guilty about it all.
He’s resigned to the fact he has to lie to everyone around him about who he really is, but he doesn’t feel that same need to lie to Edward about who he truly is—not what his name is, but who he is as a person—the things he likes and dislikes, his opinions and thoughts. Edward and the Cullens already know that he’s a wizard. Surely there’s no need to lie about all these other things, too.
At least, that is what Harry thinks. As long as they continue to think he’s James Granger, can’t he be himself a bit more, if only with the vampires?
“They’re vampires, mate” Ron says, looking at Harry as if he’s insane. “Half-muggle or not, you sure you can trust ‘em?”
Ron has a smudge of flour on his cheek and a splattering of sauce on his frilly apron, designed in glaring red and gold, a gift from Molly to Hermione the first Christmas after the couple moved in together. Harry has never seen Hermione wear it, but Ron’s managed to use it enough he’s had to mend the straps with some questionable wand-work that turned them an odd purple hue. He mixes a pot of sauce bubbling on the counter while a knife chops an array of vegetables in haphazard slices on the bench in front of Harry, who does his part by peeling potatoes, sat on a leather stool that is too-low for the bench top.
“I’m not going to tell them everything,” Harry replies, dropping a wonky potato into a bowl of equally massacred peeled potatoes.
“Obviously,” Ron cuts in, turning around, the spoon trailing an arc of sauce across the bench. “But it’s a bit of a danger, innit? What if you slip up?” He grabs the bowl and raises an eyebrow at the potatoes. “Merlin, somehow you’ve gotten worse.”
Harry shrugs, dumping the knife on the chopping board. His atrophying cooking skills are directly related to being forced to cook for the Dursley’s from a young age. Cooking has never been fun for Harry. It was a means of survival for him when he was younger, that’s it. Food is often the first thing he’ll forgo when stressed. After the war, he moved into Grimmauld and Kreacher has kept him well-fed since then. Harry generally dislikes cooking now, to the point his once above-average skills have regressed to the point home-maker Ron can complain about them. Harry’s not above admitting there’s some malicious incompetence hidden there in a silent rebellion against being asked to cook.
Harry knows Ron is right about the Cullens. He’s likely to stuff up at some point in his interactions with them. But part of him wonders why that’s even a big deal—the Cullens are half-muggle after all, and not involved in the Wizarding World in any way. Even if he does slip up, they won’t even be likely to notice.
“Don’t they have a seer too?” Ron continues, turning back to the stove and dumping Harry’s shoddy potatoes into a pot of boiling water. “I’m surprised you even want to be around them.”
“I don’t want to be. Around her, anyway. The others aren’t that bad,” Harry replies sulkily, feeling rather put-out by Ron’s reservations. “She’s not a true seer either, apparently. She doesn’t prophesise.”
By the others, Harry really only means Edward, since he’s not said more than two words to the other Cullen siblings since their meeting, and he’s avoided Alice rather spectacularly. Or rather she’s allowed him to avoid her, if he’s being honest.
Edward, however, is like Devil’s Snare—clingy, impossible to escape, and the more Harry struggles, the more Edward tightens his grip. Except, instead of strangling him, Edward just insists on walking him to every single class. He’s a stupid, annoying, clingy vampire who sparkles in the sunlight and now sits either beside Harry in every class, or as close as he can get. He’s constantly nearby and often hovers at the borders of Harry’s property as if begging for entry to sacred grounds.
Harry should be livid—and in some ways, maybe he is—but somewhere in the last week, Harry’s come to expect Edward’s company, to appreciate it. To notice it when it’s gone. Edward sticks to Harry like a house-elf bound by oath, turning up at every moment and looking personally offended if Harry suggests he spends time with his abandoned family members instead of the muggles they sit with for lunch.
And as much as Harry finds Edward’s presence annoying, he isn’t that bad. Edward is interesting. Harry enjoys watching how Edward reacts and changes to the thoughts of those around them, how he adjusts his body and carefully speaks, as if editing himself real-time.
Seeing Edward interact with the muggles is funny too. Perhaps as funny as it is for Edward to watch him do so as well. Although dispiriting to admit, Edward seems more on top of the muggle stuff than Harry is. Edward has lived with them for long enough, so perhaps that’s simply expected. Though for a muggle-born wizard, Harry is a little shocked at how out-of-touch he really is with the muggle lingo of high-schoolers.
All of his more recent forays into muggle life have been limited to seedy nightlife and, honestly, there wasn’t much talking involved. Besides, Harry was off his rocker most nights. He can’t even be positive that he truly did successfully interact like a normal muggle. Even the muggles around him likely wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t. Harry gasped himself awake more than once and often woke feeling a little too rested, a sure sign he’d visited Death overnight. Those were some of the nicer deaths he’d had—accidental, leaving on pure highs, coupled in the arms of less intoxicated muggles.
“Have you thought about asking Luna?” Ron asks, his face deep in the fridge shuffling for something on the magically extended shelves.
“Er, about what?” Harry asks, coming back to the conversation and trying to shake the dregs of memories where he felt so high he floated away.
“About that seer. I don’t know, maybe she could give some insight. Chat to her.”
“Chat to Alice? The half-muggle vampire I met in an American city no one knows I’m living in? That literally goes against everything we planned for.”
Ron heaves a sigh so large Harry thinks he should be a father to eight children, not one. He escapes the fridge with a jar of some unknown substance with Molly’s handwriting across the side.
“It’s Luna, Harry. Pretty sure she already knows.”
“I still don’t see how she would help,” Harry responds with a huff.
“I’m just saying, maybe she could chat to this seer, give her some advice from another seer-like person. Feed her some information on the Wizarding World’s aversion to prophecies.”
Harry scoffs and his eyes almost roll out of his head.
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Ron groans. “You know things have changed. Prophecies haven’t been the same since, well, yours. Everyone’s much more particular about hearing any.”
“I don’t think choosing not to listen to a prophecy is the same as it not being prophetised.”
“Maybe not. But in your case, Voldy listening to it is what made it self-fulfulling.” Ron stops mixing his pot of concocted ingredients to glance back at Harry. “Look, all I’m saying is maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea. Have someone else—someone similar—give the run down to that seer of theirs, before you find yourself cracking it at her for something she says accidentally. Especially if you’re wanting to spend more time with them,” the way Ron emphasises the word ‘them’ has Harry avoiding his eyes, for fear that Ron might see something there. Something Harry doesn’t want to think about.
“I wouldn’t crack at her,” Harry grumbles. There must be something written on his face, because Ron changes the subject.
“You wanna go pick up Rose and Teddy now? Pretty sure Hermione spilled the beans that you’re back in town, so the paps should be there to get a few shots.”
“Great,” Harry replies drily.
It is part of the grand plan though. To be seen sometimes, spotted in the wild with his ageing potions and glamours on. It’s part of Hermione’s timeline of his life—how often and how regularly he should be photographed, especially at the beginning, in the first couple of years away. It’s all an elaborate ruse to keep people from looking for him too deeply, to stop someone from wondering why he’s not been around visiting friends. To stop someone like Rita trying to track him down and prove he’s not hunting Dark Wizards.
“Can you pick up some cheese while you’re out? The block stuff, not shredded. ‘Mione hates the pre-shredded stuff,” Ron yells down the hall, not bothering to pop his head around the corner to see if Harry even agrees.
———
Harry drops Teddy off to Andromeda after dinner, who asks him to spend the night instead of travelling across floo’s for hours. She doesn’t know, of course, that Harry isn’t making some grand travel between countries via a convoluted twist of floo’s, nor via a Ministry-approved international portkey. He’s simply apparating, with very minimal effort and no sound. But he’s not apparating to Forks.
He finds himself instead in Seattle, not near the small underground pub near the port, instead in an alley way he used when first scouting out possible living locations with Hermione. It’s secluded and close to a main stretch nightlife. It’s the weekend after all, and Harry’s all aged up for once. It’s the perfect time for him to meet someone and let loose a little.
Which has nothing to do with the fact the hole in his chest seems extra cavernous after visiting his friends and playing games with his godchildren. It has nothing at all to do with the fake crows feet at the edges of his eyes that match the very real ones on the faces of his best friends. It has nothing at all to do with the cool bones he feels rattling around his neck, tightening like a noose.
Harry slips into the club with practiced ease, finding his way around the edges of the dance floor to his main destination: the bar. They don’t ask for his ID, and no one gives him second glances because, for once, he doesn’t look like a teenager. He looks like he should—like a man closer to thirty than twenty.
Harry downs his glass of whiskey and quickly orders another before he’s bustled from the busy counter. He situates himself in a corner and watches the crowd, hoping for someone to catch his attention.
There’s a woman dancing sensually on her friend, her eyes darting over to Harry every few seconds. Her long red hair reminds him too much of Ginny though. A man brushes against Harry as he walks past, his hand caressing along Harry’s bicep and a small apology slipping from his lips. All Harry can think about is molten eyes.
He finishes his drink and decides to order himself another one with the hopes that more alcohol in his system will lower his unusually high standards. Harry normally isn’t afraid to accept the advances of those who approach him, and he’s not afraid to approach those who catch his eye either.
But, even an hour later with more drinks downed than he can truly remember, Harry can’t seem to relax. Three people have asked him to dance or offered to buy him a drink, and he’s turned them down each time with lame excuses. He doesn’t want to think too closely about why he doesn’t want to spend his time with anyone else, specifically after coming here to do just that. He doesn’t want to look too deeply into the errant thoughts battering in his head of golden eyes and furrowed brows.
No, Harry doesn’t want to think of anything at all, actually.
He leaves his drink, unfinished, on a random ledge nearby, the closest place he can find to ditch his glass, and pushes his way to the exit, slipping between sweaty bodies and wafts of miscellaneous smoke. Once outside, he hobbles over to the closest alleyway, stumbling on the uneven pavement.
After literally killing himself previously with drunk apparations, Harry should really have learnt his lesson and refrain from doing it again. However, it’s actually Harry’s intent to die, so to do so by accidental apparition would kill two birds with one stone. As luck has it, he manages the magic without ending impaled on a dark object or splinched in half, although he’s unsure if that means the trip was successful or unsuccessful.
He’s not splinched—or dead— but his foot is unfortunately in a rather soft and wet bag of rubbish, and an undefined, disgusting liquid leaks into his sock. He shakes his foot from the ripped rubbish bag, flicking some food scrap from the tip of his shoe and holding back a slight gag as it makes a wet slop sound on the concrete.
He walks as normally as he can, acting more sober than he feels, exiting the alley way and crossing the road to a seedy hotel. A ‘no vacancy’ sign flickers in beat to the loud thrum of a nearby nightclub’s music, making it hard to tell if it actually has vacancies or not. The front door is propped open with a heavy cedar block and a piece of paper duct-taped to the door explains their prices, ranging from one hour to overnight.
The reception is hidden behind a thick plastic panel and a woman sits there smoking, her hair rolled into curlers and a small TV playing some muggle show with canned laughter. Harry books himself a room overnight, paying extra for a corner room with only one neighbour and for a towel so he can shower. It costs him more than it should according to the sign on the door, which the receptionist says is outdated when Harry points that out. He’s sure he has received a foreign-accent tax, but can’t bring himself to care that much. Not when he’s so close to his goal. So close to reprieve.
He knows he shouldn’t.
He even sits on the edge of the likely-bed-bug-infested bed for twenty minutes, trying to follow the steps Hermione told him to work through back when his suicide rate was the highest.
Think of all the reasons not to—which, honestly, isn’t very effective when it’s not permanent.
Think of all the people who love him—and Harry does, but it comes with the burden of guilt that their existence and their happiness and seeing them is partly why he is here now.
Think of the person who has to find him—which he’s effectively made a nil point, by finding a hotel.
It’s not even the first time he’s come to kill himself in a hotel. It’s the best way to do it, because it ensures that Kreacher or Hermione or Ron won’t have to stumble upon his body, if they’re unlucky enough to come looking for him in the minutes he’s out. Or maybe he’s the unlucky one in that situation, because being found dead is a rather terrible ordeal for him with how overbearing everyone gets afterwards, especially considering it’s a rather short affair.
Harry thinks about what he’s going to do for a good twenty minutes. He wonders why it is that he can go from being fine one minute, to suicidal the next. Why is it he can laugh and joke with his godchildren, and mere hours later be in a one-star hotel with death on his mind? Why is it he came to Seattle for company, but left alone?
He’s never really considered what being Master of Death has done to his brain—not beyond the slight acknowledgement from Hermione that perhaps being immortal has a fundamental difference on his brain chemistry. But, now, he does consider it.
He considers it when he fluffs the pillows and takes of his shoes. He considers it when he folds his jacket neatly and lays the towel down on the bed as a hopeful barrier between him and any bugs. He considers it when he lays back and looks at the ceiling, following the cracks around the room. He considers it as he turns the light off and listens to car horns beeping a few blocks away.
Harry waves his hand and the elder wand is there, like he’d always been holding it. Like it wasn’t just on his bookshelf at home, settled next to the other Deathly Hallows. He points it at his chest and lets out a deep sigh, one from the very depths of his lungs, that ends in a soft whisper of the killing curse.
“Avada Kedavra.”
The cruel—kind?—green magic curls between his ribcage and shocks his heart. He feels every moment of death. Every atom of magic, streaming into his chest, jolting his heart into an uneven rhythm and then sinking deeper still, drifting into its atriums until the magic finds the very depths of him.
“Welcome back, Master,” Death says, its constellation face gazing down at Harry curled in its palm.
Harry doesn’t respond, simply wraps himself tighter and breathes a sigh of relief at the loosening of his muscles and the weightlessness of his body as he is placed in Death’s sternum.
“Rest, Master,” Death hums, as though providing a service Harry should be grateful for.