Chapter 1
Rain pounded somewhere above him. So loud, it demanded his undivided attention. Not that Harry wasn’t willing to give it freely. It’s been - days, weeks, months (years!?) - yet he still hasn’t figured out where he was. It didn’t matter. Not anymore. The thunderous cries of clouds were honestly the only sign that life continued somewhere . And, that , was what mattered.
A lone candle flickered orange across the walls of his tiny cell.
One would think the Dark Lord would hold him in a real prison. One filled with Dementors patrolling the perimeter of his cell. One where his followers gathered around and cursed him to the brink of death. A prison where the walls were made of magic proof iron instead of dirt.
Yet, Harry was here.
He picked at his nails. He couldn’t recall the last time they weren’t stained with dirt and mud. Would they look black in sunlight, or just brown? Was there just dirt there, or dried blood too?
He grimaced and-
The single flame ceases to exist-
Darkness. A wail tears itself from deep within.
-reigniting a second later. Fanning out higher than it was before.
Tension curls his body inwards. He stopped picking at the dirt. Air refuses to enter his body. He pushed his lungs to work anyways. He has to.
Something so small, yet so wet, hits his face from high above. It slides down his nose. Leaving a muddy trail from his forehead to his lip.
His scar itches.
Harry glared at the dirt ceiling that was now sprinkling mud on him. The roots of trees, flowers, who even knows what, dangle like chandeliers from high above. Roots are supposed to keep soil from eroding, right? The roots support the dirt which would stop any kind of cave in to happen. He’s never been caved in before. And wouldn’t want to exepirnce it either. Would he allow it just to torture Harry more?
The candle flickered from another drop.
A cave in would be preferred, Harry thinks with horror, gaze locked on his only source of light. Anything would be preferred to this.
Will he come to relight it if it fully goes out?
He’s been good. He’s been eating the bread, drinking the water, gulping down the nutrition potions. He’s been good.
Not that it matters. It never mattered to him. He was just a host to something important. A decoration for another’s soul. Madness cannot comprehend that Harry followed their contract, after his surrender, to a T.
He’s frozen. Not even daring to breathe. The flame is fragile. Flickering in and out. He remembers the last time the candle went out. It was… Harry gaspes; lungs filling in with much needed oxygen. Best not to dwell on such things.
He was breathing, if only just. In and out, in and out. Calmness slowly washed over him and-
He’s in a void.
Not a glint of light anywhere.
Nothing.
Dark.
Terror seized his body like he was possessed. Screams leave him without permission. He doesn’t know what finally moved him. Some base animal instinct derived from living in fear constantly.
He can’t go through this again.
It shouldn’t scare Harry as much as it does to act.
He scrambled to the centre of his dirt coffin. Shaking so much, if anyone saw him they’d think he was having a seizure. Nonetheless, his hand trembles as it reaches towards where the candle should be. Chackels bite into his wrists with every frenzied movement. He paid the pain not a thought. The last bits of melted wax dripped onto the ground. Creating a pool of boiling heat. The only warmth he’s had since the start of his imprisonment. It burns him now. Fingers twitch, yet he continues to dig into the melted wax.
It’s okay to be selfish, whispered a voice like Ron’s.
He’s only done this once before. When he thought he could outsmart Lord Voldemort. He failed of course. His one sealed eye being the constant reminder now. Blood still drips from it occasionally, as though the wound still festers under all the healed skin of his almost shut eyelid. He had to keep the company of Molly Weasley for weeks -months, years- after too. Her head, to be accurate.
This time will be different, right?
We can fight our own battles , whispered one so like Hermoine’s.
Hatred churned at the bottom of his gut. Not at his friends, not even at his insane jailer.
A quiet cry escaped him when his fingers finally reached something cool. A soothing balm to hands that can hardly feel anything at all. Harry’s sure some of his nails must have broken off. He continued to claw at the ground anyways. There are no true thoughts in his mind now. Only a poor animal’s longing for release.
Is it happiness or despair that wretched another cry past his lips? Harry doesn’t know.
He held the rock like a babe. Brought it to his heart, it thumps rapidly against the smooth surface.
He’s not an animal anymore. Rationality comes to him in a blink of an eye. What will happen to his friends? Will they not face horrors beyond his imagination if he continues this act (not a plan, an act. Singular motion with one singular outcome. Harry swears to himself it’s not a plan).
Are they even alive? Whispered something so dark and dead in him, the monster is a liar. Do it quickly and we can go on. It’ll make him mortal once more. Someone else can deal with it all.
There’s something in Harry that knows he’s talking to himself; has been since a long while. Knows that he might be steps away from insanity, if he’s not already there. Yet, he answered back every time.
A croaked breath leaves him, “I’m scared.”
It’s not what he expected himself to say.
Nothing answered his truth. Darkness was not sentient, no matter how many times Harry tried to imagine a presence keeping watch over him. Souls did not talk, darkness did not respond. There is only him and the dead space that was once filled with magic.
Magic.
One thought and he lost it again. It’s instinct that smashes one ironclad wrist against the rock. He bleeds from a thousand cuts as he searches for the sharpest shard. It’s instinct that finds perfection. The farthest piece away. Harry’s luck was always terrible.
It’s not mud that stains his hands and knees now.
Harry brings his knees up and hugs them. It was worth it. It had to be. He tightened his arms around himself.
Now. Quickly, do it.
He listens.
For his friends, for his peers. For the sacrifices of so many, this had to be worth it. One finally Horcrux, gone. One Dark Lord, mortal once more.
He shakes as the faces of his friends flood his head. They’re horrified, terrified. Would they understand why he’s doing what he’s doing?
“I’m sorry,” Harry cries, “I’m so sorry.”
Obsidian rips flesh all too willing to be opened.
><><><><
Between the veils of much greater stars, between the coldest pits of black holes, a star twinkled out.
It went unnoticed for a millennium, perhaps more.
But time, reality, existence, work in strange manners.
Something moved, and something passed.
><><><><
He was tired. Tired of the socialising, tired of the games. This wasn’t what he wanted.
“Harry, please try to use a bit more tact.”
He smiled, far to fake, yet nobody noticed, “of course mother. Wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”
He has been staying out of it. Politics weren’t his thing and he knew that, learned it the hard way actually. He didn’t need to hear another lecture again.
Worried eyes scanned his face for any lie, “just be nicer with Tom? He’s been going through a lot and Dumbledore-“
“Must you always take his side, huh? How about how I feel? How I’m doing!? I’m your son,” Harry pointed at himself, face turning a bright red, “you are all impossible.”
He leaves his mother with tears gathering in her eyes. Sympathy blooming in her heart not for her own child but for a charismatic muggle born.
“Harry please- “
Does a pang of guilt echo in his heart? Yes, of course, he loves his mother. But honestly, it would be best if the last instance Lily Potter had with her son was one where Harry was a brat. A spoiled child. It would be easier to move on. Because as much as Harry is tired of everything, he doesn’t want to hurt his loved ones too much.
And maybe something in him wants to hurt them all too. For the secrets, for the whispered conversations behind his back. Yet most of all, he wants to hurt him. He just wanted to be loved. To be given the same dedication he was excited to give.
He doesn't understand how everything turned so rotten.
He was being selfish at the end of the day, he knows that. Maybe in another life he learned faster how the world truly worked. And maybe in that world he was happy to live with pain and heartache. Maybe he was smart, a strong warrior, a capable friend. Alas, Harry was none of those things here. He was useless.
His feet carried him out the side doors and to the gardens outside. They’re beautiful at this time of year. To be honest, the Malfoy manor was always breathtaking, though he would never admit that to Draco. White peacocks preen and puff up once Harry gets close to them.
He smiles. A sad thing of a smile. Loneliness is amplified a thousand times more when at a party.
He sits down.
Grass and sand tickle his palms as he leans on his shoulders. Just a few more hours. He needs to take in nature, the heart of the world, to go peacefully. He twirls his wand between stiff fingers. Lazy arm waves lift rocks and pebbles into beautiful arches.
This rock here is him, and it’s dancing with a red toned princess. And these tiny rocks are his friends, they gather in a circle and dance with the lovely couple…Good Merlin, he’s pathetic isn’t he? Harry wipes tears from his face with his maroon robes. A laugh comes tumbling out. He’s still far too sober, yes, that's definitely it.
“Dobby!” He hiccups out.
A pop sounds, he doesn’t turn towards it.
“Friend Harry sir! What can Dobby get for yous?”
Harry almost laughs. His one supposed friend, a house elf.
“Get me some whiskey,” seeing the hesitation of the elf’s face Harry scowls, “look Dobby I don’t want to be in there but I want to enjoy something nice. Draco wouldn’t mind.”
Dobby curled the rag he wore around his hands, but popped away again before reappearing with a bottle.
“Here you goes Friend Harry, Sir. J-just don’t tell master-“
“Yeah yeah I won’t, you can go now.”
To be completely transparent, Harry doesn’t know how much he’s had to drink already. He still swings the bottle high, lips to opening, golden liquid burning his trachea. It’s a good kind of pain. One his godfather taught him before he ran off to America. And left him, alone. Again .
He drinks more the more he thinks about himself.
Sirius not even writing a single letter? Another swig of the bottle.
Finding out Draco keeps talking shit about him behind his back? Another gulp of flame.
His parents taking the side of his perfect husband whenever anything happens? Another.
Another
Another.
His lover leaving him after he stopped paying her?
The bottle is empty.
Harry snarls. He glares at it.
Would glass do? A bit boring. What would the media think of an heir to a noble line dying from a mere cut from a bottle? It would be a bit funny though, he has to admit. Tom -who has an unnerving interest in magical ways to die- would probably find it horrifying.
Harry sighed. Stretched out his legs and let his head tip backwards to land on the prickly grass.
“ Fuck.”
He bolts back up and turns around, hand cradling the back of his neck.
It’s a rock. A shiny black rock that is far too deceptive with its smoothness. He snorts out a laugh. If he was actually lucky he could have landed at the precise angle to kill himself. But no, now he’ll just have a painful bruise till he picks a way to… move on.
Although, obsidian was a protection for the spirit. Some pureblood families even dressed their deceased in obsidian jewellery to help with passing into their perfect afterlife.
Harry stared at the stone.
It stared back.
The empty bottle hit the ground with a thump, and with a frenzie that he wouldn’t be able to explain to anyone, dug out the rock. Dirt sticks under his fingernails that make him sneer, but he pushes past it. It won’t matter soon enough. The rock has sunk into the sand quite a bit. Only a small portion of it was sticking out, as though the earth wished to swallow it down to its great belly for no one to ever lay eyes on again.
Sucks for the earth then, Harry found it before it was swallowed. It was Harry’s now to use as he pleased.
And he would use it. It was perfect.
A clap of thunder startled Harry. The obsidian almost slipped from his hands. Harry frowned. Tired eyes locked on the horizon. Thunderous clouds gathered there, creeping closer and closer with each second.
Best to get it over with no? Before the rain messes up his view of the landscape.
With a murmured spell the rock is cut into a sharp triangle. Each angle fragile but deadly.
It shouldn’t be so simple.
It is.
><><><><
An equivalent millennium after, or perhaps it was in the same exact moment. Another star twinkled out of fire.
So something changed .
><><><><
It’s him, but it’s not. It’s like Harry, but it’s not Harry . They look so alike. Yet, even the way they gaze at one another is different. Harry’s eyes are cold, distrustful, some kind of agony buried deep within. The other’s are wishful, sad, and so so lonely. It bleeds from the other in waves. There’s a bit of embarrassment on the other’s face as Harry reaches towards his own neck to touch the wound that keeps on bleeding.
They match.
Stone, still embedded in both of them; different pieces from the same rock.
Harry doesn't break the silence. He doesn't want to. Neither does the other.
Harry gives a tentative hand to the other and lifts him slowly from the ground. They walk. Towards the train, towards something new .
He boards the train first. Leans down, ready to help the other step up too. The train screeches the same time the other falls down with a wail, just short of Harry’s outstretched hand. The train starts to move.
He knows what he’s going to do before he even does it.
The other’s eyes light up when he sees Harry jump down. Though they furrow with confusion as Harry hauls him up and uses all his strength to fling him onto the train.
It’s hard. There’s something there, trying to yank the other someplace else. Harry can’t see it, but he sure as hell feels the magic wrapping around the other and pulling .
But he’s Harry fucking Potter and if he gets to help at least one more soul find peace before he finds his own, he will see to it.
He freezes. Though the other is on the train, eyes wide in shock-happiness-gratitude to a stranger who is not a stranger- they fill with worry when Harry convulses onto the ground. The magic tugging the other, choosing Harry as the next best thing.
He didn’t stand a chance.
><><><><
“Harry? Oh my god Harry! ”
“We need to get him to vomit, quickly now!”
What?
“Please baby, please be okay my sweet baby boy.”
Mum?
Harry opens his eyes to a world far too similar and far too different to his own.