scraps of parchment

It takes very little time in the Black library and his own thinking to figure it out. He'd had Voldemort's soul in him since he'd been fifteen months old. He'd grown up with it, given it sixteen years to mingle and coalesce and entwine with his own. And then Voldemort's soul had been ripped apart from his, leaving it drifting and lost and without its other half.

His soul is falling apart like those temples of old.

In the beginning, it's like being caught in some purgatory. Looking down at the hell of everyone's grief, but his eyes are dry. Amidst the heaven of Teddy's small laughs and grabby fists, but his smiles are bland. It should hurt but it doesn't.

Nothing matters as much as it should. Nothing makes him quite as happy or sad or anything as it should.

He's drifting. The essence of him is dying.

Perhaps he'll die too.

It still doesn't matter.

Nothing does.

His second night back for eighth year, Harry goes wandering. Sleep is one of those things that just feels so unnecessary nowadays. It's only when his eyes burn and droop with exhaustion that he really bothers to think about it.

He walks. Past where Fred died, the ghost of his laughter still etched on his face. Past where Remus and Tonks were killed, their last act to try and hold each other as they died, but the Killing Curse took them too quickly for that. Past Colin Creevey's last act, so brave and foolish and Gryffindor and young, taking a curse meant for Lavender Brown. Who had died anyway.

He is a vacuum of utter, utter nothingness.

The turret he finds himself at is about the furthest away he could get from any human interaction. Apparently, the Carrows kept their detentions in the highest classrooms possible, so the screams would echo just right. The corridor leading up to this small tower was their favourite.

He falters though at the last step up, when he catches sight of silvery-blond hair. And the person turns, and Draco Malfoy looks at him.

"Malfoy."

Harry dips his head and for extra measure, waves. It's what he would've done, right, back when things felt as they should?

Why does he bother, still?

Everything about Malfoy is more. His grey eyes are stormier, dark with how they threaten rain and thunder. His face is pointier, paler, cheekbones sharper. The angles and shadows of his face are deeper.

He looks almost as empty as Harry does.

The blond just turns away from him, looking out to the night.

"Why are you here, Potter?" Malfoy even sounds hollow.

"I thought I'd be alone," he replies, adding a forced lightness into his voice. Should he?

"Then go elsewhere. If you would." The last bit is a clear afterthought for courtesy. Malfoy turns away from him to stare into the darkness.

Perhaps Harry should. He should return Malfoy's courtesy, and go be empty and full of nothing somewhere else.

He doesn't.