A Soulless Angel

Miranda Potter was standing in the crowd, watching the funeral procession with tears in her eyes. She hadn't known Harry that well, but there had been something infectious about his soft, shy smiles which were reluctant, as if he had found the very act of smiling a possibility but an impossibility for him to cope with.

Miranda turned around, shaking her head. It looked like a large chunk of the magical world had turned out for this funeral, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it except anger and disgust; a lot of that anger and disgust was aimed straight at herself, at her branch of the Potter family.

It was largely their own fault, for the way they had spoken about Harry, and their perceptions of him that had driven him to committing suicide after he had saved those children.

She grimaced in disgust and hatred, just thinking of the Scourers. The MACUSA had finally decided they'd had enough of them, and they had taken the blood of the corpses Harry had left of them, and they had tracked them down, and many Hit Wizards and Witches had been sent to their locations. Their orders were simple; wipe them out, all of them, every generation.

Thanks to her relationship with Isaac and Jasper, and her own friends, Miranda knew the Scourers had received a nasty hit, and it was still ongoing thanks to the memories ripped out of their hateful little heads. With some luck, the disease that was the Scourers would all be exterminated successfully by the end of the century. Or even better, the survivors might finally learn their place and stop trying to discover the magical world, but Miranda doubted it. She only hoped the current MACUSA President continued to send in the Aurors and Hit Wizards and Witches, find the descendants of the scourers and finish them off for good.

Just thinking of their latest sick scheme was enough to make her physically ill.

Isolt, what was that traitor witch thinking?

Didn't she know what obscurials could do?

The MACUSA had managed to capture the House Elf the witch had purchased and bound to and interrogated it before it could escape. The House Elf had been disgusted with what it was forced to do, using its powers to move freely and kidnap the children the scourers needed. All of them were being healed and checked to make sure their magic hadn't shown any signs of being twisted and transformed, which would result in their deaths if any narrow-minded magical government had their say.

Miranda snapped out of her thoughts when she heard the High Priest begin, and she stood next to her husband and brother-in-law. Like herself, they were both affected deeply by what happened to Harry. They all knew Harry had only come to America, to them at last, in the hopes of forming a bond with them in order to heal from the abuse he suffered from Britain…only to leave when he didn't get the empathy he needed.

It made her sickened and disgusted with herself it went so far, and Harry just planned to leave.

But Harry would not have approved of this funeral, and Miranda's fury and disgust were aimed not only towards herself for not stopping the way he was being treated until it was far too late, but towards the MACUSA itself and towards the British magical enclave. According to the goblin account manager in Britain in charge of the finances of the Potter branch there, Harry had written a will, and in it he had stated extremely clearly he had wanted a quiet burial, one where his ashes would be scattered into the sea by someone who would consent to have their memories erased so they wouldn't say where, although in the long run it would not matter.

But his will had been ignored; while the British had tried, and failed, to have large chunks of Harry's will overturned for their own petty reasons, the goblins had stopped it, but the British (and the MACUSA) had overturned the wishes of Harry and transformed what should have been a quiet ceremony into ….into ….this…. into a media circus.

-8-

Sirius Black was paralysed, and he had in in this state of unholy shock ever since he had heard the news. He didn't believe it, he couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe the news that Harry was gone.

He remembered their last meeting, how Harry had torn up those adoption papers, and told him in no uncertain terms he hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. Sirius had wanted a chance to make things right; he already knew he had made so many irreversible mistakes that Harry was concerned.

Abandoning Harry when he was a baby and going off after Pettigrew. What happened then? Harry was sent to the Dursleys.

Being stuck in Azkaban when he could have escaped at any time, while all that time the filthy muggles Harry had been left with because Dumbledore had been playing god with his godson's life.

Not prioritising him when the time came, focusing instead on getting revenge on Pettigrew without having any real plan in mind for the aftermath.

Abandoning Harry when it was his turn to be sent to Azkaban.

When Harry had been released, it had shattered Sirius on the inside. He had become a recluse, a drunk. But the truth of the matter was, Sirius Black had never truly grown up. He had been a young man when he had been sent to prison himself, and as a result of the Dementor's exposure he was locked into an age while his body appeared to be twice its real age, and because he had received mind-healing late, Sirius had been recovering slowly by the time the truth of Harry's innocence had come out.

It had taken him a long time to get over a lot of his guilt, pull himself together, and actually try to speak to Harry and even adopt him. Sirius had wanted to make it up to his godson, but now he was here, he knew it wouldn't have worked. There was just too much pain and grief there, too much hatred and bitterness.

Harry would never have accepted him as a guardian; the younger wizard had blamed him for so much, hated him for so many reasons, and Sirius knew it would not have worked out anyway, now he was thinking about it since….

Harry was not James.

And now he was dead.

Sirius was left wondering what the point was. Why was he still alive when so many had died? James was dead, and now Harry was too, but Sirius knew if he committed the suicide he was contemplating, he would not really get the peace he wanted, but he would have to deal with his long-dead best friend and his wife…

And he knew only too well how they would feel. But he would definitely let Snape, who had been a large reason why his relationship with his own godson had become a living nightmare, win. Just thinking of the slimy, disgusting, oily, sneering thing disgusted Sirius now more than ever.

-8-

Hermione Granger had never before attended a magical burial before, and if she were honest with herself, she truly wished she wasn't here. When she had gotten the news that Harry was….dead, it shook her.

She just hadn't believed it, and even now she was wondering if it was even true, although her parents told her it was just plain, simple denial. Hermione knew they were right, but she just could not believe someone like Harry had just…meekly decided to die after everything he had gone through. While she had been a spy, how many times had she heard him go off about survival, saying that if you were truly weak, then you deserved to die?

And she had seen him survive so much; okay, granted, she had not actually witnessed him fighting off Quirrell back in his first year, to say nothing of the whole mess with the basilisk (seeing the memories in the Ministry after he had killed Voldemort did not count), but she had seen for herself the lengths he had gone in his third and fourth years at Hogwarts to survive the Dementors and the Triwizard Tournament.

It was her mother who had told her that Harry had likely had enough, tired of being so strong and yet completely by himself, believing that he was better off dead that made Hermione realise that even Harry Potter had limitations.

And yet she still could not believe it.

Harry Potter could not be dead, there was no way that he was. He was still needed, the magical world needed him desperately.

But then her father asked her bluntly if she had ever known him at all. He had then gone on to her straight that sometimes ex-convicts just had enough, and ended it. But Hermione didn't believe that, especially when she thought of Harry. He was too strong for that.

No, she was sure something else was going on.

But what?

Looking around at the ceremony, however, Hermione was left on her own, out of her depth; she could have read up on these ceremonies, knowing thanks to her photographic memory how they were meant to go, and what was going to happen, but beyond that, she was out of her depth. She had always felt out of place at a funeral, surrounded by people she knew and yet didn't know, while dealing with the loss of someone.

She truly didn't understand why she was even here, she had spied on Harry, lied about him, informed on him, so why was she here?

-8-

Chloe, Harry's mind healer, had tears rolling down her cheeks; as a mind healer, she was not really meant to have any attachment to any of her patients, but Harry Potter was an exception.

Which wasn't really surprising; despite all of his attitude, the way he'd held himself, the standoffish 'leave me alone and you'll be better for it 'cause I don't need anyone in my life' manner of his, there was something endearing about him.

The same could not be said about his American family; Chloe had met and spoken to Miranda Potter, who had approached her - how the older witch found out about her, she didn't know and she didn't care - but when the mind healer learnt why Harry had committed suicide, she had needed all her years of professional experience to hold herself back.

Harry had worked so damn hard, lost so damn much, trying to recover; he had confronted his past by returning to Potter Manor and confronting the portraits of his parents, and he had been so pleased and happy with the thought of getting away from Britain, of meeting with his relatives…only to receive a relapse.

It infuriated her that this woman hadn't bothered to try to mitigate it, to say something or go after Harry before the scourers found him, and then he decided to just end it by dying. Truth be told, as his mind healer, and someone who had actually gone into the dark, painful quagmire that was the mind of Harry Potter, she could not blame him for wanting to end it.

Everyone had their limits.

Chloe closed her eyes, deciding she had had enough herself.

-8-

For the whole magical world, the loss of Harry Potter was a blip…aside in Britain and the MACUSA, for clear reasons; the MACUSA were lauding him as a hero. The Scourers and their deeds had left a terrible shadow over their way of life for decades, and the fact so many children had nearly been transformed into twisted obscurials made everyone furious. The MACUSA's actions in wiping out the scourers down to the children, who were also put to death, was met with great joy and pleasure. Scourer-descended families were being slaughtered every day, their minds torn apart as the wizards sought out their ilk to exterminate them.

But the reactions in Britain were also mixed; hundreds of people still hated and feared Harry Potter, but there were many who were furious with him dying because their plans had hinged on him returning to Hogwarts, and Albus Dumbledore was one of them. The Headmaster of Hogwarts was disappointed and dismayed his former weapon, and his tool to gain more power for himself was gone now, and with that, Albus Dumbledore had to accept that he would need to look for someone else to help him in his drive for wealth and personal recognition.

For the Weasleys, the loss of Harry Potter was a loss for them to remove the stain of being Blood Traitors and a chance for them to recover their family's reputation before it was ruined a few centuries before, and their chance to get revenge on the Potter family for leading the charge against the Weasleys was gone for good.

The alliance which the Potters had once been a part of had to accept the fact Harry Potter was gone for good, too; deep down, some of the junior members were partly grateful they wouldn't have to face Harry Potter again, but his loss meant the future of their alliance was in question.

Many in the Ministry of Magic were furious when they tried to get their hands on the Potter fortune and the legacy, chief among them Amos Diggory with his petty desire to bring Harry Potter down for Cedric's death and Cornelius Fudge who had wanted to have a little bit extra to retire with, only to discover it was locked down. It turned out Harry had left a will, but nobody had been invited as it was a private affair.

The MACUSA Potters received a good chunk of the British Potters legacy, but that was it, and so many wondered who the mystery recipient was.