Translucent
Harry could see him in his mind’s eye as if he were some sort of specter. Voldemort’s gaze never faltering, never failing, and never blinking despite the brightness of the field they both stood in. It was a strange sight—too see a creature Harry associated with darkness out in such a bright, and admittedly, peaceful scene Harry had crafted in his own mind.
There was a time where Harry would have screamed and shouted for the man to leave; to stop destroying the vivid verdant field with the darkness of his robes; to cease staining the soft blues of the sky with the blood red of his eyes. The monster was a dark speck in the overall glow of the looming sun, accentuating rather than hiding the whiteness of his face—the gauntness of his skin that no dark potion could ever salvage. Voldemort did not belong here, but there he was. And Harry accepted his presence for what it was: a contrast between light and dark, good and…something else entirely.
The time for him to scream and shout had ceased several dream sequences ago, and so there, Harry stood—watching the way Voldemort’s robes billowed in the passing breeze.
The man looked at all nothing like he did when he was a boy—overtaken completely by the shadows in his arguable present heart. Harry once believed there was a void there instead of the muscle that pumped much needed platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells through each individual network underneath their flesh.
But Harry had learned that to some extent Voldemort bled just like them. He was a monster, yes, but he was still in fact a man. Voldemort may have destroyed all traces of his humanity in his goal to power, but it was that very humanity in him that had led him down the path. It was not a foreign concept—even if Muggles and Wizards alike wanted to treat it as such. And it was that very fact that left a bitter taste in the back of Harry’s throat.
“Not going to throw a tantrum like a spoilt child this time?” Harry heard the man speak, catching the way each individual syllable was uttered without pause or inflection. There was no malice in the tone despite the insulting nature of Voldemort’s words—in fact, there was hardly ever any emotion at all in the Voldemort of his mind.
It was funny, really. To see the man Harry had spent years of his life fearing in his mind. Harry supposes that the war may have ended, but there was still something left of it inside him to this day.
Harry had tried to starve that part of himself with work as head of the Auror department. He had tried to ignore it by spending more time than necessary with Ron and Hermione; visit new pastures in this new time of peace with Ginny. But nothing could really disappear the stain that clung to his soul—the part of himself that lived so intimately close to the soul piece of the monster before him.
It almost made Harry want to laugh at just how pathetic his life really was. Harry had thought he’d find peace after the man’s death, but here he was, standing in a peaceful meadow only Harry’s mind would create, with the very man that brought chaos into Harry’s existence. It was almost as if Harry’s mind somehow missed the part of Harry that never was. A piece of himself Harry never really knew was there until he was severing it from his own soul.
Harry was almost sure the real Voldemort would have found this to be poetic justice. The perfect revenge against the one person that had defeated Voldemort over and over throughout his lifetime—presenting obstacle after obstacle, setback after setback in each of his carefully laid plans. The one that had practically killed Voldemort despite Harry’s reservations in even wanting to do in the in first place.
Harry was no killer—he knew that. But he still felt like he was when laying in his bed after another night without Ginny to warm it with him. He could not scratch away the memory of the man crumbling to the ground at his feet—of the light fading from once expressive red eyes that hungered for more and more of this world.
“What would be the point? We both know you’re not really real.” Harry sounded tired even to his own ears, despite only being just a month over twenty-five. It was still a shock, in some way, that the war had really been over for as long as it was.
But then again, if one was seeing Voldemort’s face in their head every night, they’d think the war was still not over despite the pitying glances from friends and family saying otherwise. Despite the relative peace and joy that came with the final death of the most feared Dark Lord in decades.
“Do you really think this is a mere manifestation of your guilt for failing to save me, Harry Potter? How naïve you are.” The man sounded amused, the sound of it shocking Harry completely. It was like dropping pebbles into placid waters—the ripples of it notifying all that there was a disruption in the natural order of things and that they needed to run.
Ripples meant boats and fishing lines, it meant boys and girls taking dives into the cool waters where the fish lived. It meant an end to peace, and in some respect, it was almost as if Voldemort’s show of emotion was a precursor to some new arc in their growing interactions in Harry’s dreams.
“Are you not? I killed you. I watched you fall dead when we both cast our spells.” Harry watched the way Voldemort’s shoulders began to tremble, not in anger as anyone would readily assume, but with laughter as he stepped closer to where Harry stood. Each step disrupting the silence that settled around them in the field.
The distance appeared at first glance so very large—seeming to go on easily for miles in the landscape Harry had created, but in reality, Harry was sure it was only a short distance. It should have motivated Harry to move, but he could not find it in himself to widen the distance. There was nothing for Harry to fear here, it was all in his mind. Voldemort could not hurt him here—could not hurt anyone at all in this fictional place Harry had created in his mind. Voldemort only existed because Harry had made it happen—it was his way to cope with the trauma of fighting a war at such a young age.
Of having to murder someone for the first time.
Voldemort’s death left a mark in Harry, and that was why when Voldemort finally stopped in front of Harry with only a few short inches between them, the light of the sun passing through the inkiness of Voldemort’s robes and skin as they both stood there, Harry did not move. Harry simply gazed into the redness of Voldemort’s eyes.
They glittered underneath the light like gems, the most unique shades of garnet and ruby red percolating in them.
“Oh, Harry. You never learn, do you?” The man whispered the words, the hiss of them snaking itself into Harry’s chest like vipers hiding in the underbrush and cobras preparing to spring at a looming threat. Harry wondered idly if this was how Nagini would have killed him had she wrapped herself around him—crushing his chest until it hurt to breathe.
Harry prepared himself for what Voldemort would do next, having already dreamt this enough times to know what would come. It hardly scared Harry anymore to experience it—to hear his worst fears thrown back at him before the specter vanished and left Harry alone in his dreams to cope with the weight of his guilt.
But Voldemort did not do what he usually did—he did not say the words that would crush Harry’s heart or dissipate into the light as he often did after taunting Harry.
Instead, Voldemort laughed and stepped into the little space there was already between them. He consumed all of Harry’s vision, the pallor of his skin painful to Harry’s own weary eyes as he tried to understand—to calm his beating heart from the rush of blood and adrenaline coursing through his veins.
It felt familiar and yet not. This was different, and Harry had no clue what to make of it all now.
“I gave a piece of myself to you, Harry. It was only fair that I take something in return. When you took a piece of me inside you, you bound us so tight that neither you nor I knew where we began or where we ended.” Harry felt his face drain of color, almost as pale as Voldemort when the man’s lips ghosted against Harry’s ear.
“Is this not what you wished? I am alive despite the odds mounted against me. I am here, and I grow stronger with each passing day.” Harry stepped back, but Voldemort seized him by the shoulders—trapping him in Voldemort’s arms despite the transparency of his skin.
Between the shock of Voldemort touching him and the weight of the man’s words, Harry felt like he might be sick. He was unsure if it was a scream or bile that wanted to crawl out of his throat at that precise second.
What has he done?
“To think, the Boy-Who-Lived is the one to resurrect me. To miss me the most in a world that continues to move forward without a glance to the past. How…sweet.”
All Harry could see was the burning red of Voldemort’s eyes, the panic crawling over his flesh stealing all the air from his lungs. Voldemort was—but he couldn’t!?
And then Harry was awake, his breaths coming so quickly that he was unsure if he was even breathing at all. It took Harry more than a moment to really realize he had finally awoken from the dream—to settle the sickness in his stomach that had him tipping too close to the precipice.
His heart was beating too quickly, his skin so clammy with his sweat that the sheets beneath him were drenched in it. Harry spread his arms to the left side of it, feeling the smoothness of the sheets to find some sort of grounding and to make sure that Ginny was gone. It made Harry feel guilty that he was happy to know she was gone, but Harry doubted he could explain the nature of his dreams to her again. He had tried numerous time before, but there was a lump that prevented the words from coming out his throat each time.
When the seconds stretched to minutes, his heart finally slowing and his breaths deepening into something that resembled peace, Harry finally thought back to what he had just seen in his mind’s eye. Harry wanted to believe it was only a dream; it really could not be more than what it was. There was simply no way that Voldemort could really be stuck between the cracks of Harry’s soul when Harry had already died once the in the past.
It was impossible for the man to return. Harry knew it was permanent when the killing curse had struck Voldemort in the middle of their duel. Harry had seen it; the sight of death finally seizing the man in its hands enough to rattle Harry into a permanent state of guilt.
Arguably, even post-traumatic stress disorder.
It was enough for Harry to fault himself for the man’s death. Enough to relive the battles in his mind over and over again until all Harry could do was sit alone in his office. It was almost pathetic how in some way Harry wished the man actually lived—to free him of this guilt. Harry felt like something was taken along with him when Voldemort had died, and Harry knew that there was no one he could really speak to concerning these feelings.
His friends would not understand. Ginny would never understand. None of them would—not when this world had moved without Harry—glossing over the losses and the pain. None thinking of how Harry had been molded to die and kill despite his desires not to stain his own hands in blood.
Harry did not know what to do with this feeling trapped inside him—hating himself for how he kept seeing the face of his enemy of his mind, reopening a wound that Harry tried to sloppily suture together.
He was panicking again, noting the way his fingers shook when he finally convinced himself to grab his glasses from the nightstand. It took him longer than it normally would, the fidgeting making his movements sloppy and uncoordinated, but when he finally did, he slipped them over his nose. The weight was comforting, giving Harry the chance to inhale deeply to calm himself.
Harry pieced himself together—each layer of his identity stretching to cover every single crack in his soul.
The moment Harry opened his eyes, he wished he had not.
Voldemort stood before him, a glowing specter standing by the only exit in Harry’s bedroom. The monster looked more solid than Harry had ever remembered seeing him—making out each network of arteries and veins beneath the translucent skin.
Harry scrambled back, his eyes wide with disbelief and fear as he tried to make sense of the sight of what he had considered the manifestation of his guilt—and the longing Harry felt for the piece of Voldemort taken from him.
“Soon, Harry Potter.”
It took everything in Harry to silence the scream that wanted to leave him.