Chapter Text
“Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls.
From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.
Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.
In my arms lies Eternity.”
—Andraste 14:11, the Canticle of Andraste
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Harry had known that people would treat him differently once Voldemort was finally dead and gone, but he had also held onto a shred of hope they’d ignore him now that he had done his job.
Turned out he was wrong.
After the dust had settled from the final battle, word spread far and wide of how the Dark Lord crumbled into ash at the mere sight of him in the Great Hall. When in reality, he had left behind a very physical corpse after a spell backfired on him.
It had been poetic in its own way, really. The fearsome Dark Lord defeated the same way he had been nearly two decades ago.
McGonagall and the other adults had made sure to destroy the body then and there. Just in case there was any way any of his followers still unaccounted for that could use it for nefarious reasons. Necromancy was still a relatively unknown branch of magic to most, and they had no idea if Voldemort had any other hidden fail-safes regarding his immortality.
Unfortunately, without a body to parade around, that impulsive decision allowed those ridiculous rumors to grow and spread. They had made Harry out to be some kind of second coming of Merlin himself. And with nobody really listening to the people who had actually been there that day, Harry could not convince the rest of the magical populace that the Dark Lord’s defeat had been all very normal and nothing divine about it.
Not many wanted to hear what Harry had to say about his own actions, preferring to keep to the shock and awe of the event instead. At the end of the day, all he wanted was for the credit to be given to everyone who made it possible for him to finish what had been started before he was even born.
But unless he wanted to confirm that the lore surrounding the Hollows was real to the public and possibly risk more bloodshed when people would eventually want that power for themselves, he had kept that part of the story to himself. He had even kept the grittiest details of that night from his best friends since he was still processing everything that had happened himself.
He died that night. But through some power he didn’t understand and the Horcrux inside him, he had been able to come back against all the odds. And how was he going to explain that without sounding like a crazy person?
Or worse, give the rumors already spreading some validity.
The good thing that came from all the outlandish rumors, though, was the generous donations that were given to rebuild Hogwarts. The school had undergone an enormous amount of damage in that single night, but with a few words from him stating that he was helping with the reconstruction efforts, people came flooding in with resources to help the teachers restore the school to its prime.
Harry spent the following summer helping to rebuild the castle with the rest of his friends who had survived the last battle. It was bittersweet to be there during the summer holidays, as he had always wished he could while a student, never wanting to leave the first home that he could remember having and returning to his horrible relatives.
Kingsley had come to him to ask if he wanted them to go and retrieve his aunt and uncle from wherever it was they had been sent to for hiding, but Harry had declined the offer, knowing that it was best for all of them if they never had to see each other again.
After the first month of summer, Hermione went off to Australia to find her parents now that the danger was gone. Ron went with her, accepting her request the second she asked them both, but Harry decided to remain behind. He had enough of running around for a while and wanted to concentrate on the rebuilding efforts and see his godson.
And that was how he had spent his eighteenth birthday, repairing walls and greenhouses and playing with little baby Teddy. He spent as much time doing both activities as possible and spent every moment he wasn’t with his godson at the school so he didn’t have to dwell on everything that had happened. Or the weird things that had started happening after.
It was on one of those days when he and his friends were helping clear out the debris inside the castle that Harry knew something was really wrong with him.
Harry had been clearing out one of the top landings of a stairwell when it happened. One moment, he was levitating a few boulders away that had been thrown by the giants, and the next, he was waking up at the bottom of the stairwell, covered in soot and lying in a puddle of blood.
A lot of blood.
All signs had pointed to him falling when the landing gave way, but from the floor he had been on, there was no way in hell that he could have survived a fall like that. But there hadn’t been a single scratch on him. He had no idea where the blood came from or why his clothes had been burned. It was all a very confusing and strange occurrence.
He kept the incident to himself, not knowing how to explain what had happened to McGonagall or any other teacher. He had simply gone home, pushed the whole thing to the back of his mind, and carried on as usual. Although Kreacher had been displeased at the state his clothes had been in, he had forced him to eat a second portion of dinner that night.
Now that he and the cantankerous elf were on friendly terms, he had an odd way of showing his feelings towards Harry.
Once the school had been fixed up enough to be safe for students, September 1st came around all too soon. By then, Hermione had returned with her parents and had been ecstatic to be going back to some kind of normal, as had the rest of their friends.
Harry had taken Ron and Hermione aside and told them that he wouldn’t be going back with them to make up their last year. Ron had then confessed that he also wouldn’t be returning since he had taken up on Kingsley’s offer of enlisting into the Aurors. To say that Hermione was unhappy about it was an understatement. She had been incredibly put out that she would be the only one of the three going back with their remaining classmates and hadn’t spoken to either of them for a week.
Ron had been equally upset when Harry told him that he wasn’t going to be joining him in the Aurors either, that he had had enough of fighting Dark wizards for a lifetime, and that he wanted to take some time to see what he really wanted to do now that he was free. Possibly for the first time in his life, he had a real chance to decide his future on his terms.
Ron had tried to talk him around into coming with him, pointing out that the department was in dire need to fill up their ranks again after all of the undercover Death Eaters had been unearthed and arrested by Kingsley and the rest of the Order. But Harry had refused, perfectly happy to spend the next few years just living his life and helping to take care of baby Teddy.
Harry didn’t know the first thing about babies, but he had promised himself that he would be the best godfather he could. He didn’t want to waste any time working a job he didn’t want when he could be forming a family with his godson instead. He didn’t need the money after all; he had his family’s fortune and everything that Sirius had left him.
His friends eventually came around, understanding where he was coming from, even if it pained them all to go on their separate paths so soon. After being each other’s shadows for years, it felt strange to all be doing something without the other right next to them.
Harry had spent the rest of the following year remodeling Grimmauld Place with Kreacher by his side, and between the two of them, began to fix the place up to be livable once again. The old house elf had calmed down quite a bit once his old master’s last orders were fulfilled, but that didn’t mean he appreciated his new master doing the duties that he believed a house elf should be doing for him.
But their little spats over what was and wasn’t a suitable wallpaper color helped Harry maintain a bit of normalcy as the world outside tried to return to its pre-war state. The people of Wizarding Britain would still come to gawk at him whenever he was out in public, making doing his errands a complicated matter most days.
The only place that didn’t condone that sort of thing was the bank, and it was a double-edged blade taking his refuge there. He wanted to try and fix the mess he made of everything when he needed to get the cup out from that vault, and it took a chunk from his vault that Sirius left behind for him to do it, but he had repaid the damages done and was as close to forgiven as a goblin was willing to give to a wizard.
If it had something to do with returning a certain sword, that was neither here nor there. And if he neglected to mention the Sorting Hat, well, Harry could admit to being a bit spiteful himself.
They had, after all, egregiously mistreated that dragon they’d freed.
The next few years after that passed him by both too fast and too slow. His home was now unrecognizable to the house of horrors it once was. And when he wasn’t working on the house, he was at Andromeda’s helping to raise Teddy, the last remaining tie to Remus and, in a roundabout way, his parents.
As much as he wished to take Teddy full time, Andromeda made it clear that she would remain as her grandson’s primary guardian, as she believed Harry to be too young to raise a child on his own. Harry didn’t have the heart to take him away from the woman, who had lost as much as he had, and knew deep down that she was right.
He had no idea how to raise a kid, as he never got to be one. He had no real point of reference to go off from, so he had been content with sharing custody and spending that time learning from the older woman how to care for a child. Teddy made the whole ordeal easy since he was such a sweet and happy child. He made Harry’s life a brighter one, and he just wished that Remus and Tonks had been able to be there to watch him grow.
It wasn’t until half a decade after the final battle that Harry began to wonder if something was wrong with him. His friends had all moved on to start their careers as adults, and they all looked the part.
But not Harry.
While his friends had all grown out of their awkward adolescence faze, Harry hadn’t looked like he had aged since then. Sure, he looked healthier by far now that he was able to live a peaceful life, but he still easily passed for a teenager. He tried to ignore it, and at that time, his friends teased him for having a bad case of a baby face.
But when more time passed and the time came to send Teddy off for his first year at Hogwarts, he could no longer ignore that he could still pass as any of the Sixth and Seventh Years running around the platform. Feeling the dread crawling in his stomach, he raced back home and ripped through all his photos, and coming across one of himself with Ron and Hermione on their wedding day, he was shaken to see a stark difference between the three of them.
Every photo told the same story. Year after year, he could see all of his friends growing into the adults they were now, but in every single one with himself among them, he never looked any different. He looked the same in the photo of them rebuilding the school as he did at Teddy’s eleventh birthday party.
He was nearing thirty, and he still looked seventeen.
Harry hadn’t thought of the Hollows or the stairwell incident in years. But now he was seeing evidence that something had gone terribly wrong that night in the Forbidden Forest, though he had no actual proof of his growing suspicions except his apparent non-aging.
He had Flooed Ron and Hermione straight away and asked them to come by as soon as possible. Both of his friends had looked worried to see him in such a state and had asked what was wrong. He had been at a loss for how to begin, so he had just shoved all of the photographs into their hands for them to go through themselves.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit strange that I still look the same?” he asked, trying to hold in the panic that refused to subside.
“I mean, yeah, it’s a little strange,” Ron said, looking at a photo from two years after the war, “but you’re a powerful wizard, mate. Look at Dumbledore; he was over a hundred and fifty when he died, and if not for that curse, who knows how long he would have lived for?”
“That might be true Ron, but I doubt that the Headmaster had looked all but frozen in time, even as powerful as he was entering his thirties,” Hermione said and looked up from the stack of photos to Harry’s pale face, her brows pinched together as she tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. “Harry, do you have any idea why?”
Harry swallowed the lump in his throat at the question, “There might have been a few things that I may have failed to mention.”
Hermione narrowed her eyes in suspicion, “Like what?”
“Remember the book you were given that told us about the Hollows?”
“The children's story? The one with the Three Brothers?”
“Yeah, and remember when you said to forget about them and worry about the Horcruxes?” Harry felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck as his friends stared at him confusedly. “Well, it turns out we were carrying around two of the three the whole time while on the run.”
“What are you talking about, mate?”
“I had the cloak, the real cloak, it’s been in my family for ages,” Harry rambled. Now that he was telling them, the words just kept tumbling from his mouth. “And Voldemort had stolen the wand from Dumbledore’s grave, remember? Remember how I was able to use it to repair my wand after the battle?”
“Yes, I remember you going on about it being the Death Stick or some nonsense, but then you put it back.”
“Yeah, but there was one last Hollow.”
Ron's nose scrunched up in thought, “The stone, right?”
“The Headmaster hid it inside the snitch he left me.”
“But why?”
Harry shrugged, “I’m not sure, but maybe he thought I would summon him to explain himself, only I called my parents, Sirius and Remus, instead. Who knows? Maybe that was also his plan. For me to want to go and be with my family on the other side, so I’d let Voldemort kill me.”
“That’s brutal, mate,” Ron looked pale as a ghost at that.
“But that’s what happened. The stone worked, I talked to my parents, and I walked to my own death. I died.”
Hermione choked back a sound at the memory. Even a decade later, that night was still a fresh wound for all of them.
“But you weren’t really dead, though,” Ron said, confused. “Voldemort just thought you were when he destroyed that Horcrux in your head.”
“No, Ron. I never told either of you, but I was dead. I saw and spoke with the Headmaster in some liminal place, and I was given a choice to either move on and be with my parents or to go back and finish the job myself.”
Ron’s eyes widened in horror, “And you chose to come back.”
“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have been able to. The Killing Curse hit me with no protection from my mom that time to save me.”
“And you think the Hollows were the reason? Harry, they’re just a story,” Hermione said.
“But the wand didn’t work for Voldemort, did it?” he reminded her, “it didn’t work because Draco had disarmed Dumbledore that night before Snape killed him. Then, I overpowered Draco at the manor when we escaped. The wand can only have one master; by then, it was me.”
“Okay, I can sort of wrap my head around all that, but what does that have to do with this?” Hermione waved a hand at Harry, indicating why he had called them over.
“I had ownership of all three Hollows, Hermione. By the story’s rules, that made me the ‘Master of Death’ or something.”
“What does that even mean?” Ron asked.
Harry paused, gathering his thoughts together to say the last bit of his theory, “I don’t think I can die anymore.”
“What?”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Listen!” he shouted over their protests. Both of them sat silent from his outburst. He hadn’t used that tone with them since he was in his angsty teen faze back in Fifth Year.
“Listen, please,” he began again, calmer this time. “When the two of you were searching for Hermione’s parents in Australia, and I was helping to rebuild the school, something happened.”
“What was it?” Hermione asked, voice barely above a whisper now.
“I fell from the top story of a staircase, only to wake up at the bottom of it without a scratch.”
“Bloody hell.”
Hermione frowned, “I still don’t understand.”
“I fell over seven stories down and hit the bottom onto cold hard stone. There is no way someone could survive that fall Hermione, you know that. But I did.”
“But that was just one instance, surely—”
“I hadn’t thought it was a big deal at the time, but I think it happened again,” Harry confessed. “When Kreacher and I were remodeling the house, I was trying to remove a cabinet from one of the upper rooms. Apparently, we hadn’t gotten rid of everything that was cursed back in the days we were all forced to clean the place, because something had dropped from the cabinet when it broke open, and I was dumb enough to snatch it before it landed on the ground. Next thing I know, I’m waking up on the floor with Kreacher in a full panic over me, and I’m once again unharmed except for the scorch marks on my clothes and floor.”
Remembering it all now, Harry had thought the old elf was just angry that he had been careless and ruined a family heirloom. But now examining it again, Harry realized that Kreacher had been terrified because he had found his master dead, only for that same master to then sit back up gasping for breath perfectly fine a moment later.
Ron and Hermione sat silently beside each other, neither knowing what to say.
“I know it sounds crazy, but as you can see, I’m not aging either,” Harry began to pace around the room. “There’s something wrong with me, and the Hollows are my one and only clue.”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Harry. But this is too incredible to just take at face value,” Hermione said, ever the practical one.
Ron nodded in agreement with his wife, “Yeah, these could all be a bunch of coincidences.”
Harry stopped pacing and stood in the middle of the room to regard them both coolly. “Fine, you want proof? Let’s go then.”
Harry marched out of the drawing room and headed out the front door, not stopping as his friends shouted after him and followed him outside. Harry didn’t stop until he reached the road and stepped right into the busy street and the path of an oncoming bus.
The last thing he remembered before waking back up was the shrill scream of terror from Hermione and the squealing of brakes. Then nothing. He gasped awake in Ron’s arms with Hermione crying over him. Looking over her small shoulder, he saw that he had flown across the road to land on the other side of the street when the bus had run him over.
He lifted a bloody hand and patted her arm to console her, “See? All better.”
Hermione’s head whipped up to stare at him in disbelief before she began to hit him repeatedly on his chest. “Harry James Potter! If you ever do that to me again, I’ll kill you myself!”
“He would just come back, so that’s not much of a threat anymore, Hermione,” Ron snorted wetly, and Harry noticed that he had been crying, too.
Hermione wiped the tears from her face, her skin gone blotchy, and stood. “I’ll go and Obliviate the bus driver; Ron, get him back inside and wait for me.”
Ron didn’t even bother trying to argue with his wife that it was his job to do that, and he just helped Harry to his feet, the two swiftly returning inside the old townhouse.
Once they were reseated in the drawing room, Kreacher had tea ready for them and was glaring at Harry as he sat down.
“Master should refrain from getting himself killed again, as Kreacher does not want to be having to train a new master, as Kreacher is be getting old.” The elf shoved a cup of hot tea into his hands, “now be a good master for once and drink your tea.”
Harry obediently sipped from the warm cup in his hands, “Thanks, Kreacher.” The elf just sneered at him and popped away.
He and Ron sat across from each other in uncomfortable silence while waiting for Hermione to return. Ron didn’t drink from his cup, just kind of held it between trembling hands and Harry began to worry that he might have broken his best friend.
The sudden sound of the door slamming shut made both men jump as Hermione stormed back into the room. “Was that really necessary, Harry? I swear you can be so dramatic sometimes!” Hermione waved her hands around and began pacing around herself now, ignoring the tea her husband tried to hand her.
Harry took another sip, “you weren’t going to believe me. So, I had to do something that would convince you.”
“And that something was jumping in front of a fucking bus?” Hermione nearly screeched. Ron let out a dramatic gasp at her choice of words, his wife not being one to use such foul language.
Harry refrained from rolling his eyes, knowing that she would curse him if he did. “It wasn’t that bad,” he said, feeling much lighter now that he had confessed his suspicions to his best friends, no longer having to carry the burden on his own. That, or maybe it was shock setting in after what he had just done. Perhaps he should ask Kreacher for one of those orange blankets from the crime dramas on the telly?
Ron sputtered tea over himself, his face paling even further if that was possible. “Mate, your arm ripped off from being caught in one of the wheels! I’d say that’s very bad!”
Harry looked down at both arms in front of him. “So I can reattach limbs, too? Well, that’s…concerning,” he thought, trying to see which one might have been detached.
Probably the one missing a sleeve.
“You burst into flames, and your arm was just back,” Ron said, his eyes haunted.
“This shouldn’t be possible,” Hermione mumbled, still pacing the room to gather her thoughts.
Harry picked at a loose thread, “Yet, here I am. Breathing and apparently all in one piece.” It was one of his favorite shirts, too. He’d have to see if he could order another to replace it.
“You seem awfully calm now for someone who was panicking half an hour ago!” Hermione accused him.
“Well, you know everything now,” Harry shrugged, “between the three of us, I know that we’ll have a better chance to figure this out.”
Hermione just glared at him, “I have no idea where to even begin to try and find an answer for something like this!”
“The library?” Ron half-joked.
Hermione sighed and all but fell into her seat beside her husband. “It’s as good a place as any to start, I suppose,” she sighed and finally accepted the warm cup of tea to sip on.
Someone could hear a pin drop in the drawing room, and Harry let himself settle back in the quiet, letting his friends overcome the shock he had thrown at their feet. The three of them went through the whole pot of tea and snacks before anyone was ready to break the tension in the room.
“This is utterly mad, you know? Even for you, Harry,” Ron said, eating another sandwich Kreacher had left them. So Harry took that as a good sign.
“Tell me about it,” Harry grumbled, stirring more honey into a fresh cup of tea, “I had a mother chastising me for not boarding the train on time today before she recognized me; it was mortifying.”
Ron shook his head, staring at the photos scattered across the table between them, “I can’t believe not one of us really noticed it before today, but it is kinda creepy how you look the same as you did back in school.”
“Oh great, now I’m creepy? Thanks, mate,” Harry scowled.
“You know what I mean!”
“It’s no one’s fault that we remained willfully blind to this,” Hermione soothed, mediating like she would her two small children.
Shit. Did this mean he would look the same even when Teddy entered his last year of school seven years from now? Or when Rose and little Hugo grew up and left Hogwarts as well?
The idea of that was suddenly terrifying as he stared at his two best friends, who were already beginning to show signs of aging, as minor as they were. The little creases around their eyes and laugh lines around their mouths. Things that Harry didn’t have, and may never have either if he was right.
He wasn’t sure if he was glad he wasn’t married yet. Because how would he be able to tell his partner that he might never grow old with them? He could only thank whatever power there might be that he hadn’t gotten back together with Ginny right after the war was over like everyone had thought they would. The only thing that came close to this was how embarrassing it would have been to discover that he was more than a little gay while still in a relationship with his best friend’s little sister.
Walking into that random club years ago had indeed been an eye-opening experience, and it had explained so much about his reactions to certain men in his life while growing up—men like Bill, Cedric, and even Victor, who at the time he had just thought had been very cool and admired their skills.
Harry found he had a thing for very competent men. And when he thought about that for too long, he realized it was why he had liked Cho and Ginny at the time, as both girls were excellent Quidditch players and fierce duelers.
Then, memories of young Tom Riddle from the diary would come back and haunt him, and he would shove all of those new realizations about his twelve-year-old self into the furthest parts of his mind, where they belonged. Never to live in the light of day.
But this new realization of his non-aging problem posed a real issue to consider. What would he do if they couldn’t find a cure for this? Stay single? He couldn’t imagine that someone would believe him if he tried to explain this, if it was even safe to do so.
“We can’t let anyone from the Ministry know about this,” Harry said, a new fear unlocking within him.
Hermione looked confused at his sudden statement. “Why?”
“I don’t want to become something to experiment on by some Unspeakable and be trapped in the Department of Mysteries for the rest of my days,” Harry shuddered at the thought.
“That wouldn’t happen,” Hermione began, only to come up short at her husband's worried look, “surely?”
Ron rubbed his face, looking suddenly tired. “It wouldn’t surprise me, really. If the wrong people got wind of this, I can’t say they wouldn’t try to do something like that.”
“But the Ministry wouldn’t let something as unethical as human experimentation go on!”
Ron sent her a meaningful look. “The Ministry hasn’t changed as much as we hoped it would, and by now, you should know that more than I do, Hermione.”
Hermione could do nothing but concede to that point, “That is unfortunately true, yes.”
“I don’t hold any trust in the government not to try and fuck me over like it always ends up doing, even if I do trust Kingsley,” Harry said, a dark look covering his features. “So this stays between the three of us—well, us and Kreacher.” Hermione and Ron both nodded in agreement.
“Right, so I suppose it’s time to get to work on this?” Hermione clapped her hands, the matter for now settled.
“Now is as good a time as ever,” Harry agreed.
“It’ll be like old times!” Ron grinned, though Harry could still see an underlining amount of worry.
They had scoured through the entirety of the Black Family’s private library in their search for answers. It had taken them the better part of a year to get through the room’s massive inventory of books and ancient scrolls, but had ended up with nothing to show for it. Harry never thought he would see the day when Hermione cursed out the Order, who had probably taken out what they could of the darkest tomes back in the height of the war, marking them as too dangerous.
What was left behind was either of no help to them at all, or was full of equally dark magic, but not what they needed to unravel this mystery.
Tensions had often gotten high within the group as they each got frustrated by the lack of progress. They would all agree to take a step back to regroup before searching again with fresh minds.
But then, those breaks got longer and longer as the years passed, and Harry remained the same age.
When Andromeda suddenly passed away in her sleep one night, possibly due to the stress and grief from losing so much in the war, Harry was more than happy to take up the reins of guardianship of his godson. He had Teddy move into Grimmauld Place right away to live with him permanently, and even though they grieved over the loss of another family member, the two of them had been ecstatic to be living together finally.
Harry was able to push his little problem to the back of his mind as more years began to pass. Instead, he chose to focus all of his energy on his godson when he was home from school, not wanting to waste a single moment with him.
He still dated, though he never let it get too serious with any man he ended up liking for more than just a fling. Harry had gotten the hang of a few glamor spells to make him look a bit older than he actually appeared. But if he wanted to keep his problem a secret, then he couldn’t take the risk of anyone who wasn’t family finding out that he was using them, and keeping up those spells constantly at home wasn’t something he wanted to stress over.
Teddy had figured out that something was going on around his Fifth year of school, and Harry had sat him down and told his godson everything, not wanting to keep secrets from each other. Teddy knew it was important to keep the knowledge between them, knowing it could be dangerous for it to get out to the public. He worried about his godfather being lonely when he was at school for most of the year and tried to push Harry to find someone for real.
But Harry never met someone he felt a true spark with, though—not one strong enough to consider marriage and adopting children with anyway. He considered Teddy his real son and felt no genuine need to have another despite his other friends bringing up that he still had no heirs. He had no time for archaic Pure-blooded ideals like that and had said as much.
He had publicly declared shortly thereafter that Teddy was his chosen heir to the Potter and Black estates, and as far as Harry was concerned, the matter had been taken care of.
And if anyone tried to say anything about a son of a werewolf gaining a title to two Ancient Houses, Harry was too happy to shut them up with the reminder of who he was and who had fought and died for the freedom and peace they were all now enjoying.
But then came the day Teddy had finished Hogwarts and declared that he wanted to live on his own. Harry had teased his godson that he just wanted a place to have private time with his girlfriends, and the dark blush that covered Teddy’s face and his hair turning a fire red had told him he had been right. It had saddened Harry to let him go and spread his wings, but he would never want his godson to feel trapped or feel that he needed to ensure that Harry was alright and taken care of.
And when he was all alone again in an empty townhouse, Harry was reminded that this would be his future. The world would keep turning and changing, but he was doomed to remain the same. Kreacher, the little old bastard, had finally passed away during Teddy’s final year at Hogwarts, and it had been another reminder that the people around him were going to be leaving him behind one day.
Even Teddy.
He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he might have fallen into a bit of a depression after that. When he wasn’t spending time with Teddy, he was looking back into possibly finding a solution to his problem. Hermione and Ron were much too busy now, both achieving promotions in their chosen careers while raising a family, and he was loath to drag them into another string of dead ends.
Harry had concluded that he would never find his answers unless he wanted to delve deep into the Dark Arts of necromancy. He wasn’t ready to go down the same path Voldemort had gone, if for opposite reasons. Maybe in a century or two, when everyone he loved was dead and gone, he’d change his mind, but for now, the last thing he needed was for rumors of him becoming a Dark Lord springing up.
Looking down at the invitation in his hand, it was hard to believe that twenty years had passed since the end of the war. The Ministry was holding a grand ball for the upcoming anniversary, and Hermione had begged him to come help her as she attempted to gain support for her run for Minister of Magic.
Harry was proud of his friend for making the decision to run for office, as no fundamental changes had been made in making Wizarding Britain truly equal for all. Everything had gone back to the days just prior to Voldemort taking over the Ministry, with the people just wanting to go back to what they knew, but that meant that the same problems remained.
Muggle-borns still had it hard within the community as no programs had been created to fill in the gaps that kept them separate from the Pure-bloods and Half-bloods, who grew up with the knowledge of the Wizarding world. Magical Creatures and Beings were still treated worse than second-class citizens and outcasts, and Harry knew that only his fame had let Teddy get his education at Hogwarts with so little outcry against it.
Harry remembered every name of those people who had vocally protested against it, and he had made sure that they had regretted it.
Sometimes fame had its uses.
Harry didn’t want to go to some stuffy ball celebrating the reminder of his worst memories. But he would feel terrible letting Hermione down like this when the stakes were already against her in the running, and Harry refused to be a bad friend.
So with a heavy sigh, Harry donned his best dress robes, made sure his glamor was in place, and Flooed to the Ministry at the exact time stated on the invite.
The Ministry’s Grand Ballroom was decorated to the nines. Gold streamers and tapestries outrageously depicting the final moment of the last battle hung throughout the room. Tables groaning under the weight of the most expensive food and drinks lined the walls. Trays holding more drinks and tiny finger foods floated around for the party’s invited members to take as they willed while they mingled.
Seeing how many people had already arrived at the party, Harry immediately snatched two flutes of champagne from a passing tray and slammed back one in a single go, not even bothering to taste the expensive alcohol. Leaving the empty glass flute behind on a random table, he started on his second glass and searched for the person he was there for.
He dipped around men and women all dressed in the most expensive and extravagant robes and ball gowns they could afford, all wanting to outdo one another at the most anticipated event of the year. Harry recognized some of them, having gone to the same school, or recognizing familiar family traits of people he had gone to school with.
He did his best to avoid them all but was halted as a voice he recognized all too well called out behind him.
“Potter!”
Harry turned to find Draco Malfoy, of all people, standing there drinking from his own flute of champagne, appearing as bored as one could at a fancy ball.
“So you ended up coming after all,” Malfoy said, looking all too much like his father with how he held himself. “It seems Blaise owes me a hundred Galleons.”
“You’re all taking bets?” Harry asked, looking around to see if any pouches of gold were being passed around as he took another long drink from his glass, already planning to grab another. This was going to be a long night.
“It’s one way to get through one of these events,” Malfoy drained the last of his flute and handed it off to an empty tray next to him.
It was just his luck. Harry shouldn’t have been surprised to have run into his old school rival right as he arrived. Though thankfully, Malfoy didn’t appear to be searching to rekindle their shared animosity during their school days. If anything, he looked just as reluctant to be here as Harry, and he found a small amount of solace in that.
“So, were you guilt-tripped into coming too?” Harry asked, deciding to brave some conversation with his old rival.
Malfoy just shrugged, his expression bored at the whole affair. “Astoria delights in these sorts of things, and I’m not one to refuse her. Besides,” he continued, a ghost of his old smirk making an appearance, “I held some hope that Granger would be able to drag your arse out here, despite everyone being so sure you’d remain in that old house of yours to mope.”
“I should have stayed home just to see you lose that bet,” Harry grumbled, the blond git always having a way of getting under his skin, even twenty years later.
“As lovely as it was to have this little chat, Potter, I can see Granger making her way over here now,” Malfoy said, looking over Harry’s shoulder, “and since I have no wish to get caught up in another one of her diatribes tonight, I shall be making my escape. Have a pleasant evening.” And with that, the blond wizard disappeared into the crowd, probably on his way to receive his money, having won his bet.
“Was that Draco?” Hermione asked once she reached him, looking just as glamorous as she had at the Yule Ball all those years ago, just more mature and self-assured in herself.
“Yeah, we were just catching up, but he had to go see Zabini about something,” Harry smiled, seeing the look of disappointment on his friend’s face, having missed her opportunity. It seemed that Malfoy had been right to make his escape when he did.
“I’m sure I’ll get the chance to corner him later,” She nodded to herself before smiling at him. “I’m so happy you made it, Harry!”
Harry rolled his eyes, “We both know you’d skin me alive if I skipped out on this one.”
“Hush you!” She slapped his arm playfully. “Now I want you to meet some people and do that thing you do.”
“And what is that?” He asked, letting her drag him away. But not before he grabbed another drink, planning to be well and truly trashed by the end of the evening.
“Enamor them with your heroic humility while I get them to agree to back my candidacy for Minister, of course!”
Harry just shook his head and let Hermione take the lead for the rest of the evening. He had shook hands with everyone she had wanted him to meet with on her behalf, and he did his best to talk her up while ignoring all the fawning over him, never having gotten comfortable with the hero treatment.
As the hours passed, Harry continued drinking to get through all the attempts to gain his attention and possibly make some kind of romantic match. Either that or he was forced to sit through more questions like “When was he going to settle down and get married like a proper wizard?” and “Didn’t he want a family like all of his friends now that he was getting older?”
On and on it went, and his mood just became darker with every invasive question about his private life. He had lost Hermione at some point, and he had the vague thought that she must have cornered Draco finally, for whatever reason she had that night. So without his friend to keep him there, Harry snuck out of the Ballroom and found himself wandering around the Ministry.
It had to be extremely late, as no soul was around.
It reminded him of when they had snuck into the Department of Mysteries to rescue Sirius. The memory remained a fresh wound after what? Twenty-three years? It still felt like he had lost his godfather yesterday, and Harry wondered if that wound would ever really heal.
He found himself standing in front of the same elevator they had taken down, and the urge to go down and see for himself if the room was still there became too strong to ignore. It just showed how little had changed in the Ministry as there wasn’t anyone around to stop him as he entered the golden elevator and told it to go down to the Department of Mysteries.
He had been just sober enough to think to take out his invisibility cloak, as he never left home without it, and wrapped himself up in it just in case there happened to be anyone down there. If he was caught, well, he was bloody drunk. That should be a good enough excuse as any.
Things got a bit hazy, but he remembered stumbling through far too many doors, so he knew he was going in the right direction!
Eventually, he made it to his destination, and all without running into a single person. When Hermione became Minister, Harry would tell her that she needed to work on their security because this was ridiculous. He was embarrassed on their behalf.
Or would have been if he actually cared.
But what he did care about was standing in front of him. The Veil remained the same as it was before, still just a looming archway in an empty room. How could such a thing be the cause of so much of his pain? It was so stupid.
The tattered cloth drifted around on a nonexistent breeze, the translucent fabric revealing the other side of the room, but Harry knew that if he were to walk through it, nothing would come out from the other side.
Wait.
Nothing would come out from the other side!
This could be the solution to his problem! How had none of them come to this conclusion? It was right here all along!
Harry almost felt giddy, but it rang hollow. There was only one way to find out for sure.
Thoughts of his friends upstairs at the party came to mind. Hermione and Ron would disapprove; they’d tell him there was no rush with so much left still for them to do together. But they had already floated so far away from each other; it was getting too hard seeing them grow older, and they were still in their prime years. How was he supposed to get through watching them become old old, become weak and frail, while he would still look seven-fucking-teen.
Thoughts of Teddy flashed through his mind as he took another step closer, but his godson would be fine. He had everything he needed and an army of people who loved him.
Harry was so tired, and he was barely forty. There was no way he’d be able to take watching Teddy grow old and die before him.
It was better to do it now.
Harry discarded every other reason this was a bad idea and kept the vivid picture of Sirius falling through the Veil in his mind. His steps grew faster until he ran at it at top speed.
He ran until he felt the cool sensation of the Veil draping over him, and he closed his eyes, knowing he would be seeing his parents soon. And with that thought in mind, he let himself go and finally felt happy.
It was done.
The wind was knocked out of him when he landed hard on the ground. Gasping for air, Harry was confused as he looked around and saw that he was still in the room. Panicking, he rolled over to look behind himself and stared in horror at the stone arch still there.
How?
The Veil’s sheer curtain continued to float about in the unseen breeze, not even appearing to have been displaced by him running through it just seconds ago. It felt like it was mocking him even, and those whispers continued to echo around the room, like they weren’t even aware that he was even there.
He didn’t understand. When Sirius had gone through, it left nothing behind; there hadn’t been a body for him to mourn, and only seeing him again through the power of the stone confirmed that his godfather was actually dead. But here Harry was, perfectly whole and even worse, still fucking breathing.
Harry was blinded by the angry tears he was unable to hold back, and he felt something in him snap at this final straw.
Wrenching himself from the floor, Harry took out his wand and began throwing curses at the stone arch, letting his anger fuel his magic as each curse was replaced with a darker one. Every spell bounced off from it though, not even leaving behind a single scratch, and that served to only stoke the fire of rage inside of him higher until it burned throughout his body, ready to burst from beneath his skin.
“Fiendfyre!”
The heat siphoned out from his body and began funneling through his wand, his dark, turbulent emotions helping to power the destructive curse as it formed from a balloon of fire into the multitude of molten beasts that had consumed Ravenclaw’s diadem decades past. The heat of them, as they circled around him searching for prey, began causing beads of sweat to roll down his face and between his shoulder blades, drenching his heavy robes in mere moments.
The mass of beasts continued to grow in size around him as Harry pored the years of failure and frustration into the curse, changing them from great serpents to chimeras and into flocks of large birds of prey until they filled the entirety of the small stadium, encircling the ancient stone arch at its center.
Harry wanted nothing more than to see this final failure destroyed, see the instrument of his godfather’s downfall turned to ash.
There was an earsplitting and resounding crack, the stone under his feet splitting as every fiery beast roared in rage as the arch refused to crumble under them. The enchanted fire flowed back together into a formless mass before once more billowing out into one giant dragon, larger than any that Harry had ever seen. The monstrous creature unfurled its massive wings in a hallo of blinding white fire right before it unhinged its jaw and lunged to consume the Veil once and for all.
Harry could feel his skin peeling back and burning away by the heat of the flames in agonizing waves. His flesh was exposed to the dry air only to then wither and flake away, showing the blood-soaked bones hidden beneath. But Harry was past feeling pain at this point; his only focus was finally being successful in something.
Manic joy sprang to life inside his chest at the reveal of small fissures climbing up both sides of the stone arch, the Veil finally cracking and giving way under the force of his magic.
That joy was short-lived, as once those cracks met at the top of the arch’s sloping curve, the Veil shattered, shattered as if it was made of glass, and the victorious cry of the molten dragon was the last thing Harry heard before his vision whited out and then knew nothing.
Nothing.
No thoughts. No sensations.
An endless, unknowable void.
He wasn’t sure where he was. He wasn’t sure who he was.
Was he anything?
Harry
That’s right, he was Harry, Harry Potter.
Did he do it? Did he die?
Master
No. He wasn’t master to anyone, he didn’t want that, he was just Harry.
Master
No!
Harry wanted to curl up into a ball but couldn’t feel his body. He couldn’t feel anything in this colorless void. But somehow, he sensed he wasn’t alone; something was wrapping itself around him as it crooned unknowable words into his being.
He couldn’t understand the voiceless, shapeless, thing. But it continued to whisper to him, filling him up as they floated in the nothingness with no sense of time to ground him.
What was the use of time in a place that didn’t exist?
For once, Harry knew true peace. He let himself drift, uncaring of his fate now that he was free of all burden. When memories of his family and friends would flash through his mind, he let the happy ones linger for as long as he could before the thought that he should be among the ones that had already passed would cross his mind, and worry would begin to grow inside him.
But then the crooning, soundless voice would return stronger, and he would drift back underneath the peaceful waves of nothingness.
Until suddenly, there was something.
Flashes of color and a symphony of sound exploded around him. Their sudden existence was startling, and he desperately wanted to cover his ears to block it all out, but he didn’t have a body to do it.
A blinding flash of golden light ripped through his mind next. Close behind it was another and another, and another. Pulsing around him like a heartbeat.
It went on relentlessly. It could have been minutes. It could have been years.
Harry tried to open his mouth to cry out in a desperate attempt to block it all from his mind, but he could do nothing but endure the confusing images attacking him since he had no form to do anything.
“It’s time to return, Master”
Harry gasped awake, and he bent over in agony as his chest felt as if a hippogriff had just kicked him in.
His hands scraped against the hard, jagged ground underneath him, and the sensation of something physical shocked him even further, his head whipping around to see where he was.
A rough and uneven landscape greeted him, a perfect picture of desolation. There was no sky he could see, just a green haze that consumed everything after a certain distance, but it was the most beautiful thing he had seen after that nothing from before.
But it wasn’t the Ministry.
Harry climbed to his feet, feeling unsteady as he leaned against a stone pillar to regain his bearings. He tried to recall what had happened.
He remembered the party. He remembered going down into the Department of Mysteries. He remembered being piss drunk and thinking it was a brilliant idea to walk through that blasted arch, only to end up perfectly fine.
Hermione was going to kill him if she ever found out he tried to kill himself again.
What came next?
Fire. A roar. A flash of light.
Shit.
He cast a bleeding Fiendfyre spell inside the Ministry. He was an utter idiot! Someone could have been hurt or killed by his reckless behavior.
Harry continued to berate himself as he tried to remember what else had happened after, but concernedly, his mind came up blank. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing them in frustration, and was startled when all he saw was his bare arms.
Looking down, he was further startled to find himself completely naked; the only thing covering him was his cloak, but it was different now. Gathering up the silky cloth, it shimmered and sparkled brightly in his hands, though there was no sun around to reflect from.
Where was the light coming from then?
He let the ends of the cloak go and pulled it around himself, feeling far too exposed for his liking as he searched for something familiar around him. But he didn’t recognize anything; this place looked like something from a nightmare, and he began panicking.
He was in a place he didn’t know; he was completely naked, and there was something wrong with his invisibility cloak.
He needed to get home. Now.
Searching for his wand, Harry shouted out a curse when his foot stepped on something, nearly causing him to trip over as it rolled under him, but the shape of it was familiar. Scrambling to pick it up, Harry expected to be greeted by his trusty wand and felt the blood drain from his face instead when it was not holly in his hand but the wood of an elder tree.
But how the hell did it get here?
Harry stared in growing horror as the Elder Wand remained in his grasp when it should have been lying inside Dumbledore’s tomb, where he had put it to be forgotten. Yet here it was, and he had the absurd thought if a wand could be sentient because it almost felt like it was feeling smug now that it was back in his hand, with no sign of his holly wand at all to usurp it.
But that was ridiculous. He was being ridiculous.
The wand warmed in his hand, and he had the childish impulse to toss it over the ledge. He went so far as to step to the edge to see how far down the ground level of this place went and was shocked to find that he wasn’t as alone here in this strange place as he had first thought.
Not so far below him, Harry witnessed two women climbing up the rocky cliffside he had woken atop. An older woman in white and red robes was trying to guide a much younger woman as she struggled to reach the ledge, slipping and crying out as the rough terrain dug into the young woman's bare hands.
A ripple of magic formed behind the old woman, stretching and pulling the fabric of space until it gave way, tearing a hole like some strange portal.
Harry stood above them in silence, fascinated by this new magical phenomenon, but was startled out of his trance when twin cries of fear rang out, pulling his attention back to the women and what it was that scared them so.
Cold dread filled his being as a fleet of Dementors quickly gained up to catch the young woman who struggled to climb and reach her companion. Without help, she didn’t stand a chance to get away from the vile creatures, and Harry sprang to action before he could give it much thought.
He ignored the pain in his feet as he slid down from his perch above them, the rocks digging into the bottom of his feet, and they would probably be a bloody mess once he landed at the ledge below. But that didn’t matter to him, as the Dementors were gaining fast on their prey, and Harry wouldn’t let these monsters take any more souls if he could help it.
He hit the ground hard, stumbling with shaky legs as he pushed himself in front of the old woman, waving the Elder Wand in front of himself. “Expecto Patronum!”
The old woman gasped out in shock as the giant stag leaped from his wand to stand tall in front of them both; the ghostly form of Prongs shook his head, displaying the large rack of antlers before charging down the side of the cliff to meet the Dementors head on.
The creatures shrieked and scattered as Prongs attacked them, the stag’s blade-sharp antlers piercing through their tattered cloaks like they were made of nothing. The Patronus glowed more brightly as more of the creatures appeared to take their fallen comrade's place.
With the threat to her now taken care of for the moment, the younger woman was finally able to reach the edge of the ledge. The elderly woman hurriedly came to her aid to help pull her the rest of the way up. “I hate spiders! How do we get out of here?” the young woman asked, looking just as confused and lost as Harry had felt waking up here.
Harry looked around to see what she was talking about, “What spiders? We got bigger problems than some spiders.”
The old woman shook her head, looking far too pale to be healthy, “There’s no time! More demons will soon find us if we do not go now!” she turned around and gestured to the strange tear in the air behind them, “Quickly, through there!”
Harry and the young woman both stared into the hole in the air, and Harry’s interest was piqued when he saw that it was a portal leading to some run-down ruins, and better yet, he could see a sky.
“Why are you naked?”
Harry whipped back to stare at the wide-eyed young woman, confused at her question, before remembering that he was indeed completely starker under his now sparkling cloak. “Uhh.”
He was saved from trying to come up with some explanation as a guttural laugh boomed below them. An enormous horned monster appeared out of the haze and was leading more of the Dementors their way. The creature snapped a long whip made of lighting threateningly as it made eye contact with him.
And it had a lot of eyes.
“Quickly, you must go!” The old woman shoved her young companion towards the portal, and the young woman disappeared as she fell through it.
The laughter and cracks of thunder were growing louder as the creatures neared them, and Prongs could only do so much to give them time.
“Go! Warn them!” the woman cried out again, pulling on Harry’s arm to get him to escape before her.
But Harry wasn’t going to leave the frail woman behind to be killed. Casting a blasting curse under the horned creature’s feet as it aimed to use its whip in an attack, he picked her up into his arms as best as he could and leaped through the portal, taking the brunt of the fall as they landed on the other side onto the cold hard ground.
Harry wheezed as the air was knocked out of his lungs, as the woman’s bony elbow landed into his sternum when he broke her fall. But there was a sky above him now and no monsters to worry about as the portal closed behind them, cutting them off from that strange place.
The sound of heavy feet running towards them faded in and out of his hearing, the glowing green sky above him also fading from view as his eyes closed, too heavy to keep open. He dimly felt gentle snowflakes fall onto his face and melt on his skin as more muffed shouts of shock echoed around him before everything faded to black.
Why was it snowing in May?