Finally.
Harry smiled in giddy relief as he saw Voldemort fall to the ground.
Finally.
Finally! Finally! It was over! It was over and done with! The war was over! He could move on and live his life! He could marry Ginny and have a family and finally... finally... finally...
Move on.
Cheers surrounded him. Ron and Hermione pulled him into a hug. Gosh. They were the best friends he could ever hope for. And now they were finally dating. And Ginny. Wow. He loved Ginny. He would follow her to the ends of the Earth. She was everything to him. She was the light of his life. The most beautiful woman alive. Everything he could ever want. No one could ever hold a candle to her.
Harry searched for her in the cheering crowd. Many were cheering. Some were crying. Laughing hysterically. Holding their loved ones close. Checking the injured. Most of the Death Eaters were standing in shock, some were sobbing, some were making their escapes. Of course this time they would all be arrested. Finally. Everything would finally... finally... finally...
Be right.
Ginny jumped into his arms and he hugged her tightly, whispering I love you into her ear. Inhaling her smell deeply. Holding her lithe figure. Loving her. She was everything to him. Harry pulled away slightly so he could kiss her, and they did so passionately. He saw Ron and Hermione doing the same thing out of the corner of his eyes, and couldn't help but feel amusement that his best friends had finally gotten together. Finally stopped fighting. Everything was... finally working out.
…
Harry bought a house. It was one of the first things he did. In that house he and Ginny would live, have a family. Harry would finally have a family to love him. He was a little shocked how enthusiastic she was about having a family straight away. They married a week after the battle. And spent three weeks after that making love non-stop. But she was his Ginny and he loved her dearly. She even made some adjustments to the marriage contract. She said something about being prepared if anything were to happen.
Harry didn't think anything would happen but he trusted her. She was everything and she would know more about these types of things. Harry... Harry felt like something was off. Something was missing. But he ended up reconciling that it was probably family. He probably was just missing the family that Ginny so desperately wanted. Maybe he hadn't been seeing Ron and Hermione often enough? They were his best friends. He probably missed them.
Ron and Hermione had gone to Australia for a few weeks to find Hermione's parents and reverse their memory wipe. They wanted to take their relationship slow. Be engaged for a while before they married. Wait a few years before they had some children. But they were entirely supportive of Harry's feelings. They knew that he needed this... they just knew.
…
A few weeks later he and Ginny discovered she was pregnant. Yes! Everything was working out. Finally. He could live the life he had always wanted. He could have a family with the love of his life. He could become an auror- Do I want to be an auror? -and help the world by stopping dark wizards. He could let himself fade out of notice in the community. Not have all that fame that always followed him. Forget the memories of his childhood. All his brushes with death. He had been very unlucky, hadn't he?
But that was just like him.
His Potter luck.
…
Harry smiled as he got out of bed. He felt so... good nowadays. So content and happy with where he was in the world. So lucky to have Ginny with him. To have his house. To have his child on the way. He walked down the stairs, almost skipping, and made his way to the dining room to make breakfast. He quickly brewed up some jam on toast and was about to eat when he heard a knock on the door.
Who could that be?
Harry walked out and opened the door. Confused and shocked to see an auror standing there. Must just be a check up or something. Or maybe they want to offer him an auror position. The man in front of him was gruff and tall. Mm... Rough shaven with piercing grey eyes. That reminded him... didn't he... something to do with Malfoy. He wanted to forgive him... but... he didn't because Malfoy was a traitor! Right? And he had a trial... He missed the trial... But he... Didn't he?
Harry was broken out of his thoughts when he felt handcuffs snapped around his wrists and a portkey travelling him straight to the Ministry of Magic. What? No! What was going on? The panic must have shown on his face because he heard the auror behind him laugh, a cold cruel chuckle,
"Didn't think we'd find out, did you Potter? That you were the new dark lord? That you killed the last one for his title? That your marriage was a lie? That you drugged that poor Weasley girl and she only found out yesterday? You sicken me you piece of scum. There is no one more deserving to a spot in Askaban."
But... Ginny... He loved Ginny... And that wouldn't... She would never... Wait!
…
There were no enemies in Askaban.
Only victims with the same fate. All to be broken eventually. All to be maddened or killed. All having their souls slowly stripped away. A few of his cell mates hated him at first. Then that hate disappeared like it was always prone to do. They still taunted him. They still screamed at him. Blamed him. Cried at him. But they no longer hated him.
It was enough for Harry to know that they no longer hated him.
They were only trying to pass the time like he was. Because the only other thing to do was to count the days. Days he had lost track of. Days he only remembered when he asked Lestrange. They were on a last name basis which was better than him calling her a murderer and her calling him a freak. She counted the days. That was the only thing she did. Harry instead waited. He listened to their taunts. But he also waited. He waited for the guards to come. For them to drag him from his cell.
The first few times he thought he was being freed but then he realised what they were really doing.
They still thought he had plans to be a dark lord so they treated him as such. Raping and torturing him for hours a day. 'Helping' him. No one had come to save him. Once he realised the truth of their actions, when they dragged him out he used to go kicking and screaming, fighting with all he had. Then he didn't. Then he let them. Then he waited. Waited for the dementors to torment him. Waited for the guards to come. Waited for the sun to rise and the sun to set and the sun to rise and the sun to set. Waited for sleep to take him over. Waited for the cold to come. Waited for the screams to wake him. Waited for the other cell mates to sleep. Waited for a guilty to be freed. Waited for Lestrange to expect him to ask her 'how many days'. And waited for the memories to come back.
He waited for the terror to return but it never did. The terror left him when he accepted his fate. When he stopped trying to escape. When even Dobby wouldn't answer his call. When he found out he was no longer Harry Potter. His last name had been taken from him. He had been disowned from his own family by Lady Potter. He never thought of her as Ginny any more. No. She was Lady Potter. The woman who had drugged him with love potions and then sent him away to Askaban. When his own son thought he was evil. When his own son thought he was a dark lord. When his own son never came.
No one came.
No one ever visited him.
No Ron. No Hermione. No spiteful hateful fickle fucking fans. No disbelievers. No rescuers. No followers. None of his own imaginary army, his own Death Eaters that had been invented. No family. No Mad-eye. No Fred and George.
No one.
No one but the haunted taunts and violent screams that always echoed. And Harry realised that Lestrange was looking at him expectantly so he asked her,
"How many days?"
And she croaked,
"Two hundred. Happy anniversary."
Harry gave her a haunted look and did the math. Two hundred. Two hundred. He could survive. He would survive. It was the code he had always lived by. They wouldn't break him. He would survive.
…
Harry fell back bloodied and broken as his cell surrounded him.
Two years.
Two years of torture and rape.
Two years of waiting for the dementors to come back.
Two years of realising everyone he had ever loved had never loved him in return.
Two years of wishing.
And after two years... Harry was ready to give up. He lifted his head one last time to look around his empty cell. His inmates had soon tired of taunting him as they realised how awful his life had truly been. As he had shared his soul not only to the dementors but them as well. As he had told them about how he had been abused and used for every year of his life but the first. Soon they had begun to feel sorry for him, apart from the insane ones who had never taunted him for they had become empty soulless shells, and they had sent words of comfort to him. Even they were not treated so badly by the guards.
But they weren't enough for Harry. His friends from Askaban. They weren't enough to let himself keep living. They weren't enough to stop himself from giving in. It was time that he ended his pitiful existence. Time that he finally let go. His strong will had finally been broken. Because he was broken. Too many times had they broken him. Too many times had he been tricked. And now he was ready to leave. To let the world fester in corruption and idiocy.
After two years of watching the guilty be let out of the cells, Harry made his final decision.
He would not cry. Not something so sultry. Not something he had given up at eight years old. No. His decision was to say a final goodbye in the words of a song.
"Life it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free."
Harry had seen the music video on the TV through the crack of his cupboard one day, and had made himself memorise the words. Determined to have something of his own. And here was the day when it payed off.
Harry spent the next hour using his blunt fingernails to cut the artery on his right hand, because there had been nothing else to use in the cell.
He closed his eyes, feeling the blood drain away.
Finally. Finally.
…
*Metallica, Fade to black