Harry Potter sat on Hogwarts lawn, head resting on his knees. Barely two weeks previously, he had stood his ground in the Great Hall and ended Voldemort's reign of terror for good. After four years of surviving dungeons and ambushes and hiding in the wild, that victory couldn't have delayed any longer and spared Harry his sanity. As it was, it had been a close call—Harry had witnessed the deaths of more friends than he cared to recall. Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tonks and Remus…the death toll was high and painful and left Harry with enough emotional scars to match his physical ones. Multiple encounters with Death Eaters and Voldemort himself had left Harry with a face more reminiscent of Alastor Moody than the fair visage he had once sported. Long, unkempt hair, extensive facial disfigurement, baggy eyes and a gentle, continous trembling of his hands—this was the pathetic picture that the once noble-looking Harry Potter made.

In truth, it had been quite some time since Harry had given the slightest care about his appearance. It had been quite some time since he had given the slightest care about anything, really, except perhaps killing Voldemort. With that task completed, Harry was beginning to wonder if life was worth living at all.

Of course, there was a small, rational part of him that pointed out that between his blatant and horrifying overexposure to the Cruciatus Curse and the various other war-time traumas he had experienced, he should just check himself into St. Mungo's and stay for a while. But despite this small and rational voice, Harry couldn't bring himself to do anything beside sit and wait. What was he waiting for? Death, perhaps, or some sort of epiphany.

An epiphany in the form of Fawkes the pheonix, for example. Harry slowly rose to his feet out of a dim sense of respect as the pheonix circled above him, then came to hover in from of him using his expansive wings as leverage.

"'lo, Fawkes," he said quietly, tentatively reaching out to stroke the pheonix's head. But as he made contact with the soft feathers that adorned the pheonix, something unexpected happened: his world went black.