There was a body.

There was a body, and it was lying in a pool of bright red something in the middle of the alleyway.

For a moment, just a quick second, Harry was frozen. His limbs tensed. His skin crawled with electricity.

And then, he moved.

Harry burst into speed, exploding outwards in a mad dash to the prone boy–no, the young man–left spread-eagled and abandoned in the middle of the dank alley. He knelt next to him, breathless and praying for a pulse. He grabbed the pale hand and expertly found the boys thready pulse point, one hand gripping his wrist as he listened to the raspy, barely-there breaths the man was struggling to inhale. Harry felt the air still as he counted to ten, listening in silence as the breaths became even weaker, and for one fatal moment, stopped coming altogether.

"No no no," Harry muttered, sitting up straight, "NoNoNoNoNo this is not happening." He dropped the boy's hand even as his fingers slid over the boy's throat, desperately seeking out a pulse. "No," Harry gasped, falling back onto knees. This boy, this random guy, was dying. And Harry didn't know what to do.

Wait, scratch that–yes, yes he did. Well, shit.

Harry scooted until he was kneeling over the man's cooling corpse, mentally preparing himself for this. He had saved lives before, but never like this. Harry had always fought to keep people safe. But this–this sort of thing was so totally, so completely, so utterly far out of his depth that he was rendered to being a helpless mess of panic. Ok. Breathe. Breathe.

I am Harry Potter.

Harry Freaking Potter.

Master of Death (whatever the hell that means, anyways).

Defender of Hogwarts.

Sorta-Kinda-OkayNotReally-Trained Mediwizard.

And he was going to save a life.

Well, maybe, anyways.

Harry took a deep breath and started counting, head tilted sideways, ears mere centimeters from the boy's still mouth. His hand continued to probe the neck for a pulse, but the soft flesh remained warm and still beneath his fingers.

"6," he chanted, shifting his weight to lean down further, "5."

Nothing.

"4."

"3."

Still no pulse.

"Goddamn it...and 1."

Harry screwed up his courage and tilted the boy's head back in an attempt to open up his airways. He gave two breaths to the corpse lying before him, forcing his own breath down the foreign lungs. He dropped the boy's neck as quickly he could and scrambled to kneel by the young man's side.

"You got this, Potter. Don't let him down, just his once, don't screw it up, and SAVE SOMEBODY for once in your pathetic life."

Harry folded his hands the way he had been taught, and pressed down. HARD.

This was nothing like the mannequins that he had used back in training. For one, the chest under his hands seemed a lot more fragile than the transfigured dummies at St. Mungo 's. The legs bucked slightly with every thrust he gave, and his knees were slick from kneeling in a pool of someone else's blood. But more than all of that, this time just mattered more. SO MUCH MORE.

"And thirty."

He was panting by now, fueled by adrenaline and the overwhelming need to just do something. He paused as he moved to cradle the boy's head in a brief moment of panic. He still wasn't fully certified yet, shit, what did he do now? Did he just keep going? Do a few more rounds? Did he check again? God, this was why he was a fighter. He had never been good with procedures or lists. He had only taken the basic healing course on Hermione's insistence and to augment his auror application. He wanted to get accepted to the program based on his skills and not his scar.

But shit, what was it now? Damn it all, he was going to check, for a few seconds, at least.

He held his breath for the obligatory ten seconds, ear yearning to hear the wisp of a breath and fingers aching for a single heartbeat.

Neither came.

Harry swore and continued giving his breaths and CPR for a few more rounds. He felt like he was forgetting something crucial, though, and it was freaking him out.

He kept counting his chest thrusts.

"9...shit that's it!" Harry was mortified and terrified. "999! I need I call...wait shit no, that's not right, what is it...17, 18... Damn you America and you weird numbers! Damn you all to hell!" He gasped, "28!"

Harry contemplated his options. He could try and apparate the kid to the nearest hospital, but it would probably eradicate any chance the boy had of making a full recovery. Too much magic burned muggles, ate them up from the inside out. Port key wasn't an option for the same reasons. And even if he did know the American emergency services number, he didn't have a phone on him.

Shit.

Harry started bellowing for help down the alley. He screamed at the top of his lungs, pleading for someone to come and find them. He kept furiously pumping the man's chest and pushing air into him. He had seen so many ridiculous romantic comedies where the love interests had had to give resuscitation breaths to the other in order to live and/or share a kiss, but this was nothing like that. This was nothing but force, nothing but pure desperation and sheer panic to save a human life.

And he was failing.

Harry didn't know what to do. He was SO not trained for this. There was a reason he had been fast-tracked for the Auror program and not the Healer one. But anyways, here he was, alone in an alleyway with a dying man and nothing but himself and his magic to help him.

"ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?"

Ron's belligerent firstie voice seemed to echo from his memories at the thought of his magic. He was taken back to his first year, when the trio had just taken on their second daunting obstacle and had faced the Devil's snare.

God, Harry was stupid.

He may not have had an AED with him, but he had the next best thing: Magic. Mind racing, Harry fumbled around the concrete, hands searching out the wand he had dropped when he's hurled himself at the dying boy the first time. His fingers finally curled around the familiar wood, and for the first time that night, Harry had hope. He could do this. After shooting the boy up with a couple of high-powered episkeys at point blank range to start mending the many wounds littered on the boy's skin, Harry rubbed his hands together and focused on the magic inside of him.

He had only learned how to do some basic wandless magic after graduating from Hogwarts. With Ron and Hermione's essentially ignoring him in favor of spending time with each other, Harry had started teaching himself new magic at an alarming rate. Everyone told him that after the war, he just a needed to relax for a bit before doing anything else. But that wasn't going to work.

He was Harry Freaking Potter. He didn't do "relax."

Harry concentrated on the magic flowing through his veins. He could sense it now, had been able since what the newspapers had dubbed "the battle of Hogwarts." His own magic was a deep emerald color, similar to his eyes, either streaks of deep purple and for running through it. It was beautiful. Normally he could just sit and meditate on the magic flowing before his eyes for hours, but now, he was on a mission. Harry painstakingly corralled his magic into two branches splitting off into his hands and placed his fingers on the boy's motionless chest. The magic fizzled under his skin, raging and rushing to break free of his control and expand to flow through Harry's body in its natural form. But Harry, now sweating with exertion, held firm. He lifted his hand from the boy's limp body and raised them in the air.

"CLEAR!"

He slammed his palms down onto the boy, as lightning danced and raced through Harry's arms and funneled into the boy. The young man's body convulsed uselessly beneath his hands.

The pain was absolutely excruciating. Harry ground his teeth in a feral snarl as he fought to force his magic even further. Harry's screams tore through the night. Unable to hold on any longer, Harry broke the connection, finally slumping next to the broken body next to him. "I'm sorry," Harry panted, "I am so, so sorry." He had failed. The boy was still limp, pale, and utterly dead. Whoever this kid had been, he was long gone, and it was all. Harry's. Fault.

God, he was useless. He had seen so many people die, and he couldn't even save one muggle despite his magic and the apparent title of "savior." He had the skills, and the ability, to save people, but he still failed. There was obviously something wrong with him, with his personality or his innate person. Harry Potter was a worthless, no-good Freak who deserved whatever he got.

Harry let a single tear fall onto the corpse at his feet. With a creak of his knees, he rose to turn around, to go find someone with a phone who could..."dispose" of the body.

And then something amazing happened.

The pale boy was still lying on the ground, but his fingers were twitching. His chest was trembling, as if it wasn't quite able to remember what directions it was supposed to go. Harry was halfway down the alley when the boy took his first shaky breath, the air struggling to find its home in lungs that had been empty for too long. Eyelids fluttered. Fingers twitched.

The corpse gasped.

Harry spun on his heel, startled by the noise. He was the boy's side in a second, as the kid continued to cough and splutter and breathe. Harry gently grabbed one of the boy's shoulders and helped him sit up. The kid was trembling. His breaths slowly, slowly, evened out from desperate gasps to regular huffs of air. He placed a trembling hand to his chest and winced as it came away drenched in red.

"Damn it," he whispered. Harry startled at the sound of the high-pitched voice. "This was a brand new designer sweater." He glanced at his boots, which were covered in a layer of soot and grime from lying on the streets. "And the boots. Not the boots."

Harry wanted to laugh. The guy was talking about fashion. He was bleeding out in an alleyway of New York, blood leaking out of his chest, with a stranger hovering above him, and his first thoughts were about his clothing. What the hell. The kid's dazed eyes suddenly focused on him.

"Who're you?" he slurred. Harry's brow creased. That was generally not a good sign. The kid brushed at his forehead and blinked as his movement swiped blood from a cut above his eyebrow into his eye and down his cheek. "Thass not good."

"Do you have a phone?" Harry asked. He needed an ambulance-there was no way in hell he was gonna risk apparation with the kid in this state.

"Why, do you want my number? Cuz I'm taken. I think. You remind me of my boyfriend, though. You both have...have…" The boy squinted. "Wait, who are you again?"

Oh my god, the kid is gay. This was a goddamn hate crime. Dear Merlin, he was gonna kill someone. He could feel himself bristling, his fingertips crackling with little jolts of electricity that was still left over from his brief stint at playing medic. He clenched his fist and forced a smile.

"I'm Harry, and I'm gonna help you out, okay? But I need your phone. To ring an ambulance."

"Ohmigod, you're British. Do you drink tea? Can I get some tea? I want tea. What did you want?"

"Your phone."

"It's in my pocket. Mind the jacket." He squinted at himself. "And the blood."

Harry fished the complicated-looking device out of the kid's pocket and fumbled with it when it gave him a shock. He took a breath and tried to lock his magic back into his body so that it wouldn't totally disable the one thing that he desperately needed to save this kid's life. He pushed a few buttons and the thing came to life, casting an eerie glow over his face and the pavement. He winced as he saw the blood gleaming on the screen from where he had tapped and swiped at the glass. It was slick with red. Harry clumsily tapped out 9-1-1 and almost cried at the rather bored, "911, What's your emergency?" that came crackling through the phone. He answered all of the woman's questions as quickly as he could. He was left with instructions to keep the still-nameless boy awake and talking, and the assurance that an ambulance was on its way.

"Can I have my phone back, please, it's got angry birds on it. I like birds. I wanna be a bird."

"You are so not okay right now."

"Hey, hey, where are you from? I'm from Lima. Like the bean. I'm a Lima bean. Those are gross." He blinked. "I'm Kurt. Hummel. Kurt Hummel. Who're you?"

"I'm Harry. We've been through this, mate."

"Cool. Harry. Where am I?"

"An alleyway in New York, I believe."

"Huh."

"Yup." Harry glanced at his watch. This kid was in serious condition, and he did not like the way he was rambling. He took in the kid's rumpled clothing and the small treble clef brooch he had pinned onto his sweater. The 911 worker had said to keep him talking. So he would.

"So. Your pin. Do you like music?"

"Yessss." The world was much longer than it should have been. "I'm what they call a Gleek."

"What the hell is a gleek?"

"I'm not sure. But I was in glee club at school. We'd get slushie facials all the time. Schuester liked raps. We did not. This one time I dressed up like Lady Gaga and another time my friend was Brittany Spears and…" the kid kept talking. Harry kept one eye on the kid and the other on his watch. Harry let him drone on. As long as he was awake and talking, he wasn't going to just die without warning. And at this point, that was pretty much all that he could ask for.

"I hated myself, you know." Harry jerked his eyes to the morose kid sitting at his side. "People called me a lot of names. I thought that they didn't mean anything. That if I left, that I'd be different, people would be different. But nothing is different. I'm different and I don't know if I like that. I ran in here to save someone else that they were beating up and I got this for it. Why are people cruel? Why don't they just….like each other? What's wrong with people Harry? What's wrong with us, that we are so broken that we need to break each other? Why do we hate?" His eyes were glazed over, but whether it was from introspection or pain, Harry couldn't tell.

Harry mulled over the boy's slurred words, turned the word hate over and over in his mind. He thought of death eaters and blond boys with black tattoos and desperate mothers. He thought of a boy falling into flames and a grizzly man falling into a veil and people falling to spells and hands that were almost touching but couldn't quite make the gap. He thought of a rebel with pink hair and a teacher with stitched-together clothes and a toddler with blue hair and eyes that would flicker between amber and bright green. He thought of boys in cupboards and oversized sweaters that had once been worn by someone that had received thirty-seven presents one year and thirty-nine the next. He thought of horse-necked women that smacked messy-haired boys with frying pans and walrus-men with fat fists and an even thicker belt. He thought of green lights and red hair and stags and snakes and black dogs.

He thought of rats.

He remembered red eyes and a girl's scream and dirty blond hair and bulbous eyes and soft smiles and starved frames. He thought of a black-and-yellow body hitting the ground, of a boy who played fair no matter the cost and paid the price. He knew the cries of a girl too smart for her world and too big for the room. He knew how to count his heartbeats and the ghost of a dead man's smiles. He knew scars, ones of lightning, ones that spelled crude words, ones that stayed forever because of poisons and wickedness and things that went unnamed.

He thought of hate.

And then he thought of red hair and brown eyes and big teeth and a dirt-smudged nose. He thought of freckles and bushy hair. Of little boys with balled up fists that were dropped out of windows. He thought of white speckled feathers and a beard with glowing ashes stuck in it. He thought of warm sweaters and twin smiles and the sky beneath him as he soared through it. He remembered warm butterbeers and his first hug, a flying armful of brown-haired girl and a man with years locked behind his eyes. He thought of desperate mothers whispering in a forest and screaming "Not my daughter, you bitch!" in castles. He thought of soft hugs and hard kisses and quirky smiles and red hair and broomsticks. He thought about the red and gold in his blood, and what it stood for, and what it meant to him. He thought of Hogwarts. Of friends. Of family.

Of home.

And then he focused his eyes and thought of this boy in front of him, this Kurt, who had run down that alleyway, scarf flapping, and screamed, "NO!" to burly men with all of his heart. He thought of this boy, that talked of fashion and music, who had been dead for minutes.

And then he spoke.

"We hate because we love. Because everything has an opposite, and everything needs balance, and because people are blinded sometimes. By so many things. Because there will always be more of them than there are of you. Because we are all alone, no matter how hard we try or how long we look and how deeply we search. Because we get jealous, because we are different, because we see and we feel and it just hurts so damn much sometimes that either you've got to break or you've got to break someone else to let it go. We hate because we break. Hate is a tool of the weak. Someone once taught me that love is the greatest weapon of all. I always thought it was bullshit, but we're nothing without it. We hate because sometimes adults are right and sometimes they're wrong. Because sometimes we're right and sometimes we're wrong. Because change is inevitable, and humans can't resist the easy or the hard stuff."

It was silent for a few moments. Harry kept an intense eye on Kurt.

"That's...deep." Kurt gave a little breath of a laugh. "I'm the one dying here. I think I'm the one that's supposed to get all introspective and stuff. You're…" he paused to cough on the ground, splattering the concrete with little red globs of spit. "You're stealing my right. My last words. Tell Blaine I-"

"No." Harry interrupted fiercely. "You're gonna be alright. The ambulance is on its way. You can tell Blaine whatever it is when you see him. Because you will. I promise." The last words were whispered, almost hissed, because Harry hated that phrase. He knew it, far too well. The desperate last wishes, someone's last conscious thoughts while the world was ending, and you just needed to say your bit, to let that someone know that it was ok.

Anyways. He hated that phrase.

"Ok, ok. I won't say it. I won't say it. But I don't...I don't feel too good." His words were slurring. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. "Imma just lie down, for a bit, just a lil bit, M'kay? I wanna sleep."

"No no no," Harry muttered under his breath. "Oh bloody hell no, no you don't, you can't just 'lie down' you bloody fool, you're literally in the middle of dying and-" He looked up and down the alley, checking for muggles, because what he was about to do was highly stupid and highly illegal. But then again, he was Harry Freaking Potter, and really, the world should know better than to trust him at this point. So he gathered his magic, gathered his very core, and once more pushed it through his fingertips and down into the body beneath him. Hell, this was risky, and really a bad idea, this was a really bad idea, Hermione would have my head for this-Harry's thoughts were abruptly cut off when Kurt gasped and shook beneath his hands, eyes flying wide open as he stared at his own chest.

"Is that..why am I...what the hell, why am I glowing?!" He gasped at the silver light streaming out from his chest. "What in the...what the GAGA is this?" He locked eyes with Harry, incredulous gray meeting anxious green. "Who are y-"

Kurt's inquiry was cut off by the shriek of an ambulance as it wailed in the distance, getting closer by the second. Harry raised his head towards the sound. He smiled.

"It'll be here soon," he told the gaping boy.

"Now wait just a minute, Gandalf-" Kurt ignored Harry's confused "Who the fu-" and soldiered on, "Who are you and what the hell was that?" The glow had faded now, although it did still look like someone had lined his ribs with silver glow sticks. It was dimming with each passing second. "What did you do to me?"

Harry looked Kurt right in the eye. "Saved your bloody life, I did." He responded gruffly, his voice made of steel. "I've seen too many people die to just leave you there."

"That does not explain the light show."

"That 'light show' was the only way to keep you alive, kid-"

"But what was it!" Kurt screamed, hurt and confused beyond all rational belief. Harry Potter knew the way magic worked, knew how to push and pull at the impossible until it came when he called. Harry was born with magic in his veins and love in his skin and poison in his head. He knew that truth was its own magic, its own freedom. Harry believed in lost causes, believed that everyone was worth saving, even rats, and especially people with little fists and bloodied scarves and hearts too big for their bodies. Harry believed in magic, and rebellion, and above all, truth, so he didn't really hesitate when he decided to break one of his world's most ancient creeds.

"It's magic, mate. Magic." Harry shrugged. "I just mended some of your ribs and helped slow the bleeding by a bit, but until the ambulance comes, there's not much else I can do. I don't want to burn you out with it, I already used up a lot of your muggle-level tolerance bringing you back from the bloody dead."

Kurt Hummel had never known Hogwarts' warmth, had never felt otherworldy power flood his veins. He had never held a wand or shot a hex or gossipped with mirrors about his morning appearance. Kurt was not a wizard, but he still cast spells when he sang. He still felt warmth race through him when he moved onstage, felt sparks fly when he held Blaine's hands in his. Kurt was not a wizard, but both he and Albus Dumbledore knew that music was a magic all its own, both he and Lily Potter knew that love was a magic all its own, both he and this green-eyed stranger knew that friendship was a magic beyond all other kinds. Kurt Hummel was not a wizard, but he knew magic. Kurt Hummel had not fought in a war, but he still knew death-knew it by the way it left a house still, knew it by how a death threat from David Karofsky had once slid down his ears and settled in his stomach, cold and fearful, how it had made his heart stutter.

(Both these boys knew magic. Both these boys knew death. But the difference was this: one of them had greeted death like an old friend, had known magic as something tangible and lovely and heartbreakingly real.

One of them had not.)

And so Kurt spluttered out a shaky laugh and pinned cloudy eyes on this bright stranger's.

"Magic isn't real," he coughed, "And I...I didn't die. I didn't die. I'm still alive." He reached a shaky hand up to his throat, felt his pulse flutter like something trapped under his skin. "I'm still here. I'm alive. I'm alive." He narrowed his eyes at this strange savior. "That's a cruel joke to play on me."

Harry stared at Kurt's throat, at the streak of crimson trembling fingers had left there. "It wasn't a joke. I don't joke about death." And if his voice came out a tad bit strangled, Kurt wasn't about to call him out on it. "And mate, I hate to break it to you, but magic is definitely, 100 percent real. Here." Harry concentrated on his fingers and snapped, focusing on the flame dancing on the tip of his thumb. Arthur Weasley had taught him this trick, had worked on it after witnessing Tonks light up a cigarette outside the burrow. He had been fascinated with her little yellow lighter. He took its science, made it magic, and gave it to Harry. "See?" Harry leaned closer to the boy. Kurt's eyes fixed on the lingering flame. Harry flicked his thumb and shook out his hand, watching tendrils of smoke float off his finger. "Magic."

"Yeah, no, I'm calling bullshit on this. Maybe I am dead, like for-reals dead, and hallucinating this. No, no, I don't...I don't believe this." But Kurt's breath was coming quicker, his eyes were going wide and staying that way. The boy kneeling on the pavement next to him, in tattered jeans and a T-shirt, had made fire. Out of nothing.

(This was another thing they both knew: real magic never came from nothing. It came from blue eyes and bushy hair, from black stages and raised voices, from people and love and loss and warmth.)

Harry gripped Kurt's shoulder with a solid hand, trying to ground the other boy. "Hey hey hey," he murmured, "It's going to be alright, okay? Help is on the way. There's an ambulance just around the corner." And there was. The sirens were close enough now that they were drowning out the rest of the world, the rest of the city, but nothing was loud enough to drown out Kurt's heavy breaths and weak heartbeat. Harry's other hand grabbed both of Kurt's. He warmed them, let the heat seep from Harry into Kurt, and felt the injured boy relax slightly.

"I still don't believe in magic." Kurt finally said, after long, long seconds. "At least not your kind."

Harry nodded as the ambulance came careening into the alleyway. "As long as you believe in some kind." They exchanged smiles. These boys knew death, love, loneliness, and magic. These boys believed in the impossible. These boys were brave. These boys knew their stories and how to fight through them. These boys were saviors. These boys were enough.

These boys would live.

But for now, Harry helped load a damaged Kurt into the ambulance. For now, Kurt told the paramedics what had happened, what he could remember of it anyways, but he did not tell them about warm hands or silver lights or glowing green eyes. Hours later, when a frantic Blaine burst into his room with the force of a hurricane, he would tell him about the boy who waxed poetry about love and hate, the boy who had held fire in his hands and had not been burned. He would tell him about magic, and Blaine would rest his forehead against Kurt's and twine their fingers together and believe him. He would also leave to bring Kurt coffee, and come back to a sleeping patient and a note on the bedside table made of thick, heavy parchment. There was a phone left there, too, free of blood but with a new number programmed in under the contact "Gandalf." The note would have a little treble clef pinned to it, still stained with dirt and dried blood, and would be filled with a messy scrawl that read, "Someone once told me that music is a magic beyond all of us. Keep making magic and being brave." And below that, scribbled in the margins like an afterthought, "Get better soon, Kurt, and for Merlin's sake, take backup with you next time you try to get killed, ok, for me at least. Cheers, Harry." Blaine would wake Kurt, and they would whisper long into the night about magic and all of its forms.

But for now, Harry stood, arms folded, and watched the ambulance roll screaming away. He would lock eyes with Kurt through the small back window of the ambulance and nod. Harry would gather his wand, salvage Kurt's brooch, apparate home, fiddle with Kurt's phone and write a note. He would sneak into a bare hospital room, see how Kurt's blankets had been lovingly tucked around him, and leave his parcels among a small pile of sweets left by friends who had already passed through. Harry would look at them and think of friends, of home, of everyone he had tried to save (and everyone he hadn't been able to.) Harry would look at Kurt and think of magic.

Harry would smile, and quietly pop away when he heard footsteps approaching Kurt's room.

Kurt would come out of this with more than one new scar, but he would be okay.

Harry had always had more scars than he was able to carry, but still, he was okay.

These boys knew the magic of hugs and all the hate the world had to offer.

These boys would be okay.