Harry leaned back, relaxing for the first time in weeks. He signalled to the bartender and a firewhiskey and a butterbeer slid down the bar to him and his companion. Harry's eyelids were thick with sleep. His hair, mussed as usual, but with an unkempt flavor that revealed his recent nonchalance about it. His facial hair stood out starkly on a face once pure and smooth.

His companion was small, small and sad. His life, too had changed dangerously, of late. He fingered his butterbeer with trepidation, but seeing his companions precedent, shrugged and took a drink. The butterbeer slid smoothly down his elven throat. He could feel that soaring sensation that followed a butterbeer rising in the back of his mind. It felt better just to let it go.

Harry, with his firewhiskey, said nothing for a long time. He drank deeply and fast. He wanted to sink away, to sail into a distance clouded by his own thoughts and dislikings. He felt lost and alone, but he did have Dobby there yet. He glanced at Dobby. The house-elf had drunk more than he had at first intended. They both had. Harry smiled a sardonic smile. He felt a cruel pleasure in it. It felt painful, but so did life. He enjoyed it because he felt something other than bitterness and that emptiness.

At last, drink nearly empty, and with little will to call for another drink, Harry tossed a few galleons down and turned to Dobby. With his last sip in the air, he said, "To the dead." Dobby, slipping sideways on his stool, his look of contentment draining slowly from his face, forming a half-comical, half-serious expression, nodded and raised his glass shakily. They drained their last and with a last look of understanding Disapparated.

Harry reappeared in a squalid room above a Muggle shop. The rent was cheap; no one knew he was here. It was perfect. After the big to-do that his final confrontation with Voldemort had brought, he couldn't be out in public much. The looks, the stares, the attention, it was all too much for him. Not after all that had passed, all who had passed. He had survived on the little bits he could earn and the small fortune still remaining in his parent's vault, in his vault.

When he thought back to the days of Hogwarts, he shuddered with the memories that licked at his mind like ice-flames. If the Death Eaters, Voldemort's followers had killed everyone he knew, he would have been happier. Not happy, no that was the wrong word. He would have felt less pain, less lasting pain. Some had died, the lucky ones. That barrier Voldemort had set to keep everyone out, that had been the worst. Harry had no idea what it had done, no one did. Maybe Dumbledore would have known. Those who approached it were never the same; they knew no one, they lived different lives and despised anything relating to their old selves. St. Mungo's was stumped.

Harry had spent the first four years researching, from world's end to world's end, from the highest light magic to the lowest dark. Nothing. Researching was more of Hermione's thing, anyway, but he could not give up. He pursued every art and science in the wizarding world, even divination, to no avail. Five of his greatest friends were affected. They did not know him and did not want to know him. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna. The group he had associated most with in school. They had all come charging in unison, spells flung at the barrier. No warning. The others had had warning.

He felt a grim sense of loss and anger at the others. They had survived, but he could not bear to be with them. It felt worse than the shallow, tired moments with Dobby. The Weasleys had assured him he would be welcome with them, but he never took them up on it. They had followed him, trying to help. He ran; he hid. He hated them as he hated himself. If he ever saw a familiar face in a crowd, he would turn and walk away. They were dead to him, that whole world. He was their greatest hero, their greatest benefactor, but he could not stand to face a single one of them. There had been no parades, there never would be. He was the Boy Who Lived, their Chosen one, but not anymore.

So life had been. He did not reflect on it much. He just accepted it and stayed alone in his self-inflicted hell. It reminded him grimly of the time he had hidden in his godfather's parent's room. Hermione had led him out of that and Ginny had slapped some perspective in him. No one could do that now. He glared at the fire stirring on his kitchen burner. The stew, seeping lazily over the top, began to burn as it touched the hot element. It felt appropriate, somehow, to watch it destroy itself. Slumped in his chair, he waited. Waited for nothing.

But nothing found him. The door, unknown to all but the Muggle owner he never saw, was suddenly opened.