Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor the song I based it on. Just greatly inspired by the two that I just HAD to borrow them. :))
Warning: Character death and a lot of angst. You have been warned.
This is just an excerpt that I found myself writing during class one day. It's a product of boredom and a lot of plot bunnies. I'm sorry if there are a lot of grammatical mistakes as this was just a quickly written story. And because I'm not that good in copy-reading.
So... Enough of my rambling. I hope you like it. :3
But this ain't even about that
All of us just sat back and watched it happen
Thinking that it's not our responsibility
To solve a problem that isn't even about me
This is our problem
This is just one of the daily scenarios
Which we choose to close our eyes
Instead of doing the right thing
Hero by Superchick feat. Red Pills
Everybody has a back story, no doubt about that. No one can truly define their lives by what happens at the forefront. A man is not truly a man if his whole life is based on selective victories. He is a man because he has faults and thus has his downfalls, has a time when he's on his knees, crying for the wrongs he's done.
For a long, LONG while, no one had known Harry's true downfalls. They speculated, they theorized, they made long-winded proclamations – but never had they considered that his most common excuse, his most common explanation, was the root of all his downfalls; he didn't like his fame and, to him, even that was an understatement.
They never took into account the stress they piled onto him whenever they hailed his title as the Boy-Who-Lived. They never noticed just how deeply they hurt him when they accuse him of being someone he's not (as if it wasn't enough that the Dursleys had constantly called him a burden, a freak). They never realized that he was just a small boy trying to live through a difficult life, having been pulled from one world to another, each with its own drawbacks.
Were they truly blind to the sufferings of a young man still growing into his prime? Or do they not wish to see beyond their preconceived notions of him? Such was a common flaw man –indeed, all of man– shared. And that was their downfall. For whatever suspicions they pushed aside, for whatever rose-tinted glasses they had over their eyes, the truth had to inevitably shatter their perfectly perfect view of the world.
And it happened just right after the Final Battle.
While the deceased were being lined up in the Great Hall, while loved ones mourned for the loss of a friend/family, while the Aurors gathered the captured Death Eaters, while the injured were being attended to – Harry stumbled down towards the Whomping Willow, his mind in a daze and his body moving involuntarily in a pattern only familiar to him.
He stood unmoving in front of the thrashing tree, uncaring of the newly opened wounds on his person, ignoring how the blood drenched his already dirtied clothing.
He had reached his limit. He had done his purpose, his part. He was nothing now. When you've been called a savior for most of your life, being blamed for not living up to their image of you, you tend to adopt that mindset too. It was deeply ingrained into him that he was nothing but a tool to end the war. He lived to defeat Voldemort, defied his fate of death just to eradicate that blight in humanity. What would he do now? Live when all he wanted to do was just sink into the warm earth and just rest in peace?
To be honest, he'd already been dying. Not now when the wounds on him slowly drained him of his blood but when he first killed his professor in his first act as the Boy-Who-Lived. It was then it finally dawned to him that being the Boy-Who-Lived wasn't about surviving the killing curse. And he died a bit on the inside. And with every death he believed he had cause (for not being strong enough, for not being fast enough, for not being smart enough whywhyI'msosorryIshouldhavesavedyouRemusTonksFredDobbyHedw igSiriusCedricmumdad), a piece of him died with them.
Fate was truly cruel to prophesied children like him. Lives of children destined for greatness never really live a completely happy life. So many hardships had to be passed. So many trials had to be overcome. They had to know what it feels like to fall and be weak before they could understand how to stand and be strong. Unlike ordinary people, prophesied heroes or villains go through not so ordinary lives if only to mold them to their predisposed roles in the threads of destiny.
And now? Now Harry had nothing else to live for. He was made to be a hero, more often than not a misunderstood one. His life had long since been decided for him the moment the thrice-damned prophecy had escaped Sybill Trelawney's lips. He was nothing but a pawn to the machinations of Fate.
No. He was a useless tool now - a knife without a blade, a pistol without a bullet. Everyone expected him to be a hero, expected him to always stay strong, expected him to be like his father, become an Auror, stop the bad guy, marry a redhead and have 2.5 kids. Too many was expected of him and he couldn't hold onto his mask any longer.
He was tired – tired of being the hero; tired of being strong; tired of being someone who could take the harassment, the adulation, the weight of the world. He wasn't a god; he wasn't indestructible. He was but a simple mortal with the misfortune to be destined with a responsibility that only he could accomplish. And now that, that task was done, he felt empty.
Even after he killed Voldemort, he wasn't truly free.
And as darkness began to claim him, he wondered if he could achieve that in the afterlife.
When they finally found him, his soul had long since departed, with the invisibility cloak covering up part of his torso and the two other items of the Deathly Hallows –the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone– lying just a few inches from his outstretched hands. He had succumbed to the wounds he had never bothered to heal.
It was a truly devastating day for the Wizarding World to lose their hero after having just won the long drawn out war with Voldemort. Many had come to his funeral, shedding bitter tears.
The ones most affected by his death were the ones closest to him, namely the Weasleys (who still had to cope with losing Fred), Hermione, Neville, Luna, the rest of the Order and what was left of the DA. They were practically inconsolable, no more so than Ron and Hermione who wondered why Harry let himself go when he could have gotten medical help from Madame Pomfrey.
As all the others left, leaving only two of the remaining Golden Trio to stand next to Harry's freshly dug grave, the dark heavy clouds that had been forming above them began pouring heavy torrents of rain.
Hermione, ever the logical one even in times of tragedy, tried to tell her boyfriend that they had to get back to the Burrow but the redheaded male wouldn't budge, wanting to mourn for his "brother" more.
"Why, Hermione?" Ron rasped through his tears that intermingled with the sympathetic weather. "Why did it have to be him? He had his whole life ahead of him now that V-Voldemort's gone… Why did he have to go…?"
For once, Hermione didn't have an answer and simply buried her tear-streaked face into' Ron's drenched shoulder.
Finally, after staying under the pouring rain for far longer than necessary, the two left their friend's grave with low –the lowest of low– spirits.
Harry looked down at the earth where his mortal body laid, his heart heavy at the sight of his two grief-stricken friends. His life may not have been the one he wanted or one that he wished on anybody else but it was a life that included two faithful, loyal friends.
A bony hand landed on his shoulder.
"Let's go, master…" rattled an ancient voice.
Harry pulled his eyes away from the scene and turned his attention to the cloak-covered skeleton, emerald eyes dull and listless.
"What would happen to them now, Mort?" the young male asked the cloaked figure.
Death was gentle to reply. "They would move on, master. They would continue on with their lives, take advantage of the peace your sacrifice has given them. But they would always carry guilt in them – the kind that they've never acknowledged but had always floated around in their subconscious.
"Because somehow they knew that their hero needed a hero too…and they hadn't step up to the role."