Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise.
Written for;
The Hunger Games - #16
The Cinema Competition - The Perfect Storm
Greek Mythology Competition - Tartarus
Pokemon Trading Competition - Tentacool - Floating in a body of water.
Writing Club, Week 8 - Stupendous.
Word Count Without AN - 824
WARNING - Suicide.
Float Away
Here lies Dobby
A Free Elf
Harry ran his fingers over the crudely engraved stone, a tear dropping from his eye to splash into the grass surrounding it. It had been two years to the day since Dobby died saving his life.
What a waste.
Sure, Harry had defeated the big bad, and he was everyone's hero for a few weeks, but now? Well, he wasn't exactly living, was he? After all of the ceremonies, and the victory ball, and the funerals and the wakes and the...
He was all alone.
Ron and Hermione had each other. They were living together, getting on with their lives happily. He didn't begrudge them that, not at all. He was happy for them. He just wished he had the same thing. Hermione was furthering her studies for a while, but eventually she planned to join the department of law enforcement as a lawyer. Ron had tried out Auror training before he decided the life of a prankster was better suited for him. He was enjoying working with George at WWW immensely.
George was finally healing from loosing his twin. Everyone knew he would never fully recover, but he was doing much better. Harry was sure Angelina Johnson had everything to do with George's new outlook on life.
Ginny... Ginny couldn't handle him after the war. She'd tried, Merlin knew she tried so hard, but she couldn't hack it. The nightmares, the constantly looking over his shoulder, the phantom pains of spells long since worn off. Harry had tried too. He'd tried to get better for her. He'd tried so hard to convince himself that the danger was passed, that he, and by extension everyone around him, was finally safe.
It didn't work.
Harry watched his friends, his loved ones, move on with life. He felt a longing for that life, a jealousy that they had obtained what seemed to evade him so easily.
All he wanted was a little bit of peace.
Voldemort, while hopefully burning in the seventh layer of hell, was still ruling and ruining Harry's life. It was his darkness that plagued Harry in the deepest recesses of his mind. It was his voice when the spiteful, hateful comments spewed into Harry's mind whenever he let himself slip into anything resembling relaxation.
They used you, Harry.
You're not needed anymore, Harry.
You've outlived your usefulness, Harry.
Harry tried to ignore the thoughts, he tried to battle through the loneliness and depression, but he never fully succeeded. Sure, he could meet Ron and Hermione at a cafe for lunch and be happy and joyful for the hour he spent with them. He could meet Dean and Seamus and Neville at the pub and share a drink and a laugh with them.
It was when he was alone that he struggled.
He was alone a lot.
As more tears fell from him eyes, Harry slipped the invisibility cloak from his shoulders, discarding it carelessly by Dobby's stone. He didn't want to hide from death any longer. He didn't want any of it anymore.
Standing, he walked at a calm pace, towards the sea. While usually, he would stop at the waters edge and gain some small measure of relief from the freedom that the ocean seemed to have, he continued walking. It didn't take long until he had to swim to keep his head above the water.
Twisting onto his back, Harry felt himself floating, and he finally smiled. This was freedom.
Here, he wasn't the saviour, he wasn't the boy who lived, or the man who won, or the attention seeking nutter who needed locking up in Azkaban. Here, he could be what he'd always craved to be.
Just Harry.
It was a stupendous feeling. Truly liberating.
You might as well stay here, Harry. Float away from your troubles. You can't handle them anyway.
The voice came without warning, and the figurative weight that Harry had been carrying with him since Voldemort's rebounding spell hit him square in the chest returned, weighing him down once more.
You know you can never win, Harry. You might have won the battle, but you'll never win the war.
Just give in, Harry.
The weight got heavier, pressing down on his chest, making it harder to float. His legs dipped below the water first, and he bobbed a few times, making a halfhearted attempt to fight the tide.
It's not worth the fight, Harry.
He knew the voice was right. When the tide pulled on him again, he didn't fight it. He let the water pull him under, the weights holding him down leaving him once more. His thoughts were getting vaguer, and finally, finally, the voice was silent.
Harry let the darkness welcome him with open arms.
He was finally at peace.