Title: "Phantom Pains"

Author: Shaitanah

Rating: PG-13

Timeline: post-DH

Summary: HP/LV; HP/GW. Harry had everything: family, friends, peace. But there was always one person without whom life didn't make any sense. Perhaps, he was never made for peace. Please R&R!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling. Additional facts about the Potters taken from The Harry Potter Lexicon and Wikipedia.

A/N: This is not the fic I was planning to come back to the fandom with, but it so happened that this one is posted before the planned one. I tried to keep things as canon as possible but it still disregards the Epilogue a bit. XDD

Dedication: to Synne with a happy birthday! I'm already a little late but I still hope you like it.

PHANTOM PAINS

When I first met you I didn't know you. I wasn't familiar with the epitome of the nightmare that you had been posing as. I didn't fear to speak your name – mainly because I didn't so much speak back then. I didn't know fear. You taught me what it was and I should probably thank you…

"Hey, what are those, ink stains?" Ginny asked. Harry shivered; her fingers felt warm against his unnaturally cool skin. She smiled mischievously at him, sticking her tongue out. "Whom have you been writing to? A mysterious paramour?"

Harry blushed. He crammed the letter a few seconds before she entered but had no time to toss it into the fireplace. He only prayed she wouldn't demand to be allowed to take a look.

"Er… Ron, actually," he said and felt a lump building up in his throat. He didn't know what had made him lie. They never discussed the War, not to mention the Dark Lord himself. It felt odd to Harry to be thinking of him now, much more talk about him.

Ginny giggled. "You are such a bore, you know that? You could have just played along!"

He clasped the paper tighter in his hand and finally allowed himself to look up at his wife. Clad in a shiny flowing sports robe, her flaming red hair scattered wildly over her shoulders, Ginny was smiling the warmest and the brightest smile he had ever seen. It made him feel even more uncomfortable. She spun around; tiny glares of sunlight flickered over the creases of her garment.

"How do I look?" Ginny inquired.

"Wow!" Harry managed, remembering it was the day the Harpies got to show off the new uniforms. Ginny was talking about it all week.

She reached out towards him and curled her fingers around his. Harry stared at her, breathless as usual. It took him a while to realize she was talking. He blinked his eyes and grinned when a slight frown crossed Ginny's forehead.

"You will come to see the game, won't you?" she asked for the fifth time by the looks of it. "It's important to me, the last game of the season." Harry nodded stubbornly. "We're playing with the Germans. Their female team is not that strong but the new Seeker is actually pretty good. I'm kind of nervous."

He threw his arms around her waist and pressed her to his chest lovingly. The piece of parchment, still clutched safely in his hand, scorched his palm.

"I'll be there," he whispered and planted a gentle kiss upon her temple.

The second time we met was my first year at school. I remember it as clearly as if it happened yesterday. I knew my life was in danger and that you were trying to come back to life, yet the events of that night seemed so distant. One minute I was 'just Harry', an orphan whose parents died in a carcrash. The other, I was the wizard whose name had been famous since infancy. And I saw you, the man with two faces, and I knew you could possess people, and I heard the voice of a murderer, and I'd never been so scared in my entire life…

For a moment the sky became green as the Harpies soared upwards on their broomsticks and their formal colours showered everything. Harry screamed and applauded along with the fans. The game was tough. Harry watched Ginny dodge the raging Bludgers, the green of her uniform and the golden red of her hair mixing into a wild splash of colour before his eyes. Lost in the feast of perfectly executed moves, the whistling of the wind and the screams of the fans on the tribunes, Harry forgot his morning anguish and gave himself over to the fascination of the match completely.

Strong throbbing pain pierced his skull. He shuddered, his fingers flying up to the scar mechanically. The letter, folded casually in his pocket, cut across his palm with a sharp edge.

"They say it's the best game ever since that legendary seven-day match in 1953," a voice uttered close to him.

Harry fixed his gaze on a bleared shadow and tried to focus his attention on the speaker; he felt like he was losing the thread of reality, and it frightened him. The pain in his scar subsided, but it was still there, resting like a sated snake.

The speaker was a young man, probably no older than Harry himself. His dark soft-looking hair was straight, combed neatly behind the ears, and waved slightly across the forehead which gave him a permanently mischievous look. The man was strikingly handsome, yet Harry would hardly recognize him in the crowd, should they be separated. His face was an instantaneous flash that disappeared from the mind's eye just as quickly.

"I can already see an immense advantage of this game," he said with a touch of warm humour. "I wouldn't last for seven days."

Harry grinned, feeling a surge of pride. "I would. My wife's playing." Now that he said it, it sounded somewhat embarrassing. Surprised by his own feelings, Harry looked away with a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Lucky you!" the man exclaimed with painstaking sincerity. Harry couldn't shake off the feeling that he was beginning to like his new acquaintance involuntarily; even now in the days of peace it wasn't very much like him. "I'm Tom, by the way."

Harry accepted his hand and the moment he touched his scar exploded. He clenched his teeth so hard he thought he heard gnashing. He searched Tom's face desperately for any possible explanation. All he saw was a worried glint in his eyes.

"An old trauma," he hastened to explain. "It echoes sometimes." And that was a lie even though he refused to admit it to himself. "I'm Harry."

The game was drawing to a close. As the Harpies triumphed over the German team, the sky burst into a fountain of green and gold. The crowds roared with glee. Harry couldn't take his eyes off a winged speck of gold fluttering in the grip of the British Seeker. Something inside him screamed. He didn't play much now that they had "a pro in the family".

Tom hopped off the stand and smoothed his robes.

"No offense, but you don't look like a Quidditch fan to me," Harry observed.

The young man laughed. "You're right, I'm here for a friend. But I should say it was rather enjoyable. So was the company."

Harry swallowed nervously. There was something about this man that made him question his own sanity: the smile that seemed so frank yet hid more than Harry could imagine, the eyes that were so deep and rich brown that they seemed bloody at times, the pain his touch caused to the old lightning bolt-shaped scar. Harry frowned. He was feeling out of place all morning. 'It's nothing,' he scolded himself irritably.

"See you round," he smiled warmly at Tom. The young man nodded and merged with the crowd. He probably Disapparated just outside the stadium, yet Harry simply kept staring at the spot where he'd just been standing, feeling the unnatural warmth of his touch against his hand. And then Ginny flung herself in his arms and chirped joyfully about the match, and he could see Ron, Hermione and George and Angelina eyeing him from afar, and he knew he'd never felt more alone.

The third time we met you were a memory preserved in a diary for many years. How easily you tricked me! You and your innocent looks, your handsome face and your confidence and your cool smile… It was a pleasure to destroy you. It was the first time you hit so close to home, so close to the person I'd come to love even if I didn't know it yet. It was the first time I noticed our similarity. It terrified me, a feeling I'd come to know only too well thanks to you…

Harry wasn't surprised to receive an owl from Tom a week later. In fact, he had been secretly hoping for it, but now that it happened he felt insecure. He didn't tell Ginny about the meeting.

It was drizzling all day. The sky cleared up occasionally to spill a few bleak rays of sun on the damp earth, and the clouds would take over again. Harry and Tom walked slowly along the pavement, feeling the moisture cling to their skin.

"So what do you do for a living?" Harry wanted to know.

A small smile played on Tom's lips. "I'm a historian, so to speak. It's hard to explain. Let's just say I travel the world and look for… stuff."

"Gotta be interesting."

"Says he with the look of a man who was dead bored in History class," Tom gave him a wink. Harry bit his lip.

"All right, you got me! But I really think the 'travel the world' part would make up for any academic failures."

The sun peered coquettishly from behind the cloud, licked Harry's face with its cool yellowish tongue and slid back into the greyness.

"I guess history isn't that fascinating when you're part of one," Tom murmured.

Harry's eyes darkened. He raised his hand to the scar unwittingly and rubbed his forehead. The reminiscence of pain was long gone, yet at the mentioning of the War it reverberated through him like an echo of a gunshot.

"I'm sorry," Tom said quietly. "I was out of the country when the whole thing happened so I have nothing to be proud of. I didn't realize it must be unpleasant for you to remember it."

Harry looked up. Was it unpleasant? Or was it another page in the finished book? He remembered Voldemort, even whispered his name just to make sure the sky wouldn't fall, and glanced at Tom, smiling lightly.

"It's all right. It's history, after all."

The fourth time we met was at the end of the TriWizard Tournament. I never forgot that it was my blood that brought you back. I never forgot how Cedric died. I never forgot that it was that summer that revealed to me the beginnings of my destiny. You were the fire abyss I had to walk through and stay alive. Sometimes I can still feel your touch.

Ginny crept on his lap and leaned in to kiss him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her in his embrace. A lock of her hair swept over his face. He curled it around his finger and pressed his lips to the sun-kissed hair. She smelt of the wind at the training, and English rain, and her mother's bakery.

"I think I'll have to miss the season," Ginny whispered, hiding her face at the nape of his neck.

"What!? Why?"

"Harry, I'm pregnant."

The fifth time was at the Department of Mysteries in my fifth year. And already I knew you better than I would have wished to. You haunted my dreams. I knew I didn't stand a chance and not because I was weak or stupid as Snape loved to imply, but because it was you – and there was no hiding from you. Ever since I could feel you in me. I'm sure you felt it too, what with my blood and all. And that feeling was never gone.

Tom leaned into him, their lips almost touching. Harry held his breath, listening to the sensations such intimacy was causing. His scar tingled slightly.

"Well, congratulations," Tom exhaled softly against his lips. "Aren't you happy?"

Harry's heart sank. He was happy, wasn't he? He thought about the baby that would change his life in a few months. He had always wanted it: family, love… His child would never know how it felt to grow up in a cupboard under the stairs.

Yet the letter in his pocket was still unfinished. He rarely added paragraphs these days, too busy at work and at home, but he felt that his melancholy wouldn't pass until the letter is complete. And the phantom pain in his scar remained, hanging heavily on him like a burden he couldn't share with anyone.

Tom appeared to be a blessing in disguise. Harry needed a new person, unfamiliar with the horrors of the War. With Tom, he would forget it all and simply talk about anything from weather to other countries. Tom's presence was intoxicating: soothing and disturbing at the same time, and Harry let it wash all over him, trying to forget how lonely he felt before he met Tom. He hated himself for that feeling of dissatisfaction. He had nothing to complain about, yet he didn't feel whole. Come to think of it, he never had.

"I'm happy," he answered not because he truly was but because he knew it was the right thing to say. It seemed to him Tom smiled at that.

The sixth time we met was not exactly our true meeting. I studied you and I was transfixed by the transformation you'd undergone. It was beyond me how something so exquisitely beautiful could turn into something so repulsive. You had already become part of me. I was not blind to our likeness and the turmoil you caused in me.

Tom's lips slid down Harry's jaw in a flitting kiss. Giving in was like diving headfirst into a whirlpool of fire. They talked, they listened and they already knew more about each other than friends ever should. Tom mentioned it once that he was soon leaving for Kachin state in Burma to climb the mountain of Hkakabo Razi. He seemed to have a special fascination with mountains.

Drunk on the fear of the upcoming parting, Harry spent more and more time with Tom. He welcomed Tom's advances, and reveled in his accidental touches, and inhaled the dizzying scent that came off his skin. He explored the damp heat of Tom's lips with his and listened to his heart hammer wildly against Tom's chest.

"Now that I think about it, I do feel a lot younger than I really am," Tom confessed once. It sounded odd coming from someone so handsome and young-looking, but Harry let it slip. He was too intoxicated by the night to care. "It's like I haven't lived my life to the fullest," Tom went on. "My actions were dictated by some other part of me… You know the feeling, don't you?"

"Only too well," Harry sighed.

A shy ray of light fell upon Tom's face. It looked solemn and immobile, as if carved from marble.

"How about now?" Harry risked asking.

"Now I know exactly what I want." Tom balled his comely hand into a fist. "I want the world."

"You'll have it," said Harry before realizing it. Having sprung forth from his lips, the words seemed to dress in flesh and rang like an oath in his ears. Tom smiled thoughtfully.

Harry came home that day with a mixed feeling of satisfaction and self-loathing.

"I love my wife," he had told Tom earlier. Tom had snorted in his usual manner.

"But you won't say anything to her." Again, a statement, not a question. For Tom who had always been incredibly self-assured there was no need to question anything.

That was why Harry had answered, "No, I won't," and looking at Ginny's roundish form scurrying about the house, he admired her silently and didn't say a word.

The seventh time we argued just before the very end. I tried to convince you that you should repent and I hated myself every second afterwards. Goddammit, I sounded like a preacher! The only thing I've been asking myself ever since is what would I have done if you'd said yes?

"I'm leaving today," Tom said nonchalantly. "But before I go, there's something you need to tell me, Harry."

Much like always it was not a question, but a statement uttered in a cold voice that held a touch of smile to it. Harry wondered why it always seemed that Tom was laughing at him.

"Erm… write to me," he said, feeling slightly lost. Clearly Tom knew more about what he had to say than Harry himself did.

Tom laughed. "Oh, I will. And I will reply to your letter once you give it to me."

A cold sense of fear twisted Harry's insides. Deep inside he already knew the answer, yet he uttered with trembling lips: "I'm sorry, I don't…" and Tom laughed again:

"Of course you do. It's in your pocket." He drew closer as Harry took out the crumpled piece of parchment and unfolded it, his eyes never leaving Tom's face. He recognized his own hasty writing, the words addressed to the person he knew was dead. "I even gave you the same name, Harry! Anyone would have already figured it out."

He was standing very close now, his large mahogany eyes sparkling with feverish amusement. It was hard to grasp: Voldemort in the new flesh beyond the mask of a person Harry thought he knew well enough. Voldemort was smiling. Voldemort reached out and brushed his fingertip against the scar, a familiar predatory expression distorting his features for an instant. Harry screamed, out of surprise rather than actual pain.

"You should have trusted your feelings," Voldemort whispered.

'It's a phantom pain,' Harry's mind shrieked at him. 'He's not alive!' And to that the Dark Lord retorted: "Be careful, Harry! The last person who refused to believe in Lord Voldemort's return paid for it dearly!"

He stepped back and turned his back on Harry. It took Harry an eternally long moment to grab his wand and aim it at Voldemort.

"I'll kill you!"

"Go ahead," a calm answer came. Tom looked back; a small smile on his lips, he didn't look a thing like Harry's eternal nemesis, though nothing could conceal the look of animalistic triumph in his eyes. He won this round. "But let me ask you something. How many times have you already killed me?"

He threw his hands up. The last thing he could do was to paint a target across his chest. The wand shook in Harry's hand. He put it up and stared at Tom with the greatest hostility he could manage. The truth was he was too tired to start a fight, drained by disbelief and longing for something he could not explain even to himself.

"I did not lie to you," Tom said. "I really am leaving. I have no intention to stay in Britain or take over it or whatever you fear I might do. I think we've both outgrown it. Now will you please give me the letter, and let us get it over with!"

Harry's mind refused to register it. Did he come for the letter? Voldemort had always been the greatest liar in the world. Was it possible that he was telling the truth now? The Voldemort he knew hadn't shown the slightest bit of remorse in the end even if Harry had given him the chance. Why the sudden change of heart?

"Go," Harry said and his voice cracked. "I'll send you the letter once it's finished. Now go before every Auror of the Ministry is assembled here by my command."

Tom answered with a shallow bow, neither respectful nor mocking as it seemed, and Disapparated. Feeling weak in the knees, Harry lowered himself on the border of the footwalk and stared blankly at the letter.

The last time we met was at the Holyhead Harpies' match a few months ago. Perhaps you wanted to show me you have defeated me in the end. I think I always knew who you were. I'm not stupid, you know. You're so deep in my blood, carved into my very flesh, so that without you I find it impossible to breathe.

I'm writing to say how much I hate you for what you've done to me. I can't help thinking that if it weren't for that blasted Prophecy we would never have met, I wouldn't have lost my parents and you… you probably wouldn't have died. I wanted to tell you that if you needed someone to blame you'd rather blame yourself, but when I saw you, the new you, I knew instantly you weren't trying to justify what happened. I guess you like the way things turned out. I don't know what you're looking for and if I was going to say I'd stop you I'm certainly keeping it to myself now.

You asked for this letter. I'm sending it you, hoping I shall never see you again. Go out of my life, knowing I was the one who let you live. Should you attempt anything, we'll both be dead in a blink of an eye because as you know I won't hesitate to give my life along with yours to spare the people the terrors of your reign. I hate you – and I'm letting you go.

Yours,

H.P.

"He looks a lot like you," Harry laughed, eyeing his best friend hazardously. Ron's cheeks turned purple.

"Let's pray he's less like his uncle in character," Ginny giggled.

Her hand lay gently across the cute wheezing bundle that looked back with dark intelligent eyes. A flare of pallid freckles was scattered over his plump cheeks. Harry eyed the baby with a smile of pride and whispered:

"Hey there, James."

He couldn't keep a smile off his face. Every worry, every trouble of the past few months seemed insignificant. It dimmed next to the smile of his newborn son.

Later that day a letter arrived. Ginny was still in bed and the baby snored quietly in the crib beside her. Harry frowned at the unfamiliar stamp, but the intricate, almost calligraphic handwriting left him with no doubts concerning the author of the letter.

He sat in the arm-chair by the fireplace and looked at the fire for a few minutes before he made himself break the seal. The letter went as follows:

Dear Harry,

It's been a while. I believe congratulations are in order once again, and I should probably wish your child a happy birthday. Believe it or not, I am truly glad you and your family are all right.

Now, to the point. Fortunately for you, I have never been patriotic enough to keep myself perpetually bound to a single country. I am standing at the foot of a mountain. If you know me as well as you think you do you shall have no trouble finding the mountain. I am ready to begin my ascension. I recall a promise you have been reckless enough to give. I shall have the world, Harry. Once I reach the top.

I'm going to be completely honest with you. It is a challenge: come and get me if you dare. This time, free from my psychotic delusions, I will not fall as easily.

I shall be waiting for you.

Lord Voldemort.

Harry closed his eyes. The vision came in a bright flash: Voldemort sitting on a throne carved into the rock, seas of green splashing all around him and the boundless dome of the sky shining over his head.

"I knew letting you go was a bad idea…"

Harry smiled wryly to himself. After all, he had admitted it once: without Voldemort, his life had considerably little sense. A moment of hesitation passed by. With a sigh, he picked up his wand and Disapparated.

March 1–3, 2008