Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.
- Albus Dumbledore's final piece of advice to Harry Potter

The locked door

He slipped into the Department of Mysteries, a place that officially only Unspeakables were allowed access to, but Harry could sneak past anyone far too easily these days.

Without hesitation he walked through the door and closed it behind him, leaving the dark circular room bathed only in the eerie light of blue-flamed torches.

He remembered the first time he had stepped into this room, so very long ago. He'd been desperate to save Sirius, his mind aching with the possibility that he might be too late, that Voldemort would straight out kill him. This room, with black walls and black doors, all of them identical and unmarked had made his heart sink.

He'd been a little lost and a little afraid, but his friends had been by his side.

Now Harry was alone, but he was no longer easily frightened, and this room with its doors was no longer unfamiliar. He'd visited it a number of times before, and even if he still couldn't tell in advance where each door would lead, he feared none of them. Not death, nor space, thought or time.

He opened one of the black doors and was faced with the coldest of all of the rooms he might have found. A room that echoed inside of him with loss, and he sighed as he stepped inside.

Harry had faced Death many times, and did not see it as his enemy.

The stone archway in the centre of the room still called to him, but though he heard voices from the other side he had never heard his godfather amongst them – though in truth, he never stuck around long for fear that he would. It would be too late now in any case. So very many years had passed since that day and life had continued.

After the war, he had gone back to Hogwarts with Ron and Hermione, though things were never, ever the same again after that fateful day where he had walked right up to Voldemort - to his death.

Sometimes he wondered – what if he had taken that leap back then, in those post-war years? He'd already felt that shadow upon his heart that marked him as different, even if he hadn't known what it meant – even if he'd thought that the Master of Death was a story that he'd left behind when he got rid of the wand and the stone.

But even as a young wizard, he should have known better – should have known that magic comes with a price and that it's never that easy to undo something so momentous.

For a long moment, Harry watched the veil sway in a non-existent breeze. Then he left the room of Death behind him.

Before closing the door, he carelessly waved his fingers in the shape of an X, marking the door like Hermione had done, once-upon-a-time, and closed it behind him.

The black doors swirled around him as he stood silently waiting until they settled once more. He chose another door at random, with a patience that only those who have nothing but time could fully grasp.

And it was Time that awaited him now, in a bright, glittering room. Harry didn't even step inside, because, unlike Death, Time did sometimes feel like his enemy and he had no reason to face it today.

There was something of bitterness within him, whenever the young-looking wizard entered that room – a feeling that only strengthened if he then continued onwards into the Hall of Prophecies.

And yet Harry had walked through the room on several occasions anyway, to learn about time what he could. It made sense, after all, to know his enemy. And after all he had learned of magic, only the deepest mysteries, such as the ones that could be found in this department still remained as such to him in his life.

And Harry had lived a long time.

He didn't look it, didn't always feel it – not physically at least, and perhaps that was the problem. Because time skipped him, left him outwardly unchanged. And while his friends slowly slipped away from him in time, Harry remained more and more alone with each second that passed him by.

You would think that with the passing of centuries, those wounds would have healed by now, as the passing of time tends to dull all such pains. And in a way that was true, especially for everything that had happened to him since. But those memories of his earlier years were always stronger somehow - more vivid.

Harry could remember a great many things of his days at Hogwarts with clarity - up until that final battle with Voldemort.

After his death… life had dulled. It hadn't been very apparent to him at first – he had not realised until more than a century had passed that the death of his godfather was something he could still remember rather clearly, while the loss of Hugo, Ron and Hermione's youngest child, was almost a distant memory that barely stirred his heart anymore.

In a way, that thought made him glad that in the end he hadn't married Ginny as a part of him had wanted to. The other part knew that he'd been too raw and too distant to feel like he could do right by her.

It's not that he hadn't cared for her, he had loved her. Just as he had carried a lot of love for all of the friends he had known when he'd been truly alive.

Harry had cared so very much that every time he lost one of them it felt like an essential part of him had ripped away. And that feeling had never ceased. Not with Ron's passing or Hermione's. Not when Teddy finally succumbed to old age.

Once, Dumbledore had told him that the fact that Harry could feel pain like that was his greatest strength. But every time someone dear to him left him it began to feel more and more like a weakness as he was left behind, always and ever alone.

Until everyone he had known during his Hogwarts years were gone. And Harry was left with nothing but memories, because it seemed like his heart could barely summon up love for anyone new.

And agonizingly slowly, time distanced the memories that were all he had left to cling to – not only of his love for them, but also of his loss and perhaps that was a blessing.

But then, perhaps it was a curse.

It was something that Harry feared more than anything else – that hollowness that had been creeping up to and inside of him for over a century. There was nothing left for him in the Wizarding World, and he had few fond memories in the Muggle World, which had changed, developed and became more difficult to understand with each year that passed him by.

He was afraid that in his loneliness he would grow more and more distant until he lost the very last thing that made life worth living.

But then, that was why he was here, wasn't it? For a chance - a fool's hope perhaps, but he had nothing left to lose.

So the wizard marked the door of time and let the doors swirl around him once more, waiting patiently for the one he truly needed.

The locked door; one that was said to contain a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, human intelligence and the forces of nature.

And, with all the magic he had learned in the past two and a half centuries, Harry intended to open it.

When Harry awoke, it was to nothing but darkness.

His first breath tasted of dust and ashes but he kept breathing, trying not to despair. He had made his choice, after all, to find something, anything more. And he would not be who he was if he didn't see this through.

It took no more than a whispered 'lumos' to show him just what he had gotten himself into this time. The wizard was clearly no longer in the bowels of the Ministry, instead he found himself in a small stone room with only one door leading out.

An easy choice then.

Carefully he walked forward, into the unknown. The thought was refreshing, because it had been such a long time since Harry had been completely uncertain of what he would find ahead of him.

In this case, it was a large, spacious room filled with pillars and several immense stone statues – all of it long since fallen into disrepair. Some light filtered in from far above, bathing the skeletons in what looked like some sort of great hall in ominous shadows.

Crossing the room, Harry dismissed the glowing light and stepped outside, almost eager to find out where he was. Looking around, the wizard found that the ruins he had emerged from were a large, round plateau within a desolate valley of sand and rocks. Around him steep, sharp cliffs of red rock rose up towards the sky. The symbols and runes carved into the rock were completely unknown to him, despite centuries of studying all kinds of magic.

He reached out with his magic, a trick he had learned many years ago that could help him easily find where he was in comparison to major presences of magic. The familiar hum of Hogwarts, lively and welcoming, that he'd always instantly been able to find wherever he was, was a conspicuous absence.

What drew his notice instead was a strange, dark magical presence in the distance to his right – though Harry could tell little more about it, almost as if it was shielded somehow.

Then again, this was likely not his world – magic might very well work differently here. For now, he drew his magic back.

All in all, it was a rather forbidding welcome, the ancient wizard thought with an actual, if somewhat rueful, smile. He had not meant to travel to a different land, had not meant to come wherever this was – if that had been his intention, Harry might have tried the room of Space, or even the veil of Death. No, he'd hoped for something far more inexplicable than that.

And now he found himself facing something entirely unexpected and new.

And that was fine, despite the ruins, the skeletons and that forbidding darkness.

Because he felt new.

Harry felt like his heart had been unlocked – had been opened up to see, smell and feel the world once more in full. And even if this was not a pleasant first sight, it felt real.

Whatever else this world had to offer him, be it pain, darkness or even war, it would be worth it just for this.

With that realisation, he leaned back against the ruin, slumped down in something akin to relief and, for the first time in centuries, he wept.

It was a strange reason to cry, but he couldn't seem to help himself, couldn't stop so he allowed himself this moment – there was no-one here to see him, no-one who would judge him and if there had been, Harry likely wouldn't have cared.

Which was a good thing, the wizard supposed roughly a quarter of an hour later, because on the edge of his consciousness he could feel a strange magical presence quickly moving closer.

Eyes red and tears still upon his cheeks, the wizard stood. He didn't see the point in hiding or running or anything else.

This world was new, Harry was new, and he was ready to face whatever it would bring him.