A/N: I originally wrote the first half of this chapter a very long time ago, and at that time I was a teen who thought they knew all about existential crises. I was also studying Existential Philosophy at the time. That questionable combination lead to this partially surreal chapter. I would apologise but I am not entirely sorry. Hope you enjoy.

The most wicked of things is to leave the company of the living before you die.

Everything, from the photo in his hand to the grass that he glimpsed through the open window in his bedroom, was a delusion. It was there, it existed in every sense of the word, but he had long since determined that existence and reality were two separate concepts that didn't dare touch. Everything was unreal. Everything had to be unreal. He could not find it within himself to accept anything that would counter this fact. It was undeniable.

Hermione had tried to convince him in days gone by that for something false to exist, there had to be a reality because, she had said, 'reality simply has to exist for you to even know that any kind of unreality could be remotely possible'. She thought her counter-argument was infallible, had left him sitting on the settee at the Burrow after he had accepted the offer of tea, but Harry thought that she was being uncharacteristically irrational and didn't dare bring the concept up again.

As if any falsity relied on the existence of reality, he thought with a grim smile. As if reality somehow confirmed delusion. Preposterous.

Harry threw the photo frame in his hands, and its madly grinning trio of occupants, on his bed with a little more vigour than he expected, and left his bedroom with a slam of the door.

The Burrow was near silence today, the only sounds to be heard was the gentle tinkling downstairs of something stirring in the kitchen and the lifting of pages from Hermione's room, and Harry had to cast a silencing charm on his shoes and throw his invisibility cloak over his head to ensure that he was not accosted. The truth was that he found himself wanting conversation less and less with each passing day. It wasn't so much the company that he didn't appreciate - he had known Hermione for years, and what remained of the Weasley's were more than amicable - but it was the aspect of his grand idea that life as he knew it was a mere delusion that kept him from talking more than he had to.

He had come to this fully fledged conclusion at his height of uncertainty, shortly after the death of Ron and before Ginny's escape from the Burrow, but knew that there was no other explanation. No valid explanation, at least. And, he reasoned to himself as he walked in the direction of the bathroom, when all validity was lost anything that remained was the truth.

Understanding this resonating statement was another step forward entirely, something Harry didn't dare attempt lest he fog his brain further, because being as uncertain as he was five years ago would be one more step towards acceptance, and Harry would never accept what was. He could not accept the way his life had played out, the twist and turns that had defined his life, all his life.

He could not accept that he was a horcrux.

Harry's legs gave way to the bathroom floor. A clatter mingled with his sobs as he knocked over several stray objects, but he didn't pay heed to such insignificant, false objects. He didn't even pay heed to the way in which his legs could no longer bother to move, or the tears that were falling thick and fast.

He couldn't be a horcrux, could he? The feeble thought had adamantly refused to leave him, and was even harder to shake off minutes later as he undressed quickly, ignoring the numbness of his limbs that had allowed him to fall in the first place, looking forward to a cool shower and pointedly avoiding the action of placing his hands anywhere near his heart lest he hear the erratic number of heartbeats that he so often did at night when there was little else to hear. Not one, but two souls, coinciding within one unwilling body. It was barbaric, it wasn't right, it couldn't be real.

But Harry knew it was.

His whole body shuddered involuntarily when he stepped under the cold stream of water, but he couldn't complain, as glad as he was with the distraction from his previous thoughts.

He thought, instead, of the confines of the Burrow and the way in which you could not leave the property's grounds without being restricted of returning, and the way in which the place – that had felt like home in Summers that had long since left him – acted like little more than a prison to him and to all of its occupants, the number of which had dwindled significantly.

Fred and Ron were dead, Ginny had escaped - Harry presumed with a small sigh of acceptance that she, too, had died - and Mr. Weasley had been captured a few years ago. According to the Weasley clock, he was still very much alive but within as much mortal peril as the rest of Voldemort's opposition.

Harry could not help but blame Mr. Weasley's capture for the home-turned-prison state that he was living in; before, he and Hermione would take daily walks through the fields across the village to talk and properly grieve Ron, but after the wards had been proved breakable by Mr. Weasley's departure, they had been strengthened and the Fidelius Charm had been added. Only those inside the house were the secret keepers, which is why any escapades out of the property were improper and life-endangering. Especially for occupants that included blood traitors, mudbloods, and Harry Potter. If one person left, they were sentencing themselves to either betrayal or death – the two worst outcomes, in Harry's mind.

His mind, much like his heart, that he shared with a part of Voldemort's soul.

There it was, again, that nagging thought that refused to leave him, that sought reference in his thoughts wherever possible. It was damned frustrating, and often proceeded a night of being wrought by the gut-wrenching feeling of guilt. The continuous sensation of being responsible for everything that the war had done to the world...

The deaths, the broken households – hell, he even felt responsible for the children born into such a mess. Was it not, after all, his persisting existence that gave people hope? A heinous hope that - by the time their child had matured in such a ghastly, morose way – they, too, would be able to partake in the mass celebrations of a war won?

By the time that Harry had left the bathroom and began to walk in the direction of the kitchen, his shoulders almost felt heavy with the burdens of responsibility that derived from the fact that he had selfishly ensured Lord Voldemort's prolonged life by being too cowardly to sacrifice himself for the cause.

He just wasn't that noble, he realised. He wasn't that brave; he was scared of death, just as Voldemort was. He was scared of the nothingness, scared to be yet another missing occupant of the Burrow – because that is would he would be, missing. He would be missing and people would miss him. He simply couldn't enlarge the never-ending amount of grief that enveloped every one of whom he loved.

It was as simple as that. He couldn't, he wouldn't, and he didn't want to.

And for that, Harry had little doubt that he was the dregs of humanity.

"Another airborne attack over Bristol!" Mrs. Weasley was visibly flustered by the news. "I'd hate to think of – " she stopped abruptly, shooting Harry a furtive glance as he stepped through the doorway of the kitchen, before busying herself with the cooking once more, leaving her previous sentence unfinished.

Harry knew instinctively that she had been about to voice her fear for her husband. It was a conversation topic that she so often avoided.

Arthur Weasley had been one of many pureblood men captured a few years ago whilst he was caught up in one of the strangest events that characterised the second wizarding war. Rumours had surfaced, after around a month of worrying and staring at the ingenious Weasley clock, about the purpose of the mass capture. Mrs. Weasley had struggled for weeks to accept that Arthur had been placed under the command of the Death Eaters by use of the Imperius curse, but as time wore on - and Mr. Weasley still had not been confirmed dead - it seemed plausible.

Harry, too, felt his thoughts drift to Mr. Weasley's current well-being. In his mind's eye, he saw Mr. Weasley's hand on the clock switch to 'deceased'. One blink later he was back to his former position - 'mortal peril'. Harry wasn't sure which was worse.

"Would you like me to warm up some soup for you, dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked lightly.

"No thanks," he replied, adding that he's make himself a sandwich later. She smiled at him in response.

"How about you youngsters have a game of Quidditch this afternoon? Within the wards, of course," she added as an afterthought.

Harry made a gesture of wavering on a decision, though he knew for certain that he wouldn't dare be the one audacious enough to barge into George and Percy's bedrooms, raving about a game of Quidditch. Hermione would be easier to ask, of course, if she had any affinity to Quidditch at all, but even then the aspect of a Quidditch game in the Weasley's backyard seemed foreign and awkward. The idea of all the inhabitants of the household sitting down for a meal together as they had once done now seemed foreign and awkward. Harry thought vaguely of how war had torn each of them apart, before returning his attention to the woman standing in front of him, an excuse at the ready.

"I'd really much rather have a lie down. I think I'm starting to get a headache."

"A headache never used to stop you boys from having a game of Quidditch," she said accusingly. Harry knew her attempt to make him change his mind would only be half-hearted, so he merely shrugged and made his way over to the door.

"I'll see you later, Mrs. Weasley." He didn't wait for her response before he hurried out of the room in the direction of the bathroom once more. He wouldn't be interrupted there, he wouldn't have to make excuses, and he would have time to think. Not thoughts of bliss and happy times, admittedly, but thoughts nonetheless.

Hermione woke with a start. She lurched forward, threw off her duvet cover and proceeded to withdraw her wand from her nightgown pocket. Her bedroom was bathed in the light of the sunrise, and her eyes seemed to take longer to adjust to the light than normal. She looked around the room once, using her eyes as the only way to detect a presence, before muttering, "Homenum Revelio."

Nothing. No vague outline of a figure that she had expected. Absolutely nothing. But Hermione wasn't prepared to lower her wand just yet, as she was as sure as she was about the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration that she had been awakened by the resounding crack that unequivocally signified apparation. But where could they be? She narrowed her eyes as though this simple action would somehow enlighten her to someone else's presence, and began to walk swiftly around the cluttered room.

The Burrow was largely safe, Hermione thought as she stumbled over a stack of books on her way to check the far corners of the room, so why would apparation be remotely possible? Laughing at herself, she walked to and sat back down on her bed once again. The sound of apparation had to have been part of a severely fragmented dream. The idea of the Burrow being subject of an attack was as preposterous as an attack on Harry Potter himself, who - Hermione had checked before retiring to bed last night - was tucked away, fast asleep.

Wasn't he?

She stood up and grabbed a dressing gown, before opening the door with a creak and exiting into the hallway. Harry's bedroom had been next door to Hermione's for years now, though Hermione would find herself wishing more than everything that he was back on the top floor with Ron again, and was often left ajar at night after Hermione had assured herself that he was asleep - just in case.

Hermione couldn't help but slow down as she approached his room. The door was as open as she had left it, and bristles of wood continued to stick out near the handle as it always had, but something was dreadfully different about the hallway surrounding the door; Harry's shoes, which Mrs. Weasley had always insisted should be taken off before he entered his room, were missing. The imprint of where they had been placed was barely visible, and Hermione felt the need to crouch down and wave her hand through the space where they had once stood for confirmation. With a sigh, she tore her eyes away from this anomaly and pushed open the door, careful to not let the bristles of wood brush by her hands, and the sight that met her eyes was one that she wished she could permanently remove from her mind.

Harry's bed was empty. This one thing alone was alarming to Hermione, but her next realisations chilled her to the bone; his bed was made, a single wand lay on his recently plumped pillow, and a photo frame lay alongside it.

With a strangled sob, Hermione launched herself at his bed in desperation as if she expected Harry to be lying there beneath his invisibility cloak with an amused look on his face, and began clawing at her hair with vigour. Her vision was blurred, her hands trembling, and the idea of exerting any kind of rationality was lost. Harry had left her.

He had willing left her. He had not been torn away from her as Ron had done, kicking and flailing, into the grasp of death. No. He had left knowing full well what he was doing, knowing full well that leaving the Burrow was sure to get him killed, knowing that each step he had taken to the threshold of the Burrow's boundaries would guarantee a loss of contact of each of the occupants in the Burrow for an unknown amount of time. He knew that no owls could enter the house for security reasons, knew that stepping outside of the Burrow would be something akin to fulfilling a death wish...

Oh, God. Hermione's whole body shook with the prospect of –

A barely audible cough interrupted her thoughts. It had sounded distant, like it may have come from downstairs, and Hermione rose from her pathetic position to clarify her suspicions. Perhaps someone had, indeed, managed to steal their way into the Burrow despite all the enchantments. Perhaps Harry had not willingly left her after all.

Upon reaching the ground floor, Hermione could clearly see an outline of a figure sitting on the couch. It was undoubtedly Harry. Hermione suddenly felt very foolish for her outburst. Why would Harry leave her? How could such a thought enter her mind? But she had to be sure that her thought was down to paranoia. Walking towards Harry, she seated herself next to him. His face was strangely vacant and Hermione wondered if he actually noticed her beside him.

"You were going to leave, weren't you?" Hermione looked at him for a full minute in anticipation for an answer, but upon realising that she was not to receive any, she stood up with a sigh and made her way to the kitchen.

"Yes." His voice was so faint, but it made her stop in her walk nonetheless. Hermione hated to hear him like this, but she had gotten used to it. The lack of gusto in his voice was now a part of Harry, and Hermione could not bring herself to not love everything Harry had to offer. Just looking at him, sitting there with his arms crossed and looking at something on the wall that only he could see, encouraged a rush of affection to surge through Hermione. He was just so...delicate.

"Why did you stay then?" Hermione asked a little too harshly, though genuinely curious.

Immediately, she knew she had said something out-of-the-loop. Harry closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. It was such an eerie noise when cast against the silence of the room. She had been too harsh. Why couldn't she have just accepted his answer? Hermione's thought process was muddled, littered with self-criticism and reprimandments of her treatment of Harry. But Harry was a grown man, Hermione reasoned after a while. He had once been a grown man who was more than capable of answering awkward questions, countering them with biting remarks, and winning people over with his infallible reasoning. Back when sarcasm and winning people over were apart of Harry, back before the death of...

"This." He said simply, one hand motioning to an old textbook lying on the coffee table, whilst the other fell to his lap. Hermione approached the table cautiously to take a look at the book's title. Her eyebrows rose skyward as soon as she could make it out.

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?"

"D'you remember that Ron and I used to share the book, after he lost his own? The bloody git was always scrawling away in this book, and – " He leaned forward to grab the book from the table and began sifting through it with more enthusiasm than Harry had exerted in a while " – look here! You've even written in it, too. I remember thinking that it wasn't like you to be defacing books..."

"Yeah," Hermione said with a small smile at Harry. "I remember."

"Sometimes I think we should make a point of remembering him more, though." Harry said, glancing furtively at Hermione as if afraid that she would disagree.

"Harry," Hermione said softly, sitting down beside him once again. "I do nothing but remember him."

"But we never talk about him anymore!" Harry stood up abruptly and raked his shaking hands through his unruly hair. "For goodness sake, his name is not ta - "

Before Harry had time to reach a conclusion, Hermione had engulfed him into a hug. At first she thought she had been out of order again, as Harry went rigid at her touch, but almost as soon as she had thought this, he began to shake with what she assumed were tears and was holding her as tightly as she was holding him.

"It's all my fault." Harry choked into her shoulder.

"Don't be so utterly ridiculous, Harry."

Hermione wanted nothing more than to stay in this embrace for as long as possible, but a few moments later Harry had withdrawn, his face flushed with tears and his glasses smudged.

As unorthodox as the feeling was, Hermione was extremely glad that Harry had let his guard down enough to cry; he had been as unresponsive as a part of the furniture for the last few years. Hermione had strong suspicions that this was because of his determination in believing his life was little more than a grandiose daydream.

"Are you alright now?" She didn't know what made her ask this question, laced with hidden meaning, at that moment - apart from the burning desire for an affirmative reply - and Harry, too, seemed to look confused.

"Sorry, I shouldn't – "

"Yes," he interrupted her before she could defend herself for her misjudged question. "I've been so stupid, haven't I?"

She wanted to comfort him once more, to tell him that it had merely been his way of grieving, that by traipsing off into the mental state that he had been in had not been any inconvenience at all, but she didn't think he wanted to be lied to.

"I can't disagree with that," she snorted indignantly, folding her arms. "It really upset me that you viewed me as some sort of figment of your imagination."

"My imagination in particular? Thanks." Harry replied sarcastically.

Hermione laughed. "I've missed your sarcasm."

"Really?" Harry seemed genuinely surprised at this revelation. "I seem to remember you telling me on more than one occasion that sarcasm was the lowest form of wit."

"In that case, I've renounced my old ways. Or perhaps you're merely an exception."

Without caring if it made the man across from her uncomfortable or not, Hermione stared at Harry's now laughing face, embraced the swooping sensation in her stomach as she did so, a new-found glee her only emotion now that she no longer had to live with the empty shell Harry had once encompassed.

"You've never stopped meaning the world to me, Hermione. Not even when – " he paused, looking a little embarrassed. "Not even then." His laughter had been replaced by a barely detectable sad smile as he hugged her once more. "Whatever may happen, please, always remember that."

At that moment, Hermione couldn't remember a time before when she had felt so at peace with the world. She could almost fool herself into believing for a mere moment or two that a war was not being waged outside the confines of the Burrow, that Harry had not almost completely ignored her since Ginny's disappearance, that she was back at Hogwarts again with her only worries including exam grades and academic knowledge, and wondering whether Ron was finally going to ask her out...

It wasn't until three days later that Hermione could truly comprehend the inevitable meaning of Harry's words that morning; he had acted as she had always feared he would. He had left the Burrow for good, leaving behind a pouch, a single note reiterating his sentiments to Hermione and one heart-wrenching statement that had left Hermione in a confused wreck for days on end:

Times are desperate, Hermione, and I can't bring myself to be optimistic enough to let things play out any differently.

It was with great difficulty that he managed to breathe regularly, to gulp the air around him to the point where he felt comfortable. Time travel felt like drowning, he decided, and stowed that piece of information away for no future use. Harry was a man on a mission of his own making, and that mission was to die.

Harry eyed his surroundings in apprehension. Not for the first time, he considered running in any other direction other than that which he knew would finish Lord Voldemort once and for all. The forest was eerie at night, even more so with the distant visage of the burning Hogwarts castle to cast erratic shadows of the trees on the ground, and yet the eeriness felt less than real compared to the cold feeling in his chest as he faced his last moments. He checked the watch on his wrist, waiting for Lord Voldemort's summons, but knew almost as soon as he had how foolish it was. The watch tried to convince him it was just gone four o'clock in the afternoon, and Harry was sure that he would give anything for it to be exactly that, so he removed it from his wrist slowly, trying to savour each moment that he could, and placed it gently on the ground in an attempt to rid himself of his hope.

Lord Voldemort's voice called out across the night. A low hiss of a voice which reverberated across the entire grounds, asking for Harry's life in favour of his version of peace. As soon as the voice blended into the rustle of the trees of the forest and the crackling of the distant fire, a panicked hum began to resonate from the castle. Harry smiled bitterly at the additional noise, before turning his back on the castle which had once been home and walked slowly into the forest.

As he walked, he took his wand from his pocket which thrummed against his hand as if in protest of what he was doing and began to transfigure his facial features just enough to ensure that he looked as he did when he was younger – a decade younger. A flick of his wrist saw his hair grow to the shoulder-length he knew it had been at the age of seventeen after his eventful year looking for horcruxes, a simple tap saw the lines of age blur from his forehead and eyes.

He could still hear the sound of people in the school, even as he strolled deeper into the forest, and for a moment he second-guessed himself. What if the future was not something that could be changed? What if his sacrifice was meaningless, and death and destruction at the hands of Voldemort and his regime was inevitable? This was not a time for 'what ifs', Harry reasoned. It was imperative that he sacrificed himself. Voldemort could not die if his horcruxes survived. And, Harry thought whilst shaking his head at the bizarre circumstance, I am a horcrux. I must be destroyed.

Would it hurt to die? As soon as he had thought this small, somewhat childish, thought, he could not help but laugh. Death was nothingness, he had decided long ago, and nothingness could not possible have any feeling attached to it, could it? Death was finality. It was the only inevitable part of life. The only saving grace of death was what a person left behind after all was said and all was done. He just hoped that what he was leaving behind was enough.

He thought back to the last day of his life, ten years in the future at The Burrow with Hermione and Mrs Weasley for company. He had not dared to share his horcrux secret that he had known about for months and months, potentially years. It was strange how time bled together in that way. But that last day was different; he had woken up and knew, in his heart of hearts, as if he had always known, that his sacrifice was important. He had discovered a box in the Weasley's shed and, tangled up in the oddities that he had discovered, was a couple of time turners. He had recognised them immediately, although he had only seen them on two occasions in his life. Harry thought back to rescuing Sirius and Buckbeak in third year, and the amount of time turners destroyed during his visit to the Department of Mysteries in his fifth year, and then he glanced down at the device that hung around his neck. Dangerous things happen to wizards who mess with time, but dangerous things happened to wizards who didn't. It was a pretty stupid thing to do, there had been no real rationality in what he had done, pushing the time turner's capabilities to arrive here, at this point, in the past. Rationality was Hermione's forte, after all.

Hermione. She had been the one Harry had left the note with, and he imagined her now, sitting and reeling with the knowledge that Harry had left her, somewhere off in the distant future. She would cry, she would get angry, she would become resigned to it all. She would find the time turner Harry had left her in a pouch next to his short note, and she would…What would she do? Here's a time turner for you, Hermione. Save the world. Save yourself. Save me. He was foolish, he knew, and yet he had felt a sense of rightness as he had left it alongside the note. The suicide note, he thought begrudgingly.

Harry was nearing a clearing now, and he could vaguely see a group of people gathered. A few of them were in conversation, others merely waited silently. It seemed bizarre to him that they were waiting for him. Ten years ago, Harry had stood them up. Tonight, he would right that wrong.

His legs carried him against his own will. Faces turned to watch – shocked faces, relieved faces and some which held no emotion at all. He could see Voldemort now, and his mouth was twisting into words that Harry could not hear over the sound of his heart and the ringing in his ears. He felt like he was dreaming. The forest around him felt less like a forest and more like a black mist swirling around him, like the hem of a dementor's cloak. The dizzying sensation was nauseating. It stopped abruptly with two fateful words.

"Avada Kedavra."

He landed unceremoniously in the whiteness. Though how he knew it was white, he could not say. He was sure his eyes were fixed shut. He was Harry. He did not have any knowledge to prove this. He felt less, and he felt empty. He could not contemplate the strangeness of this despite the silent screaming of his brain which indicated that he should.

There were voices muttering distantly, and yet they felt so close to his ear that he was sure they were in his mind. The voices felt so potent and yet he could not distinguish what they were saying to him, or even if they were speaking to him at all.

He felt like he was dead, he was less Harry than he had been before; he felt alive, he was more empty than he had been before. The more alive he felt, the more empty he felt. He could think of nothing but this tautology as he lay there, in the blinding white, seeking the meaning for the feeling as though it would provide much needed guidance.

"The most wicked of things, Harry," a voice whispered, and he jolted, realising that it was coming from his own mouth, "is to leave the company of the living before you die."

The voice felt hollow, he felt hollow. He felt his arms move to adjust to his position, felt nothing but the sheer numbness of his limbs spread out across the ground and heard the clunking of something around his neck that felt familiar to him. And all at once he opened his eyes, knowing everything but feeling absolutely nothing.

"It's my turn."

His eyes were forced shut by the blast of air that hit him; he felt it wrap around him in much the same way he imagined a snake would its prey. He almost expected his skin to be punctured by the beast's fangs as it continued to twist around him, steadily suffocating him. One ragged breath later, the tactility left him, and he opened his eyes, the world around him coming into more focus though he, with his eyes closed, had not noticed otherwise.

The first person to look in his direction was a Slytherin boy – younger than himself - whose eyes were slits of grey, narrowed at the apparition before him.

"Professor, sir," the boy said quietly. His voice, barely above a whisper, gained the attention of every individual in the room and they all turned in one swift movement towards the reluctant intruder who realised too late that he was pointing his wand directly at the point on the boy's body where his heart would be.

A/N: It's not looking good for Harry - the proceeding chapters will be from Tom Riddle's POV, mostly, though that will change with the introduction of Hermione. Any reviews would, of course, be appreciated. :)