The Returning

Finding your way home, is a happy affair, the faces of your past smiling, welcoming you warmly, greeting you with tear-streaked faces? At least that was supposed to happen! This time was not like that. This time coming home was to change everything.

I thank you, Dear Reader.

This story, while a Harry Potter FanFic cliché, is a story I really wanted to attempt.

Also, just so you know, anything that you recognise I don't own. Even some things you don't recognise are not mine.

I am but an actor in a play,

I am a whisper in the dark,

I am a secret,

I own nothing, claim nothing, and want nothing.

I write for me and am gracious of those who show interest in my imaginings.

Enjoy!

Chapter one: The Ending

Standing silently in the great hall looking into the eyes of the man that had haunted him for an entire lifetime, Harry could not help but feel incomplete. This war forced upon his shoulders was ending and yet something was wrong. Sixteen years ago a peace started. A peace that should have been undisturbed by Voldemort, the creature should have been destroyed. People shouldn't have died. Sirius, Tonks, and Remus, they should be alive. Fred should be here throwing fireworks through windows and spiking lunches. George shouldn't be facing a life missing half of his soul. Lavender should be still with them not amongst the fallen. The war should have stopped. So many things had gone wrong, so many people had died and Voldemort had been the cause. The war seemed miss placed. Harry couldn't describe his understanding. He wouldn't be able to explain where it had derived. Nevertheless, he felt it, he knew the truth of it, and yet, he stood face to face with a man who had defied nature and time.

Harry considered the man in front of him. After all, for all the dabbling and experiments Voldemort had done. The being in front of him was still a man with a past as dark and unwelcoming as any could get. Being abandoned and forgotten. Never finding a place in a cold world that was more than happy to forget, More than pleased to ignore the lost cries that would eventually turn inwards and then silent. The people around them happy to omit to the wrongs they pressed upon them. Yes, Tom and Harry, Harry and Tom, Two lost boys without the comfort of a Neverland.

Harry could see those cold red eyes stare unblinkingly at him as he lowered his wand. Everything was wrong. Everything should be different. A feeling of displacement had always haunted Harry. Not that he had always had a name for the shadow around his heart. Nevertheless, it had been there, always. It was a feeling he found just as comforting as he did foreboding.

When he was younger, it was a feeling he associated with living, trapped, in the dark. It was the fear that he learnt to control. That feeling he thought had disappeared when he had made friends when the world of magic had opened up to him. It wasn't until the third year that he noticed it still resided inside of him. That it was the reason he could never accept the people around him. It was why he always wanted to go on his own.

Their third year had changed so much for him. He had found a person that knew him before he was the boy who lived, a person who woken up his hope. Then everything had ripped away from him and all he had left was that sickly shadow. That night he had lain awake staring at the pressing darkness. He longed for the feeling to subside. He longed to be able to ignore it again but he couldn't. It pressed against him, drowning him slowly.

It was all wrong

Harry watched mesmerised as Tom's mouth curled into a twisted smile. He watched, as he threw his head back in a cold laugh that harry did not hear. He watched as a green glow began to form at the end of the wand. Time had slowed, yet Harry knew that it was only for him. He could see the people around him looked shocked, scared, and worst of all betrayed. The fickle minds of the public swayed once again. They believed he was leaving them, giving up on them. How little they understood. He had died for them, at least he had tried to and it was all for them, for them, the sheep and drones, the public that believed he was a demented storyteller. He had stood, as he was now, in front of the monster that had haunted their dreams and past. He took the curse for them, endured for them and they had lost faith in him so quickly.

No, Harry should not be here. He knew it now.

He belonged somewhere else, Belonged in some other time.

His eyes searched the sea of faces, their features blending into one. Harry searched out his friend, His best friend, the only friend that Harry knew understood him as he understood her. She was there, as always, just to his right the place she had stood their entire magical career. The place he always wanted her to stand. The one that allowed her to offer him extra strength, comfort, and the place that let her watch his back. Ever since Halloween their first year, she had remained by his side. Ever reliable, he should have known significant things happen during Halloween.

He reached his hand out to her and she took it unquestioningly, as always.

Time was immaterial now, as he held her hand. She smiled encouragingly and he turned his back to Tom.

Staring into her eyes, he latched onto the chain around her wrist. The chain she had worn since their third year when they had begun dabbling with time. When they had sat up in the dead of night trying to solve a problem she had. One he never understood until now. This is what she had meant. Now he understood everything she had been trying to tell him. They didn't belong here. Now he knew what he could do to stop the monster, the man, the lost soul that the darkness and evil had eaten away. Voldemort's reign was going to stop sixteen years ago.

He held her tight as their eyes locked onto the chain, the tiny gem glowing blue. He heard her whisper a spell as time speed up and his ears heard the screams of the crowd. He heard Tom's cold laugh. He felt the heat of Tom's spell whip past his cheek as a blinding white light had erupted from the small gem, throwing him into a maze of dizzying colours, and sensations. He felt the earth turn erratically beneath his feet. His lungs compressing until the searing pain became white hot. The feeling of standing still, but forced to move faster than the speed of light disoriented him.

Then as abruptly, as it started everything was still. Everything was quiet.

The dawn glow thrown against the whole stain glassed windows splashed lazily at their feet. He closed his eyes and shook with repressed emotions. He could feel Hermione fall at his feet and start to sob uncontrollably. The eerie morning silence was broken by her jagged breaths, slowly he opened his eyes and stared wide-eyed around him. The tables long broken for him stood gleaming and proud in front of him. The ceiling long lost its enchantment twinkled with the fading stars, and as he watched the dark blue lighten, all he could think of was the witch at his feet.

He lowered himself gently beside her and wrapped his arms around her beaten body. They lay against the rough stone of the great hall and basked in its normality. Her sobs subsided until she hiccupped. Neither said a word. Words weren't needed and the silence was a gift.

They were back. They were home. This was where they belonged.

XxxxxxxxxxxX

I am now TheDriftersDaughter, but I was once BloodRedDaughter as well. I have now united my stories under one banner.

Thanks, Taominx