Hello! This little idea has been giving me some trouble to write it down. My muse went on long holidays with this one and it just came back today! The idea came to me after reading a Danny Phantom fanfic with the same general idea (I don't quite remember the name, though, but it was great!) and my mind started to play with the idea.
Disclaimer: The characters despicted in this story don't belong to me... they belong to J.K Rowling and I just play with them and I swear I'm gonna return them!
Note: I am not a native speaker of English, so any mistakes you see, please point them out so I can learn and get better.
Time
"I'm home! "Harry shouted in a tired voice as he crossed the threshold of Grimmauld Place.
There wasn't an answer and figuring that his family had gone out for some reason or another, the retired Auror kept on, taking off his coat and scarf hanging them on the hanger, slowly kicking off his boots before leaving them neatly put together on the receiver like he knew Ginny wanted them to be. He sighed, absent mindedly casting a warming spell over himself before walking towards the door of his bedroom, longing to get out of his used clothes just so he could start a fire in the fireplace and make himself a nice hot cocoa. Warming spells just never seem to live up to a nice fire, sadly.
Once in his room he was quick about changing his clothes and was about to leave the room when the mirror caught his attention and he smiled sadly at his reflection. Standing before him was an old man; a man that had long since passed his prime, with his shaggy hair of a snowy white, crinkles in his eyes and around his mouth, he looked a bit smaller, his fatigued bones crumpled under the strain of time. He was old, worn, not even a shadow of the man he once was in his youth. Perhaps the only thing that remained of his days of glory were his round glasses and the ever-astounding colour of his eyes, that soft emerald green which was the only visible evidence that Lily Potter had mothered him and that had failed to fade or darken with age.
Or, at least, that old man was what everyone saw…
He sighed, gently waving his wand in the air and muttering a counter-spell he knew by heart under his breath. His appearance seemed to melt; the shaggy white hair fading to an astounding jet-black, the wrinkles slowly replaced by soft and unmarked skin, his bones creaking as they straightened and his hands which had been shaky and weak from age morphed back into the young and stable hands of a man much, much younger.
At first he hadn't noticed, how could he, really? He'd been seventeen when Moldyshorts bit the dust. He had plenty of time before any signs of real change appeared given that wizards live well into their hundreds. Of course, it had bothered when he seemed to add no height or width to his scrawny frame, but he'd dismissed it, thinking that unlike Ron or the other men in the Auror training he was done with this growing up stuff.
When they'd been older, thirties and so, he had ruffled Ron's feathers with his hair that simply refused to go grey, no matter that Ron's head already sported a good few strands of grey or that the redhead already had the tell-tale signs of aging near his eyes, Harry still looked every bit the boy he had been when he entered the Auror's training. By then he had already developed the nagging concern, but he'd dismissed it by thinking that he'd taken his damn good time to finally start to grow up properly, he could take his damn good time to age as well.
No, his lack of apparent aging hadn't really bothered him until the incident as he'd come to call it to have a way to refer to it over the years. He could remember clearly the mission, just as it had occurred yesterday instead of nearly eighty years ago. It had been, on the paper, a simple enough mission, one designed to teach the newbies some new skills. It was easy… it had been easy but it was what happened there which had sent him into a true frenzy about his seemingly never-ending youth.
The house seemed innocent enough from the outside, with white fences, a well-kept appearance and a vast enough garden, this ordinary house seemed like any other from its suburban muggle surroundings. It was hard to imagine that any untoward happenings, what was more, any magical untoward happening could occur in such a place, nevertheless they had received several reports indicating dark magic being practiced there and after some digging up they had uncovered several clues that pointed at this house being the centre of operations of a small band of wizards directly linked to the trafficking of illegal potions he'd been investigating for quite a while.
He looked at Davidson, who looked up from the runes he'd been drawing on the ground for a couple of seconds just to lift four fingers up in the air. Alright, just four minutes until the wards were gone and up until then he could go through the details of the mission.
Four minutes and he and his team were inside.
It had happened too fast, before he could react there was an explosion on the upper levels and the ceiling caved in on them just as they were about to enter into the basement. Harry didn't have a lot of time to react; all he could do was cast a quick spell to stop the fall that did not really stop him from plummeting down the stairs and falling on his neck, effectively breaking it and everything stopped instantly, his eyesight went black; his breathing and his heart just stopped working and Harry Potter lied there, dead.
What followed next was by far the most surreal experience of all his life. He felt the bones in his neck mending and his lungs and heart re-start their slow rhythm.
In less than a second he sat, trembling with a combination of a cold so deep that it seemed to grasp onto his very bones and of a mounting panic as his brain hopelessly tried to come to terms with the fact that he'd been death again, and that he came back to life, again. He had his bones mended, his heart had restarted and he was undeniably and impossibly alive once again even though by all accounts that shouldn't be. None of that made sense and he wondered, rather stupidly, if all of this wasn't just the afterlife messing up with him for laughs or if he'd somehow dreamed the whole thing up. But he hurt and it all certainly felt real enough, too real, for it to be a figment of his feverish imagination or to be the afterlife –He certainly hoped the afterlife did not hurt, for pity's sake-.
Now, Harry knew that what had happened to him mere seconds ago was not normal. In fact, it shouldn't be possible at all. For one he'd broken enough bones in his magical life to know that they do not mend like that, not even with the strongest of healing Charms bones were able to mend bones and hence the use of Skele-Grow to supply that need. On the other hand he knew that people did not come back from death in the Wizarding World… no, well, he had… but that was a bloody exception! And it only happened because old Voldy-Shorts had left a piece of his rotting soul inside him and that piece of soul died for him. The next time he died, he was going to stay dead. Or at least, he thought so. Certainly seeing that he was sitting there and breathing when he should be lying dead on the floor with his neck turned backwards that was a moot point.
However before he could keep thinking about how he should not be breathing, he heard the sound of his men finishing clearing out the stairs and he did his best to stop thinking about the unusual set of circumstances that happened in that basement; it would not do for anyone to find out that he'd been for all intents and purposes death until a couple of minutes ago. He could already hear and feel the Unspeakable wanting to mess up with him, making this test and that. It had been difficult enough to dissuade the Ministry from an investigation the second time he had failed to die when he obviously should have, he didn't think that he would be able to dissuade them for a third time, so discretion was the game until he could figure out what the hell was wrong with him, if he could.
He buried his worry and his panic in a place where he could later revise it with detail, preferably a later when he could find a reasonable explanation for him not staying dead that didn't include him being quite as unfortunate to bewitch himself into not dying or anything Voldemort related. Especially not anything Voldemort related.
He did not tell anyone. Not even Ron, who had given him odd looks all the way back to the Ministry, he had dared to tell. None of his teammates could know that their boss had been all but dead for Who-Know-How-Much-Time as no one had really known what had befallen him in the time they took clearing the stairs. They just had been happy to see him walk up the stairs with only dust and a slight cough as proof that he'd been thrown down the stairs and into the basement by the ceiling collapsing. Sadly, all they managed with their operation was to confiscate illegal potions as the traffickers had used the explosion in the upper level and the temporal weakening of his wards to escape, but internally he'd been selfishly glad about it because he didn't have to fill out the paperwork that came with arresting any suspects and that meant that he could probably start on his investigation of his not-death that day.
Unsurprisingly, he did not have much success in his research; he had been unable to unearth the real reason for his not-aging. Not on that day or on any of the following for a long time.
As much as he'd searched book after book after book in the Aurors' library, he hadn't been able to find any incantation, curse, or ritual that allowed a wizard to evade death like he had. And he… he didn't age, it had taken just a small wave of his wand to confirm what he'd already known but hadn't wanted to truly accept: he was as young as he was the day that he had finally defeated Voldemort once and for all. It was disappointing and not for the first time, Harry felt that the universe cheated on him. How did he ever manage to get stuck on messes that most people wouldn't even imagine in their wildest dreams? It wasn't fair! He wanted to be normal, dammit.
Even the little information he had found couldn't explain that bit of information to him, renowned wizards that had achieved some sort of prolonged livelihood were few and for all of them there had been no actual way to stop the natural process of aging from happening, but rather, they kept surviving by increasing their bodies' resistance to the time passing in its stead. And creatures that had seemed immortal, in truth just aged at a really slow pace. Was he like that? Was he aging slower? But why? A wizard already aged slower by human's standards, why was he even slower than normal? Did it have anything to do with Voldemort? If not, then why?
He was frozen. Time had frozen up for him.
He tried everything. Thought of everything, but he had been unable to fix it, just make it seem as if he was aging naturally with some handy charms, all the time checking and trying new things to reverse whatever it was that was wrong with him.
.
"Dad! "The voice, quite forceful, of Lily interrupted his musings and he turned, his lips already curving into a smile at finding his daughter leaning against the bedroom door. "I didn't hear you enter… "She continued, reaching for his thin frame to hug him with a smile.
"I called… "He replied. He heard a sarcastical 'uhumm' coming from her and he added playfully: "It is not my fault that you did not hear me. Those old ears must be failing you… "He could actually feel her frowning at that one.
"You shouldn't joke like that, Dad… "
"Where is everyone else? "He dismissed her.
"Al and my hubby took the kids to choose their Christmas tree. You know how that is, James couldn't keep away from it and now they are probably squabbling about who can spot the perfect tree to convince everyone faster. "She said in an irritated but amused way, shaking her head. "Mum and I were secluded to the kitchen like always and you know Mum, she's gone bonkers over preparations! I swear that every year she just keeps coming up with more and more recipes to add to the Christmas dinner. Save me! "He chuckled.
"Now, you know that your mom just likes to have everything perfect... "
"And it is, but at the rate it is going we will probably have food until the next Christmas comes around. So, save me, please? "She begged, looking a lot to him like the small girl she hadn't been in a long while. She was married and with kids, she was a woman now, all grown up. He felt his heart constrict a bit at the thought but outwardly all he did was shake his head amusedly and nod, turning away from her so he could find his wife in the kitchen. "Thanks Dad! "
There she was… just a lovely as always with her now white hair framing her wrinkled face as if it was a piece of art and her eyes filled of both passion and love that instantly made his chest constrict with adoration.
"Lily sent me to rescue her. "He said finally after a while of just silently watching her.
"Yes, well, I sort of figured out on my own that she wouldn't come back after the fifteen minutes mark. "She said with a distracted smile, without turning to look at him. When she turned around to watch him, she frowned, her brown eyes filling with discontent briefly before they returned to studiously watching the recipe she was trying to cook. He walked the short distance separating them to burrow closer to her, one of his hands resting on her waist while the other rose to caress her cheek.
"You know that I cannot walk around the house with the charm on; it is too taxing. "She slumped against him, her breath leaving her lips in a resigned sigh that tugged at his heartstrings.
"I know, it doesn't mean that I like it, Harry. "He bit his lower lip, his hands clenching into fists momentarily before he rested his chin atop her head and lifted his arms to draw her closer still.
"What are you making? "He asked, trying none too subtly to change the topic, his eyes passing over the page she'd been perusing so intently up until he came to the kitchen.
"I'm baking treacle tart. "She answered, once again not looking at him.
"I'll help. "
And just like that the topic of his charms was gone, dropped by a mute agreement, like the other times they had even breached the topic.
.
He hated nights like this. He lied on his bed, with his wife of almost a hundred years now snuggled right beside him and he couldn't bring himself to sleep, as much as he tried, his eyes seemed as though they had been glued open. Harry's eyes robbed over his wife's face, content in sleep as she was, Harry could almost forget the painful looks he had been receiving from her through much of all afternoon. He knew that his not aging hit her hard; it always did, ever since he told her.
She had been sceptical at first, of course, but after he stood under her wand for hours as she tried all and every counter that she knew and failed, her disbelief slowly transformed into a broken voice that she'd promptly hid up behind a soothing smile as she beckoned him to sit beside her to talk. And talk he did. She listened to the tale of his countless attempts, of his searching and his reading, of his secret fears that the Ministry would find out some day if he was not careful enough, of how he'd been torturing himself knowing that inevitably, irrevocably, the things he knew would be gone if he did not solve the riddle in time. He told her everything and more and by the end of it, he had been shaking both with rage and impotence while she valiantly fought tears that begged to come forth.
He had been searching for fifteen years when he shared the information with her and his friends. They'd helped. They'd searched for five years before they were able to determine that somehow the two failed Avada's had stuck him into a state of Half-living. He was alive and he wasn't. His heart was beating, his lungs expanded to fit in air, his stomach could accept food but it was as though he was frozen in time. His body did not mature, nor age, nor it showed any signs of it deteriorating and of course, there was no cure. No magical potion or spell that he could take that would reverse his not-deadness.
He was stuck like that.
They refused to give up, of course, but as they searched for a cure, time, in its usual merciless fashion, didn't slow down. He had been relieved and a bit saddened at the same time to find that his children aged normally. They graduated and married and had their children. Ginny aged just as she should while he stayed on with the very same face that he'd come to hate more than anything. He tried potion after potion and spell after spell without success, always thinking that the next one would surely nail it and angered when it did not. His hopes went up and down, up and down up and down until he had no hope left and Harry resigned himself to not finding an answer.
He should be one hundred and twenty three, just one year older than his wife, and he was seventeen, a hundred and five years younger than her. How cruel was that?
He thought that more than anything he wished that he could freeze time for her as well, to grasp the hands of her clock in his hands and stop it from advancing so it could not steal her from him like it had done with some of his friends. She was a fragile thing now, her face all wrinkled and her hair long gone a snowy white, prone to bouts of tiredness and moodiness and forgetfulness. She was so fragile but also so beautiful to him, so precious. And any day now, she could leave, die and he would have of her would be the memories of their time together to keep him company for eternity. And he was scared of an eternity without her, without anyone, without his children to smile at him and to teach and to laugh with and without her to share his cold nights with. The idea left a cold, gaping hole in his chest and he shook his head, his eyes prickling with tears that he did not allow to fall as he considered the idea of burying any of his beloved children, of watching them go.
He was sad, almost angry to find even more traces of age on her pretty face when he looked at it. She was getting old; he could not deny it as much as he would like to do so. Her time was getting short even though his seemed extend endlessly and sometimes he just felt as though that time was slipping by his fingers faster than he could really catch it and make the most of it. Hadn't it been yesterday when he'd held his son for the first time? When he had married her? When he had traipsed along Hogsmeade with her looking for the entire world like love-sick puppy? He wanted time to stop now, when he held her like this and he heard the sound of her breathing and he ran his fingers through her hair and he felt like the most miserable git on Earth because the thought of her leaving him alone in this world was tearing his old heart apart. They were supposed to grow old together, didn't they? He wished he could have grown old with her, he really did.
More than anything now, however, he wanted to freeze the sands of time, so moments like these would last forever.
But Time didn't stop, it never did… and Harry kept hearing the sound of her breathing night after night, until he heard it no more.
Sad, huh? I suppose I could have given our little Potter a solution, but my muse is cruel like that.
What did you think? Don't be shy! That little box down there won't bite!