The Boy Who Lived Forever
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He waited for death.
Death passed over him.
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Suddenly, he awakened.
With a sharp intake of breath, his eyes snapped open. Suddenly he was sat upright, his heart hammering painfully inside his chest. He moved to rub his face only to freeze and stare at his hands. They were blue, but admittedly, they were also slowly fading back into colour again. He wasn't even aware of the snow slowly drifting to the ground around him until his body had a tremor of shivers and he realised how cold he was. Looking down, he saw he was wearing just a single T-shirt and a pair of jeans, both soaked through from the snow. He was soaked to the bone as well…
Suddenly Harry remembered who he was. The memories came thick and fast quickly falling into place. Within moments he became aware of the sadness, the depression that had plagued him. Tears began to roll down his cold face as Harry let out a shuddering sob. He curled up into a ball, dragging his hands through his white hair, which was one of very few signs of his aging.
His memories wouldn't let him forget how his family had died around him while he just kept on living. He tried a number of times to make a new family from the start, only each time, they aged around him and he was soon left just as lonely as the last time. Harry was alone. He had always been alone, and he would always end up alone, Right from the moment his parents were killed. That was why he was here, lying in a frozen field, a new attempt to make a slow, cold induced suicide.
It didn't work, just like always. The crisscrossing scars on his arms were plenty proof of his past attempts.
Harry just stayed there, curled up in grief. Freezing to a death that would never come.
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He yearned for Death.
Death avoided him.
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Again, Harry's eyes snapped open as he gasped in a fresh lungful of air. His heart pounded and his head spun. Over the years, he recovered more quickly from his deaths, memories returned quicker, feelings came back all too soon. Harry didn't cry any more though, not because he wouldn't, but he simply had no tears left to give. It had been over a hundred years since Harry's parents had been killed. Almost exactly a hundred since Sirius was too. It had been decades since his wife had left him and his children had outgrown him. He had tried to find death thousands of times since, but death was no longer permanent for Harry Potter.
He glanced down at the tattered remains of his shirt, that left an unnaturally large scar jaggedly cutting across his entire stomach. He knew that to look left he would see the stalagmites on which he had thrown himself from dozens of feet above, drenched in his blood. Like every other time Harry had dies from injury, he awoke with only a scar as a reminder of the attempt. And the blood spatter to tell him of his failure.
He had been like this, immortal of a fashion, since that fateful night where he duelled the madman Voldemort to the death. He was now unable to remain dead himself, as if defeating his enemy had sacrificed his right to join the ones he loved in the afterlife. Harry knew not whether the cause was his brief ownership of the Hallows, or whether death could no longer see him due to some twisted fulfilment of the prophecy.
…One must die at the hand of the other…
The words echoed in his head…
He knew it was stupid to try and kill himself like this. Especially like this. He didn't need to look up to know the cavern in which Harry currently sat had only one exit, straight above him. For now he would just stay here, he could try and escape whenever he wanted to. The climb would be deadly without any equipment to make it easier.
But then, it wasn't like he could actually die now, right?
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He begged for Death.
Death ignored him.
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Harry pulled his legs closer to his body, subconsciously attempting to keep his heat in. It had taken him years to find this little cave half way up a cliff face. No one could find him here, and try to nurse him back to health. Such a pointless gesture. Instead he was alone to his own thoughts as he slowly starved to death again.
He wondered how many times he had dies over the many years. If maybe one day whatever God out there might let him stay dead. He was ever hopeful.
Harry pulled his legs yet closer as he recalled the faces of his family, long since gone. His Mother's dark red hair, and beautiful green eyes, his Dad's mess of dark brown hair, that never had the opportunity to turn grey. Sirius' mischievous face, eyes dancing with hidden mirth. Remus' rugged features that marked him as one of the Moon's cursed. The face of his wife, as beautiful in her old age as in her youth.
His wife was his main reason to keep living once upon a time. She always stood by him when no one else would. Even his own children abandoned him after she passed on. That was Harry though, the eternal freak, once the Boy-Who-Lived for having not died to the curse of death. Now the Boy-Who-Lived-Forever, never aging, his face still that of a young man, even though his hair had long since faded to white. He had always been a freak, even in the wizarding world. Now he was an oddity that didn't even fit nature anymore.
The only ones who had ever accepted Harry were now all dead. He wondered if they were together as well, eternally waiting for the one who would never come. There was no reason for Harry to try to stay alive any more. Not that he could leave the living either. He still sometimes tried to make his own way on to the afterlife, not that he ever succeeded.
He could see their faces so clearly in his mind, the reasons he had to keep on trying to die.
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