Harry James Potter was born in the dying of the month, and the ashes of a rising war. He had victory crossing over his spine and the whispers of Saints and Villains tender in his ears. His eyes were as green as his mother's, but the dying colour of a promise.
He can feel the world brimming with damage beneath his fingertips, and when he cries, he thinks he might be able to separate worlds from the destruction.
His lungs are filled with air, and his heart is pounding. He is alive, an existence sweeping over the ruins.
Never die, is all he can think.
…
He is plucked out of the ruins of a smouldering house. He screams and howls, with the feeling of death crawling over his raw skin. Already he knows that taste of both living and dying, and understands both so bitter sweetly.
It's from the moment onward; he begins to learn the world from the cracks. He knows the feeling of a belt across his shoulders, and the corners of a prison beneath the footsteps of monsters.
Long live the resurrection, he carves into the cupboard with a nail. He laughs until he cries, and thinks that might just be enough.
…
When he was a child, he met a man with eyes like ashes stretched across valleys and cradled by tender winds. The man emerged from the street, age pulling at his skin. Spine stiff and straight, he walked with a promise beckoning in each footstep.
He had sat watching, hands clenched around the chain of the swing, waiting. Eyes meeting and greeting.
"You have greeted death already." His words sound soft like surrender, but with the undertone of a cannon fire reckoning in the distance. "Eyes like truth." He's already mourning the imprint of death upon the soft skin of the boy.
The man drew closer and closer. Not daring to detach his gaze, Harry slowly stood from the seat of the swing, and the man clamped down tight with strength upon his brittle shoulders. "Who are you?" Harry whispered.
A ghost of a smile melted across his face, and the man's word arose against the sharp wind. "They used to call me Paul." The man turned rapidly to ash, spitting apart into all directions with a soft embrace against the cold air of fall.
It felt like acid that went down his spine, and all of a sudden he could no longer feel the livid welts upon his back or the burn on his hands. All he can taste is old laws and dust and sacrifice. The feeling of death wandering through his veins, and life clinging every war drum beat of his heart.
England was forming again and again. Rebirthed through age and gentle release. It had found the new form to morph itself into.
Harry forms into England, standing tall under the presence. All he can feel though is oil and age swirling about within him.
A new age had approached, stealing him away from the dying England.
…
He enters the house, feeling light despite the heaviness that attacks him. The man starts to yell, and the woman screeches. Somewhere there is laughter and giddy breathing, but all he can see is the feeling of a flag standing upright, and the taste of red, blue and white.
The man tries to hurt him, hand ripping at his shoulder, trying to break him apart and damage what shouldn't exist.
His touch his livid, but all he can do is watch as the Man is forced under his borders, seeing the maps old and damaged with books burnt and wars lost. All that the Uncle can feel is the overwhelming sense of madness with sacrifice and the victories at a cost.
When he detaches himself, uprooting the man from his position of seeing the ink veins and dust covered lips, he only stares.
The man can never forget the cold dark stare that is brimming with shadows and lusts.
No one dares to touch him again.
Beneath the stairwell he can hear the weeping of the Man tucked away, far away.
His borders revolve around the age of balance. The restoration of balance.
Balance has been fulfilled.
…
Once, thousands were dying from plagues and hunger and war and depression.
He can still feel the release of the souls pushing against him some nights.
Some days, he can feel the waters against the coast, or the smooth stretch of the land caught by hills and inventions made by man.
…
He meets France one day, wandering through the streets. France is a figure with white silk and eyes like wine and dancing.
"You've greeted the new age young," She whispers, tracing fingertips over his forehead. "A burden to some, who crumble beneath the need to destroy."
He is caught beneath the melancholy of her words. "It's an old world."
"Wreckage," she agrees, laughing with echoes of surrender.
They depart, because France and England had too many scars to just join together into companionship. He can feel the bruise on his hip from the night France gave the colonies up, and England purged the image of the French from the ruins of people surviving amongst the war.
It's when she leaves though; he thinks this is what true beauty is.
(A few days later, the wreckage of old France was shoveled away, and a new birth greeted the country. An old woman with a voice of lavender and gunpowder stepped into the hollow footsteps and continued the way they always had.)
…
He knows magic, can taste the mystery of it upon his tongue. He enters the alley way, knowing each little secret of every store. The magic is damnation, he thinks as he recoils from the brash voices the rock against each other like a boat dying amongst the storm.
He steps aboard the train, mind finding each and every track and following it as he thunders by, secure within the compartment. He's grown so much despite his centuries and youth. Pale skin marked with the sins of the past, words tasting like smoke. He can feel the cross weighing him down, but he carries on. Dragging the flag across his shoulders.
…
They don't fully understand the trapped little boy who doesn't cower away from their attention. Dumbledore think he should be weak, a useful little pawn to be used in his games.
"I don't believe you understand, Headmaster." His words feel like laws, snapping against the expanse.
The old man had never felt so old until he felt the stare weigh him down. "You've been cursed," he mourns.
Harry doesn't detach his gaze. "Never have I been cursed." Some nights he can feel the chain of the swing burning into the palms of his hands. "Never have I been blessed."
He surrenders, because he is drowning within the rolling borders of the country. "I met Russia once. Soft and tender, hair like fire and rebellion. Her words tasting like falling of walls and burning of countries."
"What did she say?" The memory of France ghosting through the streets like a being detached. Fear washes over him as he wonders when his time will come. When he will greet the next, clasping them by their shoulders and bringing fourth this flag to rest on their shoulders alone.
There's a ghost of a smile. "This was the way."
That was the last time Albus Dumbledore dared to even look at him.
…
Padma greets him coldly, hands outstretched to his wrists. "I can feel your fear."
Images of soft suns and the strong smells of spice wash over him gently, the sounds of living swaying beneath their feet. Touches of ink and old paper, spines cracking smoothly beneath his finger tips.
"I am fearful."
"Do not. This is the way."
She is India, wise and aged beneath the youth of her body. She scares him.
So he continues, footsteps ploughing deep within the Earth and forming it into the New England. Magic creates wars, the ideals shattering beneath the weight of responsibility. After the first year, he snaps his wand and walks away.
The magical realm is not his world to partake in.
…
Owls follow him, but wisely leave soon enough. Wizards try to pull him back into the world that wanted to sacrifice him in the beginning, so he forces them under his borders.
They die beneath the weight of everything.
They wisely leave him alone after the ten dead bodies arrive in the alley.
…
Slowly, he is growing up and growing down.
He has maps engraved within his lungs, and gunpowder clogging his veins. He can feel death wandering further and further within him, and all he remembers is an old man named Paul. Paul with eyes like ashes and proud words. Paul departing before him, with nothing more than a rocking swing and a new child emerging from the wreckage.
Do not fear, do not fear. What will happen, will happen.
Do not fear this existence.
He waves his flag just a little higher, and wards of death just a little bit longer.
…
He does not grow old.
He does not grow broken.
He's supposed to be twenty, ready to start being an adult and leaving his childhood just a little bit further. He is pulled. Destined. Ruined. He has met the red haired woman of Russia, met the man behind Canada's promises. Discovered the smouldering figure of America, damaged almost beyond all repair.
He meets a man cold and alone, tucked into a corner of an alley with hunger wrecking his fragile frame.
He does not fear.
"I'm Harry."
"I'm Nole." His words are broken, crumbling sharply. He smells rust and copper, and the fine powder of gold dust. He knows this is the time.
He smiles, and tells him this is the way. Clutches the boney shoulders before him, and then it's over. Ashes remain, and England emerges.