Here's the obligatory disclaimer. I own absolutely nothing. Nothing I say. Well my house, my copies of the HP series, my computer. But nothing as fabulous as the Potterverse.

A/N: Okay, I think I got this idea while surfing and looking at challenges, but here's the kicker. Lost the challenge. All I recall for certain is that there was a piece of fan art that had to be used, that showed angelic looking sirius, james, lily, and cedric. It was really beautiful, and inspired this. So... if anyone has any clue either the art, or the challenge that I might have come across, please leave me a comment. Otherwise, well I'd really love to credit those that deserve it, but if I can't I can't. Don't shoot me please.

Oh yeah, this is my first one-shot. No Beta, and I'm not sure what I think of it. So, I'd love honest, constructive criticism. In otherwords if it sucks, that's fine, just tell me why :)

The Beginning

As Harry lay on the battleground that the Forbidden Forest had become, he looked around. The sight that met his eyes was enough to cause his stomach to wretch in disgust and anguish. Eighteen years it had taken him to reach this apex. Though born an innocent of mortals; the mis-deeds, and paranoia of another had pre-destined him to be the savior, or failure of his world.

As Harry looked across to see his best friend Ron, lying unconscious in a Hermione's lap, tears bathing away the blood and mire left from battlefield, a vibration stirred from deep within. 'Eighteen years,' Harry inwardly cried. How had the boy who had once lived beneath the stairs in a broom closet; wanting nothing more than to reach adulthood and enjoy freedom come to know this devastation. In seven years, Harry had managed to gain and lose everything.

Taking in the death and injury that had come upon this magical place; a place he had once welcomed as his true home; Harry found himself resenting Hagrid. No, not Hagrid. Never that gentle giant who had sacrificed his life for Harry.

"He will be defeated," Harry hissed as Nagini wound her body tighter around the young boy.

"Never," the serpant replied, raising her head as she prepared to strike.

He had prepared himself to die. He had prepared for his failure. Harry's only comfort as Nagini continued to tighten around him was that this nightmare his life had become would soon be over. Harry had not been prepared for Hagrid, to lunge, and intercept Nagini's proffered fang.

Another life, another sacrifice, another friend fallen.

No Hagrid, could not be to blame. Albus Dumbledore was the wizard who orchestrated all things for the light. It was he who had returned Harry to this life, knowing that it would bring him much pain. How one who claimed to fight for the light could consider subjecting a child to that, Harry could not comprehend. Now, eighteen years old, Harry could be living on his own, away from his relatives. His concern should be how to live the rest of his life, not how to preserve it.

As his eyes fell across another sacrifice to the war between light and dark, Harry could no longer hold in the bile that had been rising in his throat. His insides purged, he crawled over to look at her delicate form, her eyes staring up blank and empty, Harry wiped his mouth. Stifling silent sobs, Harry closed his eyes, trying to recapture a moment of the past. He tried desperately to return to Madame Puddifoot's, willing himself to smell the pungent odor of the two cups of coffee they had ordered. It didn't take long for the telling sounds of a nearby couple's kisses to drift into his ears. The breeze blowing across his face, translated to his subconscious as the confetti thrown from a celebratory Cherub. Subconsciously, reaching to take Cho's hand, the cold and lifelessness of her actual form jerked him back to the battlefield.

She had known him as an innocent. She was an innocent. What deity could possibly demand the blood of so many who were innocent?

Draco Malfoy, his forearm blackened, body and face charred, lay near Cho. Despite seven years of animosity, Harry couldn't help but wonder was Draco not yet another victim. A boy raised amongst mad men, could there have been any doubt as to what he was to become? As Harry studied the young wizard's distorted face, he looked into hazy eyes that had once carried so much venom with their gaze. 'How could one in death look to be so much at peace,' Harry found himself wondering. He knew the answer. It had been unsolicited expectations, responsibilities, and destinies that had led them all to this place. With Malfoy's death, those burdens too heavy for the youth had perished as well.

The forest was littered with the bodies of young witches and wizards. Few that had spawned this war remained to see it through to it's end. Severus Snape had died within his own dungeon, hours before the battle when Blaise Zabini had caught him trying to floo the ministry and alert them of the upcoming battle. Peter Pettigrew had made an attempt to flee the blood shed, he remained only at the call of the magic that enforced his Wizard's Debt owed to Harry. After simultaneously being hit with the cruciatius curse and disarming Lucius, Wormtail looked up and saw through Harry to his old friend James. In a final act of penance, The Last Living Marauder, betrayed his master. Betraying the trust placed in him as Voldemort's secret keeper, Pettigrew gave The Boy Who Lived the means to face his destiny.

Reaching for the portkey shown to him by Wormtail, Harry felt his heart quieting. Albus Dumbledore had fallen. All of the troops for the dark and the light were in the Forbidden Forest.

This time would not be like others, it was time for the prophecy to be realized.

Harry had felt the tugging at his navel, he had taken possibly his last glimpse of his friends and of Hogwarts. Harry had readied himself for this last battle. It had been no question, Harry would either live or die. Only one wizard would come out of this battle alive, and the fate of the world would be decided upon by it's outcome.

His surprise was only momentary, when he realized that Voldemort had reclaimed his youthful form of Tom Riddle. Gone was the shrunken mass of cells and tissues that his followers had revived.

The duel that had ensued proved itself to be exhausting. Harry had found himself again; much like in the graveyard after the TriWizard tournament, participating in a battle of wills as to whose stream of magic would win out. As he had felt his magic weakening, the resolve behind his wand faltering he fell to his knees; Voldemort easily disarmed the young man, and sneered his youthful eyes sparkling with laughter.

"So, this is Dumbledore's great hope for the future; a mere boy. Fate has shown you a kind hand in the past my boy, but today you will see true power. Noone is here to help you this time. I have taken them all!"

Looking up into the eyes of the youthful form of Tom Riddle, Harry had tried to suppress the emotions that were welling up in him. As his shoulders shook violently, his eyes welling up with tears, his opponent took note.

"The boy finally realizes that he is alone. Are we going to cry over our mum. Ahhhh, yes, Lily. I would have loved to have made her mine, but all she could think of was protecting you, silly bi..."

As he listened to Voldemort's words, Harry began to mentally reign in his emotions. He felt guilty, yes, at the thought of all of the lives that had been given to protect him, but he did not want the guilt of being the one who had given up and let his loved ones die in vain. As Voldemort began to insult his mother, Harry felt a force arise in him similar to that he had unleashed on his Aunt Marge the summer before his third year. But this time, the force was huge. It felt like he had the power of a nuclear missile flowing through his veins.

As Harry thought of all the loved ones that had died to protect him and thought of Hermione back on the battlefield cradling his best friend's broken body in her lap, he knew that those that had left before him had not died because of him, but they did so willingly for him. Harry had a legacy of self-sacrificing love that he had never quite acknowledged until that moment. That moment, away from the death and decay left on the battlefield, at the last stand.

Seven years of non-answers, and cryptic responses his headmaster had given him. Dumbledore had been so sure that Harry had something within him that Voldemort would not be able to defeat. Harry should have known that it was more than pure magical talent, as Dumbledore, or even Hermione would have been able to duel with the best of them. No, Dumbledore had been referring to Harry's love for his friends; his sense of justice; and his loyalty. Harry had always known he would just as soon lay down his life than watch his friends suffer, and it was this selflessness that was flowing through his veins now; creating in him a magical force more powerful than any that had been witnessed before.

Voldemort's young eyes had been full of laughter, as he related some perverse desires he had for Harry's mother. Unconcerned about the boy who had appeared defeated before him, the Dark Lord took his time; planning a drawn out verbal assault against Harry's mother before sending him to meet her in a blinding green flash. Distracted by his arrogance, Voldemort did not see the young boy shift the weight in his legs to pull him up off of his knees to his haunches. He did not see Harry raise his now empty wand hand to face his open palm up towards his chest.

What Voldemort did see, the last thing he saw in fact, was a blinding blue light streaming from Harry's outstretched hand. As the magical stream over took Voldemort; a green hazy mist rose off of his form. Watching the magical essence dissipate off of Voldemort's hollow form, Harry took note of the hollow being that was left behind. Observing the wide eyes, now blackened with no soul or essence left to shine through, Harry felt that Tom Riddle resembled very much a scared young man. Thinking back to his youth spent at Number Four Privet drive, and recalling the details of Tom's upbringing, Harry shuddered to think had his ambitions, the qualities that made him who he was, been slightly different, he too could have wound up fighting for the dark side.

Exhausted in every sense of the word; Harry lay down, his head at the feet of his fallen enemy. He tried desperately to clear his mind. He needed more than sleep. He needed to forget. Although he had just fulfilled the prophecy and saved the wizarding world from the dark force that had loomed over it for the past two decades, Harry was not content. Understanding his loved ones sacrifices and accepting them were not synonymous. Now that his "quest" had come to an end, Harry found himself wondering "What now?" Those that had fought for him were gone. He didn't know if Ron was still alive and he didn't think he could bear Hermione without Ron. After all, "It was my destiny that led to the destruction of her happiness; of Ron," Harry thought, not acknowledging any possibility of his friend's survival.

Opening his eyes and drawing himself erect, Harry notices a mirror that was shattered during his attack on Voldemort. He reaches out absently and picks up a large shard of glass. Running his finger across the broken edge absently, Harry considers that perhaps this was his life's work. The years spent in anguish and preparation not some trial to prove himself worthy of happiness, rather training; training for the defeat of the Dark Lord.

As he studied the red scratch that formed on his finger, he felt as if he could hear his fallen loved ones cry out for his blood. Pressing deeper, Harry let out a yelp as the image of Sirius falling through the veil flashed before his eyes. Baring down hard, dragging the sharp instrument from the tip of his middle finger, to the heel of his palm, Harry became entranced at the sight of his blood flowing from the valley left by the blade. Hypnotized as he watched the blood pool, Harry passed out.

Stepping out of the darkness, Harry found himself surrounded by a Bluish Silver Haze standing over a pond. As he looked at his reflection, he could see that he appeared alarmingly okay to have just defeated the Dark Lord. His face was clean, his robes straight. The only thing out of place at all was his hair, but that was common. He looked much as he would any other day, once he dressed and stepped into the common room to begin his day. A sense of peace over came him as the comforting haze washed over him. He wondered where he was. Were the muggles right, was there a heaven into which he could now ascend, having fulfilled his responsibility to mankind?

Harry found that thought comforting, an end to life; an end to all endings really. He had seen too many endings in his young life, all of them being the death of a loved one. Harry was ready for a new beginning. A beginning to something wonderful that would know no end. As he contemplated what was to await him in this peaceful oasis, Harry felt the air charge. Looking back into the water to see if he appeared differently, Harry's eyes widened as a bright cloud formed behind him. After rubbing his eyes beneath the glasses, Harry looked again to see four figures coming into focus.

His eyes began to tear as he recognized the ghosts. One, had given his life to protect his family; another, her child; the third, an innocent life lost out of a sense of fairness; the fourth, the only father he'd known, lost to protect Harry. His parents, Sirius, and Cedric; these four lives had given Harry the motivation to accept his destiny and face Voldemort. As the magically charged air swirled around him, Harry felt the love, pride, and contentment flow through the air from the four souls. Lying his head down, intoxicated from the emotions charging the air, Harry felt himself lose conciousness once again.

When Harry awoke, his hand was caked in blood. Luckily, the self-inflicted cut he had made was not nearly as deep as it had seemed. The wound had clotted on its own, leaving his right palm caked and dirtied by his own blood. Gingerly lifting himself from the floor, Harry reached again for the Portkey that had brought him to this ending. As he took the portkey in his hand, he did so, still feeling the of the ghosts he had met in that space which is between the living and the dead, with a determination to return to life; a return to the life that they had made possible through their individual sacrifices. Harry was ready for his beginning.