The fully edited chapter at last! I can't believe it got better! I need to once again thank my amazing Betas Lady Twi and Tara6 for their hard work on this. First chapter made perfection in my eyes. :D

Prologue: Star in the darkness

Some say the best way to die is without suffering.

Some say the best way to die is after knowing happiness.

Some say the best way to die is after fulfilling every wish of your life.

Some say…death is just a beginning of the next great adventure.

There standing alone, surrounded by Death Eaters all around him and the vilest wizard in existence right before him. Harry felt exhausted.

Harry doesn't want to be a part of another great adventure. Life had worn him out. Death is before him and he only desired the peace of finality from it. To let it all end and let his eyes be closed forever, never to be opened ever. Ignorant, unfeeling, without sight or any sound of existence, he only wanted to be dissolved from the universe. In a way, he was happy with death. He had long since realized that there was peace only in death.

His heart disagreed. After everything it had gone through with him, it still was the same foolish, ignorant, uncaring thing that wanted nothing else more than to keep itself beating forever. How dumb could it be, how forgetful of the agony they both suffered.

It wanted to continue relishing in the dismal sight of darkness, the excruciating taste of bitterness, the despicable smell of stench, the shock in sense of pain and shrieks that drove him absolutely insane. His heart was simply incapable of understanding reason. Reason was a tool for his mind after all. A heart existed for the misery of men.

He stared back at the Elder Wand pointed at him. Surrounded by people who only wanted what he himself had wanted. His death. There were people behind him in the castle who begged to disagree with him. But it was a pitiful reason for what they had wanted him alive for.

The stubborn part of him had similar reasons for rebellion against him. It shook with the last of fight left in him, like they all had.

Why try so hard? His departure from this world would only promote peace. There was no one left for him to go back to. A lonely existence about whom none knew much. His absence would hardly rupture the life of any. They miss him for just his loss.

Like a child reluctant to part with his broken toys, stacking them up, like garbage.

It somehow seemed strange to fight for your own demise yet somehow, he knew it was right…. he felt it was wise.

In the deepest parts of his imagination, he had created a utopian world where everything was right, for him. That world was what he was fighting for, that world which he had realized long ago he could never be a part of and could only ever occur without him. Harry may know in his core that such a thing may be impossible even after him but he chose not to think of those corrupting reasons. Everyone in death wants to leave a legacy, he wanted himself to believe that such a thing was what he was leaving behind. An illusion of worth was all he wanted to rely on in his final moments.

Sometimes, death is more acceptable when given as a sacrifice.

Mind reconciled, with every last emotion his life had granted him. Eyes revised every last memory that occurred before him. Ears remembered, every last semblance of commotion around him, since his life. The last that stayed with him, was envy. The emotion most prevalent, the most predominant and the most progressive at the moment. Envy for a life that could have been, if not for a simple whim of destiny.

Envy for a brother who could feel the warmth of a mother, who could witness the smile of a lover, who could bask in the pride of a father, and lastly for him who could forget the biting chills of lonely winter.

How he wished he was his brother.

The Dark Lord has decided to spell the words at last. It was a swift decision without much need of thought, yet for Harry, in those few moments, a millennium had gone by.

The only loose end left to be gone for the perfection of victory, remaining for the scion of Slytherin, the Dark Lord, was before him to rectify. He needn't think, for a lot of thought had been wasted upon the annoying boy who kept being a persistent thorn at his side. His sacrifice as Voldemort knew his motivation to be, would be useless. Riddle knew things that others thought he was not privy to, and ignorant of many that many thought he was well versed in. Wise men lived by this illusion. Such is the secret of winning a war. The destined master of Elder Wand spelled the words in confidence, with every fiber of his black heart concentrated in the wish for death of his enemy. This tiring game of wit was finally at an end.

"Avada Kadavra!"

Harry saw the green light forming at tip of the fabled dark wand. He saw the approaching magic. In those last moments, as fear and panic overtook him, his fragile heart mustered the strength to break free from the shackles of his mind. Harry had an irresistible urge to run, or to maybe cry…..to beg for mercy.

Harry himself only smirked in those last moments, for he knew it was too late for those. Fear failed to provoke caution in his mind. In the end he had outwitted his heart too. Defeating everyone who stood before him as he went, except his destiny.

With the force of a powerful punch, the curse struck Harry's chest in dead center. Air left his lungs. Sound left his ears. Feelings left his skin. His heart silenced at last with a sudden intrusion of power. Finally in peace. The last sensation to part with him were his sight, memory of a single star among darkness of the sky glowing in the last vestiges of his memory, a parting gift to his soul from his closing eyes. Harry felt mocked.

Without much preamble, even the soul left his body.