I walk a lonely road,
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone
This has been my life for so long now, it's sort of become part of me. I've only had myself for so long, how could I ever imagine life with anyone else? I used to love someone, I'll admit it, but those times are long gone, and now it's just me. This is my home; this constant search for peace is all I really need.
I walk this empty street
On the boulevard of broken dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk aloneThe people around me rejoice and sleep comfortable, and for that I am grateful. After all, wasn't the battle only there so others could be peaceful, so others could sleep in their beds comfortably again. I walk along now, through the city that was once my home, where my family, the closest thing to a family I ever had, once lived. But he was one of the first people to go, and now his house falls silent, slight breezes whisper through the empty halls. This walk, this street, this life, is strewn haphazardly with the memories of the dreams that I once had. Shall never experience. Ginny.
I walk alone. I walk alone. I walk alone. I walk alone
Ginny, my Ginny. Another of the forever lost in my beating heart. Oh Ginny, sometimes I wonder if you're here with me, if you're watching over me from whatever comes next or wherever you are. Sometimes, just sometimes, I think I hear your playful voice, but it is only a dream. A nightmare of the pain I caused you.
My shadows the only one that walks beside me
My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Till then I walk alone.
I don't even know if my friends are still alive, or if any of them are dead. I feel bad to admit it, but I ran away after the final fight, after the war was over. I couldn't face finding out who had died, who had survived. Who had been lost. Sometimes, just sometimes, I dream that someone will come and find me, that I'll wake up one day and find the smiling faces of my friends, looking down on me. And life would all be okay.
I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the borderline of the edge
And where I walk alone
If my friends saw me now they'd think I was insane, and maybe I am. Sometimes I think I am, but other times I realise that maybe I'm not. First sign of madness, believing your fine. But the truth is I still remember things, which makes me think I'm sane. I can't remember my old name though, because I changed my name after the wars. I couldn't face what I was going to have to go through if I'd stayed myself. So I changed. Maybe that was what kept me the straight side of the line, the belief that I'd done something to make myself better. I don't know. All I remember is the pain, and the deciding on a new name. Albus Black.
Read between the lines of what's
Fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs to know I'm still alive
And I walk alone
There's a certain thing which everyone assumes makes you mad, but the truth is I passed that a long time ago. But I'm still me really. I mean, I know me, I know my memories, I just can't remember what my name was. That's not a big deal really though. Lots of people decide to blank bits of their past.
It's strange, but sometimes I think I'm dead, that I'm living in a nightmare that is whatever comes next. I see my mother occasionally, and Ginny. Or people that look very like them. But I know it can't be them, because I'm still breathing. And they're not. They're in a different place. Probably a lot better place.
My heart as well, that's another way of telling that I'm not dead. Because my heart still beats, and it pains me with every beat of my bruised and swollen heart. I know that the only way to cure the pain is to consult my past and to find Ginny, but at the same time I'm afraid too. I've been on my own for so long; I don't know how I'm going to be able to face real civilisation.
I walk alone. I walk alone. I walk alone. I walk alone.
Ginny, Ginny, Ginny, Ginny, Ginny. Where are you, what are you doing now? Do you still love me like I used to love you? Will you still think about me? Do you wonder where I am? Ginny, I can't remember my name, but I wonder if you can remember mine. I lost the use of my real name when I became Albus Black, but maybe, maybe, wherever you are, you still use it.
I walk this empty street on the boulevard of broken dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm one only one and I walk alone
My shadows the only one that walks beside me
I have no company except the voices in my head, and sometimes I am grateful for that. The voices know me, trust me, understand me. No people are ever able to do that. The voices are all the friend I ever need. Unless… Unless…unless my old friends would someday find me.
My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Till then I walk alone
"Is it him?" A young woman asks, bending over the motionless hermit. She might have been from around here, but her accent gives her away.
"They say he calls himself Albus Black." A local man replies. "I don't know if he's the man you're looking for."
"Albus?" Says another man; tall and red headed, bending low over the hermit.
"Black?" Asks the final of the three, clutching the mans hand tightly. "Do you think? Do you think he might have?"
"Yes." Replies the first girl softly. "Albus and Sirius, the two people who he loved most in the world. It makes perfect sense. I think we've found him." she kneels down by his side, not caring about the dirt, and strokes the long black hair from his head, searching desperately for something but giving no sign as to what that something is.
"Do you think its possible Gin?" the red headed man asks, kneeling down beside his sister. "Do you really think that after all this time we might really have found him?"
"Yes." His companion joins them on the ground, and places her hand over the hermits. "Yes, George. I think this is him. Ron always said he was still alive. I think we have to trust his judgement."
"So did Fred. But I suppose there's only one way to be certain." The man referred to as George pulled out a wand, and then tapped the hermits head gently. Slowly, as if light was pouring out of his wand, the hermits face started to clear, and light came under his eyelids. His hand came up and stroked his hair away from his forehead, and those gathered caught the glimpse of a scar that had previously been hidden, in the shape of a bolt of lightening.
"It is him!" the second girl exclaimed, but was shushed by the others. And slowly, as if raising from a deep sleep, the hermit sat up and looked about him.
"Is this a dream?" he asked, gassing upon his friends once more. "You come to me so often in my dreams, this must be another one of them."
"This is no dream." The first girl spoke softly, and he looked at those gathered more closely, before closing his eyes.
"Ginny?"
"Of course."
"Hermione?"
"Forever."
"George?"
"Naturally."
"And I am?"
"Oh Harry." Ginny sobbed, pulling her to him in one deep hug. "Oh Harry. We thought you were dead. The only person who never believed it was Ron."
"Ron." Harry sounded as if he was just trying out the word, but his face consorted into a forced smile.
"He didn't make it then?"
"No." Hermione whispered. "He died after you disappeared. He was rounding up the rest of the death eaters. We were more proud of him than we can ever say."
"I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye." The hermit, who was of course Harry Potter, muttered. "But I'm glad too, because this way I got to experience a homecoming, and re-finding myself."
"That's so like you." George pulled him into a rough hug. "Are you going to be Harry then?" he asked, and received a reply he probably wasn't expecting.
"No. I think I want to stay Albus Black, after the two people who meant most to me."
"Very well." it was a voice that had haunted Harry's dreams for so long that it shocked him into action. He looked up, startled, and then his face broke into a huge grin. Because there, smiling down at him through a gap in the clouds, were all his old friends. Ron, Fred, Mr and Mrs Weasley, his parents, Sirius. And Dumbledore.
The End