goodbye to you
[There were so many memories here; he could feel them thrumming beneath his skin, breathing and living and a part of him that he would never be rid of.
It is early in the morning when he arrives; the sun is just creeping past the horizon. It is lazy in the winter, just like people; it is not quite ready to feel that chill air against its face.
He stands on the sidewalk in front of the house, afraid to go any farther. He doesn't know if they still live there, or if they're even still alive. He buries his hands deep into the pockets of his sweatshirt and lets out a huff of air. It hangs, briefly, in the space in front of his mouth, whirling like a little cloud, before it is gone.
The dew on the grass is ice, crystallized and sanitized just like the kitchen counters inside of the house. It doesn't look any different than it did when he left it two years ago; maybe the hedges are a bit shorter, and the flowers are a bit different, but the house itself is still the same. The shutters still have their pristine coating of paint; the bricks are still free of any spot of dirt or grime.
He remembers those flower beds from when he was only eight years old. Every summer, he would tear the little green shoots of weeds out of the soil and stuff the roots of some colorful flower in. His hands were always caked in dirt and grime, and his shirt hand clung to him like a second skin. All of the summers from eight to thirteen years of age were spent remaking this little garden. The summer of his fifteenth year had been spent lying in it.
The cars in the driveway were conservative and yet still, he was sure, top-of-the-line, the best money could buy. They would never settle for anything else, and they always had to make sure that everyone knew it. He had shined those cars until he could see his reflection in them...and then his cousin or one of his friends would come up and chuck a clump of mud at it and everything would be ruined.
He had Apparated into the park where he had spent much of his time during his teenage years, choosing to walk to the house. He had lingered on the swingset for a while, and then, when the sky had begun to show the slightest tint of pink-purple, he had left. He had walked down Wisteria Way, pausing to inspect the walls for no reason at all.
There were so many memories here; he could feel them thrumming beneath his skin, breathing and living and a part of him that he would never be rid of. No matter how long he lived, no matter how great he became, here he would always be "that boy". Here he would always be a nobody. Here he would always be plain Harry - never The Chosen One, or The Boy Who Lived, or the Savior of the Wizading World.
Maybe being plain Harry wasn't so bad.
He turned away from the house then, and walked back the way he had come, hands in his pockets, buried deep in thought about his future. His past remained where he had stood wistfully on the sidewalk, lingering like it was a person all of its own, and maybe it was. Memories, after all, are human; who is to say that they do not live and breathe?
As he walked, he changed. He became a hero as he walked down that suburban sidewalk leaving his past behind him. He didn't look back. He didn't see the curtain shifting at the upstairs window. He didn't see his cousin's face watching him. He didn't see the gratitude it held.
He didn't see him wave goodbye.