Our Bodies Become the Grass
Clutching at the grass and dying, he thought back on all the years, all the things he hadn't realized, all the things he'd been wrong about. His regrets were many, his triumphs few and far between. But his greatest triumph was being savior of the wizarding world.
"Harry? Harry! Talk to me!" her voice was panicked.
"Shh...," he cracked his eyes open and looked at her through cracked lenses.
"Harry, don't you dare die on me!" She bit her lip and hit him with her sphinx-like eyes, which were glaring and tearing up all at once. And then more quietly, "Don't you dare."
". . . Damn well go when . . . I want to." It was getting harder to breathe, and very hard to articulate his thoughts.
"Ron!" Hermione cried, looking somewhere far over in the direction Harry's back was facing. "Ron!"
"Oy! We've got to get you medical help. Hang on."
"No." He reached up and grabbed Hermione's sleeve. She stared at him, as did Ron, both gawking.
"Harry . . . ."
"Don't. Don't tell them where I am. I . . . it's time to see Sirius. I want to see Sirius and . . . Mum . . . Dad. Dumbledore. I'm going to see Dumbledore."
"Harry, no! Please . . . ." She reached down and grasped his hand, which was becoming cold. "It will all be better come morning."
"There's always war. World's . . . world's never better. Sick . . . so sick. Taking my chance, chance to get out." His voice grew raspier. He was now noticeably struggling to speak. "Don't tell anyone . . . to mourn."
Hermione looked terribly uncertain, and also angry, while Ron appeared understanding yet crushed. "It doesn't have to be this way...," she started, but knew that Harry thought it did.
"Leave me."
A good friend will leave you, always leave you when you ask. At least when it's what you truly need. He heard, just barely, Ron whisper, "Say hi to Ginny . . . when you get there."
He'd died on the ground of the quidditch pitch, but he'd taken Voldemort down first. He didn't want to accept his Order of Merlin for losing lives and destroying parts of the castle. He didn't want to be reminded. Death was his present, his thanks from the world. His friends knew it. But that didn't make the sight of Harry Potter in a coffin any easier to bear. Well, it did, but not enough to truly count, not yet.
"And here lies the Boy Who Lived. Lived, but is now passed on. We grieve his passing, but in doing so realize it was not in vain. The Dark Lord is gone. For this we exalt his trials as our own, his triumph more ours than we know. File past the body. Gaze upon the face of him who we now know as we know ourselves. No criminal, no madman, simply a boy whose time came much too soon."
It was like a piece of the entire wizarding community had died along with him. Even now-celebrated war hero Severus Snape looked forlornly into the face of the boy as he took his turn filing past the open casket. Mrs. Weasley had to be taken aside and fed a Calming Draught.
Harry was reuniting with loved ones he had waited so long to see, his body meanwhile lay inside the ground. The robes were dressy, and the glamour spell was flawless. The corpse had died smiling, with the green eyes staring up into a grey yet comforting sky. And his ears heard no more cries of terror, mind saw no more horrid dreams. Most importantly of all, perhaps, was that there would never again be any pain felt in the now-pointless emblem that was his scar.
