Little ficlet I wrote in about 10mins, cos I haven't written in AGES (too much going on) and I feel like writing.
I own none of this apart from the words and the plot. All characters belong to JKR.
The kiss, when it comes, is as strong and as sad as any kiss his feverish mind could have conjured.
He lies on the dewy grass, the crescent moon a silver split across the inky swollen belly of the night, his breath coming in short sharp gasps.
His heartbeat tattoos his chest as he lays flat on his back where he stumbled, staring straight up as the rustle of a cloak grazing fresh wet grass fills his ears. His long pale fingers ball into fists as he sits up slowly, wading through time, every movement a struggle suddenly.
He sees the figure gliding towards him, silhouetted grey against the star-spattered canvas of the night sky, the wind whistling past seeming to blur the edges so that it is distorted, like a being glimpsed through the slitted lids of a corner-glance.
The figure swooshes softly down to him and all he can do is sit staring straight into the blackness before him, since he cannot see without his glasses, knocked askew in the fall. Compelled by some powerful inner force his lips part irresistibly as he leans forward, swept up, his heart so full of emotion it threatens to engulf him, clawing its way from his chest.
He has never known such a kiss as this. He has never known so total a silence as the one that crashes about him now. He has never known such an abyss as the one that has unfurled within his struggling mind, so that all conscious thought is dragged irresistibly towards its centre, leaving him empty. There is only here, and now.
Even his past is wiped clear from his mind as the kiss begins. All of the horrors and the hardships he has endured do not exist. They do not matter any longer. The kiss is freeing his tortured mind from the burden of endless repetition of the memories and he is finally being liberated. Except…
Except that he isn't.
Like the waters of the sea which, having withdrawn sharply from the shore, come crashing back as a cataclysmic collective, a tsunami, every single terrible thought and feeling and memory slams into him with such force that he is sent reeling.
He feels drained. He can't move, can't think, can't feel - all he can hear are the screams of his mother, his father, his friends…
…and Ginny's fevered cries as she grasps the broken shell of what was once the beacon of hope against the Dark Arts. Harry Potter had been called The Boy Who Lived.
Now, it seems he can only be known as The Boy Who Existed.