Author's Note: As always, I do not own, and never will own, Harry Potter.
This was written for the Kill that Character (or Not) Competition, Assassin Level.
(I had to use 7/10 words for the following list: damp, chills, alcohol, disgusting, pride, pajamas, candle, road, sweet, and robe. I must use chills, pride, and road.)
Warning for suicide. This is very AU, in terms of what happened after the Last Battle.
The wind was cold.
Harry shivered, his pajamas fluttering around him as he stumbled further down the road. The recent rain had turned the dust into mud, and it stuck unpleasantly to his shoes. Hogsmeade had never looked so far away.
He was so tired.
The firewhiskey still burnt in the pit of his stomach. He'd never tried alcohol before, but it had seemed fitting. Voldemort's end, and all that. It had been a week, but everyone was still trying to celebrate. He wondered what they were even celebrating anymore, or if it was just a way to reassure themselves they were still alive.
He wasn't sure if he was anymore.
Oh, his body was still moving, his breath still heaving in his lungs. But he was dead inside. So maudlin, he thought, a laugh bubbling out before he could hold it back. It had a desolate, howling quality to it that gave him chills. The Boy Who Lived was so broken, and wouldn't you know it, nobody was alive to give a shit anymore.
Hermione and Ron lived, but they were wrapped up in each other, especially now that Hermione had lost vision in her left eye, and Ron's right leg had been taken off at the knee. Ginny wouldn't stop screaming, and the last Harry had heard of her, she had been put in St. Mungo's. She still hadn't stopped screaming, a thought that made him feel queasy even now.
Snape was alive, but only barely. The snake venom coursing through his veins had ensured that. The man was in a coma, and the Healers were almost positive that he would never awaken. Perhaps, they acknowledged, but the truth darkened their eyes. They looked hollow.
Harry wondered what the professor would think of him now. After all, Snape had been the only person to treat him like he was accustomed to at the Dursleys. The only person who hadn't treated him like some kind of saviour.
"I'm no saviour," he snorted bitterly to himself as rain water dripped off his glasses, leaving the collar of his pajamas damp.
The lights of Hogsmeade gleamed, amber and misty in the dark. Harry smiled as he carefully turned his steps. His destination wasn't in Hogsmeade, not exactly.
No, he was really aiming for the train tracks just beyond.
The trains ran every morning and if he had checked the time properly before setting out, he had just over twenty minutes before he got there. It would be messy, and he was sorry for that. It would be undoubtedly traumatising for the conductor, and he was sorry for that, too. Then again... His hand slipped into the pocket of his pajamas, stroking the silvery fabric of his invisibility cloak. Perhaps nobody would notice, after all. Just a jolt on the track, a bump that could be anything, and in the purple light of dawn, before the sun had really come up, who could notice the rills of blood staining the metal?
An unfitting end for the invisibility cloak perhaps, but Harry wasn't the only one who had cheated death. Perhaps it was the cloak's time to return to its master. Besides, he had more pride than that. Leaping in front of the train like a boy with nothing to live for.
Then again, did he?
His footsteps left tracks in the dew-slippery grass and Harry sighed, unwrapping a lemon drop and popping it into his mouth. It was surprisingly sweet.
"One for Harry," he murmured, and his smile was sweet, too.
They would miss him, he supposed, as he pulled the cloak out, arranging it fussily around himself. It had always stretched to accommodate the three of them, but now it was just right for one. But he was a relic of a now-passed eon. By all rights, he was supposed to die with Voldemort. He had. He'd been expecting that. He hadn't expected to come back.
It had seemed peaceful when he was dead.
So quiet. It was quiet now, too, and he turned his invisible head in the direction of Hogwarts, watching lights slowly wink on, nothing but a blur at this distance. He wondered if he would be missed anytime soon. Probably not. Everyone knew by now that he wanted to be alone.
The train tracks were cold, and he fitted his body between the rails. It was a tight fit, but it worked. He'd always been scrawny.
The metal thrummed, and Harry smiled in anticipation. The train was coming.
"I can't wait to see you again, Mum and Dad," he whispered, as his world became nothing but light.