Authors Note: Characters/Concepts belong to JKR. Offers an alternate ending to DH.
An Old Man Looks Back on his Life
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
To an Athlete Dying Young – A. E. Housman
It is a large circular room, sumptuously decorated. Curved shelves line the walls; stacked high with old dusty volumes and shiny objects many of which are humming or spinning frantically. In the far corner sits a black and unimpressive-looking bird, which all of a sudden, spontaneously bursts into flame. An ancient man sitting at an ornate mahogany desk at the room's centre chuckles softly, 'finally' he mutters. He opens the desk drawer and pulls out a bottle of pearlescent liquid and pours a generous quart into a large goblet.
The portrait of a particularly unpleasant looking warlock scoffs loudly and begins to mutter his disapproval. The old man overlooks the interruption; he learnt many years ago to ignore Phineas Nigellus and instead takes a long draught from the goblet and immediately feels the acute ache in his arthritic joints slacken.
Hogwart's least popular headmaster continues to complain and the old man finds himself asking 'why is it that empty vessels make the most noise?' Yet the one he yearns to hear, his former mentor, Albus Dumbledore, rarely speaks to him. There is the odd sentence every other year, often nothing more significant than to direct him towards a misplaced quill; an occurrence that appears to happen with more and more frequency these days. That, however, was always Dumbledore's way, a man who took particular delight in the mundane nature of human experience. Severus Snape on the other hand has never breathed a word or moved an inch, but Harry Potter is sure he does when he is not around.
Harry unravels his morning delivery of the Daily Prophet, dated May 15th 2110. There is nothing much to report, except some misuse of Muggle artefacts, the elopement of a ministry official with an exotic dancer from Hartlepool, and a long article on preventing foul play at the upcoming Quidditch World Cup. The wizarding world has been quiet for over a century, unemployment is down, international relations have never been more secure, Wizard-Muggle Marriage is at its highest since the 1600's and as a result the economy flourishes. Witches and Wizards of Great Britain have never been more content.
Then why did Harry pick up his paper everyday hoping to find some unexplainable event? A Muggle bridge collapsing in Aberdeen? Flash floods in Middlesex? Or a cyclone in St Ann's Square? Something that would signal HIS return. Harry often entertains himself with the conspiracy theory that Voldemort lives on; Merlin knows Riddle did it before. Perhaps he is merely biding his time, gathering strength in those old Albanian forests. But Harry knows these are just the foolish fancies of an old man. His intensive study into Horcruxes has made Harry academically positive that a soul splintered so many times, despite the power of the wizard, could not survive. But it is always hard to be academic about obsessions of the heart.
The old headmaster cannot help fantasising that one day the door of his office will open, Tom will stride in and finally there would be adventure and a reason to live again. As a boy Harry was so determined to survive, his life almost perpetually hanging in the balance that he never stopped to think that it was this threat to his life that made it a life worth living. But Harry knows to push such unsettling thoughts away and takes another large gulp of his syrupy wine. Such thoughts are dangerous, he refuses to meditate on Tom anymore, he has wasted too many years obsessing over that man; learning to loathe him, pity him, respect him, admire him and finally understand him.
He looks to his shelves, volumes upon volumes dedicated to that man, many penned by Harry's own hand; Voldemort: The Rise and Fall of Tom Riddle, He Who Must Not be Named No More: Voldemort and the Psychotics of Fear, Voldemort the Formative Years (1926-67), Soul Shattering: One Boy's Quest for Immortality, and The Riddle of Riddle all by H. Potter. His persecutor and murder victim has become his life's work, a man he now understands better than any other. Harry glances up at his old mentor's portrait, we both share that obsession he thinks to himself, we both share that need to know our enemy better then we even know ourselves, until you know them so well they become part of you, more than you, everything...
Harry walks slowly over to his pensieve, his knees creak noisily and he feels the throbbing in his left leg return with the movement. He places his wand to his temple and draws out a silvery thread which he then drops absentmindedly into the seemingly shallow stone basin. For a second the morning meeting at the ministry dances across the surfaces but is quickly swallowed by murky shadow.
When he was just a boy Harry never dreamed he would live to see his eighteenth birthday and never entertained the thought he would have too many memories to keep in his head. Well he was wrong, the newspaper title was more accurate than anyone could have known, he was the boy that lived, and live he had. Sometimes he felt his body, despite the pain would never refuse to stop living, he was a man fast approaching his one hundred and thirtieth birthday. He was the one they all thought would die young, but he had actually outlived them all. It was those around him, those that loved the boy, loved the man that lost their lives young.
The surface of the pensieve undulates and for a second a memory of a red headed girl, soft and safe in the arms of a young boy's embrace lies tantalisingly close. As fast as it appears it vanishes. Like Ginny herself, a fleeting glimpse of happiness that was not to last. That perfect morning, the night after they made their official marriage bed is a memory the old man has revisited too many times. He tries to banish it from his mind, but how can one forget such vivid red?
In his youth, when he wasted nights away in front of the Mirror of Erised, Harry used to think it was his parents he would rush to first when he finally reached the other side. But now he longs to see her; he is fixated with the thought of her willowy limbs and her soft red curls. Oh that beautiful morning, when the danger was over and they thought they had a life to waste away in each other's embrace... they had survived Voldemort's reign of terror, life would be easy now, surely?
What will he say to his eternally youthful bride, gone at the age of twenty, over a century ago? Harry has never loved like that again, never married, he has watched all his fiends grow old and die and watched their children and even their children do the same. It appears to Harry that he was always to be denied the thing he most coveted, something that came so easily to others; a family.
Like Dumbledore, Harry remains till this day to preach about the power of love and the triumph love can have over hate and fear. But the headmaster often realises the irony, for what has his life known of love? Everyone he loved was taken from him. It is clear to him now that it is men like himself and Dumbledore; those men that are denied love that most totally believe in its salvation. And it is him and his mentor that were cursed to live long and loveless in this world. It is those men who must attend the funerals and hold the hands of close friends slipping away in their hospital beds. They must suffuse their hearts with tragedy so as to fill them with irrational but unrelenting love.
Harry reluctantly remembers the last time he hugged Ron at his fourtieth birthday and when years later he held Hermoine's hand in her hospital bed surrounded by her red headed children and grandchildren. The red headed family he should have had.
Harry has lived a life surrounded by people, yet he has always remained very much alone. Perhaps that is why he is a good headmaster. Hogwarts becomes your family, the thing that you would live or die for. Harry knows the end is near and it makes him smile. He often dreams of breaking into the department of mysteries and taking the plunge through the veil, so as to end the monotony of it all. But then he thinks of Hogwarts and he stays where he is. What is the point of life without love, without companions, without laughter, without adventure? The answer is Hogwarts, his home, and as he knows Dumbledore would agree Hogwarts is a hell of a lot to live for. The one dependable unchanged thing in his life; his salvation as a young boy and as an old man.
Harry longs for an old face, someone from his school days at Hogwarts. His eyes wander across his desk, which is a cacophony of moving photographs, they smile back; young faces, beautiful faces. Harry smiles and he feels his paper thin skin wrinkle with the effort. His eyes linger on Ginny and he nearly loses his breath. Her beauty is like a blow, till this day Harry cannot look at her and not feel lightheaded. He almost feels as though he can smell her sweet scent through the glass.
But what will we talk of on the other side? he wonders. What will she have to say to old man? A man who has lived the span of her life six times over. Will she even recognise the young man she fell in love with? Again he becomes transfixed by her smile and closes his eyes to push back the memories of her agonising screams. The sheets wet with blood, Molly in tears and a small bloody bundle in a white sheet... 'Harry, I'm so sorry, it came too early.'
I guess I could be angry about the way my life has run, but I find time has calmed my soul. Life is a life and we live it while we can. Some of us live life long others are here for only a short time. At the end I am comforted by Luna's words to me when I was sixteen and her unswerving belief that we will all be together at the end; that they are just waiting for me behind the veil.
I shut my eyes and l feel light. I open them to be greeted by the grin of a young boy long forgotten by many but never by me. I hold out my hand grasping Colin's in mine, thanking him many years overdue for giving his life that fateful night.
All the Weasleys are there and I'm thronged by many generations of my surrogate family. I tell Ron that what happened with Hermoine meant nothing, that we just felt so lost without him. I apologise to Arthur for not being there at the end and refusing Molly's support when we needed each other most. I tell Fred and George how their legacy lives on and a common student catchphrase is 'to do a Weasley'. I greet Percy warmly; he was a great ally and an even greater Minister for Magic. Charlie is there, another one who died too young, leaving this world only four short months after the war ended. Then there is the eternally scarred Bill and his beautiful Fleur and their charming daughter Victorie, who later loved and lost my godson Teddy.
He is there to, finally reunited with his parents, Remus and Tonks. My heart hammers in my chest as I apologise for not being the godfather I promised I would. Tonk's shakes her head and smiles and I know I am forgiven.
Sirius is watching with a smirk on his face, 'bout time!' he barks and I am engulfed in a bone crushing hug. I start to explain how I tried to follow him and how they held me back, but he just punches me in the shoulder and tells me to shut up.
Hagrid is still impossible to miss; booming voice and spotted handkerchief in hand. I tell him that Hogwarts has never been the same without him – how I have never been the same without him.
I feel a tug on my robe and I am confronted by Dobby wearing his order of Merlin 1st class. I feel a tug on my sleeve and find my beautiful Hedwig at home on my arm.
I tell Draco that I always felt responsible for what happened to him and his family; I hope he found the peace he was searching for.
I say nothing to Snape but I give a curt nod and I hope he understands how there can be no words between old enemies after all these years.
Dumbledore; arms open, invites me into my next adventure. But I know he has been by my side the whole time.
Sirius introduces me to my parents and I cross my fingers, hoping I don't disappoint them.
I look for Tom, but he is not there and finally I accept that we are never to meet again – If you have no soul to give then death just devours you whole. I had hoped but I guess it is for the best; it was always an unhealthy obsession.
Finally I kiss my red headed bride, tangle my finger in her tresses and smell the sweet perfume of her freckled skin. I whisper in her ear, she laughs, she smiles. She is my Ginny, and suddenly she is everywhere and everything. And I am lost in the endlessness of her and I know it is over. It is the journey I have been waiting for. I plunge heedlessly into my final adventure and like my ancestor before me I cross over death's bridge and I am greeted by the light of her smile.
We are ageless, we are eternal and suddenly a hundred years is not at all long to wait for a smile such as hers.
Author's Note: Reviews are always nice! x