It surprised Harry that he was still alive. He shouldn't be. There hadn't even been a remote chance of him surviving the last two hours he remembered. Yet here he was, lying on something that felt like moss, somewhere that smelled like pine and forest, yet also soft jasmine and honey. He tried to open his eyes, yet as much as he tried, he couldn't.
He didn't feel his lids, nor could he even move his eyeballs. Now that he thought about it, he had lost most feeling in almost all of his body. Just a moment later he also realized that this numbness didn't scare him, nor worry him. It was all lost, anyway.
Being restricted to his own mind was the worst part of his current situation. It gave him time to think back to the reason he was wounded. It gave him time to think back to the forest where they, Hermione and him, had camped out. He remembered the small pond, the Sword of Gryffindor and the Locket trying to strangle him. Then: Ron. Ron had found them. He had saved Harry. It was with so much happiness at his best friend's return that he decided to give Ron the honor of destroying the horcrux.
Then it all went wrong.
Harry had opened the Locket with his parseltongue and the corrupted soul within it was quick to hone in on a target. It's toxic words cut deep into his friend, the venom it spewed rekindled the fire of jealousy in Ron's heart, overruling his loyalty and courage.
"Nothing it says is true, Ron! You have to believe me!" he had screamed and pleaded with Ron. "Hermione is waiting for you. For you!"
Yet the horcrux was too mighty and whomever Ron had been displaced with, he was in that moment a dangerous adversary with the Sword of Gryffindor in his hand.
"You took her from me!" Not-Ron had shouted in rage, his eyes red, his speech with a subtle hissing in it. No more words had been exchanged. Harry hadn't been able to, dumbstruck by the possessed Ron. His mind hit back into gear just early enough for him to duck a mighty swing of the sword aimed at his head.
He had tried to fire a spell, but Hermione's wand was useless; had felt as if it was as paralysed as he had been just a moment before. Harry dodged and weaved away from the heavy blows of the sword. It had hit a tree and the bark withered and blackened, proving to anyone who'd have doubted it that the sword still possessed the basilisk's venom.
Harry had taken his chance while Ron broke his sword free, to make a run for the tent. They needed to get out of here. "Hermione!"
Like a spring she had shot up and ran towards the tent's entry. "Harry! What's going on?"
"It's Ron… he has the sword… he is possessed." Harry shouted through ragged breath. He came next to her and pressed her wand into her hands. "You need to get us out o…" was all he had been able to say before the distinct sound of apparition was right behind him, he heard a evil, inhuman cackle and felt cold steel rammed through his abdomen.
He remembered Hermione screaming in terror, just to receive a quick blow against her head with the crossguard of the sword, knocking her out.
Harry had felt the worst pain since the Cruciatus in Little Hangleton. He had felt the venom coursing through his veins. It worked fast, but with something of grace, as if the venom enjoyed to kill, as if the substance felt some kind of satisfaction in killing the one that had gotten away.
Ron kicked him against the knees, bringing him down to the ground. He barely felt his knees crashing against stone and hard, frozen soil, so overwhelming was the pain from the venom eating away on his flesh.
"Potter, Potter… Potter." Ron spoke, yet even through the pain it became clear that the one using Ron's mouth was the soulsplitter within the horcrux, not his best friend. The Locket hung around Ron's neck, pressing against his chest with magical force while black iqor made its way through every orifice on his best friend's face. "It appears the Boy-Who-Lived must admit defeat. I wonder, though, how long will it take the venom to eat you up? It failed once, why not twice? You were always this… how to say it… abnormally, irregularly, freakishly lucky."
"Ron… please…" Harry had tried, but failed to speak to his best friend who was buried somewhere deep down the monstrosity that stood before him.
"No, Harry. No please, no 'I beg of you'. Have some pride." Ron then cackled again, the harmony of his laugh eerily close to that of Bellatrix Lestrange. "You will need it for where I'm about to send you."
Harry could only watch through a blur as Ron swung his wand and dismantled the security charms around them. Then he picked up Hermione, swung her over his shoulder and made to go. Just when Ron was about to vanish behind the trees, he turned around and the red eyes glowed through the black of night. "This war is over. You have failed. She is mine now and hey… maybe I'll even name one of my children after you. After all, we did have something of a… friendship, didn't we?" Ron shrugged, rearranging Hermione on his shoulders. "I'll go now and save my family, present and future. I'm not gonna be the son who requires sacrifice. No… I'd rather you're gone, have peace and quiet back in Britain. All under the rule of the Dark Lord..." Ron took a breath and a wide grin spread over his face. "Voldemort."
The second Ron disapparated with Hermione, Harry heard apparitions all around them in the woods. He heard shouts, jeers and taunts. It wasn't clear - his blood was rushing through his ears, the sound of his bloodstream slowly thickening - yet he could discern some of their comments, and his paralysed, panicked mind made one connection. Enemies! Run!
So he ran. His legs were wobbly and bruised, his abdomen bleeding like a faucet and the venom still ate away at his very life. Every step came with herculean effort, each time his soles hit the ground he felt as if he had impaled his foot on nails.
As if by a miracle he avoided whoever had apparated in, their voice no longer coming from all around him, but just from behind him. Yet, he kept running. The forest got darker the farther away he ran from the meager fire until complete darkness surrounded him.
Bushes, roots and stones made running hard. Twigs cut open his legs. Roots made him trip. Stones tried their best to break his ankles. It was just noise to Harry, who still clutched the hole in his belly with his hands, feeling the great amounts of blood flowing through his fingers. He felt the venom, skipping through his veins in this slow, agonizing, yet unstoppable manner.
His eyesight was blurred, even with his glasses. Everything he saw was framed with blackness, slowly taking the rest of his sight. He felt the sting of the basilisk's venom behind his eyeballs, pricking at his nerves. He succumbed to it, like all his body would succumb to the venom. Suddenly he saw was complete black, not even the sparse moonlight's shadows giving even a bit of detail to the nightly forest.
Still Harry ran as fast as he could. He crashed against trees and fell on stones. He felt ribs break, his ankle twisting, his hips colliding with the roots of trees, but he always stood back up and forced himself by sheer force of will to run.
Why had he done that, he asked himself. Maybe it had been the fight for his life - the pure adrenalin whipping him into shape. Maybe it had been the thought that without him, Hermione would be doomed. He doubted it was the duty towards their mission, at that moment.
He only remembered himself stumbling through the forest, hopelessly lost and dying. He remembered his body fighting against the venom, in a last bid to best it once again. But this time there was no Fawkes, no salvation for him to have. It was just the agonizing knowledge that whatever he did, he would die.
Eventually, when his breath was accompanied by bubbling sounds from the blood in his lungs, when his nose, eyes and ears were like faucets from which blood streamed down his face, and when his legs protested the abuse with cramps, he crashed against something soft.
He had no chance of discerning what it was, only that his mind was content to let him make his final stand here. Harry tried to sob, yet only a gurgle of blood came from his mouth as the venom came to his brain, behind his forehead. Even his thoughts went numb as he felt his life subside. His magic, so valiant in its efforts to stop the venom felt like it too threw the towel. He was down, and about to die and for a short moment, he felt an odd sense of serenity as he slowly lost his consciousness.