Every journey also has its end, just like they all have a beginning. No matter how vague or fantastical anyone would believe their beginning to be, it simply wasn't. All the beginning ever consisted of was a simple desire; a need for more, anything more. Something that would sate the hunger and longing that gnawed at the soul…
Harry wasn't entirely sure when his journey had begun. Perhaps it had been when he had first entered the Wizarding World with Hagrid, or maybe it was during one of those many days he had sat in his cupboard under the stairs, hoping and praying that he would find a way to make everything better. The sense of longing for something more exciting than being chased by Dudley and his gang through the neighbourhood, and avoiding the punishments Uncle Vernon was all too enthusiastic to hand out.
Because Harry had learnt early on that surviving was never the same as living, yet surviving seemed to be the only way he had ever managed to live. Living simply wasn't possible if you were dead, after all. Harry had been surviving for so long that living had become more and more of a dream until he finally had it, but no longer knew what to do with it.
The familiarity and stagnant happiness he had with Ginny now wasn't living either. It was better than the life he had led living in the cupboard under the stairs and the life of being constantly hunted by a crazy psychopath, but it still wasn't anything like the living he had dreamed of as a child. It was just the two of them, recently married and held back by nothing. They didn't have to consider children in anything they planned, not yet, at least. The children of his Gryffindor house mates had told him enough of the responsibility of children, and Harry was more than happy waiting.
The whirlwind of excitement of being an Auror and helping people as he had always wanted to faded after the honeymoon period, and the feeling of longing began growing within him again. Ginny still expected him to be the hero Boy-Who-Lived, but there simply wasn't a threat for him to heroically defeat anymore. That life had died with the husk of Voldemort. Ginny also expected him to be loving and loyal, and everything she had dreamed that he would be when she was younger; everything that Harry found to be ridiculous, even with Mrs Weasley insisting that those were his traits.
He was Just Harry now. Somehow, Harry didn't think someone like Ginny, who had only ever met the Boy-Who-Lived would be able to see that let alone try to understand it. Ginny had never known that uncertain boy that had feared nothing more than his uncle's wrath, whose only dream was to be free of the cupboard which was his only safety from family that hated him. He was a boy that had found solstice within a library but was forced to change that solstice into Quidditch at everyone else's expectation.
Growing a new skin, or personality, to fit in was something Harry had become accustomed to doing over the years he lived with the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's fickle ideas of what he should be ensured that, and Harry hadn't really minded. It was like being a new character in a movie or play, and that just made the entire idea more exciting to Harry. If he acted well enough, he wouldn't be punished.
It wasn't even Ron, as his best friend, that knew of the boy Harry had been before Hogwarts. Despite the gnawing jealousy that sometimes blinded him, Ron would always be a good friend; a type of friend that Harry had wanted since childhood, one that he could fight with and make up with just as easily.
Hermione was the one that had figured it out. Harry didn't know how, but she had seen the boy behind the hero. While even she sometimes got blinded by his Gryffindor, Harry was eternally grateful for those moments where she wasn't. Those moments were the ones that Harry appreciated more than anything else, more than surviving the war, more than escaping the Dursleys, more than Dudley's change of heart, and Aunt Petunia's occasional letters.
That was also the only reason he had told Hermione of his 'curse'. Harry hadn't wanted the pity he knew Hermione would never give him. Her sigh of exasperation had matched his own when he had found out. Ten years after the war, and Harry didn't look like he had aged at all which was as suspicious as hearing voices in his head within the Wizarding World. Hermione, Ron, and Ginny had all begun sporting strands of grey in their hair while his was still black as coal.
The Aging Potion he had begun drinking was the only thing that stopped him from garnering more attention than he wanted. He was sure the rest of the Wizarding World would tear him a new one if they found out about it, and the Daily Prophet would have a field day without trying to figure out why it was happening to him in the first place.
Harry knew, of course, with Death in the form of Albus Dumbledore arriving in his dreams every other week. Seeing his dead mentor in his dreams was not the worst thing that could happen, Hermione often reassured Harry. Harry could still see Hermione's worry, though, and knew that she was scouring books in her spare time, trying to find a cure for whatever this was.
There wasn't one, not really. The title of Master of Death had been his from the day he was born and had been active from the moment Voldemort had attempted to kill him with the Killing Curse when he was a baby. Everything else that came with the title had become Harry's on the day he had managed to collect the Deathly Hallows. The ownership of all three artefacts had been his undoing.
Dumbledore had explained that he would be forever tied to life but was able to travel through the realms of the dead at will, that even time would stop having meaning after a while. Harry couldn't help but think that wasn't living either. He was still chained to a cage, whether it was his marriage to Ginny, or his continued existence when all he wanted was to finally meet his parents.
So, Harry made what was probably the most irresponsible and selfish decision of his life: he disappeared.
It had been a decision he had made under Dumbledore's careful words. Innocent words that had struck something deep within him. Harry didn't want to watch all his friends die until it was only him left to wander the world on his own. He didn't want to be the one to write out more eulogies than he'd like to count, watching and waiting for who would be next.
The Aurors would inform everyone that he was missing, presumably dead on duty. Hermione would know better, but it would be too late by then. He would be long gone, isolating himself from a world that would only hurt him the longer he remained in it. Harry wouldn't allow himself companions just to feel their losses like he had during the Battle of Hogwarts. It was better they all thought him dead, mourned him, and moved on with their lives.
He couldn't continue living in the stagnant way that had become expected of him. Death knew that better than even Harry had. Perhaps Hermione did, too, and wouldn't hate him for his decision. Ron would definitely hate him for leaving Ginny as he had, Ginny who had more dreams than were realistic and had hoped to have all those dreams come true. Harry regretted giving Ginny the possibility of those dreams coming true only to snatch it away from her.
Harry was sure that Ginny would move on, though. There were many other wizards out there that were probably more compatible with Ginny than he would ever be. They would make her far happier than a man that was struggling with who he was and what he wanted to be, who had become nothing more than a plaything for fate and the Master of the one thing that was feared above all. People tended to find a way to cope, after all, they always found happiness again, and everything always found its equilibrium eventually.
Harry's equilibrium had never been static, and he really should have known better than to believe it to be. There was no rest, and no boredom, especially with Dumbledore guiding him everywhere like he did while Harry was a student at Hogwarts. Each new place Dumbledore "suggested" was a new test, a new task that taught him a little more about being the Master of Death. Each task was more difficult than the last and forced him to think, especially since he didn't have Hermione's trove of knowledge at his side.
He didn't have Ron's light-heartedness either, which was the only thing that kept him visiting the people of his old life under different guises. It hurt, but Harry knew that his curiosity would never be sated otherwise, and he would never have forgiven himself if there was something he could do for them but hadn't.
It was from one of those many visits that he had caught sight of Ginny's new fiancé, and Hermione and Ron's children. Ginny had taken a surprisingly short time to move on from him, and Harry wasn't sure whether he should be surprised or upset about that, but it wasn't his life any more. Harry didn't have a right to judge after what he'd done. It was no longer his place to feel hurt for how easily he had been replaced.
He watched his Hogwarts professors slowly grey then retire, before finally kicking the bucket. Harry had even convinced himself to go for each of their funerals, from the packed funerals of the more popular professors to the nearly empty ones of the most hated professors, and still, Harry's training continued.
While his friends had finally stopped learning, satisfied with everything they had done in their lives, Harry still continued travelling, learning, understanding, and only occasionally wondering what it would have been like to have Hermione and Ron on this journey with him as they had been on every other adventure.
As Dumbledore began fading from his dreams, so did Harry's thoughts of his past. His visits to Wizarding London decreased in frequency as he took on more of his responsibilities: judgement, forgiveness, and acceptance.
Harry did his best to calm the terrified souls that he collected, reassuring them that they would pass on, and that they certainly were good enough to see their loved ones. There wasn't any good or evil when the soul was forced to view their own actions. There was only desperation, and fear.
Perhaps the previous Death had been stricter than him, but Harry couldn't bring himself to destroy their hope of seeing their families again. That was often the only thing that stopped many of the souls that he collected from being utterly terrified of seeing him.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!"
It took Harry a moment to recognise his name, but only a fraction of a second to recognise that voice despite the many years that had passed. Harry hadn't realised exactly how long it had been since he had last heard his name spoken in that tone, or even since he had heard that voice in general.
"Hermione…" Harry said, an unconscious smile curling his lips.
"Don't you dare 'Hermione' me! How could you just disappear like that?!" she screeched, hitting the back of Harry's head harshly.
"It's good to see you, too," Harry offered, before dragging Hermione into a hug.
"I still can't believe you were that stupid!" Hermione muttered into Harry's hug. "Just wait until Ron gets here! He may not know everything, but he's definitely going to want to have words with you."
"The two of you finally had enough, huh? This place definitely isn't going to be as quiet as it used to be," Harry said as Ron joined them moments later.
Hermione smacked Harry around the head again.
Ron locked eyes with Harry for a moment, before sighing with a rueful smile.
"I would like to say I'm pissed at you for doing what you did - Hermione explained some of it to me after you disappeared – but I can't really blame you with how Ginny moved on almost immediately afterwards. That doesn't mean that I'm not angry with you for not telling anyone, though!" Ron said, sending Harry a half-hearted glare.
"If I told everyone I was going, that would have defeated the purpose of sneaking out at night, and I'm pretty sure I would never have heard the end to the curses the Weasleys would send my way," Harry joked. "I mean, can you imagine the Howlers? I definitely didn't want to give you or George enough motivation to make anything out of revenge!"
"Come on, Harry! It wouldn't have been too bad! You're our honorary brother, even without Ginny, but we are obliged to mess with anyone who hurts our little sister!" Ron said, sounding too happy about it.
Harry winced, "I know. I saw what the two of you did to Michael Corner a couple of years after I left. It would have been funny if it didn't look as painful as it did. The two of you nearly got kicked out of the Leaky Cauldron for that!"
"I know! It was great!"
Hermione sighed, a familiar amused glint appearing in her eyes as she shook her head.
"Boys."
… but not all journeys end the same. Some don't seem to end at all. Most, though, end in the same way they began, after coming back a full circle, and finding everything that was sought in what was previously given up for the journey.
Written for Quidditch League Round 3: Wigtown Wanderers: "Wanderer"
Word count range: 2251 – 2500
Word count (according to Microsoft Word excluding AN): 2345 words
Prompts: (song) Love Yourself – Justin Bieber; (word count) 2345 words; (word) eulogy