Title: At a Young Age
Summary: At a young age, Harry learns what death is.
Warnings: Please refrain from copying my work. It's just sad. This story is a Harry Potter fanfic and all the characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
Rating: G
Word Count: 214
Status: Completed
At a young age, Harry learns what death is. It's absence, it's the silence that answers his screams for loving harms to cradle him, for soothing words to murmur in his ear, and for burnished red hair or unruly black locks to tickle his face. Within a short time, he accepts that these beings he calls out for are gone.
When Sirius dies, it is one less name to call out. He stops hoping for a home without the Dursleys. He stops hoping for a future where he's happy and things are perfect.
When Dumbledore dies, it is one less name to call out. Following his death, there are three less, seven less, ten less, and then hundreds less. Methodically, he sears each written or said or whispered name into his heart.
He stops hoping.
He begins planning for one special death.
When Voldemort dies, it is one name he grimly refuses to ever say. Voldemort dies under fire and water and wind and earth and green lights. Harry thinks that no one has ever died as many times as Voldemort has. Each time, Harry eradicates another shard of black soul, he whispers, "Tom Riddle."
When Voldemort dies, Harry calls him, "Tom."
Few people remember that Voldemort was ever Tom Marvolo Riddle, a man.