Meeting at King's Cross


Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I'm I doing wrong (to correct it).


Harry found himself in a deserted King's Cross Station. He sat on a bench. He felt very tired, physically and emotionally. Everything came back to him in a rush. Voldemort. Dumbledore. Hermione. Ron. The Weasleys. Malfoy. The Dursleys. Hogwarts. The moment of his death. All the pain he had endured. Distractedly, he rubbed the scar on his forehead. He sighed. "Well... that could have gone better, I guess."

"Yeah, it could have..." Harry looked around, looking for the source of that voice. It was definitively the voice of a young male, with a curious accent. Next to him, a teen sat heavily, with the same tiredness he felt. His head hung limply between his shoulders, his forearms rested on his thighs and his hands simply hung down.

The young man was dressed in what seemed to be a muggle school uniform. White shirt, black undershirt, black trousers held in place by a too long black belt, black running shoes with white soles. He was taller than Harry, but he was also skinny, Harry thought they looked similar, but while he himself was simply underfed, the teen was simply wiry by nature.

The teen kept silent for a few minutes, Harry waited, respecting his silence. To be truthful, he himself wasn't really in the mood for idle talk; and anyway, he had never been good at chitchatting with strangers.

"You know?" the unknown teen finally said, "I like it here."

"Why? There's no one here? Just you and me, and I think I'm dead."

The teen shrugged slowly, "Yes. You are dead. So am I. It doesn't matter much. All I wanted was to be left alone."

Harry sat straight, looking at the boarding signs. "Why? Don't you have any family? Friends?"

"I don't deserve to have friends." There was such a finality in his soft voice. "I'm a fraud. A coward. A pervert, even... I was supposed to be this hero. To save the world. In the end, I failed. Everybody is dead and I'm too scared to take that last step," he waved a hand towards the boarding signs, "to find my final punishment."

"A-and your family?" Harry gulped, fearing the answer.

"My mother died when I was little, and my father dropped me with my uncle and aunt." He shuddered. "They always said I was a waste of space and I should be grateful they didn't sent me to the streets."

Harry recognized himself in that. "And you had to do all the chores, you learned to cook for them."

"Yeah. How did you know that?" A small amount of vitality showed in his voice, he even raised his head a little.

"Had to do it myself. Cleaning, laundry, cooking, gardening, you name it. I had to do it or starve."

"You too, uh? Well... I got spared of yard work after I overwatered the flowers." A sad smile crossed his face for a moment.

"Well... I guess we are kinda like mates. I'm Harry, Harry Potter. Nice to meet you." Harry extended his hand.

"What? Really? No, It can't be!" The teen stood up suddenly, now Harry could see his face for the first time. He had dark brown hair, framing an almond shaped face, his eyes were dark blue, with a fold at the edge of the eyelid. "You aren't real! Just a character in children's books!" A hand parted Harry's hair, uncovering the infamous zigzag of his scar. The teen stood silently before Harry, seemingly paralyzed.

Harry slapped the hand away. "Those are just stupid faerie tales somebody wrote about me! I never fought a harpy, o-or a kraken!"

The teen sat down on the floor, his eyes wide in shock. "I k-know... they never asked about you, the real you, not the Boy-Who-Lived. Those are just stories made about a perfectly brave hero. A hero who is not you. Kami... I... You... you... you fought Voldemort in your first year at Hogwarts... after going through several traps... With the Philosopher's Stone at stake... You-you just touched Quirrel and he burned up from the inside."

"How can you know that? Dumbledore hushed everything up. I think not even the Aurors know that."

The teen began to shake. It took a few moments until Harry realized he was shaking with laughter.

He laughed for close to five minutes, to Harry's best estimation. Finally, his hysterical laughter abated. "Oh, sorry." He wiped a tear from his left eye and smiled. It was a small smile, but it was a smile, after all. "Oh, gods, that felt good. I thought I would never laugh again..." he hiccuped twice.

"That bad?"

"That bad, and worse." He nodded and shrugged. "Oh, my apologies," he stood up, and bowed deeply to Harry. "Ikari Shinji, at your service. Sorry, I am so sorry; where are my manners? You're British. Given name goes first, shake hands. Shinji Ikari. Please, call me Shinji." He extended his right hand, and Harry felt compelled to answer in kind.

Shinji smiled like a broken doll. Like a man without hope who suddenly finds a tiny sliver of actual, honest to god, hope. "Would you terribly mind some spoilers?"