A note: This is not a happy chapter, and this story is M for a reason. It involves death, pain and unimaginable suffering, plus child death. This is not the last chapter of the story, but it is how it ends.

Chapter 3: ...After

'So this is what death looks like,' I thought numbly to myself.

It had been three days since the news broke around our world about the battle of Hogwarts. The ancient castle had been turned into the grave of several thousand children and adults who had fought and died here together.

He was here too.

I looked down at the kneeling figure who had his back to me. His hair was more ragged, his jacket had burn marks and when he turned to the side to pick up bandages, I could see he had aged more than the three years since we last spoke.

"It's okay," he said to a whimpering girl, probably no more than eleven years old.

A child, an innocent.

Her intestines were falling through her trembling fingers from a huge tear in her side. No amount of magic would now save her.

"It's alright," he said softly, as she hunched in more and trembled less. "Everything will be good now."

Her eyes closed tiredly and did not open.

Harry bent his head a little, but I could only see the back, so I had no idea what his face looked like.

He didn't say anything. I've no idea what he could say.

"Goodnight Bethany...thank you."

He softly placed her hands together and laid her head back on the ground. I had seen him replicate this several times tonight and had still stayed rooted to the spot.

What could I possibly say?

Harry sighed, although by this time it was indiscriminate from his normal breathing. He was tired too, in many ways.

"You came," he said suddenly, jerking me out of my stupor.

"Yes," I said, being unable to imagine telling him anything else.

His head bent again for a second, before he stood and turned around.

I wasn't expecting it and, after the last five minutes of watching children die, I was on no mood to mask my feelings.

So when he turned around and I saw half of his face missing, I just broke down. I hated myself for it, even as I began crying and barely managed to avoid screaming. He didn't need this shit right now, but then again, just...

Why? Why, why why why would he show me this way?

"It's permanent, in case you were wondering," his mouth said, only half of it covered by skin of any kind.

His one eye was striking me against the tree I had leaned on. Its gaze was judging me, judging everyone.

"I..." I attempted, but what could I say?

It was a broken record in my mind, a steel ball crushing my wits. There was nothing, nothing that I could ever say to him in this place.

'I'm sorry'

I didn't say it, because he didn't want my pity and wouldn't accept it had it been offered. Moreover, he would never forgive anyone who wasn't fighting with him for this. We...I, had completely abandoned everyone here to suffer and die at the hands of Voldemort.

It was like when he left me, only far far worse.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly.

"W-w-what?" I spluttered, after hearing such an impossible sentence.

His eye fixed me for a second and I could see more than tiredness within, there was regret, sadness, pain and loss too. The stare lasted for more than a minute. It was as if he was trying to tell me something, but we both knew it already and he didn't want to insult either of us by saying it out loud.

I had no idea what that thing was, but I am afraid of what it could be.

Harry started to turn away.

"Wait. Wait!" I screamed desperately.

I didn't want to lose him again; my best friend and...

He was so close to me. I could smell his hair and his flesh.

His hand, so very scarred and bloody, was warm in mine.

I looked at his face again and I...couldn't see him.

Harry Potter was gone from this body, his soul had fled to some other place.

It is a morbidly curious thing that it was in that moment that I realised I was in love with him. That was the moment my heart broke because he was gone.

Those childhood fantasies, the adolescent dreams and wishes, and some...so good and loving ideas for our futures that only in my subconscious did they ever flower, all wilted under this stranger's gaze.

He was broken and we both knew it.

It was only when he brushed one of my tears away that I realised I was crying.

No...I was sobbing. My shoulders were shaking, my knees were weak and my stomach was aching.

"Oh god...oh god," I just kept saying it quietly over and over again.

My head bowed until it touched his chest and stayed there.

...

An eternity later, Harry lifted my head up and stepped away slightly.

"You're leaving then?" I said, utterly serious in my voice.

He nodded, and then hesitated, and shook his head.

"Not just leaving," he said quietly.

It took me a moment to realise, and then I was grappling with his hand again.

"You can't!" I yelled. "You can't!"

"Can I not?" he said bitterly. "I am so sick of hearing people telling me that! My life is shit. I hate it. I hate myself for hating the world. I am in so much pain that I can't think straight sometimes and there is no one left alive whom I can depend on or communicate with."

Those words hurt, but I gripped tighter to his hand, unwilling to let go.

"You have to let me. I can't do this anymore." He was begging me now. Begging me to let him walk away.

"You don't have to, we can...we can-"

"LOOK AT ME!" he screamed in my face, "WHY WOULD I WANT TO TRY? WHAT REASON DO I HAVE TO GO ON?"

He backed away and took a deep breath.

I was too stunned at his manner and words to think.

"My whole life...was planned to be ended here, three days ago. Everyone I love is dead. This person that has taken Harry Potter's place is a revolting facsimile of a human being and I have no wish to continue on playing the game. So please...you've already let me walk away twice. Do it one last time."

I couldn't think about it. My emotions were telling me to save the boy I loved, even as my mind was telling me he was gone. I had never approved of suicide and I didn't want to see him suffer.

I was stuck.

So was he.

"I can't..."

Harry looked at me as I was about to say it. The words died in my throat. A million words were said unspoken between us.

My hand loosened around his.

He had an expression in his face that I hope never to see again in another person. It occurred to me later that he would have gone with whatever I did. Had I refused to let go, he wouldn't have either.

He was tired of ignoring me. He had no agency left of his own.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

Before either of us could say anything else, he was gone, strolling through the forest and disappearing into the gathering dusk.

I had come back to see my friend. I was going to leave knowing he had already died and I had helped his body catch up.

It was sickening...but I didn't begrudge him his decision. I wouldn't have been able to go on for half as long down his path as he did. Who was I, the former friend of his, to say what he should do?

"Goodbye Harry," I whispered to the wind rushing through my hair.

"I loved you."