A/N:
happy one-year to my discord server. it's been a chaos-filled time of absolute madness. much love to everyone
this story is near and dear to me, i hope you all enjoy it. the title is taken from taylor swift's 'begin again', though the song itself has no bearing on the story.
scenes alternate between past and present, hopefully it's not too confusing. thank you to Coral and Kelly who looked over most of the first half or so of this story for me. part two will follow when i finish writing it (which is hopefully soon, as it is mostly done).
tags and trigger warnings:
suicide ideation (minor), grief/mourning, angst/trauma
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Break and Burn and End
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Part 1:
For the First Time
Harry Potter has died over and over again: in a cradle, in a graveyard, in a courtyard. If Harry Potter has ever lived, if he was the accumulation of years filled with burdens and grief, he has long since warped into someone else.
There is always a score to settle between the two of them. Voldemort has chased Harry Potter for centuries—across cities, countries, and continents. Harry has chased him right back. Animosity circles their encounters like a wild, hungry predator. Harry knows each step to their dance. He has mastered death, he knows how to extinguish life with the tip of his wand. Whenever Voldemort's latest husk is slain by his hand, Harry knows the man will return to him soon enough.
Harry may look twenty-five, but his bones feel like they're eighty, and his heart—
His heart carries the weight of a thousand years, if not more.
Harry—just Harry, no surname to speak of—does not die. Instead, Harry collects Voldemort's deaths the same way Tom Riddle once collected Horcruxes.
The first death took place at Hogwarts. Which is fitting in all ways, that he and Voldemort began at the only place either of them has called home. Over the years, Harry has shed names and identities like old cloaks, but Hogwarts is a constant. Even when the ancient castle is at last reduced to rubble and dust, its grounds remain hallowed and its magic lives on in the hearts of its students. Its memory lingers in Harry's soul.
Voldemort does not die at Hogwarts, but Harry kills him there all the same. It is not Harry's first murder and it will not be his last. The true tragedy of this event stems from its circumstances, from what the death of Voldemort truly represents: a golden pedestal of hope to be knocked off of.
For many years after that first death, all is well. People celebrate. They grow complacent.
Then he returns.
Voldemort tears through Britain like a madman, like a hurricane. He is an unstoppable force, a warning to the wise, an evil that is never defeated. Magical Britain has been made weak by peace, so it is less prepared than before, but Harry is not. He is ready.
Harry has spent his years waking violently in the middle of the night, wand leaping into his hand, only to see there are already blast marks that will permanently mark the walls. The shades of the past are now his old friends. The night brings him paranoia and comfort in equal measure. Harry was born into war; it lives in the marrow of his bones and the blood in his veins. Harry mourns a nation that will never know peace, but he also accepts the inevitability of its suffering.
Wand raised, Harry follows Voldemort's path of destruction, not as a grieving widow, but as a soldier prepared to die.
Harry does not die.
Instead, he lives. He lives and lives and lives. He lives when others do not, as he always has. He lives on while Voldemort shatters Britain like glass, the splinters of its ruins digging into Harry's skin like sharp knives.
Harry lives long enough to kill Voldemort again, and longer still to build back a pale imitation of what has been lost. Harry arranges rows of bodies on the battlefield like he is designing a graveyard. He pays his respects to the dead. He asks them for forgiveness.
When Harry tells a decimated population that the war is not over, that Voldemort will return, no one contradicts him. Harry gazes upon them, these people who are his people. His family and friends who remain loyal to the last. They are haggard and haunted by what they have seen and done.
It hurts to live, he thinks tiredly. He wishes he didn't have to.
But Voldemort is his responsibility. Who else could wage eternal war against such a man? Harry has weathered it all, the horror and the pain that comes from being Voldemort's adversary. Voldemort's essence was once cradled next to his very soul. Harry cannot die, and so the war must go on.
Nowadays, Harry lives in a cottage in the forest, and he waits. It is a patient sort of waiting, an indeterminate period of time spent being productive and passing the days with grace. There is a girl living in the nearby village who reminds him of Ginny. She calls him a witch doctor and leaves baked goods on his doorstep.
Despite all his years of experience, it takes some weeks for him to work up the courage to tell her he isn't interested.
"You're too young to be so old," she says in response, and then she gives him a hug.
Harry has become close friends with the phrase 'at arm's length' over the decades. He has not been hugged in a while. Tears well in the corners of his eyes, tears he reserves for the coldest, darkest nights—nights when he feels safe enough to unlock the burning ache buried deep in his chest.
Harry hugs her back. He feels older than he is, but that doesn't mean he has to feel empty.
"I'll bring hot-cross buns tomorrow," she says when she pulls away. "We can have tea."
Harry surprises himself by agreeing.
Rosalind becomes his friend. They have tea together sometimes. Harry spends the rest of his time living his quiet, solitary life. He waters the plants in his front yard and brews home remedies for the local village people. Eventually, Voldemort will come for him. Until then, he will live in peace.
After Voldemort's second death, Harry builds a fortress. He will not touch Hogwarts no matter what anyone says because Hogwarts is a school, and a school is no place for a war. Enough childhoods have been sacrificed in the name of their nation; he wouldn't be able to live with himself if they slaughtered any more.
"Voldemort will return," he repeats to the masses, "and we will be ready."
Stone by stone, Harry builds. He imbues the walls with ancient magic and then he tunnels deep into the ground, running so far from the surface that even the discomfort of enclosure starts to feel like home. The dirt and gravel surrounding him is warm and earthy, a heavy blanket to hibernate underneath.
People ask if he's looking for something since he has been digging for so long. Harry has no answer to give them; if he had been looking for something, he has forgotten what it was. There are Horcruxes to seek, perhaps. There are rogue Death Eaters to vanquish. Harry has been at war with Voldemort for decades, but he has only recently been at war with himself.
"What are we doing?" asks Luna one evening, apropos of nothing. Her eyes are misty, but her words are distinctly lucid.
For many years now, the people of magical Britain have looked to him for leadership, but they have also expressed doubt in his ability to lead a nation torn apart by war. Harry's had to shut down his fair share of naysayers, but Luna's opinion holds more weight than all of those naysayers combined. When she asks, he listens.
"I don't know," he tells her. She nods like his answer is not only accepted, but expected.
"We were born from the earth," Luna says softly. She takes his hand in hers and laces their fingers together. "From the damp soil beneath our feet that we so often take for granted. When our time ends, we will return to the earth, not as her refugees but as her children. For now, we seek shelter in her embrace and wait for our freedom to return to us."
"How much longer?" His voice is plaintive and weary and so very small. Harry feels like a child again, pleading for a happy ending, a fairytale ending.
Luna's eyes are wide and sad. Her hand squeezes his tightly, palm against palm, bone against bone. "I don't know, Harry. I wish I could tell you."
The only world Harry has known is one that is relentless and unyielding. This world has raised him in the absence of mercy and resolution. The wounds in his heart will ache until the day he dies. The guilt he carries trickles through his veins like slow-acting poison, corroding all that makes him who he is.
Harry is without his parents, without Sirius, without Dumbledore. He is without Ron and Hermione. They were parts of him as much as Voldemort was, and now that they are gone, their absence leaving holes that will never mend. The war, this endless fucking war, has taken everything from him. Voldemort has taken everything from him.
Harry has taken in return. He's taken what remains of magical Britain and seen fit to rule over it. This is not enough; it never will be. Even if Voldemort dies a thousand deaths, it will not be enough. Harry may bear a scar on his forehead, but the worst wound will always live on in his soul.
Most mornings, Harry wakes to the distant chirp of songbirds and a bold floral scent that wafts through the open window into his bedroom. Right now, Harry has a nice collection of violets and mayflowers that are in the midst of their mid-spring bloom. He rises, stretching his arms out, and goes about his day.
First order of business is to prepare a cup of tea to carry him through the morning. Next is checking on the potions brewing in the basement he'd built into the ground below his cottage. After ensuring everything there is moving along, Harry opens up one of his many bottomless chests and retrieves food for the various friendly animals that have grown accustomed to his presence in the forest.
Cracking open the front door reveals dark hair and red eyes standing on his welcome mat. Harry's visitor looks younger than ever—late twenties, if Harry's being generous. The man's appearance isn't perfect, but Harry thinks it's highly possible that it ever will be. The unblemished elegance and charm of a younger Tom Riddle have been forever lost to time. Only the Dark Lord, reborn more times than any Phoenix has ever accomplished, remains in Riddle's place.
"Took you long enough," Harry says amicably, stepping back so he can shove the door wide and let Voldemort in.
The third time Harry kills Voldemort, he is tired. War may be endless, but his strength of will is not. Harry leaves his people with Luna and Blaise Zabini, and then he leaves it all behind.
There is much to learn about the world that exists beyond the tiny bubble of magical Britain. Harry travels far and wide. He lives out of a single trunk that, when shrunken down, fits in the pocket of his robes. He fills his mind with knowledge in the hopes that it will help him forget. He meets new people, dozens and dozens of them, until the act of it becomes routine. Until he aches a little less when he notes their similarities to the people he once knew.
Voldemort catches up to him and captures him in Crete. They spend barely three days in each other's company before Harry escapes, burning through half a temple and two of Voldemort's fingers as he goes.
When they next meet, Voldemort still holds his yew wand in his dominant hand. Harry eyes the scars, thick purple and silver lines that will never fade so long as this new body lives, then declares, "If you think we're even, you'd best think again," and directs a blast of green light in the man's direction without a moment's hesitation.
They duel. Voldemort is unusually quiet. Harry recalls Voldemort's previous monologues and wonders if he finally poses enough of a threat to shut the man up.
Spells fly back and forth. The way Voldemort duels is effortless. Harry will never match the fluidity, the majesty of the man's wand movements. However, what Harry lacks in finesse, he makes up for with power. He smashes through shields and deflects even the cruelest of curses with ease.
They keep each other on their toes, he and Voldemort. They are balanced. Harry never feels more alive than when they duel each other. He hates this as much as he hates war; it is another horror that fate has forced him to abide by. Voldemort brings death and destruction. Harry has no right to feel exhilaration while in his presence.
This particular duel ends in a stalemate, with the two of them fleeing the area as the local magical law enforcement arrives at the scene. Some Muggles will have to be Obliviated. Some damage will have to be repaired.
Later, once he is thousands of kilometers away and staying the night in a shady motel room, Harry will anonymously send along a bag of Galleons to speed up the process.
Months after that incident, Voldemort finds him again. Harry fires first this time, then fires again, then fires again. He destroys several hundred square kilometers before he realizes Voldemort has yet to unleash a single offensive spell in return. The unease Harry feels in response to this sudden comprehension is potent, vicious.
Voldemort is his adversary. Harry's entire life has revolved around this fact. He refuses to lose it now, not when he has already lost so much. He will not allow another piece of himself to be carved away to make room for something else.
So Harry runs farther than he ever has, with Voldemort right on his heels. They next cross paths in Tibet, surrounded by mountains and snow. Harry's hands are frozen solid, stung pink by the cold winter wind, but this does not prevent him from raising his wand to complete his task, the task assigned to him at birth: to duel this man until the bitter, non-existent end.
Harry blasts Voldemort clean off the mountain cliff before they manage to exchange a word, then leaves. He does not wait to see if there is a body. He does not need confirmation of death.
Harry does not die, and Voldemort does not either.
Voldemort enters Harry's tiny cottage, distaste wrinkling his features. There are pots of plant life scattered all around. The entire place is drenched in nature, in the greens and browns and blues of the world around them.
Harry had once despaired over the flammable existence of Hagrid's wooden hut, but now he understands its appeal. There is a beauty to be drawn out of wood grain that cannot be found in any human-made material. In a world worked over by metal and wires, Harry feels most comfortable surrounded by signs of life.
"Tea?" Harry asks mildly, using a tone more polite than Voldemort really deserves.
"If you must."
Harry boils a new kettleful of water. The shrill whistle fills his ears while he preps a teapot with various dried leaves and flowers; a mixture meant to help de-stress and de-clutter the mind.
"Lavender," notes Voldemort, seating himself at Harry's wooden dinner table.
"Lavender and peppermint," Harry agrees, setting the pot to steep.
Voldemort clasps his hands together and rests them on the table. Once again, Harry is struck by how young he looks. For once, Harry physically appears to be the older of the two of them. How long has it been since they'd last seen each other? Harry can't quite recall. More than a few decades, at least. Long enough for Harry to grow comfortable here.
"So what brings you to my door?" Harry asks as he settles in the chair opposite Voldemort.
Voldemort regards him with solemnity, red eyes burning brightly enough to scald. "How long has it been since you returned to Britain?" he throws back.
"Not that long," Harry says, feeling more defensive than he'd like to be.
"Magical Britain?" Voldemort elaborates, brow arched.
Perturbed, Harry reaches for the teapot and pours out two steaming mugs of tea. "Milk or sugar?"
"Neither."
Harry shoves a mug in Voldemort's direction. He stirs in one spoonful of sugar and one spoonful of milk into his own mug to steady himself. "I have no idea how long it's been," he says truthfully. "Why do you ask?"
"Magic is dying," Voldemort says, devoid of inflection, only offering three simple words full of defeat.
Harry has never heard Voldemort sound defeated. "Pardon?"
"Magic is dying," Voldemort repeats, angry now, the angriest Harry has heard him in years, "and there is nothing we can do to stop it."
For whatever reason, Voldemort's latest death sends Harry reeling. In his mind's eye, he replays Voldemort tumbling off the side of the mountain, snow trailing behind his body as he falls, vanishing into the distance.
It shakes him. It worries him. So Harry goes back to the earth, back to dirt and stone, hoping to re-anchor himself. Harry goes home.
Luna is not there to greet him, but Blaise is, silver-haired and holding a large wooden staff that reminds Harry inexplicably of Professor Dumbledore.
"Well met, Harry," says Blaise. "You haven't changed one bit."
Harry thinks he's changed more than anyone realizes, even himself. "Glad to be back," he says, uncertain if he means it.
Blaise must pick up on his hesitancy, for he says, "Why don't I show you what you've missed?" and proceeds to guide Harry around the fortress like the old friends they are.
The turns and paths are mostly familiar. Harry carved this place out of the earth, he could never forget that. But there are new routes, of course. Paths traced by a younger, stronger generation.
Harry smiles at the people he doesn't know and stifles his guilt when he sees the people he does. Eyes widen in his direction, fingers point at his lighting scar. Harry remembers what it means to be famous, but mostly he remembers how much he dislikes it.
"Everything seems to be going well," Harry admits once the tour is over.
Blaise offers a half-smile. "Thought we'd fall apart without you, hmm?"
"I had faith."
"Faith is good to have," Blaise agrees. "How is your faith, by the way?"
Harry thinks of Voldemort, of never dying, of fighting all his life for a cause which no longer seems applicable. "It's having a hard time."
Blaise's teasing expression softens. He lays a careful hand on Harry's shoulder and pauses when Harry goes still. "He hasn't returned since you left, if that's what you wanted to ask."
It wasn't. It isn't. Harry feels sick to his stomach with unexplained anxiety. Has Voldemort only been after him this entire time? Has he made a mistake in returning here?
Blaise grabs him by the shoulders and gives him a rough shake that rattles the doubts in his head. "You've built something wonderful here. Don't allow him to ruin that for you."
Harry doesn't want to let Voldemort ruin anything else. "I'll try."
At Blaise's request, Harry stays the night. He spends hours tossing and turning, haunted by vermilion eyes and a high, cold voice. In his dreams and nightmares, Voldemort shadows him unsolicited, like a ghost. Voldemort is a deadly behemoth lurking in every dark corner of the room.
Give me Harry Potter, and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded.
Their fates are entwined, their souls eternally marked. Harry will never be rid of Voldemort, not now, not in another hundred years. When all other constants in the world fade away, Voldemort will remain as the single, unstable pillar of Harry's sanity.
By morning light, the guest room is empty, and Harry—just Harry—has faded away with the darkness.
Let Harry Potter die, let his legacy run like ink through the pages of history until it dries for evermore. The world is better off without Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort both, so Harry will kill the one of them that he can and hope it will be enough.
"Magic can't die." This is the first thing Harry says, and while it is not the most intelligent statement, he feels that his genuine confusion is warranted in the face of such an absurd announcement.
Voldemort sets his mug of tea down with no small amount of force. Harry is surprised the ceramic doesn't crack.
"I have spent the past several decades researching this," Voldemort says, unfazed. "Magic will die."
Harry feels a headache coming on. Only Voldemort would show up unannounced and kick up such a fuss in five minutes flat. "Well, fine. Say it is. What does that have to do with me? If there is to be no more magic in the world, then maybe that's what we deserve."
Voldemort scoffs. He retrieves his mug from the table and blows over the surface of his tea. "I walked through your village on my way here. Rosalind speaks highly of you."
Harry stiffens. "Don't you dare touch that village," he warns. They both know what will happen if Voldemort does. They will duel, and—Merlin save them all—Harry will ensure Voldemort loses.
Voldemort sips at his tea, eyeing Harry over the edge of the mug. It is a mocking look that grates on Harry's nerves in a way few others have ever managed.
"I would not," says Voldemort. "I've come here for your aid, after all."
That shocks him. "You want my help?"
"There is no one on this planet who knows more magic than I do, except for you."
Harry supposes that's true, to a degree. "I'm no scholar. If you've been working on this as long as you have, what makes you think I'll be able to help?"
Voldemort's lips twist. "Let us call it intuition and leave it at that."
Intuition, Harry thinks, bemused. "Alright," he says, then tests the rest of his words in his mind, one by one, before he says them aloud. "Tell me what you've learned so far."
What Voldemort calls intuition, Harry will later realize is not intuition at all. It is not intuition that drives Voldemort to his doorstep, it is loneliness.
Following Harry's final departure from magical Britain, the years blur into each other. His memories of the past bleed out into the crisp Alaskan air, into the waters of the Red Sea.
Harry doesn't die, but Harry Potter slowly and surely does. The surname given to him by his parents is a relic of the Boy-Who-Lived, a memento tied to loved ones he has lost. Harry sheds the name like he does with the rest of his past. He runs and runs, his feet pattering across the earth from which he was born, the earth to which he will never return.
His ghosts cannot find him if he does not exist, so Harry loses himself in the world, soaks himself in culture and religion. He changes his hair and the colour of his eyes. He stuffs his wand into his mokeskin pouch and leaves it there, untouched, for weeks on end. When he thinks he's caught a flash of red eyes in the middle of a crowd, he looks the other way.
The world is vast. Let Voldemort find him if he dares. Harry no longer wishes to partake in war.
Despite Voldemort's generous words, Harry does not feel like he is the world's second-highest ranking expert on magic. Voldemort may be an expert, but Harry is, as he'd declared himself to be, no scholar. The problem itself is simple—magic is dying—but its solution is nowhere near as easy for him to understand.
Magical potency is not only dwindling; with each passing year, less magical creatures are born and more magical families produce Squibs. Soon, all magic will cease to exist.
Harry mulls this over, then says, "It's like the slow heat death of the universe."
"That would imply inevitability," Voldemort snaps, "which does not apply here. Do at least make an effort to follow along—"
The years have mellowed Harry's temper, somewhat. With his mug of lavender and peppermint tea in hand, he can read Voldemort's reaction for what it truly is: denial.
Voldemort's anger is a fickle thing. It comes and goes like the weather—it is loud and violent, then calm and peaceful. However, it is not the explosive storm that Harry fears. Voldemort's greatest triumphs have always emerged from the quiet, quiet rage that burns underneath the surface. When Voldemort is sane and rational, he builds his anger up like a monument, using the emotion to fuel his ambitions. Once its usefulness has passed, it is discarded, the fire of rage shed like a second skin.
Harry feels they are similar in that way. Anger fuels them. The challenge of magic—magic dying, magic departing—kindles anger in Voldemort. Despite their different ideologies, magic is what unites him and Voldemort together. It makes them special. Harry understands why Voldemort is unwilling to let magic go.
Magic is tied to Harry's core and it is the bane of his existence. Magic made him the Boy-Who-Lived. Magic killed his parents. Magic gave him friends and family, but magic also took them away.
Harry thinks of everyone he has ever loved, all of them magical. Before magic, he had nothing. Without magic, who is he? Harry has asked himself this question before and has always had difficulty deciding on an answer.
Magic may have given birth to Harry Potter, but since leaving Britain, Harry has discarded that identity and remade himself. He has shed his anger and regret. He has never known true peace, but he has learned how to build his own fragile version of it.
Voldemort's presence changes everything, as it tends to do. Voldemort does not belong in Harry's little cottage surrounded by plants. Harry associates this man with decay, with loss and anguish.
Still, he finds himself loaning Voldemort a tent, an extra pillow, and some blankets for the night. Harry also provides directions for staying away from the parts of the forest where the animals frequent.
"They might scare you," Harry says, deadpan, when he is prompted for an explanation.
Voldemort stares at him for far too long before Harry adds sheepishly, "A joke."
"This lackadaisical lifestyle of yours has done your sense of humour no favours," Voldemort declares before he departs for the evening. "I will begin research in the morning."
"Git," Harry says to the closed door. He hopes that Voldemort hears him.
The next day, Harry takes his morning tea alone. He waits around, wishing he didn't feel stupid for doing so. At noon, Voldemort stops by and squints at Harry's simple tomato and cheese sandwich. Harry deliberately does not offer him any food, prompting Voldemort to leave as soon as he'd come.
Harry catches himself watching his windows throughout the rest of the day. It is strange knowing that Voldemort is staying nearby. What happened to working together, anyway? Frustrated with himself for falling for Voldemort's promise, Harry shoves away the notion of their supposed camaraderie; he should have known better than to think Voldemort had really wanted or needed his help.
The century passes while Harry wanders the streets of Spain. Cheers echo around him. They are from New Year's celebrations that will ring late into the evening. There are bars he could visit, or convenience stores he could loiter at, but Harry finds that the beaten ground beneath his feet steadies him the most, so he walks aimlessly instead.
Harry has witnessed genocide. He has lived through the rise and fall of nations, has mourned the deaths of so many good people. There are ruins, centuries old, that live in his chest, their shattered monuments collecting dust in the gaps between his ribs. After everything that has happened to him, he thinks he deserves to be able to run away from his problems. It is unfortunate that his problems tend to find him anyway.
Voldemort has grown beyond being his enemy. Voldemort is an immortal nuisance in Harry's life. He is a pest, a ceaseless headache. Where Harry goes, Voldemort follows. Neither can live while the other survives—Harry will never know true rest while Voldemort walks the earth.
"Here to kill me?" Harry asks when he hears the sound of footsteps, when he senses the presence behind him, when a prickle of magic dances up his spine like spitting firecrackers.
"No."
Harry ponders this. He deliberates over the simplicity of it, considers the meaning behind it, then dismisses it. If Voldemort is not here for him, then there is only one answer to give: "Then go."
Voldemort stands tall mere steps away. He throws a fine shadow against the wall, his silhouette composed of sweeping robes and a proud posture. "So you can kill me, Harry Potter?"
"So I can live my life, cursed as it is." His voice is dry. Tired.
Voldemort looks down upon him, as he always has, only now there is curiosity in his crimson gaze. "The world is yours. Is it not every young man's wish to travel? To immerse himself in the knowledge and culture left to us by our ancestors? You achieve grander acts of magic than most wizards dream of seeing in a lifetime. Enjoy it."
Enjoy it, he says. As if the winding path of Harry's life has not been devastated at every turn, the people he loves reduced to ashes by Lord Voldemort's hand.
It takes several breaths before Harry can speak with the certainty that he will not eviscerate Voldemort where he stands. "That might be your dream, but it was never mine." He is not 'every young man' and he never will get to be.
"Then seek new dreams." Voldemort has not stepped closer during this entire conversation. Only now does Harry notice this, only now does he realize how strange it is. The hairs on the back of his neck remain at rest, even though adrenalin prompted by fear does flow through his veins.
"Why do you care what I do?"
Voldemort scoffs at him. "Why do people do anything? Because they believe they must, whether by choice or coercion, whether as the result of circumstance or opportunity."
"Not an answer," Harry points out, frustration seeping into his voice. He has no wand in hand, but magic pulses brightly in his palms, itching to be set free.
"We have forever ahead of us. This cannot continue." Voldemort gestures between them, a motion that sends Harry's irritation plummeting into the wastelands of disgust. "Do you think you will succeed someday in vanquishing me? Or I, you? It will not happen. The fates themselves have decreed it."
Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. They cannot kill each other. They cannot die.
Harry barks a sharp laugh. "You think years will teach me to forgive you for what you've done to me? To my family and friends? Fuck you, Voldemort." His hand rises of its own volition to point far, far away. "Last chance. Leave."
Voldemort eyes him for the length of several heartbeats. "Until next time," he concedes, stepping back.
Harry does not feel relief. "If I see you again, I'm blasting you straight to hell."
"I suppose from you, I should expect nothing less." Those are Voldemort's final words before he retreats, fading into the darkness.
Harry's breath unlatches in his throat, but it takes several more minutes for his racing heart and trembling hands to revert to normal. He is afraid. He is afraid of seeing Voldemort again, not because he fears death or pain, but because he can feel his anger slipping away like the cool evening tide.
If he has no anger left for Voldemort, what does that say about him? What does it say to all those who had fought for him, died for him? Harry lives on. He lives in spite of the horrible, horrible odds. He exists as Voldemort's enemy. This is the only part of his identity—of Harry Potter—that remains.
Without that, he is no one. Without Voldemort, he is an anchorless, ambitionless immortal with a graveyard of skeletons living in his chest. Harry does not want to see Voldemort again. Harry wants to forget.
Rosalind finds it funny that Harry has a visitor. She promises to be back with extra biscuits tomorrow despite Harry's pleas for otherwise. When Harry fails to explain why he does not want her to meet Voldemort, that's when the unpleasantness starts.
"Is he not a friend of yours?"
"No."
"Is he an ex-lover?"
Harry must look nauseated at that, because she laughs at him and says, "Forget that I asked."
The following day, Rosalind returns with a basket of fresh goods and a friendly smile. Voldemort eats one of her biscuits and makes vague small talk about his past while Harry sits by as a silent moderator.
If Voldemort finds the presence of a Muggle in his general vicinity to be unpalatable, he keeps it to himself. Harry will not tolerate bigotry here. Voldemort and magic itself can fuck off forever, in that case. Harry has tolerated enough of them both over the years. He has suffered so much that he ought to be declared a saint. He will be as selfish as he wants to. He will not hesitate when it comes to the people he wishes to protect.
That said, everything goes well until Rosalind asks Voldemort how the two of them know each other.
He and Harry have known each other for a long time. (Not a lie.) He and Harry attended the same school. (Not quite a lie.) He and Harry have mutual acquaintances. (Pushing it.)
But it's not as if Harry can explain it any better. This is the man who killed his parents. This is the man who has killed him—not once, but twice.
Harry dies for the second time after being taken completely by surprise.
After dying, he wakes in Nurmengard. However, he is not in a prison cell, but a bedroom.
Voldemort is seated at his bedside. Harry's mind feels unsettled, it is awhirl with emotion. In the span of a second, he races through earth-splintering fury and bone-deep confusion before he ends with fear.
"What have you done?" Harry asks, horrified. He has not been truly horrified in years. His old fears are small, there is little that can upset him anymore. Now he feels fear as poignantly as he did at the age of seven, beaten for the first time and left in a cupboard to starve.
"Proving my theory."
Slowly, the impact of this statement sinks in. Harry has died, but he is not dead. Voldemort has killed him, but he is still alive. Harry has known for some time now that he cannot die, but hearing it from Voldemort finalizes it.
Snatches of memory drift through Harry's mind. He can recall the otherworldly experience of wandering the earth as a spirit, detached and distant, a tortured soul without a body.
"You killed me to prove a point?" Harry asks dubiously. This repeats in his head over and over—Voldemort killed me to prove a point—until hysteria wins out, laughter bursting from Harry like an ocean wave smashing through a wooden dam. Harry laughs himself sick, wipes tears from his eyes while Voldemort regards him like he is a mad, alien creature.
"And to think," Harry breathes, sitting up and wiping his damp hands on the bed sheets, "you used to try and do this every year. Congratulations. You've finally succeeded." He laughs some more, then gathers his wits about him. It won't do to antagonize Voldemort too much.
After another shaky intake of breath, Harry glances around the bedroom, at the velvet curtains and glossy wooden vanity. His reflection looks the same as ever. Odd. "Where are we? Another manor that belongs to one of your loyal followers?"
"You will know this place as Nurmengard."
"Hm." Harry swings his feet off the bed and onto the floor, wincing at the stretch in his leg muscles, and takes in the opulence of the room. "That's fun. Nicer than I expected, for a prison."
Voldemort follows the path of Harry's movements with his eyes. "I may have remodelled."
Harry blinks several times and looks at Voldemort with genuine concern. "Was that a joke?"
Voldemort's expression remains unchanged. "Lie down. If you die again, I will not be so kind as to revive you."
Harry resists a new urge to laugh. If he does, there is the very decent chance that Voldemort might sedate him. "Wouldn't you like me out of your hair for however many decades it takes me to figure out how to revive myself?"
"You said so yourself, you have no plans to seek me out." Voldemort's tone is magnanimous, resolute. He stands and gestures modestly with his hands as he speaks. "You wish to live your life? I have given you proof of that opportunity. Neither of us can die; we have no reason to harm each other. I have left Britain alone, and I will continue to do so."
"You kidnap me and kill me so you can convince me to leave you alone?" Harry snorts. "That's a new one."
"You're free to leave."
"Right." Harry looks to the door. He should leave. He has no reason to stay, and even less of a reason to want to. "Don't suppose you'll be changing your mind in a few decades once you get bored?"
"You do not interest me. What remains of the prophecy is finished. We owe each other nothing." Judging by Voldemort's tone, he hates the prophecy as much as Harry does. "Certainly you have murdered me enough times to satisfy your desire for revenge?"
Satisfied? Harry will never be satisfied. He may settle for this tentative truce, but that does not mean he finds any pleasure in it. How can he be satisfied when Voldemort has yet to pay for any of his crimes? Voldemort does not understand what it means to lose everything. Voldemort has never had anything truly valuable to lose. Voldemort does not understand love, or friendship, or family. He does not understand Harry.
"I'll leave you alone," Harry says, "so long as you don't provoke me or do anything that requires my intervention. No taking over Britain or anywhere else. No genocide, no murder. Does that satisfy you?"
Voldemort's gaze is shrewd, calculating. "I have had time to think about what I want out of this life. I will accept your offer, Harry Potter, and we shall not see each other again unless it be under neutral circumstances," Voldemort says as he extends his hand into the space between them.
Harry holds himself steady even though his instinct is to spit in the face of his parents' murderer and turn away. Voldemort proliferates his nightmares. Voldemort's mere existence is an antithesis to Harry's. While Voldemort walks the earth, Harry will be forever reminded of death and all those that death has claimed.
"To not seeing each other again," Harry says softly. He shakes Voldemort's hand and hopes it will be the only time he ever has to do so.
Harry is out in the forest when he hears the frantic crash of footsteps through the undergrowth. His hand twitches for his wand; a soldier's instinct he thought was long forgotten. After all, he has little need for his stick of holly and phoenix feather these days, and on top of that, he is perfectly capable of wandless magic in a pinch, rendering his wand nearly obsolete.
But Voldemort has always been the exception in Harry's life, and centuries later, this has not changed in the slightest.
Rosalind stumbles to a breathless, red-faced halt in front of him. She is panting from exertion, sweating all over, and her face—
Her face is flushed from her mad dash through the forest, but it is the haunted look in her eyes that freezes Harry in place.
"Harry," she gasps, bent over as she struggles to catch her breath, "Harry, he—"
How quickly anger returns to him, an old friend wrapping him up in its fevered embrace. Harry has not missed the rawness of anger, that bitter fury which floods him with hate and vitriol. Harry has little doubt as to who the 'he' is that Rosalind refers to. Her distress can only mean one thing.
Harry had been moronic to let Voldemort into his life. It had been ridiculous of him to believe even for a moment that Voldemort could hold himself to any moral standard. The man is a monster, selfish and evil. He does not change, his nature does not expand or grow. Voldemort sold his soul for immortality and has not once regretted doing so.
"Where is he?" Harry says, cutting Rosalind off. Rage trembles his words. Magic burns painfully at his fingertips. Harry tries to relax; he does not want to scare her. "Where is he," he repeats through gritted teeth.
Harry will make good on his promise. He will slaughter Voldemort. He will lay the man's body in pieces across the hills and fields, he will turn the surrounding rivers red with blood. Harry has never been able to stomach torture, but he thinks he can make an exception for this, for the poor people of the village that Voldemort has surely massacred.
"He—" Rosalind presses the back of her hand against her lips as if the words are breaking apart in her mouth. "Harry, your friend—he's dead."
The flame of Harry's anger dies a quick death. Shock takes its place. Voldemort is dead, but he is also not dead. He cannot die. Harry knows this, but Rosalind does not.
"Where?" he asks her. He is calmer than he should be. If anything, it is morbid curiosity that now holds him in its grasp. "How?"
Wordlessly, Rosalind leads him out of the forest and through the village, down the path that leads to the base of the closest mountain.
"He was working out here. I don't know what on," she says when they arrive. "There was an explosion and no one has seen him since. We looked, but—" She pauses and bites down on her lip. The pain seems to encourage her to speak. "They found some of what looks like his remains."
"Some?" Harry feels like a parrot, reduced to asking one-word questions.
"They—they—think he may have accidentally blown himself up."
Silence. Harry struggles not to laugh. He thinks it must be the first time he's ever wanted to genuinely laugh at Voldemort's death. This entire situation is utterly absurd from start to finish. Harry is torn between concern—what the hell had that idiot been doing—and guilt for assuming Voldemort had been up to no good.
Voldemort sparks madness in him. The split in Harry's sanity widens like a quaking hairline fracture whenever Voldemort is near. This is the only reasonable explanation for what happens when they cross paths. Harry has no business feeling guilt over Voldemort's stupid accidental death, yet here he is, feeling guilty about judging Voldemort incorrectly.
Woe is Voldemort for being judged as a homicidal maniac. Why should that matter? It is the truth. Voldemort has murdered hundreds of people and Harry has never forgiven him for it.
Rosalind is watching him with wide eyes, but Harry cannot muster the energy for a convincing response. Instead, he hopes to convince her of one truth, a truth that he has known for many, many years now.
"Don't worry about him," he tells her. "He'll come back eventually. He always does."
After Nurmengard, Voldemort keeps his word. He does not devastate Europe. He does not harm any societies or governments that Harry is aware of.
Harry returns to his aimless wanderings, to the splendour of the world that Voldemort had once pushed him to explore. It is not fulfilling, this ambitionless journey, but it is better than the alternative of empty oblivion.
Technology plunges forward, dragging them towards a bright future full of stars. Humanity is brimming with explorers who long for the vastness of space at their fingertips. Harry watches them fly away, knowing that the only freedom from gravity he will ever know is the rush of air beneath his broomstick. The advancement of society does not interest him; it represents the progression he will never have, the future that moves on despite his own immutable nature.
Harry wanders away from the largest cities and towns. He travels to third-world countries where his aid makes a difference. He clears a way through the bustling noise of the universe and finds the hidden pockets of the globe where life is simple. Now more than ever, all Harry wants is to have a simple life.
There are things Harry has yet to try, people he has yet to meet. Voldemort may be a constant, but he is not everything.
It is unfortunate that the fates do not see fit to communicate this fact to Voldemort.
In Cairo, Harry wakes to dawn peeking through sheer navy curtains. The body next to his is warm. He hears his lover breathing softly out into the darkness of the room. Fondness tugs at Harry's heart. It has been a wonderful evening, and he will feel a mild sadness when he leaves it all behind.
Summoning his robe from across the room, Harry leaves his sleeping companion behind in favour of a brief walk in the cool night air. He'll return before the sun is too high in the sky. He will prepare breakfast for himself and his lover. They will share a few tender moments before Harry kisses them goodbye.
Harry steps onto the street and makes it a pace away from the door before he realizes. Before he knows.
"Bored?" Harry calls out, his voice dangerously soft.
"Aren't you?"
"Can't say that I am." Harry wonders if Voldemort is using a cloak or a spell to make himself invisible. Either way, the magic is not powerful enough to hide Voldemort from Harry's sight.
When Voldemort does materialize in the street, he looks the same as ever: alabaster skin, red irises, and sharp features. Voldemort has perfected the act of rebirth, has molded it into an art form. Harry no longer finds himself surprised to see the man's appearance has changed slightly to fit with the times. Voldemort has always been a narcissistic bastard.
"So," Harry says into the pause that follows, "you're bored?"
Voldemort flicks a dismissive gaze to the window on the top floor, the window that is blocked off by sheer navy curtains. Harry feels the weight of Voldemort's judgement in the silence.
"If you're here to analyze my life choices," Harry says, his tone oozing passive aggression into the empty air between them, "then you must be bored."
Voldemort sneers. "And you must tire of these relationships. These people who come and go from your life; what purpose is there for them? Can you honestly tell me you find such interaction fulfilling?"
Harry resists the urge to snort. "What else is meant to be fulfilling? World domination?"
"It is a purpose. Do you have a purpose, Harry Potter?"
Harry has not heard the name 'Potter' in years. It dawns on him that Voldemort is likely the only living being on the planet who knows him by that name. The Potter line will never die, but it will never continue, either.
In light of this information, Harry lifts his gaze to the night sky, to the stretch of cloud cover and the sprinkle of twinkling stars. The sky, at least, never changes. "Living is a purpose. I watch the sun set behind the horizon. I walk the silent streets and listen as the world settles into itself. Maybe it isn't a purpose that meets your standard, but it feels purposeful to me."
"You feel purpose in doing nothing."
"I feel at peace with my place in the world," Harry retorts. "Can you say the same?"
"Peace is boring," Voldemort says, but he sounds thoughtful. "Conflict does not always necessitate war."
Harry allows himself a noise of derision. "It sure as hell is a pretty decent catalyst for one."
Voldemort's face remains impassive at Harry's comment, but Harry thinks the man might be annoyed with him. That's too damn bad. Voldemort came here of his own volition. He can't complain if Harry is short-tempered with him.
"Did you come here to wax your philosophies at me?" Harry asks. "Or was there some other reason you saw fit to burden me with your magnificent presence?"
"While you idle away, the world is changing. With passing each generation, the magical population of Britain decreases in number." The statement is factual, cold.
Harry isn't impressed. "Purebloods finally figure out that inbreeding won't get them anywhere?"
Voldemort scowls. "Less Muggleborns are entering Hogwarts, not because they are restricted from attending, but because there are less of them."
That gives Harry pause. Voldemort has no reason to lie to him about this, does he? Harry has not been to Britain in decades. They have not fought in decades. The fortress Harry built over a hundred years ago stands strong, even now. He knows he would have felt it if the magic had failed.
"Are you still living there, then? In Britain?" Harry's not sure what prompts him to ask this, but it's far too late to take the question back now.
"I maintain a private estate that I visit from time to time."
"Posh git." Harry starts walking again. Voldemort follows at a distance. "So the population is shrinking? You thought I'd like to hear about it? Do something about it?"
Voldemort scoffs at him. "Your sense of nationalism is heartwarming. You used to fight for these people. Die for them. Do they matter so little to you now?"
Harry thinks of the moon, of the stars and the planets high above. He thinks of space and time and what it means to be so infinitesimally small that everyone else in the universe has forgotten his name. "Maybe we don't need magic to survive anymore. Maybe the world is simply evolving to need less of us in it."