Thoughts of the veil consumed his every waking moment. Ever since Sirius had floated through its misty archway, the laughter on his lips smoothing into a look of peace as he disappeared, Harry had become obsessed. Years had passed since losing his godfather, and fate had brought about many more deaths that awoke the pain anew as the body count grew higher. By the time Harry reached forty, the deaths blended to form a blanket of grief, swaddling him in its heavy folds until he felt numb to everything except the increasing sense of loneliness.
Some deaths he knew were unavoidable, like poor Professor McGonagall passing away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 85. She had never quite recovered from the stunners she received during his time at Hogwarts, and combined with a severe bout of dragonpox the previous year, it was only a matter of time before her frail disposition was overcome with the stress of it all.
Other deaths he blamed himself for. Ginny had been killed just three years previously, taking with her their unborn child. She had given up professional quidditch at his behest when she found out she was pregnant again and instead taken on the role of sports commentator and reporter for the Daily Prophet. At the semi-final game between the Tutshill Tornadoes and Falmouth Falcons, a rogue bludger broke through into the stands and hit her in the side of her neck. Harry saw the bludger approach, heard the crack of bone, and watched the strange position her broken neck forced her head into. He was frozen by her side; all he could do was scream. If he'd reacted faster, or thought to put up protections, or somehow forced her stay at home, or jumped in front of her, then maybe, just maybe… Harry shook his head, forcing the guilt from his mind. For now.
There were two deaths that Harry had never recovered from and he would never forgive her for them. Hermione and Ron. The grief was still fresh in his mind, constantly renewing and growing until it was all he could think about. How dare she? How could she? Hermione should have known better; she should have thought things through, recognised the signs. He never understood why despite her bravery Hermione Granger hadn't been a Ravenclaw. Her downfall had always been her greatest asset: her need to know more, and her arrogance that things would go her way.
After the war, Hermione had never been able to recover her parents' memories, losing them forever. To cope with her guilt, she had thrown herself into work and had been a whirlwind through the ministry, reforming each department as she worker her way through them, finally settling in the Department of Mysteries. Her work on time-turners was legendary and made her one of the only recipients of multiple Order of Merlins in history. In the space of a decade, she managed to increase the hours the time turner could go back to days and eventually a full week at a time. Eager to prove the effectiveness of her new design, she and Ron went back in time using her latest prototype untested and without the approval of the department of mysteries.
As often happens with experimental designs, things went wrong. Hermione's research notes made public after her death detailed her plans to go back a full year, leave a code only she would recognise in her diary, and then travel forward back to the present day and see if her note had the right time stamp. Only, with most time turners only functioning for six hours of time travel and use heavily regulated to the point where only a handful of people had ever had possession of one, the side effects of such time travel had never been documented. A close look at Hermione's face after regular use of the WeekBackTM time turners would have revealed the crinkly laughter lines at the corners of her eyes looking deeper and more pronounced, her hips aching as the weather turned damp and cold, and her nimble fingers curling in discomfort round her quill.
The damage done to her and Ron as they went back a full year was devastating. Harry barely recognised his two best friends when they stumbled out of the fireplace of Grimmauld Place wizened and enfeebled only two hours after they had secretly used the time turner, tears carving new pathways down their ancient faces as they gripped Harry with clawed hands, silently begging him for help. They broke Harry's heart, as he had no useful help to offer. The damage was permanent, and they passed away in St Mungo's long-term care ward a short while after as their organs gave out from age and magical exhaustion.
Two months had now passed since their deaths and Harry's only companion was his thoughts. Luna and Neville had long since moved away from Magical Britain and were currently residing in Sri Lanka, running a successful business in procuring rare magical plants and wand cores. Dean and Seamus emigrated to America shortly after the war, too haunted by the missing faces of their dead friends to remain in Britain for long. Even Draco Malfoy had left for France, becoming a healer in Limoges specialising in magical bond removal. With his decade long quest to remove his dark mark accomplished, he had faded into obscurity and was able to live his life in relative peace. Without a familiar face, whether friend or foe there for him to talk with or even nod to down Diagon Alley every once in a while, Harry was alone.
Which brought Harry's mind back to the veil. He hadn't felt anything but pain in a very long time, hadn't known peace in even longer. Ever, perhaps. There was always a role for him to fill, always a problem that needed solving, always a friend to mourn and a funeral to plan. There is only so much one man can take before he wonders if it's all worth it. His parents had died thirty-nine years ago, and he had been without Padfoot twenty-four years, and Moony twenty-two. Harry was older than all four of them had been at their deaths. Maybe it was time to see them again? He thought again of the veil.
Breaking into the Ministry hadn't been as hard as Harry had thought it would be. Not that it would have mattered even if he had been caught. Magical Britain was empty these days, the departments overstaffed even with a third of the workers compared to the workforce at the end of the war. Nobody still here cared whether Harry Potter was here to visit Percy Weasley or if he was here to set the building on fire, so long as it provided some interest to their day. A frumpy young witch flashed him a ghost of a smile as he stepped into the lift with her, though she shuffled out again well before reaching the Department of Mysteries. Another five minutes of Harry's quiet steps echoing through the dimly lit underground corridors and he'd arrived at the doorway to the veil room.
Harry shivered slightly, though he wasn't sure if it was due to the draughty corridors or if it was anticipation at finally seeing it again. He didn't know what he would do or how he would feel once he had made it into the room to stand before the veil, but he hoped it would bring him some closure.
Now he was here, Harry didn't really want to die. He didn't want to stop living, or end it all, or even forget the pain he felt at the deaths that had plagued him since he was a baby. He wanted to move on with his life, and somehow, he knew that the veil would be the thing that let him do that. Completely forgetting the almost magnetic pull the veil had on people near enough to feel its presence, Harry shouldered the heavy door separating him from the magical object and stepped through into the room.
The veil was magnificent. Tall and foreboding, the large stone structure managed to mesmerise the lonely man stood before it. Straining his ears, Harry swore he could hear the ghost of Sirius' laughter emanating from the filmy mist in the centre of the archway. The sound immediately transported him to the fight that took away his godfather, but instead of the stabs of grief and anger he was expecting to hit him, Harry felt longing. Was that the last time he felt something excite him, the last time he felt motivated enough to fight with energy and spirit and vigour? Probably, he thought bitterly. And with that last thought, almost without a conscious decision being made, Harry took a running leap and hurled himself through the veil.
"Fuck. Fuck fuck fucking fuck. Great. This is just my bloody luck."
The string of expletives continued to pour from Harry's mouth as he looked around and took in his surroundings. Or rather, tried to look around him. He was squashed into a small space in the pitch black, blood rushing to his head, and seemed to have hurled himself through the veil and straight into a concussion. Or a nightmare. "Probably hell," muttered Harry. He listened to the creaking above him and felt the dust lazily float through the stale air into his face. "Yeah, definitely hell," he amended, recognising the musty smell of his cupboard at Privet Drive as if he had been there yesterday.
Perhaps he had been, Harry wondered, flailing his smaller-than-remembered limbs around the enclosed space as he futilely tried to turn himself the right way up without scraping his elbows on the nails sticking slightly haphazardly out of the plasterboard. After a long and uncomfortable ten minutes of struggling, he finally managed it.
He thought back to where he thought he had been earlier in the day (or night, as Harry wasn't quite sure what time it was, or even what year.) His journey through the veil seemed to have happened years ago, or like he was watching it on television. Now a few minutes had passed since he woke up the wrong way up and swearing, Harry wasn't sure he hadn't imagined the whole thing, or maybe dreamt it. Apart from his stiff neck, and a lot of sudden instinctive feelings that may or may not be his, Harry had nothing to suggest it had happened to him at all.
The more Harry thought about it, the more confused he became. For example, Harry knew that he was a wizard, and that he needed to escape from his Aunt and Uncle's house immediately if he wanted to avoid years of misery, but he had absolutely no idea why he knew this. "Nitwit. Blubber. Oddment. Tweak." Harry sounded out the strange words that filled his mind, befuddled again when the seemingly nonsensical sounds made him feel irrationally angry. Frustrated at the blanks in his new memories that were growing by the minute, but still feeling as though he should trust his newfound instincts, Harry felt a strong urge to leave the cupboard and run as far away from Privet Drive as possible. It was time to escape.
A tense fifteen minutes of fumbling round the lock with a hair grip, and Harry had formulated a vague plan and was free from his cupboard. Or at least in the hallway. The ghastly green patterned carpet felt plush and warm under Harry's bare feet. He tried to quietly click the hallway light on, accidentally flooding the landing with a pale-yellow glow before hastily turning it off and correcting his mistake, confused again at how he had forgotten which switch was which when it was usually second nature to him. Perhaps his strange dream had just unnerved him, temporarily distracted him. At least that's what Harry hoped.
Waiting a few seconds to make sure the Dursleys were still fast asleep, or at least not inclined to come thundering down the stairs to catch their delinquent nephew in the act of robbing them blind, Harry carefully proceeded with his escape plan.
Firstly, Harry got dressed. He was currently only in a large and rather dirty and rather enormous men's t-shirt, so swapped this for his school trousers, a different t-shirt that was clean but no less gigantic tied with a hair bobble at the back, tucked securely into his trousers down to his thighs, and a bobbly jumper in an uneven and quite disgusting shade of grey. At least it would keep him a little warmer if the weather turned cold.
In the back of his mind, Harry could vaguely remember the dread he felt as his aunt dyed the item for him to wear at his new high school. Thinking about it now, he found it funny as well as desperately sad that she went to so much effort to make him a pariah at his new school, despite the fact it would have been easier for her to just buy the school jumper. At least there was no school badge and therefore no identifying marks on the lumpy grey monstrosity, which made it perfect for Harry's purposes of escape now, as his new instincts told him anonymity was key to his escape. Fastening the Velcro on his scuffed school shoes, Harry proceeded to the kitchen.
Once he had slowly eased the creaky door open enough to squeeze him and one of Aunt Petunia's fabric shopping bags through comfortably, Harry set to work. A glance at the calendar and the clock confirmed the date: Ten minutes past one, on the morning of July 1supst/sup, 1991. Perfect. That meant Harry had 30 days to find a way into the wizarding world before his Hogwarts letter, which meant… something important, he was sure. He wondered why his first thought was of a letter and not of his birthday, but he guessed it wasn't important whilst he could still get caught by the Dursleys at any moment.
Pushing the strange thought from his mind, Harry grabbed the fabric shopping bag and crouched over by the cupboard containing food with the longest shelf-life. Tins of soup were out, he thought, as they were quite heavy, and Harry didn't really know how long he would have to carry them for. Aunt Petunia often had a handful of mixed fruit and nuts instead of a proper lunch when Uncle Vernon was at work and Dudley and Harry were at school, and there was a large bagful of the mixture unopened. Harry somehow knew nuts were a good slow release food and would stop him feeling hungry, so in they went.
Next went in some cereal bars, and to Harry's delight and anticipation, some custard creams and a big bar of chocolate. Finally, Harry fished through the recycling next to the back door and rinsed then filled a large empty plastic milk carton with water, before running to the drinks cupboard and adding some orange squash to the carton. Much better. The bag was quite heavy now, so Harry thought he better leave it at that for sustenance.
The last thing Harry decided to take with him was a tin hidden on the top shelf of Aunt Petunia's fine china cabinet. He knew from experience that his aunt and uncle kept their spare cash in there, and if they could comfortably afford a new car, two holidays in the past year (without Harry), and for Dudley to go to Smeltings on full board, they could afford for Harry to steal a couple of hundred pounds from them so he didn't have to stay on the streets for a month.
The tin was right at the back of the shelf, so Harry had to balance on the edge of the dining table in order to reach it. Just as his fingers wrapped round the cool metal and he dragged the tin forward, Harry nudged his bag of food off the table. The bag landed with a crash on the floor, its contents scattering out and clattering on the tiles. Harry felt his soul leave his body as the reflection of an upstairs light turning on bounced off the greenhouse in the back garden. "Shit!"
Knowing he had only seconds, twenty at the most, Harry leapt from the table, swept his pilfered goods back into the cloth bag, shoved the money tin on top of his custard creams, and ran towards the front door. Hearing footsteps crashing down the stairs and Uncle Vernon's murderous rantings, Harry turned around and ran to the back door, fumbling with the keys, praying to every god he'd ever heard of that he found the right one. The lock clicked open. Almost wetting himself with relief, Harry tried throw himself out the door, but Uncle Vernon grabbed the back of the bag, yanking him back inside. In his desperation, Harry grabbed the first item he could get his hands on – a large black umbrella. Jabbing it into Vernon's pudgy stomach, Harry heard a pained yelp and suddenly he was free from the house. Taking his chance whilst his uncle was winded, Harry sprinted round the side of the house and onto Privet Drive, not stopping until he was at least ten streets away, thoroughly out of breath, and almost crying with the effort and trauma of his escape.
Doubled over and panting, Harry looked around for identifying landmarks. He had cleared the residential area surrounding Privet Drive, and now seemed to be on a main road with bus stops along it. Walking for another ten minutes, he reached a train station – Ewell East. The station was closed and gated for the night, but when Harry read the timetable outside the entrance, he learned the first train would be to King's Cross, London at 5:41am, and would take around an hour. Looking through the gates at a large clock, Harry saw the time was 3:50am. Settling down on a bench for the almost two hours left until the train arrived, Harry munched on a slightly crushed custard cream, and waited.