A/N: content to the first asterisk lifted from The Deathly Hallows – I make no claim to it.

Sweeter than honey yet slippery as a snake

All your words are poison in my veins

Isn't it funny, in a mirror we're the same

Haunting ourselves through reflections every day

Valiant Hearts - "Medusa"

"I've got to go back, haven't I?"

"That is up to you."

"I've got a choice?"

"Oh, yes." Dumbledore smiled at him. "We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to… let's say… board a train."

"And where would it take me?"

"On," said Dumbledore simply.

Silence again.

"Voldemort's got the Elder Wand."

"True, Voldemort has the Elder Wand."

"But you want me to go back?"

"I think," said Dumbledore, "That if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good.* Then again, the prophecy that has dictated your life thus far has always ever applied to two boys."

"Neville."

"Indeed."

"You think… you think Neville can kill him? Voldemort, I mean."

"I think that Neville has always been stronger than he or anyone else has given him credit for. Neville is a brave man. You have been the chosen one for this long, Harry. If you choose it, I believe Neville will be strong enough to carry that burden for you."

Harry nodded. If Neville killed Voldemort it would fulfil the prophecy just the same.

"So I just… get on?" Harry asked, gesturing at the train with his chin.

"Just get on," Dumbledore confirmed.

Feeling lighter than he ever remembered feeling in life, Harry smiled at his old mentor. "Thank's Professor. For everything."

"Oh, Harry," Dumbledore said paternally, shaking his hand. "Thank you."

Without looking back, Harry boarded the train. The corridor was eerily silent, but a door hung open in the middle, light falling out from a single compartment.

The compartment looked like every other compartment on the Hogwarts Express, but it was occupied. The four young faces of his parents, Sirius, and Lupin turned to him.

"Harry!" Sirius greeted him, standing up and pulling him into a tight hug. "You came!"

"Yeah," Harry grinned. "You were right. It was easy."

"Easiest thing I've ever done," Sirius joked, to a crowd of groans and booing from James.

"Come sit down, Harry," Lily beckoned, moving over to make room between her and his father.

Harry couldn't not obey his mother, and made his way to the bench beside her.

"You've done enough, Harry," she consoled as he leaned his head against her shoulder. "You deserve this."

"Yeah, Har," his father agreed, patting him on the back, "You've done enough. It's time to move on now."

"You know," said Harry thoughtfully, "I think dying was the best thing I ever did."

Harry next awoke in his favourite guest bedroom at Grimmauld Place. He frowned, confused and unsure why the train would have taken him back to this house. He'd never been particularly fond of it, if he was honest. Between the gloom and grunge and the bad memories, it had never exactly been a welcoming home for him, or for Sirius for that matter. But more than that, the house just… wasn't important to him. For it to be the setting of his afterlife was something Harry couldn't understand. He'd assumed that he would have become a ghost at Hogwarts, like Myrtle. Like Crabbe probably would be.

The thought of Crabbe sent a shiver down the phantasmal manifestation of his spine.

'That's why I'm here,' He thought. Because of what he'd done to Crabbe. To Fred. To the countless others who had died in that battle. In that war.

'All that blood is on my hands.' This house was a punishment; or at the very least, it was purgatory. Maybe he didn't do enough to go to Hell, but he didn't do enough to get into Heaven, either.

God, if that wasn't the crux of it all. He didn't do enough. If only he had known sooner; acted sooner. If only he had been stronger, smarter, faster. This war should have been between him and Voldemort and no one else. Every moment of inaction on Harry's part was a life he couldn't get back; was an innocent sacrificed to the War.

Why hadn't they fought him sooner?

Sure, they still would have had to find and destroy the horcruxes, but the Death Eaters probably would have needed some time to re-do the necromantic ritual they had done to revive Voldemort the first time. It had taken thirteen years for them to bring him back initially. If only Harry had been able to fight him that day in the graveyard. Harry could have killed him if he had really tried, probably.

And probably he would have been killed, but that hardly mattered. What difference would a couple of years have made anyway?

If he'd died three years ago Fred would still be alive now. And Sirius and Lupin and Snape. Ron and Hermione would be graduating this month… They could be happy. All of them could be alive and happy now, if only Harry and Voldemort had died back in fourth year.

"In the end, it was always going to end up this way," came a voice from the other side of the room.

Harry startled and turned, catching sight of a figure lounging on the guest bed. "No matter how it ended, it was always going to be me and you, right here, together."

It was a boy. He was Harry's age with pale skin and dark hair combed neatly to the side. He wore pressed trousers and a knitted waistcoat over his starched white shirt.

"Who are you?" Harry asked. "How did you get here?"

The boy looked at him with cold, black eyes. "You don't recognise me?" the boy asked. "Fair enough. You haven't seen much of me at this age. I was an old man when I died, as you know. As for why I'm here, well. I'm here because you're here. Where you go, I go. That's the way it's always been. There's always been a piece of me with you, Harry. Just as there's always been a piece of you with me. Our souls are bound."

Suddenly, Harry knew who this boy was, recognised him from nearly forgotten memories. "Tom Riddle," he said, for the boy couldn't be anyone else.

Tom sneered. "I prefer Lord Voldemort," he opined. Harry scoffed.

"That's because you're a pretentious bastard," He wasn't afraid of this spectre. After all, what could he do, kill him again? "You're really saying that I can't even be rid of you in Death?"

Tom shrugged elegantly. He was beautiful when he was young. Like Draco: tall and aristocratic. But Harry knew that Tom was anything but an aristocrat, Slytherin's heir or not. "As I said, our souls are bound. They always have been and they always will be. We're like… soulmates, if you would. I'm here with you because in many ways, I am you."

"You're really not," Harry asserted, disgusted at the idea.

"I am, though. Who would you be, if not for my influence? If not for me you would have grown up in a different environment, you would have had different friends, you would have felt different emotions. You would be a completely different person without me."

"I wish I were."

Tom gazed shrewdly at him. "Even so. I made you who you are, Harry Potter. You can't deny that. And in many ways, you made me what I am. To say nothing of the similarities we were born with: two half-blood slytherins-"

"I'm a Gryffindor."

"You were sorted into Slytherin first."

"That was your influence! And how do you know that, anyway?"

Tom scoffed. "That's what I'm saying, you imbecile. I was with you all the time. Everything you have experienced, I have experienced. Many of what you have experienced was filtered through me. Who knows how many feelings, how many thoughts in your head were truly your own. And it was not my influence. If it had been my soul against yours you would have been a hat-stall. You weren't. The Hat identified you as Slytherin through and through, not merely half. That you rejected it on the basis that it would not be advantageous to be associated with the Slytherin reputation is, perhaps, the defining characteristic of a Slytherin. I know that. The Hat knew it then as well. You are not brave or righteous, Harry. You merely did what you had to do, either because you were told to, or because there was no other alternative. Not exactly shining Gryffindorian standards there."

"It's what we do that makes us who we are," Harry argued.

"No. It's our motivations that truly speak to our characters. And your motivations are as Slytherin as they get."

"I am not like you!"

"A half-blood, Slytherin orphan, mistreated by your muggle caregivers, looking for acceptance in the Wizarding community. The only difference between us, Harry, is that I actually knew what I wanted from life and had the bollocks to take it."

"And what you wanted was genocide."

"What I wanted was for wizards to stop allowing themselves to be influenced by muggle culture and muggle values. That was, in fact, the whole premise behind the Statute of Secrecy, if you had ever paid attention to even a little bit of your History of magic class. Then we started interacting with muggles again, letting muggle-borns bring their culture with them, and now you can hardly tell who's a wizard and who's not! Our entire society just slowly assimilating into the muggle world. In order to heal a wound, one must first rid themselves of the infection. Yes, I would have slaughtered every muggle-born in Britain to give us a clean slate."

"I think…" Harry started, nauseated and horrified, "that that's all a lot of fancy talk for how you're just a bigoted prick with a god complex."

Just as Tom was snarling in indignation, the door swung open, revealing Kreature. Harry felt the fabrication of his heart stop in sheer instinctive terror and Harry froze like a deer in the headlights.

The elf scanned the room, seeing nothing. "Master Harry? Kreature thought he is hearing your voice just now… Kreature will let Master Harry cook the dinner if please he will come down to eat…" Harry had never heard the elf so close to begging. He almost answered before the door swung closed.

"How does Kreature know I'm here?"

Tom leaned back against the headboard of the bed, crossing his arms across his chest in a huff. "House Elves are tied to the houses they belong to. He can probably feel your energy here."

"But he can't see me. Surely he ought to be able to see me if I'm a ghost…"

"You're not a ghost," Tom stated matter of factly.

"But I'm dead."

"Yes. Just dead. Being a ghost is for people who have died and want to keep on living. We're in a constant tug of war, you and I, just as we have always been. My soul wants to go back to the living world, and yours wants to disappear entirely. I think, probably, I might win out on occasion and we may be heard or felt by the Elves. Maybe even a particularly sensitive human. But we're too evenly matched. I can't become a ghost if you refuse to be seen. And you can't spend your eternity in death the same way you spent your life pretending you don't exist if I keep pulling you back to the Other side."

"I haven't spent my whole life pretending I don't exist…" Harry argued weakly, unsure if he was lying or not.

"You have. It's not entirely your fault; after all, look at your aunt and uncle. The fact remains, though. In your mind, you only exist when someone is actually talking to you, and once they're gone and you're alone, you feel as though you could just… stop and disappear."

Harry stood from the window seat feeling light and immaterial. "I don't… I do exist. And I don't refuse to be seen!"

"Then why didn't you answer Kreature just now? Why let him keep believing you're alive here? Our energy was strong enough, he would have heard you. Why, when he looked in, was your first reaction to hide in fear?"

"I…"

"Not only do you refuse to be seen, Harry, you're terrified of it."