Harry had expected a lot of things.

During his time hunting Voldemort, he had plenty of time to think about things. One of those many things he thought about was death, and more specifically, what it would be like after he had died. It was hard not to, as every day could have easily been his last; especially toward the end of the war, where desperation and viciousness replaced tactics and planning on both sides. It was also when Harry had become disillusioned with himself, realizing the monster that emerged was always what he truly was. He became numb, a man of singular destruction with nothing left to lose – as he had already lost everything – and only wanted some vague sense of revenge against the Dark Lord.

Harry would have liked to call it justice for those that Voldemort had killed, but he knew it wasn't really Voldemort that he wanted vengeance for, but rather himself. He could only blame himself for the destruction around him, putting his own selfish needs above all else. Harry knew full well that Voldemort was molded by Harry's actions – his own life, even – that had gotten so many of those around him not just killed, but tortured, starved; beaten... and much worse. It had started with his parents, who if he hadn't been born, would still be alive and well. His friends, especially Hermione and Ron, wouldn't have had to sacrifice everything to help him, only leading to their own living hell as they themselves lost everything... His thoughts drifted to Sirus, Remus, Tonks, Dumbledore... and so many others. So many people that he had personally doomed to their lives of hardship, and eventual death that they never deserved. Magical Britain as a whole was torn apart and ripped down because of the war, countless lives ruined because of him...

Harry stopped that particular circle of thinking, tired of going down that road of thoughts, instead turning back to a less painful line of thinking about life after death. There were a lot of accounts, guesses, and even experiments about life after death, always one different from the other. Harry's had figured that, with whatever happened, he would accept it. Maybe he would be put to the flame, to burn for eternity for all the evil that he had done. Maybe he would have to face those that he had wronged, to be judged by both friend and foe alike. Of course, maybe there was nothing at all but vast darkness, an endless nothing that Harry would be oblivious to.

He didn't know that when he would awaken – if at all – it wouldn't even be close to what he had thought he would see.

This... he would never have fathomed something like this.

Harry stood within a small room. It was eerily familiar, only yet not at the same time. The only thing he could really compare it to was that it was similar to Dudley's second bedroom, but without the broken toys, discarded clothes, and other junk that was thrown inside, it would be difficult to tell if it was or not. He glanced downward, observing the worn, dark stained wooden floor had seen better days, a lack of maintenance had made the wood loose it's luster, looking dull and... dead. Scratches, stains of unknown sort and other marks littered throughout the rough planks, which Harry followed until they were stopped by a wall. Each wall looked similar, maybe one side a bit more worn than the other, but not nearly as bad as the floor was. An unassuming white was used for the paint, with no real discernible features could be found. However, as his eyes traveled upward toward the ceiling, all he found was an empty darkness. No familiar blanket of comforting lights of the stars could be seen, nor any sort of light source that seemed to illuminate the room in a soft, although slightly uncomfortable glow that allowed him to see. The only other thing of note within the room was a door placed in-front of him, the wood matching the walls in color and equally without a pattern to distinguish it from the wall, the only thing giving it away was a simple metal doorknob, with a very thin but noticeable outline of the doors frame.

It was beyond confusing, but then again when was anything simple in his life?

His first action was the only obviously one he could do. He walked over to the door, his hand grabbing the knob and tried twisting it. The knob only gave a unsurprising resistance to his manipulations, indicating that it was locked. He stepped away, his hand reaching toward his right wrist holster to grab his wand . While expected, Harry felt a jolt of panic when he realized that his wand wasn't there, but his thoughts quickly reminded him what he had just did only moments ago, along with a realization that he had left his wand back in the tent in the Forest of Dean, so... his wand was probably gone. Forever.

It hurt him to think that magic as a whole was now probably locked away from him for the rest of his damned existence. Then again, he wouldn't have expected anything other than that after everything. What could the dead do with magic, anyway?

With that thought, Harry did what he could only do now: He waited.

And waited.

And waited...

Time was hard to tell when you didn't have any sort of indicators to clue you in on it. It reminded him of his time spent in the dungeons in Snape's potions class. Time seemed to always move so slowly when Harry was down there, always dragging out in a way that he knew was impossible, but every time he entered that dammed classroom it had always played out that way. Yet, even if time did somehow slow down in his mind when he was there, it was always a relief to know that he wasn't trapped down there forever. There was always an end to look forward to, to escape the dark and depressing dungeon and return to the much more welcoming and bright hallways that were so close, yet so far from within the dungeon.

This room was similar, yet not at the same time. The only real difference was that he didn't know if it would end or not. Would this be his punishment for the rest of eternity? At the moment, it didn't seem so bad. He could imagine much worse things that could be done to him, and while there was a part of him that wanted to see his friends, Sirius, Remus, and... maybe his parents, Harry knew that he didn't deserve to see them.

Whatever had put him here seemed to agree as well.

Some more time passed. Then, when he had least expected it, he heard a click.

His head snapped to the door, his body tensing as he expected it to open and reveal his captor. Moments later, nothing happens. Seconds continue by, then a minute. Harry slowly relaxes, unsure of how to proceed, but he was sure that whatever was here, wanted him to try and open the door again. Harry had almost wanted not to, wanting to not indulge whatever game his captor wanted to play, but he saw no other choice at this point. Slowly walking forward once more, his body again tensing up as he prepared to fight whoever was on the other side of the door. Unsurprisingly, the knob gave no resistance like before as he turned it, slowly opening the door to reveal...

Nothing. The only thing that greeted him was a blank, black abyss, just like the ceiling above him. His brows furrowed in confusion, his eyes straining to see if he could find anything that stood out against the darkness, but found nothing. A creeping feeling began to form in his chest, a knowing answer bubbled under his skin, one that he didn't exactly want to think about, but his choices were still rather limited. Either move forward, or stay behind and hope something else would happen.

He'd rather take the chance with the former. Inaction had taken so much from him already, Harry refused to walk into it's clutches yet again. Yet, he reminded himself that actions could have consequences that could do much more harm than good, but had decided moved on anyway with only a few moments of hesitation.

Harry took a small step forward, holding onto the door-frame in-case there wasn't actually any floor for him to step onto, but thankfully his foot met something solid where he hoped it would be. Letting go of the door and cautiously taking a few more steps outward, Harry was still unsure if he should continue forward. He turned back around, seeing that the light from doorway behind him seemed to dim considerably, even if he had only moved a few feet away. It was like a layer of fog had begun to surround him, yet the fog seemed to almost... hesitate; as if it was watching him, waiting for him to do something. What it was waiting for, Harry didn't know. It wasn't like he was probably going to get an answer, either.

With that, Harry slowly turned from the doorway, his eyes scanning carefully for any hint of something that might be controlling the mist around him, his body ready to move at a moment's notice. Again, just like before, Harry could see absolutely nothing but the empty void that surrounded him.

Steeling his resolve, Harry pushed onward.

Time seemed to slip away from him as he walked. His mind felt more muddled than before, his thoughts harder to keep track of and hold onto. It should have sent warnings, that something wasn't quite right, but it felt almost... right. It was something he couldn't really pinpoint, but it felt like something was guiding him.

Or leading him to his penance. Either way, there was no point in fighting it. He doubted he could truly resist – much less fight - whatever was leading him, and he was sure trying to do so would be pointless.

Almost as if the fog was feeling his restlessness, it seemed to become somewhat less stifling, and with it seemingly retreating from him, Harry could finally see something that wasn't just pure darkness. A glint of something had suddenly came into view, a pinprick of color that stood valiantly among the harsh dark that surrounded it, shining it's brilliant defiance. It seemed so out of place, as if it was only made to attract those lost in the darkness; akin to a moth attracted to the flame of a lit lantern. It made him feel uneasy, yet he saw no other option than to head toward whatever it was.

Slowly, the dot of color had begun to take shape, each step revealing a bit more to him. However, as he had gotten close enough to truly take in what had stood out from the darkness, his heart sunk into his stomach.

It was unmistakable. Even after all these years, he easily pictured it within his mind, being one of the most vivid memories that had stuck with him since he had been introduced to the magical world.. It was the first bit of magic that he personally experienced that had granted him something that he never thought could be possible: A chance to be with his parents.

At least, until Dumbledore had ripped that away from him. Even if Harry knew in hindsight that it was for the better, he was still bitter about learning the truth. Another painful wound against his already hell-bound soul.

His mind focused again, with the Mirror of Erised standing tall before him. The magical mirror was still grand and elegant - even in this colorless place - with his own reflection staring back at him. The... thing in the mirror was not an image that surprised Harry, and if he could have seen himself only a decade earlier, many would probably struggle to connect this deathly looking monster to the Boy-Who-Lived. Lifeless, sunken dark green eyes stared back at him, bruised bags of exhaustion stood out harshly against his sickly pale and clammy skin. His face was gaunt, telling of a life of war and survival that only a true man of evil could ever come out of alive, resembling more of a decadent corpse than a human. His full beard was rough, uneven and sloppy, with little to no sign of any real grooming, as if he had been shaving off clumps of hair when it became too much, and even then using the dullest knife possible to make those cuts, with no real care of how it looked.

His hair had fared little better. Harry's dark raven black hair had grown down the nape of his neck, much less messy and wild than when he was younger, but still ugly in it's own right. It was thin and dirty, with a similar lack of care that reflected across his body. His clothes were ill-fitted, hanging loosely on his skeleton like frame; a means to an end to starve off the cold and wet British weather. The thin, gray cotton jacket barely seemed to cling on his starved body, the sleeves rolled up slightly, exposing a few nasty burn and battle scars on his wrists and forearms that Harry didn't know the exact origin of, but when one had many like those across his whole body, it was hard to truly care to remember where he had gotten each one.

The rest of his attire was always the same. Grimy, worn dark blue jeans covered his thin legs that were more akin to rags than real clothing; with patches of crudely sewed pieces of mismatched leather where the stitching of the jeans had been cut or worn down due to the abuse it's wearer put them through. Similarly matched with a pair of simple, but nearly worn through brown boots on his feet. The soles nearly looking like they were ready to fall off, cracked and caked with filth. The laces of the boots thin and frayed, a lifetime abuse making the once tight cord a loose set of barely held together string.

The rest of his body was blank of anything else of interest, devoid of personality or reminders of his short lived lie of his attempt at trying to be a person. He could still remember the few bits and pieces of trinket's that his friends had tried to give to him as gifts, but Harry had long since buried those in a trunk that he tried his hardest to forget about, placed in a home he had no intention of returning to.

As his eyes adjusted upward once more, dull green met it's reflection.

Harry wasn't sure why the mirror was here, nor that whatever had lead him here wanted to see it, but a part of him was admittedly scared to see the magic of the mirror, to see what his true desire could be now after everything he had done. He had hoped that the mirror wouldn't work -

The change was sudden, a small ripple effect that appeared across his reflection had barely caught his notice, then as the image settled back down Harry moved a bit closer, his eyes straining to look at every detail of the mirror...

Another ripple, this time above his reflection. This time as his gaze followed the origin, A small shimmer had appeared around his image's head within the mirror, a faint outline of... something. Harry couldn't tell exactly what was trying to form, as the shimmer was slowly turning more into a blob of blurry, colorful mess than anything he could really recognize, contrasting heavily against the inky blackness with a the myriad of colors shifting to and fro, never really seeming to want to stay on a specific color or shape.

In what seemed like seconds, the colors continued to morph and grow in a rapid pace, the dim colors turning bright, making Harry having to squint at the mirror, and even then the light was still harsh on his eyes. The chill of the air began to heat up exponentially, suddenly feeling like he was surrounded by a wall of flame, nipping harshly against his exposed skin. Harry closed his eyes fully, the light becoming to much as his eyes began to feel the same burn as his skin did, yet the darkness that suddenly clouded his vision did not bring relief.

No, it brought something much worse.

Pain shot up his arms like lightning; his very being seemingly engulfed in fire, both his skin and insides had begun to feel as if he was being torn asunder, each atom in his body responding to nothing but the pure agony that was felt. Harry couldn't tell if he even had time to scream out before it became to much, but there was but one singular thought that managed to escape the carnage of his mind and body... maybe even his soul.

'This was it. The end.'