Patterns of the Future
Alone.
The word didn't really suit him anymore. He was no longer the timid little boy who lived under the stairs subjected to the whims of his Aunt, Uncle and Cousin. Dumbledore and Hogwarts had changed his life. Dumbledore sent Hargrid to him, a rather large and burly messenger with the most astounding news of his life, or so he had thought then. A wizard – he, Harry Potter, was a wizard. Not just any wizard at that, but the most famous wizard in the world. He was the Boy the Lived, who defeated Lord Voldemort – a wizard so terrible most refused to say his name.
Hargrid brought him to Hogwarts, by way of Platform 9¾ and the Weasleys. Ron Weasley, Mr. And Mrs. Weasley youngest boy, had become his best friend. Redheaded and freckled, quick to defend a friend, Ron and the rest of the Weasleys became his true family. The family of his heart. Before the incident in the Department of Mysteries his Godfather had been apart of that family, the family he longed for the entire summer as he waited for school to resume.
His rash actions cost him Sirius. No one had said that out loud to him, but Harry didn't need others to confirm that fact. He lived with daily. The guilt and the pain ate away at his soul. Nothing helped. Not the care packages from Mrs. Weasley, or the letters from Ron and Hermione, who promised to visit somehow, or the promises from his father's last remaining best friend, Remus Lupin, to look after him.
No one could help him. Not really. Destiny awaited him. In the end it would come down to him and Voldemort he knew this as he stared up at the stars from his bedroom window at Privet Drive. The room was snug with his bed and desk giving him little room to truly move around. But the window was wide and the stars blazed above him, the sounds from below him were muted and for that Harry was grateful. He had as much use for the Dursleys as they did for him, none namely.
At his desk Hedwig sat in his cage napping. His owl was the only friend the Dursleys suffered. Harry hated being separated from Ron and Hermione, from Fred and George who were busy opening up their who joke shop, from Ginny – the sister he never had, and the rest of his Housemates. But they would have to get use to that separation.
He was unable to read the stars though he struggled to find meaning in them. But in his heart Harry knew. It was a realization that was slow in coming. It had taken five years at Hogwarts and sticky hot summer for the truth to smack him unforgivingly in the face. Doppelganger. Yin and Yang. Two sides of the same coin. Whatever you wanted to call it, he and Voldemort were ultimately one. In the battle against good and evil the scales had to be balanced, for them both to survive and maintain that balance, neither side could have ultimate victory.
He was going to die.
Not before Voldemort though, he vowed silently, green eyes intent on sky above him.
Alone – he had to achieve that state again. He couldn't risk his friend's lives. They were the only things in the world he cared about. Harry could accept his own death; it was reality that he wouldn't try to escape because it meant the safety of his friends. But to lose one of them like he lost Sirius, he couldn't accept that. They had to live. Every last one of them. No matter what it cost him.
Rubbing his scar gently Harry pondered how to distance himself from his friends. Knowing them as he did they wouldn't allow it. If last year at Hogwarts taught him anything it taught him that it was impossible for him to give up on his friends and vice versa. Their friendship was so thick that nothing had been able to sever it. Not his anger or outlandish behavior, no fights or misunderstandings or mixed messages had been able to split him from Ron and Hermione. They were a unit. Bonded by friendship and all they'd been through – completely unbreakable.
Sighing, Harry dropped his hand. Destiny again he wondered. Dumbledore would probably say that it would only take him so far … your own choices helped shaped the future. Still his friendships with Hermione and Ron seemed somehow fated. Like they were a trio meant to be, like his father, Sirius and Professor Lupin before them. Did destiny work like that? The same pattern playing out differently because of the characters caught in its web.
Harry wasn't sure. But his parents had fought Voldemort, just as he was fighting him. They had died at his hands as he to would for the love of his family. It was circular pattern all right. He'd finished this particular pattern though and force fate to create a new one.
When all was said and done, Voldemort would be dead and his followers defeated. A new pattern would emerge and in it his friends would flourish. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Fred and George, Bill, Oliver, Dean … the list went on and on. They would build a new pattern, shaping the future, making it no doubt a better place.
He'd be there to see it too. Not the way he always wanted, but they were all apart of each other. They would carry him into that future in their hearts. That would be enough.
It had to be.