Disclaimer: None of the following characters are mine, they all belong to the wonderful JKR.
Survivors
It has been forty years since the war ended, but Harry Potter is not safe. Those forty years had been years of relative peace and harmony, but Harry Potter still isn't safe. He is in his own house, his own room, his own bed, with his own wife snoring slightly beside him, but he is still haunted.
His affliction wanes during the day, the spectres contained behind self-erected walls, strengthened by daylight and company, but night time with its darkness and lack of activity reduce his barriers to rubble, and his personal ghosts come out to play. Old memories and images of bodies long since laid to rest flicker across his closed eyelids.
... Sirius, pale and wrapped in bandages after a battle...
... Ginny is under the Cruciatus curse... and Neville too...
...Green light is speeding from Lucius Malfoy's wand towards Katie Bell. Harry is screaming at her to move. She does, but the movement is only her lifeless body crumpling to the ground...
...Hermione is under the Imperius; blank-faced and empty eyed...
...Tonks is melting into her natural form as she breathes her last... Remus, his face screwed up in anguish is leaning over her corpse...
...Lee Jordan's head... they never found his body...
... Professor McGonagall is slumped onto her desk, dead eyes open and hair messed. Poisoned...
...Fleur Delacour's soulless eyes are staring straight through him...
...Colin Creevy's mangled remains, almost unrecognisable...
And then, always, he is there again.
...His wand is warm and strong, clutched firmly in his right hand. He points it, and feels his lips form the deadly words, hears his own voice scream them. A stream of green light, and a body falls to the floor, just like Katie's, the eyes open and full of fear, anger and surprise. Suddenly it is not Voldemort, Dark Lord and psychotic mass murderer he has killed, but Tom Riddle, a lonely, abused, motherless boy. His heart clenches with the pity of a shared experience, and his brain does not protest when his stomach does the same and he vomits...
And after that, Dumbledore's words echo in his head, "There are no winners, only survivors".
And Harry knows it is the truth: he is no winner, just a survivor.
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