Title: Through the Window
Author/pseudonym: NemKess
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R
Status: one-shot, complete
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Disclaimers: Harry Potter belong to me? I could only wish. Nope, not mine. Harry Potter belongs to the lovely J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers, as well as a few other people who are very definitely not me. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is made. This is purely to silence the voices in my head.

Summary: What do you do with a war hero who'd outlived his usefulness?
Warnings: A little dark, a little hopeless, very unChristmasy of me.

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What could society do with the old warhorse when the war is over?

It was a question that had been pondered often over the span of human evolution, the tempers of humanity being what they were, but no real solution had ever been completely accepted.

It was an especially hard question to answer when the 'old' warhorse was barely twenty-three years old and had been considered the Savior of his world since he was still in diapers.

The raven haired man sighed and watched the world go by through the window of his room at St. Mungo's. In years, he was still very young and at twenty-three most witches and wizards were looking forward towards their futures. Harry Potter had been fighting evil for over half of his life now. He'd lost everything to it. He'd given everything to defeat it. A person had only to look in his eyes to know that his soul was very, very old and very, very tired.

The casualties had been tremendous to both sides, but he had to tell himself that they hadn't died in vain. That what they'd gotten in return was worth the price they'd paid in blood and tears. Otherwise he might really go insane.

Now the wizarding world was safe from Voldemort.

It was not safe from Harry Potter.

Shortly after the beginning of sixth year, Dumbledore and Moody had began stepping up his private training severely. Open war had been on the horizon and there wasn't a doubt in anyone's mind who would be at the center of it. They'd finally given up trying to protect him from the truth and had instead set about preparing him for the harsh realities he would face. Full fledged war had erupted in the middle of seventh year, but by then Harry had- quite literally- been able to pass the qualifying exam for advanced Aurors half asleep.

Four and a half years of battling had turned him into quite the little killing machine.

He'd checked himself into the wizarding hospital voluntarily a few months before when his war honed paranoia and power had finally pushed him to a level even Mad Eyed Moody had never reached. He'd nearly obliterated several children who'd startled him by catching him in the middle of their snowball fight.

There were no calming influences left in his life, no one he could turn to and say 'tell me it'll get better'. Every person he'd been close to was gone. Dumbledore, Ron and 'Mione, most of the Gryffindors he'd grown up with, MacGonagal, Remus, Sirius... The list of his own personal dead stretched on too far to ever truly pay each and every one the proper respect they deserved though Harry had certainly tried. Only Snape remained and he got the feeling that the former head of Slytherin feared him as much as the rest of the world had come to.

The man certainly hadn't tried to dissuade him from his decision to enter an isolation ward and Harry couldn't' find it in his heart to blame the older man. Hell, he was afraid of himself sometimes.

He was unstable, but at least he knew it.

The only outside contact he had anymore was Snape and the house elves. Even the medi-wizards had given up on him.

There was simply no way he could live in normal society again.

The Ministry of Magic was divided about him. On the one hand, he was obviously a danger even to the innocents of their world. A large number of them would have been more than happy to have him put down. On the other, he was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Was Victorious.

Having him killed, even with the best interests of their constituents in mind, would ruin all of their careers.

And so, the question remained.

What to do with a war hero who'd outlived his usefulness?

Some days, Harry thought he might ask Snape for a nice painless potion and put himself out of their misery. It would be safer for everyone and that appealed to the hero in him. It would be easier for him, and that appealed to the tired boy who still lurked in his psyche.

But it would be giving up without a fight and that went against everything he'd ever stood for. He simply didn't have the mentality or the ability to lay down and die.

He couldn't save everyone from himself by killing himself and he couldn't put them in danger by making another failed attempt at being normal.

Which left him where he was.

Isolated.

Alone.

And watching the rest of the world go about it's business of forgetting he ever existed.