Title: No Name Face
Rating: T
Prologue
"We are gathered, one year later, to remember and honor the fallen warriors that sacrificed their lives so we may have a future…"
No one had expected to see him there. No one had expected Harry Potter to walk back into their lives as carefully and quietly as he had stepped out of it—no one had expected him to emerge from the rain-soaked trees and into the clearing looking as though he knew he didn't belong there.
He knew he didn't. He had no place here, with the ones who fought and sacrificed and died in a War that he hadn't done much in, besides being given the credit for winning it. There was nothing that should have led them to believe he was their savior. Nothing.
He'd failed them all at one point. At one time or another, he hadn't been able to get to someone in time, hadn't been able to reverse a curse to save a person who was loved and cared for deeply. During that war, so many had died in his arms, so many last breaths had been taken…so many people had asked him to send their love to their families. He wasn't their guardian angel, never had been.
Harry Potter had been a warrior, just like the rest of them, but had little value to them—he was worth less than the breath used to utter a curse. Useful, yes, but not required.
Had they been able to see that—had they been able to look at him as just another person and instead of their guiding light—so many lives could have been saved. Had the Wizarding World opened up its eyes in time, they would have been able to take some of the burden they had left on his shoulders onto themselves.
He would have been able to help them, then. He would have been able to save who needed saving, to heal who needed healing, to ease those who had needed easing.
Percy Weasley was speaking, and as Harry eased his way onto the edge of the clearing where the Remembrance Ceremony was being held, he noted that a year had done much to the man. Time had done little to his features, but it had done much to the air around him. He looked...tired. Worn. Defeated.
Harry supposed they all did. Looking across that clearing, over the many faces that he recognized in some way or another, he saw that their wounds were still raw, open. It was almost as if one year hadn't passed, as if it had only been one day, and they were standing together in the rain huddled around the fallen forms of their loved ones.
He stuck to the edge of the clearing, the nearest person more than fifty feet away. Knowing that he didn't belong there didn't stop him from wanting to be with them; he knew these people, their pain, had experienced it both first and second hand. He had been drawn to it, wanting to share and heal because everyone knows that misery loves company.
The wind was cold on his already damp skin, and he shivered, shoving his hands deeper into his Muggle jeans. It had been raining on that very last night, he remembered, and this setting was fitting, because you can't begin without ending.
Drawing the ceremony to a close, Percy looked up and scanned the crowd with eyes that passed over Harry easily. The War had taken most of the man's sight, leaving him to his horn-rimmed glasses once again--Harry wasn't worried he'd be spotted. People chose not to see him most of the time, looking in his eyes and seeing a fallen hero that deserved no recognition in the light of things post-war. And that was fine with him. It was okay because he understood what they had wanted, what he had been unable to give.
It was only right that they only acknowledged the fact that he hadn't lived up to their standards.
He lingered on the outskirts of the clearing as people left, the hood on his sweatshirt drawn up and posture that of a curious Muggle. Eyes shaded, no one made eye contact with him, but a few older women smiled at him in the manner that Harry had come to name, 'Don't worry, dear, it's nothing for you to worry about. Just a few friends mourning a loss.'
He might not have been worried about being spotted, but that didn't mean he opened the invitation. This way was better for them all; away from him, they'd be able to heal without looking the reason for their loss straight in the eyes.
The memorial in the center of the clearing was a small one, dainty in nature but obviously well visited and loved immensely. Harry wondered if Muggles had designed it, because he very much doubted that a wizard would come up with something so...moving. His kind had a tendency to take things on the extreme side--something was either highly amusing, or highly disconcerting.
A child cast in bronze was seated on a gravesite, flowers in his chubby little hands, head bowed in prayer before an aging headstone. Flowers of the real sort were scattered in patterns across the ground around it, messages to those who had passed or had been taken were taped or stapled to the flower bundles, and Harry had to marvel at the Muggle-like feel that came from all of it.
But then again, no, he didn't.
A soft smile playing at the edges of his mouth, Harry lowered his hood once everyone had left and went to kneel beside the memorial, the water soaking into his knees being ignored for the moment. He touched it with light touches...fingers trailing on the little boy's cheek, down around the wrist, brushing against the clasped flowers. The inscription on the headstone was simple, as well, and Harry found that he was rather fond of it.
'To Live,
First you must die.
To Love,
First you must lose.
To Dream,
First you must see.'
He sat there for a while, thoughts straying to places they hadn't been in a long time...remembered and forgotten memories reminding him of that which he would have rather kept unremembered and unforgotten.
Harry was well aware that he shouldn't have left the wizarding world, but it was one of the few things he didn't regret in his life. He'd needed fresh air, a life away from the disappointed stares of his colleagues, a new beginning after the horrors of War. Rebuilding, like the rest of the survivors, hadn't been an option for him. He'd seen too much, done too much, lost too many things in him--there was nothing to rebuild.
Leaving everything behind had given him the chance to look inside for what was left and repair it. The time spent staring out of various windows in varying places had given him the opportunity to take the pain and the sorrow and turn it into something manageable.
He was still suffering in a way, but that was because he was guilty. Guilty of deserting his friends and make-shift family when they had needed him; guilty of being selfish and unable to handle any more people wanting him for something he couldn't do: support them. When his own internal support structure had fallen away, it was all he could do to keep himself together; he was incapable to taking anything else onto his proverbial plate, much less support and grieve with people who had already asked for so much from him.
Standing, Harry brushed away the grass and leaves that clung to his damp jeans, and looked down at the memorial. It represented a time for him, and most likely the rest of the people who had visited here at some point, when he'd been alone and mourning a loss of innocence. They'd all seen Death's face, looked him in the eye, and had died a little. The innocent child that had lived within all of them, that had prayed and looked on to a brighter future where everything went as planned, had perished. They'd grown into the adults that still prayed, but prayed to make it through the day with their soul still intact.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets and feeling out of place all over again, Harry walked across the clearing, shoulders hunched against the wind that was prickling against his rain-kissed skin. He was headed for a home he hadn't been to in a year, towards a past that he hoped would accept him into their future. He knew he didn't belong there, most likely never would, but that didn't stop him from wanting to try.
No one had expected him to walk back into their lives, but, then again, no one had expected that he'd be able to repair the damage within himself. No one had expected that he'd be able to become a ghost of the person he once was, grow into a person he hadn't known he could be.
He stepped into the woods, leaves and sticks and damp grass crunching beneath his feet, and dared to hope that he wouldn't have to be alone any longer.
End prologue.
I do not own Harry Potter, and I do not claim to. No profit is being made from this piece of fanfiction.