Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any mentioned things/ideas associated with Harry Potter. Those are property of J.K. Rowling. I do however own the plot and would appreciate it if you didn't take it without asking.
Prologue
For a moment, a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a year, it seemed the spell had failed. It seemed obvious to me that all my careful study and experimentation was in vain. All the months spent pouring over books in a way beyond even the obsession of Hermione, and all the painstaking debates with Headmistress McGonagall over the possession of that horrid, taunting mirror. In my mind there was no other explanation for the seeming eternity I spent in that infinite abyss, that vacuum. Despite all my sincerest efforts, I had failed. I would no longer remain in the world I had been born into, where nearly every humanoid race knew my name; that much I did accomplish. But neither would I enter a world in which I would be known as nothing more than Harry James Potter, son of Lily and James Potter. For that had been my goal.
I spent my time thinking of where I could have possibly gone wrong, but I could come up with nothing. Even before I began casting spells on the mirror, it showed precisely what I wanted, as it promised to in the script on its frame: "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi." "I show not your face but your hearts desire." Peering into the mirror for the first time in eight years, I was not surprised to find that the basic desire was still the same; though a few faces had joined those of my parents and other family I had never had the pleasure of meeting. Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus and Tonks, Arthur Weasley, Dean Thomas, Neville and Luna…Ginny, the faces of the dead who haunted my dreams, for whose deaths I could find no one to blame but my own, pathetically flawed self. In the background, more deeply buried, were the faces of the living. Ron, Hermione, and their new-born child stood just past Arthur and Ginny, smiling as they had been the last time I had seen them, earlier that day. And somewhere, farther back than my failing eyesight could clearly see, a glimpse of icy eyes and platinum hair. So many faces, all of which I wished to see in the new life I was trying so desperately to find for myself. My world had seen more than enough of Harry Potter to last me several lifetimes. For once I just wanted to be left to live my life in peace.
So I researched. I travelled across the globe, through muggle and wizarding civilisations alike, in the search for texts on alternate universes and that tormenting mirror that seemed to laugh at me each time I glanced its way. It showed me a world I had never known, one I wished so dearly I could become a part of. Each step forward in my studies and theories, however, the more the mirror seemed to find amusement in my trials, the knowing amusement of a parent chidingly watching their child try to fly like the birds. It knew I could never possibly succeed, no matter how many years of effort I put into it, and it was even more entertained by my increasing ambition in response to its mocking. Still, I persisted, unwilling to believe that anything, in this world where so much had happened to me, could be impossible. Alone a child may not be able to fly, but with the help of magic… the prospects were endless.
And so it was that seven years after I defeated Voldemort, I had completed my research and was prepared to cast the spells. I was so confidant. I was young, only twenty-five, and I had already accomplished so much. Something that I had put this much care into simply couldn't go wrong. I said my goodbyes, though no one but McGonagall truly knew what I was planning to do, and prepared myself for a new life. It only took me a few minutes in the void to come to the conclusion that something had gone wrong. I suppose, then, I'm not entirely hopeless. I spent weeks going over my research, but, as I have stated, I could find nothing wrong. There was no explanation to why I was in this place.
I suppose it wasn't a void so much a there wasn't anything. There was a floor, at least it seemed like there was a floor. It was all shades of grey, and I was some ethereal being. I could barely discern the glassy ebony floor from the foggy, colourless air. My own body was apparently non-existent, and distance was but a figment of the imagination. I couldn't feel, smell, taste. The only sound I ever heard was tantamount to the roaring one may perceive when holding a sea shell to one's ear, disfigured parody of ocean waves.
After those first few weeks I began to realize just how much I depended on human contact. For years I had devoted myself solely to my research and would go for weeks without seeing another person, but the mere knowledge of knowing that there were people was enough to keep me sane, it seems. After exhausting my memory of years of research, my thoughts turned to people. The research made me think of Hermione, which made me think of Ron and little Emilia. Somehow it came to the point that I relived my entire life and finally realised the sick irony of it all. I analysed my relationship with every person I had ever come in contact with. My sense of guilt, however, only grew with my loneliness. Previously I had only blamed myself for the deaths of those I cared for. Alone with in my reflections I found myself accountable for so many hardships that had befallen others simply because they knew me.
The greatest hardship within that wasteland was not my guilt or loneliness. It was time. No matter how much of my senses I lost in merely coming to that place I was always painfully conscious of the time that passed. I couldn't escape it. If the days, months, years had simply blended together I probably wouldn't have suffered so much damage. No, after the first year of simply existing, and thinking, I did the equivalent of standing and walking. And that was what consumed my time for the next nine years. I walked and rationalised. I made some semblance of sense out of what my life had been and I moved, though I don't know how. I had no body of which to speak. After a few years I even convinced myself I understood Dumbledore. Though time passed it seemed as though my memory of events got even clearer, allowing me the opportunity to regret every action I ever had the misfortune of making. Basic things, like how to snap or what chicken actually tasted like, were an entirely different matter. By the fourth year I was numb of almost all emotion, probably a result of realising that, after all the time I had spent learning foreign languages, I couldn't even remember how to speak English. The only thing I could feel by the end was this all-consuming despair.
Then, on the tenth anniversary of my coming to that accursed place, it changed. No longer was every second burned into my memory, no longer was my life absent of feel and colour. I was once again a tangible being, with my hands visible before me, the same as I remembered, but not quite. My despondency was pushed aside by this overwhelming joy, and I heard my self laugh. In the distance, a comprehensible distance, lay muffled voices of other people and I couldn't bring myself to them fast enough. I ran, truly ran, in their direction. A few steps and I was thrown forward into a sea of sensation. I landed on my back, stone beneath my hands, and looked up at faces I never again thought I would see. In that moment, ten years absent of food, water, and sleep caught up with a body I never again thought I would have and I fainted.
What a joy to be alive in this earthen heaven after knowing hell.
AN: I'm really only putting this up to get feedback. If I don't, then I won't be continuing it. It will be slash, and it is obviously AU. Lemme know what you think, ask questions, give me ideas, because that's the only way I'm going to be able to keep this going. If anyone's read All Eyes on Me, then I haven't given up on that, it's just that, like this, I have trouble keeping it going without aide. I know the basic idea that's going on, I just can't seem to add in the events and details that lead up to that, so help me out... please.