Harry Potter and the Soul of the Hero
Chapter 32 – The End
Part IV – Final End Game
We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!
~~Bill Murray
"You know, Harry, most of the time we've taken it upon ourselves to change the course of history… things have gone terribly wrong."
Crimson bursts of flame roared through the gigantic cracks in the shell of all Creation. They spurted outwards and then dissipated into the nothingness of the oblivion from which everything had been wrought, and from which everything would one day return – unless a hero made a stand.
Made a stand and defied, defied goddamnit, annihilation.
Standing on a crumbling balcony, a rocky precipice that was slowly dissolving yet still connected to the outer shell, Ethan Rafe surveyed the near-mortal Harry Potter with a wild feeling of anxiety churning in his stomach. It had been a long time since he had felt anything so human… yet human he was again, reborn into a body after being forced from Harry's mind at long last.
"This is my destiny, Rafe… my…" Harry smiled and sighed. "Not destiny, is it?"
Ethan shook his head. He didn't think so either. "No… you're here, we're here, because we chose to be here."
"Destiny had nothing to do with it."
"Right."
"Right."
The trembling beneath his feet hitched up a notch and Ethan was almost knocked to the dusty ground. There was only a few square metres of this rocky outcrop left, here on the edge of creation, and he did not know what Harry intended to do to save the cracking shell and all it contained, which was everything.
And still, gazing in through the large gaping maw before him, more souls were joining those hovering in the inferno Harry had created to finally destroy
Voldemort, to finally rid Creation of the entity that had been known as the Enemy, as the Destroyers, as Allarius and a million million other incarnations in countless other lives... and stories. They were human souls, the last guardians of twilight, and they waited to see if the Boy Who Lived would save
Creation, or let it fall…
Would this be the end of all stories…?
After all, it was just one Creation among many. The far off glittering spheres in the 'sky' of Oblivion were testament enough to that.
How small Harry's war seemed now, when compared to the infinite size of Oblivion and the many Creations it contained. Small… yet it had been vital. His was the Creation the Creator had been annihilated in, that the Enemy had been imprisoned in to wreak untold pain and suffering upon the life
inside.
Shit, it was a sad story. Doomed before it really began. A story that couldn't have a happy ending, you would think.
Keep thinking that.
"So what to do we do, Harry?" Ethan asked, human once more. He, like so many others across so many miles and years, turned to the Boy Who
Lived for guidance. To be shown the way.
"We fight, Rafe," Harry shrugged. "We fight, and we do it in style. Things have changed – you don't have to cease to exist. You don't have to enter true Oblivion. You can jump back into Creation, if you wish."
Ethan asked, "And you?"
"I've millions of memories I don't want, old friend. And a thousand old scars. I crave peace on Oblivion."
Ethan held his gaze, and held it firmly. "You won't find peace in Oblivion, and you know it. All you'll find is nothingness…" Ethan thought about that, cast his mind back over the battles and wars. He sighed. "Yet I think, for you Harry, that's enough. For you… peace and non-existence is the same thing."
"It'll have to be… what could be greater than non-existence?"
To that, Ethan had no reply.
Their balcony was now nothing more than a small jagged jut of rock, scarcely three metres long and half a dozen metres wide. And it was still fading away. If Harry was going to do something, he'd have to do it now. Under the watchful eyes of all the humans in death and the mortal universes, of their souls now banding together at the end of creation, Harry made his final move in a very long tale.
"One last dance, Darkslayer?"
"There is no darkness left to slay, save that which I carry with me – and Oblivion will see that destroyed." Small spheres of white light began to flow between Harry's fingers as he raised his arms over his head and stepped towards the edge of the precipice that looked back into Creation, back towards the silent legions of souls.
He was cut to all hell, bleeding to death, yet pain was only in the mind, and he'd suffered wounds far worse than this. Harry knew he didn't have to survive anymore, just one more task to complete… and then nothingness. A part of him, and not a small part, was looking forward to that.
His power, the power of All Creation, flowed into his hands and encased his arms right up to his shoulders. As always it was hot, almost painfully so, yet pure and raw – anxious to be used. With Voldemort cast into Oblivion, finally gone, he no longer had to fight with half the power in existence.
He had it all.
And it was intoxicating… maddening… it blasted the shreds of his sanity into dust. Dust and ash.
That is why, with absolutely no fear whatsoever, with no turning back, Harry took a step forward, his final step, and his foot came down not on the rocky outcrop, but on an invisible step in the air – hovering just on the border between Creation and Oblivion.
Funny though, the power of All Creation did not feel as impressive as he'd thought it would…
His arms came down from around his head, stretched out now to either side. Thick and pure beams of white light shot out from his hands and, travelling faster than light – travelling as fast as thought, which over any distance is always instantaneous – they circled the entire circumference of the outer shell of creation until the ends of the beams gripped the nearest cracks, then spread upwards and outwards – searching for further cracks.
In Ethan's mind, the enormity of what Harry was about to do finally clicked over. He recalled something Harry had said earlier, just before Voldemort had returned and cut him open, forced Rafe from his mind.
How heavy do you think Creation is?
It had seemed like a joke, an insane comment… but…
From Harry's outstretched hands further ropes of light spread out and upwards, in and downwards – in all directions seeking out the crumbling edges, the cracks and fissures, in the shell of All Creation. All freakin' Creation.
Behind him, not dead yet but soon to be, Ethan Rafe smiled. "You crazy bastard," he whispered. "You amazing, crazy bastard."
A thought that wasn't his own entered Rafe's head. It was Harry.
Choose your future, Ethan Rafe. Walk past me and into death, into the afterlife – continue to exist and one day be reborn in the new
Design… or hold your ground, and accept Oblivion, nothingness.
Ethan honestly did not know what to chose – he had been a soul trapped in another's body for so long that he had long since forgotten the agony of choice. It was Harry, sometimes with his guidance, that had made all the choices for the last hundred years. Choices no one should have to make, but he'd bared the responsibility well – heroically.
"Do you know what awaits me if I go back?" he asked the Saviour and Heir to Creation, Harry….
The sword thrust through Harry's chest was sparkling with the radiance of loose gemstones scattered across a twilit sky, drops of glowing crimson blood sizzled to the dusty ground, across the border of Creation, and shone like fire rubies.
To go back you have to die… and join the army of souls watching me now.
Ethan smirked. "Damned if I do, annihilated if I don't…."
Best odds we ever had, Ethan.
The tattered remnants of Harry's clothes hung to him almost to breaking point now. His arms were stretched out as far as they could reach, and his neck was arched backwards. It looked as if he'd been nailed to a cross… crucified.
Damnation ain't so bad… once you get used to it, Harry continued, projecting his thoughts directly into Ethan's human mind. You even stop feeling guilty after awhile. Go home, Rafe, you don't want Oblivion. That's not—A-ARGGH!
Harry roared in pain and fury as Creation tried to break free of his grip and fall apart. He screamed, he fought, he defied, and pulled the cracks closer together, to seal it…
Gaps remained though, his strength did not seem to be enough.
GO…"RAFE!" Harry screamed, not just with his mind. I HAVE TO TRY AND CLOSE IT NOW. CHOOSE LIFE, OLD FRIEND, YOU CAN
MAKE SOMETHING OF IT!
And Ethan Rafe did. On the border of nothingness and chaos the boy who had died twice, but now lived again, who had held the values of both good and evil, right and wrong, in his mind and soul – chose to die a final time, and mayhap be reborn into a world of humanity. With Harry and Voldemort outside of Creation, the world would never know of the war that annihilated all life.
It would never have happened.
Those few short steps across the dusty arid rock to the fiery chasm that led into Creation were the longest Ethan Rafe had ever taken in over one hundred years. He had walked with Harry, sure, yet only in the mind. Time to die.
As he drew level with Harry Potter, Ethan placed a mortal hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently, affectionately. Harry turned his head and his eyes were completely red with blood. The emerald was faint, yet what was there seemed to glow. They were eyes belonging to the damned, to the near-broken.
"Good luck, Harry," Ethan managed… other words seemed to fail him. What was there to say?
We never imagined the impossible, not really, Ethan, we never imagined that we would survive. Yet you can.
"By choice,' Ethan nodded. The fires of creation were so hot, so close. It would kill him instantly as soon as he stepped back in. He turned his back to Creation and reached out to Harry. A spark of energy leapt off the Boy Who Lived and knocked his hand back.
Ethan swore, he was bleeding. Pain was altogether unexpected in Oblivion, yet Creation was close enough for some of its laws to affect him.
Go and tread once more familiar paths, old friend, Harry sighed. There was a weight in that sigh that struck a cord with Ethan, made him stop and pause.
Ethan shrugged, and Harry smiled. It terrified him, shook his very core… something wasn't right… something was…
"Harry," Ethan said slowly, "that's the smile you use to reassure people when deep down you know everything's really gone to shit."
Harry nodded. "Goodbye, Rafe."
An invisible force of energy pushed Ethan back, it came from Harry, and the Darkslayer's lifelong companion shattered against the flames of Creation. For a moment his physical existence held steady, eyes wide with shock and anger, and then a blue light sped out and away from the body –
Ethan's soul – and the body was blasted to nothing.
Ethan was gone.
And Harry spun, letting go of Creation to dance with the devil one last time.
Voldemort came howling out of the darkness. Well, something vaguely resembling the creature that had been Lord Voldemort came howling out of the darkness. His once snake-like face was pockmarked with burns of disintegration, his eye sockets were hollow and bleeding yellow pus down his ragged chest of peeling flesh and horrible decay.
Oblivion had begun its work on the Dark Lord, yet his defiance had ever been as determined as Harry's – and the human he had been, Tom Riddle, demanded one last parting blow…
Humans could be stubborn. Wouldn't survive if they weren't.
Voldemort flew at Harry and grasped the hilt of the blade sticking out of his chest and thrust it in deeper, twisting at his heart.
Harry held fast, his feet pushing back against the blow. It hurt, but the pain was far away, as if it was having trouble coming through. Harry had just become very good at ignoring it.
Fire flew from Voldemort's fingertips and twirled down the length of the sword, scorching Harry's chest, yet he remained unmoved, almost ethereal in his calm, as his hand slowly moved down around his back, and grasped the hilt of something he had been saving for this moment, had he but known it before…
Prophecy was about to be completed. Prophecy set down in a story a lot smaller than this one, a lot less epic yet at times a lot more meaningful.
Thank you a final time, Ethan, Harry thought, as he withdrew a dull silver dagger from the waist of his tattered pants.
A dagger that had been all but forgotten for over a century, handed to Harry by a dying Ethan on a war-torn street in Hermione's home town, back when they had both been just human, a dagger with an impressive history… stretching as far back as Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin.
In the battle that had seen Gryffindor defeat Slytherin and thus promise that one of his descendents would always be there to battle the descendants of Slytherin that took up the cause of purifying the world of those deemed unworthy… In that battle, prophecy and oaths had been forged that had not
yet been fulfilled – until now.
Harry remembered Ethan's words clearly… remembered that day all too well…
"Promise me, Harry. Promise...." Ethan raised his hand and grabbed the scruff of Harry's shirt around his neck. His breathing was coming in short desperate gasps now. He was at the end. "Take the blade... You have to... have to promise me, Harry. Promise me you'll send the Devil back to Hell. Promise me you'll defeat Voldemort...."
The dagger of Slytherin, that had cut Gryffindor's cheek in their last battle, almost killed the Guardian… Harry had long since ceased caring or marvelling at how everything always came full circle, how everything was connected…
Send the Devil back to Hell…
Ethan had spoken words of prophecy, for here they both were on the edge of Hell, of Oblivion…
The blade of the dagger began to shine with sizzling power as Harry swung it around, almost threw it, at Voldemort. It took him in his heart and it seemed the disintegration claming the Dark Lord happened all at once.
Voldemort screamed and, at long last, every atom and molecule of his existence was blasted to nothing, with no hope or prayer of returning this side of Creation.
Harry stumbled back but didn't fall. He stopped and stared for a moment at the dead air where Voldemort had hung, and looked down to the dull dagger now lying in the dust of Oblivion and shook his head.
"Done is done," he said, and turned back to Creation.
It had begun to crumble again without his power to hold it steady.
A heartbeat passed… another… although Harry's heart no longer could beat….
Prophecy was done, prophecies were completed – balance had been restored and the bounds of oath and destiny that had weighed Harry down for decades finally left his shoulders. At long last, he was free.
A few minutes ago when Harry had realised that Voldemort was not defeated just yet, that he had been trying to heal Creation with most but not all of the power that he and the Dark Lord had shared for all of their lives, and had forced Ethan back into existence, Harry knew that he could never seal the massive breaches in the shell without wielding every last drop of strength…
He had it now.
By God, did he have it now….
And it was nothing, really, when he weighed it against all that he had done and seen.
He stepped into the breach and stood half-in and half-out of Creation. The heat and flames of an entire creation ending were tremendous, yet paled against the roaring fires of power that surged through Harry's very being. He was immortal, mortal, infinite, finite – everything and nothing as all life and strength that ever was, ever could be, and ever will be burst out of him and fled across the surface of Creation.
He picked up where he had left off and began to knit Creation back together, seal the cracks and restore the damage done. Oceans of power flowed from him, rippling across the shell and smoothing out the crippling damage, yet entire oceans were only single drops from the tap of strength that now resided in the Boy Who Lived.
The greatest feat ever undertaken and no one was alive to see it, let alone urge Harry on.
Without Ethan in his mind, and with Oblivion caressing his back, Harry had never felt more alone.
It was awful, really, ending one's life alone. Harry once again felt bitter hatred towards the unfairness of existing. Is this what his entire life and existence amounted to, in the end? To die as if never having existed, to have done so much that won't matter, that can't matter?
He shrugged, having already made his choice to not exist, yet it still stung that it was the only option he had left to him. Such plans he had had when given that second chance at the Ways of Twilight, plans to unite the world against Voldemort… yet the greater evil in Creation had found him again, had been reborn as he had, and had forced him to use more and more power until….
Well, until he stood here, wrestling with the slippery pieces of egg shell, trying to puzzle out how they all fit together so Creation didn't fall apart and
Oblivion didn't seep in… a single hole, a single gap, and it would all end anyways, with the hero already annihilated and forgotten….
"Aw, hell," Harry muttered… he'd never been that good with puzzles – Hermione had been the brains behind all that back when he'd been a kid. He supposed just forcing it to fit would have to do – after all, with a big enough hammer anything could be jammed in to place.
Was it his imagination (always a fickle, overactive thing) or did the streams of blue souls appear closer?
Harry unleashed wave after monstrous wave of energy, healing the wounds he had inflicted against existence. It was enough power to do anything, be anything, create of destroy anything. He had enough strength to attack those far-off twinkling stars in Oblivion that were the outer shells of other
creations, other multitudes of universes and worlds where anything could be possible, where everything had already happened or could happen – was about to happen.
Power enough to get lost in, to forget the core values of one's self, and just simply explode with that strength.
Harry basked in the heart of a maelstrom, in all the strength and energy that ever could be. It scoured his thought, set every nerve afire with crippling pain… yet his face was set in fascinated ecstasy, in joy and rapture at the heat that flowed through his veins.
He was no longer himself – no longer even remotely human – he was just Harry, and what a monster he had become… worse than that which he had fought so long and so hard to defeat….
As Harry changed the intent of his power began to mutate, to cripple instead of heal. The flowing oceans of power spreading across Creation's surface no longer soothed but destroyed, caught the fabric of existence in an icy vice-like grip and squeezed.
Harry, just Harry, screamed in joy and pain – absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This was the outcome of living by the Sword.
This was the price of unbreakable Defiance.
This was the end of a broken Soul.
This was victory without redemption!
Of power gone mad… Harry thought – only he wasn't Harry, he was God, the Creator – he was He, He was All, and had never been human.
But then no… Creators created, they nurtured and guided – what he was doing was destroying, annihilating.
He was the Annihilator, the Destroyer – and where was the hero to challenge him, the brave human destined to make a stand?
Well, he was right there, of course. Harry was that, too.
*~*~*~*
Tumbling through an ocean of icy power, soaring across a night-sky lit with the fires of unmatched strength… a very human mind belonging to one
Harry James Potter fought against the goliath energy trying so damned hard to scour his living memory from existence…
Light and dark. Shadow and Flame. Good and Evil….
Saviour – conqueror – hero – villain. You are all of these things… and yet you are nothing. In the end, you belong to neither the light nor the darkness…
YOU WILL FOREVER STAND ALONE!
"In twilight," Harry said, washed up on a beach with sparkling waters and a bulging purple sky.
Naked as the day he was born, Harry calmly accepted the pull of the tide as it rolled him slowly yet inexorably up the beach which seemed to stretch on forever.
There was no meaning in this, no meaning in his life anymore…
An image of himself holding the entirety of Creation together, grappling with total power with a supreme look of pain and pleasure on his face flittered through his mind, but quickly faded to dim remembrance of something that may or may not have been important at some point…
Hours passed into days into weeks into months into long years and nothing changed… Harry lay washed up on the never-ending shores of hell itself and only moved at the mercy of the tide. The sky remained painfully purple, like swollen bruises, the ocean continued to sparkle like scattered diamonds…
Yet so what?
He didn't sleep, didn't eat, scarcely thought of anything… he was dead and as good as even if this had been some form of life and not a moment stretched into an eternity inside his own mind.
Well, what else did you expect?
The very fact that hell would need to exist for Harry to be there is a numb, useless point – we all have a universe of our own terrors to face anyway, and all of them begin and end in the mind.
Harry's were just a lot more vivid – and time had no meaning to an immortal mortal – time was never constant anyway, it looped in circles so thin and thick that beginning and ends were impossible to see…
"So, here you are…" a voice said one day - a day no different from any other for Harry, yet days didn't pass, only unmeasured time…
It was a voice full of contempt, anger and greed – a selfish voice, a mean voice… a familiar voice.
"Been looking everywhere for you," Harry Potter said, leaning down in the tide over Harry.
The Harry wasting in the tide blinked for the first time in years and looked up at himself – at a face not wasted in the sun, at a face strong and arrogant.
Harry looked up at himself as he had been on so many worlds – unbreakable.
"You know, Harry," Harry said. "I can't destroy everything whilst even a spark of my wretched humanity remains alive…" He paused, looking down at himself. "However weak and dull that spark is…"
Harry's mouth worked soundlessly trying to reply, but his muscles had long since failed him. He managed a few tired gurgles, even raised his hand a
few inches weakly, before he gave up.
"You're thinking why would I – why should you – want everything destroyed? The answer is quite simple…."
Dark Harry waved his hand and lightning tore apart the unchanged purple sky – fiery rocks of destruction rained down into the sea, sending it into turmoil. Hell more in name now…
"I fought so hard," Harry said. "For so long, and no one cared… no one that mattered – there was no one that mattered. We were it, Harry, in the end. With no Creator, with Evil itself defeated… We became the highest Authority there was. Who was there to report to? Who was there to tell us well done – you did good, kid – and pat us on the back? You know what we did, Harry, when we fought Evil and won…."
Dark Harry threw his fist into the watery sand beside them both, sending power down to the planet's core, breaking the world….
What did we do? Harry wondered – naked Harry, guilt-ridden and meaningless Harry – thought. Human Harry.
"We stopped something that was dead from being buried." Dark Harry laughed. "You see, don't you? Without a divine presence, without a God… our Creation was doomed from the start – it was dead, and we stopped Evil from finishing the job of laying it to rest. We prolonged the agony….
That's all we've ever been good for."
No… Human Harry (Light Harry) thought.
"Yes. Come now, you can lie to yourself all you want, but in the end the truth will out…."
No....
"Well, no matter," Dark Harry said with a small shrug. He was trying to sound blasé, yet Light Harry could tell he had been unnerved by nothing more than the look in his pale eyes. A look that defied the meaningless that had clung to him for so long…. "Sit tight and let me slit your throat, good buddy, that'll end this pesky existence thing once and for all."
Dark Harry raised his hand and a silver sword appeared as if by magic. The Sword of the Hero, of course. Light Harry looked at it as one would anything designed to end one's life – with mistrust. Though not with fear, never that – he would not be afraid of himself, not any more…
The sword came down with the handled ease of a master swordsman. Harry slit his own throat, cut his own bloody head off – only the cut was so deep that it didn't ever bleed.
Killing one's humanity is never a messy affair – it is a cold thing, a terribly thing yes, but only cold.
Harry killed all he had ever been, because it had become weak and held him back. His power, the true power, could travel the darkness of Oblivion, absorbing all other Creations and growing ever stronger, so long as he was not tied to anything as weak as mortality.
Dark Harry laughed as he died, as his head was taken away by the pull of the tide and this mind-world buckled and tore itself apart.
"Now that wasn't at all nice," a voice said from somewhere behind Dark Harry.
Dark Harry spun but there was no one there. Only….
"You're neither light nor dark, Harry – you can't kill something that has never existed."
Again, Dark Harry spun – and this time came face to face with… himself.
Neither light nor dark.
No, this was Harry in his prime, dressed to kill in leather pants and tight-fitting black shirt pulled over corded muscle. He wore a coat of black material that shimmered in the light, made his amazing emerald eyes shine brighter than the sun. Twin swords crisscrossed the sheathes tied around his waist like a pair of old revolvers.
Dark Harry's eyes bulged and he stumbled back, aware all at once that this couldn't be real and of the massive waves of strength – not power – but normal human strength rolling off of this other Harry in droves.
"In most of us humans, Harry," Harry said, "there are no clear lines of good and evil. Light and Dark. There is just perspective and opinion, and even that is almost always biased… yet there are a few individuals, the heroes you might say, who are clearly defined, but not as light or dark…."
"Twilight…." Dark Harry whispered, groaned. "You're Twilight Harry."
"That's all I've ever been," Harry said. "You don't exist, my friend, not on your own… you are a part of a whole. And I'm that whole."
Dark Harry screamed, screeched, and threw himself at Twilight Harry with his teeth bared. Twilight Harry opened his arms and welcomed him as an old friend, a close brother. They merged as one, darkness into light – to twilight, and the world erupted in fountains of horrendous chaos.
White roses burst up from the ground underneath Harry's feet, and the battle was won, for good or ill, once again. He smiled, reality flickered, and he came back to himself and to the real world…
"Harry Potter," Twilight Harry said. "You better get your act together, mate, because there's no coming back from this one."
Reality ended.
*~*~*~*
Harry felt as if years had just gone by in the seconds it had taken him to become lost in the power, only to find himself again at the heart of the vortex, in the centre of the whirlwind….
He stood on the threshold of Oblivion, and all around him were the souls of those he had lost, those he had killed, and those he had tried so hard to
save – all one and the same, in the end, for everyone he ever knew or ever could know had died in his inferno to rid Creation of Voldemort, and himself.
Harry was himself again – for a moment there he hadn't been, he was sure, and his mind had played tricks on him. But he was himself, just Harry Potter.
Twilight Harry
Creation, the outer shell of everything that existed, had pulled his arms tight to either side with the strain of matching his strength against the chaos he had unleashed. Harry felt his arms tearing from their sockets. Yet they held still, just as the shell did – without Harry, the destruction would have caused the annihilation of everything as soon as it had reached the tip of the shell.
As it stood, Harry was the cause of, and the only thing preventing, the entire destruction of existence. Quite a lot to be getting along with, you might think… especially on your own.
God I miss the good old days of Death Eaters and vampires, house points and time turners… those were the true adventures. This is just insanity, of power gone mad…
Here, in this story, life was a terrible thing to have. It came with pain, and only pain. Pain was how Harry knew he was still alive, in some form or another.
He couldn't technically be called human – yet he was, in more ways than one…
He was the last human alive in all of Existence, and he stood on the border of non-existence.
Now that they were close enough Harry could make out the faces on the nearby souls, blazing a brilliant cerulean blue in the fires of the end of the worlds.
Of course it had to be the souls of those he knew, those he cared about… of the trillions upon hundreds of trillions of souls to reach this place, this battleground for all Creation, it had to be his old friends – the people he had started his adventures with so long ago were here at the end.
Full circle.
As always.
"Ron," Harry whispered, as the disembodied and pale ghost of Ronald Weasley floated past his face.
Ron's face was calm, filled with understanding. A slight smile and a glint of mischief sparkled in his deep soul-lit eyes. "This seat taken, mate?" he asked Harry gently.
"I'm sorry I killed you, Ron."
Hermione was next, followed by Luna and Neville, Dumbledore and the rest of the Weasleys, all the members of the Order of the Phoenix, Remus,
and his Hogwarts professors…
Harry apologised to them all, and they all said what they could, what they saw fit…
Ginny wasn't there… not yet.
Sirius Black followed Remus to speak to Harry, and alongside him were two people Harry had never really met, no matter how many worlds and universes he had been to, how many versions of these people he had befriended.
Never before had he met his parents.
James and Lily Potter.
The real James and Lily Potter, that had belonged to his true world.
"Can't let you out on your own for five minutes, can we?" Sirius said softly. "Not only do you go and unmake every world that ever was, but you break the realms of death, too, with your little stunt here."
"Nothing is impossible, Sirius," Harry said. It seemed like the right thing to say, although the why of it escaped Harry just then.
"Sweetheart," Lily Potter said, "this is madness."
"Madness is who I am, what I am…." Harry whispered. "Were you expecting something more?"
"We've watched you suffer, Harry," James Potter said, all of them now bordering the edge of Creation. "We've watched you fight and die so many times, only to rise again undefeated – defiant even beyond your last breath. You've come so far, fought for so much, and now you plan to destroy yourself… your very soul and essence."
Harry nodded. No sense or reason in denying it. "Creation is better off without me, without Voldemort. It'll live that way."
"Without Voldemort, perhaps, yes," Sirius said. "Without you… nothing can survive long without a beating heart, Harry. Remember the Ways of
Twilight… they were dying, an only you could find them…"
What are you saying, Harry wondered. Although he knew, he knew too well.
"I can't live another day," he said with such strain that the entirety of existence shook.
All fell silent, the furious explosions in the inferno seemed to fade to nothing… and sound was nothing, for what was there to say? A single voice broke the quiet, a single thought and defiant whisper…
"I love you, Harry James Potter, with all my heart. You need me and I need you."
Oh and here was the hardest moment of it all, the last strain to Harry's current existence. Ginny Weasley, lithe and beautiful, even as a pale ghost, hovering now before them all, her eyes soft yet commanding, her soul light burning as fiercely as he fiery hair once had.
Harry found himself missing her hair, missing the strength of will he had when he had fought to love her, fought across worlds to love her, because she was special, somehow…. She was the one. In a human life, a human existence, she was his….
He missed the smell of wildflowers in her hair.
But now… oh, Harry…. But now….
"Leave me, Ginny Weasley," he said, colder than ice. "I've never needed anyone, ever. I've fought my wars alone. What makes you think you can help me? That, after all this, I need you?"
"You do need me," Ginny whispered fiercely. "You do. Because you need someone to stop you. Looks at what happens when no one is there!"
This struck Harry. Harder than any blow the Dark Lord had delivered in his time. No point in denying it, she was right. "I love you, you know. What I feel for you has never been bad, never been angry or violent or hateful. It could only be love, and it's more powerful than I am."
"Then let us have a happy ending. Fix it, Harry, and come find me again…"
"Are you saving me, Ginny?"
"You're hopeless on your own."
Harry sighed, yet his defiance did not waver (as always) and Creation held another moment. Because he wanted it to. He was the Darkslayer, the beating heart of Creation and the Design of existence itself. Was he really considering going back to the madness? Yes, he decided, he was. Oh God save him now, her perfect eyes were going to change everything… all of their eyes, the entire army of souls… they wanted him back.
"I can't promise this will ever be over," he said roughly. "That some monster or demon won't appear and destroy what we build together. I can't promise you a safe life with me in it."
Ginny didn't hesitate. "Being loved by you makes me feel safe."
Few words. Awesome meaning. Enough to turn the course of history…
And just like that, life returned to Harry James Potter. A will to continue, a rejuvenation of his strength and defiance. He had no idea what the future now held for him, but he wanted to see… maybe an early death, where the death was final and the peace eternal. That sounded nice, but not what he
really wanted. What he really wanted was a chance at simple happiness with a girl he had fallen in love with a very long time ago…
"After this, Ginny," Harry whispered, his muscles straining now to keep existence together. "After this things may be different… I may not be able to bring you back if you die, if I die… the rules will bind me again, because that's the only way I can continue to exist… and I'll have enemies."
"It doesn't matter, so long as you're there."
Harry smiled, slow and steady… "I want you to know, that no matter what I would walk into Hell itself to keep you safe."
"You've already done that, time and time again…"
"And I always will, but shush now… I'm trying to deflect attention away from my obvious heroism." He sounded human again, and that was good.
Ginny grinned. "Go save the world then, Harry. Will I see you soon?"
"When Time exists again, you'll only be waiting heartbeats. Stay safe, Gin."
"You too, hero."
Power exploded, worlds erupted…. LIGHT blinded everything.
And Harry Potter once again made the choice between what was right, and what was easy.
He sealed Creation – fixed the cracks in the shell.
It was done.
Only… he had made the choice that was easy.
*~*~*~*
A wretched and miserable Harry sat down on the cusp of Creation, on the remaining rocky outcrop that clung to the vast, dark shell of all things… he had sealed the breach, with himself still on the outside.
The sword through his chest was corroded, glittering only slightly now as his power faded and the darkness of absolute nothingness faded in around him.
Worlds, universes… all crumbling, all lost and running…
"I'm tired," he said, and his words died on the air, travelling nowhere and meaning nothing.
His hands stroked the ash and dust beneath him, the only things to exist in this place now beside himself, and neither of them for much longer.
Harry sighed.
He supposed it had been the final straw of his humanity, lying to those he cared about – promising Ginny he'd return when really planning to annihilate himself.
Sad, really, damning and unredeemable.
His only comfort was that as soon as he no longer existed she would never know of him, or his broken promises.
Harry felt a pang of regret at that.
For in the end, as he dangled over Oblivion, Harry realised a quite terrible thing.
If—no! When he did this, gave himself up to the darkness, his life would have amounted to nothing.
This entire story would've been pointless.
"I am… was… Harry James Potter," he said. The sword wound in his chest, and the mangled flesh around it, stung a little as he said that. As if Voldemort were still twisting the blade.
"I was the Boy Who Lived, I was the Darkslayer and the Heir to Creation." He smiled softly. "But all that's done with…."
The ledge he sat upon had almost wasted away to nothing. Harry looked back over his shoulder and place a hand on the outer shell of Creation. The substance it was made of… whatever it was… gave way beneath his hand, and at the same time was as hard as stone.
Harry pushed at it, waved his hand through smoke and pounded against a rock hard, completely unbreakable wall.
Opposites… everything had an opposite. Creation itself was an opposite of Oblivion.
"No more," Harry whispered. "Goodbye, Gin…."
Harry fell – and was no more in Oblivion.
….THE…. ….END….
*~*~*~*
If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream,
and have a
flower presented to him as a pledge
that his soul had really been
there, and if he found
that flower in his hand when he awoke—
Aye, what then?
~~Coleridge
"Wake up, Harry. Oblivion or not you're not going down the path I set for you, the path we all need you to follow, and that can't be allowed. People need hope, after all, hope in a happy ending."
Harry's eyes opened slowly, and he found himself in the oddest of places – someplace… normal. Someplace very muggle.
He was seated in a chair next to a bookcase – a fold out chair with white arms and blue felt stretched tight across the frame. Cheap, tacky – on sale at Kmart. The bookcase was packed with books, in no particular order – more books lay scattered about the room, stacked in tilting piles and hiding under discarded clothes – blocking the windows, even.
There was an open wardrobe full of clothes hanging on wire hangers – more books, more stories, spilled out of the bottom of the closet.
Oddest of all though….
"Who are you?" Harry asked.
There was a young man seated in another chair nearby. A much more comfortable chair from the looks of things. It was a leather office chair, and the man swung slowly back and forth on the pivot, his hands gripping the wooden desk in front of him.
On that desk was a laptop computer – even more books – and all manner of stationery. Dozens of little yellow stickers with illegible notes jotted down on them clung to the desk in various places, even on the screen of the computer… Harry shook his head – this was non-existence?
"I know what you're thinking," the young man said. He was dressed in a simple pair of blue jeans and a white cotton singlet. Scruffy brown hair and light blue eyes, the man had a few days growth of stubble on his cheeks. "You're thinking how can this be? How is this non-existence? You're also thinking I look a little thin and lanky."
"You know me?" Harry said carefully. He himself was dressed in Hogwarts school robes – something he had not worn for God knew how long. There was no sword sticking through his chest, no wound or pain or anything. He felt good, actually, healthy and uninjured.
"I know you quite well, Harry," the young man – not much more than a kid, really, just out of his teens. "Well, I should know you, I wrote you. I'm the writer, you see." He paused – almost expectantly. "You do see, you just don't want to. No, don't worry about it, mate. I'm in your head or your in mine and this world is the real world. Ha, funny that…."
Harry watched him shake his head and turn back to the computer. A slight frown appeared on his brow as he (the writer) tapped the delete key on the keyboard a few times, undoing something not wanted.
"Writing is almost always hit and miss, Harry," the writer said. "Half the time it seems like your struggling, the other half that writing anything is a waste of time…" He paused again, and frowned absently. "Then there's the moments, some of which I've had with you, that the words seem to write themselves – where worlds and characters come alive on the page, roses bloom, you might say, and you can hear the howling of the wind and smell the magic on the air." Quite excited, the writer was on the edge of his seat. "Unfortunately, getting swept away in the words like that does not always happen – rarely happens at all, actually, but it's worth every hour struggling through countless pages of words."
"How did you bring me here?" Harry asked.
"Hmm...?" the writer looked up. "Oh, yes, well… I took a liberty there that readers may vilify me for, but then you," he waved his finger at Harry accusingly, "went and got caught up in Oblivion and left me no choice. What kind of ending is it if the hero just no longer exists and none of the story ever happens? It's not an ending at all, really, I might as well have not bothered writing in the first place."
"You… wrote me?" Harry clenched his fists slowly, and his eyes began to sparkle… dangerously.
A flush of red rose in the writer's cheeks. "Well, not even…" He shrugged. "I borrowed you, after your fifth year. What I wrote about you is called fanfiction, yet it became something more… And I'm not the Creator, by the way, not really – just the pen, mate, that's all I am. Just your average Joe, you know. You can call me Joe, by the way – short and sweet and rolls easy of the tongue…" The writer sighed, he looked at Harry and his shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry, I'm using too many words. To be honest your story's half a million words longer than I planned already."
Harry for the first time noticed a tattoo on the writer's, on Joe's, left forearm – where a Dark Mark would usually rest… It was of a sword, and a thorny white rose curled up around the blade and bloomed aside the hilt.
Harry understood all too well where he was, what was happening. Sunlight, real sunlight, streamed in through the cracks in the blinds. Outside was a world, a world this boy lived in, worked in… where he was just a story, a fiction – and probably more often a fanfiction.
This was the world beyond the world, beyond all of Creation. Harry threw himself up with a growl and knocked his chair back – all that was his, all that he had known, was in the head of this writer. He knew it was true, as true as the scar on his forehead, as true as the life he had led and the wars he had fought.
"You bastard," Harry spat, and reached for his power. Only there was nothing there, nothing at all… he was… he was human, muggle. Normal. Powerless yet alive, here in this world. "You take from me all that I am," he said, looking down at the writer who hadn't moved an inch. "You destroy all that I love with a few words – you press buttons on your machine and entire universes crumble!"
"That's one of the reasons you're here," Joe said, quite calmly. "I wanted to apologise, for letting all of this get out of hand… for putting you through so much that you chose non-existence over a happy ending with Ginny. That's what I planned, you know, way back when… but Oblivion was your choice, all yours." He chuckled, it was sad, in a way. "Always defiant, even against the very words of your story."
Harry surged through a range of violent emotions – most of which saw him tearing the writer's throat out with his bare hands. But no…
"Why else am I here?"
Joe blinked. "So you can go back, of course, and we can have a happy ending. I just wanted to talk with you first, tell you what you must do. You broke away from me and took your own path a long time ago, Harry, but my ending is still possible… if you want it bad enough."
"I don't—" Harry shook his head and raised a hand to his scar. It was burning fiercely.
"Ah, yes," Joe whispered. "We don't have long. This breaks all the rules of good storytelling as it is. But you can't exist here, not as a real person."
"I'm nothing…." Harry croaked. "My entire creation was never anything."
"NO!" Joe cried, and it was the first outburst of anger Harry had seen from the suntanned and brown haired writer. "You are so wrong, Harry Potter. Don't you know who you are by now?"
"I…" Harry's world spun, his head ached viciously. "Harry Potter!"
"That's right," Joe said kindly. "That's who you are. Whether you exist or not, whether in one Creation you're the Boy Who Lived, in another the Darkslayer – whether, as in my world, you are only alive in stories, you are Harry Potter. And just hearing your name can change the course of history. There are very few places left in my world where your stories can't be found – the true stories, written by a woman who lives far from here…." Joe frowned, shook his head. "No matter how you exist you always, always matter. You change worlds for the better."
Words tumbled through Harry's head, words of a story much like his that went a lot differently after the death of Sirius in his fifth year. He saw a crumpled old book with a scribbled message, something about a Half-blood Prince. He saw Snape shoot a killing curse at Dumbledore, saw the old man fall over the parapets of the castle… Stories and images flickered through his head – and it hurt, it always hurt.
"Your story has not yet ended on my world, but it will soon – so must the Hero Trilogy. For what its worth, I couldn't write worth a damn when I first put pen to page, or fingers to keyboard. Your story, the parts I didn't borrow, was my first creation." Joe laughed. "But even now I wonder if someone is writing my world, some author somewhere a creation above this one, writing this world into existence."
"It… it is the essence of life that it exists for its own sake," Harry whispered.
Joe tilted his head and moved back a pace in his chair. He looked unnerved. "I never thought or wrote those words, Harry – you see, that was all you. Oh, brilliant – fantastic! You have a life of your own, I think I may have given you that much, at least."
"You gave me nightmares and hopless years in hell."
"Yes, I did. As you said, I'm a bastard. But I had big plans for you, still do, if you accept them. There was always hope. You know that."
"Why bother anymore?" Harry asked.
"Come now," Joe said gently. "This downward spiral of misery gets even me down – imagine what the readers would think. Those are who we work for, you and I, Harry."
"None of this is true," Harry replied firmly, cutting his hand down through the air.
Joe shook his head. "People think that because a novel's invented it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they cannot include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that!"
Harry stumbled into the bookcase, his vision blurred and failing. His head felt as if an axe had split it in two. "Can't you do something about this?" he asked. "I'm dying, aren't I? I know what that feels like…."
"This isn't dying, Harry," Joe said. "This is your conscience fighting non-existence. You chose Oblivion without your heart. Sometimes… we humans… we make choices with our brains when we should be using our hearts. You did that, and I-am-undoing-it. Trust me, Harry, and give meaning to your life. P-please…."
"…No…."
"I can write the words back in, you know, and that will be it. The End," Joe spat. "You falling into Oblivion and none of this ever happening. Christ, Harry, is that what you really, really want? I've given you your heart, it beats without a bloody sword through it, so choose."
Harry snarled, and lashed out at the stacks of books on the bookshelf, knocking several dozen aside. One of them was titled Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
"What is your ending, writer?" he asked bitterly. "What do you plan for me?"
Joe pounded his fist into the desk, more than once he had been frustrated by Harry's stubborn defiance, his unrivalled anger and heated tone. "Flaming bloody happiness!" he shouted. "You'll never have a normal life, that is beyond Harry Potter, but you will have happiness if I have to jam it down your throat!"
Harry began to laugh – insanely, wildly. It was quite a thing to see in real life, Joe thought, someone laughing without regard for who was watching, laughing without any bands of sanity whatsoever clinging to their mind.
"I'm Twilight Harry, aren't I?" Harry asked, tears rolling down his cheeks. "I'm quite a character – done a lot of things, haven't I?"
"Yes, you have, but in the end this choice I'm giving you is yours to make, Twilight Harry. I can only give you the second chance…."
"Why me, writer? Why Harry Potter?"
Joe shrugged. "You are Harry Potter." What more was there to say? "And I feel as if I owe you this much, at least…."
Harry sniffed, and wiped away the tears from his eyes – tears of insanity, of uncontrollable laughter. "Send me back then, give me your chance. I'll make of it what I will…."
"Can I trust you to make the right choice?"
Harry stood, and for the last moment his vision cleared, the pain fled. The world began to fade.
"I feel as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life has been but a preparation for this hour, and this trial."
"Well said," Joe inclined his head.
"Well written," Harry replied. "Not my words, and I don't think yours…."
Joe chuckled, and that blush was back in his cheeks. "You caught me – stole that line from Churchill."
Harry nodded. "Will I remember this?"
Joe stood up and took a step closer to Harry, closing the distance. He offered his hand to his tired character, to the hero of his stories…. "I don't know," he said honestly. "For a time, maybe, enough to make the right choice…. But I don't know what will happen. As it was before, and will be again, all bets are off. Just believe in free will, Harry."
Harry only hesitated for a moment, before shaking Joe's hand. "You're a bastard," he said a final time. "But you play fair."
"There's no challenge in the story otherwise… Go on now, Harry – tread once more familiar paths… your words, not mine."
My words, Harry thought. My words, my life… my story!
And that is the end of that.
All hope faded to black, and worlds of reality and make-belief no longer merged.
*~*~*~*
"Leave me, Ginny Weasley," he said, colder than ice. "I've never needed anyone, ever. I've fought my wars alone. What makes you think you can help me? That, after all this, I need you?"
"You do need me," Ginny whispered fiercely. "You do. Because you need someone to stop you. Looks at what happens when no one is there!"
This struck Harry. Harder than any blow the Dark Lord had delivered in his time. No point in denying it, she was right. "I love you, you
know. What I feel for you has never been bad, never been angry or violent or hateful. It could only be love, and it's more powerful than I am."
"Then let us have a happy ending. Fix it, Harry, and come find me again…"
"Are you saving me, Ginny?"
"You're hopeless on your own."
Harry sighed, yet his defiance did not waver (as always) and Creation held another moment. Because he wanted it to. He was the
Darkslayer, the beating heart of Creation and the Design of existence itself. Was he really considering going back to the madness? Yes, he decided, he was. Oh God save him now, her perfect eyes were going to change everything… all of their eyes, the entire army of souls… they wanted him back.
"I can't promise this will ever be over," he said roughly. "That some monster or demon won't appear and destroy what we build together. I can't promise you a safe life with me in it."
Ginny didn't hesitate. "Being loved by you makes me feel safe."
Few words. Awesome meaning. Enough to turn the course of history…
And just like that, life returned to Harry James Potter. A will to continue, a rejuvenation of his strength and defiance. He had no idea what the future now held for him, but he wanted to see… maybe an early death, where the death was final and the peace eternal. That sounded nice, but not what he really wanted. What he really wanted was a chance at simple happiness with a girl he had fallen in love with a very long time ago…
"After this, Ginny," Harry whispered, his muscles straining now to keep existence together. "After this things may be different… I may not be able to bring you back if you die, if I die… the rules will bind me again, because that's the only way I can continue to exist… and I'll have enemies."
"It doesn't matter, so long as you're there."
Harry smiled, slow and steady… "I want you to know, that no matter what I would walk into Hell itself to keep you safe."
"You've already done that, time and time again…"
"And I always will, but shush now… I'm trying to deflect attention away from my obvious heroism." He sounded human again, and that was good.
Ginny grinned. "Go save the world then, Harry. Will I see you soon?"
"When Time exists again, you'll only be waiting heartbeats. Stay safe, Gin."
"You too, hero."
Power exploded, worlds erupted…. LIGHT blinded everything.
And Harry Potter once again made the choice between what was right, and what was easy.
*~*~*~*
????
In the beginning of the Return of Twilight, every being in every universe in all of creation felt something good and pure, something that had been missing for aeons, slip back into place. Something decent, undeniably right, returned. Call it Twilight, call it Hope, call it God. Whatever it was, someone had set to right the greatest mistake ever, and all would be well. The End had been averted, cataclysm avoided, non-existence negated.
For the little girl wandering through the valley on a planet that was lost in some far away corner of an anonymous universe in the long, never-ending strands of existence, the feeling of contentment with the world, the scent of good on the air, the sound of light in her ears, had come not so long ago – mere days.
She was only young at eleven, and before the feeling of return (like most beings in creation) had not really known that something had been terribly wrong with existence, having been born and lived her entire life in that wrongness. Now she knew, and was wholly glad it was well. This was no conscious feeling, just something that felt warm in the heart.
A hero had set all to right, she found herself thinking in a daydream, a basket for berries tucked under her arm. All would be well.
Marie found him on the bank of the river just before sunset, in the twilight, down where the best blueberries were this time of year. They grew entwined with the thorny white rose bushes, and were always the juiciest berries in the valley come spring.
At first she thought he was a ghoul from deep in the earth, that had swam up from the ocean several hundred miles to the east and died in the sunlight, for her father had told her of such pitiful creatures, but once her curiosity overcame her fear she drew closer to the bloody and messy thing on the riverbank, and saw in fact that it was a man… a boy. Clothed in rags and mud and dirt, blood, yet human.
Surely he was dead, and Marie was sickly curious, having only ever seen a dead man hanging from the gallows in town, and only once then from across the square. His green eyes (like emeralds, she thought) gazed lifelessly at the pebbled shore. They did not blink, nor did the boy's chest rise and fall to indicate he was drawing breath.
Having moved closer, Marie would have been more alarmed if she had in fact seen his eyes blink or if he had taken a breath. Running clean through his chest, through his heart, was a sparkling silver sword that glittered in the twilight. Gems encrusted the hilt, and streaks of blood marred the otherwise ethereal finish of the weapon.
She'd have to run and tell father, for this boy had been murdered….
Don't, a voice whispered in her mind. Remove the sword.
"What…?" she barely whispered.
Remove the sword.
The voice was sweet, soft, and yet left no room for defiance. The words seemed to shake. It was joined by another, and another…
Sword… remove… the sword… the sword… remove—
Remove the sword… save the Darkslayer… sword… salvation—
Last chance… for redemption…salvation… remove… sword…
Marie gasped and dropped her basket of berries as the full blossoms on the white rose bushes seemed to sway in the wind (yet there was no wind) and bend towards the broken figure. The flowers seemed to be trying to uproot themselves in order to reach the dead boy.
The voices in her head grew louder, more demanding – REMOVE THE SWORD – no longer sweet but urgent, almost fearful.
Marie realised tears were coursing down her cheeks, but they were pure. She herself was terrified, but sure. This all felt right, everything felt as it should, so she took a step nearer to the body on the bank, and then another. All was well, this was supposed to be. Forces beyond her control were telling her that this was all right. No forces she could hear… beyond the voices that she knew were the roses… but their message was clear nonetheless.
This was right.
Still, her nerve almost failed her.
She leaned over the boy, looked down at his messy and matted dark hair, at those lifeless eyes in his lolling head. She saw a deep gash on his forehead, a ragged cut in the shape of a crude lightning bolt.
He must live! she (the roses) thought.
Her hand closed over the hilt of the sword, and it was cold – freezing – she winced at the touch, and dreaded what she had to do next. Already, with
just her small fingers around the handle of the blade, she could feel the awful resistance of the weapon embedded inside of the boy. It was in him.
She'd need both hands and all her strength to pull it out.
This is him, she thought, and pulled the sword up. White-hot light ran like blood from the wound. He set all to right. A glimpse of the history of this sword ran through her mind, all the years and all the wars, the evil it had destroyed – the Evil – and this knowing almost destroyed her mind. But humans are strong, resilient, and Marie was young yet.
For a few brief minutes, this small girl (on an unknown world we shall only visit once more) had become part of the forces that surrounded and defied the threat of non-existence.
She pulled the sword out of the boy, it was almost as tall as she was – but light – and let it fall to the ground crusted in dry blood, glad to be rid of its tainted touch, its inconceivable history.
A good strong breeze pulled dozens of petals from the myriad of white roses and they swirled around Marie and the boy (singing! A thousand, thousand voices of the dead and of the lost). She was suddenly afraid, for she knew the boy would live. He would awaken here, with her, and then what would she do?
Life returned to his eyes and the spinning vortex of petals began to slow and fall to the earth. The light running from the wound through his heart stopped, having healed the damage. She heard his first shaky, rattling breath and felt her legs give way beneath her. The ground was warm, and although gripped by vicious fear, Marie felt safe this close to the boy.
His eyes were alive but unfocused, his head turned now towards the falling petals and the azure twilight beyond that. Marie was sure he didn't see her.
Almost below hearing, he was saying something, whispering under his breath. She leaned in closer.
"…not over…" he said. "Not over yet… could all fail again… Ways of Twi…"
Harry Potter gasped as life fully returned, and as always it was pain. He screamed and his entire body convulsed, his back arching and his feet kicking up a spray of cool river water.
He had died, and it had been final. Christ, he remembered all that had happened in the Last Battle for Creation.
Ethan?
Not a whisper…
ETHAN!?
He was alone.
It had all ended, everything, but it wasn't over. Not for him. In the end, he had to go on alone…
God, it had been so long – over a century of battle – and yet it now seemed like the blink of an eye.
The End.
What needed to be done?
By the sheer force of his will he had held Creation together against the encroaching Oblivion. It had cost him his life. Yet he now lived again, for what purpose?
Redemption… salvation…
Because he was The Boy Who Lived.
He recalled what had happened to Ethan – he had killed him after they separated, thrust him back into Creation.
And then he recalled the writer, and choosing the right choice to exist.
Well, where was the happy ending he had been promised?
This ending was painful.
Not the ending then is it, he told himself. Must be close though…
Harry sat up. There were great things afoot, and as always he was at the heart of the madness. He began to chuckle, and then to truly laugh.
The smell of wildflowers, of wild white roses, filled the world and tears fell from his emerald eyes.
Ways of Twilight here I come, he thought.
Not quite The End
*~*~*~*