Harry Potter and the Soul of the Hero
Chapter 34 – Everything Old Is New Again
None of us can predict the final outcomes of our actions, and few
of us even try; most of us just do what we do to prolong a moment's
pleasure or to stop the pain.
And even when we act for the
noblest reasons, the last link of the chain
all too often drips
with someone's blood.
~~Stephen King
How sad it has to be… at the end of fantasy, as we awake from a world of imagination and step back into a life that will hold nothing more than a mere memory of a world that lived and breathed and that, at times, swept us along on the winds of creative destiny.
At least, I hope it did.
Was it as good for you as it was for me, baby?
None of us can really choose how our stories will end – at least most of the time – and more often than not we accept that. We often don't see that there's a choice. We accept that all stories must have ending (sad, lonely…) just as we accept that there had to be a beginning (again… sad and lonely). It is the way of the universe, and from that very law a simple and quite obvious fact can be drawn:
The beginning and the end… the end and the beginning… are only the ghosts of our lives that exist at either end of the heart of our stories. That heart, the middle of a book, is all that matters. Journeys are made through time and space, across entire universes and beyond heaven and hell, all at the turn of a page.
The one who tells the stories rules the world.
A world.
A world locked in finite imagination that has the power to burst through infinite fantasy and shatter the boundaries that separate the realms of reality from the realms of dream and nightmare. What is reality anyway, but a thin fragile barrier between the world that we all know, and the world that we all suspect…?
Perhaps a paradise of dream and nightmare…
More likely a wasteland of human emotion.
*~*~*~*
We pave the path of the future with the corpses of the past. No single moment is further away than one minute ago, and only the guilty understand what it means to control the arch of absolute power.
Only the guilty understand the cost.
And the cost is awash with the crimson remains of the innocent. It is the way of the universe, that the innocent pay the ultimate price for the ambition of the guilty and the powerful.
Harry Potter knew the cost of this game; he knew the laws that govern the awe-inspiring wheel of creation. Yet now he had stepped beyond all laws, beyond all reason and into the chaotic realm of truth.
He had stepped through the door of Destiny, to the end of a long road upon which nightmare had struggled so hard to remain pure… and failed.
…Here there be monsters…
Dreams are far more guilty than nightmare—
(GET ON WITH THE TALE, WRITER!)
….
…….
………..
*~*~*~*
You need to know one thing – just one – none of this was ever real.
You're dreaming, Harry.
Right now you're lying in a hospital bed with one hell of a bump on your head. You've been in a coma for the last two years, and whilst you've been sleeping Voldemort has been slowly but steadily spreading his influence across the United Kingdom.
What's the last thing you remember? Standing above an ocean of seething purple flame, above the rebirth of twilit-evil? And knowing that you, only you, could save Creation from the nightmare of horrors breeding in that afflicted sea…
How arrogant your subconscious is, yet how extraordinary.
But you must know that it can't be REAL!
(How do you shoot the Devil in the back?
What if you miss?)
The coma has crippled you, Potter, your muscles have weakened and should you wake you won't be able to walk. Magic can only do so much, and just like your muscles your power has dwindled to a mere shadow of itself.
No strength enough to shatter universes, no raw power to unmake Time and Space – just a spark that may allow you to transfigure a rat into a teacup and that's about it… Humbling, isn't it?
Or maybe things aren't even that good. Maybe that fat bastard Vernon Dursley finally beat you hard enough that you're hospitalised – maybe you're still ten years old and any memory you have of the wizarding world, of power and magic and the freedom of Hogwarts is just your own imagination shielding you from the truth….
Can you feel the pain steadily rising up your spine? Are you even aware you have a spine? Where are you, floating in the nothingness and the vast void of your mind?
(I don't believe you…)
You don't have to, Harry, you never believe in anything unless you can shove your sword through its neck and fill it with enough power to annihilate the sun.
(You said that wasn't real, whatever you are…)
I am Truth and Lies and the last loose ends of a story that has taken far too long to write.
(It's real?)
Of course it's real, you fool!
(Then it has to end now.)
A long pause echoed through the remains of eternity. You're right, Harry Potter. First time for everything…
Harry's will hardened, and he said, (Show me reality, please.) Only it wasn't a request, it was an order. And it was obeyed.
*~*~*~*
The voice that had assailed Harry before the door of Destiny, the voice that may or may not have been Harry's own subconscious, or the shattered remains of a Creator of All – or both – had been right about one thing.
Claiming Destiny hurt more than the thousands upon thousands of injuries and curses that Harry had suffered over his long life all put together. It hurt all at once – stepping through the thin membrane of reality and across the threshold. Harry's flesh boiled, his eyes cooked and burst as freezing daggers dug deep furrows across his soul and tore his insides asunder. Every nerve ending in his body exploded with light and feeling.
He lost his mind… again… only to have it return and be shattered, return and be shattered, return and be shattered… for all eternity. Because it was eternity, oh it was for ever and ever lost in the madness of the spinning vortex of pain and untamed raw fury and power.
His soul was being rent from his heart and mind, ready to be scattered on the wind like so much old memories… yet defiance would not allow this, not at the last. Harry's will was too strong for such a swift and bitter ending.
With sheer force of will he moved past the doorway of Destiny and all at once his soul was whole again, a single flowing force encased within his full and unmarked flesh.
"Take that destiny…" he whispered harshly. His mind felt young again, in this part of creation. It gave him hope for the future and the memories he would have to carry for his one mortal life – with Ginny. A young mind, bursting with imagination and defiance, gave him hope that everything might just work out well in the end. And that was a hope that had not been kindled in Harry for decades.
There was little preamble left now, here at the end.
Before Harry stood a room that stretched on forever right through infinity. There was no ending, no beginning, only a loop of time and space beyond all laws of the rest of Creation. This was a place of unlaw, of unspace… a place of complete nothingness existing in the everywhere of nowhere.
"I wish I had some strawberries," Harry said all of a sudden, and an aching laugh rattled through his throat. It was the simple things in his life that got left on the side of the road to die.
There was no sign of the door he had walked through from the Ways of Twilight, and that made sense. He was stuck in an infinite prison now, and this place – this emptiness and bastion of ultimate power – were the real Ways of Twilight. Everything he had just been through, for the second time, was polluted with far too much reality to be pure Twilight.
"I understand things far too late now," Harry whispered sadly. That was a bitter truth, almost the last truth. Before this moment he had known practically nothing, but he had had the power to bullshit his way through almost anything. He felt strangely reluctant, here at the end, to give that strength up.
But here was his chance.
The ground was made of nothing, Harry felt as if he were walking forward but really he was falling through the flux of eternity, and it was moulding itself around him in waves of colour and sound. And in all of these waves he saw one thing: Oblivion.
Standing on the outside of Creation, and the last precipice of true reality, Harry had witnessed the truth – that his Creation, the prison of True Evil and the consequences of opposites – was just one among many, a single speck of light in the darkness of nothing. And that had been terrifying, belittling and mean – another reason to despise the power behind Existence, his own power.
Yet he had accepted it.
And here he was now, approaching something that he could understand as he took slow steps and fell through the entirety of Creation. In this place, this real reality of the Ways of Twilight, he was everywhere in his Creation all at once – and he was completely and utterly alone.
Reality solidified, a stretch of it torn straight from his mind, and Harry found himself looking at a familiar dais in the Department of Mysteries, a misty veil blowing softly in the windless room hung from a broken stone arch.
This memory was an island in the waves and the maelstrom of the Ways of Twilight. Even as he watched the mass of nothingness ate away at the formed veil, but new twilight rushed in to repair the damage. For now, at least, reality needed to be imposed in this place of unreality.
So Harry could do what needed to be done.
"Fire's fire," he said, stepping down onto the even stone slabs in the Department of Mysteries, just before the veil. Behind him the Ways of Twilight raged in the inferno of Heaven and Hell, Light and Dark – always opposites – yet Harry ignored that and beheld the veil… the pool. "And I'm going to hate this part."
Power.
There's no other word for it. Not after so long.
The strength and will that governed Creation and all its many, somewhat indestructible (thanks to Harry) laws, was the power of imagination and the human soul. Harry may have battled monsters, and at times become a monster himself, yet his soul had remained – for use of a much better word – pure.
The power flowed from Harry and into the pool (the veil) as if it no longer belonged inside of him. And it didn't, not anymore. It should never have fit in the first place, all things considered. Yet many more would have died, for ever, if the mantle had not been placed on his shoulders.
"I'm coming home now…" Harry whispered, burning and burning as torrents of liquefied power burst from his palms.
Time passed… hours… days… years… Again, time had always been relative to the sensations experienced in its passing. It was a second to Harry and it was a year to Harry, as the agony of losing something that had been a part of him for so long slowly/quickly departed from his soul.
It was over in a heartbeat, a split-second, yet years passed as Harry poured more and more power into the bottomless chasm of the pool, which he suspected was more of a conduit – the conduit – from which all of Creation spider-webbed outwards in amazing and outlandish ways across countless levels of reality, and through billions of universes both mortal and not.
Harry filled it with power. And the power began to unmake him… and the Ways of Twilight. Doing exactly what it was supposed to do.
"It will never be over," he whispered. The skin on his hands had blistered away, the flesh had melted, and the bones of his hands were scorched and blackened stumps. Needless to say, he no longer had any feeling there.
It said a lot about his story that Harry did not feel, or even give a damn, that his hands had been effectively hacked off by his own power. It said a lot about his mind, about how tired he truly was… deep on the inside there… that pain affected him no more.
What does it matter? he thought, and was that the same old maniacal laughter tearing through his mind? Yes, yes it was. What does it matter – all of my enemies are dead, and I'm a million miles and years from the nearest universe. And God only knows where home is.
The Mark on his arm, the White Rose of Creation, was it fading?
It was, but that was something Harry had earned – it had nothing to do with the power. He weighed up the features and benefits of keeping the Mark, and of losing the Mark, and for a heartbeat that lasted a year was gripped with indecision.
All is never silent, Potter, all is never silent…
He let the Mark fade like so many bad memories.
The swell of power being poured into the pool sky-rocketed as the Mark of the Heir of Creation was added to the mix. The white-hot silver powers flowing from Harry began to blaze electric-blue and crimson-red – and eat away his arms to the elbow.
Harry began to scream. For a single moment he thought it was quite funny that he had been gritting his teeth and bearing the pain. Why bother? There was no one to impress, no enemies he needed to hide weakness from… and was it really weakness to scream and cry as inch by agonising inch your flesh was burnt away?
Questions, questions, too many questions….
He missed his world so much.
And at that moment wished he had a bottle of really strong Firewhiskey. Getting good and drunk would probably help with re-igniting the engines of all Creation.
The dais and veil from the Department of Mysteries, the dais and veil pulled directly from his memories, was cracking and failing now, breaking under the strain of so much raw power. The heat building in the Ways of Twilight was incredible, monumental, and it was building towards something… final.
Harry had been alive long enough, seen and done enough, to sense when something big was about to take place.
A fierce grin spread across his face. He was strangely looking forward to whatever it was, almost sadistically.
BOOM!
There was too much power, too much strength and raw energy being harnessed in one place. Harry had used all of his strength only once before, and it had punched a hole in Creation large enough to unmake everything and open the gates of Oblivion.
But this was the Ways of Twilight, this was where power and imagination was born and where it died. If there was one place in the entirety of Creation that could take the brunt of the power, it was here – and only here.
Reality, what little of it there was, fractured like a window hit with a baseball, a can of coke hit by a train.
And Harry was torn asunder as the last of his power was drained into the conduit of existence.
A lot of things happened all at once then, and some of them were pretty important…
Harry's power, the last of it, absorbed his form completely and his physical body was burnt away. His essence, his soul and his mind, was drawn down into the conduit and the pool he had just filled to the brim with every last drop of power he had in the ocean of his being.
Harry went kicking and screaming, as was his way.
The Ways of Twilight died, and they did not do so quietly. With a thunderous boomthat would echo for ever and ever in some far distant corner of existence, in the new universes and the old, throughout all of time and space and between the boundaries that separate one existence from the next….
BOOM…. BOOM…. BOOM… BOOM… BOOM…. The echo of Harry's final, great act would never die….
Perhaps the most important consequence of the Darkslayer's final actions was this…
Harry's soul and life force became the only living thing in all of Creation across any time, as the destruction of the Ways of Twilight effectively deleted every aspect of Creation, leaving it a hollowed out and empty shell full of nothing but blinding white light.
White light that contained the imagination of Harry Potter, his defiance and his will, his consciousness and his resolve – and yes, he was still kicking and screaming,.
Harry felt Creation die, and then eternities passed him by in utter silence and darkness. Imagine, if you can, complete and utter nothingness inside of an empty space so large and so curved that it has no beginning and no end. Imagine floating in that nothingness, completely aware of what has happened and what must now be done…
Imagine being responsible for the death of everyone and everything you know, for everything that exists, and then destroying death itself so that everything you know and everything that exists – no longer does.
That is the price to erase the seething ocean of purple flame, to defeat the rebirth of evil – of Voldemort and Allarius.
Harry paid it gladly.
*~*~*~*
Understand. I'll slip quietly away from the noisy crowd
when
I see the pale stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.
I'll
pursue solitary pathways through the pale twilit meadows
with only
this one dream: you come too.
*~*~*~*
Don't sweat the small stuff, Harry, and remember – it's all small stuff!
Who had said that, somewhere along the way?
Ethan, Harry thought, Ethan Rafe. A voice in his head, a soul fused with memory torn from multiple worlds. And at times the Darkslayer in his own right.
"It's all small stuff, Ethan." Harry coughed. Where was he to cough? No where he recognised, no where anybody could recognise.
You burned out, Harry, you pumped too much power into the Ways…
Harry floated on the shores of a building destiny, and time did not exist. No sensation of seconds or years, of moments or thoughts – there was only Harry, only ever Harry.
"Better to burn out than fade away," he said at long last.
Creation was empty. That was a thought that hit Harry floating in the nothingness of his own blinding strength. Only it wasn't his power now, not anymore. He couldn't transfigure a match into a needle, let alone reshape the earth and the heavens and all that was in between.
"What right do I have anyway?" He tried to look down at his arm, where the Mark of Creation should have been. Only it was gone. And he had no arms… no legs… no physical form. What am I?
A whispered thought, echoing from some long lost time… You are the beginning, as you were the end.
If there was one thing Harry could do without for the rest of his life, it would be mysterious unknown voices whispering cryptic messages.
He laughed.
It was the only sound in all of existence.
You do what you must, Harry, and you have to walk it all alone.
Eternity wheeled across the blinding white light, an eternity of eternities. A long time in a barren place, a frightening place, where time did not exist and the only thoughts were those of a shattered human soul.
And then things began to happen – as they had before, as they would again – and Harry was swept along on the winds of destiny one last time, as the full realisation of his life and story came full circle back to the start.
There was a bang.
A big one.
A big bang.
As the echo of the Ways of Twilight exploding shivered back across the aeons, sweeping over floating-Harry, the remaining spark of his life, his humanity, became a catalyst for something much greater. Something much more… final. The wave of power, Harry's own power once upon a time, struck him like a blow and it was the first sensation he had felt in forever.
It caused the bang.
The big, Big Bang.
Creation erupted with thought and feeling in a million, billion ways, and time began to slowly tick, tick, and tick away….
"Fancy that, aye," Harry whispered, as everything fell into place.
He had a long wait ahead of him, but it was no longer an eternity. Which was something, at least, which was something…
*~*~*~*
Harry Potter and the Sword, Defiance, and Soul of the Hero
Chapter Unknown – And Through It All
I have no other way
There is a price to pay
For what the
man will say
That I was a million miles away
In a promise
full of steam
It could take no vacant dream
To persuade me to
believe
I think just don't fight it, don't fight it,
don't
fight it
If you don't know what it is
If you don't know what
it is
I left my heart in places
Forgot every one of their
faces
And tried to navigate a broken path
Of which I may have
helped create
In any incident, this is never no accident
To
stand alone and
Let the silence make itself at home
Ah,
give it up,
Those dirty tricks
No quick fix, can undo it
Ah,
give it up
I won't resist
My answer's always this:
I
say don't fight it, don't fight it,
don't fight it
If you
don't know what it is
If you don't know what it is
Just
don't fight it, don't fight it,
don't fight it
If you don't
know what it is
If you don't know what it is
Where has
my light gone?
Where has my fight gone?
What keeps us burning
when the fire is long gone?
When I can't relate
To that
voice without a face
Should I be afraid or
Is it just a voice
I did create?
Ah, give it up,
Those dirty tricks
No
quick fix, can undo it
Ah, give it up
I won't resist
My
answer's always this:
I say don't fight it, don't fight it,
don't fight it
If you don't know what it is
If you don't
know what it is
Just don't fight it, don't fight it,
don't
fight it
If you don't know what it is
If you don't know what
it is
~~ The Panics, 'Don't Fight It'
In the beginning, there was a bang – and from that bang erupted everything that was needed to start a universe, to create life and death and all that's in between.
Such little things like love.
Gaseous clouds of particles and light waves, tremendous heat that would later forge star dust and the basic elements, from which the stars would be born and spew forth even greater elements, which would go on to shape the universe we know, fill it with energy and, on a small, blue planet billions of years from now, on the far distant arm of no particularly distinct spiral galaxy….
With life.
And this happened only once. One universe was born into the whole space of Creation, into a massive shell one tiny speck of light that could fit on the head of a pin a trillion times over, and from that single universe the parallels were created.
For every choice, for every decision – one element floating along a particular wave, down through the reaches of expanding space - a parallel universe is created – one element goes up instead of down – and the increasingly complex nature of the newly born time and space leads to more and more parallels being created, more and more amazing specks of light to fill the void left in the wake of Harry's inferno at the Ways of Twilight.
At the heart of it all, in the heart of that first, special universe, a single consciousness existed in the vastness of the first baby steps of Creation.
I think you know, by now, who it is, and how far back we have gone…
For all intents and purposes Harry Potter lived and breathed, and his thoughts extended to the farthest reaches of the universe – he was light, he was the dust in the heavens and the burning at the heart of the stars, he was darkness, and he was the elements.
And as Creation grew from that first spark, and planets formed within the shells of universes, Harry Potter was there as well, always watching, always existing and guarding the sanctity of that which he held most dear – human life.
*~*~*~*
It has been a long story, and if you have read this far, then there is only one more secret to go, one more door to step through… come now, and see the end, see the Hero's return, as existence begins anew, for the first time, and the Darkslayer is born….
*~*~*~*
Harry was the swash of the ocean on far distant and alien shores under azure skies and before the rising of emerald moons.
Harry was the moisture in the clouds above and below, in the cool valleys between the mountains on the edge of eternity, and he was born an infinite number of times in the hearts and souls of every creature to ever exist, instilling in every one of them the notion of right and wrong – for who knew it better than him? Who had used both sides of that fickle blade to cut down all who had stood against him?
Harry was fire, and ice, and he was calm and rage, and he was a million miles in a single step. He was a dream, a nightmare, a self-fulfilling prophecy and the light at the end of the tunnel.
Harry was the end of worlds, and the beginning of hope.
Harry Potter was the Darkslayer, and he had succeeded through it all to rebuild that which he had unmade, as had been ordained since the first Beginning – this beginning, the one before it, the next one, and all that is in between – and he was the first Guardian, and he protected the innocent from his unique vantage point of everywhere.
There were terrible things born in the darkest corners of the universe that Harry fought across the vast aeons, things that acted against everything innocent humanity believed in – that would not accept right from wrong. They were fought, they were slain, in true reality – and the legend of the Darkslayer was born, a legend that would in millennia to come fall on the shoulders of a young boy, a wizard, with a lightning bolt scar…
Life is a perfect circle, from beginning to end.
There was evil, because there was free will, and Harry himself was the one who sealed the demons away in the dark space between universes. There was no where else, and he did not dare risk opening Creation to Oblivion again. The Ways of Twilight were still under construction, after all…
In time Creation began to take care of itself, and Harry faded into the obscure memory of the first religions across the whole of time and space. He retreated from everywhere, allowing life and existence to run its course alone, and came in time to that same small blue world mentioned earlier, that lonely planet on the edge of no particularly significant spiral galaxy…
Harry Potter returned home, and became the earth – the fields of England and the vast African Savannah, the dust and sand and the roaring oceans and the lightning in the storms of the world – and he watched life grow, and grew himself.
Time passed, as it always would now, and Harry watched the great extinctions of the planet earth, watched life grow and die from tiny specks of nothing to the dinosaurs, and when a piece of rock six miles wide collided with the earth and ended the reign of those mighty lizards, he knew his eternity of waiting was drawing to a close…
From the ashes of annihilation, life returned – the most resilient thing in all of Creation – and began to evolve.
His consciousness fully aware of a gust of wind on one side of the planet, to a water molecule freezing in the far north of the world, Harry knew when it was time for one last act before he began the millennia long task of collecting himself….
He gave what would later be called magic to the world. He opened the planets and the universes to the conduit of power in the newly-formed Ways of Twilight, and that magnificent silver-white light flooded the mortal realms.
Humankind was born, humankind evolved all on its own, and Harry retreated even further from the world, drawing himself together for what he had been waiting for since the beginning of time….
It was a long road to ruin… yet this was Harry's story, and it would go the way he wanted it to. Fate was never final, and the consequences never kind…
But it was over, at long last.
*~*~*~*
Soul of the Hero, Chapter 30
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Hermione shivered in spite of herself as she and Ron stood atop of the Astronomy Tower, looking out over to the horizon and the approaching darkness. It was nearing dark, just before true twilight, and the sight of the two friends and partners reached into the distance, as far as the slopes of the distant mountains.
Below them on the castle grounds were tents and command centres, squadrons of soldiers. All members of Harry's army. Inside the castle Dumbledore had made it to the feast at the beginning of the year, and even now was informing the students of the impending attack. Some would want to fight, the DA, others would want to flee – home – most would want to stay in the castle.
No place safer than Hogwarts, even when the armies of the devil were on their way. And they were, Hermione and Ron could see that clearly from their place on the balcony of the tower.
The wards of the castle had been reinforced by Harry at some point in the last few months, and that would buy the light side precious time to mount their defence, give Harry time to… to defeat Voldemort (he can do it he will do it) and then come fight here. He said he would, and that meant he would.
The world was on fire in the distance.
A rosy glow was spreading across the horizon, and smoke obscured the sinking sun. Twilight, an unnatural twilight, had come early to this part of the world, and the reason was the second half of the Dark Lord's army, the other half to the part just destroyed by Harry in North America, was marching on Hogwarts.
The mountains were on fire, emerald fire, and the flames were leaping towards the forest. Nothing could be done about it, the army was clearing a path of destruction to the castle. Refugees from Hogsmeade, being brought in by Ministry Aurors under Mr Weasley's orders, were arriving through the castle gates.
The wizarding village was destined to burn again.
"Can you feel Harry?" Ron asked quickly.
Hermione frowned and then shook her head. "Feels like… like when he was gone in March. You know, like he's left the world again."
Ron nodded. "Think he's okay…?"
"No… but he's a survivor. He'll roll with the punches."
All of a sudden the sky darkened, and a vicious cloud, heartbreakingly familiar, washed across the entire sky. It felt like the same mess that had been visible over the North American plains.
Merlin, Ron thought with a terrible certainty, it is the same cloud.
Stretching all the way from across the world, what were Harry and Voldemort doing… the cloud wasn't a good sign, it suggested that the Dark Lord was winning.
Or had won.
*~*~*~*
Soul of the Hero, later on in Chapter 30
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
The battle had come hard and fast to the school. Where was Harry?
Hermione saw Ron fall and she rushed to his side, charging heedlessly through a barrage of dark curses and dark creatures.
She reached his side and saw his white robes stained crimson with the vital fluids that ran inside of him.
Blood, she thought, it all began with blood. Harry, help us!
"Ron…" she whispered.
He smiled. "Hermione… I-… I'm just gonna lie down here and bleed a bit, okay…."
Seconds… minutes… hours… time passed, and Hermione held him.
"This isn't how everything should be," she replied helplessly.
Ron's fingers came up to brush her cheek lightly. Even as he lay dying, he comforted her. She decided enough was enough, and lay down next to him under the stormy sky. Strong currents of hideous lightning festered across those clouds. It was terrifying, but neither of them could care less at that moment.
"We weren't a big part of Harry's story, Hermione," Ron whispered into her ear. "But we were still necessary. Can you feel it? He's up there, fighting the last fight, for us – for Ginny."
Hermione didn't bother to wipe away her tears. "He's not human anymore."
"He wouldn't be alive if he was. Harry sacrificed his humanity, most of it, so we could at least try to win without… all of this."
"Didn't work," Hermione sniffed.
"No," Ron agreed. "And now he must go about things another way."
A silvery-white glow stretched from Ron's chest and over to Hermione's, linking their hearts. From Hermione the white light stretched off into the distance, looking for the nearest soul whether it be light or dark. The power of the Final Bomb.
"I love you, Ron."
"I love you too, honey."
For the both of them, the end of the world was as silent as, well, as silent as a broken heart… and a lot less painful.
Worlds break… hearts break… the latter is far worse.
There was silence, shattered hearts, a prayer to God, and then nothing.
The End.
*~*~*~*
The New World
As part of the Earth, Harry Potter watched empires rise and fall. He watched the magic he had given the world change and evolve as the centuries swept towards the end of the world he had caused once before.
The wizarding world was born in England, and Harry was there – he was there when Hogwarts was founded, and was there when Gryffindor battled Slytherin to the death, and swore an oath that his descendants – Harry – would always battle Slytherin's – Tom Riddle – and protect the Muggle world from those with a prejudice for blood. He was there when Gryffindor died and transcended this reality to become one of the Guardians that Harry had created billions of years ago to watch over the demons and all of time and space.
He was there as the modern world was born, the world he had been born in. Harry watched his parents attend Hogwarts, watched them fall in love, and he watched Voldemort's first rise to power with his fists clenched at his side – he could not interfere, could not break the arch of Creation, or Oblivion would come far too soon – and he watched their murder and his first defeat of the Dark Lord.
Harry watched himself grow up at the Dursley's, watched himself make friends at Hogwarts and grow and change, become harder and more committed to protecting those who he cared for, and who cared for him in return. He watched Voldemort's return, Sirius's death, and then watched things take an interesting turn.
Twilight descended on his existence, and you know how that story – all the long chapters – began and you are now so close to seeing how it ends….
Sword.
Defiance.
Soul.
All governed by imagination.
Harry watched himself leave his world, and watched himself battle for a century before returning to the world he knew best in that godforsaken glade in the Forbidden forest where Voldemort had used magic as old as the sun to try and destroy him.
He saw himself as the Darkslayer, so young he seemed even there, after battling for a century. He only seemed young because Harry himself, the Harry watching the turning of the universe, was now so old. Harry watched himself sharing the knowledge he had taken from the Ways of Twilight with the Ministry, and he saw himself increasing Hogwarts' wards as both he and Voldemort grew in strength and the Dark Lord made a deal with the Destroyers.
It was almost time, only mere months now, for Harry to stop watching and return… but not yet. Oblivion was so near Harry could taste it, the impending doom. If he did not play his next part correctly then Creation would always end here, on this world… there would be no future.
After waiting all the ages of the universe, of every universe, the time arrived for Harry Potter, the first and the last hero, the Darkslayer, the Boy Who Lived, to make his carefully planned move….
He watched himself battle Voldemort in the skies above North America, felt the power shaking the world, threatening to unmake it, but it didn't – that was to come within the hour. Harry turned away from that battle, it was not important – and not something he could change, in any respect, because the Harry currently battling Voldemort was infinitely more powerful than the Harry that existed within the Earth itself.
Harry had given all of the power of Creation to himself, after all.
And as he prepared to return, to reclaim humanity, a stray thought – a human thought – ran through his mind… He had long cursed the fates that had bestowed the power of all Creation upon him, upon a small human boy who had no idea what destiny ran before his feet, and in all that time he had been cursing himself.
He had borne the burden well, all things considered, and could only laugh now as his consciousness floated through the ether, through the radiation from the Big Bang so very long ago, to Hogwarts castle.
A battle was underway, and a thousand cries for help permeated Harry's mind. Vicious storms raged overhead, the backlash from the battle between Harry and Voldemort on the other side of the world, and Harry knew that the Final Bomb was about to come into play and destroy the entire universe.
That was when he needed to make his move, to shift things along a different path whilst still making sure he – Harry, the other Harry – succeeded in tearing open Oblivion.
There were thoughts that Harry picked out of the mass of warring humanity on the castle grounds below that rang louder and clearer than any others.
Ron and Hermione, he thought, and it was the first real thought he had had since the beginning of time. Harry could feel himself becoming more than a single consciousness and soul, becoming so much more – becoming human.
Ginny was… she was in the castle… why didn't that feel right…? But the Death Eaters were inside, too. Harry could feel her there, fighting, and as blood began to beat through his forming heart an urge to see her, to love her, burned in him so fiercely he almost abandoned his plans for just one moment with the girl he loved.
And that's being human, he thought, with a laugh that was still the wind in the trees, the waves crashing on every beach all over the world, and the soft melody of a white rose on a twilit summer's night. Being human is being willing to throw away the universe itself for one moment of true love, for one quick kiss and then complete and utter annihilation.
That was all good and true, but Harry was forgetting something vastly important.
Hermione's thoughts came through most strongly to Harry, as Ron was wounded – fatally – he was dying. Hermione though….
The battle had come hard and fast to the school. Where was Harry?
Hermione saw Ron fall and she rushed to his side, charging heedlessly through a barrage of dark curses and dark creatures.
She reached his side and saw his white robes stained crimson with the vital fluids that ran inside of him.
Blood, she thought, it all began with blood. Harry, help us!
"Ron…" she whispered.
He smiled. "Hermione… I-… I'm just gonna lie down here and bleed a bit, okay…."
Seconds… minutes… hours… time passed, and Hermione held him.
"This isn't how everything should be," she replied helplessly.
Ron's fingers came up to brush her cheek lightly. Even as he lay dying, he comforted her. She decided enough was enough, and lay down next to him under the stormy sky. Strong currents of hideous lightning festered across those clouds. It was terrifying, but neither of them could care less at that moment.
"We weren't a big part of Harry's story, Hermione," Ron whispered into her ear. "But we were still necessary. Can you feel it? He's up there, fighting the last fight, for us – for Ginny."
Hermione didn't bother to wipe away her tears. "He's not human anymore."
"He wouldn't be alive if he was. Harry sacrificed his humanity, most of it, so we could at least try to win without… all of this."
"Didn't work," Hermione sniffed.
"No," Ron agreed. "And now he must go about things another way."
A silvery-white glow stretched from Ron's chest and over to Hermione's, linking their hearts. From Hermione the white light stretched off into the distance, looking for the nearest soul whether it be light or dark. The power of the Final Bomb.
"I love you, Ron."
"I love you too, honey."
And here is where I must change everything, Harry thought.
Hermione looked up from the glow spreading across her chest as before her the air began to shake and moan. And there was light – pure magic, untainted by purpose and intent. Argent sparks flew in from all corners of the globe, spinning faster and faster and faster.
A shape solidified in the sparks, made entirely of light, and that light began to dim and fade into the pale skin tone of a slightly shorter-than-average boy with unruly black hair and an infamous lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
And who else could that be, I ask you, standing barefoot before Hermione in a simple pair of blue jeans and a white cotton polo shirt?
"Harry…" Hermione whispered, as emerald green eyes that had seen the birth and death of Creation – and, by God, all that's in between – looked down at her with the infinite patience of a life long-lived, and years still to go.
Something other than despair fluttered through Hermione, something that felt a lot like hope. But those eyes… Harry's eyes… they had always been deep, but this, this was….
He's human again, Hermione thought, and her heart nearly burst with relief. He was human and his eyes looked compassionate and haunted, loving and cold. They were eyes that knew how fragile civilisation was because they had seen it end far too many times, and at the end that was a good thing, a necessary thing.
"Hello, Hermione," Harry Potter said, and his voice was young and old, sweet and sad. Opposites, always opposites. "You have no idea how good it is to see you."
Hermione didn't even try to blink away her fresh tears. "Harry, you have to help—Ron, he's hurt, and this light doesn't feel good…."
Harry frowned down at the power of the Final Bomb at work in her soul, connecting every soul in the world. Up above he could feel the demons punching through the boundary, and the Bomb was joining them together, too, to give the end of Creation that little extra kick.
Time had never felt more real, not since before the Beginning, and there had never been less of it than there was right then. The clock was about to tick back over, right back to the beginning, and Harry had forsaken the majority of his power – he wouldn't survive it again. Right now, right here and now, was the most important moment in the long, bloody history of existence.
"Do something…" Hermione said, holding Ron close. His eyes were blurred and unfocused, but a sharp intake of breath proved that he recognised Harry standing there before him. He tried to smile, tried to speak, but only coughed up a lot of blood.
"I've been gone a long time…" Harry said. His head hurt, the pressure of the world was enormous, and power was building all around him, overwhelming… He fell to one knee, his scar had torn open. He was bleeding.
"Help us, Harry, do something," Hermione repeated, but then doubt claimed her. "Is there anything even you can do…?"
Harry gritted his teeth, and there was his defiance at the last. He had not travelled all the years and all the miles to let it all fall apart again. No! Simply put: No!
"Oh, Hermione," he said, rising to his feet and clenching his fists. "You just watch me…."
With the dead and the dying all about him, with the power of the Final Bomb connecting six billion souls to six billion monsters, Harry did something that no force in all of Creation could have expected, or even imagined…
He closed his eyes, smiled, and with a click of his fingers said, "Abracadabra!"
The entire axis on which Creation existed spun out of control – but only Harry felt that part, that small detail.
The silvery light of the Final Bomb spreading from Ron to Hermione disappeared as if it had never been. Hermione gasped as a single beam of sunlight burst through the raging storm clouds overhead and alighted on Harry in the middle of that field of battle. He was laughing, and a second later the storm clouds were banished in a roar of immense power….
Sunlight flooded the world, the burning fires of annihilation were extinguished, and in their place and every where the sunlight touched dozens and dozens of white roses bloomed into existence – growing up out of the soil and stone alike.
At the heart of it all, of course, stood Harry James Potter, looking pretty pleased with himself.
Ron groaned and moved in Hermione's arms. She looked down to see him struggling to rise. She felt his side, which was still bloodied, but his wound was gone, and life had returned to his eyes. She wept and threw her arms around him, almost knocking him back down.
"What did you do?" Ron asked, finding his voice. Both he and Hermione looked up at Harry, who was cracking his knuckles and looking thoughtful.
"I shifted Creation about an inch to the left," he said, as if over drinks. "I created not only a parallel universe but a parallel Creation, one in which Oblivion opens and then doesn't – bit of a paradox that, but I never was one for obeying the rules, was I? And the centre held through it, which is good. Voldemort's dead now, and in a far distant parallel world in a parallel universe sealed within a parallel existence, the Darkslayer is about to unmake everything…."
Ron and Hermione simply gaped, not understanding at all.
Harry shrugged. "It was a lot harder to do than it looked. The abracadabra was just for effect."
The Battle of Hogwarts was pretty much over, although fierce fighting still raged across most of the grounds between the Death Eaters and Aurors. There were no demons, no otherworldly creatures or monsters to be fought, however, and the sky was whole and completed. Harry had left that chaos back in a parallel world, for his younger self to take care of... in time.
Still, people were dying, and Harry's thoughts were no longer that of the entire universe, but were that of a human being. There were people he cared for, all around him, and he had to stop the madness. His plan had healed all of those on the field and in the castle that were wounded, a positive side effect that had absorbed a fair chunk of his remaining power. He could not heal death, however, and in between the white roses lay dozens of warm corpses.
But the fighting itself needed to stop.
Harry had inadvertently taken care of that, as well, and didn't have to lift another finger as, all at once, every Death Eater still standing and those that had gotten back up after being healed, fell to the ground in agony as their Dark Marks cried out in anguish at the destruction of their master.
Voldemort was dead and gone – and each and every one of his servants found that out the hard way all at the same time.
Things moved fast after that, the Aurors from a dozen worldwide Ministries disarming and restraining the Death Eaters that were still struggling on the ground, trying to escape whilst fighting the numbing pain from their Dark Mark's. Not a one of them knew exactly what had happened, or how the death toll had been so little from what it should have been, but they weren't about to question their good fortune just yet.
The War was over, and the Light had won.
It took a few minutes, but a tremendous roar and cheer spread like wildfire across the castle grounds and from within the castle itself. A cheer seeded with cries of relief, tears of sadness and happiness, and of a long struggle finally over.
In the midst of the white roses that covered the entire castle grounds and most of the country and continental Europe, Harry Potter sat next to his two best friends – Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, soaking up the warm sunlight and relaxing in what was fast becoming a happy ending.
There's no such thing as a happy ending, Harry thought to himself. He held Hermione's hand in his left and Ron's hand in his right. They were real, real and alive. And so was he. But this will be close enough, I think.
"What happened today, Harry?" Hermione asked into the relative silence. The white roses had a calming effect, and the wind blowing over their blooms seemed to be singing, just below hearing, in that small place of the mind that rests on the border of that magical place just out of sight that we all suspect is there, day after day.
Harry opened his eyes. The world was a little out of focus. He smiled – he needed his glasses. It had been so long, but he was mortal now. Not completely, not yet, but it would come, given time.
"Something happened," Ron said.
Harry chose his words carefully. "Picture a moment and think of us laughing under the twilit sky over Dreamland," he said.
Ron blinked. "Eh?"
"Exactly," Harry replied. "We did the impossible, all of us – we survived."
"You seem older than when we last saw you earlier today," Hermione said, a hint of a question there.
I'm older than the stars, than time and the universe itself. That was true, but he was also a teenager, a mortal boy with the last of his wounds drying on his forehead. That godforsaken scar would never pain him again.
"In the course of a lifetime, Hermione, what does it matter?"
Hermione didn't look satisfied with that answer at all, but Ron asked the next question before she could say anything, and it was a question that mattered for all….
"Is it over now, Harry?"
Harry nodded, and he believed it. "Voldemort is dead, his armies so much dust in the wind, and my power is fading fast… I'm alive, you guys are alive, and that is far too precious to slide into the perils of unknown worlds."
"So… yeah? It's all over." Ron slapped Harry on the back. "Party in the Gryffindor common room tonight, I reckon."
"I hope everyone is okay," Hermione whispered. The dead lay heavy and thick on the grounds, buried under the roses.
"Oh I think they are," Harry said. His vision may have been slightly skewed, but he still recognised the figures congregating on the castle steps, having just emerged from the Entrance Hall.
There was Dumbledore, his beard tucked into his belt, and there was Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, Mad-Eye Moody and most of the Order of the Phoenix. Arthur and Molly Weasley were there with most of their children – Bill, Charlie, Fred and George – and was that Dermas Trask? It was.
Harry scanned the crowd, and we all know which face he was hoping to see, don't we? Whose auburn hair he wanted to see blowing in the wind amongst the white roses? Whose lips, which were always red when he saw her, as if she had been eating strawberries?
We know who that is, don't we? Someone Harry would move the heavens and the earth for….
Ah… yes, that's right, and all that is in between.
*~*~*~*
Harry walked off that field off victory with his two dearest friends at his side. He carried with him a single rose, a perfect bloom of the fullest, brightest white and the darkest stem – thornless, less she prick herself, of course – and so began the rest of his life.
We could end the story here, I think, and you can imagine the rest for yourself… a happy ending for our courageous Mr Potter, or a tragic loss that would define his long sacrifice and suffering, but I don't think this is the end just yet, not a satisfying one, at least.
Too many loose ends to tie up, too many questions – such as where does Harry go from here, and who goes with him.
No, this not the end, but it's close…
After all, Harry still needs to find that someone to give his rose to.
*~*~*~*