A/N: I forgot to mention that this story is set at the second last chapter 7th book. The chapter about Harry and his horrific children did not exist! It didn't! I don't care what you say! D:
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Chapter 1: The Exchange
Harry opened his eyes. He was sitting in a small, picturesque room, dressed in very formal black dress robes. The room was shaped out of a dark red brick, and on the floor, there was a round, fluffy black carpet on which sat a pair of very large red sofas with a small wooden table inbetween them. Harry was sitting awkwardly on the edge of one of them, and the other one was empty.
Harry looked around nervously, wondering where he was. Just then, Sirius Black appeared, sitting on the sofa beside him.
Harry stared at him, dumbstruck.
Sirius chuckled. He snapped his fingers and a house elf appeared with two cups, setting them both down on the table. Sirius picked one up and took a sip, sighing happily, "Try some of this stuff, Harry. It's amazing."
Harry opened and closed his mouth in a manner that vaguely resembled a fish. "Sirius?! Are you – Am I… dead?" He whispered, his mouth painfully dry.
"No, no, no," Sirius waved Harry away, still sipping from his cup, "Guess again!"
"Then…" Harry stared at him, "Why are we here? …Are you alive?"
Sirius sighed, his previously somewhat cheerful expression faded away. "I guess we'll have to start from the beginning. Harry think, what's the most recent think you can remember?"
"… I remember," Harry gulped, "uh, dying… And Snape… I remember Voldemort! We beat him!"
Sirius lowered his head, knowing what would come next.
All of a sudden those past events came flooding back to Harry, "Lupin… Tonks… Dumbledore… Oh god, Fred… And Snape… I remember…" Harry tried, in vain to blink back the pools of hot tears that had already begun to roll awkwardly down his cheeks. He wiped them away aggressively.
"Yes, Harry," Sirius whispered hoarsely, "Now, do you remember your very last night?"
Harry shook his head frantically without even thinking. He didn't want to remember anything else. He dug his knuckles into his eyes, trying to block more tears from spilling out.
"Think, Harry! You must remember !" Sirius said urgently.
Harry sat nervously on the edge of his sofa, eyes screwed up, in a sad attempt at an expression of concentration.
"You were all alone," Sirius prodded him, "in a muggle district, on the roof of a tall building…"
"What was I doing there?"
"You need to remember that for yourself."
Harry thought. Why was he on top of a muggle building? The idea seemed bizarre and unfamiliar. He tried desperately to think back to the most recent things he could remember. Heated emotions welled up inside of him as once again, he thought of his lost loved ones. He clenched his fists, trying desperately to block the memories out. What had happened to him?
……
He was at Hogwarts, wasn't he? No, no, he was at Grimmauld palace. It was about two months after their triumph over Voldemort. He was sitting in the living room with Ginny, Hermione, Ron. And what were they doing? Well, he could remember what Hermione and Ron were doing. Their disgusting selves sat on top of one another on Sirius's favorite couch, kissing and fondling each other shamelessly.
His face scrunched up with anger just thinking about it. How could they behave in such a disgusting manner? How could they act so painfully happy and so sickeningly in love when he, Harry, felt like exploding with anger and despair at every breath he took? How could they? How could they forget about everyone, and everything that had happened so soon after it all?
Harry remembered everything now. He remembered all his feelings of frustration and anger. His desperate desire to hurt them and himself. And he knew a way.
In this day and age, death was the only thing powerful enough to prove a point.
Harry stood up and in as calm and flat a voice as he could muster, he let them know exactly what he thought of them. He told them that they were disgusting and disrespectful. He stated coldy that Hermione was a whore and swiftly punched Ron in the face. He then nodded at a horrified Ginny impassively and stalked out of the house. He must have walked for hours in the painfully cold, wet weather in his thin robes. Until finally, he reached a building. A tall one, that was at its very least twenty storys high. He walked inside the building's air conditioned lobby, and started climbing its stairs, half hoping he would get stopped and thrown out.
He didn't.
And he finally, reached the top; cold, wet and miserable. He thought about Hedwig, Moody, Tonks, Dobby, Lupin, Tonks, Fred, Snape… Everyone that had gone… It was unfair, why should he be allowed to live when so many others had perished…
He didn't deserve it.
And with that thought, he had jumped over the side of the building. He would die, the old fashioned muggle way.
……
Harry looked back at Sirius, swallowing nervously, processing what he had just relived.
"If that's what happened… Then what is this? And… why are you are?" Harry asked nervously.
"Harry… As I'm sure you remember, after the incident at the ministry of magic in your fifth year, you asked Nearly Headless Nick about my death. And he told you that once a person dies, there is a point where his soul chooses whether to move on into the unknown or to turn into a ghost."
Harry gave a weak nod, "So I am dead?"
"No, not exactly," Sirius replied awkwardly, "Right now, you aren't dead. Your… physical self is in a muggle hospital, severely injured. You are wavering in and out of death and close to truly being… gone. None of your friends know where you are, which is the reason why your primitive wounds haven't been healed by magic. And they will not find you in time if you choose to give up! You are very close to death, Harry… You must pull yourself together and will yourself to live!"
Death. That was what he wanted, wasn't it?
Sirius saw what he was thinking. "When I say you are close to being gone from this world, I really mean it. You truly are on the brink of death! But you still have the slightest chance of going back. Harry, right now, I am what is known as a gate keeper. I was sent to come talk to you because they didn't believe you had the willpower to live. They thought you were going to die and even though you still have a slight bit of life left inside of you, I was sent to help you decide between going into the unknown and returning to the earth as a ghost. But you must live, Harry! You have so many people who love you. So many people who need you. There is so much of your life left to live. You can do it!"
Harry bit his lip to keep from bursting into tears. "Sirius, you don't understand what its like for me. Every single day is torture. Whenever I see people being happy I want to kill them. And every place I go, it reminds me of some who is…" he gasped, gulping in air frantically and continued, "…gone. I can't take this anymore!"
Sirius awkwardly patted Harry's arm, "I know kiddo, I know. But… you have GOT to try, you have to be strong. Please, Harry. You're running out of time!"
Harry lifted a tear stained face miserably and told Sirius, "You didn't tell me what happened to you… Why are you here as a… gate keeper?"
Sirius sighed, "Harry when I died, I wanted to move on… into the unknown. But I was afraid, I was worried about you. I was scared that you wouldn't be able to cope and I wanted so much to be there for you. But I was too much of a goddamn selfish bastard to choose to be a ghost for eternity. So I asked to be a gate keeper until you died. As a gate keeper, though I am not there with you, I could still watch over and wait for you, so when the time comes, we could move on into the unknown together. But Harry, now is not the time for that yet."
"So basically, I've got three options? I can try to live, I can go the unknown, or I can be a ghost…" Harry paused, "…Could I be a gate keeper as well?"
"No," Sirius said firmly, "You haven't been around long enough, Harry. Which is why I want you to go on living. There are too many things you have not experienced, too much of life that you have missed out on…"
"Are there any other options?"
Sirius hesitated, "Yes… But— "
"What is it?" Harry cut in.
"Seeing as you are still somewhat alive… It is possible for you to exchange your life for some one else's…"
Harry sat up excitedly, "That's fabulous, Sirius! You and I will move on into the unknown and I'll trade my life for Lupin's or Tonks or Fred or even Snapes! We'll do what you planned and some one else will get their life back in exchange! Everything would work out perfectly and at least the remaining portion of my life would not be wasted."
"NO, HARRY! Goddamnit! You can't do that! Everyone, EVERYONE has already moved on. We don't know what happened to them in the unknown, but they may even have been reborn! They have moved on so far, you would be tearing them away, possibly even killing them if they have new lives and devastating their current loved ones just to bring them back for what? Into a world where their death has already been an accepted fact, where people will treat them like… oh I don't know, a virus or something! People would be afraid of them! And they've already moved on! Let them be, Harry!"
"My life is wasted on me," Harry said miserably, "I don't want to live it anymore. I just want to move on, start over. I do nothing but cause myself and everyone around me to suffer."
Harry took a deep breath and decided, "Sirius, you can go back for me. You can tell everyone that I am happy and that I am moving on to a much better life. You can take care of everyone, you can help everyone heal. I want to exchange my life with yours."
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In a small muggle hospital in Smith Avenue of Southern London, a small group of doctors crowded around the bed of a painfully young boy's mangled body.
Nothing could be done for him. All they could do was stand there and watch the life slowly seep out of him.
A nurse lowered her head and clasped her hands together. "Please God," she whispered, "If you truly are out there, let him move on to a better life."