Author's Notes: This is not beta-read, beware of grammatical and spelling errors.

Warning: Character death, slight gore, dark themes.


Magpie

Two for Mirth

Here's how it goes: Death and Life stand at the edge of the forest.

Instead, Death used to be Harry and Life used to be TomVoldemortRiddleTheDarkLord- Tom. Life used to be Tom.

"Avada Kedavra!" Tom snarls, with his snake face and snake lips, bony finger holding a bony wand, death in his voice and death in his eyes.

Then Harry closes his eyes, and when he opens them, he's in a train station.

Dumbledore is there and they exchange pleasantries.

"Where do they lead?" Harry asks, the trains coming and going, to different lives and possibilities and realities.

"Alas, my dear boy, I do not know where exactly. Except for the next great adventure, maybe." Dumbledore replies, stars and planets and moons behind his eyes.

The trains lead to dark tunnels and endless tracks, to where the skies go beyond the horizon and the sun doesn't rise in the east. There is a way forward and a way back, and Harry can live and die as much as he wants and whenever he wants and it wouldn't have mattered because Bhagavad-Gita sums everything and nothing after a test run of death in a bottle in bleak desert sands and the sun harsh on the wind. So many choices, so many possibilities, so many lives and yet-

"What happens to him?" Harry asks, touching the wrinkled parody of a human being, Tom Riddle less than a seventh, fractured beyond human repair. Harry wonders if he touches this broken soul, will it bleed red or black?

"Ah, he can go nowhere I'm afraid. Too broken to truly die, too broken to live life." Harry pities broken little Tom, for what is life that isn't and death that isn't?

Once upon a time, Harry could have been Tom, and Tom could have been Harry. Tom could have been the Hero from the orphanage, with wide eyes and a kind heart, and hope in his path. His purpose would have been - yet it still is - grand, his place in the universe and his mere existence tips scales and moves mountains. However, Tom isn't a wide-eyed and kind hero, the universe tilts just a little to one side and he grows well into a tyrant.

"There is no hope for him, it would be in your best interest to move along."

Green meets the cosmos, and there is a void there.

Cosmic voids, however, still have galaxies beneath the emptiness. Still, where there is life, there is hope, is it not?

Once upon a time, Harry could have been Tom. Harry could have grown up hating his relatives and hating Dumbledore for leaving him with his wretched relatives. He could have hated Hermoine, jealous that she did not drown in strange waters or flopped gracelessly on the ground like dying fish. He could have hated Ron for having a family that loves him. He would have seen the appeal in having an ally like Draco, ready to bow should they think of him as the next Dark Lord. Instead, the Universe tilts a little to the left, and Harry has a little too much love to give and there's one person too many to have that love.

Harry remembers Rita Skeeter's memoir of Dumbledore and thinks that if Dumbledore had been kinder to Riddle, there would be no Voldemort, if Dumbledore's sister did not die there would be no Voldemort, if Gellert Grindelwald failed before he began there would be no Voldemort. Yet, if there was no Lord Voldemort, would Lily have chosen James Potter over Severus Snape? Would Harry exist if the Universe tilted just right and Voldemort did not exist?

This is a cosmic dance, perhaps. Light and Dark, always in motion, always in battle and conflict. Perhaps Light and Dark are simply mere perspectives, neat little boxed for people to go, to keep wars upon wars clean and nice, where Light always wins and Dark always loses. If that was so, why not everyone sticks to the Light? Why choose to be Dark when time and again, Light wins?

"I… I think I've been looking at this the wrong way," Harry murmurs to himself.

It was so easy, a few years ago, to see Malfoy and not Draco. To see Ron and Hermoine, and not Weasley and Granger. If Harry had been friends with Draco, would he see Draco as a human with his own goals and beliefs and memories and actions and reactions? It was hard to think of Ron and Hermoine as Weasley and Granger, a blood traitor hungry only for fame and money and a know-it-all bossy muggleborn from hell. Was it good and bad that made a person? Or was it a person that did good and bad?

"You have to make a choice, my boy," Dumbledore reminds. "You can't stay in this place forever."

Harry nods and looks at incomplete little Tom.

Is Tom really evil?

He thinks of Draco and his sunken eyes and pale skin, of Bellatrix and her filthy hair and insane laughter, of his mum and dad still and silent and dead with eyes wide, of Severus Snape and his loyalties and disloyalties, of Ron and Hermoine kissing by the lake, of Ginny with hope in her eyes.

Then he thinks of Tom, six years old and waiting. Waiting for a father that isn't there and a mother that died. He thinks of little Tom who had these strange abilities and didn't know what to do with it, hurt those who hurt him, fight back like a cornered rat. Except he grew up thinking that everyone is out to hurt him, to corner him, to make him fight. That his very nature of being magnetised to Dark Magic is something to be disgusted as, something for him to have a role to fill.

"Maybe…. It's time to stop," Harry said, simply.

"Stop what?" Dumbledore asks, wary yet curious.

"This… everything. This war, this conflict between Light and Dark. Maybe… everyone is a little bit Light and Dark, maybe some just happen to have a little more of one than the other." A pause. "I… I can't take away what happened…. But that doesn't mean that he… I don't know."

There is something like sorrow in Dumbledore's voice. "Ah, kindred spirits." Dumbledore smiles, with the moon in his eyes.

Harry bites his lips, unsure.

"Whatever you do, Harry…." Dumbledore's hand is on Harry's shoulders, solid and strong and comforting. "I will always be proud of you."

"I…."

Still, he is unsure, heart torn into pieces he couldn't count.

"We will be proud of you too."

Harry's gaze snaps up and his mum and dad are there. So are Remus and Tonks. He could see Moody trying not to smile at him with familiar-looking twins and Fred by his side. There are many familiar and unfamiliar faces standing around him as well. Then Hedwig came swooping in, settling herself in Harry's shoulders. There is no Snape or Peter, and that is fine. Yet there is no Sirius. Where is Sirius?

His Godfather did not accompany him when he called for them with the Resurrection Stone either.

However, Harry focuses on the now and he looks at each and every one that now stands with him where Life and Death and the Afterlife meet.

Warm affection washes over Harry as he looks into the eyes of his family and friends. Mum and Dad are smiling at him, tears threatening to fall. Remus looks twenty years younger, arms around Tonks.

James Potter rushes in without thought, enveloping him in a tight hug, fingers carding through jet black hair.

"Harry, we're so sorry that we couldn't be there when you need us all the time," Dad said, rough and calloused fingers feels too real. "And I'm sorry that we didn't try hard enough to live…. But for what it's worth, your mum and I, Moony, and everyone…. We're all proud of you and who've you become. How far you've went. You did what many of us failed to do, what we couldn't do…. What we couldn't even think of doing."

"I…. Dad, but, I did horrible things." Harry swallows a lump in his throat. "I… don't deserve as much as you give…. I used Unforgiveables and I wanted to hurt Bellatrix so bad and… Voldemort is still alive and I still have to stop him and-"

"Shh," James stepped back for Lily. She smiles at him and cradles Harry's face in her hands. Why does his face feel wet?

"Harry, you did more than enough. You could have hated the world, you could have left it in the dust. My sister was supposed to take love you like a son, but she didn't. The Wizarding World was supposed to listen to you, but they didn't. You could have stayed in Hogwarts, you could have had Sirius…. You could have had the love you deserved, but you got less than that." Lily wipes the tears out of Harry's face with her thumbs, her eyes a vivid mix of sorrow and love. "Still, you tried to save the World, you protected your friends, you did impossible and amazing things. Yes, I know you did bad things Harry, but we all did. We all did horrible things to other people, to ourselves. You don't deserve any more pain than you already went through."

"Because, you deserve to be loved more than anything else, you did these wonderful things for us. You gave us hope when we're all in a bad place. You didn't give up when things looked bleak. You didn't have to save Dudley from Dementors, but you did, and I know that a part of you thinks that you didn't deserve to be thanked…. You could have left him to die, to be a soulless husk…. But you saved him. You saved him, and you saved us all."

"Mum…. I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything at all."

"I… but I have to. I feel horrible, for trying to save Vol - Tom. It feels like I'm betraying you - everyone - and everything we all fought for. I feel like that I'm letting you down, for turning your sacrifices in vain, like they don't matter. Like you don't matter. I… want to save Tom, but I feel like I'm damning everything you did for me - everyone and…." Harry's voice cracks, and Lily and James envelope him in their arms. Lily hums soothingly, a forgotten lullaby in her lips.

"Harry…." James begins. "You - you're not betraying us, alright? We want you to live, and it's pretty fucking awful to see you live but be miserable at the same time. You could do things for yourself, want things for yourself. Be happy for yourself, because you deserve that much. Alright? All your life, you did nothing but please others, please me and your mum, but I want you to do something that makes you happy."

"Quidditch does," Harry says in a low voice, and he hears Fred snort in laughter.

"Oh hush it, little Marauder!" James shouts in mock anger. "We're having a moment!"

"Harry," Remus calls out, and Lily and James step aside for Remus. "I could have done more for you…. And I want you to know that you're still my Godson and I won't stop being proud of the man you've grown up to be."

"If Sirius was here, he would have been so proud."

"Wotcher, count me in!"

"Constant vigilance in decisions, boy! Always know that you always have backup!"

"Oi, when you see my less-handsome brother Gorge, tell i'm not to cry too much and play something nice on my funeral!"

So it went, assurance and love from people he knows, people he doesn't know. Still, it eases the pain.

"Everyone, you're all… this is all too much." Harry wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Lily laughs like wind chimes in the breeze.

It feels good, to hear them say how proud they were, how they care.

"You can move forward and back, but once you picked your path…. There is no turning back, Harry."

Harry nods and his family and friends and loved ones and strangers that sees hope in him give him space, giving him room to breathe.

"We'll meet you at the other side, alright?" James promises and they all fade, returning to the place where the trains led them, to where the dead go and stay.

Dumbledore and Harry share a glance, and Harry takes a deep breath. He walks forward and kneels, reaching for the scarred child beneath the bench.

"See you on the other side," Dumbledore says with the sun in his eyes.

Harry smiles and there he is, cheek pressed soft soil. Little Tom is here, he doesn't know where, but when Narcissa Malfoy bends down to ask for Draco"s safety, Harry stands up with a smile of promise.

Death in his hands and death around his shoulders and death on one finger.

"It ends here now, Tom."

At the edge of the forest, two magpies fly away.