Chapter 18

Beyond the Veil & Creation

InuYasha:

I was surprised.

Was I dead? Or have I imagined it? Because I was defiantly lying on the floor.

I felt no thought's inside my head. My child was resting… or gone, like I am?

Once it was in total assurance that I was lying on a floor. I… was naked. Totally and Unhidden nude.

Though my chest and stomach flinched from the touch of the floor that was neither there nor here I wished I could cover myself up, I wanted to cover my pregnancy. But the bump was not there. But I wanted robes anyway. To protect them and me.

I felt something silky touch my non existent hand. Which my lashes fluttered opening so I could see everything as nonexistent as myself.

It was a mist, like a train mist. And in my hand was a mermaid style dress with a dropped neckline to my belly button. I slid it on. And I felt good, beautiful in the ivory silk dress.

There was a whimpering off in the distance.

I approached it, wondering if in some way. It was my child whimpering in this nonexistent world.

I flinched back at what I saw.

It was me as a child. But…

I tried to approach the little six year old girl. She was flayed and bleeding almost completely skinned wrapped in around herself.

Her hair was like Naraku's, a greasy black. And her nose looked like it had been removed to look like a flayed version of Tom Riddle's. But a scar on her back like a spider, but a small lightening bolt on her forehead.

I knelt down towards the one that was me. She was me, but not anymore. Though she was just a whimpering child. I must comfort, try and help this pathetic child from harm. Though it disgusted me.

I reached out my hand towards the child. Ready to pull back at any moment.

'That is not real InuYasha, not anymore.'

I recognized the voice, and I pulled back my hand gratefully. Standing up I turned towards the voice.

There stood my grandfather.

'InuYasha. My child. You loyal, graceful women.'

I held out my hand towards his old hand . Both were white and whole. 'Your dead.'

It was not a question. A statement of the obvious. 'So… I'm dead too?'

Dumbledore straightened up rightfully. 'Oh yes. You did your duty perfectly, but yes, deceased at the moment you are.'

'Then I'm not… "On", am I?' I frowned. I did not like to be confused.

Dumbledore shrugged. 'We are just guests to a party my lovely InuYasha. As your dress suggests.' His eyes sparkled. 'Our host has not yet arrived.'

Dumbledore took my hand onto his arm. 'Then Grandfather, We have time to talk. Just as we needed.'

Harry:

His knees buckled and he landed face flat on the floor. He was meant to die all along. Die in the line of duty, just as InuYasha did.

He looked at her letter that lay in front of the leather pants and boots. Feeling worse about her death he got up and sat in Dumbledore's chair. And opened the letter , the wax seal a Phoenix feather.

At first, Harry did not read the letter. It did not matter what it said, it was a reminder that InuYasha Kurami Tashio Higurashi was not his dream. That her parents who fought so much to live and breathe together, was still mourning for his lost love, their daughter. Her letters were what he remembered from the thousands of letters they sent each other during this summer almost a precious year ago.

Then, he read the words just for him.

Harry,

I love you. Tonight when I step forth and end my life, it is not because I think we will loose. But because I have a role in this I now understand. And that means I must un blind you, and by that destroy myself.

Every promise I made is broken to you, But it is not broken to me. I will follow into the grave holding those times preciously into my heart. You are free, and though when we fell in love in the Unknowable Room. I begged you to stay. Now I'm begging you not to stay with me.

I now ask you two favours. One is for you to get to where you need to be, the other… a request from me.

The first is you need to take my jewel to the Great Hall, when there stand in front of it and smash it. Put on the clothing I left before you leave. Trust me.

Now, I want you to promise you'll be happy. Live your life, find a girl, marry her. Have children… Be Happy.

I will always be with you, I promised to be your guardian. Now I will be your guardian angel.

I'll Always be with you,

InuYasha

Harry hadn't realized that he was crying till he noticed the blotches the were blooming on the paper.

He stripped and threw his clothing on the ground, feeling slightly embarrassed he pulled on the leather pants tying them up, and the combat boots on. He prodded his bare chest and grabbed the crimson jewel and left for the Great Hall.

InuYasha:

'Why did you give me your wand? Why not give it to Harry?'

It was the least important, so that's what I started with.

Dumbledore smiled sadly. ' Aw.. But you used it out of protection, and love. While Harry.. Bless him… would have used it for the wrong reasons. His hothead can get ahead of his golden heart.'

I smiled at that too. The thought of Harry hurt. But As soon as I was "On" I would watch him, he would grow old now that he wasn't mated to a demon anymore. 'That's why you made it so hard wasn't it?'

Dumbledore shrugged. 'That, And I knew that you needed to mate Harry. So You needed time and experience with loss and death to know how precious love truly is. Especially how much Harry loved you.'

'When I tried to mate Harry…' I was getting closer to my real question. ' A blue mark glowed on both Harry's and my neck. Why?'

Dumbledore closed his eyes, and a tear rolled down his face. ' Your grandmother… when she found out who I was. She want so badly for us to glow a blue moon. But even then my soul knew I would abandon her…' My grandfathers voice broke and he brought both his hands to his face and sobbed.

I rubbed his back feeling the agony of leaving your mate…. For duty. We had differences though.

Dumbledore had left for Hogwarts. It was his continual choice to not see them.

I had died to allow Harry to live, I could not touch… hold.. Let Harry know I was near anymore.

I leaned into his ear. ' Souta looks like you. I saw when you were his age that he is now. The same looks except for his eyes. My mother and him always had the same eyes.'

Dumbledore looked up at me, and just then I saw my mother. I saw how my mothers face must look at this moment. ' The blue moon means your true soul mates. It's so rare that that happens child. You are truly one in a million.'

I touched my grey mating mark, I did not feel anything when I did and sighed. 'And the starts.'

Out of nowhere Dumbledore straightened up and pulled out a not pad and a pen. He drew the crescent.

'You and Harry.'

He drew the starts in the inner curve of my mating mark.

'Naraku and Voldemort.'

He drew the other two starts that drifted outside of our mating mark. 'It means that inside of your mating connections your pathways into your minds have sealed off to them, though you can still see into their mind. But… the other stars speak of the piece of soul you.'

I closed my eyes. And thought back to Harry's mating mark. Now that I looked at it in my head clearly I saw a subtle difference. 'Harry's mark had only one star. But mine had two outside. Why?'

Dumbledore only stared. 'I think you know.'

I looked at the unformed mist in the distance. ' That night at Harry's village, Voldemort shot a curse at me, it opened my chest up to my heart and something pumped into it.'

Dumbledore nodded. 'It had happened once before to Dumbledore. But yes, you were the Horcrux of Naraku. And Voldemort's eighth.'

'I was?' I noticed the past tense. Dumbledore nodded and stood up.

'Come, let me explain in detail.'

I followed him towards the creature that looked so much like me. My train of my dress gliding behind me.

Harry:

Harry walked into the Great Hall shirtless and in leather pants that were to long in the legs to big in the boots and to filled out in a… certain area. The Gryffindor Sword in a hilt that was strapped to his back by thick leather chords that were to loose around his… delicate frame.

'Harry what are you doing?' Hermione shrieked from Fred's side.

Everyone fell silent and turned to Harry who stalked towards the middle of the room.

'A lot's been revealed Hermione. InuYasha left me a letter. She told me what I have to do. She died because she had to get out of my way. I won't let her sacrifice go un-avenged.'

He felt a warm manly hand on his shoulder.

He gripped her stone as met InuYasha Sr.'s eyes. He was right in front of Harry. He suddenly pulled Harry into his chest in a sort of awkward fatherly hug. And whispered to Harry. 'Thank you Harry. Her protector and… My son.'

He held Harry at arms length and for the first time he was looked at like a father should look at a son.

All this time Harry thought InuYasha Sr. would be mad for him taking his daughter away from him. But in the eyes of the man who ran his new family, was not anger.

He looked at Harry, and his eyes were proud.

Harry nodded and looked at Kagome, the mother of his new family. InuYasha's look was mirrored in his wife's face. He smiled at her as InuYasha sulked back into the woman he fought for's arms.

Finally he looked at Yashie's peaceful face. Knowing this was the last time he would see her.

Looking at her pale blissful face he pulled all his power left within him and threw InuYasha's Phoenix power on the ground.

Suddenly everything but the people was on fire though it was only to him. For no one else noticed. Fire swirled like a vortex around him, and InuYasha's voice and Dumbledore's voice ran in unison.

'A human would never survive the Forbidden Forest, their courage would leave them and they would run… you can not to so Harry. So become what InuYasha was, but was never meant to be. She was destine to be a Half-Demon. You are destine to be the Phoenix Demon!'

Suddenly All things about Harry changed at once.

His power came back to him, then doubled then budded by the thousands.

His chest filled out filling the straps his muscles in his arms grew to a powerful but not overwhelming stance.

His boots fit, his legs were the perfect length and he… "filled out" the extra space in the certain place.'

His hair grew long and flicked away from his face handsomely.

And his eyes went from green to a fire red.

To an Ice Blue.

But the true chances were on the inside.

It was like someone pulled cotton out of his half deaf ears, he was able to hear everything.

The nerves in his body could now feel. He could feel the fabric against his skin flapping a fraction millimetre away from his legs.

He could taste the air, and the embers that that sparked his tongue.

He felt like someone had finally unplugged his nose, he could smell death, and everyone's scent in the Great Hall, no one overpowering.

Finally he could see.

His blind eyes sharpened and he could see every detail in his world, as the flames swirled onto his back, and shifted into feathers.

In the glass reflection he saw the Phoenix Wings spread out from his back like Red and Gold Angel wings, then sparkle and disappear.

Kagome screamed, it was full of terror and he could really hear it now. She stared at her daughters face.

A little half smile pulled up at the corners of her dead white lips.

Little cracks broke at the surface of her skin and spread through InuYasha's body. Under them was a reddish glow, as her body turned into embers.

The last thing to turn to embers were her smiling lips, but they too turned black and red.

A wind picked up through the Great Hall. And the embers pulled from her body and shattered through the wind, in a similar way that Dumbledore's coffin conjured up out of thin air. Only they took her ways as her ashes flew around him Harry felt the warmth. They flew out of the window in a stream of sparkling black, and the last ember concluding the beauty drifted out into the sky, to join the stars.

Everyone watched the window for a long time. Harry stared with less time then the others. InuYasha was gone, and she wasn't coming back.

He left in silence as everyone cried began to cry again, he felt for death in his new demon body. But he did not hurt as badly, for he was about to join them.

He walked through the forest following Voldemort's scent. It was easy to find.

Harry heard a small gasp. But it was off, because it was his own human voice.

Harry turned to see where the voice had come from, and saw what he expected to see and almost understanding just as fast.

There about ten feet away from him stood himself. completely human, cut up, lean and straggly, wearing glasses. Looking at him now tall, muscular, handsome, and a demon.

They walked up to each other, and human Harry raised his hand to demon Harry, his hand pressed against a piece of glass.

The wall between the other dimension.

' Your walking to die?' Demon Harry asked hearing his voice for the first time. Human Harry nodded.

'Did InuYasha die in your time?'

Human Harry gave him a confused look. 'Whose InuYasha?'

Demon Harry went to open his mouth but shut it again.

This was supposed to be him, his original story without InuYasha. How life should have been. Where Harry fell in love with a human and had an adventure with the same essence but less joy and less hardship along the way. It also meant that InuYasha in his time was out there somewhere in her original story. That she was never meant to meet Harry and fall in love with someone else.

His was a world Harry never wanted to be in.

'It all ends the same.' Harry human whispered. 'We die anyway.'

Demon Harry nodded. 'Is Ginny alive in your time?' Human Harry begged. Harry was supposed to be with Ginny.

Harry nodded, and looked at off in the distance where humans could not see Voldemort's camp fire.

Human Harry's hand spread out against the dimension barrier. And it twitched. Harry smiled and placed his hand in the same spot, their hands lining up perfectly. He could almost feel his supposed to be fingertips.

'No matter what,' Demon Harry whispered Ice Blue looking into Green ' We are always us. No matter who we love. You love Ginny, so you'd never want to be here. I love a women named InuYasha, life id harder. But she brings joy and light to my world. So I never want to be in your world. Ginny survives the battle. InuYasha did not.'

Human Harry's eyes grew sad. 'I'm sorry.'

Harry smiled. 'Don't be. I have her waiting for me in the next world, I'm racing to die.'

Human Harry's mouth twitched. 'Good-bye Harry, we had a good run.'

Demon Harry smiled. 'We'll be together. Till the end.'

He pulled out the golden snitch. As did Human Harry. The barrier cracked and soon Human Harry would disappear and together they whispered 'I am about to die'.

The barrier shattered and human Harry was gone. The Snitch broke in half and the last Hollow to be found laid in his hand.

He turned it three times in his hands, wishing for his guardians to come and bring him home.

He knew it worked because he hear Yashie's annoyed huff as she shifted her weight. He opened his eyes to see four people circling around the fifth.

Lupin and Sirius, much younger and healthier then Harry had ever seen them looked around happily to see themselves in a familiar place were so much foolishness happened. But he could not focus on them.

James was the exact same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothing he died in, his hair was untidy, and his glasses were slightly lopsided, like Mr. Weasley's.

Yashie was exactly how he remembered her, the night she told him she loved him. Her grin etched permanently on her face, her hair was white and thick her long bangs almost covering one eye her hair down to her waist, her black eyes shining in the muted light, her magic shining through getting ripped showing that she was still herself. Wearing his long black sleeved shirt and blue jeans.

Lily's smile was the widest of them all, he swept her long red hair behind her ear and grew close, her eyes, so much like his feasted on him.

'You've been so brave.'

Harry could not say a word, his strong demon eyes focused on his father, his mother, and the love of his life all at the same time. This was surely the gift before death.

'Your nearly there.' James whispered 'We're so proud.'

'Does it hurt?' Harry asked. It was a childish question and Yashie laughed.

'Dying' Sirius asked. When Yashie nodded to him he shook his head. 'Quicker and easier then falling asleep.'

'And he'll want it to be quick.' Yashie shot in. ' He wants it over.'

'I never wanted you to die.' He said this without thinking. ' Any of you.' He focused mainly on Lupin and Yashie. ' Lupin right after you had you son. Remus I'm sorry.'

Lupin smiled sadly. 'I'm sorry too. Sorry he will never know me. But I will know him, and I will know that people will tell him that I died to give him a better life. And that I will always be right there, over his shoulder.'

Harry nodded, it was time to go. But he had on more person to say something to.

He walked over to the almost solid spirit of Yashie. 'We we're so close to our dreams. Why did you die?'

Yashie smiled gently at the apparent agony on his face, She lifted her hand to touch his face, but it went right through. A shadow of a tear welled up in the corners of her eyes. ' I realized that no matter how long I ran from it, I was InuYasha. My duty was to stand in front of my loved ones and die for them to succeed. I finally embraced who I was, and how temporary I had to be. The women you fell in love with died before this battle began Harry Potter. She died, leaving herself with you.'

'I don't understand.'

Her black eyes burned into his. ' Three times I changed. Inu, the one you first met angry and selfish. Yashie. Me, the one you changed into your lover. I died last night. When I realized I couldn't be Yashie. I'm InuYasha. '

Harry's lips pulled up 'I understand that. But…' He had one last little mystery to solve.

'Yes?'

'You told me you wished to be a half-demon. But I looked up the words, and you didn't wish for that. What was your real wish on the Shikon Jewel. And did it grant it?'

Yashie laughed stuffing her hands in her jean pockets laughed loudly. ' Your so nosey!'

Harry just waited.

Yashie became sober and drew as close as she could without touching him.

'The jewel didn't grant my wish, You did. I lied to everyone what I wished for, never tell anyone my true wish.'

Harry ran his hands down her see through hair, not being able to feel them, but just needing to know that he was as close to her soul as possible. 'What did you wish Yashie?'

'Somewhere I belong.'

Of course, she had no where to belong as a half demon. But she was accepted as herself as soon as she stepped onto Hogwarts Express.

His eyes drifted to his parents. It was time to go. ' You'll stay with me?'

'Until the very end.' said James.

'They won't see you?' asked Harry.

'We are apart of you.' replied Lupin.

'Invisible to everyone else.' Sirius added.

'You all traveled a long way to get here?' Harry asked, twisting his question.

Yashie relied this time 'Harry. We never left.'

He smiled at her and whispered. ' Stay close to me.'

They set off, Dementors drifting away from the soul that would soon leave him. And soon the only thing between his disconnected body and Voldemort was a tree.

'My Lord. No sign of Potter.'

Voldemort stood up, ' I though he would come… I was.. Mistaken.'

'You weren't.'

Harry stepped through the tree's and the stone dropped from his fingers, and his friends and family left his sight.

'HARRY NO!'

He recognized Hagrid's voice but did not look at him, he had to keep his eyes on Voldemort.

Voldemort drew his wand and pointed it at Harry's heart, cocking his head. ' Harry Potter… The boy who lived… why?'

Harry looked in the eyes coloured by InuYasha's born powers. ' You killed my mate, I have no more reason for this world.'

Voldemort laughed a low chuckle. 'Love, the destroyer of all weak men.'

He cocked his head like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded.

'Avada Kedavra!' Screamed Voldemort's high voice.

A green jet spiralled to Harry, hitting him directly in the heart, and Everything was gone.

Somewhere in between worlds InuYasha's sunk to her knees a pain so pure gripping her heart and her neck. Dumbledore watched as she screamed out as her mating mark had it's colour return from grey to green. Before she hit the floor unconscious.

Harry hit the floor closely beside her, naked but whole, he was in his demon form as Dumbledore had wished.

Something whimpered in the distance. Voldemort no doubt.

Dumbledore walked towards the disgusting thing. And said softly and not unkind. 'I will give Harry and InuYasha their last moment of peace they so richly deserve. You and I have much to talk about Tom.'