He woke in darkness.

For an eternal moment he wasn't sure he existed; everything that had been, would be didn't matter. All that existed was the moment, and he was content.

He'd been fighting for so long; from the moment his parents had vanished in a flash of green light his life had been conflict and pain. The Dursleys had given him nothing but fear and loneliness, and once he'd gotten to Hogwarts his life had been nothing but people trying to kill him.

Voldemort's army was all but defeated; once the Ministry discovered that the Death Eaters had been largely defeated by a group of school children and a few subhumans, they'd be more than happy to mop up.

Voldemort's back was broken; Dumbledore was alive, and with the gems helping them, there wasn't anyplace Voldemort could run.

The world no longer needed Harry Potter, and the sense of relief that engendered in him was overwhelming. He felt like Atlas freed from holding up the sky; the burden had been part of his life for as long as he could remember. Even before he'd learned of magic he'd had a sense of destiny.

After a time, though it occurred to him that he was aware. He forced himself to open his eyes, and light blossomed in the distance.

It was Pearl's fountain. It glowed in the darkness, and Harry couldn't help but remember all the times he'd seen here dancing on top of it as Sirius had struggled to teach him occlumency.

Now that Harry looked, he could see crystals embedded in the ceiling, shining like stars in the sky. Knowing Pearl, they'd been placed exactly as the stars in the outside world were.

Harry wondered how he'd come to be in the Temple. This was the place where he'd first gotten to know Sirius, where he'd learned to master his own mind, but still, it was the last place he'd have expected to end up.

He glanced down at himself and grimaced. A moment later he was wearing white robes; this was proof this wasn't the actual temple. Even the room of requirement couldn't create clothes on the body as an act of will.

This had to be a representation of...something. Steven had told Harry about his mother's room, about how it created anything the user wanted out of clouds. Maybe the afterlife was a little like that; if it was, Harry hoped he could find his parents and see what kind of worlds they were creating.

He glanced to his right and he recoiled. There was something horribly twisted moaning on the floor beside him. It wasn't any larger than a baby, and something inside him rebelled at the thought of even going near it.

"That was part of him," Steven's voice came from the darkness beside him. "It was in your head."

"Are you dead?" Harry asked. He was disappointed. He'd assumed that Steven would have created a bubble when he fell off the side of the tower.

"No," Steven said. "I'm sleeping next to your body. I tried to heal you with my spit, and it helped a little, but you wouldn't wake up."

"You're sleeping next to my dead body," Harry said flatly.

"It's this thing I can do," Steven said. "I can visit people in my dreams. I've used it to communicate in the past, even take over a watermelon Steven once or twice."

"That's a little creepy," Harry said. "Why are you here."

"I'm here to take you back," Steven said. "Hermione and Ron are waiting for you."

"They'll be fine without me," Harry said. "How am I even still halfway alive? I thought you couldn't heal the dead."

"I'm not really sure," Steven said. "I can see a line leading back to the real world. I think maybe you and Voldemort are connected somehow. As long as he's alive he's a lifeline for you."

Harry couldn't see anything, but he didn't doubt Steven. "It's probably when he used his blood to revive himself. Dumbledore seemed awfully smug when I told him about that."

"I don't know,' Steven said. "Does it matter? You've got a chance to come back to be with all of us."

"Why should I?" Harry asked. "I mean, if I was the only one able to stop him, it'd be different, but there's lots of people out there now. Dumbledore and Snape together can probably stop Voldemort all by themselves. Nobody needs me."

"It's not about Voldemort at all!" Steven said. "This is about you and me and all out friends. We've almost got him beaten and we've got our whole lives ahead of us to be kids again."

"I'm not a kid!" Harry snapped.

"You never got a chance to be," Steven said. "But once this is all over with, maybe you will. Being a kid is great! You don't have to worry about anything and you can be whatever you want to be."

Harry frowned. Steven was right. From the moment he'd learned about Voldemort and his plans when he was eleven Harry had been a child soldier, whether he'd known about it or not. Even before he'd learned about the magical world he'd never really had a real childhood.

"So you want yo be Peter Pan?"

Steven's voice chuckled. "Well, I actually could be according to the gems. There's a chance I'll never actually age. Plus, I can float if I want to. I can't actually fly, but I'm gonna keep trying."

He was quiet for a moment, then he spoke again. "I may have forever, but you've only got a few more years. After that you'll have a wife and kids and a job. You'll get fat and bald and you'll start wanting to eat grown up cereals with bran in them."

"You make living sound so appealing," Harry said dryly, but as he did, the idea of having his own home

began to sprout in his mind. He'd never had a home of his own, not really. The closest thing he'd ever had was the temple, and even that was distant and alien. He'd never have the kind of affection from the gems that Steven had, but he could create his own family.

He could give his own children the life he'd never had for himself, and he'd finally have a place in the world.

"All right," Harry said. "I'll come back."

He glanced at the mutilated thing on the ground. "What about him?"

"I tried talking to him," Steven said. His voice sounded sad. "All he knows is pain. He can't understand anything and there's nothing tying him to the world of the living. I think he's going to be here for a long time."

Harry glanced at the mutilated piece of Voldemort's soul, and despite everything that Voldemort had done, he couldn't help but feel a little pity for it. Maybe it was Steven's influence, wanting to see the best in everything.

He sighed and said, "OK. Take me back."

He felt Steven's hand on his wrist suddenly, even if he didn't see him. A moment later the world around him vanished.

He was awake.

There hadn't been any pain in the place between worlds, but there was now. His face hurt from where he'd fell onto the steps, and his entire body ached.

He could hear the sounds of battle still echoing in the distance, and he wondered how long they'd been gone. As he struggled to open his eyes, he saw Hermione's tear streaked face above him.

"Harry!" she said, pulling him up into a hug.

He had a moment to feel grateful that they'd at least turned his body facing up, but the blood had still run to his head and left him feeling unpleasant.

The next moment was filled with the sudden, awkward awareness that being hugged by Hermione was rather nice. Harry hadn't had many hugs in his life; most human contact had been cuffs to the back of the head or ramming into someone during Quidditch matches.

He hadn't had a lot of experience with snogging, or even with casual, friendly contact like this.

Steven was sitting up. He'd lain down on the stairs, but he'd had the sense to lay down with his head facing in the up direction.

"We don't have a lot of time," Steven said. "Garnet had Peridot send me a message while you were out. There's a place we have to be if we want to make sure to save as many people as we can."

Even though the battle was winding down, Voldemort still had a lot of followers. Harry suspected that the moment they learned he'd been put down they'd melt away into the wind. They needed to defeat him soon.

This had already been a disaster for wizardkind; they'd killed more wizards in a single battle than in the entirety of the last war. If this kept up it wouldn't just be Voldemort's people dying; it would be Harry's friends and classmates.

"Let's go," Harry said. He groaned as he struggled to sit up; his back hurt and there were aches and pains in places he hadn't even realized he had.

Steven reached down and grabbed his hand. A moment later Harry found himself standing. He forgot sometimes just how strong Steven really was.

A moment later a shadow appeared in the window. Harry tensed, grasping vainly for his wand. Hermione handed it to him wordlessly and Harry nodded absently at her.

A tall, dark skinned woman appeared in the window. She was even taller than Steven and Hermione's fusion had been, although she was nowhere nearly as tall as Hagrid. Her hair was a strangely shaped, almost square looking afro.

It wasn't until Harry saw the gems on her hands that he relaxed. This had to be Garnet, Steven's final "aunt."

"Garnet!" Steven shouted, leaping toward her despite the fact that she was standing on the windowsill. He lunged toward her and rammed himself into her midsection in a hug that should have thrown both of them out the window.

Despite Steven's strength, Garnet didn't budge an inch. She simply wrapped an arm around him and said, "It's good to see you again."

"I knew you'd be back," Steven said. "And I have so much to tell you!"

"I already know everything Sapphire knows," Garnet said.

"But I didn't get a chance to tell YOU," Steven said. He turned a little, still holding Garnet's waist. "This is Harry and Hermione."

Harry stared at her and wondered if she'd known he was going to be killed by Voldemort, or almost.

"As long as part of Voldemort was still inside of you, he'd never truly be gone," Garnet said, answering the question he hadn't even asked. "It was one of those things that had to happen."

Harry wanted to argue, but he couldn't. He felt lighter, somehow, cleaner now that he knew he was free of the dark portion of Voldemort's soul that had cast a shadow over his whole life. He was his own person now, with a future that was his own.

All that was left now was to end the threat represented by Voldemort, and Harry and everyone he knew could live the lives they were meant to live.

He nodded in acknowledgment and then said, "I guess it's time to go."

Garnet nodded, and before Harry could respond he and Hermione were snatched up by Garnet and they were out the window falling out into open space.

Harry glanced at Steven. Instead of fear there was only excitement, although whether that was from the presence of his last "Aunt" or from what was about to happen.

He shrugged and decided to take his cue from the people around him.

It was time to have a little fun.