A/N

First time writing a HP fanfiction, so bare some patience.
I apologize for any errors. Please let me know & I'll edit as we go.
Thank you new readers.

The Tragedy of Harry Potter

By. Momento Virtuoso
A/N: I do not own Harry Potter unlike J.K.

Prologue

For once dying was an odd feeling for Harry Potter. Propping his back against a gnarled tree deep within the Forbidden Forest, clutching a small triangular stone between his numbing fingers. He was being swirled by a whirlpool of regrets.

Harry thought about using the stone before walking into the clearing where Lord Voldemort was surrounded by his Death Eaters and other followers, waiting for him to surrender himself in a hopeless attempt to save his friends.

In a moment that he thought his courage would falter and waiver he grappled with his fear by himself before coming onto the clearing. Overcoming the temporary urge to abandon it all. Fleeing from death like his foe was keen to do. To not perform the task that had been laid before him since it all began that fateful Halloween all those years ago in the nursery of that cottage nestled in Godric's Hollow.

He stood before the Dark Lord who had terrorized and hounded him for all his life. Staring the immortal man in the eyes knowing he'd have the last laugh when his friends destroyed the snake, Nagini and then the man himself. The Dark Lord didn't know that he was about to destroy his unintentional Horcrux.

However, just as quickly as he found his courage it had departed from him leaving his sails slack in a doldrum when he wasn't met by the familiar words and a green flash of light that haunted his nightmares. Lord Voldemort decided on another dark curse. One that Harry wouldn't walk away from it seemed.

An unfamiliar phrase left the Dark Lord's lips and a purple blade of magic flew from the tip of his wand. It thrummed with a dark magic that many in the vicinity had never been exposed to. Piercing Harry along his left side just below his heart, cutting down the length of his flank. The Death Eaters surrounding him and Voldemort had cheered and sneered at Harry when the cut was made. Almost instantly Harry's knees began buckling and he sank down. His strength fastly depleting in a race alongside his life blood.

The sneers of the dark wizards rose to a jubilation. However, it would not last long as soon the group departed towards the castle to either resume the conflict or gloat their victory over the survivors of the siege. The Dark Lord, Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort slowly approached the crumbling figure of his greatest opponent. A tsk sound escaped from his thin lips, almost sneering.

"To think. You almost impressed me, Potter...evermore the pity that you fell short in the end," said the Dark Lord. Staring into the eyes of the boy who stood against him more times than any other wizard alive.

Harry held eye contact with his foe. His green orbs filled with hate and a fiery rage that gave the Dark Lord a pause for a moment. Feeling a moment of hesitation and even unease gripping him at the sight of the anger within the boy. He considered casting the Unforgivable Killing Curse in that moment for the certainty that he'd triumphed over the boy. But the spell that he had struck the one who was prophesied to defeat was doing its work. It was a nasty piece of magic that was created by Lichs of old. Dark wizards who like himself, experimented with the magic regarding the soul. The boy would not survive the hour. The Dark Lord could glean that from a glance at the wound and the victims demeanor. Nodding down at his work in satisfaction.

"Good-bye Harry Potter. I would give your loved ones your last regards but they are not long for this world either. Only I could survive and live forever out of the two of us" Voldemort said.

With that, the Dark Lord left Harry to die alone on the forest floor.

Most of his body was numb now - a chill slowly creeping up Harry's extremities and carving a way through his being.

Harry's breaths were shallow and his flank was colored red from the blood leaving his body. A gaping wound left by a dark cutting curse was the cause of his current state. He had gone to the forest after witnessing the memories of his former Potions professor. Watching in fascination, horror, and begrudging respect for the man he hated since first stepping into his classroom. A man who for all of his worth had only ever tried doing what was best for him ironically something that Dumbledore, the man Harry had always looked towards - didn't do. The old man's betrayal stung fiercely but it was almost nothing to the terror gripping his mortal soul currently.

Harry could hear his heartbeat pumping away the blood further through and out of his body. He could feel how his own organs were betraying him in his final hour. A funeral drum pounding out to the shaking of his mortal coil. His will to live had always been strong but he could feel it siphoning off and shrinking. Soon it would all be gone. His brain and nerve and bounding heart. It would all be gone…or at the very least he'd be gone from it.

In the office he had come to grapple and terms with that his life was only going to be as long as it took to hunt the Horcruxes. A job passed from Dumbledore to him that he obediently continued to chip away at the bonds tying not just Voldemort but himself to life.

In his departure from the castle Harry had told no one goodbye. He had been determined to have no goodbyes or explanations and now he regretted that. He only wanted one more moment with his friends. To hold Ginny close again like those wonderful blissful days around the Black Lake more than a year ago now. He would never feel her lips upon his again. He should have reached out to her as he passed her in the corridors on the way to the forest.

"I'm ready - I'm ready to die…I am about to die" Harry choked as he turned the stone over thrice in his fingers. The power of the Hallow washed over him, the only warmth that he could feel now but there was an eerie coldness to the magic.

A mist had begun approaching him covering the forest floor like a herald of the impending doom he faced. Opaque figures began to form from some of the mist rising up - taking a human form. Slight movements around him that suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground that marked his final resting place. Soon Harry was face to face with his parents, Sirius, Remus, and oddly enough, Severus Snape.

They were neither ghosts nor truly a being of flesh, he could see that still despite his clouding senses. The five figures resembled closely that of the Riddle which escaped from the diary so long ago, and he had been but a memory made nearly solid. The apparitions moved towards him. On each face except Severus Snape's, who held a stern facade, there was the same loving smile.

James Potter was the same height as Harry. Wearing the clothes in which he had died in, and his hair untidy and ruffled, his glasses were lopsided upon his nose.

Sirius was tall and handsome, younger by far than Harry had ever seen him in life. He came forward with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets.

Lupin was younger too. Less shabby, and his hair thicker and darker. His spirit looked around, appearing happy to be back in this familiar place, scene of so many adolescent wanderings with his pack.

Severus Snape stood behind the Marauders but remained in sight of the student he had tormented in life. He was younger too. Still clothed in black but his face bore none of the premature aging and stress he carried in life.

Lily's smile was the widest of them all but her eyes also held the deepest sadness. Her green eyes, so like her sons, searched Harry's face hungrily despite the pain that was overtaking her son's features.

"Oh my dear boy, hello Harry my sweet little boy…you've been so brave," the soft voice of his mother, Lily Potter croaked. She was beautiful even in death. The few photos that Harry possessed of her didn't do the apparition justice.

It was the first time he had heard her older self without begging for his life to be spared from the Dark Lord intending to kill him. The chill creeping through his body got even colder as he grasped the reality that this would be the last and only time he'd hear his mother.

"You've been so brave, you just need to hold on a little longer", she urged Her translucent hands attempting to comfort her son.

"I never - I didn't - none of you should have died for me…none of you should have ever died for me…It's not what I wanted," Harry finally managed to get out. Blood now creeping along the curve of his mouth and down his chin. His green eyes rising to meet those of his dead Potions Professor.

In life - Severus Snape would have glared at him filled with venom and bitterness but now Snape's dark eyes bore both regret and more remorse than what he saw in the Pensieve at his own betrayal.

"I watched your memories Professor, I did what you asked and -", Harry's body suddenly shivered and more blood was staining the forest floor. A large puddle forming underneath him. "I failed -" Harry tried to get out.

The ghost of Sirius Black was immediately pulled to his godson's side.

"Shhh none of that now Harry", "You didn't fail my boy" Sirius's ghost comforted. His father, James Potter nodded in agreement.

"Your mothers right my son just hold on a little longer - it'll be ok" James said. "You're nearly there…very close. We are…and always will be so proud of you" said James.

Harry's eyes moved on to meet Remus's, which in death were no longer drooping and held no weariness and exhaustion they had in life.

"Your son Remus, Teddy -" Harry began before being cut off.

"Will know that his parents died so that the world he grew up in would be a better place", "do not worry Harry, for he will be ok" Remus finished for the young man. A smile sat upon his scarred face.

Finally the ghost of Severus Snape found its will to speak no longer standing amongst the many who he hated in life.

"Potter, you haven't failed yet and I would hate to see you abandon your usual stubbornness in your greatest hour of need," Severus's voice cut through the mist and distance to Harry.

"You were given an impossible task, yet you've managed far more than I nor even Dumbledore first expected of you." The Potion master said, trying to reassure his former charge. His charge didn't understand what his former potions master meant in the former half of the statement.

"Myself, and especially Dumbledore failed you. This was not supposed to be but it will happen regardless now - you must prepare yourself".

Despite the weariness overtaking him. Harry's fingers tightened around the stone that sat within them. The black rock cut into his skin from the pressure of his fist.

"Atta boy lad, don't you dare go gentle on us now," Sirius smiled at his godson. "This ain't the end yet; you've got to see it through".

Unbeknownst to Harry, the dark curse caused more than just a deep wound in Harry's side though. His scar was on fire like never before, his head threatening to split from the pain. The magic was also sapping away his life force alongside his life blood. The tethers that bound his soul to the plain were practically severed upon the curse's impact. His wound was just as fatal magically as it was physically. The Boy-Who-Lived was always on spare time.

"Is it better after this? Is it ok after dying" Harry begged his godfather for an answer.

The ghost of Sirius kneeling down before him. Wishing more than any in that moment that he could offer more comfort to the boy he should have raised after his friend's death.

"It's just like being asleep, you won't feel a thing, it's much quicker and easier," Sirius whispered.

Harry's demeanor shifted his body which was rigid and was slowly releasing the tension. His vision which was already poor with his glasses was now failing him in earnest. He could only see the ghosts of his eternal supporters and the mist which surrounded him. The trees of the forest were gone and its sound was fading out too.

His failing eyes met their twins briefly in the face of his mother. He could finally see what everyone else saw now when they looked at him. He could only see the green eyes of Lily.

"It's ok Harry, you've done your best - but now it's time for you to do better" his mother spoke softly.

"Please…stay..stay with me?" Harry implored.

His father came close to him alongside his mother. Trying but failing to touch their son but still give him their comfort and protection.

"Until the very end," said James. His brown eyes looked lovingly at the man who his son had become.

Harry couldn't imagine doing anything better. He had done everything asked of him by the wizarding world and Dumbledore. He stood against Voldemort. He hunted down the man's horcruxes till there were only two left. He accepted and embraced his coming death like an old friend, trying to be brave like his mother did. The stone was the only thing he could feel now and it weighed heavy in his fingers. Gravity was pulling it down to the earth and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on.

Finally, after holding against the curse for so long Harry's chest rattled and his grip faltered. The stone slipped between his fingers and crashed to the forest floor. Almost immediately the visages of his parents, their friends, and Snape vanished. Their smiles and support being the last things his eyes witnessed before finally closing.

Against a tree in the Forbidden forest, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, had finally died. Across the school grounds the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters were approaching the school that they laid siege to ready to face down the people that Harry had sacrificed himself for.

Silence was all around him like a blanket. Covering his entire existence for a long moment that seemed to stretch on forever but passed before the first new breath left his body.

Harry's eyes opened to a large dazzling white cathedral like room which held a bright mist. The arches above his head, made of the purest marble with no imperfections in its stone. The dying wizard had found himself at a place between a church and train platform he observed. Lined along both sides were platform stations and a few benches. Columns that seemed to be lost in the distance the higher they went reaching up to the arched ceiling supporting it all.

The first thing that Harry realized was his side was no longer in pain and his spirit felt no agony. The lightning shaped scar on his forehead sat there mutely for the first time in seventeen years. His muscles felt relaxed and healed despite the year he'd spent on the run and the last few days of constant fighting in battle. He found his body clothes in a simple white shirt and pants that he had not been wearing during his ordeal in the Forbidden Forest. His vision was perfect and there was no need for his glasses which he relied on everyday.

"Hello Harry, my dear boy," a voice heralded out in front of him.

Harry's attention immediately snapped to the source. Standing before him was the man who had been his mentor and guide throughout all of his time at Hogwarts. He found himself staring into the half-moon spectacled electric blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore. Eyes he had not seen since that fateful night he fell from the top of the astronomy tower.

Dumbledore stood before him sprightly and upright in long sweeping robes of midnight blue. His right hand was white and undamaged, no longer the sickly black form it had taken from the mummification curse that sat upon the Gaunt ring.

"You wonderful brave boy. Would you care for a walk?" said Dumbledore.

Stunned, Harry stood there as Dumbledore turned his back to him and waved him forward along with his lively hand. The appendage captured almost all of Harry's attention. The former Headmaster led him to two seats that Harry had not previously noticed set some distance away from the vaulted sparkling ceiling. Dumbledore sat down in one, and Harry fell into the other staring at the face of his mentor. The dead headmaster's long silver hair and beard, the eyes and his half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Every feature was as Harry remembered him in life.

"But you're dead," Harry said. "You fell from the tower".

"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly. "Quite so."

Harry took a moment. "Then…I'm dead too?"

Dumbledore smiled at the young man. "On the floor of the Forbidden Forest it would seem," the headmaster said with a wink. "But that is the question, isn't it? On the whole, my dear boy, I'd think not."

Looking at each other, the older of the two was still beaming but there was still a sadness in his eyes despite his happily seeming comment.

"Not?" repeated Harry.

"Not," said Dumbledore, quite surely now.

"But…" Harry faltered for a moment. "I died. He didn't cast the Killing Curse like I thought. He used some kind of cutting curse instead and left me there…I don't think that was part of the plan was it Professor?"

"No dear boy. It was not," said Dumbledore sadly. Harry's shoulders lost their composure upon the Professor's word.

"You were…I had hoped to go to him and not defend yourself. So that when he cast the Killing curse upon you - he'd perform his undoing once more like what happened with your mother, dear Lily. But instead he casted something else that was even worse but somehow just as fortuitous as that particular Unforgivable against you," said Dumbledore.

What befell Harry was certainly not how Dumbledore expected for the piece of Voldemort's soul to be extracted and destroyed from the boy.

Harry absorbed the straightforward answer from the headmaster and nodded.

"But then what was the spell he used?" wondered Harry.

"Ah. That would be a soul revering curse. Nasty business I must confess, my dear boy. Quite simply it is a curse that not only cuts the physical body but also the soul of the victim as well. It shears the tether that binds the soul of the victim to this world. Once it is cast upon someone, they are marked for death because there is no magic that can heal such a wound. They will expire regardless either from the physical injury but most definitely from the magical one that is sustained," Dumbledore explained.

Harry took a moment to himself.

"But the part of his soul that was in me…"

Dumbledore nodded at the young man, urging Harry to continue onward, a sad smile upon his face. "…has it gone?"

"And that my dear boy is the fortunate part which I stated earlier. When the spell cleaved through your soul. It separated the part from yours first. In casting that spell, Tom performed the destruction of his own Horcrux by removing it from its vessel. That being you. Sadly that reasoning is also why unfortunately it took so long for you to succumb to the spell." finished Dumbledore.

"Professor, I still don't understand. You said I wasn't fully dead but yet it didn't go as you had planned. How can you be so sure?" asked Harry.

Dumbledore smiled at the young man. Twiddling his thumbs together. He had two answers for the young man, thinking silently to himself, he supposed he would have to give one to the boy now.

"You know the answer to that now my dear boy, or have you not been paying attention?" said Dumbledore with a mirth of a grin.

"But how can I be alive if nobody died for me this time Professor?" Harry started.

Dumbledore kept his grin firmly showing on his face as his cheeks pressed the half-moon glasses even higher up.

"I think you know," said Dumbledore. "Think back to that fateful evening in the graveyard all those years ago. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and cruelty."

Harry thought. Letting his gaze drift over his surroundings for a while. If indeed it was a Cathedral in which they sat together, it was a stunning but odd one, with chairs set in little rows and bits of railing here and there. Not organized how one would place the pews for the coming congregation to sit. The answer rose to his lips quite easily, without effort.

"He took my blood," stated Harry.

"Indeed, precisely that. He took your blood," said Dumbledore.

"Taking your blood and rebuilding his body with it! Your blood is within his veins, Harry, dear Lily's protection inside the both of you. He has tethered you to a life while he lives."

Harry sat there in silence once more. Dumbledore glanced around their surroundings like they were in a park outside and he was watching clouds roll over.

"I always thought it was the other way around…I thought the prophecy said we both had to die," mumbled Harry.

Dumbledore smiled at the young man and shook his head softly. "No my dear boy. Due to the circumstances it spoke to the fact that neither could die while the other was still alive."

Harry sat in thought once again for a long time, or perhaps only a few seconds. It was very hard to be sure of concepts such as time, here.

"He killed me with your wand."

"I believe he failed to kill you with my wand. Remember Harry…not quite," Dumbledore corrected Harry with a smile.

"I think we can find agreement that you are not dead — though, of course," he added as if fearing of being discourteous to the young man, "I do not minimize your sufferings, which I am sorry to be a part of were severe."

Harry nodded. It was close to being too much with Dumbledore honestly in his own head. Last summer Harry had found himself in a dark place after the Headmasters death upon the Astronomy Tower. He had barely any time to grieve for the man that he knew before it was revealed that he had never really known the eccentric professor who had been guiding him. A whirlpool of emotions were in turmoil within his chest at the thought of the older man.

Dumbledore observing the younger wizard seemed to know where his thoughts had gone.

"Harry, my dear boy. Please allow a few mistakes on an old man's behalf. Despite what the world laureled — I was not indeed perfect. There are many I have wronged in my time. None more so than you," said Dumbledore.

Harry turned and glared at him. Remembering a much more pressing subject that had plagued his mind for weeks.

"The Deathly Hallows," he said, and he was glad to see the solemn expression on the old man's face wiped for an even more sorrowful one.

"Ah, yes," Dumbledore said. He even looked a little worried. More so than what he just requested of Harry. For the first time since Harry had ever met Dumbledore, he looked less than the legendary wizard and old man, much less. He looked like a small boy caught in wrongdoing.

"I shall ask again Harry, can you forgive me?" he requested. "Can you forgive me for not telling or trusting you? I only feared that you would have failed where I had failed as well. I feared you'd repeat my very mistakes. I crave your pardon Harry. I have known for quite some time now that you are a better man than I."

Harry simply watched the old man. Not speaking but his eyes widening and shrinking in thought.

"I trusted you with the objects of your destruction and not with the items of your potential salvation. The Hallow's are real as you well know, real, and dangerous, and a lure for fools and lesser men," said Dumbledore.

"Like Voldemort, I too sought a way to conquer death, Harry."

"Not the way he did," said Harry after all his anger at the old man in the moment temporarily forgotten. He felt it odd to sit here in this cathedral like room, beneath the high, vaulted ceilings, and defend Dumbledore from himself.

"Hallows, not Horcruxes."

"Hallows," murmured Dumbledore, "not Horcruxes. Precisely."

Dumbledore sat quietly in thought for a moment. The white mist was lingering around them still and Harry could have sworn he was hearing the call of a train off in the unseen distance.

"Harry my dear boy, I think if there is anything for you to take forward. And if there is a last piece of parting wisdom I can grant you. There are always extremes in which you can partake without losing oneself. The Hallows — being but one example," the old wizard looked at the young man. For the first time in Albus's existence he was truly looking at Harry James Potter for who he was. Not as the Boy-Who-Lived. Not as a piece to be moved on a board in a game against a Dark Lord. Not as the Horcrux which plagued his soul for so many years.

"You were the best of us my boy, and I think you will be again."

"You all keep saying things like that — like I've got to go back," said Harry.

Dumbledore looked at him with a raised eyebrow. The smile that was wiped from his face earlier was now back in earnest.

"I should think so my dear boy but that is ultimately up to you".

"I've got a choice?"

"Oh yes, of course you've got a choice Harry. You've always had a choice. That's what's made all the difference till now," stated Dumbledore.

The train Harry could hear was getting louder now. The cathedral had taken upon an appearance more akin to King's Cross during their conversation. Dumbledore nodded at him.

"You can either board that train or you can go forward with what's been laid before you" Dumbledore informed.

"And where would it take me?"

"On," said Dumbledore simply.

There was silence around them again. Deafening so that the only thing Harry could perceive was the call from the oncoming train's engine and wheels beating against the track.

"But you want me to go back?" The question left Harry's lips almost bitterly. Even in death he had hoped the old man wouldn't start pulling his strings.

Dumbledore looked at him almost sadly with a resolution.

"I think," said Dumbledore, "that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he could be finished for good. I cannot promise it my dear boy. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does."

Dumbledore took a moment. He now had to explain the second answer he had come to with the boy now.

"The curse the Dark Lord struck you with has… repercussions shall we say? You may be able to return… but it will not be the way you currently believe my dear boy. You will be in for the fight of a lifetime I'd wager," Dumbledore slowly stated.

"By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart, that even those beyond current redemption have a hand held out to them in their darkest moment. If that seems to you a worthy cause, then we say good-bye for the present."

Harry nodded. Leaving the cathedral would be nowhere near as hard as the solitary walk to the forest had been. Nowhere near as painful as his final moments had been with his loved ones' apparitions, but it was warm and peaceful in this hallowed hall. He knew he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss. He stood up, and Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other's faces.

Despite the foreboding and comforting words of the Headmaster. Harry could not help but feel like he was being led along once again. However he had come so close to defeating Voldemort. What more did he have to lose by going back? Looking around once again at his surroundings, he felt at peace here. This wouldn't be a poor place to return to if he failed. He would miss his friends and those held dear of course but he didn't tremble at the thought of dying again.

"I'm ready," said Harry.

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though his figure was beginning to disappear.

"And remember Harry, my dear boy, that help will always be granted at Hogwarts to those who ask." The old man smiled at Harry one last time before a sudden lurch made itself known in Harry's stomach.

The cathedral was gone and the Forbidden Forest invaded his senses once more. The sounds of wildlife and trees shifting replacing the call of the train he never boarded to go on. With a gasp and hand flying to his side where he was wounded, Harry sat up quickly. He was no longer laying in a pool of his own blood against a tree. He still wore the clothes that he faced the Dark Lord in and the side of his jacket and shirt were seared. Looking down he could see a long purple line make its way across his flank. It looked irritated and inflamed but the pain he experienced before was nowhere to be found.

Harry was back. Breath filled his lungs, a steady beat within his chest filled his ears, and the color of the surrounding world filled his eyes. He survived the soul revering curse just as he had the Killing Curse. Once again, he had defied the odds and stumbled his way out in pure luck. Or via Fate.

Trying to gather his feet underneath him, Harry slowly stood up and grasped the Hawthorn wand he had stored in his pocket. The sun was pouring through the canopy of the Forbidden Forest. It had been a late evening when he walked inside to face his death. How many hours had been out? He had to get to the castle and stop Voldemort. Who knows what had befallen to his friends and the castle so far.

With his feet underneath him, Harry began to stumble through the forest. Trying to dodge the roots which attempted to tangle his feet. Soon he found the strength to break into a run. He was no longer a corpse but he was sure that he shouldn't have been expending this much energy yet.

But he had to hurry. Ginny needed him. Hermione needed him. Ron, Neville, Luna, Professor McGonagall, and everyone else who were fighting against the Dark Lord.

Breaking out of the forest and past the trees Harry came upon the clearing leading up to the castle. Stopping in his tracks to a sight that left him speechless.

There were no spells flying across the sky from an ongoing battle. There was no Dark Mark hanging over the castle. There was no scene that a conflict had even been waging here nonstop for the last day.

Hogwarts stood before him pristine as he had always known it. Completely untouched by the war and Harry didn't know what to make of anything that he saw before his eyes.