Summary: It's dumb, what he's planning to do. They were enemies. Voldemort would still be celebrating were he alive and Harry dead. He'd be thrilled over Harry dying. There'd be no mourning or the gnawing emptiness of losing one's— for lack of a better word— soulmate. Because that's what they were, really. Not in the gaudy romance novel sort of way, but— they were pulled together by Fate. Harry secretly thought it was an apt word, soulmates. But Voldemort, he'd be gloating for months, years, that he finally killed his so-called Chosen One.

So, it's stupid that Harry wants to visit his grave with some flowers and wish it— Him — a Happy Birthday.

Notes: I came across the prompt "Your antagonist has died. Who leaves flowers at their grave?" and immediately envisioned Harry, post-war, visiting Voldemort's headstone on the man's birthday. Then I got a little weepy.

This will probably be a three parter, but I suppose it depends on how things go. I have a few scenes planned out for chapter two, and a general idea how i want to end the story, but I got an idea the other day and so it might end up a four or five chaptered fic instead.

I'm hoping to get everything done by Halloween, but We'll See™

Chapter One

It's New Year's Eve, 1998, after 8 P.M. and Harry should be at the Ministry Gala— he snuck out early, instead. He couldn't stand showing his face at these publicity stunts, but Kingsley insisted.

Well, that's fine. Harry did, indeed, show his face— for an hour, at least— so the man can't complain.

Harry hated doing public outings. After the Battle, the British Wizarding World as a whole seemed ready to bow down and kneel to him or get him to endorse their products or "I have a daughter your age! Might you come meet her?" and "What are your plans for the future?" and he just— he's tired.

Ever since he woke up in the forest, ever since the spell rebounded onto Him, Harry's felt— empty. He couldn't put it into words for Hermione and Ron and Ginny without wanting to rage against the world and them and Dumbledore's tomb.

There was a gnawing emptiness in him— in the quiet of the night when he couldn't get to sleep, he mused it was the loss of His Horcrux that had made a home amongst his soul. The thing had grown with and beside and in him as he got older. It'd been a part of him for so long that the loss of it was a palpable disturbance. He never realized it had such a presence until it was gone. Now he felt as if he himself weren't whole.

He couldn't burden Ginny or his friends with this. He made it clear to Ginny after everything settled that he just couldn't see himself in a relationship any time soon. Not a healthy one, anyway. She understood— said something cryptic about how she had a feeling he'd say that. They were still friends, but a bit distant.

Last he heard, she's back at Hogwarts to redo her sixth year. McGonagall was allowing all students enrolled in the last year to redo their year of schooling. Many of Harry's friends took her up on the offer— Hermione tried to convince Ron and him to come back with her for their seventh year and to get their NEWTs, but Harry couldn't imagine going back to school like everything was fine again. Instead, he's self-teaching at his own pace with the seventh year books and complementary materials. He plans on taking his NEWTs at the Ministry next summer.

Besides teaching himself, Harry splits his time between public events that Kingsley and his advisors cooked up and hiding himself away in Grimmauld Place with Kreacher. The Minister tried to convince him to join the Aurors when it became clear he wasn't going back to Hogwarts, but Harry was clear in his refusal. He did his duty, he went up against the darkest of any wizard and he barely survived. He only survived because of sheer dumb luck and another man's arrogance. He didn't want anything more to do with taking down dark witches and wizards.

He needed time, and space, and room to himself in the aftermath of life without Him breathing down his neck trying to kill him.

Only, now there was a longing, a soul-deep yearning for—

Merlin, he didn't want to admit it to himself even months later.

But he had to.

He missed Voldemort.

He missed Tom Riddle and the sliver of soul that made a home in him. He couldn't stop thinking about what the man would have been like if he never made his first horcrux or any others. If he would have become a politician or if he still would have become a Dark Lord. If he would have been redeemable.

Harry thought too much about the man. He dreamed of him still. Sometimes it'd be handsome Tom Riddle at various ages before the First War— mish-mashed from the memories he saw in Dumbledore's pensieve— and sometimes it'd be Voldemort with his striking and terrifying post-rebirth snake-face.

Most of the dreams were really nightmares— memories of the torture he and his friends endured at the hands of the man and his lackeys. Other times, he dreamed that he still had the diary and he would talk with the sixteen-year-old memory. Sometimes, he'd dream of the handsome man who charmed his way into Hepzibah Smith's good graces. Those dreams always turned— awkward, for Harry. He didn't like to dwell on them— pushed them far into a corner of his mind to only be remembered during moments of weakness in the middle of the night.

It wasn't the first time he'd experienced dreams that made him question his sexuality. They were all pushed to that corner of his mind. Growing up, he never allowed himself to dwell on the possibility that he might be into men as well as women. The Dursley's made their stance on anything not up to the Status Quo quite clear. Between the nasty comments made when an gay politician became and remained a Member of Parliament, or when a soap opera had a gay character or showed a lesbian kiss, or when Aunt Petunia's book club friends tittered about the gay couple that moved into the neighborhood— well, Harry learned quick that being anything other than what they deemed "Normal" was a good way to get hurt.

He remembers thinking how handsome Cedric was, and there was the small crush he had on Ron's brother Bill with his long hair and cool earring and rebellious attitude, and as much as he didn't want to admit to it— there was also his obsession with Draco, with his fair looks. Their rivalry easily could have developed into something else if Draco wasn't such a prat and if Harry were more sympathetic to Slytherins at the time. Not that Harry would've wanted something else with the spoiled little shite.

But Harry never seriously considered exploring these small inklings of Otherness. It wasn't expected of him, of the Boy-Who-Lived. It didn't fit into the image the wizarding world had of him, and damn him, he wanted to fit in desperately when Hagrid gave him the news that he was a Wizard all those years ago. He wanted to belong somewhere for once. He wanted to be welcome in this community away from the Dursleys.

So if he happened to occasionally dream about Tom, with his aristocratic features and long, thin piano fingers and his tall and thin build; or Cedric, tall and strong and kind— before the lad died and the dreams turned into nightmares of his death; or Draco with his slender build and pointy chin and their banter; or Bill, laid-back and cool with his rebellious long hair and fang earring. Well. It was no one's business but his own. Nothing would come of any of it, so he looked and he dreamt. But he never engaged or touched.

Now, Harry was eighteen and out of school, out of a relationship. He used to dream of a life with no responsibilities to anyone but himself. But the wizarding world is always watching, a hound breathing down his neck in the form of reporters and nosy witches and wizards who have no sense. He thought he'd be able to live how he wanted once Voldemort was defeated, and he finished his education, but that was categorically false.

People expected even more of him now and he hated it. He just wanted to live his life for himself now that he actually could. He wanted to experience what a regular, everyday life could be. He wanted to be able to take a bloke out on a date and not have it be splashed all over the papers the next day— sometimes, he thought about trying to date a muggle instead of a witch or wizard, but he didn't think he could handle lying to them about so much of his life. He couldn't even date a witch without it being a hot piece of gossip with accompanying background into said witch. The gossip rags went wild during and following his brief relationship with Ginny and he felt bad for her and any other person he might decide to date.

Still. Seven months since the war ended and he was in no shape to be dating, so Harry decides it's not that big of a deal. Future Harry can deal with relationships and the complexities that encompass one's sexuality. Present Harry just wants to get through the day without wanting to die a little.

As he apparated back to Grimmauld Place, Harry recalled the date. December thirty-first. It was Tom's birthday. At the top of the stairs to the building, Harry's chest grew tight.

He thought of the little boy in the orphanage who likely never had a chance or a reason to celebrate his birthday. Never had anyone to love him or hold him kindly or give him a decent birthday gift. He thought of that boy, then that teenager, and then that young man. He mourned for him, and what he could have been if someone had only loved him, in a way that he hadn't mourned before.

Oh. He thought, eyes going a little misty, coming to a quiet realization that brought goosebumps up on his flesh, a shiver running through his body quick like lightning, and it flamed the quiet yearning in his chest to an inferno.

He cleared his throat once, twice— didn't let himself dwell on the realization and the moral quandary it put him in of having feelings for his fated, vanquished enemy that could go nowhere especially since the man was dead at his own hands— before quickly dabbing his eyes dry with his sleeve.

He unlocked the door with a swift flick of his wand and slipped through his heavy wards, closing the door behind him and locking up again. "Kreacher!"

"Yes, Master Potter?"

"Kreacher, please, just call me Harry. None of that 'Master' shite. I'm just Harry."

It was a common battle in Grimmauld Place— getting Kreacher to acquiesce to certain requests. Harry started paying the elf and gave him the weekends off, amongst other decisions. Kreacher fought him the whole time— he was set in his ways and he didn't like the change that Harry brought with him. But as he saw Harry as his Master, he would grudgingly comply.

Usually.

Kreacher narrowed his eyes up at Harry defiantly and didn't say a word.

Harry sighed. He hoped they'd eventually work this whole business out. "Do you— Erm. Do you know anything about, uh, flowers? Like, the meanings? Or maybe, do you know what the birth month flower is for December?"

He knew a little about flowers himself— had to when he was the one who tended Aunt Petunia's garden as a child. But he didn't know what the flowers meant, just how to keep them from dying.

"I do not, Master Potter, but there may be a book on flower language in the library."

"Okay, thank you, Kreacher."

It's dumb, what he's planning to do. They were enemies. Voldemort would still be celebrating were he alive and Harry dead. He'd be thrilled over Harry dying. There'd be no mourning or the gnawing emptiness of losing one's— for lack of a better word— soulmate. Because that's what they were, really. Not in the gaudy romance novel sort of way, but— they were pulled together by Fate. Harry secretly thought it was an apt word, soulmates. But Voldemort, he'd be gloating for months, years, that he finally killed his so-called Chosen One.

So, it's stupid that Harry wants to visit his grave with some flowers and wish it— Him — a Happy Birthday.

In the aftermath of the Battle, many wanted to do hideous, unspeakable things to the Dark Lord's corpse. Harry refused to let it happen— whether by the common folk or by the Ministry. He couldn't tell you why he did it, even now months later, but at the time it felt right. He stole away the body before anyone else could and he buried the man near the grove of yew trees in the Little Hangleton graveyard. He'd transfigured a bunch of stones into an elegant, slanted, emerald pearl headstone that said:

Tom Marvolo Riddle

Lord Voldemort

Born 31 December 1926 — Died 2 May 1998

May His Soul Be Whole and Find Peace

Harry hadn't felt comfortable adding an epitaph at first— what could he possibly say? The man wasn't a husband, wasn't a father, and Harry highly doubted Voldemort followed any Muggle religion. But then he had thought of the pitiful creature— His Horcrux — in King's Cross Station and knew what he could put.

After, he'd warded the grove of yew trees with so many protective and preventive wards that no one— muggle or otherwise— would be able to deface or destroy the area but especially the transfigured headstone and buried coffin that contained the man's body.

He remembers standing in front of the headstone for hours— 'Is it really over?' He remembers thinking, and he'd learn quickly that yes, the war was technically over with Voldemort's death but there were still his followers to round up and trials to have— when he got the patronus message from Hermione, with worry and a hint of panic in her voice, asking where he went.

Harry hadn't been to the graveyard since and he told no one of what happened to the body of the Dark Lord. Not even Hermione, Ron, or Ginny.

So, now it's seven months and some days later and Harry recalls the man's birthday. Thus the, once again, stupid plan to visit the headstone with flowers.

Harry sighs heavily to himself as he shrugs off the heavy formal robe he wore to the Ministry Gala and hangs it on a coat rack, before heading up the stairs for the library. If he's going to do this, he's going to do it right. Conjuring meaningful flowers and going there tonight— or never.

Merlin, he must have truly lost his mind now.