DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER OR POKÉMON
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|KING'S CROSS|

I reached the edge of the forest, and I stopped.

A swarm of dementors was flying through the trees; I could feel their chill in the air, and I knew there was no way I was going to get through safely. I didn't have enough strength to cast a Patronus. My body was trembling uncontrollably. Dying, it turned out, wasn't so easy. Every breath I took, I could smell the grass, and feel the cool air on my face—it all felt so alive. To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and I was clinging desperately to each second. At the same time, I thought that I would not be able to go on, and knew that I must. The game was over, the Snitch had been caught; it was time to leave the air…

The Snitch. My fingers fumbled at the pouch around my neck for a moment before pulling it out.

I open at the close.

Breathing hard and fast, I stared down at it. This was the close. This was the moment.

I pressed the golden metal to my lips and whispered, "I am about to die."

The metal shell broke open. I lowered my shaking hand, raised Draco's wand beneath the Cloak, and whispered, "Lumos."

The black stone with its jagged crack running down the center sat in the two halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible.

And again I understood without having to think. Bringing them back did not matter, I was about to join them. I was not really fetching them: They were fetching me.

I closed my eyes and turned the stone over in my hand three times. I knew it had happened because I heard slight movements around him that suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground. I opened my eyes and looked around. They were neither ghosts nor truly flesh, I could see that. They resembled most closely the Riddle that had escaped from the diary so long ago, and he had been memory made nearly solid. Less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts, they moved toward me, and on each face, there was the same loving smile.

James was exactly the same height as I was. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasley's.

Sirius was tall and handsome, and younger by far than I had seen him in life. He walked with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.

Lupin was younger too, and much less shabby, and his hair was thicker and darker. He looked happy to be back in this familiar place, the scene of so many adolescent wanderings.

Lily's smile was the widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close and her green eyes, so like mine, searched my face as though she would never be able to look at him enough.

"You've been so brave."

I couldn't speak, or stop staring. I thought that I would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.

"You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are… so proud of you."

"Does it hurt?"

The childish question was out before I could stop it.

"Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."

"And he will want it to be quick. He wants it over," said Lupin.

"I didn't want you to die," I said. Like my question, the words came without my permission. "Any of you. I'm sorry —"

I was talking to Lupin more than any of them, pleading with him.

"—right after you'd had your son...Remus, I'm sorry—"

"I am sorry too," said Lupin. "Sorry I will never know him...but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."

A chilly breeze that seemed to come from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at my brow. I knew they wouldn't tell me to go; the decision had to be mine.

"You'll stay with me?"

"Until the very end," said James.

"They won't be able to see you?" I asked.

"We are part of you," said Sirius. "Invisible to anyone else."

I looked at my mother.

"Stay close to me," I said quietly.

And I set off. The dementors' chill did not stop me; I passed through it with my family, and they acted like Patronuses to me. Together we marched through the old trees that grew closely together, their branches tangled, their roots gnarled and twisted underfoot. I clutched the Cloak tightly around me in the darkness, traveling deeper and deeper into the forest, with no idea where exactly Voldemort was, but sure that I would find him. Beside me, making scarcely a sound, walked James, Sirius, Lupin, and Lily, and their presence was my courage, the reason I was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

My body and mind felt oddly disconnected now, my limbs working without conscious instruction, as if I were a passenger, not a driver, in the body I was about to leave. The dead who walked beside me through the forest were much more real to me now than the living back at the castle: Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and all the others felt like ghosts as I walked toward the end of my life, toward Voldemort...

A thud and a whisper: Some other living creature had stirred close by. I stopped under the Cloak, and my mother and father, Lupin and Sirius stopped too.

"Someone there," came a rough whisper not far away. "He's got an Invisibility Cloak. Could it be — ?"

Two figures emerged from behind a nearby tree: Their wands raised, and I saw Yaxley and Dolohov peering into the darkness, directly at the place where my mother and father and Sirius and Lupin and I stood. Apparently, they could see nothing.

"Definitely heard something," said Yaxley. "Animal, d'you reckon?"

"That head case Hagrid kept a whole bunch of stuff in here," said Dolohov, glancing over his shoulder.

Yaxley looked down at his watch.

"Time's nearly up. Potter's had his hour. He's not coming."

"And he was sure he'd come! He won't be happy."

"Better go back," said Yaxley. "Find out what the plan is now."

He and Dolohov turned and walked deeper into the forest. I followed them, knowing that they would lead me exactly where I wanted to go. I glanced sideways, and my mother smiled at me, and my father nodded encouragement.

We had only traveled a few minutes when I saw light ahead, and Yaxley and Dolohov stepped out into a clearing that I knew had been the place where the monstrous Aragog had once lived. The remnants of his vast web were still there, but the swarm of descendants he had spawned had been driven out by the Death Eaters, to fight for their cause.

A fire burned in the middle of the clearing, and its flickering light fell over a crowd of completely silent, watchful Death Eaters. Some of them were still masked and hooded; others showed their faces. Two giants sat on the outskirts of the group, casting massive shadows over the scene, their faces cruel, rough-hewn like rock. I saw Fenrir, skulking, chewing his long nails; the great blond Rowle was dabbing at his bleeding lip. I saw Lucius Malfoy, who looked defeated and terrified, and Narcissa, whose eyes were sunken and full of apprehension.

Every eye was fixed upon Voldemort, who stood with his head bowed, and his white hands folded over the Elder Wand in front of him. He might have been praying, but most likely counting silently in his mind, and standing still on the edge of the scene, I thought absurdly of a child counting in a game of hide-and-seek.

Behind his head, still swirling and coiling, the great snake Nagini floated in her glittering, charmed cage, like a monstrous halo.

When Dolohov and Yaxley rejoined the circle, Voldemort looked up.

"No sign of him, my Lord," said Dolohov.

Voldemort's expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers.

"My Lord —"

Bellatrix had spoken; she sat closest to Voldemort, disheveled, her face a little bloody but otherwise unharmed.

Voldemort raised his hand to silence her, and she did not speak another word, but stared at him in worshipful fascination.

"I thought he would come," said Voldemort in his high, clear voice, his eyes never leaving the flames. "I expected him to come."

Nobody spoke. They seemed as scared as I was, my heart now throwing itself against my ribs as though determined to escape the body I was about to cast aside. My hands were sweating as I pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it beneath my robes, with my wand. I did not want to be tempted to fight.

"I was, it seems...mistaken," said Voldemort.

"You weren't."

I said it as loudly as I could, with all the force I could muster; I did not want to sound afraid. The Resurrection Stone slipped from between my numb fingers, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw my parents, Sirius, and Lupin vanish as I stepped forward into the firelight.

At that moment, it felt like nobody mattered but Voldemort.

It was just the two of us.

The illusion was gone as soon as it had come. The giants roared as the Death Eaters rose together, and there were many cries, gasps, even laughter. Voldemort had frozen where he stood, but his red eyes had found me, and he stared as I moved toward him, with nothing but the fire between us.

Then a voice yelled: "HARRY! NO!"

I turned: Hagrid was bound and trussed, tied to a tree nearby. His massive body shook the branches overhead as he struggled, desperate.

"NO! NO! HARRY, WHAT'RE YEH — ?"

"QUIET!" shouted Rowle, and with a flick of his wand, Hagrid was silenced.

Bellatrix, who had leapt to her feet, was looking eagerly from Voldemort to me, her tits heaving in her tight corset. The only things that moved were her, the flames, and the snake, coiling and uncoiling in the glittering cage behind Voldemort's head.

I could feel my wand against my own chest, but I made no attempt to draw it. I knew the snake was too well protected, knew that if I managed to point the wand at Nagini, fifty curses would hit me first. And still, Voldemort and I looked at each other, and now Voldemort tilted his head a little to the side, a mirthless smile on his lipless mouth.

"Harry Potter," he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. "The Boy Who Lived…come to die…"

None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting. Hagrid was struggling, and Bellatrix was panting, and inexplicably, I thought of what her tits might look like without the corset, about Madme Rosmerta and Cho, Romilda Vane, and finally Ginny, with her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on mine—

Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. I looked back into his red eyes and waited. If he wanted to see me afraid, he was going to be waiting all night.

I saw his mouth move and a flash of green light and closed my eyes.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying face down, listening to silence. Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and even the sounds of the forest were gone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there.

I was perfectly alone.

A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to me that I must still exist, that there must be some kind of afterlife, because I was lying, definitely lying on some surface.

Almost as soon as I reached this conclusion, I became conscious that I was naked. Convinced as I was of my total solitude, this did not concern me, but it did intrigue me slightly. I wondered whether, as I could feel, I would be able to see.

In opening them, I discovered that I still had eyes.

I lay in a bright mist, though it was not like any mist I had ever experienced before. My surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather, the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which I lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.

I sat up. My body appeared unscathed. I touched my face. I was not wearing glasses anymore.

Then a noise reached me through the unformed nothingness that surrounded me: the small soft thumping of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was eavesdropping on something shameful.

I stood up, looking around. Was I in some great Room of Requirement? The longer I looked, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high above me in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist...

I turned slowly on the spot, and my surroundings seemed to invent themselves before my eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear, domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. I was the only person there, except for—

I recoiled. I had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.

I was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, I did not want to approach it. Nevertheless, I drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon I stood near enough to touch it, yet I could not bring myself to do it. I felt like a coward. I ought to comfort it, but it repulsed me.

"You cannot help."

I spun around. Lily was walking toward me, smiling and more alive-looking than when I last saw her in the forest. Her skin was flush with her color, her long hair was red, and her green eyes were bright.

"Harry." She spread her arms wide, and then for the first time ever, I was hugging my mother. "You wonderful boy. My brave, brave little man."

Stunned, I wrapped my arms around her. My arms pulled her close not wanting to let go for even a moment. I could feel her warmth, and smell her perfume, it was everything I had dreamed of growing up alone.

Then I suddenly remembered that I was naked. I dropped my arms and took a step back, my hands shooting down to cover myself. For the first time, I wished I had clothes.

Barley had the wish formed in my head than a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt appeared a short distance away. I handed the shirt to my mother and pulled the pants on: They were soft, clean, and warm.

I looked at Lily who was now modestly covered by the shirt and wondered why we'd both been naked. The dead didn't need clothes did they? I thought and just like before, my mouth was moving before I could stop myself.

"You're dead," I said, like it wasn't something I'd known for seventeen years.

"I am," Mum replied matter-of-factly.

"Then...I'm dead too?"

It hadn't registered in my mind yet. But saying it out loud made it real.

"Ah," she said, her smile growing warmer, "That is the question, isn't it? But no, sweetie, I don't believe you are."

We looked at each other, her face radiating a comforting, motherly glow.

"No?" I repeated, needing the reassurance.

"Not at all," she confirmed soothingly.

"But…" I raised my hand instinctively toward the lightning scar, which seemed to have gone missing. "But I should have died—I didn't defend myself! I meant to let him kill me!"

"And that," Mum said, her eyes shining with pride, "will, I think, have made all the difference, Harry."

Happiness seemed to radiate from her like light, like fire: I had never seen anyone so utterly, so palpably happy.

"Please explain," I asked.

Mum smiled gently. "I think you know already, don't you?"

"I let him kill me," I stated, more to myself than to her.

"You did," she nodded. "Go on, love."

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

Mum nodded still more enthusiastically, urging me onward, a wide smile of encouragement on her face.

". . . has it gone?"

"Oh yes, Harry!" Lily exclaimed softly. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is now whole, and completely your own."

"But then…"

I glanced over my shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled under the chair.

"What is that, Mum?"

"That, sweetie, is something that is beyond either of our help," she said with a sigh of sadness.

"But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse," I started again, "and nobody died for me this time—how can I be alive?"

"You know the answer," Mum said, her voice gentle, coaxing me to remember. "Think back. Remember what he did, in his ignorance and his cruelty."

I thought for a moment, the setting around us strangely serene for such a discussion. Then, as if the fog had lifted, the answer came to me.

"He took my blood," I said.

"Precisely!" she said, her eyes sparkling with tears of joy. "He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, carrying my protection inside both of you! He tethered you to life while he lives!"

"I live...while he lives? But I thought...I thought it was the other way around! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?"

Distracted by the creature's whimpering, I looked back at it again.

"Are you sure we can't do anything for it?"

"There is no help possible, darling," Mum said gently, her tone full of regret.

"Then explain... more," I requested, my brow furrowed in confusion.

Mum's smile was tender, filled with a mother's love as she began to explain.

"You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make. His soul was so unstable that it broke apart that night when he came to kill you. But what escaped from that room was even less than he knew. He left more than his body behind. He left part of himself latched to you, the little boy who survived.

"And his understanding was terribly incomplete, Harry! What Voldemort does not value, he doesn't try to understand. Love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.

"He took your blood thinking it would make him stronger, not realizing he was also taking the very enchantment I placed on you when I died to protect you. His body keeps alive my sacrifice, and as long as that sacrifice survives, so do you, and so does the last shred of hope for Voldemort himself."

Mum's smile conveyed a deep and unconditional love as I listened to her words, the significance of her sacrifice clearer than ever.

"Then if I'm not dead, where are we?"

"Well, I was going to ask you that," Mum said, looking around. "Where would you say that we are?"

Until she had asked, I had not known. Now, however, I found that I had an answer ready to give.

"It looks," I said slowly, "like King's Cross station. Except a lot cleaner and empty, and there are no trains as far as I can see."

"King's Cross station!" Mum's smile had become a bit sad. "You know, from the moment you were born, I never wanted to let you go. I always dreaded the day when I'd send you off to Hogwarts. Now here we are."

The creature behind us jerked and moaned, and Mum and I stood without talking for the longest time yet. The realization of what would happen next settled gradually over me in the long minutes.

"I've got to go back, haven't I?" I finally whispered, more to myself than to her.

"That is up to you, Harry," Mum said. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. You've already done so much, given so much."

"I've got a choice?"

"Of course," Mum looked around the place we were standing. "We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decide not to go back, you could…let's say…board a train."

"And where would it take me?"

"Somewhere new," Mum said simply.

We fell into silence again.

"Voldemort's got the Elder Wand," I said after a moment.

"True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand," Mum acknowledged with a nod.

"But you don't want me to go back?"

"I want you to be safe, Harry," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "I want you to choose what feels right for you. If you choose to go back, then it needs to be because you want to. You've already fought so bravely. Voldemort has only one Horcrux left. You can trust your friends, trust the Order to finish this fight. You've sacrificed enough, my love."

I glanced again at the raw-looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair.

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love," Mum continued her voice firm. "You've done your part. You've been so brave. If returning feels too much, it's okay to say it's enough. If you feel that stepping back now is what you need, then let others carry on. They're strong, Harry, and they'll keep fighting. Remember, you are loved, and you were never fighting alone."

Leaving this place would not be nearly as hard as walking into the forest had been, but it was warm and light and peaceful here and I was tired—bone-deep exhaustion from years of fighting, of losing people I loved, and finally, facing my own death to protect the world from Voldemort.

"You really think it's okay? For me to just… go?" I asked Mum, the uncertainty clear in my voice.

She stepped closer, reaching out as if to touch my cheek. "Harry, you've done more than enough. You've been braver than most could ever dream of being. It's okay to go now."

Her approval to let go, to let others carry the torch was all I needed. I turned towards the gleaming train tracks, where the train waited, its doors open as if expecting me.

Walking toward the train, each step felt lighter than the last. The burden of being the boy who lived, had weighed on me from the moment I'd learned of my fate. Now, I was just Harry. Harry who had a choice.

As I boarded the train, I looked back once more. Mum was smiling, a radiant, loving smile that said I made the right choice in her eyes. "Have fun, Harry," she called softly, her voice carrying over the distance. "Find your happiness. We'll see each other again soon!"

The train's doors closed with a soft hiss, sealing me inside. As it began to move, the station slowly blurred past the windows, and I felt a surge of exhilaration. I was moving on. Not just from King's Cross, but from the life that had been chosen for me since before I was born.

As the train gathered speed, pulling away from the station, I looked out the window. I expected to see a city or the gentle rolling of countryside hills. Instead, the world outside the glass became a movie, flashing with scenes from my life.

The first scene wasn't as scary as it had been before—a flash of green light, the very one that had attempted to end my life in my infancy and did end my life in the forest.

The view shifted to a more mundane, yet equally defining part of my existence—growing up in the house of the Dursleys. There I was, a small figure with a mop of untidy hair, sneaking around a much larger, blonder boy: Dudley. I watched as Dudley, in a fit, threw away a battered old Game Boy. My younger self took it from the bin, eyes wide with the thrill of having my own game. Before I ever knew magic was even a thing, that simple device, scratched and worn, became my portal to another world.

The tiny screen of the Game Boy lit up, and through the train window, I could see myself huddled in the cupboard under the stairs, engrossed in a Pokémon game. Those games were my escape, my refuge from the dreary and sometimes harsh reality of my life with the Dursleys.

The train raced on, and the images began to blend together. Hagrid telling me I was a wizard. Meeting Ron and Hermione. My fun and exciting, but also dangerous school years at Hogwarts. And each summer, when I returned to Privet Drive, cut off from the magical world and my friends—because Vernon locked up Hedgewig, Ron was in Egypt, or on Dumbledore's strict orders—falling deeper into the Pokémon universe. Whether it was through the latest games or the newest episodes of the anime, I kept my connection to a world where good always triumphed, where friendship was the greatest magic of all. It was a stark contrast to the solitude and sometimes bitter reality of my life with the Dursleys.

As the scenes ran their course and finally faded completely after I saw myself walking into the forest, I leaned back, content with waiting to see what was going to happen next.

Next chapter...the world of Pokemon!

Thanks for reading!