Trigger warning : This chapter contains an explicit description of suicide.
Disclaimer : The Harry Potter Series and Universe from which this fanfiction is based, is the propriety of J.K. Rowlings.
Author Note :
Oh, poor lost soul who fell on this creation!
Do not except any regularity from me.
I may or may not publish more.
But this story, if you choose to dive into it,
Is none for the weak minds.
Beware!
Dying is a horrible affair.
The first time Harry died, it was at the hand of Voldemort, at the battle of Hogwarts. At that time, dying was simple. No suffering, no void, no cold darkness showering his body. No. On moment he was alive, then he was dead, and he saw Dumbledore.
Harry missed those times. The first time is always painful, one would say. But of course, it's not the case for Harry.
The second time he died, it was during his Auror Formation. After the war, many posts were left empty and the auror department was short-handed. So, when Harry and Ron started their formation, considering their experience, they were drafted as rookies to work as part-timers while continuing their education.
Going around following Dumbledore's orders to kill a psychopathic dark lord and being a professional dark wizard hunter was two different things.
Harry was in a team tasked to raid Mrs. Zabini house. There were some allegations of her allegiance to Voldemort, and the death of her husbands. It wasn't supposed to be dangerous, just a little visit. Going around the house, and looking at some cabinets. Except, Harry had always had weird luck. And an even weirder instinct. When he opened that cabinet, and saw those books. He knew that it was some dark stuff. How did he pass the wards and saw the books ? Even he didn't know. But then, when he went down to take one, and opened it, all of that without triggering any ward, Harry left it.
Harry felt Death.
Hands grabbed him. Cold. Dark. Out of this world. Something that cannot be described.
Harry fell down on his back and sank down in an ocean of darkness. No. His soul left his body. No King Cross for him, only the darkness and emptiness of the cold void. And the voices.
He comes,
He comes,
Here comes the Master of Death !
Songs form the death rung his mind, covering his everything.
He looked upon the darkness, and the darkness looked into him.
And then he was back on earth again, breathing as hard as he could. Because he could.
But the cold never left him.
Harry never forgot his first time, nor his second. He never forgot the emptiness of the void, the voices singing in his soul. But what he never forgot what the man who made all of that possible.
The aftermath of the war had been easily taken care for, on the physical aspect. The one who suffered the most mentally was Harry.
Harder than anyone, Harry tried to live. But how can one live when they only know how to survive ?
So, he did what he always does, following the waves of his life. He got his NEWTs, got a job as an auror, got a wife, an adopted family, his friends.
Harry had everything he ever asked for, but the cold was always there. His eyes were shining from the pain, the loss. His soul became more and more empty as the days passed. He lost taste to everything he ever enjoyed. As a cry from his soul, he tried to get more, more thrill.
Jumping head first at the pursuit of a dangerous criminal, burying himself in alcohol of any kind. And finally, losing himself in the mingled bodies of his lovers.
If anybody realized something, they didn't say anything. Ginny never knew, not when he was always careful to go out when she was in another part of the globe. Ron, after quitting the aurors and starting to work with George, never realized his haunted eyes buried behind layers of glamours. Hermione, who became the minister of magic, was always too preoccupied by the state of the wizarding world to really pay attention to what he didn't say.
"You're broken Potter" Draco said to him once, lounged on a sumptuous bed in some hotel somewhere in France. "Maybe you ought to see a mind healer. Don't want to see you one day in St Mungo with Lockhart on day."
Harry knew he was broken; he didn't need a mind healer to deep dive into his mind to see that. He also knew that he couldn't keep appearances any longer. While he was sending off his youngest daughter to Hogwarts, Harry told himself that the world didn't need him anymore.
The children where off to Hogwarts, they wouldn't be there until the holidays. Ginny had her carrier; his friends all had their own lives settled. He didn't need to suffer the cold of his bones, the cry of his soul to be whole again.
" I'll be back in a week time, don't forget to see mom and dad on Sunday. She keeps telling me how much she misses you." Standing on the porch of their little cottage in Scotland, Ginny gave him a goodbye kiss, grabbed her trunk, turned her heel and apparated away.
The kids were off to school since last month. The Quidditch season just started for Ginny and she won't be there for a while. Harry went back inside. The little two story cottage was magically enlarged to fit their little family.
Wand in hand, the dark-haired man took a last walk in the rooms. The sitting room, filled with cozy couches, the kitchen where he had enjoyed cooking with Mrs. Weasley every time she came. The little study, filled with books on quidditch and darks arts needed for his job. The sunroom where he spent days with his sons and daughter.
Harry left a note on the table of the dining room. Just saying that he won't be back. No need to explain more, he was tired after all.
He left his house and appeared in front of the place where his life changed. Godric Hollow. A fitting place to die, the house where his shouldn't have gone out alive. He took his time, went past the umbrella that fell down when his father tried to stop Voldemort without a wand. He when up the stairs, to the nursery.
Following Voldemort's steps, he stopped in front of the crib. He took out his wand with both hands, and pointed it towards the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Harry Potter closed his eyes for the last time and welcomed Death like an old friend.
"Avada Kedavra"
Harry finds himself in the familiar ocean of darkness, the cold of the void lingering deep in his soul. The voices of the dead singing in his being, he stares at the darkness and the darkness stares back at him.
The cold, irreal feeling of Death breath in him. No, a voice, not some words, just the deep reality of this space.
" Thou shalt find the one foreordained for thee, for thou art but half.
Thou shalt seek the soul that hath vanished from thy midst.
Only then shalt thou be made whole once more."