Chapter Text
It had really been a wonderful life he’d lived.
This thought occurred to him more than any other, during these last weeks confined to his bed as family and friends trickled in to see him. That was the greatest blessing, all those much-beloved faces: old friends, new friends, nieces and nephews, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. For a boy who had once wanted nothing more than a family, it was—well. He teared up thinking about it, and no one liked to see him cry. It was more than he ever could have asked for, that was all. More than he could have dreamed of.
And so he felt greedy for wanting to hang onto it, he who was once so ready to sacrifice his life at only 17. He had a great deal more to lose now, at 102, and even back then it had been difficult to think of leaving his friends.
Now there were so many more people he loved, and a good happy future stretching in front of them all, and it hurt that he wasn’t going to share in it anymore. He always figured he’d get tired of it, somehow, that as an old man the grief would pile up and the joy of life would lose its sweetness as his body failed him. He’d had an impression, formed he thought by Dumbledore more than anyone else, that this was the proper attitude one ought to have toward death. And yes, certainly the prospect of seeing lost loved ones again did make the whole thing more bearable; much as he was loath to leave he knew he’d see his mum and dad and Sirius and Arthur and Molly and Dumbledore himself again soon. But he never seemed to have that sense he’d expected to feel, that he’d had enough, that the world had lost its appeal. Every time he woke up next to Ginny, her hair gone gray and her once athletic form now softer and more fragile, he thought he’d never, ever stop wanting just one more day beside her. From their bedroom window the sky somehow looked more blue than ever, an inviting sort of blue, and even though his flying days were long behind him he could still look, couldn’t he? How could he ever have enough of looking?
And he was blessed, so blessed, to have had the years he did, despite 102 not being especially old for a wizard. But they had gone by so fast! How was it that little Ellie, his first grandchild, now sat before him as a grown woman? No, he would never, ever have enough of looking upon her dear face, her shoulder-length black hair more wild than his own had ever been, her eyes the same green he saw in the mirror, her smile the same one James had gotten from Ginny. And little Jamie, his small hand curled around Harry’s as he sat in his mother’s lap—Harry would never watch him go away to Hogwarts, never attend his wedding, never find out how the rest of his life would go.
It was more than he dreamed of, and it was never enough.
He had to focus entirely on holding back tears as Ellie squeezed his hand, and kissed his cheek, and said, “I love you, Grandpa Harry. Thanks for… for everything.”
He found enough strength to give her his love, too, and to tell Jamie he had a wonderful life ahead of him, he just knew it. And he did. The world was at peace, had miraculously stayed at peace since his youth, and they were all going to be just fine without him. That would have to suffice.
After they left he looked out the window again, at that blue blue sky, and then to the tapestry on the far wall of a boa constrictor sunning itself on a rock. He’d bought it ostensibly to ease Al’s mind after his Sorting, but really he’d been equally moved by an odd nostalgia: the snake looked just like the one he’d set free at the zoo, nearly a century ago in that other world. It was no surprise it had ended up in his and Ginny’s room, and he always took a strange kind of comfort in it. That snake would have died a long time ago, he thought, even if it managed to make it back home. He hoped it lived a good long life, and that its descendants were now dozing in some suitably hot jungle across the sea. Harry retained a fondness for the creatures though he no longer spoke their tongue.
He only realized he’d fallen asleep when he woke up again, the sky now a faded lavender. He could hear music playing from outside his room, the characteristic buzz of the old Muggle radio Arthur had fixed up and given to Lily. It was Frank Sinatra, he realized after a minute, recognizing the tune from his childhood as if from a dream. Petunia had liked old-fashioned music… Harry supposed he’d see her again, too, though he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. There were so many others he’d rather see… He nearly drifted off again. I’ve lived a life that’s full, Sinatra was saying. I’ve traveled each and every highway.
Yes, Harry thought, he had. He really couldn’t get too greedy. He had enjoyed a life anyone would be lucky to have, despite its violent beginnings. He’d made a real difference in the world, and then enjoyed the fruits of the peace he’d helped win. And he’d known love, love beyond the imaginings of his teenage self. Love for his wife which had grown from youthful infatuation into something deep and steady, love for his friends which only multiplied with age, a parent’s all-encompassing love for his children which was nearly painful in its intensity, even now that they’d grown old themselves. That, above all else, marked a life well lived.
And love awaited him ahead, too, when he set off to his next destination. He could see Remus, Tonks, Hagrid… He hoped they were proud of him.
He did feel a pang thinking of Ron and Hermione. Of all those he loved, they’d been with him the longest, ever since that first day on the Hogwarts Express. He hated to leave them; he still felt their group of three understood each other in a way no one else quite could, given all they’d been through. But, Harry considered, the separation was not forever. His best friends would live good long lives, he hoped, to proper old age—unlike Harry, they’d not had a piece of a Dark Lord’s soul sapping their body’s life for seventeen years—but in three or four decades the inevitable would come, and they too would join Harry beyond the world. So would Ginny in time, and his children. It would be harder for them to bear his absence than it would be for Harry to leave, he realized. He’d died once already, an experience that necessarily dispelled the fear of the unknown he might otherwise be feeling. Truthfully he did not even regret his somewhat early demise, not really. This handful of years lost was a small price to pay for the peace he’d won. I did what I had to do. The Boy Who Lived had lived to be an old man, and he was not about to cheat death a third time.
The Cloak he’d long ago passed to James. If the artifact really did allow one to hide from Death, Harry had foregone its protection.
The music had stopped. The bedroom door opened, and Ginny came through, Lily close behind.
“I hope you managed to get some rest,” his wife said. “Between all the guests lately you’ve hardly had a moment to yourself.” She smiled softly at him, and Harry smiled back, appreciating how strong she was being for his sake.
“I had a nap, yeah,” he said. The weakness in his voice still surprised him. “Can rest properly now I’ve seen all the grandkids.” Ellie had been the last of the seven. Teddy and his family had come last week, and all his close friends and the various Weasleys had stopped by as well in the past few days.
His three children had been in and out, taking it in shifts to stay with him. Al had been here this morning, and Lily arrived in the early afternoon to check in on him and help Ginny give him his potions.
Tonight all the final visits were over. Harry had said goodbye to everyone he needed to, and there was little left to do, really, except savor what life remained and wait.
And as Lily sat on the bed beside him and took his hand, he realized—though he could not have said how he knew—that there was not long to wait at all. He looked into his daughter’s eyes, her beautiful eyes, and they welled with tears as if she too could sense the end was near.
Ginny was either less perceptive or, in all likelihood, more stubborn. “We’ve made stew,” she told him. “If you feel up to eating.”
“No,” Harry said softly, and he could see the tightness in Ginny’s face, her attempts to remain stoic in the face of his certainty. “No, I don’t think so, Ginny.”
Lily was properly crying now, tears running silent down her face.
“If you could just—just sit with me,” Harry said. “Both of you, please, until—”
But he didn’t need to finish. Ginny sat down, and took his other hand, and pressed her face to his hair. After a while he could feel her tears falling against his face, and an occasional shudder passing through her, but she remained silent. Harry didn’t know how long they stayed like that, holding him. He closed his eyes and drifted, warm and loved, happy. There was a pleasant smell coming up from the kitchen, the stew, he supposed—only all of a sudden he remembered a similar moment, reclining in bed with those he loved, years and years ago. It was just after James was born, and Molly had come to help out. He’d stretched out beside Ginny on this very bed, newborn son nestled atop his chest, with Molly in the kitchen cooking a roast. Yes, that was exactly what it reminded him of now, the warm and comforting smell of food alongside the incomparable sweet smell of little James’s head. What a miracle it was, birth. Harry supposed dying was similar, in a way, a journey between worlds, a return to the unknown darkness out of which souls came.
The scents of home filled his mind, all times seeming to converge so that he had the sense of many people moving around him through the house: Ginny cradling the infant James, Albus as a toddler running about, teenage Lily with her new boyfriend, James carrying his own newborn daughter, Lily running after her school-aged sons. His daughter was an old woman, an accomplished witch and a loving mother who tenderly held his hand. James was an impossible miracle, tiny in his arms. His aged wife trembled against his side. Molly was in the kitchen, just downstairs, and Arthur had turned on the radio. Al sat before him, stroking his hair, blinking back tears. Al screamed and cried to be fed. His home smelled of food and family and life and there was an infant in his arms, a wonderful innocent tender thing…
Everything felt so right and comfortable that Harry drifted imperceptibly to sleep, hardly noticing that the darkness overtaking him was deeper, heavier than it had ever been before.
In the end, being very fond of life, perhaps Harry did not quite greet Death like an old friend. But he went to his end as an appointment he was bound to keep, punctual and without regret.
Enfolded in the deepest sleep, Harry Potter departed this world.
He opened his eyes to an indistinct blur. There was a moment of confusion, and then gradually fog seemed to lift from both his eyes and his mind, and Harry found himself standing in a bright, empty station beneath a great glass roof.
King’s Cross looked just the same. Harry knew the real station looked considerably different now, overrun with confusing new Muggle technology, but of course the passage between life and death knew neither time nor change.
There was no Dumbledore waiting for him this time, which was as expected. Harry knew he would have to seek him further on, wherever it was he had gone. And as if in response to that very thought, he felt rather than heard a train pull into the station.
He turned to look. It had appeared suddenly and silently, gleaming and white as the rest of the station. The doors were open. Harry walked toward it, unhurried but unhesitating. It was impossible to feel afraid here in this liminal place. Harry knew what he had to do, knew that just behind those doors his parents and friends and dear mentors were all waiting, and that something wonderful was coming, another great adventure... He stepped up to the edge of the platform. He felt light, untethered; he was gliding silently over the floor as if his feet barely touched the ground. Years had melted off his body. He was ready to move on. He was nearly at the doors, now—
A piercing cry shattered the silence of the station.
Harry stopped. His left foot was raised in preparation to step aboard the train; he set it back down. His mouth was open. He stood there a moment, frozen in disbelief.
It was still here.
Dumbledore was long gone, Harry had gone and lived 85 wonderful years since their last encounter, but he knew, he knew what that sound meant—
Voldemort, or the piece of him he’d harbored, was still here at King’s Cross.
He turned. Just there were the seats at the end of the platform where Harry had appeared the last time, beneath which had curled that pitiful wounded thing. He hadn’t even looked that way, this time, so eager was he to move on.
But now that he was paying attention, further details of the station began to resolve, the edges of his visual perception expanding, and now he could feel his bare feet pressed firmly against the unnaturally smooth floor, and became aware that his body was both bare and considerably more youthful than the one he’d left behind.
And another wail echoed through the station. Yes, the sound was definitely coming from just that spot—had it really been there all this time? Harry suddenly felt nauseous and terribly uneasy, a striking contrast to the confidence he’d felt only seconds before. He turned to look at the train again, just to reassure himself it was still waiting there. Surely there was no risk of it moving on without him. Past the doors he could see nothing, as if a thick fog filled the train car. The sight evoked an intense longing in him; he knew that it was where he was supposed to be… and yet…
The next cry had a pained quality to it that Harry felt deep in his chest, a visceral sympathetic throb. These sounds were the unmistakable desperate cries of an infant, full of an unnameable, uncomprehending longing for help, and that—that last cry was that of a child hurt and afraid, something Harry was unable to hear without attending to.
Without any kind of conscious decision, he found himself moving toward it. Dumbledore had told him it was beyond help, and at the time, even after everything, Harry had been inclined to trust his judgment. Now after so many decades, Harry still regarded Albus Dumbledore as one of the greatest and wisest men he’d ever known—only Dumbledore had never been a father.
He reached the row of seats. This close he could hear not only the occasional plaintive cry but the quieter whimpers and weak, broken breathing of the child. He was close enough to see it, now, huddled underneath the seat—where it lay, oh god, abandoned like no living thing should be, its skin an angry red and its little face screwed up in agony.
Harry vaguely remembered being repulsed by this thing, remembered a visceral sense of danger despite its pathetic appearance.
He didn’t feel that way now. It was impossible to feel afraid. He was dead; what could there be to fear? And this thing, the child… he’d thought it looked sick before, but looking at now all he could think of was his little Albus, born a whole month early, struggling weakly inside the shimmering field the mediwizards had conjured to sustain him. This child now looked to him less diseased than shorn of its life support, a thing not meant to be left on its own.
As he reached for it he still half-expected to feel the revulsion return, or to feel pain flare to life in his long-dormant scar. But there was only a wave of pity and tenderness so strong it was almost sickening as he cradled the flayed thing to his bare chest. This was inside me once, he thought.
The little creature made a soft sound of protest as it was lifted, but then curled into his chest, tiny hands grasping weakly at his skin. It shivered against him in relief. Harry found himself murmuring reassurances, rocking it gently. “Do you remember me, little one?” he said. “I’ve got you now.”
It was not so frightening, really. Why a baby? he asked himself, not for the first time. This thing had appeared in his nightmares more than once in the early days after the war, sobbing, writhing, reaching for him. He hadn’t thought of it in decades, though. The later years of his life had been blissfully free of any thoughts of Voldemort, the nightmares abating and the pleasant reality of his life finally blotting out the horrors of the past.
Now he felt almost guilty for it. Harry had gotten to come back from this place and live a full life, while all this time the child had stayed here, shuddering under the seat and crying out to no one. Harry had always figured eventually it would find a way to move on, what with the rest of Voldemort’s soul destroyed. Either that or it would simply cease to exist. Yet it was still here, somehow, as if no time had passed at all… and where were the other fragments of his soul? Where had the other horcruxes gone when their vessels were broken?
And why a baby?
It was not the only time a part of Voldemort had appeared thus. Harry remembered, dimly as if it were a dream, the small misshapen form Wormtail had lifted into the cauldron. Before his resurrection Voldemort had looked—well, not exactly like this, but like a child, nonetheless, something that had to be held and carried and fed like a babe on Nagini’s venom. Before the ritual that was the only form his disembodied soul could take.
Was it a sort of metaphor, then, for the nature of a soul without a body? After his defeat Voldemort had been utterly dependent on others—on Quirrell his host, on his loyal followers, on his familiar—and it was even more the case for this little fragment which had shared Harry’s life, which could not survive being torn from his flesh.
This was the thing, he reminded himself, which had leeched years from his life, leaving him permanently weakened even after its destruction. But Harry could not summon any hatred for something so innocent, which had never asked to be cut from its progenitor’s being and joined to his own. And what did it matter to him now? His life had been wonderful, and it did not matter how long it was, not really, when all life was finite in the end. Harry himself was a bodiless soul, now, with no chance of returning. There was no way this little creature could hurt him.
It was calmer now, no longer crying, but as he watched it opened and closed its mouth weakly against Harry’s skin, briefly revealing a tongue and the sharp points of little beast-like teeth, incongruent with its young appearance. And Harry knew instinctively it was hungry.
“I have no milk for you,” he said apologetically. Were it one of his own children he would have handed the baby off to Ginny, trying to tamp down his jealousy at the physical connection only the two of them could share, but Harry was the only one here now. And, he thought, this baby was too red and raw and weak to be fed in that way. It looked instead like something that ought to still be tethered by a fleshy cord to another’s body. A thing fed on blood, not milk.
As soon as the thought occurred a gleam of silver caught his eye in his peripheral vision. Resting atop the seat which once covered the child lay a small, ornate knife.
Harry picked it up. He knew what to do, as easy as breathing, the instinct arising from deep in his gut in response to the little one mouthing mindlessly at his skin.
He brought the blade to his chest and carefully, precisely split a section of it open, freeing his blood to spill down his breast. It was shockingly red against the sterile white of the station. He set the blade down again and lifted the child so that little mouth could lap at the bright fluid and sate its hunger.
It made a soft, pleased noise and began to drink from him, hands grabbing at him again as it weakly sucked and licked at the cut. It felt—not good, exactly, but strangely gratifying, to be able to feed something this way with only his body. Or with his soul, or whatever Harry was in this place. Even when the tiny sharp teeth caught at the edge of his wound, the faint pricks of pain didn’t bother him. What hurt far more was that awful, insatiable tenderness that rose up in him again, the same devastating urge to comfort and protect he’d once felt for his premature son.
It kept suckling for what seemed a long while. Its hunger reassured him, the determination of that little throat working to consume his lifeblood. It was good that it wanted to survive, that his long absence hadn’t weakened its will to live and grow. He held it to his chest, and it fed from him, and the panic and doubt its first cry awoke began to fade. Harry felt, once more, that all was right. Surely he had been meant to rescue this thing, before he departed the world forever. It was bound to him and would always be so. Harry accepted this final task.
At last it pulled back from him, a bit of blood dribbling down its chin. It smacked its tiny lips and curled up in his arms, radiating satisfaction, for all the world like a milk-drunk infant.
He smiled down at it. “That’s better, isn’t it,” he murmured. It did seem a bit healthier, somehow: it hurt less to look upon, its body felt more solid in his arms.
“All right, then,” Harry said. He’d done what he needed to do, picked up the last loose end of his long and lovely life. He was wrong to have left this child at King’s Cross, but now they were together again, and Harry could guide his charge into the world beyond where the little soul-shard could not go by itself. He could right this last wrong and release the piece of his former enemy from its lonely purgatory. And so he turned back towards the train, his sleeping infant in his arms. As before he seemed to cross the distance instantly, standing once again beside the tracks prepared to board.
The doors were shut.
The train was still there, as bright and silent as ever, just the same but for the one detail. Harry could see nothing beyond its windows, not even the swirling fog that had so enticed him before.
It had welcomed him at first. It had been ready for him to board. There was only one difference between then and now, and Harry knew why the doors must have closed. He knew, but he did not understand, and he could not accept what it implied.
“But he’s mine,” he protested. The doors did not move, and the train did not answer. “I’m responsible for him—you can’t expect me to just leave him here.”
His voice echoed until the silence of the station swallowed the sound.
“Well I won’t do it,” he said. “I won’t abandon him. If he has to stay here, so will I.”
Still the doors stayed shut.
Possessed by a righteous anger he’d not felt in many years, Harry whirled away from the train in frustration, hushing and rocking the child in his arms when it began to stir.
Harry had never been able to make himself do anything he knew to be wrong, no matter who told him otherwise. Death itself or God or whatever held him here was no different. He was already horrified at how close he’d come to committing what he held to be the worst sort of sin: abandoning a child. The past couldn’t be changed, but Harry would not make that mistake again. He was well and truly dead now, beyond all fear, and he would not lay aside this final responsibility. If he had to forego the next adventure in order to obey his conscience, so be it.
The child stirred in his arms again, slowly opening its eyes. Harry had not gotten a good look at them before: a deep, unnatural shade of red, and oddly shaped pupils, somewhere between a serpent’s and a man’s.
Voldemort had been defeated so very long ago. Harry gazed into those eyes without fear. It seemed to him that they looked for reassurance.
“It’s all right,” Harry promised his child. “I’ll never abandon you. Whatever happens, I’ll never, ever leave you again.”
It blinked its blood-red eyes, and then the station was gone.