Chapter Text
~~Prologue:~~
The first time Harry died, it was raining.
He had been seventeen, in his last year of secondary school, and living with his Aunt and Uncle in Surrey. It had been a rather uneventful life, but it was his, and he'd liked it well enough.
If he'd stayed home that day in May, maybe he would have lived. But in that life, Harry was stubborn and hadn’t cared that he woke up ill; he’d gone to his part-time job anyway.
Harry remembered very little from that night. All he knew was when he woke up, he was ten again, and in his Aunt and Uncle's house, feverish, confused, and babbling about bright lights and screeching tires.
His Aunt was so adamant that he was imagining things that at first, Harry almost believed her. But the memories of the past were too strong for him to forget, and by the time he turned eleven, Harry knew with unshakable certainty that they were real.
There really had been a time when his Aunt hadn't scowled every time she looked at him, or demanded to know why he hadn't finished his chores.
That Aunt Petunia took him to the library, helped with his homework, and let him lay his head in her lap when he was home sick from school while Coronation Street played on the telly.
But Harry would never see that Aunt Petunia again. He'd lost her on that rainy night. He'd lost his family and future, trading them for a world full of magic and wonder – a world where he was marked by prophecy.
No matter how much Harry longed for that life, he never dared mention it to anyone. Because people didn't just come back to life. Even magic, with all its possibilities, couldn’t change the fact that once someone died, they stayed dead.
Except for him.
And all these years later, the memories of the past still carved a jagged aching hole in Harry's heart, and on days like today, the second of May, it stung as badly as it ever had.
~~Chapter One~~
"Did they make your drink wrong?" Ginny asked. "You just look a bit, I dunno – ill?"
Harry chuckled and sipped his latte. It was good. It was probably too sweet, but he liked it that way.
"Nah," he said, "that's just my face."
He sighed, slouching in the cushy armchair he'd claimed near the back of the cafe. "I was thinking."
"Don't do that. Thinking leads to thoughts, and we both know those are no good."
"Speaking of," said Harry, "have you thought about that interview at the Ministry?"
Ginny rolled her eyes and groaned. "Don't remind me."
"You don't have to do it, you know."
"Don't give me that; you know I do because if I don't, Mum will actually eat me. I can't decide which is worse, the prospect of being a secretary or having to listen to Mum lecture me about what I'm doing with my life–" she sighed. "See, this is why thoughts are bad. Merlin, it would be so much easier if we just got married like we were supposed to."
"We could do," said Harry, "but I don't think you'd be very happy."
"Me?" she said, surprised, "what about you?"
"What about me?"
"I don't think you'd be very happy either."
"Why not? I'd get to spend my life with my best mate."
Harry gave her his best winning smile and then stole half her croissant.
"Ron would have a Hippogriff if he heard you say that," she said, batting at his hand, "and you know why."
"Right," said Harry, "that. I think maybe it's time to let that go."
Ginny snorted. "Good luck with your delusions, mate. You've got a better chance of being the next Dark Lord than you do, letting that go, and you know it."
She stretched, rolling her shoulders. "Right, well, Angie's getting out of Quidditch practice and wants a proper moan about her stupid boyfriend, so I must dash."
Harry stole the last of her croissant since she wasn't going to eat it. "And you want to talk about me , not letting things go," he said.
"Birds of a feather," she replied sagely, pulled on her coat, kissed him on the cheek, and left.
On any other day, the buzzing cafe would be a comfort, but not today when Harry's skin already felt too tight. It was overwhelming and claustrophobic. Ginny's company always helped. But now that he was alone, all Harry wanted was for the day to be over so the feelings he had spent the previous year trying to shove into a box wouldn't feel so sharp and real and wouldn't be as hard to ignore. The war might have ended three years ago, but that didn’t make its anniversary any less painful.
Sometimes in moments like this Harry liked to picture a future, where after he and Gin were old and grey, and had given up on love, they’d spend the rest of their lives together in a cottage somewhere by the sea.
Harry knew it would never happen. Ginny would eventually get over her hopeless infatuation with Angie – she was too bright, vibrant, and wonderful not to. One day, someone else would walk into her life and sweep her off her feet, and then Harry would be left all alone in his pining for something he couldn’t have.
She was right – he would never really be able to let go. Harry was, in fact, notoriously bad at letting anything go, let alone someone he cared for so deeply.
To Ginny, they were the same: kindred spirits hung up on a love that wasn't based in reality. While she might not understand why Harry had developed an obsession with Snape of all people, they were in the same shitty boat, so she tried not to judge. Too much.
But they weren't in the same boat – not really. While it was true that they were both stuck in a one-sided affection that was going nowhere fast, Harry's feelings were based on history, not wistful longing.
It might be history from a life that had ended, and maybe they had never really been lovers. But they had been something . It had been new and fragile, but it had been real, and given time, it would have had the chance to grow.
But Harry had died, and now that tiny, fragile thing would never amount to anything. Now, as the rest of Harry's life stretched out in front of him, he was at a loss for what to do with it.
There were decades Harry didn't know what to do with. In his previous life, he had plans – he'd wanted to go to university and travel. Then once Harry had seen all he'd wanted, he'd come home, work with Severus in his bakery, and spend all his days exhausted and covered in flour. Really, he couldn't think of a better way to spend his time.
What Harry wanted out of the future hadn't changed, only it was now so far out of reach that he ought to give up and do something sensible instead. He was a wizard, after all; wouldn't it be a waste if he spent all his time shut away in a kitchen thinking about the past?
Because Harry's love for baking would always be tied to the man he'd learned it from. In his past life, he'd started working at Severus' bakery just after his sixteenth birthday and at first, it had seemed like a terrible mistake with how critical and short tempered Severus was, but looking back it was the happiest time he could remember.
He might never be able to relive his past romance, but Harry could always make muffins. As far as coping mechanisms went, baking didn't seem like a bad choice until it was three in the morning, and Harry was staring down over three dozen muffins, a pound cake, three kinds of cookies, and a pie.
Then it was a problem.
Although when he'd mentioned his habit to George and Ron the last time he had stopped into Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, they hadn't seemed all that concerned.
"Well, if it truly becomes dire," George had said, "You can start leaving them outside your neighbour's door–"
Ron snorted. "Oh, yeah, that's not creepy at all," he'd replied, eyebrows raised. "Would you eat baked goods left outside your door?"
"Sure," said George, "why not?"
"If you die because you're a damn fool and leave me with this god-forsaken shop, I am going to implode ," Ron grumbled.
The joke shop had quickly become Harry's favourite place, and where he spent most of his time. Even closed, it held a warmth he craved and couldn’t find at home.
Harry's flat was small and quaint but it never felt like home. It was merely somewhere to sleep. He wasn't home all that much anyway. Harry kept busy at the shop with George and Ron. If he wasn't around to bring them food and remind them to eat, they'd die , and considering that the world was, in fact, a better place with Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes in it, Harry considered it his solemn duty to keep its owners running.
It was fun and chaotic, and it didn't feel like work.
“That’s because it isn’t,” Hermione had exclaimed, when she’d come round for dinner two days ago. "They aren't paying you. There are no consequences if you wake up one day and decide not to go in."
"Why does that matter?" Harry asked. "It's not like I need the money; I like doing it."
Hermione sighed, rubbing her eyes. It was late, at least for her. But she was leaving in the morning for America, and Harry wouldn't see her again for ages, so she’d come anyway.
"It's not a bad thing," she said carefully, "it's just right now you have all these opportunities and it’s not like you have to take them, but maybe one day, years from now, you'll want to do something that – I don't know – feels more meaningful, but you won't have so many options anymore."
Harry thought what he was doing was plenty meaningful, but he knew what she meant. It wasn't an unreasonable position to take. He would even agree with her if she were talking about someone else.
Because while he might not be sure what he wanted his future to look like, he was clear on what he didn't want.
Harry didn't want to work in the Ministry, have a boss, or follow stupid, pointless rules that didn't mean anything. He didn't want to get involved in politics either. He didn't have the stomach for it.
That kind of thing would be better off left to people like Hermione, who had the patience to learn the nuance necessary to create a better future and the drive to make it happen.
Harry would just blow up at an inopportune moment and muck up the whole thing for everyone involved, and honestly, Hermione was misguided if she thought otherwise.
While normally her gentle prodding didn’t bother him – it just meant she cared – this time it prickled. The sting was sharp, and while Harry knew she didn’t mean to, she’d managed to stir up the same insecurities that kept him up at night .
After all, the ever-present weight of the Wizarding world's expectations still sat on his shoulders. Harry might have gotten better at ignoring the insistent questions about what he was doing, who he was dating, and whether he would have children, and could even laugh at the articles in Witch Weekly and the Prophet now, but that didn't make him immune to the pressure – the expectations that the boy-who-lived ought to be someone.
Most days he could ignore it. He often went whole weeks without thinking about it.
But on days like today, he couldn't help but dwell on the choices he ought to make but didn't want to. It was exhausting, and Harry was sick of it. It wasn't easy, putting thoughts out of his mind. He’d never been good at it, so once he got home, he did what he did best – he baked. Harry let his hands guide him through familiar, easy motions until he was surrounded by the inviting smell of his favourite blueberry muffins.
The problem was that he'd made six dozen muffins.
A single batch of muffins wouldn't have been a problem; Harry could eat that in a couple days. Two wouldn’t have been so bad either. But six? What the hell was he going to do with six?
Harry surveyed the abundance of baked goods scattered around his kitchen. "Bugger.”
Considering that it was half past midnight, this was a problem for a time that was not now and something that Harry would have to worry about once he woke up. For now, he flicked his wand, muttered a simple stasis charm, and went to bed.
The second of May was over. Harry had survived another year, and maybe once he woke up, the unbearable pressure that sat on his shoulders all day would have lifted.
That, at least, was what he hoped.