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All hope was lost.
He floated through the cold dark forests of the Scottish highlands – Well, he knew they were cold, but it was not like he could feel it.
It had been years since he had spoken to a person. It hurt too much.
It was easier to pretend he was the last conscious being; It took away from the guilt he felt.
The guilt of failing the wizarding world. The guilt of failing his friends, his family- well, the ones he called family that is.
Suddenly, a twig snapped. He didn't react; animals—mostly deer—often didn't acknowledge his appearance, and came close to him. What was left of him.
But a voice rang. A deep, honest voice called the name he hadn't used for ages.
"Harry."
He turned around, tears already flowing.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I couldn't- I failed. I'm sorry Blaise, I'm sorry…" Harry sobbed.
The man who he once shared a classroom with stood there, now a full grown adult.
Scars ridden his face, his slightly exposed chest, and his arms. The once so perfectly maintained brown skin now tainted by the war. The war they lost because of him.
"It's okay." He whispered. "It's not your fault, Harry. It's Voldemort's, it's whoever stood by him. You did what you could."
"But that wasn't enough!" Harry yelled, his gray form kneeling on the ground. "It was never enough."
Blaise extended his hand, but it didn't make contact—instead passing right through the shoulder he tried to lay it on.
As if he touched hot fire, he flinched back. "It's- The world's different now."
Harry sighed, his form—which never got the chance to grow past seventeen—still tense. Slowly, the boy lifted his head and looked the man in the eyes.
"Can you tell me?"
Once Blaise set up a fire to keep himself warm, he sat down on a trunk and started sorting the wood he gathered. The fire—which Harry could not feel the comforting warmth of, no matter how much he longed for it—crackled softly as the man sought for words.
"Where should I start?"
"Seventh year."
"Well, all we know is that you never returned to Hogwarts that year. You disappeared without a trace, and the entirety of Britain was at a loss. For many, you were the last hope." He began, bowing his head. "Which should have never been your responsibility in the first place."
Harry disagreed, but kept quiet.
"The ministry lasted until January. Hogwarts fell not even a week later. Voldemort killed Dumbledore, claimed you abandoned us and fled, and everyone just sort of… gave up. With no trace of you, Ron and Hermione dead-"
"They're dead?" Harry gasped.
"Killed." Blaise said apologetically. "Voldemort used their bodies to convince people the Light already lost before the Battle of Hogwarts even began."
The ghost felt nauseous, choking out another sob. But the man didn't give him much time to process.
"With you gone, Ron and Hermione dead and Dumbledore killed, everyone that gave people hope was gone. There was nothing to fight for. Many pure- and halfbloods forfeited, to save themselves." His jaw tensed. "Fucking traitors."
"I fought until the end. I had to go in hiding; You know of the situation between me and my mom, and the remaining of the light didn't trust me regardless of my actions." He pulled the axe from his backpack, taking the blade in a firm grip to strip the bark from the remaining wood.
"Muggleborns are left in the muggle world. Muggles are aware of magic because of it—Not that they know of the magical world, they just know it's a thing now. Terrible experiments are done on those children."
Both shuddered; Blaise from what he knew, and Harry from what he imagined.
"Magicals marrying—or well, attempting to—muggles are promptly sent to Azkaban. Some are executed on the spot. The Ministry filled Hogwarts with propaganda, and the newer generations are convinced it is better this way."
Harry started sobbing again. "I'm sorry…" He whispered, missing the sad look Blaise gave him.
"That's the short version of it. I've been around, usually with glamours, trying to survive."
Harry broke down again, and it took a while for Blaise to comfort him—where the lack of physical touch really didn't help. For almost an hour, they just sat in silent company, the ghost staring at the sky while the mortal stripped more wood.
Finally, Harry spoke.
"What do you know about horcruxes?"
Blaise raised an eyebrow. "A what now?"
The boy sighed—for what felt like the hundredth time—and shook his head.
"It's vile. It's disgusting magic. The short version is, as far as I came to understand it, a magical person splitting their soul and storing it in an object, allowing them to come back to life after being killed with a ritual."
"Interesting." Blaise started, but was cut off by Harry. "Not really. To do so, one must kill a person in cold blood."
That made the man reconsider.
"Voldemort made six. During seventh year, Me and- my friends set out to find and destroy them so we could win the war. So we would have any chance."
"I destroyed the first in my second year. Dumbledore destroyed the second in our sixth year. We found a third, but did not manage to destroy it." He shuddered.
"One fateful night, the one from the 26th to the 27th of December, a patronus leads me to a lake. Under the ice, on the bottom, lay the sword of Gryffindor. Why, I still don't know. If it was real, I don't know either."
Blaise held his breath.
"I dove down to get it. It was one of the things we knew could destroy a horcrux." Harry stared into the distance, slowly raising his hands which pulled a silvery locket from under his shirt.
"But I left the horcrux around my neck—we took turns wearing it, because it could influence the wearer—and it fought against me. I couldn't win, and drowned. I couldn't give up, I had to stay alive or the war would be lost; instead, I doomed myself to wander the Earth forever."
The Slytherin shook his head, tears in his eyes. "Why did you give up? Why didn't you keep fighting as a ghost?"
"Either must die at the hand of the other, because neither can live while the other survives." The ghost whispered. "A prophecy marked my fate. It was me or him; and one had to kill the other. The locket was a part of Voldemort's soul; it was Voldemort. The prophecy was fulfilled, and there was nothing I could do."
Both of them stayed silent for a while. There was nothing left to say; the past was the past, and neither of them could change that.
"I missed you." The ghost whispered, tucking the locket back into his shirt; the eternal reminder of how stupid a death he died.
"I missed you too." Blaise answered; but it was different. He was years older than the Harry in front of him; it was wrong to fall for a seventeen-year-old, even if they lived for longer than that. He couldn't fall again, even if both of them wished they were seventeen again.
Not to mention he was a ghost now.
And both of them knew. Both of them accepted it.
So Harry stood up.
"Were you looking for me?" He asked honestly.
A slow nod was the response. "I have looked for you for a long while."
"But you can't stay."
Blaise shook his head.
"Goodbye, Blaise."
"Goodbye, Harry."