fic: The World Doesn't Matter (1/2)
Title: The World Doesn’t Matter (1/2)
Rating: T
Character/Ship: Harry, Harry/Hermione
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: They’re twenty-one years old, and though he doesn’t know it yet, tomorrow is the beginning of their end. Post DH.
Author’s Note: I haven’t written in ages and while I’m usually confident in my abilities, this wasn’t really one of those moments. Nevertheless, I decided to try something new and go for it. Done for this prompt @ mondmagique's comment ficathon. Harry (and Hermione) Post war, He thought he'd be relieved after Voldemort fell, but all he feels is a bone deep exhaustion and the desire to run.
Voldemort’s demise was gradual, not sudden, and not permanent by any means. In the end, Harry goes much more quickly.
He wakes to a grassy landscape. The land is flat and barren, stretching for miles around him, encased in a frame of large mountains that do little to muffle the rolling thunderclouds behind them.
“You’re awake,” comes a voice belonging to a man he thinks he has seen before.
Harry stifles a yawn as he makes a slow journey to stand from his position on the dead grass.
The man’s eyes are distant. Harry takes a moment to study him; the small lines around his mouth and the tense fit of his jaw do nothing to reveal what his memory fails to conjure up.
Harry thinks he has known him forever; he looks at him as though he feels the same.
And then the man says, “I’ve been waiting awhile.”
The wind suddenly slams into him, knocking his senses away instantly. The quiet feeling of peace Harry now realizes he had woken up with falters as the man reaches into his robe, pulling out an object that sends a jolt of electricity though him to the core.
The man’s appearance morphs into something else entirely. His features become unrecognizable; cheeks blending to the point where his nose disappears, hairline receding till his dark locks fall away completely, a black robe adjourning his body.
Harry grasps at his waist for a wand that isn’t there. The panic shoots up his spine, signaling his muscles to move, damn it because everything depends on it. His life depends on it.
And then he runs.
His surroundings blur into fine lines and blocks of colours. He’s not breathing right because his lungs start to give out and his body aches for rest, but all Harry can think about is getting away, faster and faster, until there is nothing around him, until he is not around him.
Harry wakes up screaming, reaching to the nightstand with shaking fingers for his glasses, a habit that molds to him like a second skin.
Harry didn’t grow up with everything.
He grew up with pieces.
A cupboard for a makeshift bedroom, the dysfunctional Dursleys for a family, and the morbid sense of belonging in a world where his existence was the decade’s feel-good story.
He watches as Ron wraps a hesitant arm around Hermione, watches as her lips churn into a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and wonders when his two best friends became pieces in his life and in each other’s as well.
These days it’s hard to face the press, live up to their expectation of the boy who defeated the Dark Lord. It’s difficult trying to be confident and victorious when all Harry remembers himself being before is elusive and confused and just a boy.
And the thing about the war is that it hasn’t really ended.
Not yet. Not really.
Not for him at least.
All he knows are the sacrifices that everyone has made, and while defeating Voldemort had never been solely about him, as he has been reassured many times, Harry can’t help but be affected by it nonetheless.
The guilt eats at him so fast that the only presence more difficult to be around than that of the reporters is of the family and friends who’ve lost someone because of him.
It takes once glimpse at metallic masks and hooded robes for Harry to sprint as fast as his wobbling legs can carry him. He doesn’t bother with firing spells back anymore.
Avada Kedavra!
And then he’s falling and it’s almost as terrifying as the running, except for the sound as it roars through his ears, wrenching past his skin, whipping in his hair and clouding into his mouth. Harry can see the ground rushing up to meet him and feels unbridled relief.
The last thing Harry remembers when he wakes, drowsy, his throat sore, is the heat of his cheek pressed into the bed as he had dozed off to sleep.
He has three missed calls from Ginny and can’t bring himself to return them.
A stack of plane tickets lies on his table, one for every airline Harry has called, stamped with destinations that can take him to any corner of the world.
Sumatra, Uzbekistan, Paraguay.
It doesn’t matter where he goes.
They will find him.
Harry takes a final look around him, absorbs the stale air of his flat, of the aging books Hermione has left behind, of the worn yarn from the sweaters Mrs. Weasely had knit for him. For a moment he thinks, what if.
He thinks about Ron and Hermione, about Ginny and George and Percy. He thinks, what if I never see you again, but forces the thoughts out of his mind because his body seems to be doing the same thing with his strength.
Grabbing his wand with nimble fingers, he apparates.
Harry opens his eyes. The overgrown tree trunks are the first thing he sees, steady and firm. The rest of his vision centers on the dirt on the forest floor and the colourful array of autumn leaves.
Maybe we should stay here, Harry. Grow old.
He feels a surge of nostalgia overwhelm him, tickling his skin as he stands still for a moment, listening to the sound of himself breathing and the wind rustling through the leaves.
Harry puts up a tent and starts a campfire.
He wonders if maybe he had left a part of himself here, somewhere in the canopy of the tree branches, hidden amongst the shrinking leaves. Harry wonders if that part has stayed sixteen or if it has aged, because hell, the rest of him sure feels like it already has.
He’s twenty-one years old but his bones creak and exhaustion overtakes him as if he’s eighty.
He thinks perhaps he will never find that portion again, and doesn’t really know if he wants to, doesn’t know if it will help. Because finding that portion, trying to make it fit with what’s left with the rest of him, only convinces Harry that he will probably never find himself again.
Some nights he wishes he had kept the Elder wand.
It isn’t clear how long he has been out here in the forest. Since his arrival, the hours have easily combined into days; the sunrises and sunsets look the same.
Harry lies in his small cot, silent and still, his muscles slack with sleep. The stubble on his chin has grown more prominent, patchy and sparsely long.
He wonders how long he has been asleep. He wonders why he doesn’t feel any less tired or different than he did when he had slept. Harry’s arms tremble as he climbs out from underneath the heap of blankets; the warming charm surrounding the tent does little to prevent the coldness from penetrating his weak frame.
His wand is a useless weight inside his pocket, digging into his hip as Harry lets it sit there, lets the pain of abandonment and solitary sink into him.
Harry sits up, running his fingers through his dark hair and rubbing desperately at the sleep crusted in the corners of his eyes.
“Hello,” he says to no one in particular; to the shadows from his dreams.
It isn’t until his gaze connects with a familiar pair of eyes from across the tent that he starts to feel heavy again, the merits of his self-confined solitude wearing thin and then disappearing altogether when he sees Hermione.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” she barks, eyes shining with unshed tears, fierce.
“Where’s Ron?” Harry asks, realizing that it is the wrong thing to say as he pushes his glasses further up the bridge of nose, examining the look of hurt that etches deeply into the crevices of her face.
He thinks back to their joint hands, the cemetery, the I’ll go with you, and suddenly feels ill, empty.
“Harry Potter!” Hermione shrieks, advancing towards him in fury, shoving at him hard, “How dare you leave without telling anyone! You selfish prat! You had us worried sick! After everything we have been though you couldn’t grant us the courtesy of at least saying goodbye!”
It’s only then that he sees how his absence has worn her down. The swollen eyes, the profound lines surrounding her mouth, her sagging frame. Hermione looks as though she has aged just as much as he feels he has.
For a brief moment Harry wonders how she has found him but quickly reminds himself that it’s Hermione after all, and if anyone could find him buried deep in the middle of no where, it’d be her.
Always.
Harry stands silently, watching the anger and damage play out over Hermione face, watches her clench and unclench her fists as she hits him, over and over, until finally, too tired to fight, she collapses into an endless streams of sobs.
He catches her, folding his arms around her shaking body and wishes he could tell her something, everything, but can’t form a coherent sentence around the drumming in his ears.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters, not knowing how he will make it up to her, this woman he’s known for the past ten years, who has loved him.
His revelation, Harry decides, will be his redemption.
They’re twenty-one years old, and though he doesn’t know it yet, tomorrow is the beginning of their end.
PART 2