FIC: Memory

Nov 14, 2005 16:44

Title: Memory

Author: katjad

Rating: a dark G

Word Count: 327

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling’s, not mine.

Notes: I hadn't planned on writing something dark, but it seems to have happened that way. Written for and posted at hp_quince for Challenge #5: movies.

Memory

It’s been three years since the end of the war. Harry can’t seem to keep himself from keeping track of time this way: before the war, during, after it. Maybe that’s always the way it is with a war, he thinks, but it seems more likely that it’s just him. Everyone else, after all, has found a way to keep living.

Harry’s not any good at living, he’s decided. Or rather: he’s too good at it. He’s managed to outsurvive everything that wanted to kill him and everyone that matters. Without Voldemort, without Dumbledore and Hermione and Ron, he doesn’t know who he is anymore. The rest of the world’s quite clear on the matter (Harry Potter, Boy Who Not Only Lived But Also Saved the World from Evil) and they’re all grateful for his ability to Just Not Die, but what purpose does he have without Voldemort? He’d never been able to envision the future past defeating Voldemort because somehow he always assumed that there would be nothing beyond there, not for him. Somehow he assumed that he would die just after killing Voldemort, and he never knew why he assumed this until after Voldemort died and he didn’t: because there is nothing left for him, in this future. He is without purpose.

He goes to the movies every night, not so much because he is lonely but because he needs to get out of his own head. He doesn’t really care what he watches; it doesn’t matter, as long as he can forget himself, forget that he is the one who lived when so many others did not, forget himself as so many others have forgotten him in their need to move on. He’s thought about Polyjuicing himself into someone else on a permanent basis; he’s thought about Memory Charms. He’s not sure what prevents him from either. In the end, maybe, he knows himself too well to think that he can make himself forget.

harry potter, gen, fic

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