A/N: Made an important change in the timeline. Instead of the two months that Ron said Harry and Hermione have been gone, I've changed it to a little over two years. Edits have been made to that chapter accordingly (which is why it was reposted). So here is the new update. Hope you enjoy!
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It was quiet here. That was why he liked it more than anything else.
He had completely lost track of time. Whether he had simply been here for days, weeks, months….he couldn't know. That had been the furthest thing from his mind. The closest thing to mind was just how much he both relished and hated being alone.
He relished it because it allowed him to think, just think, without having someone else's burdens or cares to occupy his mind. Hermione had once thrown at him that he had a "saving people thing", that she was right was not nearly as surprising as the fact that the one person he didn't care to save was himself. It was much easier to focus on saving someone else than it was to focus on what was eating you alive from the inside out.
That was why he hated it. Because out here, all by himself, the only person who needed saving was Harry Potter.
He wasn't even sure who that person was anymore. His entire childhood had been spent being a burden, his early wizard years marked him a hero, and the last year marked him a sacrifice. So much store had been put into his connection with Voldemort and the prophecy that without the Dark Lord around to threaten anyone anymore, Harry felt oddly out of place.
Maybe he wasn't supposed to come back from the forest after all. Maybe he didn't have a post-Voldemort identity because he was never supposed to. He had served his purpose to the wizarding world and if he survived to find himself maladjusted to being a normal eighteen year old wizard then that was his inconvenience to bear for outliving his usefulness.
A tool
That was what perfectly described what he felt like. Ever since he had been discovered in the ruins of his parent's home he had been Dumbledore's tool, an almost perfectly balanced blade to the heart of Voldemort, delivered from the grave by the great puppet master himself. Raised to be the perfect martyr, it had been a mere accident of fate that had given him a second chance at life.
He hated Dumbledore for it. He hated Voldemort for being foolish enough to use his blood. He hated that because he had taken so long to do what was necessary that people had died. That people he cared deeply about had died. He hated that he lived on while they were gone. Almost everyone he had ever cared about was gone. Only the Weasley's that were left and Hermione remained.
He knew somewhere deep down, that they were the ones who gave him purpose. That Ron and Hermione served as the anchors that kept him tethered to this life. It had been because of them that he had come back at all. He loved them and cherished them above anybody and anything else in this world.
So why was he here, half a world away from them, when he could be with the two people he loved most? Was it because he was scared? Terrified that once they had each other and didn't need him to save the world for them that they wouldn't want him anymore? Wasn't it easier just to run away while he could still tell himself that they wanted him? Was it the terrible weight of guilt every time he saw Ron's face and thought of Fred or saw Hermione's scarred forearm? The constant whine in his head starting again of itsmyfaultitsmyfaultitsmyfaultitsmyfault? Or maybe it was the fact that he needed them so badly, the truth itself so terrifying because of how easy it would be to lose them. He had seen it first hand: a shout, a flash of light and everything he had left could be taken from him. Or worse, the slow tug of time and responsibility once the inevitable wedding happened. Doing over the course of decades what a curse could do in seconds.
Any way he stacked it, it lead to him feeling physically sick to his stomach at the mere thought of them being around. He hated himself for that too.
So here he was, somewhere in the wilds of North America. The tall trees obscured by fog, the hard earth beneath him, and the haunting stillness his only companions. The quiet was only broken by the occasional echoing howls of a wolf pack in the valley far below. Here he was, searching for something that he wasn't sure he could find.
"Damn it." His voice shook. He wasn't sure exactly who he was supposed to be talking to. He remembered a moment in the Department of Mysteries, when time seemed to stop and Voldemort stood over him and whispered "…You will lose…everything…"
Was this how Voldemort would win in the end? A cold corpse lying in the dirt of an unmarked grave and still the bastard managed to make his life a living hell. He had come so close, so close to losing everything. He had lost his parents, his godfather, his greatest mentor, and more friends than he dared think about. The dead haunted his dreams.
"Kill the spare." Cedric's cold lifeless form, a flash of light and his mother's scream, Dumbledore's body sliding over the ramparts, Remus and Tonks' cold hands reaching out to each other, Fred's ghostly smile…….they all made their appearances in his nightmares. He was terrified of sleep, he kept himself awake for hours on end, going over in his head just how awful and unfair it was. He would eventually drift into sleep despite himself, waking in a cold sweat and a fresh face he would never see again swimming in his vision.
There were times he thought he was losing his mind. Times when he felt more than anything that he was drowning, life had pitched him head first into the turbulent waters of despair and he was drowning. No rope, no raft, no flotsam to hold onto. Nothing to hold his head above the water except the memory of the few people he had left.
He had tried everything to make it stop. In England he had thrown himself into spending time with Ginny, until he had realized that whatever he had felt for her was gone. Stolen from him by the overwhelming sense of failure he felt that her family, his family had suffered. He couldn't see her as anything other than another family member he had let down. Just like his parents, too young to stop them sacrificing themselves for him. Just like Sirius, too stupid to not draw his godfather into a lethal wild goose chase. Just like Teddy, too broken to do anything other than stare blankly at tiny tuffs of hot pink hair.
When romance had failed, he turned to his friends. His once sure bulwark against the world. Unfortunately they were just as broken as he was and guilt soon took away any comfort he might have found. Next came the alcohol. Firewhiskey could do marvelous wonders of wiping the brain clean of everything…for a little while. But once he was jerked out of his booze induced coma by the coming day it all came rushing back, seemingly gaining strength from his hangover weakened state. Then he tried pleasurable company, losing himself in a woman's body. It wasn't about love and it was barely about the sex. It was about flooding his senses with something, anything other than the crushing weight of grief that hung over him like cold, hard iron.
Nothing he tried held it back. That was what eventually leads him here. If he couldn't escape it, he would simply sit in the quiet and let it take him. Let it wash over him like the cold wind and the blustery snow. Let it take him and crush him until there was nothing left. What was there to salvage anyways?
He had always felt marked, like the scar on his forehead set him apart in some unholy way from the rest of the world. Little did he know that the whispers and pointed fingers had always been right all along: He was marked. No, he was more than marked. He was tainted. Voldemort hadn't just set him apart; Voldemort had set aside a part of himself. Making Harry a sick vessel of his own essence, a capsule containing just a measure of the pure evil that made Voldemort who he was. That he had hardly done this on purpose was academic. It had made Harry sick to know that he had played a part in aiding such a vile thing continue to exist on the earth.
The darkness was closing in. Even his vision began to tunnel. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten anything or slept. The howling of the wolf pack drew closer.
It was quiet.
So very quiet.
He could hear his own heart beating, the sound of the wind passing over snow covered branches and between rocky crags.
His vision was just a pinprick now. A tiny mote of light in the surrounding darkness. Darkness so dark that it promised the void and emptiness that he craved more than anything else.
At last. Free at last from this nightmare existence.
Then there's something. Not the wind, not his heart beat. A voice, a woman's voice: Soft, delicate, and barely audible. But it's there.
"I wish Harry were here."
Was it real? Or was it in his head? Now it's a different voice, a memory.
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
He strains to hear the voice again. It comes to him, quiet still, but stronger.
"I just want to see him again. To know that he's alright. Oh, Harry…."
He knows the voice, it's the same voice he's heard more than once in his life tell him when he's wrong. Now, that same voice is calling him back from the darkness. Pulling him away from the brink.
His vision opens. He begins to make out trees and snow and the outline of a white wolf, not ten yards away. Deep black eyes, hunger festering in their depths.
"Harry."
It's a sob this time, coming from his pocket. He reaches his hand and retrieves a golden ball with wings to either side. A snitch. Hermione's last parting gift to him. It opens to his touch and a small blue light emerges. It floats in front of him for a moment, before settling itself into his chest.
A tiny warmth spreads into his lungs, empowering him to reach his feet. There are more wolves now, circling around him, close enough that he can hear their light steps in the snow, their panting at the meal to come.
He turns on the spot, vanishing, leaving the wolves to howl into the emptiness in their hunger for blood.