Work Text:
How do you know that you've stopped living?
There is a simple definition of course, when your heart stops beating, when there is no oxygen being delivered to your brain you cease to exist.
No existence means no life in the physical sense.
What happens after is up for debate.
There is a more esoteric definition too. You could claim living isn't as simple as life or death.
Some people stop living, years sometimes decades before they're actually dead. Others never even started in the first place.
Not finding their passion in life can have different reasons. Life can be tragically cut short by some accident or murder, or in some ways more tragic by never fully experiencing life because they were trapped in their little bubble of societal expectations.
For Harry though it wasn't that cut and dry.
Did he stop living when he died?
A killing curse to the chest isn't considered survivable. He could confirm this, after all Harry had first-hand knowledge.
He didn't survive he simply returned afterwards.
Did he keep on living then?
Debatable.
Maybe he stopped living when he finally bested his nemesis in single combat?
All of his life, 17 years in fact, culminating in this one single moment.
Prophecy fulfilled.
Saviour obsolete.
Or did it happen later?
When the little things in life that used to bring him joy simply didn't?
Kissing Ginny once the peak of teenage happiness, now felt hollow and meaningless.
Her lips tasting like ash, her liveliness seeming to mock him.
Harry wasn't sure when it happened. He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when he stopped. He was sure it happened somewhere during the battle or the aftermath.
All he knew was that after that he just kept on dying.
For him time stood still.
He kept ageing of course. Nothing could fundamentally stop the flow of time.
Even time-turners, as paradoxical as they might seem, couldn't freeze time.
Existence moved on.
His friends moved on.
Harry didn't.
His friend did their duty, 2.5 children, ministry careers.
Doing everything and nonetheless achieving nothing at all.
One step forward two steps back.
He tried to find life. Find that spark of passion that he used to have.
He failed.
The aurors didn't want him for long.
Kingsley convinced him gently that early retirement was the best option for everyone involved. There wasn't anything to gain from a War Hero dying in an alcohol induced suicidal spiral that ended in the chase of one life or death situation too many.
Society wouldn't like it.
It wasn't proper.
After all he had won hadn't he? His life was supposed to be prefect now. Rita would have had a field day though. And it probably would've made some of the Weasleys sad.
So he tried his hand at different things.
Girls proved too much of a hassle for what little distraction the relationship drama provided.
Quidditch wasn't for him. Training to that extend in order to catch a meaningless little gold ball, just so other people could feel better about their lives didn't seem worth the effort.
It wasn't completely in vain. The constant nosedives provided a tiny blurb of what could be construed as joy.
It was possible that he was just an extreme adrenaline junkie he reasoned.
Maybe nothing gave him the same kick as dark lord murdering.
So he tried his hand at that.
Became the sort of person Lockhart would have loved to Memory charm, even if his name hadn't been Harry Potter and his interesting life had only started at 22.
That kept him distracted for a while.
The world was lucky though.
He liked the dark lord part more than the murdering.
If you asked him he didn't fancy the murder. Couldn't fathom why other deranged people spoke of it like it was this intimate sometimes quite orgasmic act.
For him, it was simple. Through magic, he made his intentions known, and people he intended too died.
Simple as that nothing more, nothing less.
If this hadn't been the case he would've surely become some sort of riddle derivative.
After a while it didn't bring him the same satisfaction as before. He kept at it longer then his stint in the aurors though.
At 30 Harry finally knew hope again.
Somehow Voldemort returned.
Most probably didn't share his relief, but he didn't care.
He finally had purpose, something to do.
He was finally needed.
It turned out to be a hoax though. Some of Voldemort's disciples if not during his reign then at least in ideology and spirit tried to revive their failed movement by impersonating the feared one.
What a sad impersonation attempt it was. They couldn't hold a candle to him.
THEY DARED?
Harry made his annoyance known.
The ministry classified it.
It wouldn't have been proper.
He was a reclusive War Hero not some deranged slaughterer.
For all the public knew the circle of impersonators went dark magic crazy and murdered each other in progressively more creative and disturbing ways.
The dark wizards and other assorted undesirables who knew a bit about dark magic whispered treasonous theories though.
Besides them nobody ever could find out what kind of ritual was used to keep every separate body part alive and conscious for up to 48 hours after the slaughter.
Their heads screaming deranged thoughts, not aware of their surroundings seemingly forever living in the moment of their worst suffering.
Did you know that as part of secretary for justice Granger-Weasleys reformation of the system, mental health institutions were developed/expanded?
Here utterly deranged wizards could be helped without the dementors making everything worse by a factor of at least 50.
Harry became intimately familiar with the ward where they stuffed people which couldn't be publicly held at the facility.
After all it wouldn't have been proper.
“Harry Potter? Ahh I think he went to study arcane magics somewhere in Albania or something”.
For a time he was alright with staying at the ward. After all he had overreacted quite a bit. Maybe they didn't quite deserve that fate.
Their cheap facsimile of Voldemort seemed insulting.
Cheapened his own sacrifice, what he had to give up.
He might have overreacted, but if given the chance at a redo he would have done it again.
So he stayed at the ward, as a bonus they gave him all sorts of funny potions too.
It didn't last though.
First the potions got stale, then it got boring, which turned to annoying until it graduated to infuriating.
It wasn't proper.
He was a War Hero.
War Heroes shouldn't be contained. They should be out there fighting the good fight.
What was his heinous crime anyway?
Showing some dark wizards what awaited them should they dare to step out of line?
So he broke out. It wasn't that hard. The “nursing” staff wasn't paid all that well which meant they weren't very motivated.
The ensuing manhunt was embarrassing for the ministry.
They couldn't acknowledge who had escaped so they had to make up a completely different backstory.
Maybe that whole Voldemort impersonating circle didn't go dark magic crazy after all. It could've been a previously unknown leader who went crazy and murdered them all.
Being stricken with a lot of guilt because of the death and torture of his compatriots, he might have even admitted himself to the ward.
His magic used during the daring escape placed this mysterious leader at the scene of the crime.
How the ministry uncovered this previously lost evidence was never questioned.
Unbelivable? Yes.
Did someone have a better theory? No.
The media gave Harry some kind of Voldemort'esqe name.
To be honest he didn't pay attention, he was too busy fleeing to Germany.
There he played a game of cat and mouse with his would be captors.
His philosophy was simple: if people were arrogant enough to challenge him they paid for it.
Life wasn't a currency he accepted though.
As he had previously discovered he didn't fancy it.
Everyone gave something though.
Sometimes an arm, sometimes a leg. If he felt nostalgic an eye. If he was especially annoyed a unique mixture of different parts, even containing parts of a lung or one kidney.
He kept up this routine for a some time.
Eventually the man hunt died down, dark creatures roaming the forest he frequented learned to avoid him and the last facet of Harry finally stopped living when his name was all but forgotten.
He remained a footnote in magical history of course. A sad memory for his former friends to keep at anniversaries. A trivia question at wizarding pubs.
Nothing more and nothing less.
As it should be.
No one is supposed to live forever.
Tragically he kept on dying.