Cold as Snow (A Harry Potter Fanfic)

The Little Things - Part 1

He finally made it to some sort of road full of odd looking cars and people dressed in a similar fashion to Aunt Petunia's much loved historical dramas. Confronted with the inevitable truth before his eyes and the permanence that rode the ship of realisation he tucked himself up in a bricked alcove, head spinning and hands shaking as he watched those supposed to be long dead walk and live. He remained there until dark, unwilling to face the world in the scrutiny of daytime and only when the street lamps flickered to life, the winter wind harsher with no gentle sun to offset the bite, he trudged down the street, wishing he had a Felix Felicis to show him what to do next.

Walking alongside the rows of buildings, the metal signs extended on their sides like stretching limbs that reflected the dim city light, he couldn't believe it when the familiar entrance to Diagon Alley entered his vision. Harry dawdled, wildly unsure if he should enter the Wizarding world so soon but the call of a warm meal and a bed surrounded by magic and familiarity lured him into the Leaky Cauldron. The few Wizards and Witches didn't even glance up at his entrance, too invested in their hushed conversations or their firewhiskey, only the bartender eyed him as he stepped through the door.

He spent a week there, simply existing and nothing more. In fact, it had been a few days into laying on the rented room's squeaky four poster bed staring at the wrinkled ceiling, mind blank and body cold despite the warm duvet, before an epiphany came to him. How to deal with Tom hadn't been decided before he'd made his journey across time. Hermione, pragmatic as always, had laid down the benefits of providing Tom a mentor in morals and magic while Ron had preferred to 'just off the bastard'. Harry had been undecided at the time but the remembered late night discussion brought back to life the reason for his rash decision. Harry's ravaged future and all those sacrificed, living and dead, could be prevented; all it would take is one death.

He stayed for another few days until he found and bought a muggle countryside house from a man who didn't care for paperwork with money he'd taken out of his vault before the Gringotts bank was destroyed in the future. The Goblins' decision to remain neutral in the war and not to turn him and his friends away led to their attack. He still blamed himself for that, no matter what his friends had said, how could he not? The money was never even used. The bank served as a lesson to anyone who was still wavering and from that point no one was brave or stupid enough to harbour any rebels, no matter the cost. The homely purchase was a selfish one, he could no longer bear to stay in the rented room that served a constant wizarding reminder of his childhood in a different time. It also offered itself as a safe house if he got caught for the murder of an orphan but with the state of the economy, both muggle and magical, Harry doubted the police would bat an eye.
He'd been so grimly determined, but he should have known better. Years of killing the faceless enemies that look like death itself could not prepare you for the killing of a child, no matter who that child turned out to be. And so he became the guardian to a kid whose future haunted his days and nights and he had no one to blame but his own good conscience.

Harry rubbed his eyes until lights appeared behind his lids like spellwork, he leaned upright with a sigh. He just wanted to remain in bed, shackled by his own will but he couldn't, he had a responsibility now and if that realisation somehow made it a bit easier to fathom getting out of bed, for not his own sake but another's, it was quickly squashed with the remembered promise to go christmas shopping. He groaned as he flopped back on the bed. Why Harry, Why? Kicking the tangled covers off, he trudged to the small suite and washed his face vigorously. Turning the stiff tap back off he caught his eye in the adjacent mirror and wished he hadn't. He hadn't shaved since the weeks after his arrival, though it amounted to nothing more than fluff, it made him appear rougher. His tangled hair now brushed the back of his neck though it never seemed to grow out further, his fringe curled into his eyes and tickled his nose but never fell below his chin. It seemed his magic still remembered Aunt Petunia shaving off his hair when it became matted from her lack of care. Now it refused to grow out as well as be cut. The length made him look a lot like Sirius. Harry swallowed thickly, the memory still ached despite being over half a decade ago. He hadn't looked at himself this closely in years, he hadn't the time nor the energy. The shadowed circles beneath his eyes, while always prevalent in adolescence, seemed to have seeped into his very soul since being on the run and even now he struggled to look at his harrowed gaze without either despairing over the cause of flinching away from the familiar killing curse green.