In The End ⁂ H. Potter Twin

This Half Life

Once she managed to consistently from one end of the street to the other without casualties, Iris took a break and raided the Leaky Cauldron for food. It had gotten dark, but that didn't stop her. After refuelling, Iris increased the distance of where she was apparating. The first time she went further than a kilometre, she threw up. The second time, Iris passed out for five minutes. Finally, on her third time, Iris teleported from one end of London to the other with no side effects.

Sometime after three o'clock in the morning, Iris broke into a random flat and made herself at home in their bed. When she woke up in the morning, for a brief, beautiful moment, she forgot where she was.

And then she remembered. Iris wondered how long it would be before she saw another person again... how long before she would see her brother, her other half, again.

The loneliness set in quickly in the following week.

She moved from town to town through the West Country, searching for something— anything— to take up her time. It was quiet. That was the thing that unnerved her the most. Not a single living thing resided in whatever half-life dimension she was suspended in. Nature still moved; a breeze would blow through the leaves on the trees, but there were no birds chirping in the background or squirrels hopping around the terrain. Nor was there the hum of aeroplanes flying distant above or the whirring of cars and trains going down the streets and out into the country.

No laughter. No whispers. Just Iris.

As soon as she got away from the city, Iris noticed something that was previously obstructed by the tall buildings: on the horizon, in every direction she looked were large, dark black cumulonimbus clouds. They never moved any closer to her, but as Iris travelled they followed her like a constant threatening reminder that her debt still had yet to be paid.

As she apparated around, the only noise following her was the sharp crack that echoed in the empty streets, Iris found herself after a few days in a small village where she recognised the name.

Godric's Hollow.

She had come home.

After fifteen years of trauma, she was reunited with the cobblestone pathways beneath her feet. She breathed in deeply the country air that smelled of grass and the sun's warmth. Cottages stood on either side of the narrow road and a short way ahead she could see where the road converged with others indicating the centre of the village.

Iris walked down the path staring at the cottages. Any one of them might have been the one in which James and Lily had once lived. Iris gazed at the front doors, their thatched roofs, and their front porches, wondering whether she remembered any of them, knowing deep inside that it was impossible, that she and Harry had been little more than a year old when they had left this place forever. She was not even sure if she would be able to see the cottage at all; she was unsure what happened when the subjects of a Fidelius Charm died. The little lane along which she was walking curved to the left and the heart of the village, a small square, was revealed to Iris.

There was what looked like a war memorial in the middle, the sun beaming down and illuminating it. There were several shops, a post office, a pub, and a little church whose stained-glass windows were glowing jewel-bright across the square.

Curiously, Iris walked closer to the war memorial. As she approached, Iris suddenly gasped— it had transformed. Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of four people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and two babies sitting in either of their arms: father with daughter and mother with son.

Iris drew closer, gazing up into her parents' faces. She had never imagined that there would be a statue... How strange it was to see herself and Harry represented in stone, happy babies without matching scars on their foreheads...