PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS AN ALTERNATE ENDING TO THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER. THIS MEANS THAT ALL OF THE LETTERS ARE HELD VALID, BUT the two scenes at the end DIDN'T happen.
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I think I'm odd.
Not that that's something important or anything, but just... I think I'm strange. And not the mentally retarded way either.
When I was a kid, everyone feared the dark. The dark was a cloak that hid monsters and demons, lying in wait to snatch you up and do unspeakable things to you. Perhaps even eat you. I don't know. All of the other boys at school would never say anything about their fear, but I could see it in their eyes. For all they boasted and lied, the darkness was the amalgamation of all things untouchable and bad.
Almost like all of their wildest fears personified... but perhaps it was.
But it's strange. I... I never feared the dark as a child. I took comfort in it. The darkness loved me, and I loved the darkness. Only 'til Hogwarts did I start rejecting it, as that's what every other student I grew to be friends with did. Eventually I forgot how much the darkness loved me, and how it saved me and comforted me through everything.
The darkness had been my comfort zone. And each summer, I would mourn its loss... after all, I abandoned the darkness. What reason did it have to stay with me? So through all of the beatings, through all of the pain, I didn't have the one thing that provided my solstice.
Only recently have I been reminded of its haunting touch, and only recently have I craved it even more.
Was I born to love the darkness? Sometimes I don't know.
You're probably agreeing with my previous statement now. How could someone feel darkness? How could someone love it so obsessively? That person must be strange.
I suppose I am. But I'm not particularly bothered by it, as long as you don't mind.
Darkness was never bad, never untouchable to me. It was always within hands' reach, waiting eagerly to become pliant in my grasp. Why is it, then, that when I arrived at Hogwarts, I so eagerly believed that darkness represented the one thing that was my most hated and despised? Why did I believe them when they told me I should loathe the darkness?
I loved it. Still do, actually-simply remembering its sweet, calming embrace is like a balm for me through these nights.
I don't know why I can suddenly feel it again; love it like I do... but does it really matter? They say I was born in the light-to the Light, even-but what raised me was the darkness. How could I have forgotten? How could I have-
I don't know. I've been stupid for so long, ignoring things for so long... Things that I shouldn't have. I'm lost, and I feel like I've almost found the way but I'm not quite at that turn yet, even though I know it's up ahead. I just can't tell how far up.
Hey... I know I've asked you if you've ever lived before, right? Well... sometimes I wonder if I've ever lived...ever. Everything just feels so surreal, like the world is falling away and dripping and melting all into the darkness-no, to form the darkness.
All of the cruelty is swept away, and all of the love and friendship and happiness go right along with it. The darkness is the only thing that's left. And... that's okay.
That's okay.
That's... okay.
You've probably never met someone as weird as me, huh? Talking about all this magical stuff that probably makes no sense-even to the fucking wizarding world. I guess I almost come into tie with Luna Lovegood, and you're hard-pressed to ever find those results.
I wonder... will your touch feel like the darkness' too? Will your words warm me just like the darkness? Will the pads of your fingers be hard or soft if you stroke my cheek, just like the darkness did when I was so young I can hardly remember...? Will the way your voice will slide against my ears be tender or jaded?
...Will I ever get to know?
Is it weird that I think about this a lot? Most definitely, you'll think of me as some weirdo-stalker-creeper person, and if you're still reading this letter it'll probably burned in a fireplace or something-
Sorry for rambling. It seems like that's all I can say to you-a bunch of rambling sentences that somehow, just somehow, form a thought. My thoughts.
Am I selfish? To want-
Ah... I'm sorry. I shouldn't... No; not even here, in this letter, where I feel so comfortable speaking my thoughts...
I'm sorry. It's wrong of me to even-
Sorry.
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Voldemort gently caressed the slightly crumpled paper, his fingers occasionally tracing a curved path over some smears. If only... There were too many ifs.
Melancholic eyes reread the letter for what was the nth time, drinking in the words even though they were memorized and blazed into his mind. They were Harry's words. Harry, who was no longer of this world... Yes, his words mattered. Never would they be abandoned. They were precious.
He wanted to copy these letters. He had so many of them, but each and every single one meant different things... precious knowledge, but knowledge of the soul. They weren't facts, weren't theories, weren't laws... but it was knowledge. Knowledge that, sadly, would lose their meaning if they were copied. He could not do that. Harry's words belonged on Harry's paper, in Harry's handwriting, smeared with Harry's real blood mixed with ink, deeply soaked in his tundra of emotions and thoughts that went out to his receiver.
Even if it was a perfect cloning-as there certainly were spells to do that, of course-Voldemort would know which was the imitation and which was the real one. Not even magic could flawlessly recreate Harry's writings... they were far too drenched in his soul.
What he planned to do now would use every last bit of letter he had. Every last blood stain, every last word, every last page and piece of paper delivered by that blasted, beautiful Snowy owl. Was it worth it? Could he say the trade was worth these letters disappearing forever?
Certainly, he had memorized each and every one of them; could recite them verbatim even. But even in his memories, he could not remake the drops of blood that had long dried on the paper, nor could he trace every single wrinkle or tear on it.
Was destroying it all worth seeing Harry again? Just a glimpse, just a small, sliver of time...
He could do it. He knew he could. Voldemort was not restrained by such matters of being physically chained to his emotions. But the letters were concrete. They were material, substance that he could hold in his hands. If he did it, concrete they would be no longer.
Is it worth it?
And because Voldemort was a very selfish man, he decided it was.
The ritual circle decorated with intricate, complex runes glowed as he placed all of the letters in the center, what suspiciously looked like blood lit to an eerie bright red. A soft chant, in a language universally understood but impossible to speak, resounded through the room. The language of Death, He who carried souls, and He who held the power to open the path... His language.
Come to me...
If you hear my call, come to me...
Harry...
And then they were gone. The letters that had been so neatly stacked in the center of the room spontaneously caught on fire, building and building out of nothing of the paper and air. No matter how great it grew, the flames were contained to one small area-the centermost circle. But then they began to dim, lessening until it was a mere flame. Around it, cupping the small fire in hands, appeared a figure.
Voldemort was acutely aware of his pulse, beating erratically in his throat.
The figure began to grow more defined, more colorful. The Dark Lord could now make out soft, messy hair, a slim neck, slight shoulders, all the way down to shoe-covered feet. He knew who it was-that was the whole point of the ritual. Nevertheless, nothing could ever look the same way as Harry's brilliant green eyes... even before the curse scar that still marked his forehead.
Even after Harry regained shape, he did not move from the circle. Rather, he remained still, looking at the Dark Lord unabashedly and without judgment. His hands continued to hold the flame there, though his stance was neither protective nor particularly sharing. No, he simply stood there and stared. Voldemort could not say that he did differently, either.
But there was a key difference. The latter knew time would be short. He would not be able to keep Harry bound to this realm indefinitely, and since the boy did not seem very inclined to make any reaction at all, he decided that he would have to be the first to speak. But how to start...?
"I received your letters," he finally said. "Every last one of them."
Harry smiled. "I'm glad," he replied, though his voice was nothing above a whisper. "I always wondered if you threw them away or not... but since I'm here now, it's quite the meaningless thought, isn't it?"
"It's not," disagreed Voldemort. However, he did not explain. Regardless, Harry seemed to know what he meant by the way his smile grew wider and his eyes just a bit brighter. "Do you want to know what year it is?"
"No," answered the boy. "Time is inconsequential, and fickle at that. How it flows is always constant, and yet perception of it for the human mind is glaringly unreliable. That aside, can I guess that it's been long enough for you to decide to call me?"
A small quirk of Voldemort's lips was the only hint of his amusement at the boy's light mockery, but it was gone in a blink of an eye. "You may," he offered graciously, adding in his own play. "How has the... other realm been for you?"
Harry's soft laughter filled the room. It was pure music to the Dark Lord's ears. "I'm not quite there yet," he said after his chuckles calmed, leaning forward as if to tell a great secret. "But I will be, eventually."
The Dark Lord's eyebrows knitted together in concern. "Not... there yet?"
"I'm afraid not," the boy said, not worried about the situation at all. "Death only takes those who are whole, after all."
"Then there is a way?!" shouted Voldemort desperately. "A way... to bring you back-!"
"No," was Harry's short answer, his gaze turning saddened though accepting. "The dead stay dead. We cannot return to the living to... simply keep living, just like that."
Something caught in the Dark Lord's throat. It felt like he was unable to speak at all, clogged up with emotions he thought he shouldn't have. Couldn't have, almost. He remembered the night the most bloodied of all letters came to him, the feeling that had swelled up inside, but also a great wave of resignation. At the time, he hadn't considered if there was something he could do. He let fate run its course for his own gain. And yet... now...
"It's okay," Harry whispered. "It's not your fault. It wasn't, ever."
"No... no," murmured Voldemort. "It was I who killed Lily and James Potter, I who forced you into your most hated role, I who caused you so much pain-"
"But there were others," cut in the boy. "Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Dudley... the whole neighborhood was against me. Dumbledore didn't do a thing, and neither did anyone else. My death simply came sooner than it would've-that's all. Time is inconsequential, remember? I don't blame you for what you did."
"I let you die," whispered the Dark Lord. "I, who wished for your death above everything... I simply sat back and left you to your fate, when I very well could've prevented it. I ignored your last and final plea. How could you not find me at fault?"
"I was fated to die eventually. We all are."
"I felt your pain," continued Voldemort as if he had not heard. "I felt it, echoing at the very back of my mind. I felt your need, your want, and I felt your death in every letter you wrote. The reason I called you here... tell me, if you will, what you wrote at the very end of your last letter. There are many things that had been rendered illegible by its arrival, but this-this I wish to hear the most, from your very lips if you will."
"If you felt it, then you know," replied the boy.
"Say it, so I know it was not the mere scribbling of a panicked child as he lied on his death bed!"
Harry looked away. "And if it was?"
"Then tell me so as well, because I must know if I made the worst mistake in my entire life," breathily declared the Dark Lord.
He stayed silent for awhile, holding his flame close to him and watching as it hovered in the air. Seconds, then minutes, and perhaps even hours ticked by before anything was attempted to be said. "It matters to you?" asked Harry, so quietly that Voldemort almost thought nothing had been spoken at all. "The words written so long ago, by someone who is gone from this realm?"
"Very much so," he replied.
Harry bit his lip before taking in a shaky breath. "Please don't regret never replying to me. I always knew, deep inside, that I would never receive a letter in return nor the things that I spoke of in my previous post. Yes, I did truly wonder and hope, but it was, for all intents and purposes, understood to be unrequited.
I knew that any chances of my letters causing the same feelings in you that they did in me were slim as well, from the very moment Hedwig flew back to me after the first delivery.
Please, I only wish that this letter causes you no pain. I never meant for that to happen. You were the color, didn't I tell you? In my grey, weary painting, you were my brilliance. I don't want for that to disappear, whether I'm here in this world or not.
Sorry for all the sad things I told you-for all of the terrible things. I'm sorry for always being so confused, so unsure of myself; for all the times that I apologized needlessly, uselessly, recklessly for things I might've done or hadn't, this is my final apology. For all the tear stains on every last letter, and for all the blood that had dried as well... I'm sorry. And...
Thank you for letting me fall in love with you so deeply and truly. I feared I could never experience it in what I knew would be my short life time. And I know that being able to die-being able to end it all-with my love for you as the only thing I can feel in my heart right now is the best gift fate has ever given me."
After finishing, Harry allowed silence to rule for a few moments. Then, he stepped forward and began to move out of the ritual circle, for it had never bound him in the first place. He moved to stand before the Dark Lord, who was looking at him with his unreadable, intensive gaze.
Slowly, Harry reached up to gently caress the man's cheek. "I wonder," he whispered softly, "Are you the darkness of my dreams? Will you feel just like it-kind and tender as well as dangerous and dominant?"
Voldemort pulled the boy's body closer to him, wrapping a possessive hand around his waist as well as using his other to hold Harry's own to his cheek. "Stay," he breathed, commanding and desperate all at once.
They both understood that Harry couldn't. It wasn't his place to. The dead were the dead, even the ritual could not break that bind. And yet, just for tonight, Harry was part of the living. Just for tonight...
The unspoken words floated between them. Harry stretched upward at the same time as the Dark Lord leaned down, meeting each other halfway for a kiss. Thoughts of the consequences slipped away like sand, falling between fingers to the ground below, ready and willing to be swept away with the waves. And that was exactly what happened.
When morning came, Voldemort knew that his boy was no longer there. He knew he was alone, in his large bed, the only heat in the room. He moved his hand over the spot he knew Harry had been-it was cold. Of course it was.
He also knew what the biggest mistake of his life was. Perhaps it was time to remedy it. The Dark Lord turned to where his wand lied innocently. Yes... perhaps it is time...
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I cried while typing this, no lie. ;-; ALL THE FEELS.
I hope this is a more complete (though alternate) ending, and I just want you all to know that what Harry says is really, truly the smudged out lines on his last letter in the previous chapter. If you go back,you'll see the beginning words match up too.
Also: the letter at the start of this chapter is a cut out of one of the numerous letters that Harry sent. Thought you guys might like that as a teaser ;)
So..... Thanks a lot for reading!
(I again sounded so lame.... ;-;)
(Aren't I typing and thinking this story too quickly? 😅😅)