...

Harry stared down at Voldemort's body where it lay apart from the other dead. He barely even looked human any more and Harry was amazed that he would die like one. Except -

except -

oh.

He looked like a man, after all, Tom Riddle's face shining beneath Voldemort's features. Harry leaned down, knelt beside the body. He wanted to touch it, but it didn't seem solid enough. He looked like a man, like a boy, like a crying, bloody baby that Dumbledore wouldn't even touch or look at or even speak of.

Harry couldn't breathe. He tried to slide his hands beneath Voldemort's body but the shifting perspective made it difficult. He could distantly hear people coming towards him. Hermione's voice rang clearest -

leave it Harry, someone will deal with it later, it's fine, come on, sit down

- but he shakes her off. Sick to his stomach, he struggles with the cold, clammy body. He readjusts his grip and walks towards the main door. Behind him he knows the others are following, unsure, not willing to touch the dead body, not wanting Harry to be touching it. It's fine though, heavy, solid, just a human body, not a monster. At the doors he stumbles a little and he has to dig his fingers into the body's upper arms and thighs to stop it sliding to the floor, heavier than a small crying thing should be.

He saw the thing for the second time the first time he held James. Ginny tucked the little boy into his arms, mere minutes old, and the baby screwed up his face and screamed. Harry saw the thing in James's place, and he felt sick and shaky. He forced a smile for Ginny though. He was just tired, it was fine, everything was fine.

He saw it again after Albus was born. After Lily was born, he saw it all the time, under chairs, under beds, under benches. Under a bus once. Always under things, in the shadows, in the dark.

He walks past the ruined castles and the people sitting in the sunlight. He walks to the forest, still holding the body. He can feel wetness dripping off his chin and onto the collar of his t-shirt. He worries that he's bleeding, but when he awkwardly rubs his face against his shoulder, he realises he's crying. There's no one following him any more.

He walks and walks and walks until the forest is thick and dark. He finds a spot surrounded by old dark trees, and a single beam of sunlight struggling bravely through the canopy. He places the body carefully on the floor.

Every time he saw the thing he wanted to reach down and pick it up, to slide his arms around it and rock it to sleep. It felt like a part of him, they way the children did. He wanted to rock it and sing it to sleep. He wanted it to grow up, to grow old, to grow wise and die somewhere, quiet and peacefully.

In the forest he digs a shallow pit, just long enough for an adult body. The damp dirt gathers beneath his nails. He can feel the white light from above spreading over him, clean and pure. He can almost hear Dumbledore's voice. You brave boy. You wonderful man. He finds he's still crying as he digs. He feels locked away from his own emotions, his body going through this strange cathartic experience without him.

He lifts the body again, and it barely weighs a thing, so much less than an adult man would weigh.

(One day, far in the future, Harry will take a job at Hogwarts, to the annoyance of his grandchildren. After three years, he'll muse aloud to Hermione that cannot remember where exactly he buried Voldemort. Hermione will look at him strangely. Harry, she'll say, there was no body. Voldemort... he turned to ash. He just disintegrated. There wasn't much left of him that was human, I guess.)

The body fits neatly in the grave, Voldemort and Riddle and Baby like nesting Russian dolls. Arms aching, Harry uses his hands to push piles of damp earth back over the body. He starts with the feet, they way he wrapped Lily up in bed with blankets when she was tired and scared of the monsters. Up to the neck and Harry takes a moment to catch his breath, to stare into that face once more. Red-Brown-Green-Blue eyes stare back. Harry reaches out a shaking hand and closes the delicate skin of the eyelids down.

(No, Harry will say, there was - a body. He'll remember how the body changed and shifted in his hands, heavy and clammy; how everything around him was changing, moving, becoming different and brighter. I think you're remembering it wrong. He remembers how the delicate skin of the eyelids was almost soft, like worn paper, and how frightened he was to stand up and walk back to the castle.

Hermione looks doubtful, but she doesn't argue. Harry closes his eyes and remembers her voice - leave him, Harry - and how he felt so alone and scared when he should have been happier than everyone.)

He goes back to the castle. The sunset seems so bright it blinds him. He tilts his head back and laughs, scrubbing away tears with dirty hands. Hermione and Ron are waiting for him at the edge of the forest, sat on a log and wrapped around each other.

"I'm so tired," Harry tells them as he approaches, smiling.

They smile back. Ron stands and stretches "Reckon we deserve a nap," he says and they are both smiling and smiling. "What do you say 'Mione?" Ron drapes an arm around Harry's shoulder and Hermione links her arm through his. As they walk back to the castle Harry can somehow see Ginny sat on the broken steps leading to the entrance hall, her red hair shining in the sunlight, her face turning towards them.

...