Right Where It Belongs

see the animal in his cage that you built?
are you sure what side you're on?
better not look him too closely in the eye...
are you sure what side of the glass you're on?

Standing before the mirror in his bedroom for the first time in over a year, Harry quickly recalled why he hadn't come near it in so long. Everything about his persona had changed, his features had become hardened with time and trial, and even his once-famous emerald eyes had faded somewhat. It had been said that eyes were the portals to the soul, and Harry wondered if by looking in his eyes a person could see what he had been through. Were all the years of fear, hatred and torture displayed in his eyes? Was that darkness all that was left of his soul?

It was hardly a surprise that he looked different; he had watched his friends change with the times, after all. Ron was hardly recognizable anymore. A part of him had died when he had been captured that time, and Harry knew that Ron's mental scars would never heal. Hermione's stress levels were unbelievable, but she hadn't really changed much. She had always been rather excitable. At least she and Ron still had each other.

see the safety of the life you have built?
everything where it belongs...
feel the hollowness inside of your heart
and it's all right where it belongs...

His thoughts brushed briefly on Ginny, and he tried to force them away. Would leaving her really protect her, or was it just to give him a feeling of false security? Without her he felt so empty, so alone, but he knew it was better this way. Wasn't it? He had worked everything out, made everything how it was supposed to be, and this was perfect, wasn't it? This was what he wanted, right? No, a voice whispered in his head, but again he ignored it. The order was here. Everything was arranged. All he had to do was follow along with it, because that would be right.

what if everything around you isn't quite what it seems?
what if all the world you think you know is an elaborate dream?
and if you look at your reflection, is that all you want to be?
what if you could look right through the crack?
would you find yourself... find yourself afraid to see?

Again he looked into the mirror, looking at what he had become - and somehow there was still a hint of the boy he used to be, a mischievous, lighthearted person who reveled in being compared to his father. But then he wondered - was there really any of that boy left? Or was he just kidding himself? He wished there was, but he knew, deep down, that things had changed. In joining this war in the way he had, Harry felt that he had sold his soul. He wasn't sure he wanted to know exactly what he had become.

When he contemplated the question all he could see was Ron's once cheery eyes, now a dull, icy blue, or his angular face, or even the scars that had been left on him by the Death Eaters. Or the way he had once feared to say Voldemort's name and now said it every day. He could see it in the way that the three of them, once ashamed to use an Unforgivable, killed without remorse. It was in the way he no longer cried for dead friends, and in the way he no longer laughed. Even if he hadn't sold his soul, it was being destroyed from the inside, one piece at a time.

what if all the world's inside of your head?
just creations of your own...
your devils and your gods and the living and the dead
and you really are alone
you can live in this illusion
you can choose to believe
you keep looking but you can't find words
are you hiding in the trees?

Did it even matter? What if Voldemort didn't die? This life meant nothing, so why was he fighting so hard for it? Why was he letting them distort and ravage his very soul - but as soon as he asked himself, he knew the answer. He was their savior, he was their hope. He had to keep fighting because this fucked up world would allow nothing else. Whether he was worthy of being this great savior he didn't know. He was not immortal or invincible. He didn't believe himself so, but the world lived under the illusion - there was no other word for it - that while he still breathed, they would be alright. They remained blind to the fact that he was only a seventeen year old boy, with no particularly wonderful talents. They disregarded that he was outnumbered and outsmarted in more ways than one. That, for the time being, the Dark Lord was immortal, and that their best hope for salvation resided in a tomb outside of Hogwarts.

The door opened softly and his best friend looked through, his fiery hair gleaming in the sunlight. Those strangely fearless blue eyes met his own faded green ones and he nodded. It was time. Perhaps today they would at last be successful. They would never gain what they had lost, what they had sacrificed, but at least they could achieve the goal that they had sacrificed those things for. Ron extended his had, which held Harry's wand. Harry took the thin piece of wood from his friend's scarred fingers and they set of for what would possibly be the last journey of their lives. Or maybe it was the beginning of a rebirth.

what if everything around you isn't quite what as seems?
what if all the world you used to know is an elaborate dream?
and if you look at your reflection, is that all you want to be?
what if you could look right through the cracks?
would you find yourself... find yourself afraid to see?