The Canvas Painted By Death

The sky was made up of mixed colors of gray and blue. It looked like a giant, painted canvas covered the normally sunny weather, and as if the strange arrangement surrounded a certain house. A small house on Pivet Drive, in the almost insignificant town of Surrey. Almost.

In the house of Number 4 Pivet Drive, a great neglect was taking place. As the days slowly became longer and longer, and the nights became shorter and shorter, Harry Potter sat lonely on his bed watching the days tick by. It became almost unbearable, but the fact that the nights did become shorter, was in a small way, comforting to the boy. For it meant less chance of nightmares, and nightmares were one of his worst fears.

Harry was not a normal boy, and did not live in a normal family, in a way. Yes, the family did strive, or more accurate, do everything humanly possible short of murder, to present themselves as normal. But the fact that they had Harry under his roof, and the fact that he was a wizard, did not help in there quest for normalcy. He could wave his wand, and make a chair fly across the room, as well as turn his cousin’s lazy hamster into a bird if he so wished. That’s what wizards did, and he was nothing short of that. And that’s why the Dursley’s hated him so much.

But unlike most wizards, he had suffered a horrific tragedy so early on in life. His parents died saving him on a weary night on Hollow’s Eve, when he was only one. They had been murdered by the evilest man to walk the planet at this present day, and that same man had a personal vendetta on the Boy-Who-Lived. As Harry started his first year of Hogwart’s, a school for the magically-gifted, he had faced mortal peril every single year since then. And the latest had been by far, the worst that Harry could remember.

At the end of a tournament, the Triwizard Tournament, to be exact, he had been transported away along with a fellow school-mate and Triwizard tournament champion. When the two came back, only Harry was left breathing. That experience had haunted his dreams every single night since he had come back to Privet Drive for the summer holidays. A single phrase, ‘kill the spare’, repeated itself in his nightmares in the same non-chalant voice as it did the first time. That one phrase had been enough to motivate Harry to never let that happen to anyone again.

He realized that the man who had been trying to kill him would never stop at trying to kill him, and he dreaded the thought that maybe next time, Voldemort would try to kill one of his friends, almost family, to get to him. And he would do anything to stop that from happening.

He realized that the man who had been trying to kill him at every opportunity over the last four years would never stop trying to kill him. The thought that Voldemort might even try to kill one of his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, drove him mad and made shivers flow down his spine. He knew he would do anything to prevent it.

As Harry awoke on this strange day, the memory of the dream replayed in his mind, though not as vivid as the actual dream. Like the others, he saw the blinding green flash of light, heard the same cruel phrase, ‘kill the spare’, and saw Cedric’s body fall limply to the ground. But unlike the others, more than one body fell. He looked down and laying on the damp grass were the bodies of Ron and Hermione, their eyes glazed over and staring lifelessly into space. Chocking back a cry, he turned to the left to see another body, sadness plastered on the face of Sirius, his godfather. Harry shook his head, desperately trying to think of something else.

Eventually, he made his way downstairs, and took out a slice of bread which he chewed on while staring off into space. He looked down at the half-eaten slice, and pushed it away from him, the thought of it making him sick. This latest summer, the Dursley’s didn’t have to worry about Harry stealing bits of food, and they didn’t have to assure that there little Duddikin’s got more food than Harry, because he had started eating less and less as the summer progressed. Vernon turned a blind eye as he noticed his nephew getting thinner and thinner, his eyes getting duller as well. It was obvious he didn’t care.

The one thing that Harry was thankful about during this summer was that the Dursleys’ seemed to be ignoring him completely. Unlike any normal family, no questions were raised about Harry’s steadily decreasing health. His sleep patterns and eating habits worsened, and he spent most of his time on top of his bed, looking at his photo-album. It was like looking into a window of what could have been. If only… his thoughts would start out, if only his parents had of died, what would his life be like? He had asked this question millions of times, and he couldn’t help but think, how it would feel to see them once he was dead. What would his life be like if his parents were never killed?

The phrase ‘once he was dead’ rung in his ears as he repeated it in a low whisper. He was bound to be killed by Voldemort in one of his future encounters, and then he would be free of this world, where pain and suffering was all he knew. ‘Once he was dead.’ All it took was his death and he would be back in his parents arms, like he always belonged. No more guilt… No more evil… His family back again. Could he possible give up the few people he cherished so much at the chance to get his family back? Was it worth loosing Ron, Hermione, and Sirius all for the two people he loved more than anything in the world? His mind was caught between two canvases; being embraced by his parents, looking down upon him with proud watery eyes, while the other canvas showed a different picture all together. In the second, he felt guilt wash over him as he saw the tombstones of his friends that would most imminently be future if he stayed to endanger them all.

-

Before he left on the train, he overheard a conversation being taken place outside the infirmary between two hushed voices. He immediately noted that one of the voices belonged to the old headmaster, while the other one took him a bit longer to recognize; it was Sirius, he finally realized. He overheard parts of the retelling of the graveyard attack.

“…Pettigrew stabbed his arm…”, “… used his blood to give him a new body…”

Harry’s curiosity took over him as he crooked his head to hear better. “…what Voldemort over looked, you see, is that now that Harry’s blood is a part of him, he may possibly suffer from whatever happens to Harry… if he gets badly sick, so does Voldemort, if he suffers from the Cruciatus curse, he does as well… but most interestingly, he Harry dies… so does Voldemort.”

At the time, he gasped. His blood gave him a bond with Voldemort. He realized the potential defeat he could cause, with his death. How could Voldemort be so stupid to overlook that? He thought to himself.

He found a way to bring down Voldemort and end the pain he had experiencing for his entire life.

No more pain.

-

He looked down at the dagger in his hand, how smooth it seemed on its blade. A twisting snake wrapped itself around the hilt. He held the blade up to the light, and watched as it reflected his features in a distorted way. It was almost as if it was daring him to do it.

He moved the blade to his finger, pressing it again the soft flesh. He saw red trickle down the edge. He stared at it, mesmerized. He saw beauty in the way it flowed. So slow, so agonizingly slow. The blade left his skin almost as clean as it was before, except for the tip dipped in red.

He took the blade to his skin again, this time a little higher, to his wrist. He watched as the blade sunk deep into the flesh. He slowly pulled it out, and sat back, feeling the life flowing out of him. He started to drift off, slowly the minutes went by and he sank into a whirlpool of darkness as his vision began to fade.

He was startled as the window burst open, unaware of the figure that had appeared there seconds before. He couldn’t recognize the figure that jumped through the opening, but he saw the mass of black robes rushing towards him.

“…Oh god! Harry! What have you done?” He pulled out his wand and almost screamed a quick healing charm to stop the blood from pouring out. But by the amount of blood already covering his robes, it was almost certainly too late. He looked once again at Harry’s face and saw that he was still paler than he had ever seen him before. “Why did you do this Harry? Why! I know I wasn’t there nearly enough for you Harry…” He started rambling, as the panic continued to settle in. “I can’t believe how horrible a godfather I am…”

“Sirius,” he hid the pain from his expression as he tried to explain. “It isn’t your fault, please, never think this was your fault…” A tear trickled down his left cheek, with a raspy whisper he merely said, “I only wanted to end the pain…”

“Why-” Sirius started, as he was almost at the point of crying, “why didn’t you tell me Harry?”

“You wouldn’t understand!” He exclaimed as loud as he could, and started wheezing. Sirius let the tears fall as he embraced his godson, painfully obvious that he was almost to that point, that point where the soul leaves the body. “I want to stop the pain… this w-” Harry coughed and blood spilled out of his mouth, “at least this way, Voldemort dies. No more pain for me… or for you.”

“Harry! You shouldn’t have to worry about me! If only you had told me!” He saw Harry’s eyes start to glaze, and he whispered to the boy, “I love you Harry- we are all so proud of you…”

Harry’s chest took one last breath and it stopped rising and falling as it should. Sirius clutched onto Harry, crying as the wind outside began to howl, and the canvas called the sky began to glaze over, with a deep red mixing with the grey and blue.

-

The End