Gone From the World

Gone from the World

Chapter One - Masters of Our Own Fate

I can't wake up
Save me from the nothing I've become.

Dear Harry,

I'm not going to lie to you and say that everything is all rainbows and bunnies here. It's so cold here and if it wasn't for all these nifty warming charms, I'd have already been a walking ice-cube. Even with all those charms, it's still freezing cold.

We lost Seamus today. I don't know why, I mean, he was getting better and everything. He woke up last night and asked for his m'am and water, in that Irish accent and then all of a sudden, they tell us that he's died. He didn't wake up. I don't know whether this whole idea of yours is going to work. I almost don't care what happens to me now.

The worst that could happen to me is that what you have dreamed up about my fate turns out to be true and that I really do die. But the thing that keeps me awake at night is that it's fate. Now I know that I didn't believe a single word of Trelawney's garbage but you're different, mate. You're Harry Potter - and I trust you. I'd give you the whole blood oath thing if that didn't gross me out. And I'm telling you this, if you had a prophetic dream that involves my death, chances are that I'm going to die.

But seriously, death is overrated.

I'm coming home. It's destroying me, sitting here wondering about Hermione and my parents and brothers and Ginny and you. I hate being helpless up here in this Godforsaken Recovery centre. I want to do something to help.

I think that we are masters of our own fate and I reckon that if we don't believe in fate, then it's not going to affect us. Hermione would say that it's not unlike being an ostrich and burying my head in sand. Actually, come to think of it, she wouldn't. She'd tell me in her annoying way - "Ronald Weasley, ostriches don't stick their heads in sand, if only you'd read a book." I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss her the most. I dream about her every night.

Your best mate,

Ron Weasley.

P.S. Tell everybody I wish them a great Merry Christmas. Tell Neville to go easy on the eggnog and save me some.

Harry scrunched up the smudged piece of parchment he always kept in his pocket. After all, that had been the last he had heard of Ron before he disappeared. That had been five months ago.

He rubbed his forehead impatiently, wanting to get this over and done with. He had been dreaming about doing this for the past few months and now, finally it was going to be over. It was for the best anyway.

They had been waging war on Voldemort for the past six years now. They weren't losing, but they weren't winning either. This temporary stalemate wouldn't last long though, Harry felt this in the chill of his bones. Naked logic told him there was no chance in hell that they were going to win.

As he stepped on the podium, the crowd of 16,500 wizards and witches silenced immediately.

They gazed at him with rapt faces and expressions of undivided loyalty. Oh, how deluded and uneducated the masses were. Harry Potter would have laughed at them if he could have been bothered.

For Harry Potter was sick of everything. He wanted the war to end no matter the consequences. Winning was no longer important to him. Not that there was a chance that they would win.

The other side had Tom Marvolo Riddle, who was old enough to be Harry's grandfather.

Their side had just him - some useless hero. Sure, he looked nice on a postcard (what with the new wonders of technology) but one couldn't win a war with pictures, could they? Otherwise, Gilderoy Lockhart would have succeeded dominating the world years ago.

Harry couldn't save the people he loved. He couldn't save Sirius, couldn't save Dumbledore, and couldn't even save Ron Weasley. They were dead, stone-cold, and rotting in a little wooden box.

That was why he was handing the Wizarding world to Colin Creevey, his trusted Deputy. Colin was eager and a hard worker; what he lacked in intelligence, he made up tenfold with his enthusiasm. He was a better leader and Harry felt that by retiring early and handing over the crown, he was the doing the wizarding community a large favour.

"Colin Creevey," he ended his short twenty second speech and immediately tried to step out of the limelight.

A sea of confusion and numbed shock washed over the hall and it became a soundscape of ominous muttering and many murmurs of 'what?'

Only one person gave no indication that he had heard anything of great importance.

Draco Malfoy was sitting as still as a statue, looking straight into Harry's eyes. He was smiling although it didn't reach his eyes. Harry shivered; if eyes were a window to the soul, Draco Malfoy would have a disturbing soul indeed. Not that Harry himself was the poster child of sanity.

Harry refused to be cowed or intimidated by Malfoy's infuriating gaze. He tried to stand tall and straight and as noble as possible as he handed over his (metaphorical) crown to Colin. The fate of the wizarding world no longer fell on his shoulders - it would be safe and never crumble to dust.

"Excuse me." He left the hall in a flurry, the wizarding paparazzi hounding after him like salivating wolves after a one-legged Siberian moose. Harry had no great desire to talk to the press; his traumatic experience back in his fourth year had scarred him for life. So, he pushed desperately past the thick throng and was almost out the door when he was suddenly confronted by somebody he wanted desperately to avoid.

Harry would have rather shared a rowdy card game of '500' with Voldemort than face Ginny Weasley. Though she never said so, Harry felt that Ginny blamed him for Ron's death. This was the first time he had seen her since Ron's funeral.

She was just as pretty as ever with her long curling red hair and shining tears on her white face. "Oh Harry." She looked pale and withdrawn. "Why? We need you, Harry."

"I'm sorry Ginny," Harry explained as calmly as he could, "but I can't do it anymore. Even you have to admit that I've done a half-arsed job and things will get better when Colin takes over, I promise."

In his five-year career as Minister of Magic, Harry had made more empty promises than real ones.

"You did it better than anybody else could have!" Ginny was screaming at him now. Her voice seemed so faraway to him. He turned his head and cocked it to the side, wondering whether it would reduce the volume. "Harry, go back. Ron would have wanted you to! He had faith in you and so do I. So do all those people in there."

"Yes and look where it got him?" Harry asked, staring back at her patiently. She didn't understand that he was doing her a big favour. He had to make her understand. "Ron is dead and buried Ginny. It's time to forget the past. We need to move on. Colin is the new Minister, your duty lies to him."

"And what are you going to do?" bit back Ginny sharply. "Lie back and die?"

Harry didn't know how to respond. Instead, he smiled vacantly. "Ginny. It's for the best. You need somebody you can depend on. Colin can be your hero now. He's somebody you can trust, somebody you can die for."

Ginny folded her arms icily. "Was that some snarky remark about me and Colin's relationship? God, I can't believe you're bitter about that! How old are you again?"

After Harry and Ginny's break up, Ginny had been romantically involved with Colin Creevey for six months. There had been a rumour about their engagement although it had never been confirmed.

To tell the truth, Harry had hardly given much though about it. He had moved on.

"Ginny." He was losing patience. He could feel the anger starting to boil inside him. He needed to get away.

Unfortunately, Ginny did not seem to have any intentions of leaving. "This isn't about me, Harry Potter, this is about the war. Now, if you don't go back and reclaim your position before I say 'Colin Creevey', I will kill you," she said boldly.

Harry sighed in annoyance. His left eyelid was beginning to twitch and he wanted to crack his knuckles or do something physical. There was a cut on his hand and he gripped it tighter so that the pain would calm him down. It helped, a little. "I have to go Ginny."

Ginny immediately lost the iciness. "I didn't mean it, Harry," she continued relentlessly, changing her tack and taking option B instead. "I love you Harry. I love you. I believe in you."

Once upon a time, this would have made Harry's heart beat uncontrollably fast and send the blood rushing to his face (and possibly his groin region) but now it just made him uncomfortable.

"That's great Ginny." He smiled. His palms were getting sweaty. He was losing it.

He sidestepped her and did what he should have done instead of confusing himself with the affections of his ex-girlfriend. He Apparated away to his own apartment, which was tucked far away in Muggle London.

He had tried to make his own dwelling as homely as possible, but he had had many things on his mind. As a result, the walls were half-painted blue and there was still newspaper on the ground. They were yellow now and stained with age, but Harry could hardly care less. He figured that the décor didn't matter in the whole grand scheme of things. Like him it was insignificant, a teensy speck in the universe, a star in a starlit sky, one in a billion.

As his boots touched the newspaper, he ran towards the kitchen. His hands were shaking and he tried to restrain them. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He couldn't even control his own coordination! He managed to fill the glass with murky water and not caring, he guzzled it along with two white pills.

He let the familiar feeling of dreaminess take over him. He could have cried with the sheer beauty of it. His eyelids felt heavy and it was like being on a broomstick and flying in crisp morning air.

He lay on his bed, without bothering to change or wash and he wondered about dying. He envisioned himself lying American Beauty-like on his crisp white bed, neck slashed and trails of blood seeping through the fibres of white cotton. He wondered whether dying hurt, whether he would gasp in agony or whether everything would peacefully slide into blackness. The blood would be heavy and coppery, and slippery as it dripped down his body, the red a nice contrast with his white bed and his black hair. Death and blood was so poetic.

So Harry lay on his bed, thinking about blood, violence and possibly sex. Eventually though, he drifted off to sleep. A curl of hair fell on his face, his eyelashes fluttered, breathing slowed and his hand clutched at his heart.

He dreamt about Ginny again. This time, she wore a white dress and carried a bunch of daffodils.

"Ron loved daffodils," she said, an obstinate look on her face.

"But daffodils are conventionally happy flowers," Harry protested. "You're not supposed to bring happy flowers to cemeteries because they're not happy places, unless you have insurance."

Ginny kissed him tenderly on the mouth. He smiled under her gentleness and softness. She smelt like daisies and sunshine and fresh parchment. He felt as if he loved her. He was under her spell.

"When I die Harry, I want to be surrounded by red rose petals," she whispered in his ear and then pushing him back gently, she went to Ron's headstone. Harry watched with a few misgivings, he had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. Ginny knelt down ... she put her flowers down ... started to pray and ...

An arm came hurtling at her from the buried soil. It was not a pretty arm, being green and partly decomposed. The hand looked like a claw with its yellow, curved nails. It grabbed at Ginny, who screamed and stood up but it took hold of her lovely hair and there was nothing Ginny could do but scream and scream. Harry wanted to help, his mouth was frozen in a permanent 'O' of shock but he was rooted to the ground literally. Strong vines had sprouted from the ground, tying him in place. They were more effective than rope.

The hand pulled and pulled and Ginny struggled but to no avail, the hand maintained its grip. Then it gave a particularly vicious yank and pulled Ginny's head sickeningly towards the side. Harry heard a nasty loud crack as her head snapped to the side.

She stopped screaming and as if in slow motion, her legs gave way as she sunk slowly into the mud. Mud stained her sparkling white dress and she slowly disappeared beneath it like quicksand.

Harry could finally move and he ran to where she had been a few minutes ago. He wanted to cry and yell like a maniac but he couldn't. Blood was pumping vigorously through his veins, he could feel it pulsating and he felt as if he would have some heart-related attack in the new few seconds. He wished that the arm could come back up and he could have given it a piece of his mind but unfortunately, not everything went his way. He knelt down on the stone, looking like some great idiot and called for Ginny's name, expecting that she'd climb back up. She didn't however, his calls went unanswered and there was nobody there save for himself and the accursed daffodils. Red rose petals suddenly fell from the sky, the blossoms were fluttering gently in the spring air and fell on him like heavy bloodstains. All it needed was some music background featuring a violin and an assortment of flutes and then perfection would be guaranteed.

Harry awoke drenched in sweat. His head still spun from the vivid horror 3D world his dreams had taken him and he licked his parched lips nervously. His head was spinning uncontrollably and there was a coiled up feeling of nervousness in his stomach.

With great difficulty, he dragged himself out of bed, towards the bathroom. He avoided the mirror, knowing that he was a total mess. There were black bags under dull green eyes and he was so pale, he was probably anaemic. He was too skinny, too angular and his hair was crying out for a cutting. Snape probably had less greasy roots than he did.

He took a long and luxurious shower, enjoying the feel of scalding water on his muscles. He scratched away all the reminders of his unhappiness: the sweat, the tears still on his cheek. His skin was red from the brutal assault of the water but he relished it, trying to absorb all the sensations he was feeling. By the time he had finished his shower, he resembled a cooked lobster but it was all worth it, as he had never felt more alive.

So he set down on the table and thought hard. There was a dim feeling of concern over Ginny's welfare although Harry knew that she would die no matter what he did. It was probably going to be by Voldemort's hand and although it really was none of his business, a sense of duty prevailed him to go on.

He mustered up all of his willpower, took several deep breaths, counted to a million and then walked out his front door.

Ginny lived in a modest apartment five streets away and Harry remembered a time so long ago, when she and he were still together. That had been light years ago. Harry found it hard to imagine how he had spent his life back then. He sung in the shower with a croaky baritone, skipped to work and smiled at everybody within a five-meter radius.

What had been so special about Ginny Weasley?

Funny. She lived just a few blocks away from Harry yet he had never visited her since that fateful day when he had ended it for real.

"Ginny," he had begun seriously as they lounged around the beach licking ice creams. They were there celebrating her birthday.

"Mmmm?" she asked lazily, fiery tendrils of hair curling and frizzing with the ocean mist in the air. "Oooh. I think I just freckled."

Harry smiled fondly at her, yet on the inside, his heart was breaking. "Ginny, it's not you, it's me."

Immediately, Ginny jerked up and looked at him alarmed. "What are you saying?" she asked cautiously.

Harry found it hard to look into her eyes. "I don't know. It's just that we can't do this anymore. I mean ... with Voldemort still around, he might go for the ones I love. I don't want you to get hurt. You being with me, that's a guarantee that you're a walking target for Voldemort. And I don't want that to happen."

"Maybe I should get a choice in the matter?" snapped Ginny. She got up, flinging sand on him. "I hate it when you do that, Harry Potter. It's my life you know, not yours."

He supposed he had to warn her about Voldemort. He probably owed it to her.

He swallowed and quickened his pace. He didn't want to be on this journey. The blue sky above seemed to mock him. Harry hated the sun. It burnt, its harmful UV rays radiating warmly on his skin and he felt sick. Mockingbirds sang; flowers bloomed like whores, inviting insects to come and mate with them ...

It was the calm before a storm.

Two men in robes shoved past Harry rudely, elbowing him. Harry was about to make a sound of protest when his mind suddenly clicked together. Men in robes. Why on earth were two people who looked like professional killers in such a rush to get to Ginny? He began to run. Something bad was going to happen.

Then he saw the huge crowd of people outside her flat.

At first, he had thought that one of Ginny's neighbours was throwing a party, but at ten in the morning? Parties on a general basis, did not have Muggle police officers walking around scribbling notes trying to avoid disgruntled ministry wizards disguised as muggle shopkeepers (Harry's favourite was the wizard who was wore only an apron with 'Kiss me I'm Irish' embossed upon it in gaudy gold lettering) nor were they usually decorated with yellow tape and signs which warned away approaching people. Something was clearly wrong.

Harry ducked underneath some of the tape and made his way past the bustling policemen hanging around the door inside. He expected to be seen but he was not and anyway, he didn't care.

Then he stopped dead in his tracks.

It took a while for the image to sink in and he had to grip the railing to refrain from spewing the contents of last night's dinner.

Ginny Weasley was hanging from the ceiling, her eyes wide open. Harry had seen enough dead bodies to know that she was dead. A rope was tied around her neck, a chair lying facedown several meters away.

Once again, Harry's dreams had meant something. He wasn't completely useless, was he?