The Diary (pottermort)

prologue

He is at the train station after he dies. It is admittedly odd-- he expected something different. More, maybe. A train station is not heaven or hell. Though to some the idea of such may wavier toward either. But to Harry it is neither; a perfect in-between. He recalls an oddly fitting story of a bird, a story that Ron had told him, sitting together in the common room in what seemed like ages ago.

There once was a bird, Ron had said. He was a special bird; he flew a little faster than everyone else and thought a little more. The other birds joked he was more human than than them; a little more there. He was well liked by all the humans, and he liked them back. But one day the king bird said he had to make a choice, because he didn't like the way the humans liked him and not the king himself. It was a decision spawned from jealousy. But the pettiness of the decision mattered not as the king announced he had to choose which society to be in; to choose between the humans and the birds. The special bird, of course, chose to coexist with the other birds, because he had friends of birds and actually was able to communicate with them, and he'd be all alone, left to only himself if he chose the humans. The king bird stopped hating the special bird, and the special bird soon grew used to not being around the ones that had welcomed him with open arms and now do not welcome him at all. He grew used to it, but even as the years passed, he could not deny the new sense of loneliness that hung over him.

When Harry asked what the story meant, Ron had laughed. "Sometimes a story is just a story," he said, "Sometimes a bird is just a bird."

Harry thinks the train station is a lot like that. A train station is just a train station. It is not heaven or hell; it just is.

Harry knows he is dead. He puts his hand to his chest and nothing pumps beneath his shirt. He is dead. For the Greater Good, he had told himself. And one could only hope that was true. He remembers the scene vividly, with perfect clarity-- as if it has just happened; he is in the clearing, the Forbidden Forest surrounding him. Voldemort is there, too, that wrath of a man-- that wrath of something. He mutters two simple words that Harry knew were coming. The spell was gorgeous, a sparking green that matched Harry's eyes, and Harry could not help but marvel at the beauty even as it hurled toward him.

He is dead.

He hopes it is worth it, but guesses that, if the entire afterlife is just him standing in a train station, he will have no way of knowing either way.

He does not know how much time has passed when Death arrives. Harry spent the time in between slowly going insane; he is left alone with nothing but his memories and a train that will never arrive.

He is not cold until Death arrives (for he was not warm, either) and a part of him is bouncing up and down in a childlike joy at the feeling, because his physical form has not felt anything since his disposal at the station, but there is another, perhaps more rational part of him that argues that seeing Death cannot be good.

Death is a vague, somewhat human like void. It is a swirling mass of nothing and everything, and their eyes (if you can even call them that) are enchanting. Harry could spend his entire afterlife searching them and still be struck awed by the sight of them. Death's voice is an overlapping, plesant sound; as if several attractive people were talking at once, and Harry welcomes the noise. "Something went wrong," Death says.

Harry shrugs.

"He was..." Death glances around the station; their eyes forever searching for a person who is not there. "He was supposed to send you back." Harry does not know who this aforementioned "He" is but does not care to question it. He is just glad there is someone to talk to, even if that person is Death.

"What're you here for?" Harry's voice is rough and hoarse. It hits him all over again about how long he has been alone, no one to talk to.

"I am forced to change plans, it seems." Harry gets the sense that Death is talking to themself more than anything. "Let us try again, but I am to do something... much more interesting. "

Harry is about to question just what they are referring to when he feels, and sees, his physical form fading away, the colors dimming slowly.

"This will be fun," is the last thing Harry hears before he decomposes completely.

Harry is in what seems like two plains of existance. There is the first, where he is a ghostlike figure, aimlessly wandering the world. There is the second, where he is a dairy sitting on a bed. He cannot see, only feel, in this world, and finds himself unable to hear or talk. This is all to be expected because he is, in fact, a diary. But he is still there, his magic pulsing beneath the covers of the book.

He finds it all very interesting.

It is a few hours of both sitting on a bed and wandering through the wilderness before someone writes in him. He first feels their magic sweep over him, as if checking for malicious charms attached to it. When the book is opened, a quill held over the page, Harry finds himself recognizing the magic of the person, but cannot put a name to it quite yet. When the first drop of ink hits the page, the Harry in the first plain of existence now holds a book in his hands. It is the diary.

The handwriting is fancy, pristine and instantly recognizable. This book is magical, he writes, But how so?

The writer had apperantly sensed Harry's magic when he did a sweep of the book. Harry notices, in the ghost realm, that a quill and ink have appeared on the floor. Harry sits beside them, then dares to pick one up and write with it.

Hello, Tom Riddle, he wrote and the few words are coated in resignation.

He curses Death for their idea of "interesting", wishing absently he was back at the train station, slowly losing his mind.