The Diary (pottermort)

chapter fifty

Harry sits upright in a bed of Death's creation. Death, beside them, sits upright as well. An arm slung over Harry's stomach moving in soothing circles. A position hardly platonic in nature but one that is so in the current circumstances. Harry is always hesitant.  "Darling?" they voice. "Is something the matter?"

Harry runs a hand through his hair. Even through his distress he savors the feeling of it. It is the feeling of life. He's tired. Oddly enough, that feels like life, too. "No," he says, then adds after a glance at the dairy, sitting on the nightstand, "Maybe."

Death rests their head on his shoulders. They sit chest to chest. Death huffs. "Worried about him, hmm?"

Harry shrugs, to the best of his ability. He melts into the contact. Death's warm. Harry remembers his time of the absence of such, and leans his head against Death's. "He hasn't returned from his night walk yet," he confesses. "Of course I'm worried."

"I have seen him," whispered Death, lips touching Harry's ear, "and everything he is, and is capable of. I assure you, darling, that there is nothing to worry about."

"He's just a kid," says Harry. The protest sounds weak even to his own ears.

"Kids are more capable than you give them credit for." And Harry knows they're right, because he thinks of the life he lived when it was more than just an empty version of Hogwarts. He thinks of nights under the stairs, of Quirell's skin melting under his hands. He thinks of Ginny slowly fading away on the Chamber floor. "I can touch you now." So, Harry knows that children are capable. He knows that he was a... very capable child himself.

But he didn't want to be.

"Besides," Death continues, "he's am asshole, yes? You should really just let him be, dear. I set this up to appeal to your hero complex, but I promise it is much healthier to just get over it. To get over him."

"He's not an asshole." A defensive statement formed of pure desperation. "You just want me to only think about you."

"Oh, but, dear," purred Death, "we've already established that isn't true. I want what's best for you, my own romantic interests aside." Harry bites his lip. "And, yes, he is an asshole. I promise you so. He lashes out when you try to help, he insults you, and all that you are, while reaping all the benefits of associating with you. You know he is not kind."

"He is just a child," he repeats. He is just me at fifthteen. "Children are impulsive, yeah-- and irrational, but that doesn't make them bad. They'll grow. Children grow."

"Asshole children are known to grow into asshole adults," says Death. They sigh, and bury their head in the crook of Harry's neck. "I never get why you put up with him."

Because you set this up for me, thinks Harry. Because you decided this was what would appease me most without consulting me. Because giving me things and expressing your love for me is your Greater Good and I'm stuck suffering for it.

You're no better than Tom. You never grew up.

But he doesn't wanna argue. He's tired. And he is not irrational, and he is not impulsive. He's grown up, so his thoughts stay in his head. He shrugs again, because he's grown out of anger and into weariness. "I put up with him to save people," he says instead. "At some point along the way, to save him, too."

"Of course," mutters Death fondly. Harry reaches over, flips open the dairy to find no new messages from Tom, and closes it. 

Harry lies back down, turning around to burrow into Death's chest. He is tired. "I wonder what Tom found in garden," he says absently.

"You talk about him far too much. Your life is more than whatever Tom is up to."

It's not, he thinks. My new world is made so it's just like the old one: All About Tom. You designed it like this.

"Tom and I are friends," he says instead. "Friends are invested in each other's lives." It's not a lie. They are friends. He loves Tom like a younger brother.

"He is not invested in yours', though," Death retorts. Also debatably true. "After all, if he was, then he would have found your vague made-up backstory odd and lacking, mhm?"

"He trusts me." He does, perhaps more than Harry's aware of.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, dear."

That might've made him angry, at one point in time. It might've pissed him off to be doubted, because he has never been fully believed, not ever. "I'm sure your Uncle treats you well, Harry. I've no reason to trust your claims of 'abuse,' as you put it." Echoes of "Shun the Dark Lord Heir!" following him around like a ghost in his second year. You are far too traumatized for your tale of Sirius Black to be believable. You put your name into the Goblet of Fire. Voldemort has not returned. I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies. You are hysterical, crazy, an outlaw. Undesirable No. 1. You are the enemy. You always have been.

And here he is, in his very own life after death, being dismissed again. In another time, that might've made him see red. He might've thrown hands.

But that was now, and this is then, and he is All Grown Up. His anger has graduated. Now it is just tiredness. "I am just happy I can sleep at night," he says, because he doesn't want to argue about whether or not Tom trusts him.

He has nothing to prove to anybody. He closes his eyes, and sleeps.

In the morning, Tom will write to him about a ghost named Hector and about how he will meet many ghosts in the future. How they will all want his blood. In the morning, Death will be gone. The visiting day is over. In the morning, things will not be better. But being a little less tired will help to deal with it, so Harry closes his eyes and sleeps.