crownwithoutstones:

The forest is silent.

It’s
surreal, the way Harry can just enter it with his wand in his pocket, no care
for any dangers that might lurk within. The Death Eaters had driven the
creatures out of the forest by having the students practice unforgiveables on
any animal unlucky to be caught. His ears catch no sounds, his eyes no
movement. Harry stumbles past the clearing where he died only a few days
before. He doesn’t stop.

It’s
getting late, but he’s too tired to sleep. It feels like a pepper-up
crash. A bone-deep exhaustion has settled into his bones, one he can’t seem to shake long enough
to close his eyes. His mortal enemy is gone; the man who’d bestowed upon Harry
the worst moments of his life, the other half of Trelawney’s prophecy, the man
whose soul Harry housed for sixteen years. Harry doesn’t grieve him, but he
cannot bring himself to celebrate, either.

Harry’s
life has finally turned right-side up. This is the way it should be, he keeps telling himself, his heart
pounding and his scar silent. This is Harry Potter without Voldemort. In a just
world, their fates never would’ve
crossed in the first place.

And yet, Harry keeps walking through the forest. The trees
grow taller and thicker the further he travels. Somewhere up ahead, a bird
faintly chirps. Harry feels numb to the cold evening air and the stinging of
his feet. I’m myself
again. I’m Harry Potter. He can no longer speak to snakes and the
area around his scar feels different. What else is gone, changed? Take one
soul, subtract a longterm parasite. Is it still the same soul? Harry has never
been one for deep questions about the nature of humanity, but finding out you’ve been a horcrux changes
you.

A rumbling sound begins to echo through the forest. Harry
scrambles for his wand before his brain can register the fact that it isn’t the growl of an animal.
It’s too cyclical, mechanical. Familiar. Harry keeps his wand raised, but his
shoulders loosen when he sees the headlights through the trees. It’s a little
late, but there it is, the Ford Anglia helping him out of a tough spot once
again. Harry hadn’t been looking forward to walking all the way back to the
castle.

Half of the car’s
blue paint has peeled away, creating a patchwork of blues and yellows and
greens on its surface. Some vines have managed to wedge through the windows,
contentedly nestled into the body of the car. From the driver’s seat, a young
woman with radish earrings smiles at him.

Harry huffs a short, strangled laugh. If there’s anyone who can tame the
Ford Anglia, it’s Luna.

“Hop
in!” Luna calls, reaching over to wedge open the passenger side door. Luna
looks closer to the way she used to be before the war, but there’s still something brittle in
her bright eyes. “We’re going to find a heliopath herd.”

Harry gets inside, but he doesn’t stay in the passenger’s seat. He climbs into the backseat
instead. It’s surprisingly clean for a car that’s been roaming wild through the
Forbidden Forest for six years. Harry curls up on the leather seats and rests
his head on his arms. “We’re picking up the others, right?”

“Of
course,” Luna says.

And that’s
enough for him.

She holds the steering wheel like a horse rein. Harry nods
off to the sound of her voice as she asks the car about its adventures in the
forest. Harry must be asleep because he could’ve sworn it answered.