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Hermione is the last of his friends to die, at the ripe old age of 135. Ron went five years ago, the very day the Chudley Cannons won their first match. Hermione’s funeral is widely attended: by her kids, her grandchild, her surviving colleagues, and her numerous well-wishers. Harry stands by the coffin, Charmed to look as old as she was. People tell him how very sorry they are and ask if he needs anything. He thanks them and tells them he’s fine.
When the crowds have gone and only Rose remains to pay last respects, Harry tries to leave also.
“Where will you go?” She halts him with a gentle hand on his arm.
“Here and there,” he replies. “There’s plenty to see, and plenty of people who might need my help.”
But after a month of this sort of aimless wandering turns into half a year, and then five years, he misses home. But there is no one to return home to, and he continues.
Harry has the one thing Voldemort wanted most. He wishes he weren’t too burnt out on it to enjoy the irony.
*
Harry isn’t sure when he first noticed. Maybe it was at Hermione’s twenty-fifth birthday party, when George and Lee wondered idly if Harry would ever look 25. Maybe it was the time he went to an American Muggle bar and had to Confund the bouncer to convince him he was in fact old enough to enter (he was 32). Maybe it was…
Who cares? Harry’s not stupid. He knows he stopped aging after he survived that second Killing Curse. He tries not to think about it, but he outlives his friends, never quite makes the family he always wanted because he can’t bear the thought of his children being older than he is, of outliving them, too.
He also never dreams. It seems like a small thing, all in all.
He thinks about Voldemort more and more now, as he travels and sees other demagogues, other self-styled Dark Lords. He joins the fights against them but stays in the background. They never discover who he is. Voldemort would have been deeply unimpressed by him. Poor, noble Harry Potter, who does so little for himself.
He hears whispers sometimes, of a wizard who might give you a hand with something small but significant, might even teach you a spell or two you’ve never seen, but always tells you to keep your Expelliarmus up. He always disappears after you thank him. The guesses as to his identity run the gambit from Merlin come again to a phoenix in human form to a figment of overactive imaginations. Harry doesn’t mind. It’s almost a relief to be obscure.
But it’s always the same fights, the same struggles. People don’t really change, and history rhymes. It’s been 200 years, then 400, and Harry is so tired.
Neither can live while the other survives. Harry has lived, and lived, and lived. He has lived so much that he’s made a mockery of it. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. He never asked for this.
He sleeps for a century. He dreams of a world where aged as he should have, where he didn’t wander alone. In this world, he hardly thinks about Voldemort; there is enough to distract him. But hardly is more than enough.
When he wakes, he isn’t alone.
“They say when gods dream, their wishes come true.”
“No!” Harry protests. “Anyone but you. I didn’t make a wish. I’m not a god.”
“Aren’t you?” Voldemort steeples his fingers and considers him. “What makes a god, if not mastering death itself?”
“You sound like Dumbledore,” Harry says, edging away from him. “I don’t want you here —”
“Then careful how you dream.” Voldemort smiles, showing all his teeth. “This was the price of winning against me, Harry. It’s quite unfortunate for you that you couldn’t let me go.”
Voldemort is exactly the way Harry remembers him. The same taut, pallid skin. The same scarlet eyes Even the same robe. He’s familiar in a way that Harry resents. And after centuries, he’s almost better than no one.
“Fine.” Harry draws his wand. “Stay with me and never harm a soul. If I brought you here, I can send you away.”
Voldemort pouts but nods his assent. “You’re so generous, sharing your immortality with me. I wouldn’t dare offend you.”
“That’s the spirit.” Harry sighs.