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Harry could feel nothing but coldness. The sogging mud and leaves on his back, the fog coming out of his shallow breath, the dew on each branch dripping down on his bruised face. Harry couldn’t see very well with the absence of his glasses, but he could feel everything, seeping into his bones as he drifted between life and death’s door.
When has it gotten so cold? When had Harry gotten so… old? He was only celebrating his seventeenth birthday a few months ago, in the comfort and coziness of the Burrow, surrounded with the people whom he had lost as his vision blurred between savior and… human. Human, was he still human? He heard himself be called many things since his time at Hogwarts; Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, The Chosen One, Undesirable, Dumbledore’s Pawn, amongst other things he grew up hearing behind his back. Things had undoubtedly changed, so fast that he could feel his head spin if he could recount everything but there had been one thing he grew accustomed to; death.
Death, Harry saw it, felt the way it tores into his core, yet never experienced it. Some people accept it, most fear it, and all Harry hopes for is warmth. Could death feel warm? Like the comfort of a thread-bare childhood blanket, a hug from a friend after a millennium apart, a house full of laughter or your father carrying you to bed. Harry watches as the fog lifts, revealing a darkened sky, swallowing everything in its blue light and thinking how it looks like the ocean instead. He loves the ocean, like the uneven waves and the hot sand under his feet as his toes curl and dig to keep himself up. He misses when he and Luna would pick up shells to make necklaces, or watch as the starfish lazed in their whirlpool, giggling at their bumpy skin and gaping mouth. He likes this shade of blue painting the sky, some sort of melancholy and lingering nostalgia even in the drenched clothes that grows heavy on his skin.
Harry closes his eyes, feeling exhaustion finally settling in as his heart starts to slow and his mind grows foggy. He felt like he could sleep for once, an uninterrupted sleep. It’s peaceful even under his grave threat of slipping into the embrace of death. Harry wasn’t afraid no more, but he wasn’t brave either. He had simply accepted his fate without much of a fight at all. He'd rather let go than to keep clinging onto dwindling dreams.
Harry let out a final breath like a last farewell, a farewell to warmth and fresh air, the salty ocean and the blue skies. Tomorrow, his name will be announced deceased, and finally Harry Potter could rest easy like the rest of the Potter’s legacy.