Some Things You Can't Leave by Hopeless Wanderer

Chapter one; The only one alive

"Who are YOU?" said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "- I hardly know, sir, just at present- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
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Imagine being the only person alive.

Imagine, that you were the only one who survived among the seas of people who died and disappeared, muggle and wizards alike.

Imagine living in wild, always doubting whether or not you're the last person on earth, always wondering whether this was a long bizarre dream out of your sick conscious or the harsh cold blow of reality. I wished it was.

The possibilities were endless, whether this was a dream or a hallucination or even my bizarre trip to the land of the dead, this was exactly what happened.
Even my imagination, sometimes as vivid and wild as it was, wasn't wild enough to make up a life like this, a life mixed with raw animalistic fear, and sleepless nights in the forest of Dean, my mind wasn't capable of getting all of these facts right, all of these details, vivid colors and rad animals who trailed me like true predators they were. An ongoing nightmare, relentless and without an ounce of mercy.

I was utterly alone. Quite literally. The only person left on Earth. The. Only. One. Alive.

I know what you're thinking, how do you know that /you're not/ the dead one? Maybe you have died and this is some sort of heaven/ Hell like reality for pricks like you that deserve to suffer alone for eternity?

Then let me tell you, this place isn't heaven. First of all, it doesn't have the right vibe or the right qualities that passed my standards as Heaven, or an eternal Hell and I'm not even considering the climatic aspect of that theory. Second of all, even if this warped up place was heaven or Hell (which it isn't) /I / know that I'm not dead.

In my books, there was virtually, three things that declared an individual alive. Without even one of those factors the person would be dead, well in my eyes anyways.

Breathing.

Bleeding.

The thirst to die.

I was sixty percent alive and thirty nine percent sure that I was probably going to die soon. I kept that one whimsy percent as my other realistic uptake " I was in a magical coma with zero chance of making it out alive" which circled back to the thirty nine percentage.

In short... Fuck.

I sighed and looked around the woods, I've decided to camp up a tree tonight ; after my really close call with a brown bear just that evening, even I had enough self-preservation to feel threatened. Though, thankfully my stealth and experience in wildlife was enough to save my neck. Barely.
As the incident happened just hours ago, I berated myself for not having a wand, and vowed to find one if I lived long enough to survive the bear attack, which now I had.

My wand broke a month after 'the vanishment ' happened. I wasn't even sure that was a real word, but it was the only title that matched any of...these. Plus I wasn't really that bothered to actually look for it in a dictionary.

I survived the bear attack. I'm not trying to be funny, but deep down, even I was rooting for the bear. Poor lost soul.

I survived in general. The bear attack. Apocalypse. I survived the disappearance, while the world was wiped out and I was the /only/ one left. So yes, I was a surviver, as it turned out, and quickly adapted to my new life style with the help of sheer dumb luck, my instincts and education both in Hogwarts and snippets from my muggle life.

It wasn't much, considering that I was living in wild, all by myself, surrendered by deadly planets, vicious killing animals, and had no ability to cooperate in nature in any way whatsoever. I was lucky I have survived a whole year now.

Looking back, it was more luck than anything else. I had everything at my disposal, quite literally, every shop, every grocery store, hell, even the vaults in their banks were all mine now, their houses, their cars, their rabid pets, and my life. All chained together.

Now you're asking ; you just said you live in a forest, then how come you have access to all of those? It was irony more than anything, to be honest.

I lived long enough to find a ghost town, six months after I got tired of randomly wandering around the magical community like a hollow shell of my past self. The town was ironically named joys green though it did not look joyous at all, fifty miles away from the froest's border.

In desperation and looking for other survivors, I jumped with glee and ran into the small town without any preparations, stupidly, hopeful to find 'someone' who was alive like me.

There wasn't. I spent days surveying the houses, stores, the havoc of cars that had all been crammed together, obviously in a huge car accident. literally every place I dared to look for, I wasn't stupid enough to call out for anyone and mistakenly beacon animals to myself, but I was hopeless enough to at least consider how much pain I would endure if I let an animal eat my innards while I was still alive.

Heart broken, I robed the grocery stores and resupplied my water before trudging down to my campsite again, five days after wasting my time in that small town, back to my den.

It has been where I was staying for a whole year, a small den like tent with branches and twigs, weaved with clothes and covered by a huge tree root, cold and moist enough to keep the bugs and spiders away (I hated them) and low enough for any animal to think twice before sneaking in. Though that wouldn't have been a problem, since I had my father's invisibility cloak to thank for, my only grasp of reality, along with the photo album.

I still had my trunk, familiar clothes, and snippets from my friends, vanished, just like the others.

I was freaked out enough to trash their rooms after I found them gone too, I went through their stuff, and picked up their clothes, mostly Ron's, and books and coats and scarves from Hermione.

Their 'vanishment' hit me harder than the others, harder than the rest of my family and even Voldemort's, it stung. It hit me just how real and fatal this situation was, I was at Hogwarts still, panicked and alone only with a dozen of people who were looking for answers, I had had a huge row with my friends one particular night, wallowing in self pity, I stormed out and spent the night in the astronomy tower.

To only never see them again. All of them, all of the last survivors were gone.

That's what I cried for most of the time now. Not the Harry I am now. Not this rad animal I have become, but rather, the naive Harry who had lost everyone and everything in his life. The hopeful Harry, the kind and loving one who could just see the good in everything and everyone.
The Harry I had become wasn't like that. I was savage, cruel and paranoid, I distrusted every living being that was left here with me. Including myself. I was disgusting. I was humanity's best effort.

I thought a lot about the circumstances that came to be my new life, after a while, I figured that it doesn't matter if I'm 'good' or 'bad' or 'light' or 'dark', because there would be no point in categorizing myself when there was no one to compare myself to.

Let me explain ; before the 'vanishment', good and bad had definitions, they both had morals, rules and whatnot and usually never came together.

Now that I had no one to compare myself too, my good could be just as bad as their bad was. Alright, that's a bit complicated. What I meant to say, was that my morals aren't the same as everyone else's were before. My good could basically be their evil, my dark magic could be pure and I wouldn't know because I have nothing to compare myself to anymore.

I wasn't just an individual anymore. I was /the/ individual.

Changing was the crucial part of my evolution, at first, when I tried to fight it, I decided that I should stay at the castle and try to find a solution like 'good old Harry' would.

I stayed there for months, hoping that they come back, tried to look for answers, I nearly starved since there was nothing to eat, everything had vanished, and my only supply were left over candies and scraps I could hunt from the forest. For months, I lived on by candies and spiders. That's one of the reasons why I'm probably classified as a horrible person, I ate arachnids when I ran out of food to eat. Not only out of desperation, but one of desire.
I didn't have the heart to kill, but I ordered snakes to hunt them for me.

Then like the freak I was, I roasted them and swallowed them whole. There was no meat left, everything had gone stale and I had put enough magic into my research that I had no magic left for reserving spells. It was too late anyway, all of them had expired. Even the vegetables were rotten. So I ate them all. Often alive because I had no will left and no magic to create fire. Then, when the spiders and mice figured out my dirty little trick and ran away, I ate the snakes.

Yes, you can call me a manipulative murderer. You can tell me that's what I deserved for killing poor defenseless creatures and eating them up. But that's why I cried, I did the bad things, ordered someone else to do the dirty work for me and then I cried.

Though, some times I wondered, what would be the difference between me and a normal person who ate meat. That was murder too, wasn't it? No it wasn't. It just wasn't the same.

Anyways... During that time, I ventured a lot.

The forbidden forest wasn't as creepy as it was before, seeing that there wasn't any danger lurking around anymore, but I almost wished it was. The deadly silence surrendering the area, settling around like a heavy fog, slowly drove me insane, to a point that I loudly screamed and yelled every time it overwhelmed me, just so I could stifle the silence. That was before I lost my voice (long story)

Out of impulse, and tired of my life, I trashed the castle, took everything useful I could find, and walked out of Hogwarts. Just like that.

I shook my head again, and narrowed my eyes, tightening Hermione's light blue scarf around my neck. It was one of the few left that still smelled like her, after living off their clothes and stuff, they didn't seem like theirs anymore and it bothered me to an extent. I would have felt guilty for stealing from them, but then I reminded myself that it wouldn't have mattered to them anyway. Hermione probably would have been proud knowing I slept warm at nights.

Besides they reminded me that my former life was real, that they really existed and that I wasn't originally the only human alive on earth, that I didn't just made them up. Now that they were nearly gone, I felt like I was drifting away too.

I found a tree, right near the creak (no clean water, it was clogged with something's corpse) , by then the sun had gone down and crickets were throwing a fit, I fussed over myself at the thought of those nasty creatures bothering my sleep up in the tree, but tackled it down.

You have probably figured my obvious disgust of insects was unnecessary and quite Malfoy like. Aside from the fact that I feasted from one of their species for almost five months. But It wasn't like there was anyone here to complain to, or that I had magic to protect myself from them, I was all by myself, I only had myself to rely on, to save. And those poor creatures were the one who should be scared anyway, I was the filthy human. They were just born that way.

Quickly I set my trunk in its hiding place and took out my makeshift sleeping bag and the flickering flashlight.

Although I had the comfort, or rather the guilt of having my own bed at Hogwarts, the nights in the woods weren't any better, the first few nights I spent here, I started to earnestly cry again, in a fit of hysteria, I suddenly realized that, that was it. I was the only person in the world, the only one left.

The concept sounded more like an apocalyptic movie Dudley used to watch than my new miserable life. The thought was /huge/, just the wisp of it made me want to crumble down and never get up again.

The world population, before the vanishment, was roughly around seven billion or so, increasingly rising to the top. The united Kingdom's population was last around sixty or so million, the world... The earth, with five continents, one hundred and ninety five countries, seven oceans and whatnot... The life, I have come to know was flooding with people, technology, knowledge, /evolving/, changing for the better or for the worst.

Then all of a sudden. There wasn't. There wasn't seven billion people roaming the face of the earth, there wasn't a single humane left out of that sixty million people aside from me in United Kingdoms. continents were empty grounds, maps were meaningless, there were no borders, no countries as far as I knew, no technology if there wasn't any electricity, no clean running water if there wasn't any power and of course no food if there wasn't any farmers.

It seemed, that in a span of two weeks, the wheel of life had stopped spinning, whirling everyone else out except me. Poor Harry Potter, the boy who lived.
In only two weeks the earth was wiped out of humans. Wizards were the last to go, the muggles were out the first five days, all of them, as the magical community was desperately trying to find answers.

Anything, a spell, curse, solution, even Voldemort was willing to help. But then there was no one to help anymore. By the last three days, me and a few Gryffindors along with Mcgonagal were left.

The next morning, I was all by myself.

Sighing, I stealthy hauled my stuff over the craft made leverage I had made with a blue snowboard I had found in 'joyous sports supply store' earlier that month? And fastened the ropes around my back.

Once the board was safely on my back with my emergency backpack, sleeping bag, and the flashlight was in my mouth, I dared to start climbing the gigantic tree. My eyes idly on the setting sun.

I haven't been keeping up with time, or date or whatever, not in the real sense of the word anyway. For me it was merely another day to run from rad animals, look for survivors or drown in despair, each day was usually the same, except for today that I was jumped on by a giant brown bear. A very angry bear, that I eventually shot with an unused rifle I had found on my raid. Normally a whimsy riffle wouldn't have killed a bear like that, but I suspected accidental magic had something to do with it.

Good thing that the thing was loaded, and ready for use, or I would have been screwed. I had no idea what kind of rifle it was, or how to even use it, the only thing I knew was my instincts telling me to pick up the gun and a box of bullets set nearby in the empty weaponry store. It seemed to pay off though, the poor sod was dead as I landed a second shot at his head, completely by accident.

The sound wasn't that loud, I admit that much, but for me it was deafening, my hands were shaking and my ears were still ringing, I had never killed before. Not an animal at any rate, so I just sat there and watched the poor animal lie still on the ground in a pool of its own blood for what seemed like hours.
I lied again. I was a killer back at Hogwarts. But I didn't want to be one after I decided to start anew. Keep up people, I had redeemed myself since then. Still I was a horrible person and cried like a baby.

After I was over my sassy hysteria, my animal side took over and I fetched out a sharp looking rock to attack the thing with. It was a big kill, the bear was huge and I wasn't even sure it was dead anyway, even though I splattered its brain out didn't mean it was dead yet.

I didn't take much, just the small part of his abdominal muscles, I knew was the softest and the fur that came with it. I already had supplies and food, the bear stunt I pulled was just a double check, or my caveman side finally taking over.

I got rid of it.

Originally, I wanted to clean it out and cook it, it had been ages since I had eaten meat, and the sight as nauseating as it was, was also very delicious looking. But then my conscious didn't agree, and I had to get rid of the thing and unloaded the rifle.

When I successfully climbed the tree that evening, I settled on one of the higher and thicker branches, relieved that I didn't fear heights as much as I did when I was a child, I was a seeker for merlin's sake, if anything I craved to be up on a tree more than hiding under the ground, the breeze ruffled my hair as I carefully detached the snow board and maneuvered the sleeping bag under my bum, good thing I was so thin too, otherwise merlin knew where would I be spending my days. I would've been devoured the first week in wild.

The Dursleys never bothered to feed me much in the first place, Mrs. Weasley tried but all of that effort went down the drain when they were gone too. It wasn't a matter of starving, there was food, there was food everywhere for those who knew where to look for, I just didn't feel like eating as much these days, my average meal was a canned peach (my favorite) that lasted me about two days and I had a ton of those things in my den.

I slipped in the bag and pulled the zipper right up to my chin, my hands were out though and I secured the ropes around myself and the tree, tightening my knots so I wouldn't fall off to my death in my sleep.

As originally suspected, I heard animals shuffling beneath me a good portion of the night, roughly before midnight, I was glad that I had thought of sleeping up a tree.

The starry night above didn't hold any enthusiasm for me, the sky was more clearer than I had seen it before the vanishment, since there wasn't any pollution or chemicals poisoning the earth, the air was clear and the sky was a deep shade of black, I hated it.

They all reminded me of Sirius, specially the stupid constellation right above my head, Sirius, my perished godfather taught me how to distinguish each of them, told me their names, showed me the dog constellation, and then died not only two months later as he was pushed into a veil by his mad crackpot cousin.

My heart clenched and my breathing sped up, I felt so lonely. The night, the sky above me, and the herd of animals beneath me just reminded me of how utterly alone I was.

This is how most of my nights went, as the sun went down for the day, so did my confident survival instincts, as the night swished in, I was back to the wimpy frail kid I really was. All alone, in a forest, shivering from cold and fear, with no one to turn to.

It has been so long since I had talked out loud, even to myself in my own misery, I doubted that my voice even worked anymore, earlier when the mama bear attacked me I couldn't even wait around to yell, like a deer caught in headlight I just ran for my life, unable to utter a word or make a voice.

Even when the thing almost had its fangs down my neck, I didn't yell. With the thought of mama bear, I pursed my lips, happy for the distraction and leaned my head back to the rough trunk behind.

I feared sleep, if there was anything scarier than my appearances or the killer animals out for my blood, it was the dreams that plagued my mind. That was when I screamed, well not scream, more like silent yells of suffering. And man, did I scream like a bitch at nights, it was a miracle that no one (meaning animals) hadn't found me until now, my accidental magic was a big factor though, my magic had been tainted, unused for so long that silencing my own screams was like a piece of cake, that's why I needed a wand.

My body needed an outlet, it felt stuffed and full, my magic needed out and I didn't have the guts to do it manually. So it had to be the wand.

I pulled my hands away from my face and snuggled deep in my bag, knowing that I should sleep at one point or else I wouldn't wake up soon enough tomorrow.
The thing I said with not keeping up with dates was kinda bullshit, I did keep up with it when I had the time staying sane, I knew that tomorrow was my birthday, my sixteenth birthday to be exact.

Tomorrow would officially be the day my life went down the drain, my one year anniversary as the only person who was alive. I winced, I actually preferred the bear to eat me now that I think about it.

As promised earlier, tears started leaking out of my eyes like droplets of rain, just like last night and the night before that.
My sobs were soundless. I felt like I wanted to chock on my own sobs when I figured that... Just like last night, I couldn't remember some of their faces. I couldn't remember my own friends or family.

Breathing? Check

Bleeding? I make sure of it. I thought and dug my nails hard in my wrist to draw blood.

Still want to die? Every fucking second I breathed.

My glasses were folded and tucked above my head and my eyes drooped, red rimmed and pathetic. The faint scent of old parchment and vanilla, the smell of Hermione was the last thing that I carried with myself to the realm of dreams.

Morbid as they were.