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OTP Challenge: Carcass

Chapter 7: Last Thoughts

Tom heard a few years later of Harry Evans' death from one of his colleagues.

Tom had been keeping track of Harry after they had left Hogwarts. Harry had gone on to become an auror. It had not been as surprising to most of the people that had been with him in Hogwarts as it probably should have been. Despite his distance he had liked helping people.

He had been the only Slytherin for as long as Hogwarts had stood that had never had a normal or safe amount of self-preservation when it came to helping other people when they were in trouble. Tom often thought that Harry should have been placed in Gryffindor with how he sometimes behaved, but there were also the other times when Tom was sure Harry would never fit in within the Lion's Den. Harry was a strange mix between a Gryffindor and a Slytherin, two feuding houses somehow melding perfectly into one person.

He had died saving a child from one of Grindelward's rogue followers who had managed not to get caught when Grindelward had been defeated by Dumbledore years ago. Most of them had been rounded up at that point but a few were still in hiding. He felt a deep loss over the death of the other man.

Tom hadn't gone to Harry's funeral which had been only a couple of days after his death. He did not want to see the carcass of the dead man that had single handedly held his attention for years. That was not Harry any more. The man that had fascinated him was gone. He had left when his spirit had.

He felt a sorrow for what could have been but never had and for never trying, for giving up before their chance had truly been gone. He knew he could have tried again after Hogwarts but somehow he knew that the time for them was over and this only made it much clearer.

He celebrated for the life that Harry had lived for as long as he had known him and the hero's death he had died. He had truly expected nothing less and could believe that Harry would have been pleased to die saving someone rather than dying uselessly on a bed, unable to move and having other people care for him.

He had lived and died fighting.

He hoped that Harry was enjoying the afterlife and was causing as much trouble as he had while he lived.