I can't believe this story is finally completed!

Thanks for reading, following and favoriting, especially to those who had been doing that since the beginning (and had had to bear the long waits between the first chapters). To silverwolvesarecool and jbui223, thanks for taking the time to review the last chapter, it means a lot :) if you have the time with this one (not just the two of you, but everyone in general), I'd appreaciate a review for this chapter; constructive criticism is always welcome.

Warning: spoilers of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (book).

X

Barry was running, running, running. He couldn't remember how long it had been, but he knew he couldn't stop. The others were chasing after him; they were getting nearer and nearer with each passing second. When he was a child, he had never managed to escape, and the bullies had always got him after turning this or that corner. But that day, he managed to escape before they could get their hands on him.

In the distance, as he was escaping, he recognized a familiar building. One in which he hadn't put a foot for years. And yet there it was, just like he remembered: a green house, his house, with the door open, waiting for him, as the others were approaching him. Despite his doubts (he hadn't enter that house for fourteen years, and it didn't belong to his family anymore), it still felt like home to him - the rest of the street was grey and fuzzy, but his house was high-defined and in full color.

So he ran.

By the time he entered the hall, he couldn't even breathe. The house was too bright, and it took him some time to get his eyes accustomed to the light - that was when he realized he wasn't alone in the house. A familiar figure, a ghost, was sitting on the couch and had her red-haired head turned to him.

"Hi Barry"

Barry opened his eyes in surprise and shock. His mum was looking at him; she was a beautiful and young and alive as he remembered, her smile as comforting and happy, and her green eyes as full of love and concern.

"Mum?"

He couldn't even formulate the question. His voice didn't sound right; it was too childish. He opened his mouth and shook his head, without understanding what was happening there. He looked at his hands, smaller than he remembered, before looking down. His eyes opened more and more.

On the couch, his mother smiled at him sadly.

"You've arrived early"

Barry raised his head when his mum talked, but his hands were still in the air. Slowly, he made his way to the nearest mirror, just a few meters from him. His heart should have been beating faster than ever, due to the nervousness, the fear and the shock, but he felt nothing - just his mother's eyes on his back.

He muffled a cry of surprise when he saw his reflection.

The other Barry, the one standing in front of him, wasn't his twenty-five-year-old self. He wasn't wearing the last clothes he remember putting on, nor the same hairstyle he had had for the last five years. And he certainly didn't remember wearing that old red and yellow backpack. His eyes were bright too, but they weren't sad; his smile was genuine and wide, one-hundred-percent happy.

He was staring at his eleven-year-old self.

He looked down at his too-small hands once again. That wasn't normal. His mother was next to him, as beautiful as ever, but his mother was no more. A man in a yellow suit had taken her away from him. She couldn't be real, just a mere projection of his deepest desire.

He turned his face from the mirror and looked at his mother, who had been waiting patiently without even moving her eyes.

"How?" He was still too shocked to formulate a more complex question; even his brain, of which he could normally hear its engines working full-time, as if it were a machine, had seemingly stopped working.

Nora sad smiled widened as she got up from the couch and approached his son. "That is not the correct question, honey" she replied gently.

Barry looked as she extended her arms and took his small hands between hers; the mere touch made him shiver - it had been a long time since his mother had held his hands for the last time, and somehow, it felt like it was the previous day.

"Does dad know you're here?"

The red-haired woman kneeled in front of her son, so their eyes were at the same level. "Your dad hasn't come yet"

Barry furrowed his brows, feeling more confused than in his entire life. He didn't understand what his mother was doing there. He certainly didn't understand what her mother was talking about, or why she was standing in front of him, feeling real, even when he knew she hadn't been for years. He felt powerless, frustrated and unsure. But part of him was just happy of having the chance to see his mother, happy and alive, as if nothing had ever happened.

Had he just woken up from a nightmare?

Had the past fourteen years been a dream?

Was that his reality?

"This is indeed real, Barry" replied her mother, as if she had just heard his thoughts. He closed his eyes when he felt one of her hands cupping his cheeks, leaning to the contact with urgency and need. "But your last fourteen years had been too"

Barry opened his eyes and looked at his mom's, as green as his. "I don't understand"

"I know"

The both of them remained silent and still, looking at each other. Barry recognized the love, the pride, the longing, the need and the sadness in his Nora's eyes - they were reflections of the very same emotions his were showing.

Suddenly, Barry felt overwhelmed, his eyes getting wetter and wetter as water flowed from his eyes.

That was too much.

He had spent the last fourteen years of his life looking for clues to free his dad from his and bring his mother's mom to justice. All his life's decisions had been made base on that fact, and he had been okay with that. And still, there he was, at home again, with his mother, as if he had spent no years living with Joe and Iris.

The kid opened his eyes as he remembered his foster family and took a few steps from his mom, letting her hand free from his face.

"What about Joe and Iris?" he asked, ignoring the tears on his face. "Do they know you're here? Do they know we are here?"

Nora shook her head, standing up and looking down at his son with an indescribable expression on her face. "There's only the two of us here, honey". His mother looked at him as he felt sadder. He had spent his whole life missing his mother and the family that was taken from him to realize that, in fourteen years, he had gotten a new family too. "It doesn't have to be this way, though"

Barry looked puzzled at his mom, rubbing a hand on his face to erase the frozen tears. "What do you mean?"

Instead of answering, his mom went to the living and stopped in front of the chimney; Nora turned his face to look at his son, a silent demand to follow her. When he finally stopped next to her, he looked to the object she was pointing at with her head.

A radio.

But it wasn't just a radio. It had belonged to his mother's father, and his father before him. It had known more world than most of the human beings, travelling from Ireland to the States, from there to the UK and Spain before returning to the States again; there, it had known not only Central City, but Starling and Coast City too. It had known times of war and times of peace, and through his speakers, his mother's family had heard, generation after generation, all kind of stories about cities discovered under water and meteorites from space ruining fields and crops.

Extending one of his arms, Barry turned the radio on. He had been expecting to hear something, and he felt disappointed when all he heard were interferences.

"I can't hear anything" he said, turning off the radio.

"Are you sure?" asked Nora. She kneeled in front of him again. "You need to listen not with your ears, Barry," she put a hand on his chest "but with your heart". After smiling at his son once again, she stood up. "Try again"

Sighing, the kid did as he was told. He turned on the radio again, hoping to end up with the same results than the last time. He peeked at his mother, ready to tell her 'I told you so', but the woman was looking at him with anticipation with her arms crossed on her chest. Barry rolled his eyes and focused on the radio; it looked just as any other radio.

Then he closed his eyes.

At first, all he heard were interferences. His mother had told him to hear with his heart, but the sound, that horrific sound, was only entering his body and his brain through his ears, and making his brain numb. He didn't understood why his mother had taken him to the radio when he had asked her about Joe and Iris - sure, they had a radio too standing on the chimney, one more modern than that that had belonged to Joe's mother Esther before her death; he could almost see it, standing on the chimney, in Joe's living-room, surrounded by all kind of family photos, in most of which appeared Barry, smiling happily at the camera, alone or next to Joe, Iris or both.

He missed them so much…

"Hi Bear" Barry gave a startle when he recognized Joe's voice. He opened his eyes and looked at his mom in shock as Joe kept talking. "It feels kind of… strange to be here. I mean, I don't even know what to say. I always end up talking to you about the same boring things"

Barry frowned, confused. "Joe? Are you there?" He looked at his mum with the same puzzled expression. "Is he there?"

His mum just looked at him with an indescribable expression, though Barry knew his mother enough to know she was hiding things from him that he wouldn't like to hear.

"I spoke to Fred's family yesterday. Eddie and I had been working a case and then we ended up having a coffee at Jitters during our break. And we were on our way out when I bumped into his youngest daughter. She was with her mum too and… we talked. It's funny, you know? At first, I always felt uncomfortable talking about Fred in front of Eddie. But yesterday it felt different, it was… okay, I guess. I mean, we both know Fred would still be my partner if it hadn't been for Mardon, but… I've moved on, I guess. And his family too, it seemed. It looked like they were back in track. It's good that at least some lives are getting back to normal"

Joe remained silent, a time Barry was thankful for to put some order in his thoughts. Since when did Joe refer to Detective Thawne as Eddie? He had always been Detective Thawne or Detective Pretty Boy, depending on Joe's mood. And he didn't understand what had Detective Chyre to do with anything of that or even his family. But there was something in Joe's voice that scared him - he sounded so sad, as if he were a cracked vase that could break with just a single touch.

He remembered the nights when Joe had arrived home broken, after leaving the precinct while working in a difficult case. He couldn't see Joe now but his voice sounded similar and he remembered the lost expression and the unfixed eyes that accompanied it. Iris and him were the ones who took care of the situation; they usually led Joe to the living room and made him sit on the couch, and then they sat next to him and watch a movie, the three of them together. The first minutes, Joe was still lost, his minds far away from the house and from them, but then, as if a switch was on, he joined them and talk about the film with the kids.

But that wasn't like that. He didn't know where Joe was, but he was far - he couldn't just extend his arms to him and give him the hug he knew his foster father needed. And his heart hurt knowing there was nothing he could do to comfort him.

"They asked about you. But I could see it in their faces, Bear. I could see what they were thinking even when they didn't uttered a word". Joe sighed; Barry exchanged looks between the radio and his mum. "Well, the world can be wrong sometimes, right?" Joe said, sounding angry and challenging.

Despite the sadness in the Detective's voice, Barry couldn't hide a (sad) smile when he heard the last sentence. That had been very familiar - it was what he had always said to Joe during the countless arguments they had had throughout the last fourteen years about his father's innocence. Barry had always believed in Henry; he could never forget the despair in his eyes when he saw the lightning around Nora, standing right next to his son. Joe had, of course, believed what the evidences said - he was a cop, after all.

"He sounds so sad" Barry said, looking at his mum.

"He is" she replied, nodding slowly.

Barry continued staring at Nora. Since when had she become so cryptic? The Nora he remembered had never been so sparing with her words - but the Nora he remembered was also dead, and that one was very much alive.

"I want to help him"

"You can help him"

"How?"

He waited impatiently, almost pleadingly, for his mother's answer. However, the woman didn't utter a sound; instead, she pointed to the radio with her head.

"Iris told me yesterday she's coming in the afternoon, after work. She had the morning shift today, poor girl. But we both know she's doing what she can. And she's doing fine. Better than me, anyway. With each passing day she reminds me of her mother; Francine was also a strong woman"

Barry was surprised to hear about Iris' mother - during the fourteen years he had been living with the Wests, Joe had only talked about her on three or four occasions at most. He remembered the nights staying awake until late with Iris, when he was sad looking at his family photos and Iris took another album and starting showing him the photos of her family. Francine had been a beautiful woman, but although Iris physically resembled her mother, it was obvious to him that she was Joe's daughter.

He imagined Iris, working tirelessly behind the counter, serving drinks and radiant and genuine smiles to the waiting customers. Barry smiled unconsciously; just thinking about Iris and her amazing smile put him in a good mood, despite the weird feeling inside his stomach, multiplied by a thousand when her big bright eyes were fixed on his. And when she laughed? It was like sitting in the front row to witness the Big Bang of the universe.

"She's an amazing girl, Barry" Nora smiled, as if she had just heard his thoughts again. Barry blushed.

"But she can't hide her feelings, son" Joe continued, giving Barry the perfect excuse not to think of a reply to his mother." At least not from me. I know that she misses you as much as the first day. And she wants you to come back to us. We all do"

"'We all do'? What does he mean?" Barry asked. He froze, opening his eyes widely, when he felt a hand stroking his face. There was no one there, apart from his mum, who had been standing next to him and hadn't moved from her position. "What's going on?"

"I have to go, son. See you in the evening"

"Joe?" Barry asked, looking at the radio. "Joe? Can you hear me?" Nothing came out of it. Just silence. But Barry was too stubborn to give up yet. "Joe?!"

"He can't hear you, sweetheart" she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Why?" he asked stubbornly.

"It doesn't work that way"

"'It doesn't work'...?" Barry shook his head, placing his eleven-year-old hands on his temples. "I don't understand"

He had been happy to see his mother that, for a moment, he had ignored that nothing made sense; he was not eleven-years-old anymore, he wasn't that small either, and his voice didn't sound like that since before puberty. But he had put all of that aside when he had seen Nora, because she was his mother and that had been all he had dreamt for for the last fourteen years. But hearing Joe, so desperate, so sad, so broken, feeling him so far away, had made him return to reality.

Joe had been the man who had tried to make him understand that he couldn't base his life on vague dreams and vain hopes, and yet there he was, decidedly assuming that that atypical situation was normal just because her mother seemed okay.

In an instant, he remembered two scenes of the last Harry Potter book. In one of them, Harry met his dead family and friends thanks to the resurrection stone minutes before going to face his own death at the hands of his parents' killer (not a man in yellow, but Lord Voldemort) - it is them who give him the courage he needs to assume his own mortality, a destiny he necessarily had been obliged to meet since he was a baby. In the other, Harry went to a kind of limbo after his encounter with Lord Voldemort. He went to a familiar place with a person who was very dear to him: professor Dumbledore; he was the one telling the younger boy that the fact that that was happening inside his head didn't mean it wasn't real.

Then Barry understood.

"I am dead" he said to his mother. It was not a question.

"Are you?"

"I mean..." Barry continued as if his mother hadn't talked. "It makes sense, doesn't it? This is why you are here. This is why I am like this" with his hands, he pointed at his eleven-year-old body. "This is why we are in this house" He noticed his cheeks wet, water falling rapidly from his eyes. Barry didn't remember what had happened before that to end up being dead, but he could see everything else pretty clear at that moment. He remembered that in one of the Star Trek films, as well as in Doyle's novels, they said that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth - and being dead was the only logical explanation that actually made some kind of sense.

Nora took Barry's hand and led him to the couch. She sat just like when Barry had entered the house, but the kid remained on his feet. With her other hand, she cupped Barry's face and cleaned the tears with her thumb, her eyes full of love, her smile sad.

"Listen to me very carefully, Barry" she whispered slowly, not without gentleness. "Nothing is going to change my destiny. Do you understand?" Barry nodded, the tears preventing him from talking. "But that doesn't mean you have to stay here now. You have a choice, son"

"But I need you, mum" Barry pleaded, closing his eyes and leaning to his mother's contact.

"But you need Joe and Iris. And your father" Nora smiled sadly to his son when he opened his eyes. "And they need you too, you know that"

Barry nodded, crying silently; his face felt hot but the most uncomfortable feeling was in his heart. He had always wanted to have a complete family, without dismemberments - making a choice between a life with his mum or a life without her would leave it incomplete, no matter what he chose.

"Why do I have to choose?" Barry asked, frustratingly. "Why can't you come with me?"

"Because that's not my place to be. Not anymore" she stroked his cheek with a thumb. "But I need you to understand something, Barry. No matter where you are, I am always with you"

Barry looked at his mom, at those big bright green eyes that had once been so full of life. He jumped into her arms and hugged her with all his strength, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply so that his mother's smell could be retained in his nose as long as possible. His mother had always smelled of vanilla and cinnamon; it was as sweet as it was soothing.

When they separated, Barry saw his mum taking his hands between hers for the last time.

"Go live, my beautiful boy. When the time comes, we'll see each other again"

Barry sighed and, inhaling deeply, he got away from the living-room; he noticed his mother's eyes on his back but he knew that he wouldn't be able to leave if she turned to see her one more time. So instead, he headed to the hall and extended his arm to the front door.

When he was about to open it, a sound came from upstairs.

"I wanna hold em like they do in Texas please, fold em let em hit me raise it baby stay with me, I love it..."

A song.

"Luck and intuition play the cards with Spades to start, and after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart..."

"God, I love that song!" he whispered.

He turned to the stairs, forgetting about the front door, and as he was reaching the second floor he heard the song louder and louder - he even played back the last lines. His musical likes were very rich, from old songs his parents or Joe loved, to the modern ones Iris or he listened to on the radio; from those last ones, Lady Gaga was one of his favourite singers. Not only did she sing well, but her songs were also very danceable.

Barry followed the sound of the music until he reached the closed door of his former room. Despite the darkness of the corridor, a white too-bright light filtered from the space between the door and the floor; he could also hear two voices, though he didn't recognize whom they belonged to.

"What are you doing?" asked a woman with a strict voice.

"He likes this song" answered a man.

"How could you possibly know that?" it was obvious to Barry that the woman didn't believe the other guy.

"I checked his Facebook page. I mean, he can hear everything, right?"

"Auditory functions are the last sensory faculties to degenerate"

Barry didn't know what those strangers were doing inside his room, playing one of his favourite songs that he had actually posted many times on his Facebook page. He felt stalked; it was good for them that Joe wasn't there because in that case he would have had no doubt to tell him everything and those people would have been in trouble. However, not having Joe there meant he had to take care of things by himself - so he extended his arm and opened the door, closing his eyes instinctively to protect them from the light.

When he opened them again, he realized he was lying on something. When had he fallen? He didn't remember that. Also, he didn't remember taking his clothes off, and he certainly didn't remember having so many machines attached to his body.

He exhaled deeply as he got himself in a sitting position; in front of him there was a young Latino guy, from about his age, looking at him as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Where am I?"

That's all folks!

When I got into The Flash fandom, this was the only idea I had for a multi-chapter story, so if any of you had any ideas, feel free to send me a PM with your suggestions, prompts, etc. I would love to hear from you, even if it's just to geek out about the series ;)