Even with all that had happened in his now going on five hundred years of life Harry Potter knew that there were three things he could trust to never change: his appearance-despite his record breaking age and all he'd been through he didn't appear to have aged a day since the moment he'd disarmed the former master of the Elder Wand and was still mistaken, on the rare occasion he ventured out into public now a days, for only being seventeen-the wet and chilly weather of English October and the tree atop the hill behind Potter manor; a sturdy Ogham Yew with large gnarled branches draping down towards the ground in a protective curtain grown-much to his original surprise-from the broken wand that he'd buried in the soil.

In literature, both Magical and Muggle, immortality was seen equally as both a gift and a curse; the eternal question of which was truly the case spanking quite a number of rather vicious arguments throughout the ages, but having been unknowingly afflicted with it Harry alone was in the position to be able to answer that question from experience.

It was, inarguably, a curse of the worst kind. And after three hundred years without his wife and friends, one hundred without any of his children and the world around him reduced to nothing like anything he remembered Harry truly knew what it meant to be alone.

The Light Lord had come and gone by then. The balance was back to what it was meant to be. The Muggle and Magical worlds were at peace. And Harry had removed himself from all of it. It was better to hold himself apart from the rest of the world, no matter how badly he missed the companionship, than subject himself to losing anyone else. Not when he'd never see them again. When he couldn't die. When he knew he couldn't.

He'd tried.

The gentle sound of the rain pattering down around him was muted further by the now ancient trees stretching bows. Harry lowered his wand, dismissing the spell he'd used up until then to keep the frigid droplets off of him during his journey from the house, and looked up. The beady eyes of a bowtruckle met his from a few feet away, the tiny green creature clinging to bushel of bright red berries and swaying with the branch in the wind. It squeaked a short greeting when the little wizard smiled at it-he came there so often that the bowtruckle living in the tree had grown used to his presence-before resuming its business; plucking on of the berries and scampering off up the branch.

Tucking his wand away in the back pocket of his pants the raven continued forwards until he reached the wide trunk and then sat down. Pressing his back against the uneven surface of the thick bark. The needles were dry here, sheltered from the rain by the canopy above, and soft. Surrounding him with the scents of petrichor wet soil and the poisonous sap which leaked from the softly groaning tree. Harry couldn't decide if it was funny, sad or stereotypical that the last companion of the Master of Death would be a plant of symbolic of death and immortality. Maybe it was neither. Maybe it was all three. Either way, he supposed it didn't matter. He hadn't come here for introspection or to toy with stupid questions or even to take advantage of the odd sense of comfort the tree never failed to afford him. Harry had come to indulge in the guilty pleasure of his broken resolve never to use the thing. To answer the question for himself of whether or not it worked (of course it worked! It was a Hallow!). To see who it was that the stone would show while at once frustrated in already knowing.

The small stone was cold and heavy in his hand as he turned it between his fingers. Once. Twice. Three times. Watching its facets flashing black and grey in the weak light. Feeling its weight against his palm. A powerful gust of wind made the massive tree creak and urged the onslaught of the rain even harder, chilling the little hollow below the drooping branches enough to make him shiver and leaving behind another presence when it left. They said nothing. They didn't need to. He recognized them by that silence alone and half of him mourned it. Wishing that the summons would somehow have reformed the link which had once existed between them. The other half clinging to the vain assertion that the fact this hadn't happened was proof, indisputably, that it wasn't him that stood there but someone, anyone, else.

Deafened by the raging storm and shivering in the cold, unable to bare the silence and the sight of the stone cradled in his palm, the unknowing, any longer Harry raised his head.