Title: Forgotten

Character: Harry Potter

Summary: He was Harry Potter, a boy who, once upon a time, played hero, and entered the footnotes of history.

Notes: This has been quite a long time in the making, but I hope the overall effect is okay. I just managed to post this in my hotel lobby before we move on from Charlotte, so you'd better appreciate it! Enjoy!

There would come a time, soon, when Harry Potter would be forgotten.

Maybe it wouldn't be in his lifetime - maybe it would - but soon, he would be in the footnotes of history, a name scribbled in the margins of hastily scrawled history notes. Nothing more than that. He would merge with various goblin rebellions and his name would appear, once or twice, amongst the better known Dark Lords.

But other than that, he would just be Harry Potter.

He wouldn't be the Boy-Who-Lived, a title long since worn out; nor would he be the Chosen One, or the Saviour, because others came before him, and others would come after.

He was Harry Potter, a boy who, once upon a time, played hero, and entered the footnotes of history.

Maybe he'd last a hundred years, maybe two, where people would still talk of him, of Voldemort's defeat; of all his accomplishments that he himself had labelled as dumb luck. Maybe he'd get to three hundred years, when he would be just another war hero.

Harry would be forgotten; as would Albus, and Gellert, and Tom.

But that was okay with him. Maybe Ron's greatest achievement was to be on a chocolate frog card, like so many other witches and wizards which become just part of a young boy's collection.

But Harry never cared for fame.

He was Harry Potter - he wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived, or the Chosen One, or the Saviour. He was a man finally living his life. And if he wasn't remembered, well; there were worse fates after all.

He had a beautiful girlfriend and fiancé and wife; he had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and he had an apprenticeship, and a job, and a retirement.

Harry had a flat, and a house, and a cottage, and a Firebolt and a Nimbus 5000 and a Cleansweep 7, for old times' sakes.

He had two best friends, and one best friend, and no best friends at all, because he was the last one standing. He was the boy who lived after all. He was a man who got what? He got a hundred years out of life and loved practically every minute of them.

Harry deserved them.

And even if he was still mentioned in history classes; well, Binns would probably still be teaching, so no one would remember anyway.