Step. Step. Step.

It was important he didn't stop. If he stopped walking, Harry Potter wasn't sure he could start again. Through the spell-blasted rubble of Hogwarts he trudged, never giving in to that quiet voice in the back of his mind.

Slow down, it whispered. No need to rush.

The voice was a liar, if a well-meaning one. Its honeyed falsehoods begged him to take a moment, to pause and reconsider. It was the voice that had kept him alive for seven long, miserable, wonderful years. Seven years of fighting trolls, and Death Eaters, and the most evil man he'd ever known.

But now that voice's job was done, and it was Harry Potter's time to die.

Passing by a blood splattered wall, Harry wished Ron and Hermione good luck. He had to believe that was he was going wasn't going to be for naught. His parents' death, Dumbledore's death, his death. They needed to mean something. Anything less, and he couldn't have taken another step.

He was almost out of the castle. Through the smashed Viaduct Courtyard, and then it was only a short downhill walk to the Forbidden Forest. There was more blood, and broken brooms, and the smashed remnants of stone soldiers. More sacrifices, more lives lost. All of them relying on him.

"Harry?"

He tried to go on, to take another step. He almost managed it, too, but not quite.

His inertia arrested, Harry turned back towards the school. From amongst the covered walkway that led deeper into the school, Luna Lovegood peaked out her head. She was dirtier than when he'd last seen her, her hands covered in the unavoidable dust and soot of battle.

Coming out from the columns, Luna walked to him. Her wand was out, and every so often her eyes would flick around, searching. It almost hurt, seeing the sweet Ravenclaw girl display the instincts he better associated with old Mad Eye. "Where are you going, Harry?"

She knew, of course. Voldemort's ultimatum had been anything but subtle, and the Forbidden Forest was really the only thing in the direction he'd been going.

"I'm going to end it, Luna." He looked down at a dead Acromantula, still locked in a death grip with the upper half of a stone sentry. "All of it."

Luna kept walking towards him, stopping only when she was almost chest to chest to him. Her wide, silver-grey eyes were looking at him, through him. "He'll kill you."

Harry nodded slowly. "You're right." He could have explained why he needed to go. He could have told her everything. He could have sent her to help Ron and Hermione, who he knew would need all the help they could get.

He could have, but he didn't. Standing with Luna Lovegood in the broken courtyard, none of it quite seemed real. Amidst the smoke and death, she still wore her flowered blue shirt, and tight magenta pants. Dozens of people had died tonight, but Luna's radish earrings had survived unscathed. She was a rainbow in the raging storm.

"You don't have to go," she said, almost conversationally. It was the same way she'd told him that he was just as sane as she was. The same tone she'd used when she suggested the Thestrals to take them to the Ministry.

Harry couldn't meet her eyes. They were begging him to stay, to turn around and go back with her into the castle. People never gave Luna enough credit for her eyes. For as much of the world as she could see with them, she could say a hundredfold more if only you thought to look.

"Yes, I do." Pushing his dirty, cracked glasses back up his nose, he looked up at her.

Trust. That was what he saw there, in those sweet, silver lakes. Trust and sadness, both in equal measure, and then they were gone, hidden by her frazzled platinum locks.

A thought. A random, errant ghost of a memory. That same wild hair, hiding the same deep sadness.

"Luna," he said, his eyes looking back what seemed like a lifetime. "Do you remember back when we were in the Room of Requirement, when Dumbledore's Army was first starting?"

Emerging once more from under her hair, Luna nodded. "The Nargle-infested mistletoe."

Harry stared down at her. This was the last time he'd ever see Luna, or any other friendly face for that matter. In a few minutes, he'd offer himself up to die. He'd almost accepted the idea, but knowing his fate, he knew he still one debt left unsettled.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to Luna's. Her eyes widened, and he took some joy in the thought that he'd finally been the one to surprise her. Not a bad legacy, in his opinion.