We're actually here.

Despite my constant reminiscing for the past few chapters, it still comes as a surprise to me that this is the final accord. It's so weird that this is the final addition to the Harry's Chosen One series, not counting the final decision. Sure, I have the revising process after this, where I will go over every chapter, correct and smooth out flaws, and undoubtedly cringe over the hackneyed and crappy plots, but this is it.

No more writing new chapters.

No more fun pairing up Harry with ten of the hottest guys in his fandom in the same series.

No more jumping through mental, on-fire hula hoops in order to create fifty new and mildly interesting plots.

No more beating off rabid plunnies, all who want me to expand every single drabble into a chaptered story/series. Even if they have succeeded on a few accounts, and undoubtedly will a few more times during the revising process. /Glares at Marcus/Harry drabble/

No more Harry's Chosen One.

I.../sniff/

I hope you all enjoy this final accord! And, from the depths of my heart, I hope that you all have at least found some enjoyment from this series.

So,

Enjoy~

It was a comfortable feeling; his stomach shifting, the air rushing from his lungs, eyes watering somewhere between sorrow and delight. Every limb felt like it was on fire, every lock of hair swept in front of his face only to be thrown in every which way the next moment.

He felt like he was weightless, out of control.

Falling, he had realized, must have been the greatest feeling in the world.

Helter-skelter, going through life without a care in the world, waiting for the inevitable crash; that was how a life should be lived. That was how he lived. His entire world shifting with every revelation, his body twisting with every change.

Memories passed in a storm of unconsciousness, and he released them like feathers in the wind, watching all his pain and torment be torn away from him and flung to the far corners of the world.

Inevitably though, all good things must come to an end. Even when falling, you eventually reached the ground.

Reality hits hard, war harder, and death hardest. Lives fled in freefall, torn from him in a hurricane of whispered words of hatred and sickly green light. Some, some…he couldn't even be there for them. They died cold, alone: how he thought he would, back in the days of his childhood littered with the shards of broken innocence and newly birthed cynicism.

But he succeeded; he overcame the deaths of his beloveds, went on to destroy the world, and kept falling.

Endlessly falling, falling through the fragments of a life he had unwillingly surrendered for the betterment of the world.

In those moments, falling through twilight and fog and endless universes lit by dim constellations, he thought that heroes did not exist.

He was wrong; out there in the wide world of possibilities and recreated hopes and ever-changing lives, light lingered in the eyes of the newborn innocent. And, even more surprising, that same light was rekindled in the weary-eyed soldiers of the should-be-forgotten generation.

It had astounded him, to see people calmly float down to earth, to end their endless tumble through reality, to watch the world with loving eyes and decide to give up their lives, their own happiness, in order to create a better future for the world.

They were heroes, not him. He had not risen to the challenge; he had not wanted to sacrifice himself for the world. He had wanted to live, to continue falling while the rest of the world burned.

Those people, who focused their eyes on the horizon just out of reach, the future dedicated to their children that had been untouched by the war that had soiled their own souls, had torn into his life with the endless ferocity of a maelstrom, throwing him bodily from his carefree fall. They had buffeted him; torn down his shields and every defense he had created around his heart, and had torn him to pieces.

And then they had recreated him, made him into a better person.

He was still selfish though. His body ached for that felling it had grown used to, for the falling that had started to grow dull. But they understood though, none more so that a brave, frightened young man who had stood against his peers and had shouted to the heavens that the world they had existed in was wrong. Had consciously rejected the easy life he could have had, had turned away at the precipice his pure birth presented him, and had chosen the grueling, painful, and unrewarding task of reshaping the world with naught but his bare hands and his unerring determination.

He was still falling, but they (he) served as a constant source of strength, a parachute that slowed his descent into apathy and comforted as he took his first steps onto earth once more.

Falling may have been comforting, but his touch down, wrapped in the arms of both his old and his new loved ones, was infinitely more rewarding.

I'm not entirely pleased with this drabble, which is painful because I wanted to go out on a bang. Unfortunately, I needed this chapter up now, so...

I do like the implications to be found here though. It's almost like a counterpart of The Falcon Cannot Hear; while that fic hit heavily on the cynicism side of The Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism with an idealistic but uncertain ending, this drabble started out on the idealistic side, hit a bump on the cynicism side, and ended triumphantly idealistic (especially with the Blaise/Harry hints as opposed to the tragic Kingsley/Harry ones there).

No matter how much I love The Falcon Cannot Hear, I love happy endings more.

And maybe you all see this as a happy ending as well, or at least the prelude to one. Soon the final chapter will be up; my personal opinion on who Harry's Mr. Right is.

...I hope no one eviscerates me for my decision. Seeing how closely head-to-head my poll is, someone is going to be leaving this series unsatisfied, which is the last thing I want. Speaking of my poll though, it will be taken down some time early tomorrow morning according to my time zone. So there is no time zone confusion (which I hate so very much), it will not be up tomorrow. So cast your votes if you haven't already, and I'll give the final results in the final chapter.

Until then,

Ariaeris~