A/N: Hello everyone and welcome to the first chapter of Searching for Immortality. This is more of a prologue and will thus be significantly shorter than I plan on the chapters being regularly, I'll be shooting for 2-3k words apiece. Hope you enjoy, feel free to leave a comment telling me what you think. Thanks!

Harry Potter, age 184, the most powerful wizard on the planet, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was currently walking through the front door of the home he shared with his wife, Fleur Delacour-Potter, age 187, and noticed that his front room was empty. He sighed to himself quietly; his wife of over a century and a half was nearing her end. Her magic wasn't sustaining her quite as well as Harry's own was himself. She just didn't have the same level of power that he did, and while he probably had another good 20-30 years, she did not. He didn't know how he would go on once she was gone; she was what had kept him going ever since they had gotten together out of school, directly after his defeat of Voldemort.

He made his way to their bedroom and saw her sleeping peacefully, her chest rising and falling with the deep rhythmic motion of her breathing. She had stayed quite the looker for someone her age, she seemed to age significantly slower than him, but that probably had something to do with her being a quarter-veela. He made his way over to her and bent next to her head, whispering softly in her ear, hoping that she would awake with enough energy to join him for a cup of tea in the kitchen.

"Fleur, awake my dear, you've slept away the entirety of the day. Come, we'll have some tea, or I can bring it in here…" He trailed off lightly at the end, hoping to coax a response from her; anything to comfort himself with the knowledge that she was still alive and capable of response.

"'Arry? What are you doing 'ere?" She asked in her still lightly accented voice. He smiled at that, they spoke French around the house often because he loved her accent and she wanted to keep it for him, but it would have deteriorated had she been forced to speak a language not her own for her entire life. She was always thinking about things like that, the little things she could do to show she loved him as dearly as he did her.

"You know that I can't stay away from you for more than a day, the students will just have to endure my absence for the day." He responded just as softly as she had. He had resolved to visit her at least every other day to check on her condition ever since her health had begun to weaken. He left early in the mornings and left Neville Longbottom, his deputy headmaster and Herbology professor, in charge for the day. He was hoping to retire soon anyways and Neville would make a great replacement.

"Ze board of governors weel become annoyed wiz you if you keep taking days off." She said sternly, or at least as sternly as she could with the small smile she had on her face. She was quite glad he was here actually, she had a strong feeling that today would be her last, and it wouldn't be right if he weren't here when it happened. He smiled softly before responding.

"The amount of times I can remember the board of governors as not annoyed with me can be counted on one hand, love." He told her. By this time he had moved from his bent position to sitting on the bed near her head, holding her hand in his own. It felt so small, so frail, it scared him to realize that they were indeed old, older than most wizards and witches would ever hope to be; especially when you take into account his penchant for trouble. She chuckled softly, which then sent her into one of the god awful coughing fits that had scared the hell out of him since they had begun happening. Once the coughing had subsided and she had managed to calm herself, she looked up into his eyes noticing the love and tenderness that they had always held whenever they beheld her. Her eyes were glassy and she held a distinct thousand-yard-stare, as if she were recalling something from her past.

"'Arry, closer my love, it eez time…" She let the sentence─ the declaration─ hang in the air. Harry, with growing grief, terror, and sadness threatening to rip his heart from his chest, had no other choice than to do as she had said. He had been dreading this moment for several months, hell, he had always dreaded this moment, and he had just hoped she would outlive him. Some would say it was selfish, but to hell with them. He leaned close to her, taking her hand and gripping it tenderly as he did. Staring into her eyes, determined to do so until the light left them; he didn't have to wait long.

"Goodbye my dear, I weell be waiting for you on ze ozzer side, and I better have to wait a long damn time Mr. Potter." She looked up into his eyes for the last time and whispered 'I love you' so softly he almost didn't hear her, but he had and repeated in kind, he had long since let the tears flow and they were rapidly making their way down his face. He didn't want to deal with this…he couldn't deal with this.

Before they could say anything else to one another her breathing slowed and came to a stop, he could no longer feel her soft pulse through her frail wrists, and the warmth was already beginning to leave her body.

As the realization dawned on him that she was gone. He loosed an unearthly wail, one as frightful as to put the dragon from his fourth year running in fright. His magic followed soon after, swirling itself about him in a whirlwind of chaos, scorching the ground and electrifying the air about him. He had loosed more magical power in a few seconds than had been expended in the entirety of his duel with Voldemort in the graveyard on the night of his resurrection, and it was cocooning itself about him as if alive, and attempting to hold him in comfort of his loss, to soothe his grief, to quell his sorrow. It was horridly unsuccessful.

He could do not but hold her body close to him as his magic swirled and raged, sobbing onto her shoulder; praying that she wasn't really gone, that he didn't have to go on without her. But his prayers went unanswered and before he realized what had happened, he had expended every bit of the magic he had within himself. His body screamed in protest as it shut itself down from the exertion. He was soon unconscious atop her, looking for all the world a dead man.