Disclaimer: I do not own anything. All Characters belong to their appropriate author. Also I would like to thank the many authors on that have come before me. I have long been reading your work and thought that now I should contribute something. I would really like to thank Cole224 the author of "The Perfect Man" without whom I would not have come up with this idea. Hopefully our two stories will stay as dissimilar as possible.

Summary: After having spent months in the past. Healing from the loss of family and gaining new love. Harry has been ripped from it all in order to save a world he is slowly coming to hate. Now that the war is over, he is free. But he cannot forget his love of the past. He decides to leave and seek out a life for himself amung the muggles and the creatures that hide there themselves. Will he find his love again? Is that even possible?

Once Upon A Love

Prologue

I had to get away. There was no way that I could stay here any longer. Every time I closed my eyes I thought of him. Of how magic had taken me to him and then ripped me away. I don't even know if he survived. I always told him that I would have to leave eventually. That what we had would not be able to last. That no matter what I wanted I would not be able to stay. But how could I leave him before I knew that he was better. He was so sick.

Why did I have to leave? I would have stayed. Would have stayed with him. Forgotten about everything else. Every other obligation meant nothing. I would have left my friends, my family. Not that I really had any family left to speak of. But I would have left my whole world if it meant that I got to stay with Him.

Edward.

I knew I couldn't stay, that I would have to return here, but now I can not stay here any longer. I have served my purpose and now I have nothing left. My friends would say otherwise. They would tell me that now I have my whole life to live. That I can now settle down, marry a nice witch, and have a family that I have always dreamed of.

They don't know. They can not understand why I am so depressed while they are all celebrating the end of the war. The end of all the death and terror. They don't understand, they cannot understand that for me, my life was over when I left him behind. That I have been only a shell since they forced me back to deal with their problems. My destiny they called it. My duty. To save them.

Duty.

I had no duty. It was not my job to save them from their mistakes and my only destiny was to try and be happy. This could not be what my mother had in mind for me when she gave her life for mine. She would not have wanted me to sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of the "greater good!" But they did! They expected me to give up everything for them. They did not even give me a choice. Damn them. Why must I pay for their mistakes.

But they don't care and even if they pretend there is no way for them to understand. If I told them that I would have stayed with him, even if it meant my death, they would not understand. They would expect me to thank them for saving my life. When really all they did was tear my life away from me. I will never know if he lived. How could I? And even if I found out that he did survive, what then? He would not be alive now.

I must leave. I have fought their war. Bought them their freedom at the price of only my happiness. I have watched as friend and foe alike have fallen on the battle field. I have killed for them. Become a monster, for them. I know more battle spells than most Auros. I have nothing left.

They are selibrating right now. I can see the great hall a blaze with lights. I can hear their laughter and cheers even from way out here. It sickens me. That they can be so happy when they have taken it all from me. Why could they not have just left me where I was? Why could they not clean up their own mess?

The water sparkles with the light of the stars as it ripples before me. All I can think about is how the stars looked the night that I laid beside him. We were looking at the stars, laying on the grass in a meadow behind his house. I remember he turned to me, propping up on one arm to gaze at me instead of the heavens above us. I had loved him for several weeks by then. Having had a crush on him that had slowly fallen away into the madness of love since I had first layed eyes on him. It was hard to believe that I had only been there for four weeks. It had seemed like an eternity. One that I never wanted to end.

But there he was, beside me, looking far to handsome than anyone had a right to be. His eyes were the same color as mine but seemed to burrow into another soul to find out what they were thinking. He was incredibly good at knowing another thoughts and he always commented about how it was unfair that he couldn't seem to do the same with me. My oclumency training must have paid of for something. For I was deathly afraid that he would glean from me some thought about my feelings and then would shun me, breaking me. Something that no one had accomplished until they took me from him.

But he just leaned over and kissed me. Taking my breath away from me. Oh my beautifull Edward. He told me how he had been stuggling with himself. That he had been falling for me just as long as I had been for him. I had to kiss him to get him to shut up before he babbled himself into a frenzy thinking that I did not feel the same for him.

Silly boy.

But that is all over now. He is gone. I am alone. With only my memories to keep me company.

I really have to leave.

But where to go. I wont stay in England. It holds to many unpleasant memories. Not the wizarding world either. I want nothing to do with them any more. My friends do not understand how I could not want the fame. But it has cost me to much in the long run. I will go to him. Not in the way that I want to but in the only way that I can. I will go to Chicago. I will find out what happened to him and his mother. For I already know that his father succumbed to the sickness. But I can find out what happened to them.

And then...

And then I shall make my way in the muggle world. I will try to survive as best as I am able. With my soul stuck in the past. If there is one thing that I have always been good at it is surviving.

I stand. Casting one last glance out over the waters of the lake. It is time for me to leave. It will take me at least a week to pack and make arrangements but I will leave. I have only one thing in mind as I make my way back towards the castle...

Edward.