This has been rattling around in my brain for a while after I watched "In the Land of Leadale" on Crunchyroll, so I thought I'd finally (and hurriedly) get the idea onto concrete text since I've got some spare time at the moment.

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Harry's life took a grim turn after the Battle of Hogwarts: after all, just because he "won" didn't mean his inner-demons and traumas just magically poofed away into nonexistence.

At first it was his and his friends' efforts in healing the world from old prejudices and the shitfest Voldemort's Regime caused, which resulted in them all basically becoming stressed and burned out. This caused depression to set in with many of them due to how slowly the reforms and walkbacks were going.

Slowly, Harry's life began to spiral downward.

He tried to reestablish his relationship with Ginny, but even then it was turbulent due to her own issues -- guilt over friends dying, the emotional wounds from her brother's death, the torture, lingering effects from being possessed, et cetera.

They constantly tried to make it work, but it was a doomed venture that neither were willing to give up on, even up until the end.

This relationship resulted in a son or daughter from a night when they were both drunk and vulnerable, and although he did his best to be involved in it and Teddy's lives, he was basically putting up a facade for the sake of the kids.

Ginny, while still a wreck, slowly pulled herself together for the sake of the kids, while Harry struggled onward.

Nightmares, guilt and self-guilt, self-loathing basically crushed him over time, and to escape the nightmares he developed an addiction to dreamless sleep and firewhiskey.

As a way of distracting him from how badly things had gotten in his life (escapism), he began to try muggle games, eventually finding escapism in a VR game called The World of Leadale.

While he was comfortable due to what gold remained in his personal vault and gold acquired through other avenues (such as awards), it was pretty much a small fortune since he rarely went out, rarely spent out on necessities such as food, et cetera: his only real expenses were the Bottle, dreamless sleep, support for Ginny (which she always tried to turn down but half-heartedly accepted), and presents he bought for Teddy and his son/daughter.

In Leadale, parts of his old self that were submerged due to his depressions and other issues were allowed to surface: these traits basically pushed him to excel in the game (achievements, et cetera), not spending out and buying things from the game with real-life currency (which would've been difficult anyway, given most of his money were in galleons), grinding for gear, et cetera.

As a form of self-help/therapy, he also decided to go full on chaotic anti-hero in the game, adopting a bit of a cheesy, dark persona (that he hammed up for laughs), being random, using in-game spells and skills that were considered sketchy such as necromancy, et cetera. This, unfortunately or fortunately, gave him a reputation among other players (and later on in the world itself).

He even built himself an Indiana Jones-like Temple-Tomb to live in, where players would frequently try to raid (and die in hilarious ways).

It didn't matter, though: it was all a game.

It was during this time that, as a way to earn some more in-game currency, he signed up for the fostering system, much like how Cayna did -- there was, however, an extra option for two players to get "married" to add a multiplier effect for both of their earnings.

After meeting her by chance on the day, they basically paired up, signed up for it, shook hands, and walked away. It was purely a business transaction between two random players to benefit them both in a fictional game, and many other players did the same thing.

Unfortunately, his long-term addictions, combined with his declining health from not eating and sleeping, et cetera, caught up with him, and he passed away in his sleep, wearing the VR gear, because of the long-term consequences taking their toll on his body.

...And he woke up in his tomb-like residence, much like how Cayna would after her hospital's life-support failed.

Yeah, talk about suffering from an existential crisis.

After this period of being freaked out (and having a period of grieving due to not being able to see Ginny, Teddy, his son/daughter, and everyone else he cared about, like Hermione and Ron again) subsides, he sets out to learn more about the world he's now in.

"I have pointy ears! I suppose being a Dark Elf means I've got good night vision too, right? Then why do I keep falling over the bloody rock!"

As he explores the world, he learns from the locals that he, or rather the "Dark Lich from the Eastward Tomb", had quite the legendary reputation, despite not having been seen for "a few hundred years" -- and most of them were negative, but not in an evil sort-of way: to say he's embarrassed was an understatement!

Strangely enough, elements from Earth, such as magical plants and creatures, began to show up in Leadale "a few hundred years back", when the world was plunged into the war that merged the kingdoms from several into just three.

As he explores and experiments with the magic of the game, his own magic (which has become strangely hybridized and altered, such as the Disarming Charm literally disarming people and the Cutting Charm gouging stone like a diamond axeblade), and his skills/abilities, he gains the reputation of being a wandering, eccentric inventor/experimenter, with results that range from being amusing to outright terrifying.

Eventually, this reputation spreads in whispers to the capitol, where it's picked up on by his children -- Skargo, Mai-Mai, and Kartatz. They begin to wonder if it's their errant father walking the world again, since a lot of what they've heard is the sort of chaos he'd intentionally or unintentionally create.

They also wonder if their mother (Cayna) rejoining civilization caused their father to do the same, or if it was all a coincidence that they both reemerged at the same time.

During this time, he and Cayna kept narrowly missing each other, such as by being a day or so away from each other at a location, to leaving towns/cities at different times, et cetera, but they do see the aftermath of each others' adventures/misadventures in some form or another.

Cayna struggled to recall Harry, since his crazy exploits were a thing back when Leadale was just a game, but it matches up with what she knew of that "crazy player".

Eventually, there's an awkward reunion and a brief period of "what the fuck?" between the two: Cayna and Harry subsequently remember the marriage bonus they signed when they did the fostering thing/system.

Yeah, they're married and have three kids, despite having known each other for all but five minutes.

What's worse is that their children are trying to put them in situations where they'd be alone, obviously hoping for a reconciliation of some type ala The Parent Trap.

For a pair that were supposedly married and had children, he and Cayna have to keep up the facade that they knew more about each other than they actually did to their children.

Their children, in the meanwhile, find their bickering, misinterpreted awkward moments, and periods of peace hopeful signs of their "relationship".

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So, yeah. I got this stream of consciousness, word-vomit soup down in a post, bad grammar and syntax included, heh.

Thoughts? I'm not sure I'll do anything with the concept either, but it was rattling around in my brain to the point of being an annoyance.