“Would have” in the following

Question

Reading a J.K Rowling book, I came across the following:

It's only dying a bit later than I would have, because I am never going to the dark side! 

Is the would have part compete here or does it have an implied unspoken verb after it? For example: would have died. And is it a future or a past conditional in this context? If it's a past one then how could it be used in a future context?

Answer 1

Yes, it's an instance of ellipsis, in which the rest of I would have can be retrieved from the preceding words and give the meaning I would have died. We might unpack the meaning as something like It's only dying a bit later than I would have died, if I had been in similar circumstances. As such, it expresses unreal meaning. The speaker hadn’t really been in similar circumstances, so the thought is hypothetical. Such a construction is sometimes known as the third conditional.

I’m not sure what you mean by asking how it could be used in a future context. Can you give an example?

EDIT:

I now understand the intended meaning as ‘to die at the time indicated is merely a matter of dying at a time later than the speaker would have died in any case’. The unspoken part of the sentence is something like ‘if circumstances had been normal’ and the ‘would have’ construction looks back at the past from some time in the future.