A/N: This is an AU that take place after Book 6, which make both Sirius AND Dumbledore not present in this story.
Prologue
It was a colder summer day than typically normal, on a street which thrived in normality. Its inhabitants none the wiser to the fog that continuously draped itself across every one of its identical properties. The houses being ignorant of such abnormality could be compared to all of the everyday normal citizens that lived at Number 4, Privet drive.
All but one.
Harry Potter lay on his small and rusty bed, eyes locked on the perfectly white ceiling, staring unseeingly at the nothingness that had overtaken a normal teenager's summer holiday. But Harry Potter was anything but normal. He knew that the fog that wrapped and wound itself through the suburb of Little Whinging, was not an occurrence of an unexpected and unprecedented cold front as the weatherman kept telling him, in fact it was the perfect and soul bitingly cold weather of a thousand loose dementors scaling the earths atmosphere, waiting for word from their master.
Harry Potter knew that everyone of the deaths that were blamed on an unknown virus reported in the daily news, were actually result to the most final and vile of curses ever used in the history of wizard kind, Avada Kedavra. He knew that the entire existence of wizard-kind now rested on his shoulders. He knew that the crazed lunatic, Voldemort, or to us lesser, afraid beings, he-who-must-not-be-named, must be stopped.
And one thing he knew more than anyone else, was that to keep anyone safe, was to keep them away from him. He knew this because of the repetitive fate that seemed to befall everyone of his loved ones. He knew this but he didn't have to like it.
Harry had been in that position for a week, only rising to take a small sip of water from the taps in the bathroom after he had made use of the amenities, before lying down on the bed again, with his smallest Weasley jumper as a pillow. It was the only thing that kept away the nightmares, when his lifeless eyes did eventually close to a fitful slumber.
As the next dull day wound down into night, across town in a misshapen and toppling house, Ginny Weasley lay in much the same position as Harry. Close to a stage of unconsciousness, her mind was reeling and replaying, the last day of school before the start of summer. Harry had broken up with her, his face hard and his eyes cast downward, because she knew that if they made eye contact, they'd both know the truth.
In that simple state of almost dreamland, Ginny liked to think what Harry might be doing at that moment, whether he might be thinking of her or about some of the timeless moments they had shared in their relationship the previous school year. Little did she know that he was in fact pondering the worst possible outlook on life ever,
Kill or be killed.
Ron had spent the previous week watching his sister waste away. He knew what had happened on the last day of term, Harry had told him that day what he would be doing, and at that time he agreed with it wholeheartedly. But at the moment, whilst watching the normally sparkling fire behind his youngest siblings eyes fade away he had reservations about everyone of his big brother beliefs. If this is what he'd have to watch until Voldemort died, Voldemort had better die quickly, because if someone didn't help his sister soon she'd waste away to nothing. But unfortunately, the one person who could help Ginny was unavailable, and as many in the Weasley family knew, probably in a worse state than Ginny.
And this left Harry with another thing he loved dearly resting on his already weighted shoulders.