Letters of Suicide
Author: Lady Evans Potter
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I make any profit from writing this... unfortunately. He, and the Potter-verse, is property of J.K. Rowling.
Summary: When left with nothing to live for, what shall Harry do? Be the wizard they want and live the same life, day after day, each becoming a copy of the other? Wanting a way out, but not knowing it what to do? Getting a new life is not easy, nor is putting an end to it all. Questions like these come and go through people's thoughts in a life, but not all let them slip away close to unnoticed. As the Boy Who Lived, Harry was subjected to these requirements. How will he cope with the requirements of the Chosen One?
AN1: This story was written as my NaNoWriMo piece, and I can happily announce that I won! :D Still can't believe I managed 50 000, but that's all well and good. I feel I'm really done something good after writing all those words, and I'm still fond of the story. I plan on starting to post this on 18th of December. Why this date? It's my birthday, and this is somewhat of a present to myself. I hope you'll enjoy it; however I'm not sure how often I can update. The story's not yet finished, but I hope to finish it soon, though I'm sure how long it will be in the end.
Happy reading!
Chapter 1
Harry had never realized how painful it was to lose someone. At the mere age of eleven he had, not intentionally, committed murder, by accidentally killing Quirrell. Then, killing the Diary of Tom Riddle took a lot out of him, but still it wasn't all that bad. After all, he did save the Wizarding World from the second rise of the Dark Lord Voldemort, or so he thought. His third year at Hogwarts came and went, and he gained a godfather and got to know a friend of his parents.
Then, when life was starting to look good, and Harry might even end up with living, at least parts of the summer and other holidays, with his Godfather, the traitorous rat Peter Pettigrew escaped, and Sirius Black remained a wanted escapee. Harry had saved his father's best friends from becoming murderers, but instead let one of them still be condemned to be seen as a mass murderer and the other to still be seen as a werewolf.
Time passed, and Harry entered his fourth year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At the age of fourteen he was entered in the deadly Tri-Wizard Tournament, and was forced to participate in tasks that could very well kill the Champions. Harry managed to get through the first task by sheer daring and a neat summoning spell, and the second one by the help of Gillyweed and courage to brave the Black Lake. The third task left him, and his fellow Hogwarts Champion, Cedric Diggory, starting to wander the maze that held the Tri-Wizard Cup in its centre. Following them into the maze would be Durmstrang's Champion Victor Krum, and Beauxbaton's Champion Fleur Delacour.
Things did not happen as they should have, and cheating occurred, though not because of the Champions. The would-be Alastor Moody, impersonated by a Death Eater, helped Harry brave the maze and wanted him to be the first to reach the Cup. What Barty Crouch Jr didn't remember, was in fact the Gryffindor honour which required Harry to help Cedric when he got caught up in a vine, and being hit by an Unforgiveable Curse. As the two reached the Cup, they agreed to take it at the same time. They did not know that it was a Port Key to a date with Lord Voldemort.
As the two appeared in a graveyard, the words "Kill the Spare" was heard, and an Avada Kedvera, the Killing Curse, hit Cedric, leaving Harry to be captured and used in a Dark ritual which caused the Second Rise of Lord Voldemort. Harry and Voldemort duelled, and by luck and Priori Incantatem Harry won a battle of wills and were able to see his parents and Cedric again. Harry had to make a run for it soon after, grabbing Cedric's body and the Tri-Wizard Cup which then Port Keyed him back to Hogwarts, and what would turn into mass hysteria.
What the Professors at Hogwarts did not account for, was that Harry's brief meeting with Death would leave such a mark on him. After being returned to the Dursleys for most part of the summer, he was left falling into a depression which left him with great despair, not to mention frequent nightmares in which he saw his parents and Cedric blaming him for their deaths. He had survived, where as they had been sacrificed and murdered.
Although his life had taken a grim tour, he still has some good things left in his life. His Godfather, amongst others, who Harry had gotten to know better as they spent time at number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, which was the Black ancestral home which, as the last Black of the main family line, Sirius owned. Sirius had donated it to the Order of the Phoenix, an organization headed by Professor Dumbledore to fight the Dark forces of Lord Voldemort. Some of the others who stayed at Grimmauld Place were the Weasley family and Hermione Granger, friends of Harry.
While it was nice for Harry to get caught up to date in the Wizarding World, he did certainly not appreciate being trapped with the Dursleys for a few weeks, and he made sure to make that known, loudly. Yelling at his friends for not sending him any real letters that could somewhat have helped his conscious did help, but it also made the situation worse. They couldn't really relate to him that well anymore, as he had stared in the face of Death and walked away from it. Harry had a feeling Death wanted him in its own realm, that of screwed saviours.
Harry had started to have nightmares after the disastrous events of the Third Task, and these nightmares were starting to haunt him even in the daytime. Harry did have a guilty conscious for living when he, by rights, should be dead.
These nightmares continued well into his next year at Hogwarts, and while he had his friends to support him, they couldn't imagine what it was like to dream of the resurrection of Lord Voldemort and even, at later times, receiving visions from him, courtesy of the link left by the famous lightning bolt scar. Not that Harry really knew that for certain, but he suspected it.
Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts had taken a turn for the worse compared to the other ones. While he already had fought possessed teachers, a Basilisk, hundreds of Dementors, escaped a werewolf, and won a Tri-Wizard Tournament, he had never had to battle the political implications and restrictions of having a Minister Fudge loving, toad looking, Undersecretary as his Defence against the Dark Arts Professor. Delores Umbridge, as her name was, had been in the Courtroom when Harry had been on trial for the use of Underage Sorcery while in the company of a Muggle, in a Muggle town. It hadn't mattered for her that the Boy Saviour had been close to losing his soul; all she cared about was following the rules and never to let anyone discredit her beloved Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. She loved dear Cornelius Fudge as much as she loved pink, and she was hardly seen without that colour.
As Harry had claimed the Dark Lord's return at the of the Third Task, he had had to be eliminated as a threat, and there really weren't any better way than to have the Daily Prophet deliver the news that Harry Potter was a bit insane and Professor Dumbledore had (finally) gone barmy and claimed alongside Harry that the Dark Lord had returned. Pfft, everyone knows people can't return from the dead.
As classes passed, Harry kept having his visions of this strange corridor in the night, often waking filled with curiosity, wondering what was behind the door at the end. It also did not help that Harry wound up in detention with Umbridge for claiming that Voldemort was back. He ended up having to write the words 'I will not tell lies' on a sheet of parchment, but the quill he was using was a bit unusual. It was a Blood Quill, and it carved the words it wrote into the hand of the writer, leaving a bloody mess, and scars if it was written with long enough.
Harry, being a bit hot headed, and a general Gryffindor ended up in detention quite a lot, and needless to say, his hand hurt a lot, and it ended up leaving a permanent scar. After a while, and Hermione getting pissed over them not learning anything in the Defence classes, as all they ever did was read the ultra-boring back to the basics book. Hermione convinced Harry to start a Defence club, as he was the undisputed Defence prodigy, and they ended up meeting a bunch of people in the Hogs Head in Hogsmeade. It was decided that they started the group, and it ended up being named Dumbeldore's Army, or DA for short, as it would be what the Ministry feared the most. At least, that was the logic of the naming.
The D.A was to meet at random times supplied by Harry and Hermione by the means of a charmed look-a-like Galleon that would show the time for the next meeting. These meetings continued through the year, each of them a task to avoid being noticed by the Inquisitorial Squad and Professor Umbridge, who had been named High Inquisitor of Hogwarts. Umbridge had also set several Educational Decrees, such as banning clubs, teams and the like from existing without having been allowed to so by Delores herself. Another was that as High Inquisitor, she could demand whatever punishment she wanted, and no one could veto her. Umbridge's alliance lay with the British Ministry of Magic, and she enjoyed having a high position there. In her eyes, she was being promoted to take care of Hogwarts. However, the students of Hogwarts were not easily cowered, and the D.A continued existence was just that, rebelling for not being taught what they required to be taught.
Throughout the year, the D.A was something that helped Harry dealing with the insane, pink obsessed professor that was Umbridge. It was in the D.A that he learned more of his peers to know, and learned that he was somewhat of a natural teacher. He had the patience to help, not to rush his students into trying something they didn't know, but Harry didn't have all the knowledge he needed. He relied heavily on Hermione and, partially, Ron for helping him, but it worked out in a way.
In the Christmas break, while Harry and the Weasleys were off visiting Sirius and Mr. Weasley who was in hospital after being attacked by Voldemort's pet snake, Nagini, Professor Snape dropped by to let Harry know that in the next semester he would be learning Occlumency from the Potions Master. It was Dumbledore's wish that Harry should be able to close his mind, as to not receive visions from the Dark Lord. Dumbledore hadn't made notice of the hatred resting between Harry and Snape, so needless to say, the lessons didn't go well. Harry usually ended up with a killer headache, and Snape's yells of clear your mind didn't explain to him what he should be doing. The entire things topped itself when Draco Malfoy interrupted one of the lessons, and Snape had to leave. Harry remained in the Professor's office, wondering whether he should wait for him to return, or just leave for the night.
However, Harry had always been driven by his curiosity, and when Snape had forgotten to hide his Pensieve, Harry just wanted to know what Professor Snape had been hiding from him. It turned out to be something he did not expect: A memory of Snape's fifth year at Hogwarts, and in fact, it turned out to be the memory of the Defence against the Dark Arts OWL. Harry saw his father at the same age he was now, and could see that Snape had not been wrong to call his father arrogant and show-off, for indeed he was one. James Potter kept messing up his hair, looking at the girls close by, especially a certain red haired girl with green eyes. Snape suddenly arrived, and James and Sirius started to torment him, making fun of him. Suddenly Lily Evans interrupted, and Snape lost his temper at being rescued by a girl, and called her a Mudblood.
The worst was that Harry could relate to Snape being bullied, for that what exactly what he himself experienced from Dudley and his gang each summer, and before Hogwarts, almost each day. James Potter was not the person he had thought him to be. At least his mother had been better than his father.
Another thing Harry vividly recalled was his Career Advices meeting with Professor McGonagall. His meeting was also being covered by Umbridge, how sweetly said that Harry would never become an Auror, as he broke rules, and, apparently, had no respect for authority. McGonagall ended up promising that she would help him succeed no matter the odds. At the end of that week, Fred and George Weasley flew away from school, too pissed off by Umbridge to stay any longer, and ended up opening their shop in Diagon Alley.
At the end of the School year, as Harry and the rest of his year were having their OWLs exam in History of Magic, Harry fell asleep. He dreamt a dream that Sirius had been captured by Voldemort and was being tortured in the Department of Mysteries, which was in fact where the corridor from his earlier dreams led. As Harry woke, the exam ended, and Harry, Ron and Hermione rushed off trying to make contact with Sirius to be reassured that he hadn't been captured. They didn't manage to do so, and while Floo calling to Grimmauld Place, Harry was told by Kreacher the House Elf that Sirius had gone to the Ministry of Magic, and that he wouldn't come back alive. This had turned out to be a lie, but only after the deed was done was this discovered. Harry believed that Sirius had left the sanctuary of Grimmauld Place to protect a prophecy, and when announcing he would be going to London to save his Godfather, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna and Neville demanded to come with him.
They flew on Thestrals (creatures that only those who had seen death could see) to London, and had a merry time finding the right room where Harry believed that Sirius would be held captive in, only to turn the right corner and find it empty. Looking around in the Prophecy Room, they saw no signs of Sirius or even a battle. Harry glanced on the Prophecy Spheres surrounding them, and suddenly saw one with his name on it.
From S.T to A.P.W.B.D.
Dark Lord and (?)Harry Potter
Harry lifted the prophecy off the shelf, and looked at it. It was a small ball, a bit bigger than the Snitch, and it looked like it was filled with a fog. He shook it, but nothing really happened.
Then, suddenly, he heard a voice behind himself. "Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me." Lucius Malfoy stood behind him, hand opened and ready to receive the prophecy concerning his Lord. Out of the darkness more Death Eaters appeared, and surrounded the students.
A mad laugh rang through the Prophecy Room. "He knows how to play! Itty, bitty, baby Potter." A crazed looking woman walked forth, and Harry recognized her, but Neville spoke before he did.
"Bellatrix Lestrange."
"Neville Longbottom, is it? How's mum and dad?" She asked with a dark smirk.
"Better now that they're about to be avenged!" Neville was about to curse her, but Harry stopped him. Lucius requested everyone to calm down, and asked nicely for the prophecy.
"Why did Voldemort need me to come and get this?" Harry demanded to know.
"You dare speak his name." Bellatrix whispered. "You filthy half blood!"
"Why, you're just a curious lad, aren't you? Prophecies can only be retrieved by those who they are made, which is lucky for you, really. Haven't you always wondered what the reason for the connection between you and the Dark Lord? Why he was unable to kill you when you were just an infant? Don't you want to know the secret of your scar? All the answers are there, Potter, in your hand. All you have to do is to give it to me. I can show you everything." Lucius said.
"I've waited fourteen years."
"I know. " Lucius replied in a tone that was somewhat compassionate.
"I guess I can wait a bit longer. NOW!"
As he was chatting with Malfoy, Harry had secretly whispered to Hermione that they should smash the glass orbs surrounding them when he said 'now'. At that time they threw Reducto's into the orbs and they were smashed, shadows of spirits rose, and the students made a run for it. The Death Eaters kept coming after them, and running through different parts of the Department of Mysteries, Harry, Hermione and Neville was divided from Ron, Luna and Ginny. Harry, Hermione and Neville sealed the doors of a room they took refuge in, but the Death Eaters broke the doors open, and began cursing them. One of them, an escapee from Azkaban named Dolohov, was silenced by Hermione, but in return he made a slashing movement with his wand and Hermione was hit by a purple light in her stomach. It left her mostly down for the count, and she called out that Harry should hurry away, leave her behind and make an escape. Harry didn't do as he was told, as he wouldn't want to leave his best friend behind, so he helped both Hermione and Neville, who had a broken, bleeding nose now, as they ran away. As they entered a room with a stone arch, they were suddenly joined by more Death Eaters, and Ron, Ginny and Luna. A mad crackling laughter was heard throughout the chamber.
Suddenly, they were at a stalemate. Harry's friends were kept hostage by the Death Eaters, and the crackling Death Eater witch which kept Neville at the wand point, a mad look in her eyes. Bellatrix Lestrange had in fact been a part of the Death Eater team that had tortured Neville's parents to insanity. It seemed like she might just want to end the line after all, or just leave it all in St. Mungo's Hospital.
Lucius Malfoy walked forth, eyes locked on Harry Potter.
"Were you really that naive that you thought that children stood a chance against us? I'll make this simple for you, Potter. Give me the prophecy now, or watch your friends die."
Harry looked around, seeing his friends all held at the wand point. It was such a difficult choice. "Don't give it to him, Harry." Neville called out, and was in turn rapped on the throat by Bellatrix, shushing him. However, Harry didn't want any more deaths on his consciousness, and ended up giving the prophecy to Lucius. Lucius lifted it, looking at it, seemingly content now that his mission was accomplished.
A being popped into existence and it was Sirius. "Get away from my Godson." He said, before punching Lucius in the face. More lights popped into existence, and the Order of the Phoenix arrived, taking the Hogwarts students away from their captives. Still falling from the punch, Lucius managed to lose the prophecy, and watched it be smashed against the stones.
You didn't think I wouldn't come to your rescue, Harry?" Sirius said as he and Harry were fighting Malfoy and another Death Eater side by side. "You're my Godson, and I'd give my life to protect you. I swore to do so to Lily and James." Harry smiled slightly; trust his Godfather to always want to look after him. One of the Death Eaters fell, and only Malfoy was left fighting Harry and Sirius.
"Nice one, James!" Sirius said as Harry disarmed Malfoy.
He backed off, but suddenly a flash of red hit Sirius and he fell into the veil-filled stone arch. Harry stared as his Godfather was pulled back and began to disappear from him. Grief struck as Harry had the feeling he had seen his beloved Godfather for the last time in life. He screamed for Sirius to return, but it didn't happen. Sirius never came back, and Remus had to physically stop Harry from running into the veil to follow him.
"There's nothing you can do, Harry ... nothing ... He's gone." Remus said softly.
Bellatrix watched it with a slight smile. There was the end of the rebelliousness of the Black family line as it was time it got decent again. She let out a mad crackle, and walked away after looking at Harry with a challenge in her eyes.
Harry saw it, and he ran to follow her, he wanted revenge, it wasn't fair!
"I killed Sirius Black! I killed Sirius Black! Ha ha ha ha, are you coming to get me, boy?" She crackled as she ran.
"CRUCIO!" Harry called out in his anger and revenge filled mind. It was only fair that she would feel the same pain she had given him.
She fell, and panted slightly. Harry caught up with her, and held her at the wand point.
"You got to mean it, Harry." A sibilant voice whispered, and Bellatrix's face looked uncertain. "She killed him. She deserves it. You know the spell, Harry." Voldemort came out of the shadows, but Harry hardly noticed him. He was too focused on Bellatrix. She chuckled when she saw her Lord. "Do it, Harry." Voldemort said.
Harry suddenly realised what was happening, and turned to curse Voldemort instead, but he expected that, and disarmed Harry easily.
"So weak." Voldemort said, then one of the fire places went green, and out stepped Albus Dumbledore.
"It was foolish of you to come here tonight, Tom. The Aurors are on their way." Albus looked at Voldemort with a disappointed gaze. Tom had been such a promising lad, and to end up as a Dark Lord. He should have been one of Dumbledore's most avid followers, one that should have supposed Dumbledore's choice and wish to join Muggle and Magical worlds.
"By which time I shall be gone and you shall be dead." Lord Voldemort replied.
At an unnoticed signal, Voldemort threw a spell sending Bellatrix into the Floo network, letting her escape; as Harry was forced into hide behind a wall by Dumbledore, and the battle was on.
What followed was a duel of two great sorcerers, Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort. It was a show of lights, damaging without any notice, just the intense need to win the battle. Voldemort conjured a snake of fire, and laughed insanely. Dumbledore threw it back a massive wall of flame, which Voldemort vanished. Harry foolishly got up; intending on helping his Headmaster, but Dumbledore took his attention of the battle to force Harry back to wait by the wall, guarded by an animated figure from the fountain that adorned the Atrium, out of (well mostly) harm's way.
"You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?" called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. "Above such brutality, are you?"
"We both know there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom." Dumbledore said calmly. "Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit – "
"There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!" snarled Voldemort.
"You are quite wrong," said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were discussing the matter over drinks. Harry felt scared to see him walking along, undefended, shieldless. He wanted to cry out a warning, but his headless guard kept shunting him backward toward the wall, blocking his every attempt to get out from behind it. "Indeed your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness."
"You're wrong, old man."
Voldemort got caught in a ball of water, but managed to get free from the water and threw a spell of pure darkness against Dumbledore. He shielded against it, and threw it back. However, Voldemort expected this and caught it, blowing it into the walls, shattering thousands of windows, letting glass hail over the three occupants of the Atrium. Voldemort summoned a lot of the glass, sending it at both Harry and Dumbledore. Dumbledore conjured a shield that blocked it from harming the two of them, and then Voldemort disappeared from view.
Harry gasped as something wrong and unexpected was suddenly a part of him. He fell to the floor, fighting whatever it was. Dumbledore kneeled in front of him, wanting to help, but still a bit unknowing about what it was.
"You've lost old man." A strange voice said from Harry's body, and Harry gasped as pain filled him. Maybe he would finally be able to join his parents, finally getting to know them. He thought of Sirius and how he wouldn't be alone anymore. In death they could be together. Suddenly Voldemort, for that was who had entered his body, seemed to lose his connection in Harry as Harry thought of those he sorely missed.
"Harry..." Dumbledore said gently, and Harry gasped in pain, trying to fight Voldemort. Harry heard Voldemort's voice in his head, claiming he was weak and vulnerable. "Look at me. Harry, it isn't how you are like. It's how you are not. Harry..." Dumbledore looked old as he saw his favourite pupil fighting the Dark Lord in a mental battle.
Almost unnoticeable to Harry, his friends arrived to see his fight with the possession going, seeing the great Albus Dumbledore on his knees by his student. Memories of friends and loved ones flashed through Harry, and Voldemort grew weaker. "You're the weak one," Harry said, "and you'll never know love, or friendship, and I feel sorry for you." Voldemort couldn't stand the pity of his enemy and left his body, unknowingly leaving behind a bit more of himself.
"You're a fool, Harry Potter, and you will lose everything." Voldemort looked up as the Floo network opened again, watching Ministry personal arrive. They looked at him, and he looked at them and Voldemort apparated away.
"He's back." Minister Fudge stated, no longer able to deny the truth as it stared him in the face.
"Yes, he is, and if you'll excuse me, I'll just send Harry back to Hogwarts." Albus Dumbledore said.
"Harry? Harry Potter? What's he doing here?" Fudge demanded to know.
"I can give you," Dumbledore pulled out a pocket watch and looked at it," thirty minutes of my time, then I have another appointment."
"Now, see here, Dumbledore, I'm the Minister of Magic! I demand that you tell me anything that might be important for me to know! Why was Potter here this evening?" Minister Fudge exclaimed, but Dumbledore ignored him a bit, looking at Harry. "Wait for me in my office, Harry; I'll be there as soon as I can." Dumbledore activated the port key, and the Ministry Atrium disappeared from Harry's view.
Harry looked around Dumbledore's office, and suddenly felt the old Headmasters eyes on him.
"This office was supposed to be closed off to everyone until the true Headmaster returned." Phineas Nigellus Black, great-great-grandfather of Harry's late Godfather, said. "Does this mean that he will be returning then?"
"Yes, he will be along soon." Harry said, not daring to look at the former Slytherin headmaster. Harry walked to the door, trying to open it, but it was locked. He pulled on it again, but it wouldn't. It seemed like he might just have to wait for his Headmaster after all.
Headmaster Dumbledore arrived by the means of Floo after a while. Harry was sick of waiting and he wanted to just be alone.
"Let me out," Harry said. He was shaking from head to foot.
"No," said Dumbledore simply.
For a few seconds they stared at each other.
"Let me out," Harry said again.
"No," Dumbledore repeated.
"If you don't - if you keep me in here - if you don't let me -" Harry picked up some of the glittering belongs that Dumbledore had, throwing them in the wall. He wanted to be alone, damn it.
"By all means continue destroying my possessions," said Dumbledore serenely. "I daresay I have too many." He continued watching Harry trashing his properties, not doing anything to stop him, knowing that Harry needed to vent his frustration. "It is human to feel grief."
"THEN - I - DON'T - WANT - TO - BE - HUMAN!" Harry roared, and he seized the delicate silver instrument from the spindle legged table beside him and flung it across the room; it shattered into a hundred tiny pieces against the wall. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger and fright, and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, "Really!"
"I DON'T CARE!" Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANY MORE!"
He seized the table on which the silver instrument had stood and threw that, too. It broke apart on the floor and the legs rolled in different directions.
"You do care," said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. "You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it."
"I - DON'T!" Harry screamed, so loudly that he felt his throat might tear, and for a second he wanted to rush at Dumbledore and break him, too; shatter that calm old face, shake him, hurt him, make him feel some pain.
"It is time," he said, "for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago Harry. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything. I ask only a little patience. You will have your chance to rage at me – to do whatever you like – when I have finished. I will not stop you."
Dumbledore started to tell Harry about the fall of Voldemort, how he had placed Harry with the Dursleys to keep intact ancient magic created by Lily's sacrifice, and explained that once that protection was kept, Voldemort couldn't touch him, as long as he returned once every year as long as he called it home. He continued retelling how Harry had arrived at Hogwarts five years ago, not as happy as he'd wished for, but he was alive and that was what counted. Dumbledore told Harry how he tried to shelter Harry, claiming he cared too much about Harry to allow him to be hurt, not wanting Harry to die fighting Voldemort and trying to finish his schooling. He told Harry he didn't care if the future didn't look as good, all he cared about was Harry being alive.
"Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you. He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him," said Dumbledore.
"And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far - something that neither your parents, nor Neville's parents, ever achieved."
"But the prophecy was lost, Lucius lost it and it broke." Harry said.
"Yes, Harry, but that was only a recording of it. The one the prophecy was given to can still tell other of it."
"Who was it given to? What does it say?"
"It was given to me, about a month before your birth. The prophecy was as following: 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…'".
"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries," interrupted Dumbledore, "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you."
Harry closed his eyes. If he had not gone to save Sirius, Sirius would not have died... More to stave off the moment when he would have to think of Sirius again, Harry asked, without caring much about the answer, "The end of the prophecy ... it was something about ... 'neither one can live...'"
"'...while the other survives,'" said Dumbledore.
"So," said Harry, dredging up the words from what he felt like a deep well of despair inside him, "so does that mean that ... that one of us has got to kill the other one ... in the end?"
"Yes," said Dumbledore. A single tear disappeared into Dumbledore's beard.
AN:
First; the title of this story will be changed once I find one that is appropriate. As of now, it will be known as Letters of Suicide, but the title doesn't match the plot, ergo it's no good to me anymore.
Two; I haven't finished editing this, so there may, or may not, be changes in it in near future. Once again, I will know better when I have time to edit and such.
Three; I have no idea on how I plan to update this story. The summary is likely to be changed, as it was something more of... planned, rather than what the story turned into. As I mentioned, the story is likely to be changed a bit, and I know that there are parts that I'm not happy about.
Four; this is slash, however I did not plan for it to be so. I had planned this to be a non-pairing, but it refused to obey me on this. I will keep the graphic parts of it away from FFnet, but I might post it in a different story, one that is more like a companion piece to this.
I hope you enjoy the first part of this story, and I'd love to see some feedback.
Until next time,
LadyEvansPotter