Harry Potter and the Dark Lord

by Keryl Raist

What Deathly Hallows should have been but wasn't. See the year through Snape's eyes. Watch Harry, Ron, and Hermione act like heroes rather than brats. See Neville kick ass and take names. Watch as I wrap up loose threads and close the plot holes of DH.

1. Foreword

Foreword:

This is especially aimed at those of you who are taking a chance on this because you loved A Proper Romance: I decided to go with the prequel. After all, I know where this one ends, which would be my biggest struggle with the sequel to A Proper Romance. I have not abandoned the idea of a sequel to A Proper Romance, so keep an eye peeled, chapters and bits of it will probably be showing up as well. But, in that I still don't have a real story arc, I can't really start writing the story.

This is the story I do have a real story arc for. This is what Deathly Hallows (in my humble, but none the less correct opinion) should have been. This is what I think most of us wanted it to be. But since most of you noticed I tried to keep true to DH when writing A Proper Romance, I can't totally scrap DH. So this story will be a hybrid. I'll take the bits of DH that are worth taking, or the parts that I committed to being true by referencing them in my other works, and I'll weave them into what should have happened.

For those of you diehard Snape/Granger shippers, there will be none of that in this fic. First and foremost Hermione is eighteen/nineteen years old. Secondly Snape is on the verge of tumbling into suicidal depression. Neither of them are in a good place for a relationship with the other. But unlike DH where we got all of ten seconds of Snape, I do intend to spend some time following what he actually did during that year.

Lastly, this will not be the kind of cute happy fiction that A Proper Romance was. I certainly hope to have funny bits, and I hope to have some romance, but this is the story of a war, and a story of people trying to be heroes. As such it will be a good deal darker than A Proper Romance.

You may notice the first bit of this tale looks familiar. It's the T version of The Hero's Farewell, and it will start the story off. If you like smut, go read the M version. For those of you who haven't seen it before, this takes place directly after the last page of the Half Blood Prince. As always I'll try to stay as canon compliant as I can, especially in regards to the first six books.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.