Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the plot. J.K.Rowling owns Harry Potter and anything you recognise.

Summary: Set in his sixth year. Harry's thoughts on his training for the Final Battle.

A/N: Inspiration came from Lady Scarlet Hecate's 'Let them dance'.

Let them dance: by Crimson Blood

Harry Potter.

The hero.

The saviour.

The boy-who-lived.

That's all they think I am; their last hope. They don't know the real me, they just think of me as the only person who can beat Voldemort. Fools, they're all so desperate, relying on a teenage boy to save their lives. Pathetic.

For the last two years they've been training me to kill Voldemort. They all think I'm unbreakable, that because I survived the killing curse I can't die and don't feel, that I don't really have a life.

The stress is killing me, but do the teachers care? No, they don't care, as long as they have someone to save themselves from Voldemort when the time comes. They don't care about me; I'm just another tool to them, just another pawn that's going to be thrown away after being used.

They refuse to see that I'm scared, that I'm not some courageous hero that doesn't fear anything. They refuse to see that I can't do this alone, that I'm breaking.

I can't confide in anyone, not even my friends. The teachers forbid me to 'burden them with my problems'.

'Let them play, let them laugh, let them sing,' they said. 'Let them keep their innocence; they're only children.' Ha! While they enjoy their childhood I am trained to fight. While they have had a childhood, I had none, sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursleys and then having to fight Voldemort every year since I came to Hogwarts.

They say to let them keep their innocence yet they do not see that I am breaking; I never had a chance to grow up, instead the burden of saving the world was thrust upon me as soon as I came here. I had no say. I was manipulated from the day I first set foot in Hogwarts, they've been toying with my mind and moulding me into what they want me to be.

I lost my innocence when I first came to this place. I grew up alone and unloved. I have never been loved and never will because no one knows or understands the real me.

So let them keep their innocence.

I don't really give a damn anymore.

Let them play, let them sing, let them laugh,

Let them dance.