Chapter One: A Trip Away From Death

Harry looked out of the Gryffindor common room window; the sky was a milky gray and a silvery mist was suspended over the grounds. Maybe it was a foggy day, or maybe it was simply Harry's blurred vision. He had left his broken glasses on his bedside table. He wiped at the window and looked out again, gazing toward the Herbology Greenhouse, which was now his favorite place at Hogwarts. He sighed and walked back to his four poster bed and propped up his new library book that he stole from the resticted section with his invisibility cloak. Common Plants and Their Special & Magical Uses was open to page 12, which displayed a large picture of a swaying knackley-snout puff. He looked down at his book and then picked up his quill; he was supposed to be writing an essay about knagley-snout puffs for Professor Sprout, but his mind was too cluttered to pay attention. He rolled up his parchment and pushed it aside, closing his eyes and thinking about what had just happened. He had just been forced to enter the Triwizard Tournament. He was facing the risk of death, he was to fight against older and much wiser opponents, and, what was worse, was that the whole school thought he had lied and put his name in the Goblet.

He was sick of it. He was sick of the whole school hating him. He was sick of the look on everyone's face when he passed by and how they would mutter 'Potter stinks' quite audibly under their breath. He needed an escape. He needed a way out. There was no way he could leave Hogwarts though; he could never go and live with the Dursleys. He would be better off dying in the Tournament than spending the rest of his life in that miserable house...

A wave of madness flooded through him. He was so alone. He was not that 'brave potter boy' that everyone thought he was. He had always considered himself to be made of thicker stuff than most people, but now he felt like a failure. Ron hated his guts, his only friend was Hermione, and the whole school thought he was a nutter. Not that Hermione wasn't a great friend, but visiting the library six times a day got really old. Harry needed a way out ... and he turned to Herbs.

With the madness came a rush of strength, of power, of evil. It was a horrible and chilling feeling of the greatest evil and horror Harry had ever known. It was a greater rush than when he first flew on his broomstick, greater than the feeling when he found the sorceror's stone in the mirror of Erised. He had never felt such joy. It was like he had died, but it was not the kind of death he dreaded in his sleep. It was not the horrible death that Voldemort fought so hard to defeat. It was like heaven.

Through a swill of color he could see them, his parents standing at the end of his bed. Harry slammed the book closed and felt tears trickle slowly down his flushed cheeks. He crawled on his bed close to them ... he wanted to touch them, to hold them for the first time in his life. He wanted them to smile at him and never let go of him. He wanted to feel 'home' for once in his life. A home away from the castle, the home he should have belonged to.

But as soon as he reached for them, their faces became grotesque shapes. They morphed slowly from the loving parents he knew from pictures to giant dementors. Their bodies elongated into cloaked figures that were bearing down on him. They were coming closer, the room was growing cold, and Harry could hear nothing but their raspy breath. He could sense their desire to kill, he could feel his own desire to die. He felt death, not the blissful death of a few minutes back, but the worst death he could ever fathom. He saw the most hellish things; he saw Sirius being murdered. He saw Dumbledore being killed by Voldemort, he saw Voldemort laughing hysterically as he dragged his parents mangled bodies down the stairs, their eyes vacant and emptied of all the life they once had...

"Harry! Harry, mate! Wake up!" Dean shouted from his four poster. "Are you okay? You were shaking and screaming, but you were awake! Sleep walking?"

Harry could hear what Dean was saying, but he couldn't react. He snapped into a kind of trance, jumping up and walking over to where Dean and Seamus sat staring at him. He walked slowly, like a zombie with glazed over eyes. In the back of his mind he could see them recoil in fear, glaring at him as though he was a madman. Well they were right. He was a madman. What was happening to him? It felt so strange...so terrifying...so surreal

He could hear the distant voices of the boys in the dormitory. They were strangely muffled, like in some distant dreamland. Harry kept walking, he was going down the stairs toward the common room. He knew where he was going to go. He knew it all along.

He no longer felt human. He could feel the burn of fury within him. He did not care what was real ... he suddenly knew what it felt like to be Lord Voldemort.

And with that, he made his way down to Dumbledore's office in the strange gray haze of the December night.