The Road to Hell
By Spunkymuzicnote
Summary: Holding the letters in his hand, Dumbledore could recall their author as he once was. He had been so- well he hadn't been innocent. The child had never truly been innocent, but he was at least more so than the monster he became.
Author's Note: I had sworn off fan fiction (had to go cold turkey to get rid of my addiction), but couldn't get this story out of my head. I finally decided to just take a day and write it. Hopefully now I can get on with the rest of my life. Enjoy.
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The old man raced through the cottage door with the speed of someone markedly younger, and locked it, before crossing the room to close the blinds. There would be no magic any more. He still wasn't sure how things had gotten so ugly, so fast, but he was one of the only ones left and he knew his hours were numbered. The boy was coming.
Habitually he reached into his robe and pulled out a pile of tattered letters that had clearly been read over many times; so much so that the man could recite the contents word-for-word without stumbling. But there was something comforting about the letters themselves. Holding them in his hands the man could recall their author as he once was. He had been so- well he hadn't been innocent. The child had never truly been innocent, but he was at least more so than the monster he became. He had once eaten in the Great Hall with his friends, studied beside the lake on a sunny day, and caused his own fair share of point-docking mischief. The boy had once been good. He still believed himself to be good: traveling throughout the country acting as judge, jury, and executioner to anyone and everyone.
The man lifted the first letter up so he could see it properly in the dim light of dusk. It had been shocking when it first arrived. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined the boy would be allowed, ordered even, to write him. He assumed it was meant to taunt him, and there was no question that it did, but it was also reassuring. At least he had known the boy was alive. Though whether that was a good thing or not, he didn't know. As awful as it may seem, these days he often wondered if it would have been better for everyone had the boy died the first night he was kidnapped.
July 15th
Dear Professor Dumbledore:
I've been ordered to write you, though I haven't a clue as to why. At least you will know I'm alive. I'm being held in a cell someplace in the middle of nowhere. It's so cold that my hands are turning blue. I hope you can read this because I can't stop shaking. The Death Eaters may have heavily charmed cloaks, but all I have are my summer pajamas.
Voldemort comes to see me every night. Mostly to mock me, but I can tell from personal experience that he is quite deft with Cruciatus. Maybe THAT'S why I can't stop shaking. Isn't that a side effect?
I'm so cold…
The owl had arrived almost a week after the boy was taken from his room in the dead of night. Dumbledore could only imaging what it had been like for the boy to be awaken from one of his all too common nightmares, only to find himself surrounded by another one. Evidence in his room showed he had put up a valiant struggle, but it was for naught. The boy was gone.
July 22nd
Dear Professor Dumbledore:
Amazingly enough, I am well. I suppose Voldemort realized that I wouldn't have lasted much longer down in the basement. I've been moved upstairs to a rather lavish bedroom. Although I'm relieved to be anywhere besides the basement, I can't help wondering what it means that my new room looks like it should belong to a king. What does he expect of me? What is to be my fate?
July 25th
Dear Professor Dumbledore:
Well I know now what He wants and it is something I will never give. He wants me to fight for him. Not so much to gain a new follower, rather to get a kick out of having The-Boy-Who-Lived under his command. As if I would ever obey him!
August 4th
Dear Professor Dumbledore:
I was made to attend a meeting last night and now I can not get the screams out of my head. That poor family… And the laughter; the laughter was even worse. Had it not been for the muggles withering on the ground in front of me, I might have thought I was at a sporting match. It's disgusting! How can people do such things to each other? By the time the meeting was over I had thrown up my dinner, lunch, breakfast, plus most of dinner and lunch from the day before. And I am told that tomorrow night there will be another meeting which I am expected to attend. How Voldemort can think I would ever want to join this is beyond me. No one deserves this. Well, not "no one". I wouldn't mind it if HE were the one in the middle of the circle, being tortured and mocked by all. Or one of his followers. They'd deserve it. But the family from last night? What did they ever do to anyone?
That meeting was the first time Dumbledore had heard what was happening to the boy from a source besides the letters. His spy had been present and told him what the boy had not. The boy was far from okay, worse than his letters stated. Gaunt and pale, the boy looked every part the prisoner of war that he was. The guards on either side of him and his bound hands indicated that they were still wary of escape attempts, and the hand-shaped bruises on his neck showed that he was still being tormented physically, as well as mentally.
For several weeks after that there were no letters from the boy. The only source of information about him came from the eye-witness accounts of his spy. And there were plenty of eye-witness accounts. Meetings were held far more regularly than usual; a special treat for the boy, who was made to watch and participate: as a victim.
It didn't seem possible but every meeting the boy looked worse than before. Somehow he managed to look paler and more stretched out daily. So it was no surprise when the next letter arrived one morning during breakfast:
September 6th
Dear Professor Dumbledore:
I'm sick. I thought my life had been bad before, but the last few weeks have been a living hell. I pray for death. I've looked for ways to kill myself but there are none. Voldemort is very careful with what he gives me. Nothing to harm myself with; thought that has never prevented him from hurting me himself. The irony… He's tried to kill me so many times in the past, but now that I wish to die he does everything in his power to prevent it.
I've been confined to my bed for days and am being force-fed potions. No one will tell me what they are for and, except for a few Pepper-Up Potions, I don't recognize them. I tried to fight it at first, but am too weak to do anything. For all I know they could be poisoning me, but there's nothing I can do. Still, if they are poison then at least I will die…
The potions weren't poisons; this Dumbledore knew. The potions being pumped into the boy were far worse than poisons. Prior to taking these, the boy had a chance of returning to his old self. But after they were forced down his throat there was no chance for him. The potions, brewed especially for the boy, made him highly suggestible. Anything someone told him to do he would do, despite the boy's strength of character. By the time the potions wore off he would be so immersed in this new moral code created for him that there would be little chance of saving him. Worse, his captor was extraordinarily careful in creating a moral code that reflected the boy's past. The moment the boy took those potions was the moment he was lost. There was no turning him back.
September 18th
Dear Professor Dumbledore:
Does using an Unforgivable make you evil? If it does, then what am I? Voldemort gave me an awful choice this morning: Either I killed on man who had been convicted of murdering a child, or I watched as a group of children and their parents were tortured for hours, before finally being killed.
In the end I killed him. It wasn't a hard decision but what does it mean that I could kill someone, anyone, without feeling any guilt? The only thing I feel guilty about is not feeling guilty. Does that make sense? I wish you could respond. I need a conscious right now. My own seems to be failing.
October 9th
Dear Dumbledore:
I killed again today; my seventh time. A woman this time: who had just gotten out of jail. She was there because she had abused her two children for years before she was caught. And now they were letting her walk free so she could do it again. What is wrong with muggles!? The wizarding way is better: Lock them up in the foulest place on Earth and throw away the key. As long as there is a fair trial, that's how it should be done. I'm being taught Legilmency so I can tell if someone is truly guilty, or what other crimes they may have committed. I'm not allowed to learn Occlumancy though. Voldemort doesn't want me to be able to block him. He picks through my brain often, so my memories are fresh. I remember clearly what those bastards you like to call my aunt and uncle did to me and that helps me make the right decisions. I have to protect kids from going through the same pain that I did.
How could I have ever thought that life in that house was normal? It isn't normal to grow up locked away and starved; or worked like a slave. Even if I was too young to understand, how could the neighbors not notice anything? The entire street is filled with busy bodies, but not a single one lifted a finger to help me. A street like that, full of worthless, brainless muggles really should be taught a lesson. Voldemort keeps taunting me with the prospect of getting to do it. I suppose that would be one good thing about being a prisoner. I could never get even on my own.
Soon the muggle news was filled with stories about mysterious disappearances and deaths. Someone made the connection that all of the victims had somehow harmed children at one point in time in their life and certain people began to panic. Dumbledore had sent his people out to try and prevent the boy from committing more murders, but the attacks were so sporadic that there was little they could do.
Finally, days after the potions that made the boy suggestible expired; the boy committed the act that Dumbledore had been expecting. Voldemort gave the boy a group of his own followers and set him free: to attack Privet Drive. The boy was forever gone.
November 1st
Dumbledore:
You really shouldn't have left Tonks and Shaklebolt to watch the Dursleys. You can't protect the guilty like that. They have to pay for their crimes. The most I can do is tell you that it was quick. As for the rest of Privet Drive, they weren't so lucky. I ordered my Death Eaters to take their time before killing every single one of them. I got to confront each one before they died and made sure they knew that it was THEIR fault this was happening. The looks on their faces when they saw me was priceless. I'm no longer the scrawny little freak they remember whispering about. In the hours before they died I'm sure many of them thought about the lies the Dursleys had spread about me attending St. Brutes. But I am no criminal. This is merely payment in kind for their treatment of me.
Of course I saved the Dursleys for last. I've never managed a proper Cruciatus curse before, but for my uncle I did. All I had to do was listen to the foul expletives coming out of his mouth and it was easy. And his scream… I've never heard anything so satisfying.
Just so you know, you won't find their bodies. They are still alive. I brought them back to my lord's castle where they will live for eleven years before being killed. One for each year I lived there and an extra for my summers with them. I think that's fair, don't you? Because they were so kind as to provide me a special space in their house just for me, I though I would return the favor. I even took the trouble to make some lovely cupboards for them to live in. One of my Death Eaters took some measurements of my cupboard before I blew the house up, and their new homes are exact replicas of my old bedroom. Of course my aunt and uncle are much larger than I was at the time, especially my uncle. But that's not my fault.
My lord was so kind that as he went through my memories over the past months he noted each and every punishment I was given during my life with them. My aunt and uncle will receive the same. For every minute I spent locked in my cupboard, they will be locked in. For every time they starved me, they will be starved. For each time I was hit, or sent to weed in the hot sun, or even insulted, they will get the same. I'll even upgrade their room after ten years in their cupboard. After all, it's only fair.
Upon receiving that last letter Dumbledore had hurried to Privet Drive. What he found there made even the strongest men and women weep. There was carnage everywhere. Every man, woman, and teen had been slaughtered and the street destroyed. Sure enough there was nothing left of the boy's former home aside from the hole in the ground that was once a basement.
Only one house on the block remained intact. Inside were the children of those who's dead bodies lay in the street. They had been shut off from the massacre to "protect" them. The next day another letter arrived:
November 2nd
Dumbledore:
I am sorry about the children that were left without parents last night, but if their parents willingly ignored a young child's need for help, who is to say that they didn't inflict the same pains on their own children. Or won't in the future. They must be kept safe. Find them good homes with families who will care for them.
There was no longer any question in Dumbledore's mind. The boy was mad. He had to be stopped no matter what the cost.
Soon there were hundreds of murders nightly. The muggle world was at a loss as to how it was happening, but the wizarding world knew. The Department of Mysteries had been broken into and every single Time Turner stole. On the boy's command, Death Eaters were turning back time over and over again. It was said that if a person had even LOOKED at a child wrong during their lifetime they would be killed. And it wasn't just muggles being murdered. Wizards and witches were being hunted too. The irony was that the boy's crusade to protect the children of the country was leaving thousands orphaned. No one could stop the boy.
The next letter shocked the wizarding world to its core:
December 14th
My lord is dead. Somehow he got the idea that I was out of control and tried to kill me. I killed him in self defense but it's your fault that he's dead! If you had never left me at Privet Drive I would never have had to kill everyone and he would still approve of me. This is all YOUR fault!
Now I realize the truth: You're just as bad as anyone else I have passed judgment on in this world. You left me to the Dursley's tender mercies and never once checked on me, or if you did then you still left me there which is even worse. You let me wander into danger so many times over my school years, sometimes even helping to put me there. Who else at school did you hurt? Watch your back old man. You're next on my list.
Voldemort was dead; killed by the monster he had created. What did it mean that a man who had wrecked so much havoc on the world believed the boy out of control? More and more people died, including the majority of the Order and many Death Eaters. It became harder and harder to understand why a person was selected to die, but Dumbledore knew that in the madness of the boy's mind it made perfect sense.
A knock at the door made Dumbledore jump. He had known this was coming and was as prepared as he could be. He had only wanted a few more hours to remember what the child was like before he became a monster. Pulling his wand he approached the cottage door and opened it. Standing on the front stoop was the boy, his eyes wild with madness. A quick expelliarmus on the boy's part and his wand was gone.
"Harry." Dumbledore inclined his head to acknowledge his former student.
"Dumbledore," the boy spat back.
"I know why you have come. Go ahead and do it, Harry. I am ready." Dumbledore took a deep breath and reminded himself of what he had told this boy when he was still an innocent first year- To the well organized mind; death is just another great adventure.
The boy said nothing. His only response was a flash of green light from his wand. It raced towards Dumbledore, and then… nothing.