Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. All I own is my CD collection, my copies of the five HP books, and my imagination. Do not sue.
Terrible Lie By Saerry Snape Chapter 1 – Pain in the NightIt was a dark, gloomy night in Little Whinging. Since the beginning of the summer, it had been gloomy day and night. The weatherman had been clueless to what was going on as other places were enjoying the normal weather for the time.
Except for Little Whinging.
In one house on Privet Drive, a dim light burned in an upstairs window. A young man with wild, dark hair lay facedown on a slightly battered mattress that sat on the floor. One of his arms was thrown out from under the blanket he lay under, revealing a number of pale scars just above his elbow. The pads of his fingertips barely touched the corner of a photo album that lay open on the floor beside the mattress.
On a desk across the room, a lamp devoid of a lampshade burned brightly, its light casting the dark hair on the other side of the room into shades of dark gray and an even darker blue. At the base of the lamp sat a small boom box, its speakers issuing forth music with a dark beat.
I hurt myself today To see if I still feel I focus on the pain The only thing that's real The dark head on the mattress shifted slightly at the words, as though they had touched something in it. Slowly, the head lifted, revealing a tear-streaked face hidden by a mop of wild dark hair that cascaded down past their shoulders. Brilliant emerald eyes that were red-rimmed peered through the cloud of dark hair. On the other side of the room, the song continued on. The needle tears a holeThe old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everythingHarry Potter slowly turned his head and looked at the photo album lying on the floor. The pads of his fingertips hid one of the faces in the pictures and he pulled it back, revealing the jovial face of his godfather. The vibrant young Sirius grinned up at him then turned Remus' (whose back was turned) hair green.
That sight brought both tears and laughter into the emerald eyes. He liked to remember his godfather like he'd been before Azkaban, before Harry'd known him.
He'd been a happier man, then.
What have I become?My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the endHow true, thought Harry bitterly as he rolled onto his back, the song echoing in his ears. First my parents, then Cedric - and now Sirius. Life is so fucked up.
And indeed it was. Ever since his first year at Hogwarts, Harry had been pursued by Lord Voldemort, the madman who had been the cause of all three of the aforementioned people's death. Sirius' death hadn't been caused by the wizard himself, but it had become a possibility by the wizard's words that had been spread by Kreacher.
Harry had been the real cause of Sirius' death. Much like his parents (though this point hadn't been proved, Harry believed as such) and Cedric. If he hadn't been born, his parents might still be alive (then again, maybe not). If he'd just taken the cup like Cedric wanted, the loyal Hufflepuff captain would still be alive. If he hadn't listened to Kreacher, Sirius would still be alive.
There was too much suffering. Too much pain.
And he was the cause of all of it.
You could have it allMy empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurtEver since his fifth year had ended and he'd returned to his relatives home, he had been steadily falling deeper and deeper into despair. The loss of his godfather in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries had hit him harder than any other loss. He'd never missed his parents as he'd never known them and Cedric he had never really know that well.
But Sirius…he'd been his last hope for escaping the Dursley's. Now he was gone – dead – and Harry was once again trapped with his relatives. Harry Potter, zilch; Gods-Who-Screw-With-Mortals-Lives, four hundred and forty-two.
At least the Dursley's had been more…tolerable since Moody had come and had a word with them. That was right after Harry had gotten back. Uncle Vernon had locked him up almost immediately, leaving him with only the battered mattress and lamp. Everything in his 'bedroom' had been taken out except for the mattress and lamp.
Light and a place to sleep. Of course, if the bulb blew he'd be stuck in the dark. They'd never give him another bulb.
But it didn't matter. Harry hadn't been afraid of the dark for years.
Sleeping in a cupboard since you were two-and-a-half years old could do that to you.
Moody's visit had changed that. He had scared the Dursley's enough that they were not only allowing Harry out of his 'room', they were ignoring him completely. The dark-haired teen had wondered what the old Auror had said to them – and where he could learn it.
That had been almost two months ago. Harry's birthday had come and gone, along with Mrs. Weasley's request for him to be allowed to stay the last two weeks of the summer at the Burrow. Dumbledore had, yet again, turned it down. Said he'd be safer with his blood relatives.
I'd rather be happy than safe, thought Harry bitterly as he remembered the letter Mrs. Weasley had sent him later that day. She promised to see him at King's Cross.
It didn't help him feel any better.
I wear my crown of shitOn my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repairSince summer's beginning and his trip into his despair, Harry had also slowly become darker. All the clothes from the Goth stage Dudley had had while he was at Hogwarts had come to him and he'd taken to them like a duck to water. Black was the color for despair and he wondered if that was perhaps the reason Snape always wore it.
Or maybe he liked to look like a huge black bat swooping up and down the corridors.
His taste in music had also changed – not that he'd had much taste in the first place. The Dursley's had never allowed him anything that played music and he'd only heard it when Dudley had turned his radio up loud enough to flow down to the cupboard. But now, Harry had the boom box (which he had found in the attic) and had begun to gather a collection of CD's.
He had listened to Dudley's music enough for years to know that it was not the sort of music he wanted. Dudley listened to what Americans called 'bubblegum pop'.
Absolutely disgusting.
Harry had far other ideas to what music should be. He had two CD's of a Goth metal band who's name he would not pronounce (and apparently neither could anyone else) and everything else was American metal music or hard rock. His current CD collection was small but he liked it and that was all that mattered. There were maybe fifteen CD's in his arsenal, which ranged from the unpronounceable Goth metal band to Nine Inch Nails.
The latter was what he was currently listening to.
Beneath the stain of time The feeling disappears You are someone else I am still right here Harry liked them. The leader singer reminded him slightly of Snape (a younger, cleaner Snape but Snape nonetheless) but that hadn't put him off. He'd gotten every one of their CD's that he could get ahold of and that had ended up being four – five, if you counted that there were two CD's in one of the cases.With the Dursley's generally ignoring him, Harry tended to stay up in his room. He lay on the battered mattress that had become his bed and just let the harsh sounds of his music roll over him. Uncle Vernon was too afraid of Moody returning to do anything to him.
Which left Harry with a very boring summer.
And nothing to take his thoughts off of his dead godfather.
What have I become?My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the endThat was what Harry was doing now in the dark of night. The image of his godfather falling back through the Veil was imprinted forever into his mind, a scene that he could not rid himself of.
Sirius would never get a grave, would never see his name cleared – a thing that Harry had sworn to see done even if it killed him. He would show the wizarding world that his godfather had not betrayed his parents. Wormtail would rot in Azkaban for that betrayal.
That thought was perhaps all that kept the young man going. That and the thoughts of his friends. Ron and Hermione would be devastated if he did something stupid like commit suicide. Harry had considered it. He really had. But something in him had talked him out of it.
Something that talked in a voice rather annoyingly like Hermione's when she was doing her Professor McGonagall imitation. Or that was what Harry referred to it as. He doubted she would like the name but she did do an excellent McGonagall imitation.
Harry sighed and rolled over onto his stomach again. He closed the photo album as he did so and shoved it underneath the mattress. If Dudley found it, he'd surely lose the precious book of photo's that Hagrid had given him.
He wasn't sure what'd he'd do if the photo's got burned. They were his last link to his parents and now Sirius.
You could have it allMy empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurtEmerald eyes drifted closed, the tears shed earlier still shining on Harry's cheeks. He hadn't bothered to brush them away. It'd been so long since he'd actually cried, that he didn't even know he had.
The cupboard and Uncle Vernon's belt had broken him. As a young and confused child, he'd begged his uncle not to throw him in the cupboard. His begging had only infuriated the man and the belt had been taken to him.
He still had scars on his back from those early beatings. No one knew of them. It wasn't as if they'd care anyway.
Well, that wasn't true. Ron and Hermione would care. So would the Weasley's. Harry knew that.
But the rest of the wizarding world wouldn't. He was nothing but an idol to them. An idol and the dam between the oncoming threat of Voldemort and them.
The problem was that Harry didn't want to be that dam anymore.
He didn't want to be famous Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. He just wanted to be Harry.
The world just wouldn't let him.
If I could start againA million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find awayAs the song ended, Harry opened his eyes, wondering who was Harry? Truly? Was he the Golden Boy of Gryffindor? The Boy-Who-Lived? Or was he the young man who lay on a battered mattress listening to a song that told a tale much like his own?
Harry preferred the last one.
He hated being the Boy-Who-Lived. Even the title was disgusting. When he had thought about it, he had decided that his title should really be the Boy-Who-Lived-Whilst-His-Parents-Were-Murdered. That was what had happened. Why wasn't he called by what had happened?
His parents had given their lives for him. And yet the wizarding world refused to believe that Voldemort, the very monster who had murdered them before Harry had had a chance to know their faces, had returned.
Harry felt it was a disgrace to their memory.
And that prophecy… Harry hated it as well. Why should a few words foretell his future? Could they keep him alive in a battle?
The answer was 'no'. Only his magic could keep him alive and he knew it. A bit of hand-to-hand fighting skill wouldn't hurt either. Wizards relied too much on magic in their fights. Any Muggle who could dodge a curse could get them eventually. Or sneak up behind them and strike them down.
Magic wasn't everything. Harry knew that.
With a heavy sigh, he brushed his dark hair back from his face and curled up into a ball. The blanket he jerked up to his chin and buried his face in.
Sleep was inching its dark tendrils into his mind and the nightmares of old were looming up. But Harry had been doing a little reading up on Occlumency as of late (Hermione had sent him a few books on it for his birthday) and he felt he was rather good with it now. He'd taken a suggestion from one of his books and had been practicing on 'locking' his thoughts away in his mind. It had worked much better than Snape's method of clearing his mind, which Harry had never understood completely.
His mind blank of nothing but the words of the next song on the CD, Harry relaxed and let Sleep have him.
A/N: Title of this story is taken from a Nine Inch Nails song and the song lyrics within this chapter are from the NIN song "Hurt". Everyone enjoy the dark melodies…