Disclaimer: Harry Potter not mine.
A/N: The 'you' here isn't a specific character - just a random person caught up in the war.
Dark Eyes, Dead Eyes
You hear the screams in your dreams, and turn over restlessly in your sleep. But the screams do not stop, and you wake suddenly as a bright flash of light shines through your closed eyelids. The screams are louder now, and you can see the flickering flames out of the corner of your vision as you scrabble desperately in the drawer by your bed for the slim stick of wood you hope will save your life. You doubt it will do much though; you're fresh out of Hogwarts, and only a sales assistant – what spells do you know that will stop a Death Eater?
But all the same, you run through the house frantically, pausing only to grab a thick coat and stuff your feet into a mismatched pair of shoes. The sounds are terrifying outside, but you can't stay inside – even you know that houses were traps with no escape in a Death Eater raid, and you don't trust yourself to apparate in such a panicked state. Knowing you, the Death Eaters would collect your splinched parts and drown each one in a separate ocean.
You mentally prepare yourself for the worst as you hurl yourself out the back door and down the overgrown garden path behind your house, but it's not enough. The scene in front of you is worse, ten times, a thousand times worse that what you ever dreamed of before.
That man's your neighbour, the one screaming at the top of his lungs. Except your neighbour still had both legs, and you never saw your neighbour's organs spread around him on the ground before.
That's the woman who comes into the shop every Saturday to browse through the robes. She's brought at least three different nieces in in the last few months, and she gossips like anything. She's nailed against the wall now, with metal spikes through each shoulder.
That boy threw a rock through your window last week, and you yelled at him for it. From the looks of it, he died quickly, but you can't really tell – his corpse is burnt from the fire that's now spread to just a couple of houses away from your own house.
You hear a panted curse behind you, and you jerk to the side reflexively as a pale blue spell shoots past your neck. You don't even look behind you, too terrified to even remember how. As you pelt down a dark backstreet, you dazedly notice that both your shoes are for left feet. But then you stop noticing anything, except the fact that the footsteps behind you are closer, and the Death Eater's shouting a spell, and you doubt it'll be nice, but you can't duck or move or even scream –
"Protego!"
The shield surrounds you just as you trip and land sprawling on the ground. You turn over, and for that moment you could almost believe in God, because he's there – the Boy Who Lived, Savior of the Wizarding World, and he's duelling a Death Eater just to save your life.
It doesn't last long – how could it? This is Harry Potter – and before you know it the Death Eater's on the ground, and the Boy Who Lived loops a chain around the fallen man. A word later and the Death Eater vanishes – portkeyed away to who knows where.
"Are you all right?" You look up in numb shock, and can only nod dumbly. He casts you a concerned look, bright emerald eyes checking you for injuries. Once he's sure you have none, he casts a notice-me-not spell at you to help you avoid any more Death Eaters, and disappears, running off to the next set of screams.
---
The next time you meet Him is also a raid – but that makes sense, doesn't it? It would be odd to see the Hero shopping for groceries. You've just recently moved into a new house with your wife, and, despite everything, despite the war and the deaths every day, the two of you are happy. You didn't think this would happen, this raid – after all, you've been in a raid before, done your stint as the panicked victim, right?
But it seems the Death Eaters don't care for that, so here you are again, two newlyweds fleeing for your life. You don't notice who's around you this time, who else is suffering, you've got eyes only for her, to make sure she's safe – because if she isn't, then you don't know what you'll do.
An explosion throws the two of you apart, and when you look up, there's a pair of Death Eaters between you. You scramble backwards helplessly, and the faceless mask looming over you laughs, but above his sadistic mocking, you hear her screams of pain and terror.
But then he - it's - cursing you, and you can't hear anything anymore but the blood rushing to your ears and your own cries of despair, gurgling slightly through the blood that you could've sworn wasn't in your mouth a second ago. Fire races up your side; you don't look, because you remember what it feels like to break a leg from when you were a kid and fell off your broom, and this is worse.
A flash of green, and you think you're done for – but then it stops, no more pain, and the world seems strangely silent without your screams. You look up to see Him kicking the body, checking his spell didn't miss, and you could almost cry for joy that He came again, that once more you were saved by the great Harry Potter.
He doesn't give you more than a cursory glance once he's sure the Death Eater's dead, but you call out to Him – my wife, please save her. You point, and he looks; she's writhing on the ground, but though her mouth is open, no sound comes out. He sends another spell in her direction, sickly, deep red streaked with grey, and the Death Eater torturing her falls to the ground screaming in his own pain. You turn to thank Him, but he's all ready gone, so you hurry over to your wife and watch the scum that dared hurt her, watch as his blood vessels are etched into his skin in deep black, then they explode and you see that He had turned the blood to lead.
They'd hurt your wife though, and destroyed her voice so she'd never talk again. They deserved it, and you're glad that He gave them pain.
---
You read in the papers that the ministry is angry at Him, that the almighty Headmaster of Hogwarts Albus Dumbledore is displeased with Him. You think they are wrong to be mad at Him; you are glad He uses Dark Magic to make the sick bastards hurt.
You know He has no allies, only enemies. You know that where before He came to save you and help you, He no longer cares – He will kill His enemies and if at the time they are attacking you then you are lucky; but He does not do it to save you. You know you are just a minor dot in the equation, but He's never hurt you, He hurts the ones who hurt you. He makes the Death Eaters pay; He makes them cower and flee at the mention of His name. You are glad that someone can. You do not fear Him turning on you and becoming the next Dark Lord; He has no goals but the destruction of His enemies. You know you will not become His enemy; you know you are not that foolish. You grin every time you hear one of them whisper fearfully, that "The Avenger" was sighted. In time you feel triumph when they squeak in strangled voices that "He" was coming for them.
---
The third time you meet Him is the last, and it's the time your illusions are shattered.
They came in the night again, and burnt the muggle village to the ground. Your house is a little way outside the village – your wife chose it, she said that wizarding towns were too dangerous nowadays, no place to raise your children. You woke when you noticed the flames from just down the hill, and rouse your wife and your daughters as fast as you can.
But still, it wasn't fast enough. They surround the house, and your son is still in there, and now they've taken your little girls and are throwing them on the bonfire that was your home, and your wife is begging for them to stop, but she can't speak can she? Not since that spell, and you're crying too hard, sobbing too much to make the words clear.
He comes again; you begin to hope that He'll make it all right again. They're terrified, you can practically smell it, and they don't even bother to raise their wands against Him before they try to flee – but He's too fast for them. They're hanging in the air and screaming as the flesh slowly peels off their bones, and you watch with a sort of sick pleasure before you remember your children.
Your wife is hanging off His arm, trying to drag Him towards the house, towards your children. You beg Him with sounds, but He shakes you off angrily. If he took time to save everyone, He says, he'd never be able to kill them all and destroy the enemy. And He turns His gaze to you, and his eyes are dark and filled with so much hatred of them, so much scorn of you for trying to stop Him from going off and destroying more of them.
Then He leaves, and your wife wails silently and throws herself into the fire before you can stop her, and then it's only you, you and the crackle of a funeral pyre and the screams of the Death Eaters suspended behind you.
And you remember, remember a young man who looked at you with concern in his eyes, green eyes that sparkled like a hero's should. And maybe, just maybe, you think that perhaps the Old Man was right. Perhaps this wasn't the way, perhaps by killing them and hurting them the Light really was loosing the war.
But then you look at your house again, and you remember also that they're the reason you're family's dead, and your own eyes harden in fury. And you turn, and add your own pain spells to the Death Eaters caught behind you, and you think, so what?
So what?
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