Summary: It is the summer of Harry's seventh year, and he is weary of the fight between the graying Light and the Dark. Harry is resigned to the fact that he must engage in a life or death struggle against Voldemort. A far cry from the wide-eyed innocent which stepped into Diagon Alley as an eleven-year-old, he has long given up his dreams of a united, light, Wizarding World. The only thing keeping him going, it appears, is revenge...

A/N: This story is my pathetic attempt at writing a specific genre/style of fiction. As such, some characters may be a bit non-canon, and for convenience many standard plot bunnies will be used. I'm not going for creativity here, so no flames please. Also, as a warning I'm not going to update this again until a significant portion of the story is completed.

Chapter 1: Prologue

It was five minutes to eleven. Harry burst through the brick wall onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters in triumph, only to find that there were no people. How strange. His surroundings melted away as with a sense of déjà vu his eyes fell upon a rather tall, balding figure dressed in a smart business suit with a pair of ... glittering, crimson, eyes?

With a start, Harry found himself flying into a nondescript building with few windows and sterile whitewashed walls not unlike those of a hospital or psychiatric center. To his pleasant surprise, he was soon happily engaging in certain activities with a certain red-haired girl somewhere in the heart of the complex. Perhaps odd dreams weren't so bad after all, seeing as he'd never had the opportunity to do this in real life.

"Ahh... Ginevra..." Harry hissed in pleasure as she came in contact with some unmentionable parts of his anatomy. Ginevra? He'd certainly never used Ginny's birth name before when participating in less clandestine activities, but he had to admit in this instance the name was far superior to her ordinary one.

Ginny, no, Ginevra, appeared to be equally satisfied with the current arrangement. "Oh, Tom..."

Wait. Tom!? Something wasn't right...

Harry sat up panting, and not from any pains in his scar, which was prickling only slightly more than usual. An indescribable wave of emotion was pouring through him, rendering him incapable of much rational thought.

With a significant amount of effort Harry was able to pull himself together, repeating to himself that now was not the time to be distracted. He had several powerful objects to find and obliterate, a dark lord to kill, and above all, his subconscious told him that he really hadn't liked Ginny that much. That said, her continual presence in his mind and the rather bizarre string of dreams he had been experiencing lately somewhat puzzled him.

A glance at his luminescent alarm clock told Harry that it would be nearly impossible to fall asleep again. Groaning, he lifted himself out of bed and sat at his desk facing the window of his room at Privet Drive, absentmindedly twirling the wand he now constantly had nearby. The house - actually, the neighborhood - was completely quiet with the exception of Uncle Vernon and Dudley's guttural snores.

Harry was only mildly saddened by the fact that the fragile calm of the early morning hid crisis in the Wizarding World that had long already spilled into the Muggle World. He had few, if any, ties to the Muggle world. Harry winced as he thought of Dudley's recent attempt to use Harry for boxing practice, regretting his rash decision during the summer before fifth year to save Dudley from the Dementors. No, as far as he was concerned, the Dursleys were as good as gone from the war.

Scoffing mentally, Harry mentally noted the late Dumbledore's failure in instilling in him the sense of compassion and forgiveness which Dumbledore himself had been famous for. After recovering from his grief over Dumbledore's death, Harry was able to realize that by knowingly placing Harry with as unloving a family as possible, Dumbledore had been in a good position to mould the impressionable Harry's character throughout his Hogwarts years.

Not that Harry held any grudge against Dumbledore for doing so, however. He was well aware that the whole world rarely, if ever, acted for altruistic purposes. As such, Harry had decided that his mission would be accomplished with the death of either Voldemort or himself, as prophecy dictated, and with the painful demise of one Severus Snape. Even if Harry didn't hold Dumbledore's murder against Snape, on top of making Harry's life miserable for the past six years the git had led to the death of his parents. There would be no misguided attempts on Harry's part to reform the Wizarding world.

Sensing movements from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's room, Harry smirked uncharacteristically as he got up and trudged downstairs to prepare breakfast. He would stop at nothing to get revenge on Tom Riddle and Severus Snape.

A/N: Right. The whole premise for this story has been established in this chapter. I know I didn't elaborate much in some parts - you're supposed to figure out/imagine much of the story out yourself. Hope you liked it :