A/N: Hello world! Allison here, Love and I bring you a new story(one that won't go uncompleted this time) and we hope you enjoy as much as we do writing it. Without further ado, enjoy!
Chapter 1:
Realization
Hermione Granger felt tears drip heavily down her face, Harry, a Death Eater? After they had all fought so much to keep the Dark Lord away. She watched as the Arours took the seventeen-year-old away, Harry was her best friend."Nothing but a traitor." Ron Weasley hissed holding the black umbrella above their heads. The rain was pouring down hard, small drops of rain splattered against Hermione's soft complexion, mixing with the tears that fell from the chocolate orbs."I-I don't un-understand wh-why Harry wou-would do that." she croaked, snaking an arm around Ron's waist, "Af-After everything we did...""Harry doesn't care, Hermione. He only cared about himself." Ron replied hugging her close to his side and glaring at the boy-who-won as he was taken away to the place every witch and wizard on the face of earth dreaded to go. Azkaban.****Several Months Later****Harry Potter sighed and placed his hands against the bars of his cell. How he missed his friends, Seamus and Neville, Luna and Ginny...especially Ron and Hermione. He had failed everyone, the Daily Prophet published lies about him in the months since he came to this place. Tugging up his sleeve, Harry examined the inky green mark on his forearm. It was to protect her...to save her even though she loved his best friend. She had been through everything with him, it only took him those few nights of her crying over Ron in the tent to realize there was something there between them. Not only Ron and Hermione but with Hermione and was still out there somewhere, still killing innocent muggles, 'blood traitors' and muggleborns. Still hunting her down. Harry felt his fingers curl around the iron bars of the cell, Voldemort wouldn't stop until everyone Harry loved was dead.A sinking ache throbbed in his chest, what if she was already dead? What if Voldemort had already gotten to her? Damn, being behind these bars were more torment than the boy thought possible. He needed out, he needed to see she was okay...Harry needed the woman who had...stolen his heart.
A dementor glided past the entrance to the cell and lingered there for a moment, enjoying Harry's sobs of agony as he relived his worst memories. No longer was the death of Lily Potter the mist horrible thing contained in Harry's mind. No, the memories that replaced those were by far worse. His initiation into the death eaters; (that is what happened, right? And remember to take this off when you put it up) Hermione's agonizing screams of pain as Harry watched Ron through himself against the bars of their cell as he wished that he could do the same, but knowing that he had to stay strong fir all their sakes; Ron's glares of loathing as Harry was dragged unresistingly to the deepest cell of Azkaban and Hermione's desperate sobs into Ron's chest as she realized how Harry had betrayed her. But by far the worst was when Hermione sobbed about Ron as Harry realized that he loved her, a stab of longing and agony stabbing him as he realized that it could never be. One if the things that Harry both loved and loathed in himself wad his complete inability to cause any sort of pain, physical or emotional, to anyone, at the price of his own happiness and well-being. He could never tell Hermione of his love for her ( which wasn't the usual teenage "love", which was driven by lust and the need to have someone, but true love, as real as the earth and sky) for it would hurt Ron to have the girl he lived taken from him by his best friend, as well as Hermione to have to chose between dementor gleefully sensed the emotions radiating from that memory, and dragged up memories and feelings that related to that; the Yule Ball in fourth year to the agony of all the months and years. By the time the dark, hooded creature left, Harry was but a crumpled figure in the floor, silent tears making their way delicately across his cheeks. The aftermath of the pain was agonizing. Knowing Hermione thought he had betrayed them all, after everyone had laid down their lives for him...she felt as if he had abandoned him. It made Harry feel sick to his very core, seventeen and he was already feeling the emotion of love. The few weeks he had dated the youngest of the Weasley family he had thought it was love. Compared to this-Compared to this that emotion was simply walking in a flower bed. Loving Hermione was impossible and would forever be. The seventeen-year-old was trapped inside this cell, the stone floor grimy and cold(matching the walls that surrounded him), it added to the sense of loneliness and sorrow. Harry Potter was no longer the handsome boy everyone knew, no he had changed dramatically the months he stayed in Azkaban. His suit caked with dirt and sweat from the many nightmares that ate away at him when night settled, his eyes had lost the brilliant gleam(the only shine that shown was when the boy was close to tears), his hair oily and dirty from being unable to wash. Harry truly felt like a prisoner. His stomach lurched as he stood up from his spot on the ground, he gripped onto the windowsill and steadied himself. It was time to rid himself of this place of horrors and return home, though the brands of imprisonment and grief would always fall upon him. His numbers, proving that he had indeed gone to Azkaban. His mark, proving that he had indeed...betrayed his did not know the truth behind his actions, why he had fought so hard to protect them all and only to make them think he had fooled them. Hermione's tearful face stared at him behind his eyes, her magical brown eyes that pulled him in. The way her caramel colored hair waved in the breeze when the trio had been enjoying the day out. The way her lips pulled back into a smile whenever she saw him or said his name. Hermione was Harry's everything at the moment, the only thing he could hold onto to prevent him from going was time to break out, but first, Harry needed to make a plan. He peered out from the small window, staring out into the night and imagining Hermione sitting under a tree with a good book in her hands. Her wand illuminating a soft light to let her read the words off the page. The first smile in a long time spread across Harry's features."Soon, Hermione, soon." he said, his voice was dry from the lack of water and his throat raw from screaming so loudly. The wind flew by his window and he smiled again as he imagined her voice whispering; 'Harry.'