HARRY POTTER AND THE UNFORGIVEN
A Sixth Year Harry Potter Fanfiction
BY
Jayiin Mistaya
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
...never tickle a sleeping dragon
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to Harry Potter. Those rights are held, exclusively, by JK Rowling, and any other entities, corporations, subsidiaries, or groups not named here possessing legal rights to the aforementioned books and/or trademark.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the last of the Letter interludes, at least for a long while. I'm gonna post the next chapter fairly quickly, especially if I get reviews on this chapter and the last one.
Thanks to everyone who has been reading, even if you haven't reviewed, and especially to those people who have me on author alert or favorites.
More information on Harry Potter and the Unforgiven can be found at my website, which is linked in my Author Profile.
Feedback of any kind is always appreciated. Remember, the more reviews I get, the faster I post.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:Thanks to Elusive Evan for making me continue to post this.
LETTERS V
Ginny had started leaving her window open for Hedwig to come and go as she pleased. Getting up in the middle of the night to let her out to hunt or back in when she'd caught dinner had quickly gotten old.
But she still found herself waiting up for Hedwig to come back every night, hoping the owl would bring a letter from Harry. She also knew sitting in the dark waiting for him to send her a letter wasn't doing her mental state any good, but it didn't stop her from doing it.
It had been a while since his last letter. She was starting to worry she'd said something wrong in her last letter, something that had made him not want to write her back. Or that something had happened to him that kept him from writing back.
So she sat in the dark and waited.
Hedwig swooped in the open window and deposited a folded sheaf of paper on her lap. Ginny grinned and grabbed the spear of amethyst crystal from her nightstand and – with a push of her magic against it – deep violet light flared into existence. She had discovered the crystal's power by accident one of the many nights she'd been waiting for the letter she now held. She noticed he had written on the strange Muggle paper again, and shook her head. She'd have to ask him to bring some for her father.
His handwriting was neat, cramped print, the lines of dark green ink were all clear and perfect, as if the quill he'd been using hadn't bled or smeared or had to be re-dipped.
Ginny,
Thank you.
Your promise means more to me than I know how to tell you. That there is at least one person who will be completely honest with me...it helps.
I promise that I will always be honest with you, too. I won't hide things from you or try to protect you from what I'm thinking or feeling – with one caveat. There are things that I've been told by Dumbledore that I can't tell you. I want to. Even as I'm writing this, I want so badly to tell you, but I can't.
I hate secrets, Gin. They destroy people. They eat people alive from the inside out, or they hide things from people who need to know them. They damage the foundations of trust and I'm not sure I know how to re-build those.
And I hate that secrets mean I can't make the same promise to you that I asked you make to me. I didn't realize it until I read your last letter. It's taken me a long time to get the courage to write this to you because of it. I'm sorry for that, too. I miss getting your letters.
I will promise that I will tell you first. Before Ron and Hermione, even. They are my best friends – my brother and my sister, I suppose. I'd like to think what we feel for each other is at least as strong as that, anyway. But they haven't ever made me the same promise you did. I guess it's not fair of me to be upset about that. I never asked them. It's just, they know me. I'd like to think they know how I feel about that sort of thing. Maybe they don't.
Sometimes, I think my entire life has been following some script someone's already written for me, and everyone knows my lines but me. Everyone seems to think they know what's best for me, and will do whatever they need to do to get me to do it. Everyone but you and Gracie.
I can't believe I haven't mentioned Gracie yet. I guess I didn't know what to say about her. She's like a muggle Dumbledore, only she's a lot like you. Honest, straightforward, and blunt. She seems to care about me, a lot. I don't know why she does, really, and I feel bad because I can't tell her the truth about who and what I am. If I ever did, I don't think she'd believe me. Even if she did...she'd be mad that I lied to her for so long. And I'd lose her to the Obliviators or to Voldemort. It makes me feel like I'm using her to teach me what I need to know without giving anything back. I know she said I'd be helping her re-pay a debt, but it still feels like I'm getting more out of this than she is. If only that she's there
This summer, except for Gracie and your letters, I've been alone. I used to be good at being alone, Gin. Very good at it. I knew how to make my mind go blank, to just turn off so time passed without me knowing it. To just...drift, and just be. I miss it. These days, I can feel every second as it stretches by, dragging me with it into the next. The quiet can drown me and I almost look forward to dinner with Dursleys. Uncle Vernon's cousin, Veronica, is staying here now in Dudley's second bedroom. She doesn't hate me because she doesn't know what I am. Not to say she's very fond of me, but as long as I sit and listen to her talk, she's someone to be around, you know?
I've realized how much I rely on my friends to keep me sane and keep the quiet from drowning me, and now I can't believe I tried to push you away. Voldemort's going to try to kill you regardless of you being near me. He knows what you mean to me.
It's been your letters that made me realize that. Without your letters, I wouldn't be able to remember I had friends. I'm too detached, too distant out here to remember what it feels like all the time, but any time I forget, I can just pull out your letters and I can remember.
Thank you for that.
In case I forgot to say it before, thank you for coming with me to the Department of Mysteries. Thank you for making me take you with me. I wouldn't have survived without you fighting with me. As much as I hate that I caused Sirius' death and as much as I hate I caused all of you to get hurt, what I know now...if I had gone alone, or with just Ron and Hermione, it would have been worse. For everyone. I hate that, too.
You're right about Sirius. Even if I had talked to him, I would have had no way of knowing if he was really in danger. Voldemort set the perfect trap. I want to blame myself for not knowing, for not practicing my Occlumency. But being alone gives a bloke a lot of time to think. I taught the DA last year, and though I'm no great teacher like Professor McGonagall, I learned a lot about teaching. I've paid attention to how Gracie teaches me. I've also been watching my cousin Dudley train this summer, watching how his trainer works. He's like Snape. He yells, snarls, insults, but he's still a good teacher.
Snape isn't. He didn't teach me, he didn't explain anything. His method was to just keep hurting me until I could make him stop. I haven't been able to protect myself from him since I was eleven. I can protect myself from Voldemort and Death Eaters but I can't protect myself from the people who are supposed to take care of me. From Snape, Umbridge, my relatives...I'm not allowed to protect myself or my friends from Draco Malfoy. I'm supposed to be a Gryffindor. One of the good guys. I can get away with breaking every rule in the book, but I'm not allowed to protect myself from the people who aren't supposed to be involved in this war.
I guess it really doesn't matter what they do to me. They can attack me, hurt me all they want. I can take it. I can take more than they could ever do to me. But if they try to hurt you or any of my other friends this year, I'm not going to stand for it.
What Dumbledore told me – well, I can use it to my advantage and protect the people I care about from the consequences of being people I care about. I'm tired of my friends being hurt just because they're my friends. I don't really know if I deserve what I get. Sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I think I really am my father's son and someone has to pay for his sins. And Sirius'. I should have to pay. Not you. I would gladly take whatever penance is due, if they would just let you and everyone else close to me live your lives.
I'm not going to let myself be helpless this year. I won't let what they do make me treat my friends like they treat me. I'm sorry for that. Especially for treating you that way. You've never hidden anything from me or tried to trick or manipulate me. In some ways, I feel like Cho tried to manipulate me into doing what she wanted.
I don't know what Cho was doing with me. I didn't know how to say no to her. I was still attracted to her, in a twisted and uncomfortable way, but I wasn't comfortable being with her. I wanted her forgiveness, I think, for what happened to Cedric. Yet, it hurt more than I wanted to admit when she got mad at me for wanting to meet up with Hermione on Valentine's Day. It made me mad, too. I didn't realize how mad until later, when she defended Marietta for betraying the DA. Hermione has followed me, sometimes blindly, into things that she didn't have to follow me into. I owe her the same loyalty and the same trust. If someone I'm with can't understand that, can't understand who and what I am and who asks me to put them in front of that loyalty and trust, then I can't be with them. Which is probably counter-productive to having a girlfriend, I'd bet.
I'm not good at this romance thing. You're right – I don't know what to do in a relationship, and until Voldemort stops trying to kill me and people stop trying to hurt me and break me, I don't know that I'll able to find out. I'm afraid, Ginny.
I'm afraid that after it's all over, I won't be able to figure it out. I'll have become something so different, so torn – maybe so broken – that I won't be able to love someone like that. And I want to. I don't want to be alone like this.
Even Neville can go out on a date like a normal person. I can't manage that much. The Great Harry Potter...
I'll end up a hermit like MrsFigg, surrounded by magical creatures, living in a hut in the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid would like that, I think.
Don't be mad at Hermione. She's the smartest person I know, and she's really good at figuring things – and people – out, but she's not good at interacting with people. I'm not, either, so I understand how hard it is for her, a little bit. She cares and wanted to help, but she didn't know I didn't know. Just look at her and Ron.
Hermione's right more often than not, though. She was right about the Department of Mysteries and she's right about my 'saving people thing'. It can be dangerous and stupid and can get me in trouble, but I can't just sit and wait when I can keep someone from dying. Even if it were Snape or Draco, or even Umbridge. I'm probably wrong for saying this, but I don't care if my 'saving people thing' is stupid or dangerous or whatever. After the Chamber, I asked Dumbledore about the similarities between me and Tom Riddle. He told me that it's my choices that make me different from him. I chose Gryffindor. I chose to save you. I chose to try and save Sirius. Voldemort would have chosen to leave them both to die. If I choose to leave someone to die when I could save them, then I become a little bit more like him.
I'm not like him.
Neither are you. He may have made you want to kill, but he couldn't make you a killer. He put a part of himself into you and had to change who you are to make you capable of murder. It wasn't you. It never could be you. You're not that kind of person.
If people can't see that and can't see past the surface of hand-me-down robes and the horror of being possessed by Tom Riddle, then it's their loss, not yours. You said it yourself: I can't avoid being the Boy Who Lived. I am the Boy Who Lived. I am the person who has defeated Voldemort more times than any other wizard alive, except maybe Dumbledore.
And I am proud to call you, Ginevra Weasley, my friend. You and your friendship are worth more money than Malfoy and I have combined. So is all of your family, even Percy.
He may think he has the right to tell everyone else to do, but he's not much different from Dumbledore, who has been manipulating me and my life since I was born. The difference, small though it is, is that Dumbledore didn't want to. He had to. I suppose Percy feels he is doing as he has to, but he enjoys controlling others, and that scares me. I still think he believes he's doing the right thing, though.
I said I don't like who I'm becoming, and I meant it. I don't like who I'm becoming because people are controlling me, or trying to control me. They're trying to make me into who they think I should be, and sometimes, I wonder if they're right.
You say you like who I am, but I'm afraid I can't be that person much longer. That person can't survive unbroken against everyone who wants to hurt me and control me. That person is tired, and lonely and hurting and has precious little left to give and to hold on to. That person wants to just let go, to drift away and keep drifting away until he drifts so far he is nothing at all. That person doesn't know how he can live another day in this house, another day trapped like Sirius was trapped. That person might not exist when I come to Hogwarts.
The person I am becoming is not a person I like at all. And if you're right about me being a good judge of character, that bothers me. But the person I am becoming has the strength to do what needs to be done. The strength to be alone and to keep fighting no matter what people do to him.
I may not like who I am becoming, but at least I know who he is and what he is. He is stronger than who I am now, strong enough to do what needs to be done, both before and after Voldemort is defeated.
And he will be defeated.
I'm glad you've given up on me. I could never give you what you deserve; I can't allow myself to be the kind of man who could be good to you. This next year, what I really look forward to is seeing you happy – whether it's with Dean or someone else. Seeing Ron and Hermione finally figure out and admit what they feel for each other – maybe have a bit of happiness themselves.
Speaking of Ron and Hermione...would you mind telling them I miss them? Maybe tell them it's okay to write to me?
I can understand why they might not want to, but I just want to make sure they know.
I miss you, too. I hope we can talk to each other like we write to each other. If we can't, you're going to get a lot of letters from me this year.
Harry Potter
P.S. Then I guess I'll just have to take you shopping before we go back to Hogwarts.
Ginny sat with his letter in her lap and tried to figure it out. Most of it made sense, but there were a few things that didn't. Who was Gracie, for one? For two...it almost seemed as if Harry did have feelings for her, but couldn't – or wouldn't – act on them.
Had he really just told her that it didn't matter how he felt? That there was no chance for her?
No. She slowly realized what Harry had been trying to say. He meant there was no chance for him.
End Chapter
Revised 12-25-07