I don't own the story or the characters of Harry Potter, this work is entirely fan-made. The rights to everything Harry Potter belong to J.K Rowling.

HEED MY ONE AND ONLY WARNING: THIS STORY IS STRICTLY M-RATED, DUE TO, BUT NOT LIMITED TO: FOUL LANGUAGE, BLOOD AND GORE, ETC.

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO SEE ANY OF THIS. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT FIT INTO THE AGE RATING OF 'MATURE'(16+).

I SAY ONE LAST TIME. TURN BACK IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE ANY OF THE PRECEDING WARNINGS DESCRIBED HERE.

Deserter

Harry woke with a start to find his shirt drenched in perspiration. His tiny bed in the tent was satisfactory enough for sleep but not for comfort, nor for leisure. He got up groggily, threw on his clothes from the previous day and walked to the diminutive kitchen area. He barely registered Hermione was there until he noticed her sniffs and strangled sobs. She had not yet realised Harry was there and would have preferred if he hadn't seen her like this: vulnerable, scared, weak. Apparently, she couldn't sleep either and shouldn't have to suffer a nightmare alone. The silencing charm that she had erected around her bed had muffled her screams as she woke, but Harry didn't need to know that she was screaming to be wary of her predicament. "Couldn't sleep either 'Mione?" Harry asked, knowing full well the answer, but trying to get her to open up a bit. If anyone knew what bottling up emotions was like and could attest to the fact it was terrible to deal with, it was Harry. He had seen countless friends and family die, at no fault, he felt, other than his own.

Hermione just shook her head, her hair plastered to her face from the tears she had shed. She offered Harry a seat at the table which he took after offering a mug of wand-warmed cocoa to her. He groaned as he sat down, exhaustion flowing through his veins like the oxygen that was supposed to be doing the same thing. "Want to tell me what happened? I can see you had a nightmare. You can tell me anything." Harry said, taking her hand in his own. She sniffed out "My parents. I had a nightmare a-about them… dying. I- I wiped their memories of me from their heads so that they wouldn't be targeted by association. What if- what if they don't forgive me for what I did, or-or what if I can't restore their memories. They could be stuck as Wendell and Monica Wilkins for-forev…" She gave up trying to finish that word as if it would seal their fate to the sentence she had said. "I-I didn't know, Hermione. You did the bravest thing possible, and there is no if about it." She gasped and clasped her hands to mouth to stop her from waking Ron with her sobs. "I mean, when you get your parents back from wherever they are, they will forgive you. There's no doubt about it. If they're even half as smart as you, they will know that you did it to protect them." Harry said, gently consoling her.

Harry was not going to share his nightmare, it was too possible for it to become too much for both Hermione and Ron. Instead, they sat shrouded in silence as Harry remembered his vivid hallucination that had plagued his thoughts tonight.

The tent warding charms were breaking and they couldn't apparate due to the wards restrictions. If they wanted to do that, they would be forced to exit the wards, only to come to a swarm of Death Eaters. The flimsy shield over the three crumbled as if made of dust and the mass of Voldemort's army had appeared, brandishing wands and keeping dementors at bay. Harry had said Voldemort's name, or rather, spat as he insulted the Dark Lord. Alas, they didn't know the name was taboo and that hordes of his army would come running to their location. The Dark Lord simply fired three stunners, using the weakness that the dementors had naturally been blessed with, knocking all of the people in the tent out cold.

The next thing that Harry saw was a flash of red light that seared his body from the outside, while a feeling of drills on his bones was on the inside. The caster of the torture curse, none other than Lord Voldemort himself. As his scarlet eyes bore deep into Harry's emerald ones, Harry heard the scream of pain from Hermione and a shout of fury from Ron. Tom stepped aside to reveal two high-ranking members in Voldemort's army, Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback, holding Ron and Hermione respectively. Voldemort had resorted to emotional pain before his death, torture of the soul for the boy-who-lived. Tom Riddle knew now that he had made a mistake not giving Harry's father and mother more of a 'send-off' as he watched Harry writhe in torment for his two friends. Bellatrix held up Ron's forearm, showing off the 'artwork' she had made, as Greyback did the same for her handiwork on Hermione. Ron had a sickly trickle of blood dripping from the letter 't' on his 'Blood Traitor' tattoo, and Hermione sported an even worse, demeaning title: 'Mudblood'.

Voldemort's game was simple, destroy any semblance of happiness within Harry and demolish his already-low spirits. Then all that was left to do was kill him, to rip his soul from his body, to join his filthy Mudblood mother and father. In a way, it was a reunification, but at least Voldemort got the land of the living to himself and his empire. Harry's head started to droop back into sleep, from the exhaustion caused by being captured and tortured. The Dark-Lord crackled another "Crucio!" over his body and the boy slumped, eyes still focussed on the Mudblood. "Good, good. Feel yourself, slipping from sanity, begging for the release of death, because it will come to you, Harry Potter. But it will only come when you have lost everything that holds hope and happiness in your heart." He nodded to Bellatrix and she withdrew an already bloody dagger from her robes: her carving knife. Angling it up at Ron's jugular, while he feebly struggled against her vice-like grip, she plunged it into the flesh, an odd, squelching sound and a choke that spit up his own blood, coming from deep within the confines of his throat. Hermione screamed and Harry shouted profanities at the witch who had killed his best friend. "You still have one more person left to lose, Potter, but not now. No, it will wait until you have let this temper of yours calm down, and the grief you hold spill out onto the floor in front of me."

A soft voice whispered to him, a faint one: his own inside his skull. His dungeon held no other captives, but his guilt, grief and depression. How would he do this alone, cope with the deaths of his best friend and the woman he loved secretly. He had to tell Hermione before it happened… before he ended it and killed either himself or the Dark Lord. His only human contact for the fifth day in a row, Wormtail hauled him up the stairs with a wand jabbed into his throat, threatening to stun him or kill himself, if he killed Harry and suffered Voldemort's wrath. The rat-faced traitor dragged Harry out of the grimy dungeon and up the steps using mobilicorpus. There in the exact position from last time, was Fenrir Greyback, holding Hermione in a choke with an instrument of torture. Not a knife, or one of Bellatrix's daggers, his own claws, on his human fingers. The nails were filed down to points and he bared his teeth at Harry, showing two fangs, presumably from the same method. Voldemort used his wand to tie Harry to a post in the large room, not dissimilar to the Great Hall in size, but lacking the candles, furniture, windows and any semblance of joy. Harry managed to get three words in, directed at Hermione before Voldemort gave the final nod. "I love you". He said, raising his voice so that just the occupants of the room could hear it. Her eyes widened and Voldemort bowed his head, a smirk decorating his normally emotionless face. Greyback brought his claws along her throat as she whispered back with a gurgle from the blood "I love you t-". She slumped to the ground and just to torment Harry, even more, Voldemort with the subtlest of gestures, made her face turn to Harry's before she hit the wood. Her eyes were soulless, unseeing, dead.

Harry didn't care to finish the sequence, and Hermione had slapped the table to get his attention, in time with her nightmare self hitting the floor of the room with blood adorning her features. This Hermione wasn't wearing a necklace of bloody flesh, but a shocked look, as though she had heard everything Harry had thought. "Harry, yo- you love me?" She asked, an almost pleading look in her eyes, emploring him to say yes. It was his own turn to wear an expression of shock. Being lost in his nightmare, he had said what his dream self said, unaware of the person sitting opposite him, slack-jawed. "I- I didn't realise I said that out loud. I know, I'm sorry, I know you love Ron but. I can't help it. I have loved you, for so long, since that ride on Buckbeak in third-year actually. I'm sorry." He admitted in a flurry of words with almost no cohesion. "I know Harry. It's been obvious for a while, the longing looks, refusal to get back with Ginny. They were all signs. I just didn't realise that it was the same thing I felt." She replied back to a crestfallen Harry, who assumed she meant Ron. "For you Harry. I think you are the bravest, the kindest, the most loyal man I know. It's a shame that we didn't figure this out sooner." His face lit up with joy, and for the first time since he had agreed to move in with Sirius and feel happy, he cried. Tears of pure elation crept into his eyes and made him perk up, overjoyed to know that Hermione felt the same way. He rushed around the table and as if in slow-motion, he leaned into her, her face also drenched with tears of fear and love.

Before they could react and truly express their feelings, Ron turned up, face flushed red with unrelenting fury. "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING POTTER! GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER!" he snarled with unbridled rage, pent up from listening to their declarations. His wand was pointed squarely between Harry's jade eyes and Hermione was cowering behind him, frightened for both of them. "RON, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! ARE YOU MAD?!" Harry bellowed back with a roar. Ron replied to him, still brandishing his wand in his best friend's face."What did you put on Hermione, confundus, Imperious, compliance potion?!" Harry stood his ground, internally wondering if he had heard their conversation. "You heard what we said, didn't you?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, knowing the answer already. "Of course I did. Which brings me back to my previous question." Startled at the fact that Ron would accuse Harry of using unforgivables or date-rape potions, Hermione stepped between them, carefully lowering Ron's wand with her hand, wary of where the tip of it was pointing. "I'm sorry Ron if I gave you the wrong impression, but I love Harry, he hasn't used any potions or spells, or anything of the sort. He used words, to describe how he feels for me. Plus, you can't seriously think that your best friend would use that type of dark magic. Who do you take us for, a rapist and an idiot?"

Ron kept his feet planted firmly on the ground, using every ounce of strength to keep himself from falling to the floor after that declaration of love for his former best friend that his love was showing. "You had to steal my girl, didn't you Potter? No, he hasn't got any of the things he wants, fame, fortune and a legacy that leaves girls swooning. First, you play with my sister's heart and then you take away the one thing in this world that I want the most, Hermione?!" His voice dripped with venom and malice, every syllable like a dagger, scratching their ears and hearts with long strokes. His last word, the name "Hermione" almost sounded like pleading, let Ron have Hermione, and everything goes back to normal. "You know Ron, I'm glad we're getting this out. It has been a while coming, hasn't it. I have nothing, compared to you Ron, NOTHING! Any semblance of a loving family hurled out of the window as a baby, my fortune that I don't want, as it reminds me that to get it, I lost a mother, a father, possible siblings. I don't want women throwing themselves at me if they want the 'boy-who-lived, vanquisher of dark-lords'. I want someone, who loves me, for Harry Potter, not an icon, or a symbol. No, you think that belongs to you, yet it is the only thing I crave more than my family, the only person, who loves me, for me. If you think this after I'm gone fighting the Dark Lord, go have a nice life with a string of beautiful whores and use my gold for all I care, the 'boy-who-lived' doesn't want that."

Ron hurled a stunning spell at Harry who ducked and fired back with expelliarmus. The tent had lit up with jinxes and hexes alike until Ron passed the point of no return. "AVADA KEDAVRA!" He roared, regretting it instantly, as he watched the jet of green light hurtle over Harry's head. Ron dropped his wand to the floor and it clattered to Hermione who had hidden under the table and turned it over so that Ron didn't hit her with a spell. She sprang up to check if Harry was ok and to her immense relief, he was physically unscathed. His heart though was in pieces, measly chunks of happy memories, faded from the use of the killing curse. "Harry, I'm so sorry, so- so sorry. I didn't mean to do it, it jus-". Harry held up a hand to him and walked over to him, saying firmly and with no regrets: "But you did. The unforgivable curses are unforgivable for a reason. No one comes back from them, because you have to mean them, for the spell to work. You meant to try and kill me, and frankly, I don't blame you. Just take the Horcrux off and all will be forgiven." Harry knew exactly where the Horcrux was, and this further broke his heart. The Horcrux was lying discarded on the floor, as it had been on the table with him and Hermione when they were talking. Ron muttered in reply "I don't have it."

"I knew you didn't, which is how I know you meant that curse," Harry said calmly before walking back to his room. Hermione was now in her own room, bawling her eyes out. With the silencing wards up, no-one heard the screaming and wailing, or the profanities, a rarely used insult by Hermione, directed at Ron for ruining their friendship and any chance either Harry or Hermione had of loving again. Hermione heard, through the one-way wards a bag being slung over a shoulder, likely Ron's as he looked as if he was going to leave them to it. She got up to say goodbye, to find Ron sitting in a discarded chair from the shattered table and looking out of the tent with longing sorrow buried deep in his eyes. "He's gone. Took the Horcrux, a basilisk fang and his stuff with him." Hermione teared up when she noticed they had yet to hear a sharp crack to indicate apparition, meaning he was either fending for himself in the cold and dark, or she had to watch him leave. Hermione sprinted out of the tent to see a figure walking towards the lake near them. He stopped and bent down as Hermione saw his face, the face of the man she loved. He dropped a piece of paper to the floor and turned on one heel before Hermione could reach him and she clasped thin air.

A man appeared outside of a quaint, little village that seemed almost empty. There were tears adorning the man's face and feelings of anger brewing up inside him. He had lost his best friend, his first friend and now he had made a terrible decision. He left the love of his life with a crazed, psychotic lunatic who wanted her to himself. The two were undoubtedly angry with him for leaving, which wouldn't be good for his love, but it was necessary to save her from himself. He had abandoned them in a dark, desolate forest in the middle of no-where, with no reference to where he was going. The man just so happened to be Harry Potter, supposed saviour of the wizarding world and the best friend of one Hermione Granger, who had just proclaimed her own love to him, which he reciprocated. Ronald Weasley, the supposed other best friend and 'brother' of the 'boy-who-lived' was no longer the owner of those titles. He had aimed for death, for his own brother, over the feelings of a person who once loved them both, but now had neither. It tore at Harry's heart to know that he would likely never see his love again, as he would either die or kill and be unworthy of her. The only reminder of his existence was a letter, addressed to Hermione Granger and it crushed his soul to write.

My Dearest Hermione,

I am sorry for leaving unannounced, but I had hoped not to be seen leaving, for fear of you coming with me. I must prevent as many deaths as possible, the highest priority, being yours. I truly love you Hermione, but you must move on. It is not safe to be around me, everything I touch dies eventually, and I can't be the one responsible for your death. It is safer for you this way. I will not let you give up your life for mine, I am unworthy of you, whether or not I die at the hand of the other. I only have one request, and please, think about it before you do anything drastic. I ask you to do but one thing, live. Live for you, not for me. Find your parents, get them back, and leave the country, change all of your identities. I know Ron will feel lost without us, but he is no longer our burden to carry. Tell him from me, go back home, be with your family, they are not a curse. They are far from it. They are a blessing Ronald Weasley, and you will take that blessing and do something with it. Don't lose your family Ron, don't lose your way, again.

Hermione, remember my final wish for you. Live, and don't look back on me. If I return, I will not be the man you love anymore.

Harry

Hermione wept as she re-read the letter for the 4th time. The tears were no longer there, for there were no more left to spill. Her sorrow had stained the final sentiment of Harry James Potter, and the words from his hand were now blotched and fuzzy. The magical world had rested upon the shoulders of three aspiring magicians. Now, the world was only left supported by one, the bravest man Hermione had ever known, but also the most foolish. To think that she could move on from him, was a bet that anyone would lose before they had placed it. They were inseparable, but somehow, all three had separated. Harry was wandering the plains of the United Kingdom, unseen by the world. Even if they had eyes like a hawk, they would see nothing, only grief, sorrow, pain and suffering. Harry Potter was no more. The Boy Who Lived was the only part of the former wizard left.

Ronald had been in his room in the tent after hearing Harry's wish through Hermione's agonised tones. He felt the blame placed on him and received all of Hermione's anger towards anything, which was less than he deserved. Ron had hidden away, stowed under his sheets, for fear of getting all manner of blame and hate for what he had done. But now, he couldn't go home. What would his parents think of him, accusing him of using illegal potions and spells to woo a woman that didn't belong to Ron? Hermione's heart had only felt for Harry, but he wasn't here now. Hermione was a shell of a person, and barely exchanged words or looks with him, when trekking back across the country to the Burrow in Ottery St. Catchpole. Hermione wasn't going to stay long at the house, just long enough to let the Weasley's know that she was fleeing the country. Mrs Weasley's actions were futile against Hermione's tough resolve. "Hermione dear, don't do this, just because Harry is gone, doesn't mean you can't have a life anymore. Besides, what will happen to Ron if you leave, he is your boyfriend, isn't he? What would this do to him?"

Hermione lashed out against the woman, hardened by her mention of the man she loved. "Don't you say his name. My Harry left because of Ronald. Or has he not told you what happened yet? Don't worry, I won't make it awkward by having Ronald tell you himself. They got into a fight over me. I had been having nightmares and Harry sought to console me. He and I sat in the kitchen together, while your son crept about and spied on us. Harry was experiencing his own daydream and accidentally said that he- he loved me. I had so many feelings about this, I felt the same, but I thought he waited for Ginny and he thought I was waiting for Ron. This was not the case. I love Harry, but Ron drove him off by attacking him." Molly sat stunned for a second before replying. "So? They have gotten into fights before and they always make up afterwards. What was different?" Hermione roared out her last statement "BEFORE THIS, RONALD HADN'T USED THE KILLING CURSE. AND IT WORKED, THE BLOODY CURSE ACTUALLY FIRED. BUT HE MISSED, AND NOW HARRY IS GONE, LEFT, LEFT ME WITH NOTHING BUT A NOTE THAT IS FOR MY EYES ONLY." Hermione broke down, and the crowd that had been watching steadily from the sitting room rushed to her. Hermione collapsed onto her knees and sobbed for the first time in three weeks since Harry had left.

Harry sat at the table in the inn, contemplating what to do next in the search for Horcruxes. He had only managed to find the diary and the ring so far. His first thought was that he had a vault in Gringotts that held Riddle Family heirlooms, but waved the thought away like swatting a fly. The room he had managed to afford was not a permanent residence, but for the two days spent in the new town, he had come to like it. Maybe when the war was over he could hide out here and live a solitary life as a hermit. The door gave a massive tremble at the thought of retirement and a large man walked through it, peering at the faces of everyone. Harry turned his head away and clutched the firewhiskey in his glass, not daring to look at the evidently large man. The figure sidled up to the bar about 3 seats down from Harry and ordered an elvish mead. Harry would recognise the tone and the accent anywhere. Hagrid had come to find him. The half-giant surveyed everyone at the bar and with widened eyes, beckoned Harry over. 'This will not work' Harry thought, and further turned his head from the gamekeeper. Harry's beard and new coloured hair disguised him from further interaction, or so he thought. When the pint was gone, Hagrid walked over to Harry's side of the bar and asked the person sitting 2 seats away from him if 'lightning had struck'. Confused, the man just shook his head and threw back his butterbeer. Hagrid then approached Harry and asked again "As' lightnin' struck yet?" Harry shook his mane of a dirty-blond haircut and told the half-giant to move along. "Ang' on. Don' I know you from summat?" He growled through his own beard, shaggy and unkempt as always.

Harry shook himself awake, unsure at first whether it was a nightmare or not. He felt the cold sheets of the bed and deduced that seeing Hagrid endanger himself was just a nightmare. He was still alone, grasping at the fabric on the bed, searching for someone that wasn't there. He had dreamt of many things these last couple days, none of them good or reassuring. On the first dreary night out of the tent, he had envisioned Hermione, just Hermione and Bellatrix Lestrange, the latter cacking maniacally. Hermione was slaughtered in that nightmare too, just as gruesomely as the first. The second night had brought about the visions of his own death, bleak and terrifying.

He had traded himself for a captured Hermione and had been put down humanely by Voldemort, by using the all-too-familiar killing curse. As the light faded and he knew he was moving on, he saw the different ways to the afterlives. One in which his parents had been standing in a field, flanked by Sirius and Hermione. The tempting fate was all he wanted: a chance to be part of a family again. Walking towards it, he noticed that it was getting more and more difficult to move forward. He looked down to his bare feet to notice decrepit hands, covered in blood and pieces of flesh. The things dragging him down bore the faces of his friends and family, this time scowling at him, accusing him of their individual murders as he sunk towards a distant red glow. 'This was the only way it could go' Harry thought, as he settled himself for a lifetime's worth of emotional torture. The final things that he saw were a figure that resembled his Hermione, that bore the 'Mudblood' carving on her arm and his own special marks, dripping with the guilt of his actions. The words Murderer, Betrayer and Deserter were oozing their own blood onto his feet.