Harry Potter and the Emerald Staff

All of the characters and ongoing storylines in this fic belong to J K Rowling. I am not making any money out of this; it's just a bit of fun.

Chapter 1 – The Disturbed Youth

Harry Potter sat in his room in his 'home' for the summer, Number 4 Privet Drive. Home was used in the loosest possible sense. This house was about as far from home for Harry as was imaginable for the occupants of the house, Harry's thin, nosy aunt, large, bad tempered uncle and frankly obscenely overweight cousin, prided themselves on being a nice, normal family. Harry was about as far from normal as was possible for them. Harry was a wizard and not just any old wizard, in the wizarding world his name was known by everyone and being the name of the 'Boy who lived.'

At this moment in time, however, Harry did not care about this title, not that he'd ever been very fond of it. At this moment, Harry did not want to be among the living, he could not live with his responsibility, his sense of guilt. His very existence had caused far too much death. First his parents, if it wasn't for that bloody prophesy they would still be alive. Second Cedric Diggory, if Voldemort hadn't needed Harry for his resurrection then Cedric would still be alive. Finally Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, the only father figure that Harry had ever really had. Ever since Sirius had escaped from prison almost 3 years previously, he and Harry had developed a close bond. That was until Harry had believed a stupid vision that Voldemort had placed in his head and run off to the Ministry of Magic to 'save' Sirius only to end up getting his killed.

Harry raised the knife in his already bloodied hand and brought it slashing down against his arm again, the resulting blood oozing down his scarred arm and on to his hand. Harry had been through a lot in the five years since he had found out that he was a wizard. All of the emotional pain of these situations was now flowing as freely as the blood running down his arm.

Tears stung Harry's eyes as he continued to raise the knife and open new cuts in his arms in swift slashing movements. The tears were not from the pain of the knife; Harry could barely feel the sharp metal blade carve into his bare flesh. The tears were from the pain that had been buried deep inside him. Harry had continued to carry the ultimate burden of his existence throughout his other tribulations. He had never had any sort of mother or father figure in his life before he met Sirius; he had had no one to share any of his problems with. He went back every summer to the Dursley's, his aunt uncle and cousin, house where he was forbidden to talk about magic at all, so he had kept all of his feelings bottled up, until now.

Harry had come home from one of his wanderings at the beginning of the holidays to find that the Dursleys had all gone out and left him to prepare dinner. While he was making dinner he accidentally cut his finger with the knife he was using to slice the carrots. The pain of the cut gave him some sort of vindictive pleasure; he felt that he deserved the pain. When he had finished making dinner he took the knife with him back to his room and had stayed there ever since. His aunt had been forced to push his food through the cat flap that had been installed there a few years earlier, but Harry just picked at the food, he did not feel like eating, all he cared about was revenge, revenge on himself for all the suffering that he had caused other people.

Harry didn't even look up as a small owl flew in through the small gap between his shut curtains and deposited a letter on to his bed and flew off again. Harry didn't seem to notice the letter that was on his bed or it's bright red envelope that seemed to be squirming as if wanting to let something out of it. It wouldn't go un-noticed for long, however.

HARRY POTTER! Why won't you write back to Ron or Hermionie or me? Can't you see that we were hurt by what happened as well? Don't you dare wallow in your own self-pity, you are coming to The Burrow in three days and you had better be ready!

The letter gave a small growl and shrivelled up and burned itself into ashes. Harry just stared at his wall, Ginny Weasley's words ringing around inside his head. He did not notice the knife leave his hand and fall to the floor with a dull thud against the thin carpet. He did not answer when his uncle demanded to know what all the noise was about. He knew his uncle wouldn't dare enter his room so he just stared at the wall instead wondering why Ginny, his best friend's little sister, of all people had sent him the howler.

This can't have been the same Ginny Weasley who was so frightened by his presence in her house before he was about to start his second year that he had caused her to yelp and scarper back up the stairs, not the same Ginny Weasley who couldn't look Harry in the eye without blushing. This Ginny was different; she was harder, becoming a woman. Harry had not noticed this before but as he looked back over his fifth year, Ginny's fourth, he could remember her being a formidable witch then too, he obviously had had too much on his mind for it to register until now.

Harry was still staring at the wall, these thoughts rattling around his head, when tiredness finally caught up with him and he slumped down into an exhausted sleep.