Disclaimer: Don't own it, and sure as heck don't profit off of it. Harry Potter and everything associated with it is not mine.
A/N: Here it is…drumroll…Harry's gonna speak! Uh…this isn't the end of it, though. So don't quit on it yet. There's a few more parts.
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Title: Misunderstanding
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I don't think Albus will realize what I did. Well, at least not for a little while…
The fence-climbing bit could have been a bit better done, but I didn't have much of a choice.
Okay, fine, he will know. I'm not exactly Mr. Subtle. Not when it comes to half-baked desperate plans. I'm terrible at those. Really terrible.
For example, I could be wrong about this…I tend to be wrong fairly often…
Albus will go nuts when he knows what I did… Especially when he realizes that I did it on purpose…
Took a little jaunt out of the protected area…no one saw me scale the fence…at least I don't think anyone did…
Tom certainly didn't suspect. Not really. He just noticed I'd overstepped the protective boundaries by about ten feet and gave a jerk. I had him thinking that I was jumping the fence because I wanted to retrieve a baseball that had went over the fence…I had been tossing it up and down for half an hour, but it 'got' away from me. Sure. He hadn't realized that I'd slowly been Occluding my mind. Letting him only see what I wanted him to see…he never really noticed that each time he tore through my head that there was less to see.
Because if he had seen it all, known it all, he would have known how agonizingly tiring it was just to throw a stupid ball around. And he would have known that I didn't really have the strength to climb a fence. But he didn't notice. He was arrogant and sure that he was in charge.
His lack of understanding is what failed him. Or he would have understood that to think you are in charge is to show that you are not…wow, I'm confusing myself a little now…
For once, it didn't hurt. No anti-apparation wards to be ripped through.
Perhaps I am wrong, like usual, and doing this is a mistake…but I think I may be right, just this once…
And I didn't even have to listen to Hermione to get it right…
I'm sorry. That was cruel. I listen to her because she's much smarter than me. The wonderful mother that always knows what is best. But just this once I might've been just as smart as her…
The pain is really nothing anymore. After the first time, the first week and a half, two weeks, whatever it was, when I cried and screamed and whimpered and moaned… Now it just doesn't really register. It hurts, sure. It always hurts.
But I think the hurt was in knowing how final it wasn't.
How I would have to go through the agony of recovery. I would have to live on in pain… That is what made it hurt so much…
The anticipation of pain is as bad as the pain, you know? Well, to me the anticipation of living through the pain is just as bad as the pain. Not this time, though. This time it ends. One way or another…
Although I will miss the unicorns…
He smiles when he tortures me. I'm still trying to figure that out. I'm fairly certain my silence annoys him, my gaze bothers him, but still he smiles. Perhaps it is a bitter smile…it is so hard to tell on his face, his grotesque and inhuman face.
"Better not smile too much," I say through chipped and blood-slicked teeth. "It might stick that way."
Cruciatus is his favorite. Because it shows his pain…demonstrates his agony on a level nothing else can accomplish.
"You must have grown up in a cupboard, to have the issues you have now," I tell him. I know full well that he knows how I grew up.
He was struck more as a boy, and I was hated more. It all evens out in the end…
I think the pain has made me rather philosophical. I find I have a lot of time on my hands…between the pain and the waiting for more pain, there is time to see things in a new light… I think it has been…enlightening…
I hate to admit it but I do not think of my friends when I am in that pain. I did the first time. And that is why I screamed. Because I thought of the living.
Now I think of my parents and my godfather. The dying.
And I can almost imagine smiling despite the pain… They are waiting for me…every bit of agony brings me one step closer…one step closer to them, to seeing them…
Perhaps I am suicidal…
But I want to live, I think…if only I could…
And other times, in the mist of red that clouds my vision, I see the unicorns, dancing their dance of life…that makes me smile, too…
He has stopped. Tom lets his wand drop to his side. His expression has changed. It is different this time…
He looks frustrated, angry…confused? I want to laugh aloud. I was right. I did something right. I was right to come…
I force myself to roll onto my back. I have no strength to do more. Not this time…
I can still speak…
"Tom," I cough. "Can you feel it? The world is changing today…everywhere around you the world is living and breathing and dying and ending…"
He dismisses his followers, his docile sheep in wolf's clothing. They shuffle out…and then he asks one to stay.
I know who it is. It is Severus. His hood is up, his face covered. Hopefully, Voldemort does not suspect something…
He does not, it seems. He has been dwelling on something…I've seen it, in those red eyes. He has been pensive lately…this entire week of torture, he has been… I'm not sure what to call it. Not the same. Not the sadistic and cruel torturer that I had mostly figured out. He has changed…and I think I'm starting to see the results of my labor.
"Going for a walk, Tom?" I ask, as he has Severus haul me to my feet.
He just glares at me over his shoulder, then gestures for us to follow before sweeping from the room. I chance a short glance up at Severus, but he does not look down. He just half-carry, half-pushes me.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He has been obsessed with the unicorns…he wants to see them…
I don't understand it entirely…I guess Lucius told him that they come to me whenever he leaves me somewhere. They congregate, and I awake to their healing…they keep me alive until help arrives, and then vanish into the darkness.
Severus had told me it seemed to be bothering Tom, that the unicorns would come to me…
That they willingly give life to me as they can, and I do not bring the cursed half-life of the damned down upon myself…
He wants it…
It is too bad he does not know that wanting it is what damns it…
But he does not know. He does not understand…
And so he is going to use me as bait, to see them, to force them to come to him…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Set him down," Tom says, in his cold, sharp voice.
Severus complies immediately. Just drops me in the dirt. I understand his roughness, though. He cannot be seen as favoring me…it draws attention, and this situation is tenuous at best…
The air is warm. A gentle breeze flutters over my body, a warm summer wind. It feels so good, like a warm blanket of feathers on my tattered skin. I just want to close my eyes and smile, feeling the wind and the earth beneath me.
Too soon, a hand grabs my chin. The contact makes pain sear through my head, burning in my scar. Tom is forcing me to look at him. "Where are they?" he demands.
"Love brings them," I say softly, my voice raspy. From a strangulation spell, I think. Or perhaps from when Avery pinned me against the stone wall with his forearm. I don't remember…
"Make them come," he commands sharply. I sigh.
"I cannot," I tell him. "I told you, Tom."
He hits me. Hard. Throws my head away from him.
I hit the dirt again, feel the blood seeping from my nose and mouth. There is blood on the side of my head as well. I can feel it…
"Tom," I say, though the words are muffled in the dirt. "Tom," I say, louder. He kicks me, and I roll onto my back.
Surprisingly, this is progress. I think he wants to hear me speak, for once. Usually, he works hard to shut me up. Last time he broke my jaw. Now, he is listening…
"Tom," I say again, just to be sure I can speak. His eyes are on me. I cannot see him in the darkness, but I know he is watching me. "Don't you understand it yet?" I ask. "Don't you see?"
"Foolish brat," he growls. "You still think that you can get out of this alive."
I manage a weak laugh. He is so wrapped up in killing me that he does not see what is right in front of him. "No…I don't care if I live," I tell him. It is true. Very true. If I can stop the deaths, then my goal will be accomplished… "You want to show everyone how powerful you are," I rasp. "But you cannot make a unicorn come to you…don't you see? Your power is worth nothing here…your power and your wants will damn you in the end…"
"I will show you," Tom says icily. He raises his wand, and there is a glow…
There is pain…pain and nausea…and it ends, and it is dark again… I smile through the pain in my body. There is no unicorn.
He curses me again. It almost sends me into unconsciousness, but he stops just before my vision fades.
He is at the edge. He is so frustrated with his position, with his place in life…he wants so much to live forever, to rule, to show everyone his power…
It is too bad for him that he cannot understand that his power means nothing. Living forever is severely overrated as well… And who would want to rule anything? Paperwork and guilt is all that is to be gained…
There is a shape lurking in the trees. Tom turns, raising his wand. He creates a glow at the end of it, and the creature is bathed in light.
It is not a unicorn…it is hard for me to see anything at all, but I know a unicorn and this is not one… This has two legs only. It is disfigured and disgusting…
I want to laugh. I know what it is. It is old age. A boggart has been drawn by us, looking for our fear…and it has taken the shape of age…
Voldemort's fear. Death…
He destroys the boggart with a swipe of his wand, and age is blasted to bits in a blaze of light. If only it were so simple, I am sure he is thinking…
"There will be no unicorns tonight," I say. Ginny has seen the unicorns…they came for me even though she and Albus were there. Because they are not evil…because they wanted nothing from the unicorns…
But Tom will never see them come to him. They will not even come to me if he is there…
Tom just turns away.
Severus takes me back to my cell in Tom's lair. He does not say a word. I think he concerned. He is wondering… And I smile. Tom is starting to change…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In fifth year, I was a lot different than I am now. Sure, at the end of fourth I saw Cedric die, but it didn't really hit me then. Just one second this guy I kind of knew was alive, the next he was dead.
There was too much going on, too much happening, too much darkness and pain and running for me to think about it too much.
Not like with Sirius.
I was angry fifth year. Angry at the world, myself, the life I had to lead. I hated having to be the 'Boy-Who-Lived,' the boy who had brought Voldemort back. It just didn't seem fair to me. Why me?
And I almost never listened to Hermione. I listened to my rather idiotic impulses.
And it got Sirius killed.
Don't worry. I don't blame myself anymore. I made a mistake, sure, but Sirius is the one that came to the Department of Mysteries. He didn't have to come.
But he did because, just as Albus told me, he was young and impetuous and all that. He did rash things and reacted on his impulses, just like I did. It was a terrible time for me.
I spent a lot of the first few weeks of summer in a depression, going over that night time and again in my mind. I couldn't figure it out.
And then I didn't really get much of chance.
A few days or so before my sixteenth birthday, the connection I share with Tom changed. One minutes I was at my desk, desperately trying to write an essay for Herbology, and the next I was on the floor.
Something pulling inside me, tightening, stretching.
It hurt, sort of, but more of a frightening than painful sort of hurt. I was scared. I thought I was hurt or sick or something. I didn't know what it was.
My relatives of course were too scared to help me. I remember clearly my Aunt in the doorway of my room, just watching me lying on the floor. I couldn't talk, I could barely breathe. I was drowning on air…
Finally, I guess, she managed to write a short note to the Order and send it out with Hedwig, because the next thing I remembered clearly was Tonks, with lime-green hair, leaning over me worriedly.
…I miss Hedwig…
Of course, they couldn't figure out what was wrong. Assumed something had changed, but they weren't sure what.
And that night Tom figured it out. He came into my head with sudden and painful ease. It scared me…
Not as much as the next two weeks scared me, though.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The tenth day of this spate of torture begins the same. A few death eaters come and 'visit.' Their attention seems unfocused, though. As if they are unsure of what they do anymore…
I want to hug them, to thank them even as they break my ribs and batter my face… Because they are changing as well…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The first time was terrible. The worst. I didn't want to die then…I don't think I do now, but something has changed. I no longer fear death the way I did.
Perhaps it was not so much that I feared death as I feared dying alone, a pathetic pile of blood and flesh and bone. I feared giving up. I feared that the little hope I had would die without me…I feared that I was too weak to continue on…
The fear was unimportant in the end…because it was the fear that made me weak…and after I lost it, lost the fear of everything else…it no longer mattered.
I screamed every time they hurt me. I tried to escape, I fought back wildly. When a week had passed, I was reduced to a shivering, whimpering wreck. I would have done anything to escape the pain. It was driving me insane.
I kept thinking of my friends. Wondering if they knew that I was gone. Wondering if they'd be looking for me, if the Order was trying to rescue me. And I screamed with every curse. With every kick and slash and broken bone.
It took some time to get used to not eating that time. For two weeks. No food. Just some questionable water that I had to drag myself to every time.
…The death eaters took sadistic pleasure in dumping my tattered body in the corner farthest from the shallow vessel full of water…
I cried a lot the first seven days. When I thought I was alone, when I was taken from my cell…all of the time. I would weep from fear and self-pity and knowing that I would not be relieved of my suffering any time soon.
I started automatically picking Severus out of the death eaters assembled at my tortures. It was the way he walked and stood, really, that betrayed him to me. I watched him. If he was here, the Order knew where I was. I could hope for rescue.
But then nine days into it…perhaps it was ten…I realized no one was coming for me. No one was going to rescue me. How could they? Escape from Tom's lair was probably impossible.
That was the turning point. I realized escape was death…and my parents, Sirius… I realized I could smile and think of them.
Thinking on the bright side, I call it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tom comes for me alone. He grabs my broken left arm and drags me from the cell. He tells me I have my last chance today. I fall on the ground when he lets me go before I respond. "What would you have me do?" I ask. There is no harm in asking.
He waves his wand and a wall moves. There is a unicorn. He has managed to capture one alive. It is chained in place, hooves anchored down and head restrained close to the ground…
Such a proud, innocent creature, so bound… Tom does not understand, and I feel a little guilt. I have not tried hard enough…
"Kill it and you can join me," he tells me.
"Kill it, and you will burn in Hell," I tell him. He watches me with his red eyes, and I watch him back.
He looks away first.
"I have realized there is nothing to be gained by killing you," he says finally. "If you prove yourself to me, I will stop this. No more torture."
"You're desperate, Tom," I say softly. He watches as I slowly shove myself closer to him. I have been waiting for this day. The day he would be alone…
The unicorn is feeding me strength. I can feel it in my body. With each silvery drop of blood it sheds, my strength grows. My muscles are tensing, ready to move. Ready to work just this one time…
"Why can't it be killed?" he asks. Of course it can be killed, I think. MacNair killed one…and then died…
But it does not die. That is what he's so fascinated by… He is losing himself…it is almost saddening to hear…the death eaters do not understand how insane their leader really is, so obsessed with living forever that he does not live at all…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In my first year, the Sorcerer's Stone seemed like some sort of miracle to me. Ron was even more entranced…perhaps because everything he wanted resided in the world of the living… But what I wanted most was dead. My family.
But still, no child can detest the idea of immortality and unending riches. Every child wants to live forever…they already think they are immortal. I look back on some of the things I did as a first and second year, and I realize just how foolish and brash and brave and careless I was with my life. I didn't understand what death meant.
No turning back.
Permanent.
And so immortality of course seemed incredible to me. I was not disappointed that I would never have it, that the stone was destroyed, but I was still shocked that Nicholas Flamel was willing to give it up. It didn't make any sense to me.
It would make no sense to Tom, even now. After I have understood why they would give it up.
I wish Tom could understand… It would make things so much easier for him, so much easier to take…
But he refuses to accept death. He refuses it perhaps because his mother had to die… I don't know. My parent's murders didn't make me need immortality. But perhaps it is because his mother was taken for no real reason…she was taken by death herself. Tom took my parents.
I know that Tom is slightly insane. His drive for immortality used to be about having the ability to rule the wizarding world forever, or for as long as he wished. But now the overall goal has faded. He just wishes for immortality. It is the most important thing to him. He is so afraid to die…he is so afraid that he will be forgotten…it makes me pity him in the end…
Ruling has become unimportant to him, in a sense…
He does not wish to rule wizards and mortal men and women. He wishes to rule over life itself, to conquer death and prove himself above human constraints…
I wish he would understand… Immortality does not free you from death…it binds you ever closer…you are no longer able to die…you have forfeited life for the sake of living…
I'm not sure if I make sense. I'm afraid I may be partially insane as well…and so I crave…well, nothing, really… I crave understanding, perhaps. I want Tom to understand, to see things as I do. He could be satisfied if he understood…
But he does not…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I push myself up a little, and then slowly, wavering, get to my feet.
He does not think I am a threat…
He is watching the unicorn, which in turn is watching us. Silvery blood is running down its neck from where its restraints have cut into its perfect white hide. It will die if left there…
"Immortality is not what you think," I say. "Immortality is not living forever," I say. "Your lowliest follower is closer to immortality than you ever will be. No one will remember you for who you really are," I say.
"You don't know what you're talking about, boy," he snarls. Red eyes on the unicorn.
He is not to the point yet. He is not to the edge. "I think perhaps I do," I say softly. I am close enough now. The unicorn is straining against the chains…because it is doing all it can to force its energy into my body… "You will never get what you want, Tom," I tell him. "Death will take you. It will take us all." I put all of the truth and honest I can force into my voice. Hopefully, he will hear it and realize it is true…
He whirls towards me, furious, wand raised. The words come tumbling out of his mouth in a sudden rush of hate and anger and…understanding. Of what I have been telling him all along.
He is too late. I grasp the wand just ahead of his hands with my right hand. The left is useless, but I do not need it. Even as the words leave his mouth, I have turned the tip of his wand back towards his chest.
I pushed him to the point perfectly. I could not save him one way, but I can save him still…
The green light slams into him. He has no way to avoid it. It hits him hard, almost instantaneously. There is a roaring sound. There is a whirl of green light. He is screaming…
The door slams open…there is a death eater. He runs towards us…it is Severus.
"What—" he starts, then suddenly collapses and screams, clutching his left arm. There is smoke rising from it…
"Arm," I say, gasping the word out while I focus on keeping Tom under his own spell… "You've got to cut it…"
Severus understands. He points his wand at his arm, and this time screams louder as he cuts his arm off, just past the Dark Mark.
There are screams everywhere now. Death eaters come in. Severus hides his severed arm, which is slowly burning up in a plume of smoke and smoldering, in the hems of his robes. The others start to fall, screaming and writhing.
They die. Smoking corpses. Somewhere out there, all of the other Death Eaters are dying. Burning to ash, leaving behind piles of robes.
I hope there were no other spies. I hope Severus will manage his potions with just one hand… It is better than no hands, I think, even as the pain erupts in my head. I cannot cut this pain off. It is in my head…
The connection. I suspected this would happen…but it is of no consequence. This is the end. He will be completely dead, all traces of him obliterated. Even as the death eaters continue to fall, one by one, Severus staggers towards me.
I am lying on the ground again. I don't remember how I got there, exactly.
To my right there is a pile of fine ash, a curled remains of a feather buried in the pile. Nothing else is left…
Severus kneels near me. His face is contorted with pain as he cradles the stump of his arm tightly against his body.
"Unicorn," I get out. "Free it, please," I ask. It will find its own way out, I know.
Severus frees it immediately. It staggers away, weak from feeding me its strength. Then, Severus takes a moment to staunch the bleeding from where his left forearm had been. The best spells he knows only slow the bleeding to a steady ooze.
He wraps the stump in rags from his cloak. He has already thrown his mask aside.
"Potter," he says harshly.
It is hard to see him through the pain… My vision is going in and out, as if my eyes are going to stop working any moment now…
"Potter, you idiot," he growls. I smile up at him.
"You'll have to get an assistant now," I manage. "One-armed potion masters aren't that efficient."
"Stupid, Potter," he says. He is not listening. Perhaps I should say something worthwhile.
"I will miss the unicorns," I say. Hmm. Not quite what I mean to say, but it is what I mean…
"Potter…" he says again. How many times does he want to get 'Potter' in before I can no longer hear him? I thought he was a Slytherin…
"Lie for me," I say suddenly. It is perfect. I am no good at last words or noble sayings…but he can lie and make some up for me, I realize.
"What?" he says flatly. He is doing something…ah…my scar is bleeding, gushing everywhere. No wonder my vision is going…
"Lie," I tell him. "Tell friends I told them things," I instruct. "Not unicorn."
I hope he understands. I don't want my friends to think I died without thinking of them. Well, okay, I am not thinking of them, but that is why Severus will lie for me.
All I can see is the unicorns…calling to me…
"Idiotic Gryffindor," his voice comes to me through a haze. I am fading… It does not hurt, I realize. It feels much better than I have felt in a long time.
Mother, I'm coming home, I think.
"Lying to your friends at the last," he snarls. "I thought you never lied," he adds scathingly. I smile. I can't see anymore.
"You lie," I tell him. "I don't. You lie for me," I tell him.
I think perhaps he has laughed once…I don't know. The pain is gone completely. I feel like I am floating…
I feel his hand on my hands, one at a time, moving them… That's right…he only has one hand now…
And at the last, all I see is my mother, smiling…there is love in her eyes…
I will miss the unicorns…
"You won't," I hear. It sounds miles off…
The words drift away…and I smile again...my mother is smiling back…
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A/N: It took me a bit to get old Tom killed. He just refused to die…but then whammo Harry just up and killed him! I'm sorry if it's a little over-dramatic, but the whole point is that Voldemort was pretty twisted up by his attempts to achieve immortality. It was driving him insane.
The unicorns factor in because their blood makes them fairly immortal. He does not understand that their immortality is different than what he is searching for. Theirs is something else, I guess. Well, Harry got his chance with the unicorn there to feed him strength, and Voldemort wasn't on his guard because he was so focused on the immortality thing.
There are a few more chapters left. I can't do much more, or I'll be beating a dead horse, so please if you have comments do them soon. Or else I won't have a chance to respond to them.
BTW: Is Harry dead? Is he not? That's going to be discovered soon. Just wait and see…
Hey, so also I really liked my bit about sheep in wolf's clothing. I don't know if that's ever been said before, but really it just kind of came to me. I couldn't help but feel a little proud when I wrote that line…
Thanks for reading. I'm going to go hug my teddy bear now and have some hot chocolate. That way I can work on my other story without getting too depressing. I'll put responses to reviews in the next chapter. I'm too tired to do it tonight, sorry.
–Miss Laine