Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.
Chapter 9 Face the Darkness
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter sat at his favorite chair in front of the fireplace at the Marauder's Castle three days after the meeting with Ginny. He reviewed the meeting over and over in his head, trying to make some sense of what happened. Where had his anger gone? Was Ginny really that close to his heart that he could forget?
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ No. Never Forget. Harry thought, knowing that, for better or worse, that dark chapter of his life had contributed the most to creating the young man he was today. All the trouble, the weight of the world, and he hadn't broken. He would not break. Azkaban had proven that.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry got up, briefly wondering where Dobby was. Normally the energetic house-elf was around every few hours, but he had hardly been seen today. No matter.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry decided to explore more of the castle. There was still so much he hadn't seen, so many memories from his parents that he hadn't found.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He wandered towards the eastern half of the castle, the side he farthest from his normal haunts. He briefly wondered if there was some version of the Marauder's map here as well, to locate people inside the castle, and tell Harry where everything was.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He smiled, remembering all that he had found over the past few days. So many pictures of his parents, the Marauders, and even some of Harry. There was a strange room that was completely blank, until Harry figured out that it had the same password as the Marauder's map. It turned out to be a wonderful room, full of pranking items, ideas, and books even.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The twins would have killed to find that room.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Thoughts like that had drifted in and out of Harry's head more and more, especially after his meeting with Ginny. The pangs of betrayal were dull throbs now, replace by an aching loneliness that Harry had only known at the Dursleys, before and sometimes after he had learned he was a wizard.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was so lonely in this castle with no one but Dobby to talk to. He wanted company, yet fear it at the same time. Feared the rejection, the betrayal, the pain and anguish that could happen. The trust that had come so hard after the Dursleys, with, well, anyone, was gone now. He had no reason to believe in anyone anymore.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had pondered briefly about finding a girlfriend, but promptly dismissed it. There were far too many problems. What woman could possibly handle the media attention, but love Harry for Harry, not for his fame and power?
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A name popped up in Harry's head, but he shoved it down, telling it to bugger off.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Another problem was that the women in his life were few and far that he was close too, and the two of the three largest young women in his life were married, and the third… she already had a shot.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Maybe she deserves a second chance. She was young. A voice chirped.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ I thought all my voices were gone… Harry chuckled at his inside joke, strolling through the deserted hallway.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Anyhow, how can I hope to sustain a relationship when I can't even deal with my own feelings? Harry asked himself. There was no answer.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had detached himself from his feelings, and he had merely run away from them. He had never been good with his feelings. Facing them would be a challenge, far more than his duel with Voldemort, but at least he wouldn't be unconscious for days after it.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry brought his thoughts back to earth as he scanned the hallway. It seemed plain enough, with only one door at the end of it. This was one long hallway though, if he had been walking along it for so long.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry kept walking, but soon he noticed something odd. The door stayed at exactly the same place, and for some reason, Harry couldn't move any closer, no matter how much he walked. Wait a tick…
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry opened his magical Sight, the ability to see into the Aura's of magic itself. He spotted a large series of complicated charms that would have kept him confounded and unable to move, but it would seem like he was moving. Definitely a Marauder brand prank.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry felt a smile tug at his features, and muttered, "Finite Incantem." It was a shame to dispel such good magic, but he didn't want to be stuck in the same place all day.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly the hallway became far smaller, and the door was only ten feet away. "There we go." Harry said, a faint smile on his face and a touch of humor in his voice.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He took a few powerful strides towards the door, and opened it to reveal a small room that seemed mildly interesting, with a few bookshelves and pictures, and a walk-in closet. He looked into the drawers first, and his heart nearly stopped at the name on the book.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Lily Potter.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at the book, not moving for an untold amount of time. He just looked at the book like a devoted Catholic would look at the tomb of St. Peter himself. He had found the Holy Grail of his life. A memoir of his parents. His mother. The woman who died so he could live.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Finally, he moved to pick up the book carefully, but stopped short. He was in the Marauder's home base. He needed to be sure there was nothing that would hex him. He scanned it, and saw he was correct. Several hexes and locking charms were in place, and would have triggered. Disabling them would also trigger them. This would be a much more complicated procedure.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry focused his aura to match Lily's, which was simpler than changing it to someone who was not related to him. It was a trick to pass through wards that only allowed certain people through.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He touched the diary, still holding his aura similar enough to Lily's to open it. To his relief, the charms and hexes shut down once it was open. He hated having to keep his aura changed for long periods of time.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He read the first passage with interest.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dear Diary,
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hi! My name is Lily Marie Evans! I just turned eleven and mum gave me this diary! I got this really weird letter from an owl! Can you believe it! An OWL!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It says that I'm a witch and that I'm invited to go to a school called Hogwarts! Mum and Dad didn't believe it, and I was skeptic, but this one lady came over. She called herself Professor McGonogall and she said that she was a witch too! She conjured up some tea and turned herself into a cat!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ I can't wait to go to my new school!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Petunia, that's my older sister, was mean though. She started calling me a freak. It hurt because we were close when we were younger, but mum said she was just jealous.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Well, that's all for now!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry smiled at the energetic and lively writing of his mother. It was like he expected his eleven-year old mother to write. It also gave him some insights about Aunt Petunia. She was obviously mean and spiteful to his mother, but jealous? He never considered the option. Though it does it explain she remembers all that magical stuff. Because she wanted to be a part of the wizarding world.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Smiling, he sat down to immerse himself in memories of the past.ྭ
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny had successfully evaded suspicions from every member of her family, save one. Hermione had tried to corner her a few times, but each time she managed to get saved by a student, another teacher, or by a verifiable excuse. Of course, everyone's luck run's out eventually, especially when you're up against the mind of Hermione Jane Granger.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny was currently lying in her room, heart just a little less heavy with how the meeting with Harry went. It went good in her eye; she had expected to handle the full-out Harry Potter temper, backed by several years in Azkaban. This time, she didn't have the right corner, and couldn't bring Harry out of it. It wasn't her place anymore.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was cold, closed, but there were moments, just, moments, when his eyes regained some of their sparkle, their twinkle, and she felt at peace.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Ginny?" A voice asked. "Are you in there?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah!" Ginny asked, before regretting the much more cheerful tone she used. That could bring suspicions up from anyone.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The door opened to reveal the one person Ginny had been trying to avoid for the past few days. Hermione.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hey Hermione!" Ginny cried happily, trying to disguise the worry in her voice.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hello Ginny." Hermione said, hugging her. "I thought I'd stop by the Burrow today, to see my family!" Hermione added for benefit, before moving straight in for the kill.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Now, what's up with you avoiding me these past few days?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What do you mean?" Ginny asked, trying to play the ignorance card. That wouldn't work! She scolded herself, Hermione's too smart!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh, I think you do." Hermione said, fixing her with her piercing gaze that sent first years packing. "It has something to do with that lunch in the Leaky Cauldron, doesn't it?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Why would me having lunch with Ha-myself make me want to avoid you?" Damn, she thought, I'm already slipping!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "With Hamyself? Who's that?" Hermione asked. Sharp as a tack as always.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I said myself." Ginny said, getting desperate. The problem was, hardly anyone ever came into her room at the Burrow when it was packed, and with everyone else busy or out at the moment, chances were slim. Little chance of interruption, especially after lunch, Ginny thought despairingly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Did you? I'm sorry, I must have heard wrong." Hermione chuckled, and looked slightly abashed. Damn she's a good actress. "Okay, so how was lunch? Anyone interesting show up?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny could sense a trap when it came. It was a sense developed around Fred and George, honed in battle. And she could definitely see the warning signs.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A noise caught Harry from his reading, and he jerked his head up, figuring it was Dobby. But Dobby wasn't there. Harry looked back down, certain he had imagined the sound.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After a few more entries, another sound. Harry looked up, and out of the corner of his eye, the closet shook ever so slightly, but to Harry's eyes, it still moved.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, the door to the closet began shaking violently. He opened his eyes to the Sight, and found a dark aura inside of the closet.ྭ What the hell? A Dark Creature? ྭHarry thought as me moved towards it, drawing his wand. Probably a Boggart. Best be on guard.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry opened the door, wand raised, ready for anything, except of course, for what was already there.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus Lupin jumped out of the closet. "What the hell! How the bloody hell did you get here, Lupin!" Harry demanded, but Lupin didn't respond, but his face twisted into a terrifyingly familiar visage. The face of hatred and betrayal he wore the day of Harry's trial.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry backed away, dreading whatever would come from Lupin's mouth as he opened it. "You scum!" Lupin snarled, "You disgust me! You're nothing but a worthless traitor!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron and Hermione came out next; wearing the faces they had at the trial on as well. "Traitor!" Hermione cried, slapping him again, just like before.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry backed away, holding his jaw, crying, "No! Please! I didn't kill them! I didn't!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "LIAR!" They cried in unison, and Ron delivered a punch to his jaw, just as before. Harry stumbled, tears falling from his eyes at last, the walls that held him up throughout his imprisonment and subsequent freedom finally breaking, the torrent of emotions drowning any response except for pleading cries.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry felt exactly the way he did on the day of the trial, alone, betrayed, and friendless, against a world that hated him. He knew that this was the feeling Sirius had when he broke from Azkaban, but the betrayal Harry had suffered was far worse.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Albus Dumbledore strode out of the closet next, his face terrifying with it's rage and hatred, so much that Harry, stronger than Dumbledore in many instances, except when he's having an emotional breakdown.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "BETRAYER! YOU HAVE BETRAYED US HARRY!" Dumbledore thundered, and Harry could have sworn on Godric's Sword that the room shook with his voice.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I DIDN'T! I SWEAR!" Harry cried fearfully, shrinking into a corner.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ More and more faces. Tonks. Moody. Mrs. Weasley. Mr. Weasley. Bill. Charlie. The twins. All of them chorusing one thing. "BETRAYER!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ With each new face, Harry's walls crumbled even more, every wall shielding his pain let loose a torrent that left him crippled, unable to do anything other than try to protest, which was drowned out by their cries of outrage.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ New faces arrived. Sirius. He stood there, looking impassive, eyes downcast Harry crawled towards Sirius, thinking, He'll stand by me. Like always!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As Harry reached out for Sirius, he jerked back violently from Harry, screeching, "TRAITOR!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's eyes widened in shock, the tears falling ever faster, like a tide of misery drowning his visage. "Sirius! I DIDN'T DO IT! I DIDN'T DO IT!" He cried, mustering his strength for another plea.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "LIAR! TRAITOR! JUST LIKE WORMTAIL!" Sirius roared, advancing on Harry, who cowered in fear, but kept protesting, "NO! I DIDN'T!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "LIAR!" The entire room chorused in rage, advancing on him, cornering him. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Defeat-He-Who-Is-Dead, the most powerful wizard in the world, Heir of Gryffindor, was reduced to a quivering heap on the floor.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Two more faces appeared, the faces that Harry had longed to see, to touch, to hear from in so long. The Potters, Lily and James.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Mum? Dad?" Harry asked fearfully, but still hopeful for salvation.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Their faces twisted into similar expressions of hatred, and Harry shrank even further back from them. "You disgust us! You are a disgrace to the Potter name!" James snarled hatefully.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I cannot believe I died for this scum. I should have let you die, or killed you myself when you were born!" Lily screeched, and Harry now understood the true similarities between his mother and Aunt Petunia in their rages.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Please… I'm… sorry… I didn't… I didn't…" Harry cried pitifully, but none of the apparitions took notice.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "YOU BETRAYED US HARRY!" The room chorused again, and Harry shrunk even further down into his own depression.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The final face emerged from the closet, the face Harry had known would come, would taunt him, the face that would utterly destroy him. "You… liar! I can't believe I ever loved you!" Ginny Weasley cried hatefully.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Gin… I didn't… I would never…" Harry cried, the tears almost blinding him to the hateful faces in front of him, but he could still feel their hateful glares on him, singing his soul, burning it alive, drowning it in sorrow and despair.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "LIAR!" Ginny screeched.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Please…no…I… love…you…" Harry cried pitifully, before falling to the floor, sobbing pitifully, before finally passing out with the stress and exhaustion of the last few minutes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What do you mean, Mione?" Ginny said, still trying to act as casual as possible.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "All right Gin. Game's over." Hermione said, dropping the act and going straight for the kill. "I know you and Harry met in the Leaky Cauldron."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked at the older girl in silence for a few moments, before finally asking hoarsely, "How?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Simple. Number one, you haven't been moping around as much. Number two, I know you quite well Ginny. You would send Harry a letter, and, knowing Harry, he'd answer you and meet you." Hermione said, a look of triumph in her eyes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Alright. I met with him." Ginny admitted softly, as if the words spoken any louder would make it go away. "But you can't tell anyone!" She whispered fiercely.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "But…Fine." Hermione said, knowing that Ginny would tell her nothing if she wanted to tell someone. Besides, she could see the wisdom in Ginny's words.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny nodded at her, and proceeded to silence and lock the room, before coming back to her bed and sitting up on it. "What do you want to know?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione smiled at her. "So, how did it go?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Alright. He seems… better." Ginny said at last.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You mean he's not raging and storming and throwing people around?" Hermione teased gently.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah." Ginny said, allowing herself a small chuckle before regretting it. After all, it's not fair to laugh when you're the one causing the damage.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Sorry." Hermione said softly, knowing just how difficult things were for Ginny.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny shook her head. "No, it's alright. I have to learn to live with this guilt."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Why?" Hermione asked, not wanting her to get rid of the guilt, so much as why she wanted to live with it.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "To share in Harry's pain. To understand how he felt all throughout the war." Ginny wore an expression that radiated conviction as she said this.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione nodded, seeing the wisdom in the younger woman's words. "So…" She began, and Ginny picked up on it.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh, right! So, I offered to meet him in the Leaky Cauldron at noon. Turns out he was already there." Ginny started, and Hermione nodded, taking in the information readily and easily.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Then he took me up to a private parlor where he had lunch waiting, and we talked. Idle chit-chat most of the time, about you and Ron, Luna and Neville, that sort of thing." Ginny said, a slight smile appearing on her face, which Hermione caught and smiled warmly back.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Then, I just told him why I didn't believe him, and he didn't really say much else about it. He didn't tell me anything, but I could tell that he wasn't as angry." Ginny said, a small light of triumph unknowingly twinkling on her chocolate brown eyes.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see. So, are you going to meet him again?" Hermione asked quietly, knowing that this question was what hinged so many hopes onto.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I don't know, Hermione. He thanked me when he left, but I don't know if he'll come back. I hope he will." Ginny said the last part softly, with a mixture of hope and regret in her tone.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry Potter sir! Wake up sir!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry opened one eye, and shut it immediately, wincing at the lights of the room. "Dobby?" Harry croaked.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes sir, it is Dobby! Is you okay master?" Dobby asked concernedly.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Urgh… fine." Harry groaned, picking himself off the bed before falling back onto it with exhaustion. "What happened?"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Dobby found master Harry Potter unconscious in the study! Dobby was very concerned for master Harry Potter!"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was beginning to get a headache from Dobby's tone of voice, but still found the clarity to say, "Call me Harry, Dobby. None of that master stuff."
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dobby looked horrified, or at least he would have looked that way if Harry had opened his eyes. "But…"
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No buts Dobby." Harry said, finally picking himself off the bed with all the strength he possessed. "How did I get here?" He asked.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Dobby brought you here maste-Harry." Dobby corrected, still in awe of calling Harry on a first name basis.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thanks Dobby." Harry said gratefully, while inwardly he cursed himself. How could I not have seen through the illusion! Is that truly that horrifying for me!
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But somehow, Harry could tell it really was his greatest fear. Being betrayed again. He would have guessed that it would have been an evil Harry that seemed similar to Voldemort, but being betrayed? It made sense, but Harry could not bring himself to comment upon it.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ I suppose that I shouldn't have kept putting off facing the situation of being betrayed again, or the aftereffects of being betrayed a first time. Harry mused. Life seems to have forced me to deal with it. But not yet. I can't do it yet.
ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry vowed to avoid the study for a long, long time.