Chapter 2: "For I Rise to Meet the End"
At the Burrow
"I hope Harry's okay," said Hermione for seemingly the hundredth time since parting with her friend at the train station.
"He's fine 'Mione," Ron replied.
"His Uncle seemed different somehow," She mused out loud.
"He's been there for less than one day, what trouble could he have possibly gotten into?"
"I guess you're right."
#4 Privet Drive
"Get your ass up you lazy piece of shit!" screeched Aunt Petunia, hammering on the door. Harry woke up with a start and immediately wished he hadn't. There was pain exploding from parts he didn't even know could hurt and everywhere in between.
"What a great way to start the day," he muttered to himself through clenched teeth. He had been having a pleasant dream, for once in his life, about what his world would be like if Voldemort never existed.
He and his parents were laughing as they watched Harry's younger siblings (a set of fraternal twins) roll around on the carpet. As they wore out they switched to just sitting in a warm living room, with a cozy fire. His little brother asleep curled up on the floor, and his sister snoozing in Sirius's arms.
Sirius. That brought him back to reality fast.
"Why? Why did it have to be him? I should have saved him. Like I should have saved so many others. All my fault..."
But before he could get down that road much further...
"Get up NOW!" screamed Aunt Petunia. A clicking noise can be heard outside the door.
"I guess I'm back in the Cupboard," he thought bitterly.
The door was slammed open and, with surprising strength, Aunt Petunia pulled him out by the hair.
"You wait until your Uncle gets home. Now fix lunch."
"Lunch? What the crap!?"
"Get going, boy."
"Yes, Aunt Petunia."
While he was making the sandwiches, he tried to remember exactly what happened. It was fuzzy, as if the memory didn't want to be seen. Suddenly, there was a great roll of thunder coming down the stairs, and Dudley waked in the kitchen a few moments later. He spotted Harry and, with all his strength, punched his cousin in the ribs.
As Harry doubled over coughing and sputtering, everything came back. Mad-Eye, Uncle Vernon, Hedwig, the Cupboard, all came back painfully fast.
"Oh no Not again," he thought. (AN: I know this isn't how the books go, but I'm taking a little liberty here.)
It used to be like this every summer before he got his acceptance letter to Hogwarts.
"Never during the year," his Uncle's voice echoed through his head,
"Can't have your teachers finding out, can we?"
The violence stopped when Harry got his acceptance letter because the Dursleys were scared of what the "freaks", as they so adamantly put it, would do to them. They had drilled into Harry's head as a young child no to tell anyone about the abuse. They merely reinforced the lesson when he went off to Hogwarts.
When he regained his breath, his aunt and cousin had already taken the sandwiched into the dining room. Harry made himself a sandwich using the end pieces of the bread (which was all there was left) and a bit of luncheon mead, thinking about what Vernon was going to do to him before he was rescued. By the time he was through with the possibilities, he, his aunt, and cousin were through with their sandwiches.
"Get up here," Petunia snapped at Harry from upstairs. Harry silently complied as he followed her towards her vanity in the Master Bedroom.
"What's that for?" Harry asked, gesturing towards the makeup his Aunt was preparing.
"To hide your bruises, can't have the neighbors talking," she explained, applying the foundation to the teen's face.
"Hold still," she commanded when he flinched as she touched a rather sore bruise along his jaw line. When she was done with the foundation, she grabbed some blush. Harry raised an inquisitive eyebrow at this and she explained,
"The foundation alone does no good, you look like the bearer of Death."
Sure enough, when he looked in the mirror, he was as white as a sheet of paper. Aunt Petunia was a master at her art, by the time she was done, Harry looked better than he had before last night.
"Here's the list your Uncle left for you to do, I suggest you get it done." She gave him a long list of grueling, tedious chores to do before walking out of the room. He looked down at the list and felt his jaw drop. He's never get all this done before Uncle Vernon got home.
"Might as well get started," He mumbled before shuffling off to the tool shed. Most of the jobs he had been giver were simple enough, there was just so many of them that it would have probably taken him a week to do in good health.
"And they expect me to get this done in half a day!" he thought to himself. He knew it wouldn't happen. It was sort of like evacuating the area around a volcano. You can't stop it from erupting, but you can minimize the damage. He was hoping for just a small eruption from Mount Vernon instead of a blow out.
Harry tried to keep his mind on his tasks, but eventually they became too redundant and his mind began to wander.
"Kill or be killed, what it comes down to is I'm a tool. Once I've killed Voldemort, I'm useless."
"No. I'm not going to set myself up like that. Prophecies be damned! Maybe Dumbledore misinterpreted it. I can't beat Voldemort, not when I can't even get revenge on Lestrange. Face it Potter, you're useless, a useless piece of shit. You'd be better off if you just ended it now."
He stood still, transfixed in his thoughts. He had thought about suicide, especially last year. He tried to shake the thought from his head, but it wouldn't leave.
"I don't know why I'm thinking like this. I mean, I've still get Ron and Hermione."
"Really? You do?" the voice in his head asked amusedly.
Great, his cynicism has come out to play.
"Yes," he argued with himself mentally.
"Must be hard, losing everyone you get close to."
"Shut up!"
"How do you know about them? Maybe they just like you for your fame. Maybe they don't like you at all, just tolerate you. You were pretty horrible last year, you know."
"I said shut up!" he growled out loud.
"How do you know they'll stick by you when they figure out that if they do, they'll die. Just for your information, they won't. They'll drop you like a hot potato, all of them, then you'll have nobody, nothing."
Harry didn't respond to that. It hit too close to home. Dammit, why did he have to have such a convincing cynical voice in his head?
"Well, what do you have to say to that?"
He made up his mind; he was ending it tonight before the Order picks him up for not writing.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. He was called in to make dinner when Uncle Vernon came home; Vernon forced him to take off the make-up. It was as if the bruises were trophies.
Dinner, which Harry spent in the Cupboard with a piece of bread, a lump of cheese and half a glass of milk, went quietly, until Uncle Vernon started asking his wife about Harry.
"Did the freak get everything done?"
Petunia was about to open her mouth to defend her nephew when Dudley cut in.
"No, he didn't even get half of it done, and he started talking to himself in the middle of weeding the garden."
"BOY!" Vernon roared.
As Harry looked on at Vernon's red-purple face when the door was wrenched open he thought.
"Great, this one's gonna hurt."
At the Burrow
Remus Lupin was sitting by the hidden grove the Weasley boys used for Quidditch practice, just out of sight. He was thinking about his, now deceased, best friend, Sirius Black. He was finally letting go of his grief, he knew Lily and James would sort him out. He had been trying to convince him for two years that their death wasn't his fault and that he was a good godfather to Harry. He also knew Sirius was happier, he had been miserable at Grimmauld Place. It pained him to watch his friend slowly go insane much more effectively that Azkaban could do so.
No, now he was worried about Harry. How Albus couldn't tell him about the prophecy was beyond him. Any time would have been appropriate, except right after Sirius's death!
He just had to see how Harry was holding up. As he was walking back to the Burrow, a noise like and explosion erupted, which was common. As he got closer, he realized it was an owl screeching. The werewolf rounded the corner into the kitchen and cracked up. Ron was lying on the floor in the kitchen being pecked to death by a snowy owl. He was trying to bat the owl, unsuccessfully, and the feathers were flying.
"Hedwig! ARGH! Get off me Dammit!" Ron yelled.
"Hedwig, calm down, girl," Remus cooed.
After a few minutes, the two calmed the fowl down enough to set her on the back of a chair.
"Let's see what he said." Remus was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet.
"Nothing."
"WHAT!?"
"Nothing, there's no letter," Ron said bemusedly.
"Oh."
"I have a bad feeling about this."
"What do you mean?" Remus raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"He wouldn't send Hedwig for no reason, and she's usually very quiet on deliveries," he said sheepishly.
"Hmmm, I guess I see your point," Lupin said seriously, "I'm going to check up on him."
"He's not going to like that."
"I know, but I've been meaning to see how he's coping with Sirius's death."
"Ah, I'll leave you to it then," Ron said before going off to find Hermione. Remus went to the fireplace to call headquarters.
"Remus!"
"Hello Tonks."
"Well, Hedwig just showed up--"
"What's so odd about that? Oooohhh I want to see what he wrote."
"--with no letter, screeching like a banshee," Lupin continued as if he hadn't been interrupted.
"What?! He wouldn't do that!" Tonks shrieked.
"That's what I said. I think we need to check on him."
"I agree, stand back, um really far back," Tonks told the werewolf sheepishly.
"Let's go," Tonks said as they Apparated to the edge of the wards surrounding Privet Drive.
Back to Harry
Harry lay in his cupboard, having finally regained consciousness. He was holding a carving knife he stole while washing dishes earlier that day above his arm to test the sharpness of the blade. He drug the cold metal across his upper arm, leaving a thin line of red bubbling up from his skin. He felt a sense of release, like all the bad things were leaving him, but as quickly as the feeling came, it left.
Harry growled in frustration. He moved the knife down to his lower arm and made a longer, deeper cut. The bliss came and went. Adopting a steely expression, he thought to himself "This is it."
He drug the knife across both his wrists several times. The pain was intense, yet methodical and calming. He traced the veins halfway up each arm before he couldn't hold the knife anymore. He slumped back on his cot, covered in blood, smiling to himself.
He was dizzy and painfully lightheaded. Breathing became harder and an intense flares of pain shot through his chest as his life force flowed out from him. As everything became darker, Harry could have sworn he heard a song coming from outside his door.
"Catch me as I fall
Say you're here and it's all over now
Speaking to the atmosphere
No one's here and I fall into myself
This truth drives me into madness
I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away
If I will it all away
Don't turn away
Don't give into the pain
Don't' try to hide
Though they're screaming your name
Don't close your eyes
God knows what lies behind them
Don't turn out the light
Never sleep never die
I'm frightened by what I see
But somehow I know that there's much more to come
Immobilized by my fear
And soon to be blinded by tears
I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away
If I will it all away
Don't turn away
Don't give in to the pain
Don't try to hide
Though they're screaming your name
Don't close your eyes
God knows what lies behind them
Don't turn out the light
Never sleep never die
Fallen angels at my feet
Whispered voices at my ear
Death before my eyes
Lying next to me I fear
She beckons me shall I give in
Upon my end shall I begin
Forsaking all I've fallen
For I rise to meet the end"
("Whisper" by Evansecence)
Back to Remus and Tonks
"Tonks, turn that thing down, you'll wake the Dursleys!" Remus hissed.
"I just put a sleeping spell on them Remus. They're all out like lights," Tonks insisted and turned her music up louder.
"Turn it down just the same. What is that trash?" he asked, gesturing towards Tonks's oversized headphones sitting comfortably around her neck.
"'Whisper' by Evanescence," she replied happily.
"Your taste in music is atrocious, Nymphadora," the werewolf drawled.
"Wotcher, Remus!" Tonks warned, fingering her wand threateningly.
"Did you find anything upstairs?"
"No, nothing. His room's empty. It's as if he vanished, but we would've known if that..." she stopped abruptly as Remus started sniffing the air. As a werewolf, Remus had a keener sense of smell that most people. Right now he smelled blood, lots of blood.
"Harry!"
The scent was radiating off a small door under the stairs. He ripped the door off and pulled Harry out. The teen was battered and pale. His lips were blue and his arms were gushing blood. Remus trembled.
"No, Harry, please!" He let the wolf in him take over as he let out a long, low howl of pain.