Disclaimer: You know what I don't own
Recreant
Chapter 5
By Robbly
N.B. Thank's to Gilthas for again Beta'ing a chappy :). He read both the second and third copy (this is the third) and believe me the other two were... Ehem. Yeah anyway, gilthas is responsible for any good spelling/grammar in this chappy (my English skills suck) and yeah? thanks.
There, as he looked through the morning mists, Harry could see the castle. The all too familiar places, the things he had remembered and missed so much for so long. The place he had called home for the entirety of his life even now he still called it home. It was the home to which he could never return. He had in a way been exiled.
He saw somebody arising for a morning run. Actually there was a small group of them, seemingly half asleep being forced along by a cheery dictator. The corners of Harry's mouth twitched. It must be another all too enthusiastic quiddich captain. He tried to pick out each of the players. The lean smiling one at the back, his lanky thinness making him look feather light would definitely be the one with his position -seeker. He wondered which house. He guessed Gryffindor; it probably would not be any of the others.
The small smile hurt though. When he had left, his name had been stripped of everything. His role in quiddich had been removed off all the house cups; it was as if he hadn't existed. In fact if he remembered correctly there was a cup now for Ron and Malfoy; the two that had captured him, an honorary trophy.
His shoulders sagged. He missed quiddich. He missed his broom. He wondered what happened to it. He wondered the same thing about his invisibility cloak. He missed that dreadfully. But his picture album he missed the most. His memories of his parents, Sirius, they were all gone.
He felt on the verge of breaking down but held back the tears.
The memories were painful. All his escapades under that amazing cloak, all the times he had spent in the sky on his broom. All the times he had felt so upset and that album had let him fade into a land of make believe. The album that had showed him that somebody did love him.
A sob escaped. He tried desperately to turn his thoughts. He looked forward and forced himself to take in the details of what he saw instead of what his mind was thinking.
The wards stood barely millimetres in front. He could feel the aura of them almost daring him to get close. They would stun him upon recognition. A tear slid down his cheek as he remembered the day Dumbledore himself had keyed Harry into the wards. It had been some sort of ceremony, along with members from the ministry, reporters, journalists, and of course the staff and students of Hogwarts. Hagrid, Ginny, & Hermione had been the only ones with the decency to look at least a tad upset.
The thought of Ginny brought pain. Dreams of the red-headed child haunted him. He was responsible for her death. If only he had resisted a little longer. If only he hadn't moaned that word. He should have held it in. He should have kept his silence. If he had kept his silence then all those people wouldn't have died. His guilt burned inside. He felt he deserved the pain though and let it fester.
But he at least did deserve some understanding. At least from somebody. In his childish anger he wanted to blame somebody. He bet Ron could not have held up as long as he had. He had tried.
Harry looked bitterly at the ground. The tang of resentment clear across his features. He was also angry. He hated them all. Hated them for not believing him. Sure he had never been able to tell them that he was innocent, that he had not actually killed anybody, but one look at him surely could have told them there was more to it than there seemed. Voldermort had bloody broken him. They should have known that. You can't spend almost an entire year with the person who has fucking wanted to kill you your entire life and not expect to be hurt. Voldermort hated him.
A small sigh escaped his mouth though. He had matured somewhat and though he blamed them so much, he knew it wasn't really their fault. Resentment at himself for hating them for something that wasn't really their fault built up in his chest. They had thought he had joined Voldermort voluntarily. They should have known better than that. The anger rebuilt. He hadn't done all that. They shouldn't have believed he would have done all that. That stupid binding had been the start of it. He would have to explain it to Dumbledore in his letter. Harry paused. Dumbledore?
Dumbledore should have believed him.
The man had practically said he loved him and yet had taken the evidence in stride and even testified at his bloody trial. But then what could Dumbledore have done? The evidence against him was enormous. But why didn't Dumbledore even ask Harry why he had done it. It was like the old man couldn't face the fact that he had made such a huge mistake, that he had let down the whole of the magical community, that he had trusted a so called 'traitor', Harry Potter, the Recreant.
Nobody had asked his opinion Harry thought sulkily. Nobody had asked him if he had really killed all those people. When he had been forced Veratiserum at the trial? he shivered then sighed, that had been the final ending, by the end of that trial nobody could have possibly believed he was any more innocent than Voldermort himself was.
Harry berated himself. He had been broken. After the first month his spirit lay in tatters like the blood splatters wherever Voldermort fancied. They didn't understand the amount of control Voldermort had had over him; they didn't understand how Voldermort had crushed his will, humiliated him and moulded his thoughts till he had no more spirit then fucking Wormtail. There was so much more to it than they understood yet on their one-track mind they believed everything shoved in front of them. He mentally growled at the seemingly inset straight-mindedness of the magical community.
The trial was the worst bit though. Seeing all that hatred and anger, a shudder ran down his back, the memories were quite painful.
Harry was bound. Tightly bound. Tears seeped out of the corner of one of his eyes, water and blood mingled together leaving little red snail-trails down his black and blue cheeks, marred with the scars of his fate.
His wrists were thrust painfully together behind his back; he stood in the defendant's box as he looked out of the angry audience. All faces glared at him, not one look of pity or of anything except pure hatred. Harry flinched under some of the cold faces, fear building up inside.
One of them was going to hurt him again. Whenever someone looked that angry it only meant pain, pain, and more pain. Harry was covering and whispering to himself, I'm sorry, please don't hurt me, I'm sorry.
He looked away.
He looked towards the only faces in the room not glaring at him. Dumbledore and Hermione. Dumbledore had something akin to anger on his face though it was mixed with a terrible disappointment that made Harry's heart ache. It was a sign of care, even if the care was long gone, something that Harry hadn't felt since he had had to leave Hogwarts.
Harry didn't remember anything hurting quite as much. Sure he had felt physical pain, the pain of humiliation, the pain of sexual assault, repetitively, the pain of magic, of curses, but somehow, Harry's confused mind registered, this hurt a lot more. It was the lack of trust on all of their faces.
More tears seeped out of Harry's eyes.
He looked at Hermione; she would not look at him but he could tell that she agreed with the crowd. She just could not face him. This hurt too. Ron held her to his side, an arm around her shoulders as he glared at his former best friend.
A flash hit him.
Ron was holding his wand, standing in front of him with a triumphant malicious grin on his face. He was pointing his wand at Harry who was trembling, begging for mercy as he lay shattered on the floor. Bruises wracked his body, blood streaming from a dozen places. "Crucio."
Ron said victoriously, a sneer twisting itself along his lips as Harry convulsed in front of him. Harry remembered a death eater once telling him, you needed the will to cause pain to cast the Cruciatus Curse. Ron wanted to cause Harry pain alright.
Harry whimpered pathetically, cowering more in his little box. If there was more room he would have curled up in the fetal position and attempted to hide.
Harry tried to shut off his mind. Legimency was new to him and in his weakened, broken, state, he was in no way strong enough to control it. He did not want it anyway. Who wanted to know the thoughts of everyone that hated them?
Harry dared to look up at the audience and in the back of his mind heard the court case start. Someone was saying something. But Harry didn't care.
He was getting flashes from other peoples minds and was crying openly now.
"No! Please! I'm sorry!"
His shoulders were convulsing and he was panicking, tearing at his bindings. He erupted in bursts of panicked parseltounge as well as some other languages everybody watching had never heard before. Flashes of magical cameras made it worse. His world was turning upside down, inside out, people were torturing him. They all hated him. Hate, pain! More visions of the thoughts of the audience flashed through his mind. It felt like he was feeling the curses they were mentally throwing at him. He was screaming, tearing, shouting...
A flash of flame and his wrist ties were burning as they disappeared and burns appeared on his wrists where they had sat. Then suddenly a spell hit him from behind and he saw black.
Harry came too moments later.
He was tightly bound, kneeling. Wrists tied. Elbows tied, painfully pulled behind his back. Knees tied, ankles tied, and then wrists to ankles. He was also calm and sort of sleepy, peaceful and somewhat oblivious to his surroundings. The legimens flashes were gone but he could not quite see the audiences' faces anyway. He heard a few words.
"Take... Confess... Severus Snape... Brew potion... Truth... Veratiserum..."
On the last word Harry froze. Veratiserum. If they asked they would know everything. The entire humiliation he had endured. Everything he had endured. They would know everything.
"No..."
He shakily murmured.
"P-p-p-please no!"
He was trembling now. No not that. Anything but that. He could not stand them knowing. His lethargic mood gone, fear replaced it. He could not stop shivering.
He looked up and saw his former potions master coming towards him. A vial of the dreaded liquid in his hand. Aurors had followed him, Harry guessed they were going to hold him down.
Another flash hit him.
Snape was confused. Why was Harry shivering? Harry shouldn't be scared of Veratiserum! Harry hadn't taken veratiserum before. Why would he be scared?
Snape stopped dead in his tracks. Harry looking at him pleading, begging, even as the hating mask over Snape's face covered his shock. Harry Potter had just read his thoughts. An advanced form of Legimency that Snape even had trouble doing. He was nudged by one of the Aurors following him and a familiar sneer covered his face, his familiar mask concealing all else.
He was oblivious to Harry's silent begging, even as more tears slipped down the shuddering child's face.
The Aurors held Harry down even as he tried to pull away and Snape forced the potion down Harry's throat. Then he walked away, followed by the Aurors his mind misty with confusion.
The questioning started.
Harry's mind fought the potion and it hurt. It hurt so badly. It was twisting his mind, it was tearing at his mental barriers that he had weaved, the ones covering his greatest humiliations, his greatest pain. Harry sobbed inward turmoil showing on his features as he strained, muscles tensing and strained...
"Harry James Potter, is this your name?"
Harry struggled, he would not answer. He would not.
"Y----es"
It hurt trying to resist but he could not let them know.
"Did you Harry James Potter join Voldermort?"
Harry was fighting, fighting, there was a sweet oblivion waiting around the corner. A blissful uncontrolled peace. He could give in to this peace. He did not want to... he did not want to... he couldn't stand them knowing. But the pain, the pain, he was struggling, struggling but he was weak. He could not hold it and suddenly his head was in the clouds and he was oblivious to the world. He answered the question without hesitation.
"Yes"
"Did you Harry James Potter, take the Dark Mark?"
"Yes."
There was silence and Harry heard vague footsteps coming towards him. He felt his sleeve being pulled up and there were amazed gasps as his arm was revealed, only marred by scars, welts and dried blood.
Harry could feel the amazement but his mind was directed to the next question asked of him.
"Where is your Dark Mark?"
"It is on my back."
Harry was picked up and turned and his shirt was lifted, baring his back to the audience. Even in his little world of oblivion he heard their gasps of shock...
Authors note: yada ? yada ? yada ? yada ?
cringes I know it's really vague and confusing and i'm sorry, but... yeah... i promise it will make more sense soon
Will this be a slash?
Probably not, I have too much that I want to do with the story and none of them include slash so far. If slash happens it will, I don't plan for it.
Harry the Basilisk, 2 animagus forms?
Just like Harry received Voldermort's Parseltounge abilities he received a basilisk animagus form as well. Simple. He has 2 forms because he already had his own animagus form and the one he received from Voldermort was a second one. As for what his first one was? I'm not gonna tell you yet so there :P!
Snape fleeing for his life?
I loved that bit :). Anyway Snape's running cause he's realised that he's partly responsible for Harry's predicament. He realising how much Harry has suffered & he's feeling guilty for being the cause of some pain to lily's child. He's not angry at Harry anymore cause he realised that he's suffered & took that as his revenge, so now he's feeling guilty. Bad description but hey.
TO ALL MY REVIEWERS; I LOVE YOU ALL!!!, big 'virtual' corny hugs.
Gilthas, ? dammit, you can't be different genders! Which gender should I put! You're screwing with my head! :S :P :). ? maybe I'll just change it to a (s)he. Or a She and her He muse? Anyway your not dwarfish? Slightly lost but I'm understanding more. As for liking his animagus form; I love it. I dunno the idea of Harry being a snake appealed to me, & if he can talk to them I thought he might as well be one too. As for his other Animagus form, it's not really bad, well maybe to some people & yeah for what it stands for but I actually love them myself, maybe you can guess. Harry just doesn't like it because of what it stands for, just like he didn't like taking on the basilisk form because it represented Voldermort. Yeah Unhappy Harry, I seem to have a thing for torturing him. Nice to know you think my story is ?spiffy?. I know it is better eh, that's all due to your efforts, be proud. I like it better cause it was longer than the original. You helped me fix the bits I hated. Anyway school sucks and here's the update.
Harry-Potter-Rule, Cool, can't wait to read it :)
Lady FoxFire, I love it too :) Heheh!
Gryphnwing, Thank you :), yeah, Harry's better with some attitude
Alive, hehe, just wait for the rest of the ?other things?
HoshiHikari4ever, hmm I don't plan to kill everybody, anybody who dies will have to be relevant, dunno, no plans as far as that, actually I think I'll kill of a few peops but not many. Only enough to suit the circumstances & to depress Harry? Poor Harry I am a bit evil to him? Ah well. As for slash, I doubt it. However would you like me to kill somebody?
Rayvern, hehe, I was snickering the entire time I wrote that last paragraph, as for your other quesses, read and find out ;)
BloodRedSword, here's de update
& Imaginable, Snow leopards? They're so cute but I already got Harry's form planned. Snape's running cause he's scared, he's just realised that he's actually partly to blame for Harry being innocent and having to live through Azkaban. He's just kinda realising that so much of what's happened to Harry is at least partly his fault and he really doesn't want to face it. He's acting on impulse. Anyway, here's the update
Anyway thanks everybody, readers too, any extra comments/questions email me at robblywoohotmail.com or the email address displayed on my profile.