--Beyond the Grave--

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise isn't mine – god bless JK!!!

Beta Reader: Sir Darlon – big thanks I couldn't do this without you!

Chapter 19 – Beyond the Grave


Reminder: everything I had hoped, and desired, everything of which I dreamed, was broken.

--Fuel for Thought--

Three days had passed since that night, the night my whole world had fallen apart and come crashing down around me. I still find myself thinking how could he? How could he say he loved me with one breath and kill me with the next? How could he hold his head up high and talk to Ron like nothing was different like nothing had happened, like he hadn't murdered me?

How could he seem so unaffected? How could he spend all that time around my parents knowing he had killed they're only daughter.

We did everything for him, we accepted him, we made him one of us, and his response, he had stepped into the very heart of us and now he was ripping it out, with no care for the consequences, no guilt for the blood on his hands, for the trust he had betrayed.

It's amazing how quickly love can turn into hatred, the person who coined the phrase "only a thin line between love and hate certainly knew what they were talking about.
Only days ago I had longed for his touch, I had made every effort to try and contact him; I had been willing to go through hell and back to be with him again.

And now? Now I wanted to step on his trademark glasses, I wanted to pull that messy mop he called hair, and poke out those emerald green eyes.

Dare I say it? Voldemort had had the right idea, Kill Harry Potter…… I even began entertaining the thought that Harry was the true evil wizard and we had all been brainwashed to become oblivious of his faults.

His little quirks and eccentricities that I had previously found adorable were now annoying, even infuriating, and the best thing about my afterlife became the fact that he wasn't in it.

In my fifth year, Tonks had become the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher. Dumbledore said that the best person was an experienced auror. And during her time with the order she had certainly had her fair share of experience.

I think his decision was also helped by the fact that she had joined the order in those first years of doubt, back when the ministry denied Voldemort had returned.
The problem nowadays was that no one could be trusted, new friends could not be made, because everyone was in a constant state of alert, and suspicious of anything different, anyone they did not know.

In that first year several families had even removed their children from Hogwarts, because it was no longer perceived as one of the safest places in the wizarding world, instead it was seen as a prime target for Voldemort's followers.

Take out Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore in one great swoop and you removed the two main forces for the side of good in this war.

One of the first to voice this opinion was Ernie Macmillan, or more to the point his parents, when they expressed to the Daily Prophet that they didn't want their son attending a school that had been a primary target for Voldemort ever since Harry had attended.

The Daily Prophet whilst now doing all they could to raise Harry to hero status (the fickleness of the press) loved this idea and immediately started posting propaganda, which of course caused even more families to remove their children and on it went, with Hogwarts losing more and more pupils.

Tonks had been an ideal choice, young friendly, and it seemed a natural adaptation to teaching, her approachable manner making her a quick favorite with everyone, of course the pink hair might have had something to do with it as well, combined with the fact that she showed very little regard for self discipline, her lessons disorganized and all the more interesting for it.

She had taught us never to trust our enemies, to hold them close where we could forever keep an eye on them, of course that was a lot easier said than done if you weren't a metamorphmagi and a master of disguise.

Now I found myself following that lesson, and I began watching Harry following him around, certain that I would catch him out, if he was up to something I would make it my business to know about it and if he was aware of my constant presence he never showed it.

I made it my business to know everything about Harry Potter, I followed him almost everywhere, and Cedric helped because I really did not want to see him in various stages of undress.

Cedric hadn't taken the news too well, but who could argue with memory, and he accompanied me occasionally, and eventually I had even surmised that Harry could have set up his death as well, perhaps Harry had been evil all along. Something Voldemort instilled in him that night he killed his parents.

It was after all amazing how a mere baby boy could live and supposedly defeat the evilest wizard ever while several powerful wizards perished at his hand, and the way Harry had outdone him year after year, was it all a ruse? When you stopped and thought about it the pieces all fell into place.

In his first year Harry had defeated Voldemort instilling Dumbledores faith in him.

In his second year he had written to that diary and trapped Tom Riddle the junior version of Voldemort, thus earning my families trust love and gratitude.

In his third year Harry helped one of Voldemort's loyal servants escape, even Ron had grumbled at the time that Harry should never had let Peter Pettigrew live.

In his fourth year Harry helped kill Cedric and was responsible for the return of Voldemort, using his own blood to help him return to his former body.

And in his fifth year he had been instrumental in the death of Sirius Black, a sworn enemy of Voldemort.

Indeed even the murder of the Dursley's in his sixth year could have been part of a plan, for hadn't Tom Riddle himself killed his only family at the age of sixteen? He had emulated his master and that final move had made Harry a permanent fixture in the Weasley family and therefore privy to no end of order secrets.

And me? His seventh year victim? Why? A warning to Dumbledore perhaps that Hogwarts wasn't as impregnable as he thought it to be. The fact that I was the child of an order member and an accomplished wizard in my own right only helped to impress the danger they were all in.

My mind filled with these twisted thoughts, and while I knew for definite that some of them couldn't possibly be true I also didn't care, I let my imagination run riot, fuelled by hatred, hatred he had brought about with my murder.

[sorry about the delay in getting all this posted, I've been unable to sign into fanfic for the past three weeks. Other chappie is pre written, ill get my beta to pass it and post as soon as possible – Silvermoonluna]