Title: Tangled up in Darkness

Author: Tzippi Meshugah

Summery: War changes people, in ways we never would have known. Old rivalries are put behind us as we forge new alliances. War is upon us now and Hogwarts is changing. Students that were light are going dark, arch enemies are joining together and becoming friends. Unimaginable sacrifices will be made and it all comes down to the final battle to determine who will be victorious and what the consequences of that victory will be. We are tangled up in darkness and we must escape before the light flickers out for good. Narrated by Millicent Bulstrode.

a/n Just a quick note, if my Italian is off, feel free to correct me it's only my first year taking it.

Tangled up in Darkness

Chapter2

Listlessly Harry lay on his bed, the scene from the Department of Mysteries playing itself over and over in his head. Tears streamed down his cheeks hitting the damp pillow. It had been a year since the incident, and yet the pain it caused seemed to grow stronger with time. A sharp knock on the door chased away the incident from his mind. Shakily, Harry reached up and straightened his glasses and wiped away the remaining tears from his face. Lethargically he dragged his feet over to answer the knock. Ron stood in the doorway grinning widely. Had Harry been more awake, he would have noticed that his smile was painted on over a pain filled expression.

"Ready to go?" Ron asked, still wearing his painted on face.

"Sure," came the dull, mechanical reply. Ron entered the dark, stuffy bedroom, followed by several Aurors. Without a word they levitated Harry's trunk out of the room.

"Bright in here, isn't it?" Ron asked sarcastically in an attempt to break the awkward silence.

"Yeah," replied Harry, not picking up on the sarcastic edge to Ron's voice. Ron looked at his friend. He was a bit concerned; even last year he was not this withdrawn. Something was amiss and he was going to get to the bottom of it. Not to mention, Harry's room was dark and stuffy, as if it housed a dead body. One look at Harry confirmed his description. For all intensive purposes, Harry was a dead body. Disheveled, baggy clothes hung loosely over a pale bony frame. His expressionless face was white with huge black circles under bloodshot red eyes. The black taped up glasses were slightly askew and bent, while his messy black hair was messier than usual, as if no amount of combing could ever make it neat again.

"Let's go. The others are probably waiting," Ron coaxed, managing to get Harry to leave the dark room. The hallway light was blinding after coming out of the tomb Harry called his room. In the light Harry looked even worse than in the dark. Ron half expected to see the angel of death around the corner, waiting to take the last remaining spark of life out of Harry, not that he believed in angels or anything.

As they entered the Dursley's living room, they were met with a comical site. Vernon and Petunia were backed into a corner being lectured by Moody, who wore a frightening look of what could be considered enjoyment, had it not been so gruesome. Dudley, however, was not in the corner with them; he was bouncing around the room and off the walls on his bottom, which seemed to be transfigured into a giant ball. Mr. Weasley was scolding Fred and George while attempting to keep a straight face and Tonks was trying to hit Dudley with a spell to stop him, but he kept bouncing away.

"It will wear off in an hour; this is only the mild strength one!" protested George.

Taking advantage of his father lecturing George, Fred leaned over to Harry and Ron. "It's our latest product. If Tonks ever manages to hit him with the freezing spell, he'll start bouncing faster." Ron chuckled lightly, but Harry remained silent. Fred looked concernedly at him.

"Don't worry, we'll get you to the Burrow and Mum will fix you up in a flash" George whispered as his father left to go help Tonks after getting the trick to stopping Dudley from him. Harry merely stared blankly at the wall in front of him. Even the huge splintering crash of Dudley hitting the coffee table as Arthur and Tonks managed to stop him did not faze him, nor did the piercing shriek of Petunia as she ran over to her son to console him.

"Well, we really should be going. The others are in the car waiting," Arthur said, heading for the door. George steered Harry out behind him followed by Ron, who was staring at the ground, hoping that nobody would notice the tears dripping down his face. For the first moment in his life he was not looking forward to Hogwarts. One of his best friends was dead; the other was a zombie who no longer saw him. Is there even a point in living anymore? He asked himself for the third time since the morning. The same voice always replied with the word revenge. But that was enough for Ron; he had to live to avenge the deaths of his friends. He had to make it through his final year of Hogwarts, no matter how difficult and lonely it would be, so that he could graduate and live the life that had been stolen from them. Filled with the dilution that followed that conclusion, he climbed into the ministry car next to Harry, wearing his painted-on smile.

As they traveled to the Burrow Ron tried to rouse his friend by chatting idly about light subjects. He managed to wheedle a few small, fleeting smiles from Harry, but nothing more. They had chosen the Burrow for their destination, as opposed to Grimmauld place. After seeing Harry's reaction to being in his godfather's house last year, Mrs. Weasley vowed to hex the next person to bring him there into obliviation. Upon seeing the fierce expression that she wore as she said that, nobody dared to go against her word. Mr. Weasley managed to privatize his fireplace and the one at Grimmauld place so that nobody would see who was traveling from one house to the other for meetings. Better yet, the only person who knew it was privatized was Dumbledore.

The dirt road that led up to the tumbledown hut became visible. Ron prepared himself to leap out of the car. Though Harry was his best friend, Ron didn't think he could bear another minute of sitting in a small car with a depressed robot. One look at his brothers told him that they agreed with him.

Mrs. Weasley ran out of the house to meet the cars. As she saw Harry who was being helped out of the car by Ron, she dropped the spoon she had been drying. Quickly it leapt back up into her hand.

"Harry dear, you look terrible!" she cried hurrying over to him. He did not reply to her. Quickly she shoved the towel and the spoon into Ginny's hands and steered Harry into the house.

"Does he know about Hermione?" Ginny whispered to Ron.

"Dumbledore stopped the Daily Prophet from sending him the paper because he thought it would be too stressful to him. When I saw him, I didn't have the heart to tell him. You saw him Ginny, he's a wreck and he doesn't even know yet!" Ron cried in exasperation before succumbing to the sobs that had threatened to escape him from the moment he laid eyes on his friend. Ginny rubbed his shoulder soothingly.

"Come, let's go back into the house and see what Mum is doing with Harry," Ginny cajoled.

Nodding his head, Ron followed her back into the house. As soon as he set foot in the doorway he was met with the comforting smell of freshly baked bread, a smell that had consoled him every time he was upset as a child. No matter how petty or significant the issue was, freshly baked bread was there for him.

Harry sat at the table moving food around his plate as Mrs. Weasley stood over him trying to persuade him to eat. With a sigh of frustration she picked up the fork and began to feed him. Robotically Harry opened his mouth for the food, but he did not taste anything more than ash on his tongue.

"George, please fix him up a dreamless sleep potion. I want him out for at least 24 hours, he needs his sleep," she said as she somehow managed to notice the twins entering the room, even though her back was to them.

"That woman has eyes in the back of her head, I'd bet money on it!" Fred cried as he helped George gather the ingredients for the potion.

Twenty minutes later Harry was fast asleep in Ron's room wearing a pair of Ron's old, worn, but comfortable pajamas. His breathing was labored but steady. Ron sat on his bed trying to read his Defense Against the Dark arts book, but he could not concentrate on it. Sighing he switched off the light and lay on his bed staring at the dark ceiling, wondering why his life had to be so full of pain. What had he done to deserve this? Maybe there really was such a thing as reincarnation, and he was suffering for something someone else had done in another life time. He rolled over and pushed the thought out of his mind as he drifted into a troubled sleep.

I sat staring out at the backyard; she was there again, sitting up in the clubhouse that had once been my hideout from my family when I was young. I almost felt sorry for the poor girl; she was reading an old Muggle novel, or at least she appeared to be. But the pages didn't seem to be turning, a sure sign that she was crying again.

"Maybe we should give her another chance, she seems so upset. I can't help but feel bad for her," Blaise said, breaking the silence that shrouded us.

"You're a Slytherin, suck it up," I scolded.

"She might have changed; maybe she has seen the error of her ways and has returned to the light" He said in a Mystical voice.

"You sound too much like Daphne for comfort, but that aside, she's a Gryffindor, a member of the stubborn little golden trio. She can't change, it's against their nature"

"There you go; you're doing the exact thing you accuse her of doing to you, stereotyping."

I looked out at the girl again. She was pretty, I had to admit that, but her thick, bushy hair blocked her face and seemed to rob her of her beauty. She was skinny, not overly thin like Daphne, but certainly not big-boned like I am. I shook those thoughts from my head, I refused to compliment the girl who had been the first to admit her hate for me was based on the crest I wore on my robes. But yet, I didn't feel the same resentment to her as I had when she first showed up on my doorstep.

"I suppose we can see if she's changed, where is the harm in that?" I said, yielding to Blaise's request.

Hermione wiped away her tears as she saw Blaise and me heading out of the house. She had been crying over the loss of her parents, and the bitter hate we had for her, but she had also been monitoring us from the make-up mirror that she hid in her book. Though she refused to admit it to herself, she knew in her heart that we were no different from her. As we climbed up the rope ladder to the tree house, she slammed the book shut and pulled her knees to her chest. Wordlessly I sat down next to her, Blaise followed my lead. I don't know how long we sat there in silence before she broke down and began to sob.

Blaise shot me a look as if to say "Should we comfort her?" I nodded. He began to rub her shoulder soothingly. She shrugged him off.

"I don't deserve your pity, not after what I did to you," she said slowly. "I was wrong about you. I don't understand how I could have been so cruel, even if I didn't say as much as I felt. Somehow, I thought I had to have a strong resentment for you because you were a Slytherin, and evil Slytherin. But I was wrong; you are no lower than anybody else. It's me who deserves to be the victim of so much hate for even thinking this about you. I've been watching you, and with everything I see, I hate myself even more for hating you." She began to sob again.

"We're just as guilty as you are. I hated you for being a Gryffindor as much as you hated me, even if I didn't admit it to myself I was just as wrong as you were," I found myself saying.

"In a way, we were all wrong," Blaise offered.

We both nodded. This was the beginning of a mutual respect. Although we were not yet friends, we were no longer enemies. In that one afternoon we broke down the stone wall of hate that separated Slytherins from Gryffindors. But the rubble still lay around our feet, and it would take a lot of work to pick up all the stones and become friends.

"We're going to Vicolo Mago tomorrow; it's the Venice equivalent of Diagon Ally, although the name is not very creative. Would you care to join us? Our Hogwarts letters came yesterday," I offered.

"Sure," she agreed, nervously twisting a bushy lock of her hair around her finger.

"Great!" I cried with much more enthusiasm than I felt; I was still a bit uneasy around her.

"Well, there's no point in sitting out here all day! Let's go inside and see if Natter can fix us something," Blaise said, jumping down from the tree house. I never understood how he could do that without getting hurt.

"More stereotyping?" I asked as I saw Hermione's shocked expression as she laid eyes on Natter. She was clothed in a clean white pillow case fashioned like a toga around her thin green body. She blushed. "After meeting Dobby, I just assumed that all house elves were treated poorly."

"Your S.P.E.W. idea wasn't all that bad. After hearing about it from Draco, we tried to pay her to work, but it's an insult to them really. Your heart was in the right place, though, so I don't penalize you for it," I confessed, also blushing slightly.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Blaise tried to do the same thing for his house elf, even though he didn't even know its name. He practically lives here."

"I do not! Well, yes I do, but at least my heart was in the right place," he replied, sarcastically mocking me.

"Why, you little…!" I screamed throwing myself at him, knocking him to the ground

"Dog pile!" he croaked from under me. Hermione laughed, probably for the first time in days. She had a nice laugh. After a moment of hesitation she jumped on top of the pile. "I am queen of the dog pile!" she cried triumphantly before I knocked her to the ground, regaining my spot on the top.

"Welcome to my life," Blaise managed to declare. "I spend a lot of time being tackled by her. I don't do it on purpose; things just seem to come out wrong."

"Well, we should change that, shouldn't we? On the count of three, throw her off. Ready?"

"Yeah," he said, freeing his hands, which had been pinned at his side. I pretended not to hear their plan as I braced myself to be overthrown.

"One…two…three!" Their combined strength was too much for me and, despite my struggles; I was thrown to the ground.

"We are victorious!" he cried doing some sort of freaky interpretation of a victory dance. Hermione joined him. They looked so goofy; I couldn't help but join in myself, even though I was the loser of the struggle. As we laughed, I knew some of the rubble was being cleared away. If we kept this up, we might actually be friends before the end of vacation. That was a scary thought.

I was awakened the next morning by Blaise and Hermione throwing open the blue drapes that covered the huge window in my room. "Close that, it's barely morning," I growled as I threw the blankets over my head.

"Not much of a morning person," Hermione commented.

"That would be the understatement of the century," Blaise said, chuckling.

"I'm right here, you know. I can hear you! Don't push your luck, Granger, we're not friends yet," I shot out coldly. As soon as the words left my mouth, though, I felt awful. "I'm sorry! I was upset about being woken up. Don't take anything I say before noon personally. Really. I'm sorry"

"She's right. She's said some pretty nasty things to me, and we've been friends since I was born."

Hermione nodded, but she didn't say anything. "Way to throw more stones on the ground," I muttered to myself in a barely audible tone, yet somehow Hermione managed to hear it.

"Pardon me?"

"Nothing. I was referring to something else. Well, I have to get dressed; I'll meet you downstairs in a few minutes," I said, ushering them out of my room. After carelessly throwing on a shirt and jeans and wetting my curly brown hair to tame the frizz, I bounded down the stairs. As I entered the foyer, I heard Blaise and Hermione laughing. I felt a pang of guilt as I remembered what I had just said to her. In saying that, I felt like I had somehow secluded myself from the friendship that was forming between the two of them.

"Hey," Hermione said warmly. More guilt rushed through me. Now she was acting like it never happened.

"Hey," I replied quietly, tracing a pattern in the carpet with the toe of my shoe as I spoke.

"This morning, never happened," she said lightly in response to my hesitant greeting. Smiling I looked up at her, a newfound respect for her forming. After all those years of using everything she could find as a reason to hate me, she was all of a sudden pushing everything away and pretending it never happened. I didn't think I could be nearly as carefree, I had a tendency to hold grudges; even forgiving her took a lot out of me.

"Shall we?" Blaise asked holding out his arms. We linked arms with him and headed for Vicolo Mago, chatting casually as we walked through the ancient streets.

­­­

The sun shining through the window woke Harry from his sleep. He glanced at his watch, it was half past 4 in the afternoon. He sat up, wondering how he had managed to sleep that long. The room he found himself in looked familiar, but he could not place where it was. The last thing he remembered was Ron standing in his room, and now he was in this strange place. After inspecting it a bit more, he managed to conclude that it was Ron's room, though it had been redone since he had seen it last. The only thing that remained the same was the Chudley Cannons picture on the wall, with the players smiling brightly at him. Harry eased himself out of bed, cringing slightly as his bare foot met the cold ground.

Slowly, he headed down the stairs still lacking his normal energy. Ron grinned at him as he entered the kitchen. The black circles around his eyes had grown smaller, and his eyes were no longer bloodshot; however, the smile that was spread across his gaunt face was a tad creepy. Nevertheless, Ron was overjoyed to see that all hope was not lost for the well-being of his best friend. He felt his heart drop a few feet as he remembered that Harry did not yet know about Hermione.

"Is Hermione here yet?" Harry asked as he sat down at the table next to Ron. "Normally she would have thrown herself at me by now," he commented.

Speak of the Devil, Ron thought to himself wondering why it was always the devil who was watching over him and not Lady Luck, metaphorically speaking, of course. He didn't really believe in any of that, or so he insisted on countless occasions.

"No," he replied simply, hoping that the answer would suffice and Harry would abandon the topic for the time being. However, Ron was never overly lucky, curse his guardian angel. This seemed to be no exception.

"When is she coming?"

"She's not," Ron said quickly, still trying to avoid telling Harry the truth. He wondered how long he would be able to stall before the truth was extracted from him.

"Why?"

"She can't make it."

"Really? What's she doing?"

At this point Ron realized that he could either lie or keep stalling, and tempting as lying would be, Harry would find out eventually. One look at Harry's face told him that he would never be able to pull it off. "Nothing," he said, not meeting Harry's gaze.

"Then why can't she make it? Did something happen to her?"

"Yes." Ron's answer left Harry so stunned he could not bring himself to ask the next question, but it had to be asked.

"Is she going to be alright?" he croaked. His throat felt like it was swelling shut and his head began to spin. Somehow he knew the answer to the question, even before Ron answered him.

"No, there was an attack, she's…" He could not bring himself to say the word, the realization had already hit him, and yet saying it out loud seemed like it would finalize her fate. "Dead," he whispered before breaking down into sobs again. Harry felt himself slipping into his zombie-like state from the previous day. The word seemed to linger in the air, choking him, forcing him to accept it at a reality. D-e-a-d. and it was entirely his fault. He could have killed Voldemort, had his hate been strong enough. Avada Kedavra did not work on anger alone, and love had failed him once again. D-e-a-d. The word seemed to swallow him up. He felt consciousness slipping away from him as he crumpled to the floor.

Vaguely he felt people kneeling around him. Someone was calling for help, but he could not make out who it was and who they were calling. In fact, he didn't even remember who he was. He surrendered to the darkness that was engulfing him; it was easier than facing the truth.

a/n: Please review my story. I need feedback, even if it's negative. I want to see what you honestly think. And any sudden mood changes are because of the music I was listening to; I tried the best I could to cover that up, but if you happen to notice them, that's why. And I don't mean when I'm talking about different characters, because then the mood is supposed to swing. I'm sorry it took me so long to upload this, blame my beta reader, even though I'm eternally greatful to her. Try not to be too harsh.

Thank you to my reviewer chaste-aeon. In addition to the chocolate chip cookies, I shall give you the milk, and I will answer some of your questions because you are my only reviewer. I think this chapter answered at least one of your questions, and there will be romance; however, I'm not that great at writing romance, so it won't be very emphasized. Boy! Blaise rocks! I based him on my personality. Basically he's me if I was a boy.

I also would like to thank my beta reader. I'm eternally grateful to you, comma usage is not my strong point. Although, I would be much more grateful if you gave me your opinion on this fic, in addition to fixing my grammar. /obvious hinting