Disclaimer: No I don't own J/K Rowling…umm obviously…. I also don't own any of her characters and what not…wish I did cause then I would have lots of money…and then I could shop…and shop more…. and more…
A/N: Thank you to my reviewer…I heart you…I wasn't going to update…well mainly cause I'm in school…but really what are the chances I'll fail a course I already failed once…maybe a lot…but here's an update anyways…
He was trembling trying to hold himself together as he could feel the bars of his prison cell closing in him, leaving him alone with himself. Alone with only his thoughts to keep him company, and that was place that he didn't want to go. A place he had avoided for so many years.
He acted, but was never one much for pre thinking, he went off his baser instincts, and followed where they led him. He had allowed himself to go numb for years. Emotions were not something he could waste his time bothering with. Except for anger. And hatred. Those were simple emotions, they required nothing more then letting go of all self-control.
Guilt, that was a one he could remember so well from his childhood. Every time another person died, someone that millions of people had expected him to save, their hope became his guilt. Only a child, they called him the "chosen one" but he did not have the strength to save the world. It was merely a lightening shaped scar that separated him from the others fighting in the war, nothing more.
He could remember so clearly the day that he had released all guilt, let it go, and watched it soar into the sky, dragging a piece of his soul with it. Zero regrets. Really regret was simply guilt, in another form. So many ways in which to make people feel worse about themselves, to make them feel worse about the world.
Looking back he focused in on that conversation five years previous, one of the first conversations that he'd had in the muggle world after the war. How it started he couldn't remember the way it often went with his memories. Fragments of life confused and melded together in his mind.
"Boy, you alright?" An old decrepit man slowly lowered himself onto a crooked bench where Harry was lying huddled, cold and lost. He could remember, tears had been pouring down his face, it had been a time when he had allowed himself to feel, when he could feel emotions rendering him apart from within.
Choking back his tears Harry tried to pull himself up straight and turned to look at the man that had seated himself at a comfortable distance on the other end of the bench. Silently Harry shook his head. Really there was no point in lying, his hair was matted, he hadn't showered in weeks, and there were still rust coloured bloodstains on his clothing. Tears tracked their way unchecked through the grime staining his face and his once vibrant green eyes were dull with fatigue.
The man stared at Harry through his filmy eyes for a long minute and shook his head like you before. On the streets alone, it's not safe you hear?" Harry only nodded, already deciding he didn't care what this stranger had to say, what difference would it make? Some man telling him that he wasn't safe didn't magically change his situation. He was still on the streets, there was still no one who cared, and he still had nowhere to go.
Cackling the man pushed a breath of foul smelling air into Harry's face. He grimaced and pushed aside the urge to gag and gasp for a breath of sharp fresh air. "Guilt. That's what got me here, my boy. I was no good making a hard living on the streets since everything I did made me feel like shit. No to make it on the streets you have to be cold. You don't look like that type to me." He fell silent and gazed back into a life that Harry would never see, and truthfully didn't care to.
"No, eventually I realized that guilt was a useless emotion, but by then it was to late for me. It takes, and it takes, and in the end it will give you nothing back but suffering. Eventually I realized that guilt isn't even an emotion, it is a weakness. Plain and straight. It is merely a fear of what you believe others will think of you for what you did-or didn't do. It's not that you actually give a damn, otherwise you wouldn't have done it -or would have done, I suppose- in the first place." He paused seeming to forget that he was speaking to another person, lost in his own thoughts. His opinions formed from lonely bitter years on the streets. Muttering to himself the man pushed himself to his feet and stumbled away, his parting words carrying back to Harry, "just a useless waste of time. A weakness."
Harry stayed on the bench for a long time contemplating the bitter old mans words. Not much of one to go off of the ravings of strangers Harry felt that the man had a point. And Harry did not want to be weak. There was no way he would ever allow himself to become the old man in the park, rambling to crying boys on benches about guilt.
So with a sigh of relief he let his guilt go along with the weight of thousands of lives. And he let it die.
Harry came back into himself five years later, sitting alone in a prison cell, and still he felt no regret. With guilt he would have died in days. The streets would have killed him more thoroughly, and more painfully, than the war ever could have.
He thought about that day and he laughed out loud. The bitter laugh of a man faced with no hope and no future. He thought about why he had been on that bench and allowed his memories to carry him further back, before that day. To the time of a different war, in which he fought on a very different side. When he was a completely different person. He had to have been.
It was the last day of the war. It was finally over. Harry walked off the battlefield, Bloody and limping, but otherwise physically unharmed. So many dead. But the war was over. They had done it, Voldemort was defeated, and his army was vanquished. If he weren't more exhausted then he ever would have believed it was possible to be, and still be living, he would have shouted in exaltation.
Limping towards the castle he heard the cheers, even those who had lost everything could find hope in this moment of triumph. Wincing in pain he held his head high as he made his way toward the castle. Held it high in pride. He had ended the war.
Unsure of where to find Ron he headed to the infirmary where he knew Hermione would be tending to the wounded. Ron would know to look for both of then there. Harry began to walk faster. He could already see the pride shining in Hermione's eyes and Ron eagerly telling him he knew that he would do it all along.
He strode through the heavy wooden doors and walked into the room, the groans of the wounded barely dampening his excitement. Glancing around he walked over to Parvarti, who had taken over as nurse when Madame Pomfrey had been killed tending the wounded on the front lines.
"Have you seen Hermione?" she barely glanced at him and he could see the premature wrinkles creasing her face and the exhaustion in her eyes. For her the war was a long way from being finished. She tilted her head towards a private cot then moved on to the next wounded with a bucket of soapy water and gauze. Sometimes the muggle methods worked better then their own.
Harry winced. Only the fatally wounded or extremely important people were given curtained cots. There simply wasn't enough room for everyone. The memory of McGonagalls lifeless form surrounded by the crisp white curtains held him back. After several moments he put aside his fear and pushed aside the curtains.
Pushed aside the curtains and felt his world tumble down. His mind spun, he was unable to breathe, until he pushed his way through the fog back to sanity.
Hermione was sprawled on the floor, her head resting on the lifeless form, her long brown hair spread over the body with a red sheen from the blood still seeping out of the wound. She shook, heaving great sobs that seemed to shake her entirely.
"No." It was all Harry could say. He couldn't form words. Couldn't form thoughts. They had all made it through the war together. The war was over. He wasn't supposed to die. He was supposed to congratulate Harry, and smile his foolish grin. The grin that Harry would never see again. The laugh he would never hear. The hands that would never again clap him on the back, never again beat him at chess.
"Oh. Oh Ron," he sobbed.
Hermione turned then, lifted her head as if it was the hardest thing she had ever done, and Harry looked into her eyes. They were completely dry, and dead inside. Completely empty and emotionless. He moved to comfort her but suddenly she seemed to realize he was there and a feral glint appeared in her eyes. So much hatred and blame, all of it directed at Harry. And with an earth shattering shock he finally understood.
Stretching out his arm he watched, completely unsurprised, as she shrunk away from his touch, and he allowed his hand to fall, trembling, to his side. It was so worthless, so insignificant but he tried anyways. "I'm sorry." He choked out the words and felt a great weight fall in the pit of his stomach. Her eyes remained hard and unforgiving. Silent she dismissed Harry and turned back to Ron, taking the limp pale hand in her hard callused ones.
As he turned to leave he heard her voice raw filled with pain and emotion. "I loved him. You let him die and I loved him." She fell silent as Harry tore through the curtains and ran down, and out of the infirmary.
Unable to control his sobs he slid against the door that had just slammed closed behind him and he fell to the floor. "I'm so sorry," he whimpered into the empty corridor. Knowing that it would never be enough.
Because he finally understood. Everyone had not just expected him to end the war; they had expected him to save everyone. To keep every single person from dying. Every life lost had not been blamed on the enemy, it had been blamed on Harry.
Every death was his fault, they didn't want him to be "the boy who lived". They wanted him to save every person. End the war without a single person being harmed. He was the one who was supposed to die.
They did not look at him with admiration. They looked at him with hate.
They hated him for living. Every single one of them.
Exhausted Harry lay down on the cold bench in his prison cell. After his realization he has left the wizarding world immediately, no one wanted him there. The war was over, and he was no longer needed. He disappeared, and truthfully he doubted anyone had ever tried to find him.
Feeling true agony for the first time since that fateful day on the bench he closed his eyes and tried to stem the flow of memories.
He had never mourned Ron. His best friend.
He had never been given the chance.
His sleep seemed to last mere moments before he was woken by a sharp pain in the side. Groggily opening his eyes the shape standing over him began to take on a very familiar form. Looking suspiciously healthy for his beating earlier in the day he smirked. "Boss wants to see you," said Spider standing in the middle of Harry's cell with a wand in his hand.