A/N: So maybe this won't be a oneshot. Thanks for the reviews! I had gallbladder surgery this week and am recuperating nicely from it. I've got some time this week to work on it, so here I go. I'll try to update regularly, but it most certainly won't be every day. As usual, I own nothing of this and am making no money…you'd know if I was. All that belongs to, well, JK Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Brothers…someone or another. I'm beginning to rather like this story, which is good. It means I'm likely to update it.
Betrayed, Used and Royally Pissed.
By LeTimbo
Chapter 2
You know, it's not the dementors that bother me the most here. It's not even the food. It's the lack of any intellectual conversation outside my own head.
Hermione.
She was always good for a smart conversation, when she wasn't nagging me about studying or whatever else was going on. I never appreciated it when in school, but as the war went on I began to appreciate it more. The discussion of the ethics of our side, and the means we were using. We rarely agreed, but it made it all the more interesting. We both could have gone to Université de la Claudia de la Sorcellerie, the top university located in Paris, but with the war we thought there were more important things to be doing than study for 5 more years when we could have easily been killed before we had a chance to graduate. After Hogwarts we worked full time for the order, from strategy to raids, and the constant, nonstop training, but we were able to at least once a day sit down and have some sort of academic argument about something going on in the war, from strategy to politics.
Merlin how I miss those arguments. They made the darkness of the war seem bearable. Who would have ever thought I, Harry James Potter, would be saying he misses nerdy chats? I guess it shows just how much the war changed all of us out of Hogwarts.
We all knew what we were up against, and what our futures held for us, when we graduated. The graduation itself was a subdued affair, with the first major attack on Diagon Alley the day prior. We knew that those career goals we decided on in fifth year were pointless. There were no career options until the war was over, for either side. It was kill or be killed. There were no neutrals, and any so called neutral was killed by one side or the other. I know we didn't trust so called neutrals. How could anyone be neutral in the face of evil? If they were content to let evil take over, then they were no better than the Death Eaters. I wasn't on the squad that "dealt" with neutrals, but everyone knew what they were in charge of. After what I assume are years in this place, I realize we were just as bad as the Death Eaters when it came to this…Hermione was right. Shocker there.
Hermione.
Merlin I miss her. With her academics she may have been able to keep me out of here too. But she fell.
That hurts the worst. She stood by my side in the Final Battle, and she fell from a vampire who was on its way to try and turn me. I slaughtered that vampire with Gryffindor's sword, decapitating it before I hunted down Riddle, but it was little consolation. The White and Reds took her away, and I never saw her again. After she was gone, I was numb on the inside. I had to end the war, at all costs, just to honor her memory and honor her sacrifice.
Sure, she ended up dating Ron off and on after graduation, but that never stopped me loving her. Sometimes it was a brother-sisterly love, and sometimes something a little more intense. Who knows if she ever picked up on my seeming unrequited love? I just hope she's with her parents now, killed by Malfoy Senior in our seventh year, having a big party with my parents, Sirius, Remus, Dumbledore, and everyone else we lost in those final years.
Remus. Killed by the silver hand of Wormtail in my seventh year, while he was our DADA professor no less. Wormtail slipped in through a secret passage, and as a rat stabbed Remus with his silver paw. We caught him too late to save Remus, but before he could get to me or Dumbledore. I think he ended up being Kissed…he wasn't seen again, that's all I know. And I got to have 5 minutes alone with him after capturing him. That brought out my true dark side.
Another clang, bread time. I guess it's lucky that the Durselys kept me starving growing up. These meals remind me of my childhood. Some crusty, moldy, disgusting bread and just enough water to survive. Ah, the memories of just a stellar childhood. Not that it didn't prepare me for the cold future. The bitterness helped motivate me to train harder, and the experience helped me survive in life. And now it's making me realize they actually prepared me for current life. Granted, I'm imprisoned, but at least they prepared me for it with their imprisonment of me in my childhood. Well, was I ever a child? In my youth. I wonder what happened to the Durselys? After that summer before my sixth year, I never saw them again. If they were ever told I was imprisoned, I'm sure they were glad and thrilled to finally have their criminal relative behind bars.
Pacing in the cell helps keep at least some of my muscles together. I was proud of how I looked after all of that training. Walking, pushups, sit-ups, whatever I can do in my tiny cell.
Training. That's all we did after Hogwarts. That and plan and strategize. The trainers always separated us into pairs to train us. They didn't put me with Hermione and Ron, who they separated as well. They didn't want best friends or lovers together because of possible liabilities. I completely understood, as I would have jumped in front of a Crucio for either Hermione or Ron, well, at the time. I was surprised when they paired me with Neville, but the children of the prophecy stuck together even in the end. He's the only one that stood by me at that sham trial, but because of that they refuse to let him near me. Hell, maybe they even jailed him too. I wouldn't know.
But I'm sure Hermione would have, if she would have been alive for it. She hated the mistreatment of others, and you can't get any more mistreated than me. I don't know how Ron could have disrespected her memory so easily. They seemed to be in love, yet at the trial I know I saw him wearing a ring. The same ring I've seen every time he visits to mock the famed Harry Potter. It's most definitely a wedding ring. He never told me who the unlucky girl was, but whoever she is or was or whatever I hope she realizes she married a traitor, and nothings stopping him from betraying her like he betrayed me. If I never see that man, that boy, that slime, again before I die it would still be too soon.
Hmm. It can't be healthy for me to have all of that anger bottled up in me. One day I'm sure it'll just explode out onto someone who may very well not deserve it. At the same time, how can I not be angry at someone who betrayed me? At a society that found it necessary to imprison me for doing what they wanted me to do?
I remember one of the last times my anger exploded…excluding the Final Battle after Hermione died. It was in the end of my sixth year, and I just…snapped. Poor Colin. The combination of that horrible fifth year, Sirius's death, the constant attacks and newspaper editorials wondering why I wasn't stopping them, especially since many of them had notes to me left on the walls…sometimes they used blood, sometimes other human remains. Ron was having his usual fight with me…complaining that I was getting unfair treatment for whatever reason he felt like complaining about that term. Colin was in the DA and wanted to take a picture and I just snapped. I'm lucky I didn't get expelled for that tirade. He was patched up just fine and the next day, after feeling horrible all night, I went to apologize he was in high sprits. I never confirmed it, but some people were whispering that he thought it was pretty, ugh, hot, that I beat the tar out of him. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
Another clang. That's the sound of another cell opening and closing. Another death, inmate-comrade, or someone's term is up. That's another thing I can't seem to remember. How long I was sentenced for. I barely remember that circus of a trial. I knew the trial was a sham and the "blue ribbon jury" had it in for me. As soon as they arrested me I knew that I would be in here for a long time. But how long…
Not that it really matters. Like I could ever have a life after this anyways.