A/N: Ok another dark One shot from my sick and twisted mind. I really need some help.

Disclaimer: Ginny's not dead is she? No? Then I don't own Harry Potter.

000

The corruption

"I forgot how beautiful she is when she sleeps."

Harry started when the deep, voice came out of the shadows. Reaching for his wand he pointed it in the direction of the voice.

"Who's there?" He demanded.

"Shhh, don't wake her up, I've missed seeing her like this." The voice said, sounding wistful.

Harry stood and moved himself in front of the sleeping Hermione.

The shadow chuckled, as if amused. "Not to worry, she's the last person I would harm."

Harry didn't relax his stance causing the shadow to sigh. "Ah yes, ever the brave lion trying to protect what's his."

"Who the hell are you?"

"All in good time. But we need to talk."

"Fuck your time, who the hell are you?"

There was a light sigh and Harry watched as the shadows shifted until the form of a man formed and moved into the light. Harry almost dropped his wand when he saw who the shadow was. It was-

Him.

The same messy black hair, the same almond shaped green eyes. They were the same height. The only difference was the other Harry was quite a bit older, maybe in his fifties, which by wizarding standards wasn't that old, but enough to have an impact on appearance. There besides the lightning bolt scar on his forehead there was also a scar running from his eyebrow to his lip, and another scar around his throat, like someone had tried to slit his throat.

"Surprised?" The other Harry asked, a half smirk on his lips.

Surprised didn't cover the half of it. And in the wizarding world where weird was normal this was by far the strangest thing that had happened to him.

An impostor, Harry thought.

But to do what? Confuse him enough so he dropped his wand, and then kill him?

Another deep chuckle made Harry stiffen.

"I'm not an impostor." The other Harry said. "No, no, I'm you, just from the future."

Harry scoffed. "From the future? All the time turners were destroyed in the Ministry."

Another laugh. "Do you really think that more couldn't be made?" The other Harry asked. He shook his head, still grinning. "I see that I have to prove who I am."

As he started to pace the room Harry moved with him, making sure that he was between Hermione and the other Harry.

"Your planning on asking Hermione to marry you." The other Harry stated.

Harry scoffed. "Anyone could have been listing to Ron and me talking."

"Ah but you didn't tell Ron that you were planning on buying Hermione her own ring rather than give her your mum's"

Stunned to hear this Harry lowered his wand slightly.

"You wanted to give her something unique to her, not something picked out for another woman. Your going to buy her a sapphire ring." The other man laughed when Harry's arm dropped to his side and he plunked down on the bed in shock.

"She says yes if you want to know."

The other Harry sobered, and moved so he could peer down at the woman in the bed. His whole face softened when he looked down on her, a small half smile curving his lips.

"The next few years are going to be the best of your life. You're going to have a woman who loves you, who you love, a job you love, friends, family, everything you always wanted. Yours." He looked back at Harry, who was still sitting on the bed looking at him rather blankly.

"But then everything is going to change."

Unconsciously his hand went to Hermione's leg in a protective movement. "What?"

With one last longing look at Hermione the other Harry moved to the window, to stare pensively out the window. "That feeling you have, the sudden rage you feel? The dissatisfaction you feel? It's not going to go away." He laughed bitterly.

"Not by a long shot. For a while it's going to be fine, hardly noticeable, you're going to be too happy to notice. But when it dose come back, it's going to come back with a vengeance."

Harry stared at his older self. What he had said was true. He would feel sudden, and often violent rages, where he felt like he wanted to kill someone. The dissatisfaction, he sometimes felt even though he had a job he loved and his home life was near perfect.

But it was there all the same, the feeling that he didn't have everything he deserved, everything he wanted. He had sacrificed so much to keep the wizarding world safe and what had he gotten? More reporters in his face every day and a fucking Order of Merlin. He wanted so much more than that.

"The only time your not going to feel it is when Hermione is with you. Touching her becomes an obsession, your not going to want to be away from her. The feelings your going to have is going to scare you." The older Harry told him. "Your going to fight them, but it's only going to get worse, until you finally break."

"Break?" Casting a worried look over at Hermione. He doesn't hurt her dose he?

"You decide to take what is rightfully yours. You decide that your not going stand by and let people use you."

"What do I do?"

Older Harry laughed softly, casting a lingering look at Hermione, clearly he didn't want to wake her. "You take what's yours." He cast a malevolent look in the general direction of Ron's room. "And you let no one get in your way."

Confused, Harry followed his older self's eyes to the door. "Ron? I hurt Ron?"

Strangely, perhaps even more horrifying than the thought of becoming someone darker, that Harry didn't care. Thoughts of hurting Ron didn't bother him.

"Not at first, out of respect for your friendship." He spat the word. "You leave him and the Weasley's alone."

"And Hermione?"

Another chuckle. "Do you really think you could hurt her?"

Looking over his shoulder at her sleeping form he felt a rush of love for her. "No." He finally said with no small amount of relief in his voice. "I could never hurt her."

"Of course not."

"So why are you here?"

"To tell you not to fight the darkness inside you, give into it. Everything will be far easier on you, and her." He said with a nod to Hermione.

"Shouldn't you be telling me to resist my dark urges, and stay with the good side?" Harry said with a sneer.

The other Harry laughed softly. "Why should I? The only thing I need to make my life perfect is peacefully sleeping right now." He said his eyes darting to the bed.

Harry looked at her, naked with the thin sheet covering her. With the moonlight shining on her, giving her an ethereal glow, she looked like an angel.

Then what he said clicked.

"What happens to her that you don't have Hermione?"

A sudden sadness filled the older man's face. "I fought the darkness inside of me. I fought for so long but it was stronger than I was. After I finally gave in I was overly harsh. I made many mistakes, and had to fix them." He cast another dark look in Ron's general direction.

"Trusting the Weasley's was one of the biggest." He traced the scar around his throat. "This is the reward I got for trusting Ginny, and this," He said touching his eyebrow. "I got for trusting Ron."

Harry waved that away. "What happens to Hermione?" He demanded.

"She commits suicide."

"No!" Harry shouted.

Hermione rolled over slightly, making a protesting sound at the loud sound but remained sleeping. Once the girl was an asleep she didn't wake up for anything.

"Quiet!" The other man hissed.

Harry ignored him. "She would never commit suicide."

"Normally she wouldn't, but as I said there were years where I fought the darkness inside me, but it leaked out. Part of me wanted to give in but I was afraid of the darkness, I was afraid I would hurt Hermione, Ron, everyone I cared about. But when it would leak out I lashed out, usually at Hermione because the darkness inside knew that she was what truly anchored me."

"I confused her, one moment I couldn't stop touching her, telling her how much I loved her. Then the next minute I would be screaming at her that she ruined my life. I never once hit her but months of running hot then cold took there toll on her."

His face twisted into a combination of a grimace and affection as he moved to stand by the bed again. "She didn't leave me, the stupid girl. Part of me begged her to just leave me, I wanted her to leave me alone so I wouldn't hurt her anymore, but she stayed. She knew there was something wrong. She forced me to go to healer after healer, trying to find out why I was acting so strangely. No one knew, I didn't know, not until much later."

"What was it?"

"There has to be balance in everything, light and dark, good and evil, the whole cliché. After you killed Voldemort, part of the evil went into you. Not enough to make you as sick as he was, but enough so you want power and are willing to do anything for it. Some of Voldemort's power went into you to keep the balance between light and dark."

"I have some of Voldemort inside me?" Harry asked with a grimace.

The other Harry smiled. "You learn to appreciate your darker side."

Harry knew it was wrong but he didn't care that he was going to be darker. It bothered him more that it didn't bother him. But right now he was more concerned about Hermione's suicide.

"How dose Hermione- I mean when dose she?"

"Twenty-eight years from now. How- she poisoned herself with a lethal dose of belladonna."

"For fifteen years she struggled with her hated of what I had become and her love for me. She tried to fight against me. She would try to attack me, one night I woke up and she had a knife to my throat. I can remember that night so clearly. She told me she should do it, slit my throat."

Harry glanced at Hermione, still fast asleep, her breathing deep. It was hard to imagine that she would be capable of holding a knife on him, threaten to kill him.

"I told her, if she wanted to she could do it. That I didn't want to live if she wanted me dead." The older Harry's face softened into a sad smile "She just dropped the knife and started sobbing. I had her watched carefully, but she's a smart girl, she got around the people I had watching her." The other man swallowed hard, tears shining in his eyes.

"She could take outside ridicule but eventually her own doubts became too much for her." He reached into his robes and pulled out a small potion tube filled with a swirling back liquid.

Handing it to Harry, who took it wordlessly.

"What's this?"

"A small part of myself, my own inner darkness. Just enough so Hermione will see the truth as you will come to know it."

"Will it change her?" Harry asked.

He didn't want to change Hermione. He wanted the same girl who ranted over the rights of house elf's. The girl who despite her fear of flying went headlong into danger to rescue his godfather. The smart, cleaver girl who he loved more than life itself.

"Only enough to ease her transition. Given to her gradually it shouldn't be noticeable. Three drops in with her morning coffee over the course of a year should be gradual enough." He reached into his robe again and pulled out a black leather book.

"I wrote this to help you. The mistakes I made, what parts of the Ministry are the most venerable, which factions will join you, who will oppose you, their weaknesses. Who to kill, who to let live, and most importantly who not to kill." He smirked. "You will want no martyrs."

"What about Ron?" Harry asked.

Strange how all this made sense to him. How none of this horrified him. Some part of him was screaming at him to burn the bloody book. But the larger part whispered it made sense. He would rule, Hermione by his side. He could keep her safe. And the book would keep casualties low.

The other's Harry's smirk dropped. "Kill him." He said simply, plainly. "Kill all the Weasley's. If you don't now, that decision will cost you."

Harry looked into his older self's face, his mind working. "If I make it look like a Death Eater attack it would give me an excuse to take Hermione away. We could say we were mourning, and while away to build a power base." Harry said thoughtfully.

Odd how plotting something like this came to him so naturally.

His older self smirked. "It's perfect, you should be able to come to power years before I did." He nodded to the book. "In there is a list of my followers. Those I trust, those who are untrustworthy, those who are useful but bare watching, and those who are useful for nothing but grunt work." Once again he reached into his robe only to pull out his wand he then reached up and slipped the time turner off. "Take these, it never hurts to have a extra wand, and if you ever make a major mistake you can come back and fix it."

"Won't you need them?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't exist anymore. I've change the timeline too much. I put a spell on the wand, the potion and the book so they are exempt from the changes and time turners are immune to changes."

"What about you? Couldn't you put the same spell on yourself?"

"I came back to save Hermione, and make things easier for you. I've done both. Besides there is only one Hermione and I doubt you would be willing to share, even with an older version of yourself. And even if you were I doubt Hermione would want to be with a man more than twice her age." The other man chuckled.

He walked to the bed and leaned down to softly kiss her cheek. When he straightened there were tears in his eyes.

"Take care of her. She is your most precious possession."

Harry nodded. "I know, I don't think I could go on without her."

"You can't. I should know." The other Harry said.

Then he was gone. Disappearing into mist as if he had never been there. Harry blinked in surprise and looked down at his hands at the second wand, the potion and the book. Moving to the desk he put the wand in a secret compartment so it would be safe from prying eyes.

Knowing that he would never be able to go back to sleep, and not wanting to disturb Hermione he padded into the kitchen and started to read.

Before he knew it, it was time that Hermione usually got up. Looking at the potion that sat on the table he went to make coffee. Once done brewing he looked at the coffee and then back at the potion.

Should he put it in her coffee?

It will make it easier on both of you in the long term.

His momentary doubt quelled he carefully measured out three drops and put it in her coffee.

Moments later Hermione stumbled out looking half dead, her hair sticking out more than usual, dark circles under her eyes. Crease marks from the pillow marred her cheek. She was wearing one of his button down white shirts that reached her knees. And to Harry she never looked beautiful.

"'Morning." She rasped out, blindly reaching out for her coffee.

Obligingly Harry handed her the tampered with coffee, watching as she took a sip. When she did and did nothing other than let out a contented sigh, Harry let out his own sigh of relief.

"Reading?" Hermione asked.

Harry looked at the book. There was so much information in there. So much power in that book.
"Yep." He said cheerfully.

Slightly more awake now Hermione smiled. "My Harry, reading, voluntarily, will wonders never cease?"

"Har de har, har."

Kissing him on the forehead before she plopped down onto her usual chair she rested her legs over Harry's as she usually did in the morning.

Taking another sip of her coffee she sighed. "I love coffee."

Harry chuckled, running his hand over Hermione's legs. "I know."

Hermione's head fell back, not asleep but letting the coffee fill her system, waking her up.

Knowing that she wouldn't wake from this coffee induced stupor Harry picked up the journal again. Opening it he smiled at the picture tacked to the inside of the cover.

It was a wedding photo of he and Hermione. They were both dressed in muggle finery. Picture Harry was kissing picture Hermione before he would scoop her up in his arms, swinging her around electing silent shrieks of laughter. Under the photo, written in his own lazy scrawl were instructions.

A life without her is not a life worth living; take care of her.

Looking at Hermione at her most inelegant he had to agree with the writing. Life without her jus wouldn't be worth living.

Turning the page of the journal he smiled as his hand tightened over the tube he had slipped into his pocket before Hermione had come out.

He would just have to make sure that the past didn't repeat itself.

000

Fin

Ok that's it then, not very dark, but I think I like it, I hope you did.

BTW: As you can probably tell I have horrid spelling and Grammar, if anyone is willing to serve as a Beta for my multi chaptered Dark!Harry story let me know in a review or send me a personal message. My biggest flaw is grammar, I was never very good and I also tend to hit the wrong key and use a word, while spelled right is misused. (Ex. Wand; want) And it's a plus if you've beta'ed before because as you can tell I've never used a Beta and really don't know how it works.

Thanks to everyone who read and double thanks if you review.

PS If you have ANY idea's for a title for a Dark!Harry story let me know, I can't think of anything. Working title is Bloody hell. : rolls eyes: