The Apostate

Apostate: 1. someone who has rejected or renounced a religious or political belief or allegiance often owing to disillusionment. 2. An epic tale told by bluenight17.

Disclaimer: I'm a guy. Rowling's a woman. How could we be the same person?

On with the tale.

1. Ooooh. What does this button do?

It was a lonely time to be Harry Potter. Residing once more in the smallest bedroom at #4 Privet Drive, he was left alone with letters and memories. Memories, specters really. The face of an old friend and trusted mentor drifted tauntingly in front of his eyes. He wished things could have been different, but realized they couldn't. Snape could never have really reformed.

Distantly he remembered Dumbledore telling him that Snape had saved his life to square things with the memory of James Potter. He also remembered Dumbledore telling him that saving a man's life created a powerful magical bond between them. He snorted softly as he thought about what a fool he'd been. Of course Snape hadn't saved him out of a sense of honor, he held honor in contempt. No, it must have been the magic of the Life Debt compelling him to save Harry's life.

Idly he glanced at the newspaper laying crumpled on the floor. How could he have ever seen this as a war between good and evil? When was a war ever that simple? No one could deny Voldemort was evil, not even the man himself. But was the ministry any better? Not one man there seemed to care for the good of the people they were supposed to protect. Even Arthur Weasley would rather tinker with muggle toys. The new minister was almost as bad as the old one, locking up people for good ratings. Well at least he'd taken care of that.

The Horcruxes were another problem. Six of the wretched things and only two accounted for! When he thought about it he realized that if you broke off a chunk of your soul, you should lose some of your magic with it. After all, magic was the tapping of your soul's power. The diary and the ring had powers all their own, powers having nothing to do with the multitude of enchantments placed on them. Did this mean that having a seven-part soul gave him a power boost to offset the loss? Perhaps it even enhanced his power some, seven being such a powerful number. If this was true, it stood to reason that destroying Horcruxes could weaken Voldemort. Maybe even to the point where Harry would be his equal. This at least, he could answer. All he'd have to do is ask Hermione the next time he saw her.

Content for the moment he lay back on his bed and tried to get some sleep. The Dursleys, thank god, were too cowed by the knowledge that he could use magic freely in a few days to try anything. He-with-the-overly-hyphenated-name was less quiet, launching a series of hit-and-fade raids across muggle and magical England. The population of the wizarding world, or 'the sheep' as Harry preferred to call them, had taken to looking over their shoulders, expecting to see dopey-looking skull masks on psychotic inbreeds. Their only hope came in their heroes, the noble Rufus Scrimgouer and the much beloved Harry Potter. The two men who would see them through.

Tom Riddle was having a good day. Actually, he was having a good week. His mortal enemy was dead and all that stood in his way were a power-hungry government flunky and a hormonal teenager. He'd lost the services of his only spy in the order to secure the old man's death, but it was worth it! Not that he'd mentioned this to said spy as he tortured him for revealing himself when it was unnecessary.

Recruitment was soaring as he started giving many of his victims a join-or-die offer. It was very good for him that wizards are such cowards; he couldn't take over the world with thirty men could he?

Poor Dumbledore, a decade spent preparing, and this is what he had to show for it? Voldemort lost nothing, and gained much as his non-name passed into legend. The light, on the other hand, were pathetically weak. Not one of them had any fire left, save a few relics who haven't been young men since three wars ago. He couldn't believe how ineptly the government had been put together. In the old days, a squadron of heavily armed aurors would have been at the scene of his resurrection before he'd finished gloating, now it took them a year to realize he was back. As a young recruit arrived to report on the last raid, he sighed very softly. He almost pitied the fools. Almost being the operational word.

Minerva McGonagall was having a bad week. Not the sort of bad week you and I might have that would make us wish the week was over. No, she was having the kind of week that made someone want to lie down on a stretch of railroad tracks and wait for sweet oblivion. Voldemort had gone from being relatively quiet to doing five or six raids a night with no apparent effort. The muggle Prime Minister was close to being sacked on account of all the mysterious deaths. Of course, he knew what was happening and now showed at the Ministry regularly to shout and sputter and demand results. Not that this had anything to do with McGonagall, but it shows how desperate everyone was.

She had honored Albus by reacting to his death the way he'd have wanted, she cried, said goodbye, and moved on, taking command of the order and screening for more spies. Sometimes she wondered how he'd run the order and the school simultaneously. Then she remembered the young man she'd met in a tent those many years ago and stopped wondering, he always was energetic. More than that, he'd kept the order together with his calm leadership and wealth of quiet connections. But now he was dead and it fell to her to finish what he started. The irony being, she didn't even know how he planned to do it. All she knew was that his plans revolved around the orb in the Department of Mysteries and young Harry Potter. She prayed his faith in the boy wasn't misplaced.

End first chapter.

There you have it folks, a quick who's who. Click the little 'review' button and tell me what you think. Love it, Hate it, whatever. I'll try to update at least once a week, but only if I hear that enough people want more.

This ends the first chapter, God save the commonwealth, world without end, Auf Widersen.