The burden of guilt
Author : PlumePlume
Disclaimer : Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and I do not profit economically from this story.
Spoiler : it takes place during Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Rating : K+
I just watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood prince and I realised how incredibly guilty Slughorn should have felt when Tom Jedusor went to the dark side.
Please bear with me if you find any mistakes. English is not my native language but I did my best.
For the potential french readers lost here, a french translation will be available on my profile very soon.
I hope you enjoy!
It was entirely and completely his fault. No one could tell him otherwise.
Of course, the boy could have learned all this from dark magic books later. But thanks to his dear professor, he didn't even had to make that effort. He has been quite simply given all the basic information requested to use that awful spell. Of course, the professor didn't mean to do so. But one does not simply say 'no' to Tom Jedusor. He was so young but yet already so terrifying…
And Horace was also nothing but a huge amount of cowardice. He knew from the very beginning, from that damnable time he laid his eyes on this how-promising boy. He saw the darkness and the thirst for power behind his charming gentle smile. But preferred to ignore it. Some might say he paid the price.
He had quite a similar reaction when he first met Harry Potter, in that Muggle house, lost in southern England. No one who knew Lily Evans, or now Potter, could decently ignore that Harry was her son. But he rather played dumb, pretending to discover cheerfully the famous Harry Potter. Pretending it wasn't his fault if the murderer of both his parents was still alive. Pretending he wasn't the most disgusting, weak and pathetic wizard in the history.
The most pathetic of it all was that, no matter how much butterbeer he drank and how hard he hated himself, he couldn't erase that memory. That moment of devouring shame when he doomed the entire world. And his dear Lily. He just couldn't allow himself to feel at peace. Not after what he had done.
And on the other hand, it would have meant depriving the good and brave (unlike him) guys of a vital information. Even if Horace knew he would never ever confess by his own will his deadly-consequences fault to anyone. So he just slightly altered his memory. Just enough so that he wouldn't end up in Azkaban (even though he was convinced he probably deserved it).
So when Harry came to him and told to him about his beloved mother, he gave up. And when Harry left Hagrid's hut, Horace fell out of his chair onto the floor and burst into tears, clutching his hand to that heart from which pain will never go away.
