Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter.
Crystal shivered in the cold, wincing as subtly as she could just to avoid being noticed as the Dark Lord's seething emotions came over her Dark Mark and she rubbed it absently to try to minimise the painful aching coming from the Mark.
It didn't work. Luckily for her, the Dark Lord was preoccupied while he waited for Harry to arrive after giving out his ultimatum to notice her fidgeting. And it wasn't just her, some of her fellow Death Eaters were just as nervous as they waited in the midst of this insane and unexpected battle where Harry, who had been in hiding for months had suddenly launched a vicious attack on the captured Hogwarts, which had been under the Death Eaters control for a year now since Dumbledore's death, but Crystal was struggling really hard to not give away the fact she desperately wanted to just leave, just run away as far as she could, and hide from the Dark Lord.
To get away from this fucking war.
She didn't care anymore; she had betrayed so many people, betrayed the memory of her family, and for what? Because of her jealousy, her desire to never see another magical orphan in the hands of ignorant muggles. To make the magical world hurt the way she and Harry had hurt.
She wanted out.
It had been so simple at first; she had planned to become a Death Eater without really believing their philosophy. Her mother was muggle-born, and while she wanted many muggles to hurt, she didn't want them to be wiped out indiscriminately. She had wanted the wizarding world to hurt, but not like this.
The only problem was hiding her thoughts. Crystal had never been happy with the idea of witches and wizards probing and digging around in her mind; it had creeped her out ever since she had learnt wizards like Snape, Dumbledore, and the Dark Lord and even a few of the Death Eaters could do it with comparable skills, which was how they were able to discover so much.
When she had been marked as a Death Eater, Crystal had known her life was going to change forever, and she was reminded of that every single night after her life-changing sixteenth birthday. Like her fellow teens - Draco, Pansy, Daphne, Blaise, Astoria, Lily, Millicent, Sally-Anne, Theodore, and so many others, Crystal was forced to kill a muggle, as part of her sacrifice and to show that she was willing to do whatever it took to become a Death Eater, and when she had done it, she had felt a phenomenal rush of power, even as she wilfully submitted to the very man who murdered her own parents.
Granted, at the time, Crystal had been wallowing in the misery and the grief she had been feeling ever since discovering Harry had seen her parents during his battle with the Dark Lord in the graveyard, and her own personal ambitions to stop other children from being abused on the same level they had in the past, while her friends had rallied around her; she had known the gang since the first day she had been in the Snake Pit, and over the years she had listened to what they said about muggles, muggle-borns, and Harry Potter; somewhere along the line, she had begun repeating their dogma to both fit in and because she genuinely believed wizards were better than muggles, although she was neutral about muggle-borns, although her plan to take an act of terrifying revenge hadn't gone away, and whatever bonds she had with Harry had begun to widen and almost snap following their Fourth Year.
When they'd both come to Hogwarts, Crystal and Harry had been sorted into differing Houses, but despite wanting to fit in, they had known the stereotypes that went into the Houses were not entirely true. And they'd gotten proof of that over the years.
Harry…
She had always been close to him, but after feeling nothing but jealousy in the way he'd seen her parents, she had ignored his pleas to her, to get her to listen to him, and she had refused to speak to him as she had given into her anger and resentment towards Harry for letting him die. And one of the times she had actually spoken to Harry in their fifth year before she had joined the Inquisitorial Squad….
She was upset and angry and she hadn't meant to say to him that she wished he had died instead of her parents; she had not meant to say it like that, it just slipped out; she had been working herself up into a frenzy so then she could tick off one more phase of her plan to become a Dark witch, and the look on his face when she had said that to him had shattered her heart once she had realised what she'd done, but by then the damage was done, and Harry walked away quickly before she could say anything else to him to try to make amends.
Another thread in their strong bond had snapped.
While she did still regret what she'd said and done, that hadn't stopped her from becoming a member of the squad, although she hadn't really been as extreme as the others had been for taking off points for their heritage. Crystal wasn't that petty, but over the summer when she had gone with Draco and Pansy, she had been initiated as Death Eater. She hadn't made the decision lightly despite it being a part of her plan.
She could have become a Dark witch separately, fought on a different side to the Dark Lord and the Order of the Phoenix, but becoming a Death Eater would and could give her the means to take her revenge on them for the things they'd done to her family; Crystal was far from ignorant about her family's history with the Dark Lord, with how they'd been betrayed and so a little voice in her head had been like,
"What the hell are you doing? This is the same man who murdered your parents, who made you an orphan and left you alone without a proper family, and you want to join him!"
And the thought had been received and understood by the Dark Lord, who had assured her that serving him was not what people thought, and like the gullible idiot she was, Crystal had believed him, but she had been promised a chance to be reunited with her parents somehow. And from that point on she had been hooked, but at the same time, Crystal had always felt second best to Harry and his fame even if they were both equally famous for what happened almost 20 years ago, and the Dark Lord had
The thing with the Dark Lord was he drilled into a person's mind, picked up the deepest secrets, and the fact was a part of her had resented Harry for being famous, when it had cost them so much pain, and she had even begun thanks to the time she had spent with Draco and the others thinking that it was all Harry's fault for what happened with mum and dad dying. A part of her had started wanting to be better than him on every single level, and while the thoughts resounded in her brain like a ringing bell, the Dark Lord had picked up on them and promised her she would be greater than Harry Potter, and so her childhood died and a new Death Eater was born.
And from there, she had become one of the most vicious fighters in the Dark Lord ranks.
She had gone out with the others on attacks on the muggle world.
She had spent the last few months at the school victimising and tormenting the muggle-borns, as was expected of her, but every single time she saw some of the less mentally stronger children, Crystal realised what she was doing was wrong.
She had told the Dark Lord where the Dursleys lived, further cementing her place in the ranks of the Death Eaters, only to be punished because while the Dursleys had been there, Harry hadn't been there, in fact, he had secretly been absent from them for the last few years, and nobody knew where he was.
But over the past year, Crystal had discovered while she had loyally joined the Death Eaters, she had discovered it was not glamorous being a Death Eater at all; for one thing, there were the punishments.
Crystal had been punished a few times over the last few months as the Dark Lord's frustration with the failings of the hunt for Harry tipped him over the edge, and she was blamed for it even though she wasn't involved in any of it as she was one of the teams responsible for watching over the school, helping the Carrows and Snape.
Another issue was what was happening in Hogwarts; for months as she had witnessed the growing madness of the Dark Lord and had been subjected to so many of his punishments while she was reminded 24/7 of Harry, and she had also realised there was a massive difference between being a kid who bullied or teased others, and some kid who had the backing of murderers to commit acts of torture. Crystal had been confronted with the uncomfortable and painful truth she had allowed herself to be twisted into something she had never pictured herself becoming in her life.
She had become a monster.
Crystal had discovered that when, after a night of torturing muggle-borns who'd been moved to the dungeons, she had spent a night haunted by their screams and pleas for mercy; one of the kids had been told who she was, and they'd asked her why she was helping the Dark Lord and why she'd betrayed her parents' memory. The kid's question had haunted Crystal, and she'd returned to the Slytherin dorms and spent a whole night haunted by her parents calling her a disgrace, and she had listened to all the people who'd died because of her.
She had looked in a mirror, and she had realised becoming a Death Eater was her worst decision. She should have followed her own path as a Dark witch, so then she wouldn't have to see what she was seeing in Hogwarts.
In the morning, when she had washed, Crystal looked at herself in the mirror and realised she didn't even recognise herself anymore. And, she had begun to realise for the first time how toxic being a Death Eater, and friends with her friends were.
Inevitably, Crystal's mind had popped with questions.
Had they ever been her friends?
Had they ever been her friends in reality?
Had they seen an opportunity to befriend her when she had been sorted into Slytherin while Harry was sorted into Gryffindor, and saw a way of wounding the light and Harry Potter in such a mortal blow that they would never recover?
Was the Dark Lord responsible for them subtly pushing her down the path to becoming nothing more than a servant? Whenever she had met with the Dark Lord, she had noted how he had the gift of being able to throw all of her doubts out of the window before she could even think of them.
Crystal had asked herself those questions so many times, reminding herself of the times she had seen the Death Eaters grovelling and kissing the hem of the Dark Lord's robes; she had been a servant for much of her childhood, and she had hated it.
And then, Crystal realised the truth after seeing the Dark Lord's madness first-hand.
He was never going to help her.
Her parents were gone for good. They would never come back.
Crystal had come to a painful conclusion.
They would have been horrified by the lengths she'd gone in their name to try to bring them back to life. She had sold her life, her soul, her childhood, and her relationship with Harry to a bunch of people who meant nothing beyond that, and she had begun spouting and parroting their philosophy without checking her mouth, calling muggle-borns 'Mudblood' and over the year she had been torturing them, helping the Carrows turn Hogwarts into a concentration camp.
She should have left the school and begun a campaign to wipe the Death Eaters out, but instead, she had been sent back to Hogwarts, to help the Death Eaters.
Her parents would have been horrified about it, and she knew in the most extreme, he would have even hated her for what she was doing.
Sometimes Crystal would dream up an image of her dead parents And see him frowning at her in disgust.
"We gave our lives to save you from these people!"
"These people-these animals are determined to slaughter people out who have magic; they accuse us of stealing magic from the pureblood lines, although how that works is anyone's guess. And you joined them! Do you think I stole magic, Crystal? Did I deserve to die?"
Crystal had struggled for months to distance herself from the whole thing, and she had decided that being a Dark witch was just not worth the pain and the misery. She had prepared herself to cast the spell that would remove the Dark Mark from her forearm and she would then be free, although what she would do then she didn't know.
There was no running away from the Dark Lord; you didn't hand in your resignation. It was a lifetime of service or death. But if she removed the Dark Mark, she could make her escape. And then Harry had returned. She hadn't seen him in so long, and she had watched as he walked through the hallways of the castle, making battle plans to end the war. A part of her wanted to go back to him, to prove to him she was back. Crystal had hoped that he would look her way, but he never did, while she wondered where he had been and what he'd been doing in the last few months, and why he was suddenly back after being the most hunted wizard in the country before the Dark Lord's message reverberated through the school.
"I know you are preparing to fight. Your efforts will be futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not wish to spill magical blood."
When she had heard that, a part of her had wanted to be sick at the lie. All the Dark Lord had been doing for the last two years was massacre people. And she had been one of the instruments that brought his twisted vision to life.
And Crystal had wanted nothing more than to puke at what she had done.
"Give me Harry Potter, and none shall be harmed," the Dark Lord had gone on, "Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight."
When Pansy had foolishly tried to do what the Dark Lord had ordered, Crystal was unsurprised by how so many Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors had their wands out, pointing at her and her fellow Slytherins. With the new realisations about what she had become, Crystal had done nothing even when some of the faces she had tortured and had been burnt into her new nightmares had levelled their wands at her and her fellow Slytherins.
Crystal….would never be 100% certain if Harry had seen her face or not, but he might have done because he gave a rallying speech even after McGonagall chided Pansy for her little statement. She had listened and tears had trickled down her face as she'd listened to Harry's speech; she had never been stupid although she had been over the last two years or so, she knew he had never believed in that stupid House propaganda, even if so many Slytherins were trying to prove what was said about them.
Harry was currently rallying the entire school, the whole wizarding world together to fight the Dark Lord once and for all, and end the war before it spread anymore. But the one thing that had horrified and surprised her was how Harry had let slip he was the one behind the deaths of so many Snatchers, Greyback, Rowle, Yaxley, Crabbe and Goyle, and Nott senior.
Crystal knew Harry was not afraid to hurt others; Dudley was proof of that when she had seen him shove the blond beachball down a flight of stairs in retaliation for him smacking her face and knocking her into a wall.
But this…
What the hell had happened?
She had tried to stay in the castle when the Slytherins left despite seeing Harry comfort some of the younger years who were crying; Crystal hadn't approved of the harsh way the kids had been treated, but despite her best efforts to mitigate the worst of the abuse, it had slipped through.
That was another blow whenever Crystal looked at her so-called friends.
Once upon a time, Crystal had been abused in much the same way, and because it was muggles behind the abuse it had made her brain spark and consider the Death Eater's propaganda being right. What if there were other children being abused for accidental bursts of magic? They had to stop it seeing as Dumbledore had refused to do anything to help her or Harry!
That was one of the reasons she had become a Death Eater, to stop muggles from abusing magicals and to put them in their place, but now she knew the Death Eaters were no different.
She had truly tried to stay, she had tried to call out to Harry, and she was positive she had seen him look around, but she had been swept up by the other Slytherins, and many of them had fled the castle grounds. Crystal didn't blame them.
She had been on the point of fleeing too; she had wanted to just leave. She'd had enough of the magical world. It had destroyed her life. It had destroyed her relationship with Harry, and she'd had enough of it.
She'd had enough of the Dark Lord's megalomania, how he was encouraging and could charm the hearts with well-chosen words before he gladly cast the counter spell, where by that point the enchantment had worn off.
But at the same time, Crystal knew if she did get through the battle and it ended in the favour of either side, she would either be hunted or she would be thrown into prison, or killed if the Aurors regained their hold and the Dark Lord lost.
Unfortunately, she had left it too late.
The Dark Mark had burned (she was really going to remove the damn thing at some point tonight).
The Dark Lord was summoning her, summoning the other Death Eaters. When she had arrived, she had found him along with the Inner Circle, which had taken more than a few hits over the last month; someone was going about killing them, and now they knew it was Harry it was sending waves and ripples.
Crystal was immersed in her own thoughts as she felt her heart pounding in her chest. Her body felt numb as all the new realisations and all her feelings towards Harry; jealousy, anger, outrage and hurt, all of them faded away.
All she wanted was to be there with him, to make amends, to redeem herself.
All she felt for him…was love, sadness, remorse and misery.
To do what was right, instead of what was easy.
Crystal looked at her fellow Death Eaters. She and the Junior Death Eaters were the only ones not in full regalia, and as she looked at her former friends, she met the eyes of Astoria and Daphne; both girls were looking cold and full of anticipation. Crystal found herself shivering as she took in their expressions.
Daphne had a reputation for being the Ice Queen, right now that aura was now on full blast; in contrast, her little sister was usually more emotive, but there was a cold, feral way Astoria was twisting her mouth, and Crystal genuinely did not like it.
Had she ever really known them?
She found herself looking away, only to catch the expression on Zabini's face. Like Daphne, Blaise was wearing a cold expression, but at the same time, she saw a look of barely hidden uncertainty. She wondered what was going on in his mind since she had never seen him look like that in all the years she had known him.
Crystal listened as the Dark Lord muttered that he had expected Harry to come, and a part of her wanted to snort in irritation. Harry was not going to throw his life away, not for the people of the magical world; why should he? Like her, he felt some contempt towards the magical world, towards people like Dumbledore, who had failed them dismally.
They had vastly different ideas of how to make the magical world and all of those people who'd hurt them pay.
The Dark Mark burned again, and Crystal glanced at the others; they felt it too, and it had hurt greatly. She'd had enough of this, but she couldn't step away to begin the lengthy process that would remove the Mark. Right now she could not believe the Dark Lord believed Harry would throw his life away.
Why should he care about a bunch of students and teachers who had allowed shit to happen to him for years? Oh, they might have rallied around him, but Crystal had seen how fickle the magical world was.
The Dark Mark burnt again.
Crystal cursed under her breath. That was worse than before. She reached her decision; it was time to stop this. She had learnt a great deal about the Dark Mark before she got it; it served as a method of communication but it also allowed the Dark Lord to communicate and summon the others. He had access to it, but it also siphoned magic away from the Death Eater. She had considered it a small sacrifice of her magic to help her worm her way into his organisation.
Using thaumaturgy, the Dark Lord had learnt of a way he could keep himself alive. As long as there was someone out there with a Dark Mark, then he would never truly die. She closed her eyes as she started finger-painting her own blood into the Dark Mark, knowing that in a minute this was really going to be agonising.
It took all of her occlumency training to not collapse to the ground as the pain removed her Mark, and she had to bite down on her tongue until she tasted the warm, coppery taste of her own blood as she cast the spell. But it worked. The Dark Mark was fading away very quickly, in a moment the fucking thing would be gone for good.
The Dark Lord stopped just as the Mark on her arm faded for the last time, and she shivered when his red eyes bore mercilessly down on her. "What is Potter planning, Crystal?"
Crystal had frozen in her tracks. The 17-year-old witch had learnt the hard way the Dark Lord liked quick, concise answers, not dithering. "I don't know, My Lord," she said, tasting the bile in her mouth as she uttered the last two words. "I haven't seen or spoken to him for years," she added, barely able to hide the sadness that was bubbling inside her.
Voldemort scowled at her and she realised he had picked up on her sadness. "Crucio!" He hissed.
Crystal screamed as she fell to the ground, writhing in agony as the curse stabbed throughout her body. Finally, it was over, and she was left panting on the ground, listening to the laughs of the other Death Eaters. She cursed them in her mind.
"Silence!" Voldemort growled, and instantly everyone shut up. But Crystal remained where she was. She had realised Voldemort had moved to where she was and was looming over her. She looked up into his snake-like face. "Was that sadness," there was a tone of disgust in his voice, "I heard in your voice, my dear Crystal?"
Crystal bit her lip, wondering what she could say.
Voldemort's eyes narrowed even more until it looked like he was squinting. "You have sympathies for the enemy, do you? For months you have proven your worth to me, however, reports have made it appear that…your heart is no longer in it, especially when you interrogated the blood traitor and the Mudblood."
Crystal had been surprised when Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had come to the school, alone. Because of their friendship with Harry, it was assumed he would have gone nowhere without them. But they were wrong. Oh, they were all so wrong.
"They wouldn't have known anything," Crystal flinched when the words came out of her mouth.
"Oh, and why is that?" That was danger in Voldemort's voice. He did not like being contradicted.
Crystal inwardly cursed herself and realised there was nothing else she could do, but actually, tell him the truth. And why not throw her own feelings out there, too?
"Harry despised them, that's why. Over the years, I heard them demand things that Harry would never talk about. They were spying on him, for Dumbledore," Crystal explained. "Yes, they had to be questioned, but whatever it was Harry was sent by that old fool to do, he would never have trusted them. Oh, sure, he might have told them if he had a sore knee or a headache, but something really big? No way. He hated them."
"Why didn't you say anything before?"
"I did," Crystal had to resist the urge to snarl; that would either earn her more punishment or the killing curse between the eyes, and she had been exposed to that curse too many times for it to be welcomed. "Nobody listened."
"She's right, I wouldn't have taken Granger or Weasley near me."
Crystal's heart went cold, even as she shifted herself so she could sit upright while the Dark Lord turned away, dismissing her completely, and she felt her heart thud in her chest when she saw Harry standing at the far end of the clearing.
Crystal got to her feet, just as the Dark Lord spoke again. "Harry Potter, we meet again," Voldemort purred maliciously. "Your twin sister here has proven to understand who is on the winning side. Tell me, did you enjoy seeing her initiation into my ranks?"
Crystal Potter's heart broke when she saw Harry's eyes flick over to her while her brain processed what the Dark Lord had said; it was a well-known fact there was some connection between him and Harry, allowing him to see things, and if he had seen her initiation….
Oh, Harry, Crystal felt her eyes fill with fresh tears.
But Harry's expression was fixed, and she realised with horror that her twin wasn't armed. What the hell? She screamed in horror when Voldemort incanted the killing curse, and she saw that light, that cursed green light that had haunted them both for so long slam into her brother, and he dropped to the ground. Crystal shook off all of her pretences, no longer caring about the Dark Lord, the Death Eaters, or nothing but her brother. She rushed to her brother, throwing herself to the ground and examined his body.
"Harry? Harry, please don't be dead," Crystal muttered over and over, touching his cold pale skin, "I've missed you so much. I'm sorry. I am sorry."
But Harry was dead.
And yet there was something…odd about his corpse.
It was hard.
Cold, ice cold. How could that be? He'd just been standing; rigour mortis couldn't have set in…
"Once again you have proven your oath to me was ill-spoken," Voldemort's silky voice was a dangerous, sibilant hiss. "Perhaps I should have killed you, once I had learnt you were in Malfoy Manor."
Crystal stiffened as she remembered where she was, but she prepared to defend herself, "Maybe you should have done," she turned slowly, her mind already going through her spell repertoire, and glared at the evil wizard, seeing him for what he was. When she had been marked, her uncertainty had vanished since it meant her plans could go through, but it returned when she had seen first-hand the wanton violence for herself. And over time, she had realised she had just accepted servitude as she had with the Dursleys.
But she saw clearly now. She had known about this fact for months.
Voldemort had no intention of fulfilling his promise to bring her parents back.
He didn't care.
He didn't care about the children being abused in the magical and muggle worlds, and he didn't plan on ending it any time soon.
And she felt like such a fool for being near to her so-called friends. Crystal's eyes flickered over to them involuntarily, and she saw the looks of hatred they had on their faces while only a couple of them looked at her as if they were seeing for themselves life as a Death Eater was a nightmare. She didn't care. They'd led her down this path although she had wanted to make so many pay after seeing what Harry did to protect her from the Dursleys.
"Very well," Voldemort said simply without any other expression on his face, and he raised his wand. Crystal braced herself for what was to come, and for a second she wondered what her parents were thinking from where they were in the afterlife. Were they proud of her for finally waking up? Or were they too disgusted by the things she had done?
Crystal was stunned when the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord suddenly collapsed screaming to the ground. She was even more stunned when she saw the black cloud rising from the Dark Lord's body, shrieking madly in pain before it just flew….right next to her, and she jumped when she realised Harry was there. He was still alive.
"Crys, you're okay?" Harry asked.
Crystal panted. She was going mad, she had to be. But she thought she had heard her twin brother's voice, but as her vision cleared and she had time to recover she found herself looking into Harry's face. He was not dead. He looked tired and frightened. She gently caressed his face, and she cried in relief and realised he was alive. She hugged him tightly and sobbed.
"Harry?" But how? She had seen him killed?
"Yeah, it's me, sis," Harry whispered, fretting as he helped her get up.
"But you were dead!" Crystal was struggling to comprehend and wrap her mind around what was happening. "I'm sure I saw you die!"
"You saw a double, Crystal; I had to prepare myself mentally for the spell I was going to cast at Voldemort, to end his life forever," Harry replied.
"So you tricked him?" Crystal had to stop herself from sounding accusing, but somehow she let it seep in. And her twin caught it. He looked at her with great sadness and sympathy.
"I had to," Harry whispered. "Crystal, you broke my heart. You ran off and spouted the same fucking rubbish as the Death Eaters, and then I caught sight of you becoming a Death Eater. I thought you were better than that; it's bad enough we've been slaves our whole lives, first to the Dursleys, then to Hogwarts and the magical world; Dumbledore, Voldemort, the public…they've taken advantage of us, and I tried so hard to free us both, but you didn't even try."
Crystal didn't say anything since she knew Harry was right. "I regret becoming a Death Eater, and yet I don't, Harry," she declared.
"What?" Harry blinked in confusion.
"It was part of my plan," Crystal sighed as she wiped some of her tears away, and looked down for a moment before she looked up, catching sight of the other Death Eaters. They were moaning and writhing in agony. She wanted to find out what happened to them to satisfy her curiosity, but for now, she had to explain her reasons. "Do you remember when you came back from the graveyard after the Dark Lord - Voldemort," she corrected herself, "returned?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Well, Dumbledore stopped me from coming to see you," Crystal scowled at the memory of the presumptuous old fool who'd ruined their lives more than the Dark Lord had, "and he took me to his office."
Harry listened, feeling an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. Where the hell was this leading to?
"He told me about your duel with him, and how you saw the victims of his wand. Including our parents," Crystal choked.
Harry sighed, guessing where this was going. "And you were jealous I'd seen them, but you hadn't? Crystal, you weren't even there!"
"I know," Crystal began crying. "I know it's stupid of me; you were miles away, and I was at Hogwarts waiting for the maze to disappear. And then the old fool tried telling me to go back to the Dursleys. When I got back to the common room, I was so upset with what I'd learnt and also my worry about what happened to you, but I was also jealous of you. Looking back I know it was stupid to be jealous since I wasn't there, but I was upset you got to speak and meet with our parent's ghosts or whatever they were, and I wasn't," she sobbed harder than before.
Harry pulled her into his arms, and she cried. "That's why you went to Malfoy Manor. That's why, whenever I tried to speak with you, the Slytherins kept stopping me. And that's why you were so angry whenever we did speak and why you were spiteful whenever you saw me after you joined the Squad."
Crystal flinched as the memories of her taking more and more points came to mind. She hadn't been like Parkinson or the others. No, she had taken points off for being the Boy Who Lived. The one who had seen Cedric Diggory die. The reason their parents died. And on and on and on.
She had regretted each and every single one of them, but she had felt justified at the time.
"Mum and dad never forgot you, Crystal; I tried to tell you that. And I asked Sirius if he knew of any way to project memories," Harry whispered.
Crystal flinched again. She had received the memory crystal that played the memory of Harry's battle with the Dark Lord after his resurrection during Christmas in her sixth year, and it was the most heartbreaking thing she had seen in her life. In fact, looking back, it was partly the reason why she faced more doubts about becoming a Death Eater.
"They told me…they love you. And they never stopped. They died for us to live. And they said to never let you go," Harry went on quietly.
That did it. Crystal looked up at her brother, seeing the sorrow in his eyes, her heart aching under the emotions she was currently experiencing. And then she cried her eyes out. She felt sick to her stomach as she thought of the last three years of her life, three wasted years. She had betrayed and abandoned her brother, forgetting her love for the boy who'd taken punches for her, who had given her food. Why had she put her precious Death Eater friends above him, above her fucking plan?
"What was the plan, Crys?" Harry asked quietly as the Death Eaters just let out a few whimpers.
"I was furious when I learnt the Dark Lord-Voldemort was back, Harry," Crystal was just as quiet, "he and Dumbledore had destroyed our lives. Do you remember when we planned to escape after dealing with Dumbledore and his lackeys, after finding out just how far they had meddled in our minds?"
Harry scowled at the reminder. He and Crystal had both often asked themselves why they hadn't just escaped Privet Drive when they'd had numerous opportunities. The answer came when they had gone to the magical world and Hagrid let slip he, McGonagall, and the unlamented Dumbledore had left them at the Dursleys. And Dumbledore had a vested interest in their lives, but they had found a Healer willing to unlock the memories, and they had also begun studying the mind arts in secret. They had discovered Dumbledore had ordered his lackeys to keep them with the Dursleys and wipe their memories after the meetings.
Suddenly Harry understood. "You spouted off the Death Eater propaganda to fool them, didn't you? You'd begun forming your plan from there?"
"More or less. I believe magicals in general are better than muggles, Harry. I don't give a shit about blood status, but to me, we're better than muggles," Crystal replied.
Harry nodded in agreement himself. He felt the same way; while it was not their fault, it was hard for him to care about the Privet Drive residents after the hell they'd put him and his twin through, but then he felt the same way for the people who'd put them with the Dursleys. In his time in the magical world, Harry had learnt about the true goals of Grindelwald, and they were far more rational than anything Voldemort had come up with. Harry sometimes felt the magical world would be better off if the muggle world had no ties with them, and as he thought about it he was starting to see Crystal's plans.
"I made my mind up to find a way of joining the Death Eaters in my fifth year, but I'd planned to find some dark arts books and use them to help me go after child abusers and then expose them before cursing them to a slow death; Okay, I know it was stupid and it was wrong, and even now I don't know what I was thinking, but I just had this sudden desire to become a Death Eater; I figured that if I joined the Death Eaters with two purposes in mind, I could go further on. I was going to use the time to learn more about the dark arts and use them to make as many people hurt the way we did. And to also find a way of bringing the Death Eaters down," Crystal went on. "But I was also jealous of you."
Harry nodded, inwardly thinking it ironic that he and his twin sister should embody the two most recent and powerful Dark Lords in history; Crystal embodied Voldemort, she was all about lashing out with violence and causing as much pain as possible; he was like Grindelwald, using manipulations to get people thinking. A prime example was when Grindelwald was able to find a way of exposing Beaxbatons and several other magical schools to the muggles, and since he did this at a point of history where the muggle world was fighting itself, it was like painting a bullseye on the schools and the students.
Unsurprisingly, many people died. The deaths of so many children had been a means to an end for Grindelwald; their deaths and the way aurors from various countries fought back against the muggles had certainly spread anti-muggle rhetoric throughout the world.
Voldemort would never have done that. He was too narrow-minded for that even though he was intelligent enough to not poke muggles too much.
But as he thought about it, Harry remembered seeing the anger in his twin whenever the Dursleys abused them both or whenever she had to clean up his injuries, made harder by the extremely narrow confines of the Cupboard. It was no wonder she felt nothing for muggles. Oh sure, they liked the culture and some food, TV shows, and clothes, but that was it. They just didn't like the people.
Crystal's last remark penetrated his mind. "Wait, what do you mean, you were jealous of me?" He asked.
Crystal gave him a sad smile. "You saw our parents," she replied quietly, simply. "I know it was stupid. But I wished I'd seen them."
Harry said nothing, he just hugged his twin to him for support.
"What're we going to do?"
Harry closed his eyes, hating to hear how lost his sister was. "I don't know," he whispered as he tried to think of a way of working around the monumental mess his sister had made; the twins had come to the magical world to find a way of escaping the Dursleys, and making Dumbledore and those responsible for their incarceration pay for what they'd done while making sure it never happened again. But Harry hadn't expected things to turn out the way they had, but he guessed it made sense one of them would have gone down the darker path. But he hadn't thought his twin would be stupid enough to become a Death Eater.
"We could claim you joined Voldemort, but you weren't marked and he made you into a spy?"
Crystal shook her head. "Harry, I went on dozens of raids. I helped torture dozens of Hogwarts students. If I said that, it could be contradicted by others. It's a massive mess! I should never have joined Voldemort."
Harry frowned for a moment. He could understand Crystal's plan to become a Dark Witch, but her becoming a Death Eater was something totally out of character.
Oh, he could pick up her views of magicals being better than muggles, but there were some things that made little sense to him. And then he rewound what he'd just heard, and he realised something didn't make sense.
"Crystal, when did you form your plan to become a Dark witch?" He asked slowly.
"Third year."
"And you didn't even think of the Death Eaters?"
"No, at the time I thought people like Lucius Malfoy were scum," Crystal replied, looking at him in confusion. But for Harry, the last pieces of the jigsaw were fitting into place.
"I think I know why it happened, Crys," Harry said in realisation as the memory of the encounter with Voldemort in the Ministry came back to him. He had thought what Voldemort said made no sense at the time, but now he knew what the bastard had been up to.
"What?" Crystal blinked at him in surprised bewilderment.
"During our fight in the graveyard, Voldemort said he was going to kill me, and he was then going to go after you, but in the Ministry, he said he had found a much better way of hurting me," Harry said.
Crystal blinked in surprise. "The Ministry…and then I was marked as a Death Eater," she trailed off as her brain made the connection. "He had done something….to my mind….," she whispered as she caught up with the implications.
"There was a piece of his soul in my scar, and he likely infected our sibling bond. He had found a way of sending visions into my mind, and he was likely doing the same to you; telling you to betray me and become a monster, but I don't know if he discovered your desire to become a dark witch and twisted it like a pretzel. It's likely he did. I found out about the Horcruxes from Dumbledore last year, and I conducted my own research into him. I learnt more about the bastard from the Room of Requirement in 10 minutes than I ever did in 3 months from Dumbledore, who just threw me scraps like I was some dog. I learnt there were ways of dealing with the Horcruxes, but the goblins were the best hope."
"And you've been with the goblins all this time?" Crystal asked sceptically.
"I had to wait until Granger and Weasley fucked off, but I can tell you I was struggling with my sanity while they were with me. We spent months together finding out we didn't really like being with each other, and I did all I could to lead them around the country as if they expected to find Horcrux after Horcrux. One night I decided I'd had enough running around with them, and I left them. In the middle of the night. That's why they came back to Hogwarts. They didn't have anywhere else to go, and besides, they didn't know where I was so I wasn't worried and I didn't give a fuck what happened to them then."
Crystal snorted at his contemptuous attitude, and she shared it. "How were the Horcruxes linked to the Dark Marks?" She asked.
"Voldemort only made three Horcruxes, Crystal; the first time he made one, it was a painful, unpleasant process and so he stopped making them after he made his third, but he had made his soul extremely unstable. When we were attacked, a piece of his soul ended up on my forehead. It was nothing more than a splinter, but it was more than sufficient for the goblins to work with," Harry replied. "But the Dark Marks were the key. They were giving Voldemort magic, and were the reason he kept alive after he was ripped from his body."
Crystal's face went pale, although, in the dim lighting, he barely saw it. "He was leeching off us," she breathed. "Damn it, I…I always wondered why I became a Death Eater, even if I believe magicals are better than muggles, and that I wanted to go after the type of people the Dursleys are while making it clear I will go after them, but for Voldemort to twist me like that…," she shook her head.
Something occurred to Harry at that point. "Do you think it's possible Dumbledore wanted us to be split up?" He asked.
"Why would you ask me that?" Crystal asked.
The twins had never liked Dumbledore. They had never had time for him, they had never idolised him; their disgust for him had begun when they had discovered it was Dumbledore who had left them with the Dursleys.
"Dumbledore kept telling me to keep an eye on you last year," Harry said, his mind drifting back to the memories he had of meeting the old wizard who was now unlamented in his mind. "He said he was worried about you, and he was worried you were straying from the true path, the light."
"How the hell would he know?" Crystal didn't bother hiding the scorn in her voice. "That man never cared before, why to start now?"
"Probably one of his games," Harry rubbed his face. "He was probably enjoying the thought of us splitting up. Dumbledore knew of the splinter in my scar, he had to have known, and he came up with a plan for it. He never taught me anything about the Horcruxes, Crystal, but from what I gathered it looks like he was setting me up for a sacrifice."
Dim lighting aside, Harry felt the horror broadcasting loud and clear over the bond he shared with his twin sister, along with a few strings of colourful and creative curses and threats she would have loved nothing more than to gut the old man for planning such a thing. "Do you think he had something to do with what was happening to me?" She asked quietly, a far cry from the volume of her voice over the bond.
Harry shook his head. "I can't see how," an idea came into his mind. "Wait, Snape. What if Snape was told by Dumbledore to give Voldemort the idea of how he could best use the bond between us?"
"Snape was a spy?" Crystal blinked in surprise although she felt it explained one or two things.
"I don't know for sure, but it would make a few things clearer, but all we have are idle speculations and no proof. Do you think we should tell people about it? I could take you to Gringotts and take you to a few mind healers, and get them to examine our bond, and get two separate views. That might make people think you were compelled to become a Death Eater, only there would be proof," Harry suggested.
Crystal smiled at her brother lovingly, pleased and grateful that despite the misery he had gone through because of her, she was still loved by him. In truth, she didn't really give a damn how the magical world viewed her but she didn't want to be thrown onto a one-way trip to Azkaban, especially after hearing what happened to Sirius. Crystal and Harry had been in the magical world long enough to know the island was something out of a horror movie, even with the Dementors gone.
She decided to give it a go.
"What if we went to the goblins, asked them to give me a check-up and look at my mind?" She asked hopefully. "With a bit of luck, they might find something that could prove to the magical world I'm not the heartless Death Eater traitor they think I am."
Harry's face flashed with anger as he heard what his sister had just called herself, but he had to admit it was a good idea since the goblins were both hated and feared in the magical world. Thanks to their control over the economy, they had a great deal of power. Enlisting their aid had been the best decision he had ever made, and he felt lighter by asking for help instead of making some stupid mistake, like going off on his own.
"Are you okay to move, Crystal? Everyone in the castle will be coming soon to investigate, and they likely heard the screams from the Death Eaters," Harry said.
Crystal smiled at her twins' concerns and she stood up. Her legs were slightly cramped, and she stumbled but they took her weight after wriggling her toes and moving her feet around to get the blood circulating again. "Okay, let's go," she said.
Harry took hold of her, and Crystal braced herself for side-along apparition. They arrived in Diagon Alley. The place was dark and many of the shops were closed, many of them boarded up shut. Crystal looked around sadly, remembering the formerly vibrant street when she and Harry had gone with Hagrid to get their things for their first year. But now the place was like a ghost town since the Death Eaters had launched so many devastating terror attacks on the place to spread fear and terror.
Gringotts was still open and the twins walked in and found a free goblin. Harry stepped forwards. "Hello, my name is Harry Potter. King Ragnorak's compliments. I need to consult with a goblin mind healing team for my twin sister," he said, pointing to Crystal. "We think there's something wrong with her, and it's been affecting her for the last few years."
Crystal smiled and waved shyly.
The goblin was not visibly bothered about coming face to face with a girl many had called the Bellatrix Lestrange of the next generation, but the invocation of King Ragnorak was a surprise. He turned to a goblin and barked a string of his language before he turned to the Potter twins.
"Please take a seat while your request is reviewed, Mr and Miss Potter," the goblin said.
"Thank you," Harry said.
"I hope I can repay this," Crystal added before they took their seats.
The Potter twins sat down. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Harry?" Crystal asked.
"Well, they helped me over this year, and their mind-healing abilities are better than most. On top of that, they have a great deal of experience with dark magics, and they helped me with the Horcruxes," Harry replied.
Crystal didn't carry on with the conversation. She just sat there, her mind racing as she thought about the implications of what Snape might have done to her. For a while, she had been convinced that she had joined the Death Eaters simply because it was the easiest way of fulfilling her dream and making sure no other child - magical or muggle - went through the misery she and her brother had. She doubted he had really manipulated her mind thoroughly, just gave it little more than a small push, and then let Voldemort do the rest with the scar, but that made little sense.
Voldemort was clever and devious, but had Snape been the one to tell him about the sibling bond and then use it to twist her? There were just so many questions and so fewer answers.
But it did make some sense to her, now she thought about it; she had never once imagined becoming a Death Eater. A Dark witch, yes, but not a Death Eater, since they had gone for people from the same background as her mother and they had never hidden the fact they wanted to see her and Harry die, but the implication Dumbledore had given Snape the idea in the first place was something new, and on a level, she could not even begin to grasp.
Crystal hated mysteries, and she liked conspiracies even less. But at the same time, she had never really understood why Dumbledore had deliberately kept her from her twin brother when he needed her the most after Voldemort's return. She knew he was telling the truth; Harry was many things, but he would never lie about something like that since she would also be in danger herself. He cared about her too much to do that. But the old meddling fool had gotten in her way and told her Harry had seen their parents.
At the time, Crystal had been shocked and even jealous about what she'd heard and she felt justified about her mood, but now she wondered if perhaps Dumbledore had done something to her mind, pushing her towards Voldemort. But why? What was the point? Why would Dumbledore want her to become a Death Eater? She knew he was a master of the mind arts, had he discovered her desire to become a Dark witch, and instead of trying to mitigate it and talk her around, he had pushed her down a similar path.
She glanced at Harry, seeing how tired he was. She wished he would fall asleep, but she knew he wouldn't since she was mentally sick and he was worried about her.
Crystal licked her lips, debating with herself about what she could say to him right now. "Harry," she whispered to get his attention. Slowly he turned and looked at her, a ready smile on his face but it was marred by how worried he was. "Why was Dumbledore so determined to make me into a Death Eater, if that part of the theory is correct?" She asked slowly. She did not have any problems with seeing Dumbledore as the type of man who would have stood back and encouraged people to become Death Eaters, especially Slytherins since he did not care about them.
Harry sighed and rubbed his face. "It's a long story," he warned.
"We've got time," Crystal replied, although she knew the goblins could come back at any moment. But she was not prepared for what he said next.
"A year before we were born, Dumbledore interviewed Sybil Trelawney to take the role of Divination teacher. At first, he didn't believe she should have a place, and that the subject deserved to die out; well, the woman was a fraud and not very smart, but she was overcome and delivered a prophecy. It basically says that a child born to parents who defeated Voldemort no more than 3 times would have the power the Dark Lord knew not," Harry said grimly. "So, I don't know the exact sequence of events, so don't ask, but I think he pushed mum and dad to defeat Voldemort no more than 3 times, and then they were targeted by him after we were born."
"You."
Crystal had never believed in prophecies. She had always believed everyone's fate and destiny were in their own hands. It was up to them whether they were good or even bad.
But hearing about this prophecy answered a fair few of the questions she'd been asking over the years; why she and Harry were orphaned? Why Voldemort had come after them, although she would have preferred it as being a matter of pride after discovering the Dark Wizard had an ego the size of a planet. Why was Dumbledore obsessed with keeping them under lock and key under the pretence of wanting to protect them?
"Not just me, Crystal; Neville Longbottom also fits the bill, and so do you. I was the only one chosen because of my scar. Voldemort had to attack one of us personally in order for the prophecy to work," Harry said.
Unknowingly he filled in the last pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.
She gasped, her mind racing.
Suddenly Crystal realised that everything Dumbledore had done to them over the years was down to a much larger plan; being placed with the Dursleys, ignoring the abuse, their time at Hogwarts, and the last few years….
Dumbledore had been pushing Harry to end the war, and now she had to look at it with this new perspective, Crystal now realised it had all been a part of a much larger game in Dumbledore's mind. But what had he hoped to achieve by turning her into a Death Eater? That was still something Crystal just could not wrap her brain around.
"It was all a massive plan," she whispered, looking up, her eyes sad and angry at the same time. "He wanted me to become a Death Eater," she said in a quiet tone, her mind racing as she made the final deduction. "He knew we were close, but he wanted to drive us apart…."
"Yes," Harry caught on to what she was doing. "He knew we spent a great deal of time together, regardless of the Houses we were in and despite the headaches we got ourselves into…"
"But why would he want to split us up when we could help each other and end Voldemort?" Crystal finished the sentence with the question that was bothering him.
Harry tapped his lips thoughtfully. "He wanted me to sacrifice myself," he whispered.
"What?" Crystal breathed; her mind was still racing with the possibilities, but this new possibility was starting to take root in her brain, and it was opening her mind to new implications.
"Dumbledore bequest me with a golden snitch of all things. There was a note saying 'I open at the close.' The snitch would open if I said anything about death or dying."
"But why, what's the point?" Crystal shouted, ignoring the looks they were garnering. There weren't that many wizards, but they recognised the Boy Who Lived, and the Girl Who Betrayed, but they lacked the courage to do anything more than stare.
"He would never have done that unless he wanted me to feel that there was no other way, but to give my life for the magical world," Harry whispered as his mind made the final deductions with what he knew already. "Dumbledore knew Voldemort had left a piece of his soul stuck in my scar, sis, and he must have made up his mind that there was no way he could remove it, not without me dying, so he made it part of his plan. But for that to work, he knew he would have to find a way of making me want to die."
Crystal looked at him in horror. "And he knew I was the only family you had, the only thing you cared about; Sirius was one thing, but I was closer. If you lost me, either if I died, or if I betrayed you… it would destroy you and make you lose all hope," she finished quietly, hugging her twin tightly, the thought of losing him hurt her worse than a torture curse. She couldn't bear it, even after everything she'd done.
"Bastard," Harry hissed, and he shook his head in baffled horror. "The bastard," he repeated. "He must have come up with this plan years ago. I knew he had his own ideas of how the prophecy should go, and he never really bothered to ask anyone for any kind of help, but to take it this far…"
"Do you think he interfered with our sorting, Harry?" Crystal asked.
For her, the question was a perfectly logical one. In many ways, the twins should have both gone into Slytherin, the Hogwarts House that prized cunning and ambition more than any other, no matter what so many believed.
"He could have done, but what's happened, happened. We can't change that," Harry said solemnly.
A horrible idea was coming into her mind. "Harry, do you think he could have pushed me to become a Death Eater, to make your 'sacrifice' easier?"
Crystal had no doubt in her mind Dumbledore would have done something underhand like that, especially after learning of his more unsavoury qualities, but if he suspected Harry would give his life the way the old wizard wanted, then he was in for a shock.
Harry grimaced. He knew it was a possibility.
Xxxx
A few months later, Harry and Crystal met Professor McGonagall outside the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Much had changed in the last few months, with the sudden defeat of the Death Eaters who had lost their magic, but the revelation that Crystal Potter had been largely manipulated into becoming a Death Eater had taken the magical world by surprise. The news one of their saviours, one of the Children Who Lived, became a Death Eater had shaken the magical world. But now they knew she had been coerced mentally was a blow. That kind of thing was extremely taboo in the magical world, and even now Crystal was seeing therapy.
McGonagall gave the Potter twins the password to the office before she left. She didn't know what the Potter twins had in mind for Dumbledore's portrait, she just did not want to be there.
As the twins ascended the steps and walked into the office, it didn't take them long before they found Dumbledore's portrait. The portrait of the elderly wizard was staring at the Potter twins in shock.
"What's wrong, Dumbledore?" Harry asked.
"Surprised my brother didn't commit suicide because of your plans?" Crystal Potter asked folding her arms.
"Harry, my boy, how-?" Dumbledore was flabbergasted.
Crystal smirked at Harry, her hand outstretched, "Told you he would be stunned, come on, hand over the cash."
"We didn't make a bet," Harry protested.
"Er, yeah, we did."
"Would someone mind explaining what is going on?" One of the past headmasters asked.
The Potter twins ignored them, focusing their attention on Dumbledore's portrait. "Yeah, I'm still alive," Harry said.
"But then….Voldemort," Dumbledore breathed, "he's still alive."
Crystal rolled her eyes, seeing the old wizard's portrait still possessed that annoying tunnel vision. "He isn't," she said.
"You have nothing to say that I want to hear, Death Eater," Dumbledore snapped.
"Don't speak to my sister like that!" Harry's eyes blazed with anger. "Your plan has failed. Did you really think I was going to suddenly drop to the ground heartbroken because my sister was a Death Eater? Oh, I would have done, but I would have done whatever it took to free her from that life. When you were giving me those 'lessons' about the Horcruxes, I went to the Room of Requirement and learnt how to fight them, but I knew my sister had been marked and I was looking for a way of removing it, but I didn't expect her to remove it herself."
"I hated what I'd become, so I looked for a spell to remove my Dark Mark and be free once again; I might have wanted to become dark to stop people like you from ignoring child abuse, but I would never have become a Death Eater," Crystal added.
Dumbledore's portrait squirmed as the portraits muttered to themselves.
"We found out you had purposefully manipulated Crystal's mind," Harry spoke up when he saw Dumbledore opening his mouth. "You knew I had nothing to sacrifice my life for, barring my twin sister. All that crap you said about love, all of it was worthless; if you knew anything about love then you would know no orphan would throw away hope for their sibling. Crystal's mind is being healed and so is mine, after you neglected to have me looked after following Voldemort's attack, but you cared more about the so-called prophecy that fraud gave, and coming up with your own interpretation."
The Potter twins nodded at one another, and they took out their wands and approached the portrait with predatory smirks. Dumbledore's image sensed danger instantly even as the other portraits moved out of the line of fire.
"Please, wait, everything I did was to end Tom's terror. It was all for the Greater Good!" Dumbledore pleaded.
"The Greater Good?" Crystal scowled. "What, you think it's for the 'Greater Good,'" she air quoted the phrase scornfully, "two orphans are left on a doorstep in the middle of the night without any kind of protection? Do you think it's for the Greater Good my brother and I are shunned because something happens to us both over the year? Do you think it's for the Greater Good that instead of giving us a reason to love the magical world, you decide to tear our relationship to shreds?"
Harry nodded as he glared at the portrait. "Did you really think we would suddenly change when we were sorted into Gryffindor and Slytherin, Dumbledore? Two abused orphaned twins, alone and forced to grow up mentally, forced to do chores for a family of muggles and needing to clean each other's injuries; what, did you really think if we went into different Houses, I would start seeing my twin sister as pure evil? Why would we do that?"
The Potter twins advanced on the Dumbledore portrait, setting it ablaze. The former Headmasters and Headmistresses screamed in protest, but the twins didn't care. They only wanted to get revenge on one of the few remaining pieces of one of the people who had caused them so much pain and misery, but as they used various spells on the portrait, the twins wanted to know how the world would move on and what the repercussions for what Crystal was made to do would be.