Author's Note: Wow this chapter is short. I mean, really short. It's not one of my favorites, but there's a reason I ended the chapter where I did. Hope you like it better than I do.
It took them three months, but eventually Ron and Hermione did manage to nurse me back to health. I know I made things hard on them with my depression and my disobedience. I would say I didn't mean to be difficult, but… I did mean it. I wanted to punish them for making me remember you, for forcing me to relive the memories and mistakes of my past life. I wanted them to experience even a fraction of the anger and frusteration I lived with every second of every day. I wanted them to suffer for my pain.
It was abominable for me to behave in that fashion, and the thought of my deplorable comportment still fills me with guilt.
When they were satisfied that physically, at least, I had healed (I think they'd realized that mentally and emotionally I would probably never fully recover), they told me it was time to return to Voldemort as a spy. I know they must've rejoiced that day; in order to begin this phase, I would have to move back into my old apartment in London, the one I had bought years ago. Truth be told, I had been looking forward to leaving Grimmauld Place as well; I was almost desperate to escape the memory of you. The memory of you caused such exquisite, torturous, all-consuming pain, Harry. No memory the dementors dredged up-- not even the memory of the Wizengamot taking my children from me-- hurt me as badly as the thoughts of you I conjured on my own.
Returning to the Dark Lord was, in an odd way, my salvation. Becoming a spy, convincing Voldemort that I was just as faithful to him as I had ever been, took all my concentration and attention, leaving my thoughts miraculously free of you. With my mind thus occupied, it became easier to integrate back into civilized life. At times, I could almost pretend everything was right again.
Almost.
When Voldemort asked, I told him some fabricated story about having escaped Azkaban when a new prisoner came, leaping out a window and Apparating to the Muggle's world to recover before making my way back to him. After all, I told him, what use was a Wishgiver who was unable to control her magic?
It took me all of five minutes after returning to that world to remember why I'd left it (if only mentally). I despised the Dark Lord. Voldemort had killed you, destroyed Draco, utterly ruined my life and the lives of countless others. And for what? Power?
I wanted to bring them down, needed it with a fierceness that surprised even me. So I followed in the footsteps of Severus Snape and began looking for information to destroy them.
Harry closed the journal, biting his lip. Even a few weeks ago, had he read this entry, he would have ben incredibly happy to picture Alana in pain, grieving endlessly for what she'd done. But now, reading this, almost feeling the pain she'd described, all Harry felt was upset. He wanted to Floo or fly to Alana right this instant, and hold her in his arms until all her pain had vanished.
Because he wasn't angry at her anymore. He was close, so achingly close, to finally understanding her, to knowing the truth and motives behind what she had done, that there wasn't any room for anything but a curious hunger, a fervor, a need to know more, to keep reading until all the mysteries were solved.