(Disclaimer: see first chapter)

Beta: RedButterfly33 - thank you! :D

2.

(December)

"My uncle did WHAT?" Harry looked at the headmaster aghast.

Dumbledore answered him with that famous and widely feared twinkle in his eyes that usually accompanied his more brilliant ideas. "He has asked that we send you home for Christmas this year."

"But I AM at home here! I don't want to spend Christmas at the Dursleys'!"

Dumbledore sighed. "Harry, why can you not give them this chance? They want to reconcile with you. They WANT you to come stay with them. Surely you are not so full of hate that you would not grant them a second chance?"

Harry snorted, but refrained from commenting.

"Harry. You are a symbol of hope for the entire wizarding world. They expect you to bring them peace. You never complain about that. Then why can you not accept a peace offering by your aunt and uncle?"

"Because they damn well did their very worst to show me for fifteen long years just how much they despise me! Professor, you can't seriously be suggesting that they have changed now, all of a sudden?!"

"I am indeed. I do not want you to become as bitter and hateful as Voldemort, Harry."

"Bah!" Harry once more gave a derisive snort and, standing up, began to nervously pace Dumbledore's small office. "Before the Dursleys even admit I'm a thinking, feeling human being, Voldemort will be dancing cha-cha-cha with Neville!"

Dumbledore furrowed his brow. "Harry, this rage is not good for you. You have to let go of it! I believe it is for the best that you go to your relatives and reconcile with them."

"What if I don't want to?" Harry's eyes were sparkling with anger.

"Then I fear I cannot write you a letter of recommendation for the Auror's Academy."

Harry froze. With his lousy potions grades, he'd never get into the academy without a letter of recommendation by the headmaster!

"I thought you were above such base methods as blackmail, Headmaster," he spat.

Fawkes left his perch to come sit on Harry's shoulder and warble at him soothingly. Harry wanted to irritably chase him off at first, but then thought better of it. The bird had not wronged him, and his presence was indeed very soothing.

"I am deeply sorry, but I cannot recommend such an angry and self-righteous young man to the academy," Dumbledore said mercilessly. Harry wordlessly stared at him. The headmaster had never been this cold towards him before. Even Fawkes seemed shocked, for he trilled disapprovingly and dug his claws deeper into Harry's shoulder in a fashion bordering on possessive. It hurt; but Harry felt it was meant as support, so he did not struggle against it.

"Is there nothing I can do to convince you I had better not go to the Dursleys?"

"Unless you plan to morph into Voldemort and kill them, I see no reason for you not to go," Dumbledore tried to lighten the mood.

Harry couldn't see the humour.

Harry moaned, his body restlessly twitching in his sleep.

The car turned into the driveway. Harry observed the neat garden covered in a fluffy layer of freshly fallen snow.

"Come," his uncle barked coldly.

Whatever the actual reason, his uncle certainly hadn't ordered him home because he missed him. He was even colder toward Harry than usual, not having shouted at him, but neither having said two words to him since they met at the station.

Harry suspiciously gazed at the house. What if this were a trap? Voldemort would be overjoyed to find Harry had left the school and its plenitude of wards.

Nonsense, he told himself, I am just as well-protected here.

But was he really? What if the protection his mother's love was supposed to grant him had been neutralized by his relatives' hatred?

He entered the house and hesitantly looked around. This time, he'd been allowed to keep his wand. Should he take it out?

Uncle Vernon went into the kitchen and simply left Harry standing in the hall. Puzzled, Harry looked after him. This was not how his uncle usually behaved.

Oh, never mind. Shrugging, he set out for the stairs. Depositing his suitcase in his room, he sat down on the bed. Not five minutes later, he got up again. As long as he had no idea what was going on, he would not be able to relax.

"Uncle Vernon?"

He found his relatives gathered in the living room.

"Uncle Vernon? Why am I here?" he asked carefully.

His uncle pointed him towards an armchair with a nod. His aunt went into the kitchen and returned moments later with a tea service and a plate of biscuits. "Drink." She pushed a cup at him.

Harry suspiciously eyed the cup. 'Constant vigilance!' the false Professor Moody's voice boomed in his head.

But then he called himself nine times a fool. These were his Muggle relatives, not some servants of Voldemort's! He put the cup to his lips – and hesitated again. Why, why in the world had they ordered him here? Even if it wasn't anything to do with Voldemort, it couldn't possibly be good.

Lost in thought and with his eyes fixed on his relatives, he never noticed the three men entering the room behind his back, the thick carpet swallowing the sound of their booted feet. Not until a hand came down across his mouth, another ripping his wand from his pocket lightning-quick, did he know his worst fears had come true.

He saw the hand, whose owner was still out of sight behind him, raise his wand and point it at his uncle, who was just vacantly staring straight ahead. "Avada Kedavra."

Harry fought against the hands holding him, but it was no use. They tied him to the chair and forced him to watch helplessly as first his aunt, then his cousin was killed right in front of him. They did not fight back, their cold eyes which should have screamed "Imperius" at Harry if only he'd looked a little more closely now staring lifelessly up at the ceiling.

"No, don't...!" Harry madly thrashed about with his arms, ripping bloody gauges into the backs of his hands against the rough stone floor, which woke him up for a moment. But he had not slept the previous four nights and before he could gather his wits about him and fully awaken, the nightmare had pulled him back under.

So there he sat, unable to do a thing.

Sure, he'd never liked his relatives. But this...

"Are we going to kill Potter now?" he heard one of the men behind him ask. A wand tip was pressed against the back of his neck and he stiffened, sure he would be next.

But the other man declined. "Our Lord explicitly ordered us to only kill the Muggles. It appears that we cannot physically harm Potter while inside this dwelling. Actually, we shouldn't even have been able to find the house; it's a good thing McNair owns one of those yellow Muggle books... Though of course our Lord must never be told."

All three of them laughed. Harry sat frozen in his chair and could not believe his ears. His address was hidden from any type of magical locating, but it was printed in a PHONE BOOK?! Really, just how naïve were Dumbledore and his Order?!

"Then what do we do with him?"

"We? Nothing. We'll leave that to the esteemed Minister."

Hope stirred in Harry's chest. Even if he were put on trial, they could not simply throw Harry to the Dementors. Dumbledore would be able to get him released, just like he had done during the summer.

One of the men seemed to share that opinion. "The Minister won't just lock Dumbledore's golden boy up and toss away the key, no matter how much he might wish to. They will use Veritaserum. What does our Lord hope to gain from this?"

The other man laughed. "Oh, but who brews the Veritaserum for the Ministry? - Good old Jenkins."

"I see..."

Harry could literally hear the smirk on the Death Eater's face.

Again he struggled against his bonds, but in vain. The last thing he heard was a triple "Stupefy!". Then darkness claimed him.

"Must... wake up... Wake up … please..."

Harry tossed and turned in the nightmare's clutches, but there was no escape. He was too weakened from the long days of fighting against madness.

"...of course I hate them! Who wouldn't? These disgusting Muggles, defecating their sickly-sweet nonsense into my ears! They aren't worth the dirt underneath my shoes!"

"So you have killed them?"

No! Of course not! Please, believe me!

"Indeed. It was the only thing I could do, really. The Dark Lord is right. It is so very liberating to throw off the shackles of an inferior family..."

Harry saw the disappointment and fury in his friends' faces, saw Molly Weasley clinging to her husband, crying; saw Sirius's face freeze into an emotionless mask and Tonks shaking her head in mute denial. He heard the scratching of dozens of quills and the flash lights of the cameras. Hermione and Ron were hugging each other and crying openly. Ginny seemed close to fainting.

It was all so very surreal. He wanted to explain what had happened, wanted to shout out that he hadn't done anything, that Voldemort hat murdered his family.

But his tongue would not obey him. Since he had been fed the 'Veritaserum', his tongue answered without his input, his lips moved against his will and spit out one poisonous lie after the other.

"...friends with the mudblood? Don't make me laugh..."

I am in here! Help! I am trapped, let me out! Please!

Tears rolled down his cheeks – he was so helpless! - and still his lips were twisted in a condescending smile, belittling everything he had lived for. His parents. His friends. His godfather. Dumbledore. The fight against Voldemort. His wish to avenge his family and Cedric. He ridiculed them all, tore them into little pieces.

"...and why should I always be the one to stick out his neck? I won't be forced anymore to bend over backwards just because the rest of the world is too weak to defeat the Lord. I am powerful, so I will rule. It's as easy as that. I will conquer the world as his right-hand man. Tremble before my might! –"

No, that's not true! It's not true! Just shut up!

He wanted to slap his hand before his mouth or, if need be, rip out his traitorous tongue, but he was tied to the chair and unable to move any part of his body besides his head. Indeed, he could not even bang his head against the back of the chair to stop himself; they had tied him up too tightly.

And so he had to stand by and do nothing while he dug his own grave, with Voldemort's cold laughter reverberating in the back of his head.

Incessantly, the tears streamed down his cheeks. But nobody saw them; they only saw the cold smile, listened to his voice forever condemning him.

"Harry, how could you?"