Beginnings

There are moments in life that define us, moments wherein a single choice becomes woven into the fabric of our very being. A solitary pause in causality, when one shift in the course of life reverberates far beyond our conscious understanding.

This was not one of those moments.

Or so Harry told himself. Indeed, he did not believe in all that heavy-hearted nonsense. And as he stood over the bloodied and trembling figure of his enemy, wand in hand, curse on the tip of his tongue, Harry purposefully chose not to see this as a turning point.

After all, what else could a man do in the face of such persistent evil?

Much later, when he was rinsing the blood from his hands, Harry would reflect that calculated death had not been as difficult to deliver as he had previously supposed. The crimson rivulets streamed down his forearms as he held them, palms up, beneath the steaming tap. Hot water seared his skin but Harry had no eyes for anything other than the deep red pooling around the drain.

Certainly he had killed before. It was a war, after all, and people in wars die. Harry had seen more people die than he could recount. Personally he'd killed several people in self defense or in the defense of someone else. In those moments he had not paused to consider the moral ramifications of his actions. He simply did what needed to be done and then moved on to the next target, the next fight, the next day. Those were clean kills, quick and necessary. Those kills did not plague his thoughts. Harry did not wake from the nightmares of their glass eyes as he did from the memories of his fallen loved ones. He had the comforting certainty of righteousness to shroud his conscience.

Harry felt, now, that his clarity had suddenly become rather foggy.

How enjoyable it had been to gouge ribbons of flesh. How elated he had been to sever tendon from bone. How easy it had it been to part immortal soul from its mortal host.

Bellatrix Lestrange was dead.

Harry had left her mutilated corpse in the field where the few remnants of the resistance had been camped for the past few days. For all her madness and it turned out Bellatrix had been right at least once; one truly did need to mean unforgivable curses to cast them.

He had no clear memory of leaving the field, simply laughing uncontrollably in a blur of movement as a woman screamed his name, clasped his hand and the pair spun out of existence.

Now Sirius Black was avenged. The thought brought a smile to his lips.

"Harry." Ginny's voice was timid, soft. Her eyes were not focused on him, but on a point slightly above his reflection.

Slowly he shifted his focus from wet swirls of red to the singed auburn hair in the mirror. Standing at the threshold of the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe for support, Ginny looked gaunt. To see her now, one would think the last time she had eaten or slept well was out of remembrance. Which, Harry considered, it was. The washroom was silent.

"Is any of that your blood?" Ginny's voice was devoid of emotion.

"Not much. Some of it was hers." Harry paused, throat tightening. "I think, I think most of it was Victoria's."

Ginny nodded, eyes wide and unseeing. Harry took the chance to peer into them. He supposed their deadened look was well reflected in his own. Both the Potter's had witnessed more than their fair share of loss but the two years since their marriage had been particularly hard. Unbidden, scenes from the day Harry's life had truly begun to spin out of control arose in front of his eyes.

Spells were flying everywhere. Bolts of color streaked past them as most of the Weasley family battled for their lives. Suddenly there was a woosh of heat and then Harry heard the shriek.

Molly was burning to death.

She had managed to pull an unconscious Percy inside when the Death Eaters had unleashed Fiendfyre directly through the front door. There was simply no way to avoid it. Her wailing had quickly been cut off.

Then Charlie was bellowing for the rest of their family to retreat. Harry struggling to hold a thrashing Ron from leaping into the burning house, Hermione deflecting spells to cover their backs. The flames were spiraling higher and higher, licking closer to Ginny's body, bleeding out a few feet from where Fred was fiercely dueling with two Death Eaters. Arthur had screamed, loosing all sense, and charged at the cloaked figures brandishing his wand on high. He'd been hit with a killing curse within seconds. It was the sight of his body crumpling to the ground that gave Harry the strength to push Ron to Hermione and with a shout he dove for Ginny's body. With one hand on her arm and one of Fred's leg he apparated them both away. It was only once they had regrouped at Shell Cottage that Harry realized George too was dead. He'd been cleanly cut down in battle, taking a killing curse meant for Charlie.

The burning of the Burrow had been a particularly painful shock, but that was years ago now. The other deaths hurt Harry of course, but nothing could compare to the sound of the woman he'd come to think of as a mother burning alive. He was able to go on, to pass off the rest of the fallen as a tragic consequence of an unnecessary war. Harry was reluctant to linger too long on any one person's demise after that day; he felt he grieved the dead well enough by continuing to fight.

It seemed, however, that cradling his niece Victoria as her life slowly slipped away had caused Harry to reach a new milestone. It was the first time he had tortured someone to death. It was the first time he'd enjoyed killing.

Of course, he could have stopped. Bellatrix was clearly beaten. Most likely she would have died from the wounds he'd inflicted during their duel and then Harry could have washed his hands of it. Perhaps she might have even suffered longer had he simply left her. But Harry couldn't take the chance that that abomination would recover, would live to hurt another innocent child as she had hurt Victoria. So as he stood above her, Harry had had the feeling of righteous clarity he'd come to rely on. He had known, without a doubt, that killing Bellatrix Lestrange was the right thing to do.

And so he had executed her. Not quickly. Certainly not mercifully. Mercy was a luxury she had not afforded her victims and Harry could not bring himself to accord it to her. Still, Bellatrix's death was fairly swift. Under Harry's crucio she had died within minutes.

He had decided he was not going to think about the implications of that particular fact. Or about how wonderfully in control he had felt as she twitched and bled on the ground before his feet. These days Harry so rarely felt power over anything.

Indeed, Bellatrix Lestrange had taken many things from many people over the years. Much of what she had stripped from her victims had been their power so, Harry figured, it was high time she gave some back. As he stood in the loo, caked in the drying blood of both the innocent and the pure blooded, staring at a wife he wasn't sure he knew how to speak to anymore, Harry decided this was one death for which he wouldn't spare another thought.

That bitch was dead and he was not. Victoria was dead but Ginny was not.

Ginny.

He turned sharply and strode across the small room, pulling her firmly into an embrace. Neither the husband nor the wife made a sound or shed a tear as they clutched one another. There would be time to better mourn later. Now there were plans to be made, battles to be fought, a war to be won. It was time to move.

In any case, Harry definitely did not think as they left the loo, murderer was a word for which he no longer had a use.