A/N: Okay, guys, this is my attempt at a one-shot!!! Let me know what you think, and be honest!!! Remember to REVIEW, and I hope you like this!!! ENJOY!!!
ALONE
Harry gazed, hate boiling in his veins, into Voldemort’s glowing red coals he had for eyes, and saw them flash in the moonlight one last time. He watched in astonishment as Voldemort raised his wand triumphantly and aimed it directly at his heart, fresh gales of laughter bubbling in his throat. He watched in horror and terrible realization as a beam of eerie green light made its way toward him, reflecting in his brilliant green eyes so that they lit up like coals themselves, and knew, without a doubt, that he was done for. He was going to die, there was no stopping it, and the wizarding world would fall apart to the tyranny of the Dark Lord. And there was nothing that Harry could do to stop it. He had let everyone down, he was leaving them when he had promised to always be there for them, through the hard times and despair. He had broken his promise.
Harry closed his brilliant green eyes, tears winding their way down his cheeks, and braced himself for the immense pain that he knew was to come – the awful sensation of being ripped away from your body, the unbearable pain caused by utterly complete mutilation and destruction. But Harry did not feel himself being torn away from his very essence of being; he felt no pain invade the peaceful, yet uncomfortable, silence that now hung over the room like a sheet. He opened his eyes in confusion and stared straight into Hermione’s gleaming, soft, anguished brown orbs, filled with conflict. Suddenly, the conflict disappeared and Hermione’s visage took on, instead, a rather determined expression, an expression that frightened Harry even more than the thought, than the idea, of his own death. He would have welcomed mutilation; he would have embraced utter destruction of his own life merely to wipe away that look that was frozen on Hermione’s face, the look that gave him chills of trepidation. For, through that one expression of Hermione’s, Harry knew exactly what she was planning to do, and he didn’t like it; he would not, could not, allow her to do such a thing.
She was going to try to save his life, his own wretched life that he didn’t even deserve to have the chance to live in the first place. Harry cried out, from the deepest depths of his heart, begging Hermione to run away, to save her own life, that it was still living for, that she had a whole life ahead of her, while it was time to end his own, put him out of his misery. For Harry’s life was already over even though he didn’t lay cold and white on the hard, polished mahogany floor of the Great Hall, although he wasn’t dead like so many others. He had died, inside, the moment the first of the victims had fallen to the floor, their life swept away from them because of him. Harry was lifeless; his soul and desire for life was broken. Harry would have done anything to save Hermione right now, as he told her again and again, tears pouring from his eyes, to run away, to listen to him and trust his judgment. But Hermione did not listen to him; he hadn’t really expected her to. He had merely hoped, with all of his being, that, for once, she would trust his sense of judgment, but to no prevail.
Hermione shot him one last despondent look, her blood-clotted, tangled, muddy brown hair swinging about her shoulders and into her face, her eyes begging for forgiveness, begging Harry to understand why she would sacrifice her life for him: she loved him, and he had much more to do in this world. And with that one last hopeless glance at Harry, Hermione threw her weight in front of Harry, the brilliant green jet of light hitting her square in the chest, throwing her against the opposite wall with the force of a freight train. Harry watched in horror as Hermione slithered to the ground, hitting her head with a sharp crack, her blood spreading across the already grimy and blood-soaked wooden floor in the shape of a rose. He looked into her squinted, blood-shot eyes that were struggling desperately to stay open one last time, and heard her whisper three words so softly he barely heard her.
“I love you.”
With that last sentiment, Hermione slipped away, her life fleeting from her body, not even giving Harry a chance to return his love while she still lived. As her head rolled over sickly and she went completely limp, her last breath drawn, Harry murmured, his face closed to her pale, clammy one, “I love you, too,” and lay down his head on her bony shoulder and let out an anguished cry so terrible and disturbing it sounded as though he were a raging animal caught in a trap, about to die.
Harry glared up at Voldemort’s figure that was still shaking with that horribly confident laughter, listening, blinded by anger and rage, as the peals of laughter echoed off the stone walls of the room, sounding a thousand times louder and more terrible than they really were, laughing at Harry’s futile attempt at life, at Hermione’s selfless, desperate, yet also futile attempt at martyrdom. Laughing at the love that Harry and Hermione never had a chance to share. Harry felt his blood boil in his veins, hatred for the monster that stood in front of him, laughing manically, arising more powerful than he had ever felt it before. And for the moment, Harry forgot that he was only seventeen years old. Harry forgot that he was facing the most feared and evil wizard of all time.
The only thought that buzzed through his head, his only objective, was the need for revenge. Harry stared through cold, heartless eyes at Voldemort, who stood there smiling as he surveyed the piles of lifeless bodies that lay sprawled around him, lifeless because of his own doing. Harry lifted his long, slender wand, pointing it directly at where Voldemort’s heart would have been, if he’d had a heart. The people around him were shouting at him, but he couldn’t hear them, he didn’t want to hear them, he didn’t particularly care what they were saying or what they wanted him to do. All he cared about was leaving Voldemort cold and lifeless on the polished wood floor, crimson blood dripping, next to his one and only love, his revenge repaid.
Harry slipped across the blood-soaked floor, calling out the words of the killing curse, overcome by the power of the enormous, flashing beam of green light that exploded from the tip of his wand, and watched in triumph, a swooping feeling occurring somewhere in his stomach, as Voldemort fell, ungracefully, to the ground in a heap, finally and completely defeated, never to come back to haunt the wizarding world again. Voldemort’s wand clattered to the floor, and swept in a large and beautiful arc until it came to rest at the feet of Hermione, as if it remembered its last victim and wanted to bask in its glory. Harry kicked it away, rage pounding in his head, as tears finally began to accumulate in his eyes. He kneeled down next to Hermione’s limp and lifeless form and pressed her ice-cold hand to his forehead, warming it momentarily with his endless flow of tears. His breath caught in his throat as he released all of the emotions he’d kept locked up inside of him for so long. Harry sobbed raggedly, out of control, as those who remained alive congregated around his grief-stricken body. Harry wiped his eyes and pushed his glasses back up to the top of the bridge of his sweaty, oily nose, and gazed into the eyes of those left alive, those who had managed to escape the fat that Hermione had been doomed with.
He hated them. He hated himself. He hated the fact that they all stood here breathing due to the fact that luck had gone their way, while Hermione, who was five times as brilliant as anyone here, lay unmoving on the floor, her body torqued at a cruel angle. Harry couldn’t bring himself to talk to them without tears of rage building up in his brilliant green eyes. He pushed them all away, muttering that he was fine; but the truth was that Harry wasn’t okay, and he would never be okay again. Harry lay down next to Hermione’s lifeless body and wrapped his arms around her, rocking her and clutching her to his chest, desperately wishing, at the back of his mind, that she’d wake up, alive and unharmed. But Hermione didn’t wake up, despite the constant begging that arose from Harry, and never would.
She was dead.
Harry straightened, centering his weight, Hermione’s crimson blood caked onto his muscular arms and hands, and stared out at the anxious faces gathered around him through hollow, despairing eyes, wondering if he had anything left to live for. Harry was surprised to see how few were standing, and how many were lying on the floor, never to get up or move again, murdered out of cold blood. Harry couldn’t feel, couldn’t express emotion, anymore; he was hollow and empty, his soul cried out until there were no more tears left to cry. He surveyed the floor, his heart aching in despair, and his eyes caught on a flaming red head that was torqued at an unthinkable and grotesque angle, his arms and legs sprawled like a limp doll across the floor.
He was dead.
Harry let his eyes stray away from that horrid sight that would stay imprinted in his mind forever, the sight that was altogether much too painful to look at, but there was nowhere safe to look, not an inch of space lay untouched by the reek of death and despair; the floor of the Great Hall was an ocean of blood. As Harry moved his radiant green eyes toward another part of the room, he noted that they were uncharacteristically and surprisingly dry and emotionless; he had been touched by so much death and misery in such a short period of time, he no longer knew how to feel. Yet, as Harry surveyed his unfortunate surrounding, he was slowly eaten away by a deep pain beyond imagination, pain he tried to keep locked behind closed doors, away from and undetected by the outside world.
His vision caught on the sight of Albus Dumbledore cold and dead on the old, wooden floor, not physically marked in any way, nothing wrong with him besides the fact that he lay unbreathing on the floor. Harry moved his eyes, tearful once more, full of disbelief, not ready to believe that Dumbledore could be defeated, that he had been defeated. The death of his closest mentor, who was the strongest person he knew, hit Harry harder than anything that had happened that night, even more devastating to him than Hermione’s death. It made the horrors of the night seem so much more real, finally convincing him that he was not in a dream. Dumbledore was the strongest person Harry knew, the person who couldn’t be touched by harm. But he had been harmed and now he lay motionless on the floor, nothing but a memory to them all, nothing but a passageway of a book that would be passed down through the ages, explaining his bravery and good deeds.
The array of images just kept smashing into Harry, making his head spin wildly in an ocean of madness and confusion. Ginny lay unmoving on the floor, her pale, milky white skin contrasting sharply with the shocking red locks that covered her face, hiding her baby blue eyes that lay open, staring blindly at the world. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Tonks, Lupin, Kingsley, Neville, Parvati, Luna, they were all dead, everyone was dead, wands still clutched in their bony, frozen hands.
Harry clasped his scar in frustration, anger, confusion, and misunderstanding, waiting for it to burst into flames itself, sear so powerfully and painfully he’d blank out into nothingness and be taken away from the miseries that haunted this world, left cold and unmoving on the floor himself. But his scar didn’t explode in a mass of pain and suffering, it didn’t yield him unconscious or free him of the emotional misery he was experiencing, despair so intense and utterly hopeless, no one should ever have to endure it. But Harry had always had to endure the unendurable, suffer the insufferable, feel the unfeelable, and this was no exception. As Harry felt himself shunted out the door, his head pounding, his spirit was broken forever, his will to live was destroyed and would never return, and he slipped into a hollow state of despair...
He was alone.
*****
The crowd cheered as they saw their hero stumble out onto the platform, gratitude pouring from them like an avalanche, smiles beaming from their faces. Due to this ordinary looking seventeen-year-old boy with messy black hair and shocking green eyes, they were free of You-Know-Who forever. It was just a wonder that he didn’t look happier...
Harry felt himself being shoved onto the stage and a thousand flashing lights shone into his eyes, forcing him to squint in retaliation. His hollow, despairing eyes took in the scene before him, taking in the thousands of screaming, jubilant faces, but he didn’t feel pride or jubilation rising up inside of him over knowing the fact that he was saved these people, that these people could rest safely in their beds now because of him. Instead, quite unexplainably, Harry hated these people for living when all those he loved had died. These people had done nothing to move against the Dark Lord, had done nothing to help Harry defeat him, yet they got to bask in the glory while those who had worked continuously against the Dark Lord lay dead and unmoving six feet under, and Harry himself would continuously be tormented by the loss of these valuable lives, the lives he possibly could have saved if he hadn’t made a few stupid mistakes...
Harry simply could not identify with the screaming, joyous crowd, for he was still draped with depression. Even as the medal was placed around his neck, officially awarding him for saving the entire wizarding world from a terrible fate under the tyranny of Voldemort, Harry felt hollow and undeserving of it. Those who really deserved this medal were in no shape to receive it. They lay under the ground with everyone who had every meant anything to him. Harry was merely receiving the medal for them because they could not. For, you can’t give an award to a dead man...
*****
Harry rolled over onto his back in his bed, listening as the peach-colored sheets rustled beneath his body, the silken feel massaging his overly sensitive skin, cooling his sweating, red-hot body, easing the splitting headache that yielded him so faint, that left him on the verge of blacking out as the seconds ticked by. He stared at the ceiling, blankly, his defiance as strong as ever, not quite ready to believe that what had happened had really taken place, that he was really all alone in a cold and lifeless world. Harry rolled over, once again, this time onto his side, and looked across the room at the medal he had earned, well, not earned, not really. Across the room hung the medal he had received, the solid gold trinket that Harry didn’t deserve, that made him look away in disgust. He didn’t deserve it, despite what anyone said, he didn’t deserve anything he was given to him. The only thing he deserved was death, the only acceptable fate for letting so many innocent lives perish, slip through his fingers, when they might have been saved had he not been so stupid and hardheaded. Harry looked away from the emblem that represented the cause of all this unbearable pain, and his eyes came to rest on an all too familiar picture, the only picture that hung on his wall, the only picture he had left to savor, to use to remember the good old days, the days when he was actually happy.
As he stared at this picture with smiling, moving figures imprinted on it, he saw it as it was, as just a piece of paper, but he appreciated it as so much more. It was all he had left to remind himself of the good times, the times when he thought things as trivial as Potions finals and Quidditch Cups mattered, the times when he could laugh freely and unrelentingly, the times when he was never alone, when someone was always there to help him, cheer him up when things weren’t going so great. But those times were over, with nothing but a picture and a memory.
Harry sighed, and he closed his eyes, but the picture stayed burned into his mind, he had memorized every part of it. As he looked from Hermione’s brilliant smile to Ron’s amused expression to his very own smiling face, he felt the hurt he so desperately tried to forget surface once more. He saw flashes of the past, the past he so desperately tried to forget, surface once more, as they had every day, every hour, every minute, every second of his life; they never left him alone. Every second he relived the Final Battle, the death and destruction of the Dark Lord, the jubilation he felt seeing him fall lifeless to the ground only to look around more closely and see everyone he ever loved lying cold and lifeless beside him. Every night he woke up, sweating, having just faced the terror of seeing Voldemort in the flesh, alive, once more, only to be calmed down and reassured that it was just a dream by feeling the presence of those he’d lost and seeing the interior of his fancy, yet cold and unloving, room, the room he lived in all by himself. The room that should have been, and would have been, filled with that special someone he’d loved for his whole life had her life not been snatched away so soon.
Harry rolled out of bed, hoping to escape the memories that cascaded over him like a raging waterfall. Harry began to fold the sheets of his bed, choking on the tears that overrode him when he began to imagine what it might have been like to be able to share that bed with another, to share his life with another, to become whole with the help of another. But he would never be whole again, for he could never bring himself to love another again; after losing Hermione, Harry was afraid to love, afraid that as soon as he proclaimed himself dedicated to an intimate relationship, he would lose her, the relationship would be lost, and he would be empty and hurt once more with nothing but haunting memories to relive on.
As Harry stepped into the hot and steamy shower, he knew that the water was much too hot, he could feel his skin burning and screaming in pain, but he didn’t move to change the temperature. Harry just let his tanned skin burn, watching it redden and grow raw in the spherical mirror that hung over the shower, and let the tears cascade down his cheeks, mourning for the loss of those he loved, the loss of the ability to ever love again, the fact that he was living an empty corpse, just as good as dead, doing no good for the world. He was merely taking up space, wasting a life that could have been used much more valuably by another. The memories Harry relived in the shower were much too painful as well, so he hurriedly threw on a shirt and worn jeans and flew out of the shower, flew out of his all too perfect and empty house, hoping to be able to go somewhere, anywhere, where he could sit and enjoy himself, without being haunted by his last memories of Hermione and Ron, and, well, everyone.
Harry stepped out the front door and immediately apparated to Diagon Alley, where he sat down at an isolated seat in the Leaky Cauldron, far away from the noise and the clatter. He had just made a motion at one of the bartenders and was about to ask for a drink and sit down, all by himself, in peace, for once, to just relax, alone to his thoughts. But, as soon as someone saw him, they noticed him as the “boy who had saved the wizarding world”, and dragged him over to have a drink with their friends, shoving different drinks and rather unappetizing meals in his face, overeagerly asking him what he wanted, asking him questions about what it was like to meet Voldemort face to face, and how about defeating him, didn’t that feel good! But Harry didn’t feel like talking at all, especially not about that fateful night that haunted every other moment of his life, both asleep and awake, so he excused himself and scrambled out the door, his vision partially obscured by tears.
Harry sped over to one of the smaller shops, where maybe it wouldn’t be so crowded. But as soon as Harry entered Florean Fortezcue’s Ice Cream Parlor, he was hailed over by ten different groups of witches and wizards, all of them patting him on the back and congratulating him on defeating You-Know-Who. Harry quickly excused himself from there too, frustration now bubblling up inside of him.
But the truth was that there was nowhere to go. Everywhere he went, Harry was recognized and overcome by mobs of eager people who wanted to take a picture with him, get an autograph, or just shake his hand. Everywhere, Harry was waved at by friendly looking witches and wizards who all had swell lives and were happy, and didn’t seem to know or care that Harry wasn’t exactly happy himself or in the mood to socialize.
And, where Harry managed to get away from the chatting crowds, he was still haunted by memories. Memories of Hermione stumbling out of Flourish and Blotts, way too many books to carry stuffed into her arms, causing her to tip over and almost fall on her face every two seconds, memories of Hagrid helping him find his way back to Diagon Alley when he had been lost and confused in the very frightening and unexpected Knockturn Alley, memories of the expression on Ron’s face as he watched Gilderoy Lockhart make an absolute fool of himself, copies of his autobiography flashing grins all over the shop. Everywhere, Harry was reminded that his friends, his loved ones, all those he was close to were gone, lost forever. Everywhere, Harry was reminded how their deaths were his fault, that they could have been prevented had he not made a few boneheaded mistakes. Everywhere, in spite of the chattering, crazy crowds that followed him around nonstop, asking question after question about every subject in the history of mankind, Harry was reminded that he was, indeed, alone.
There was no way around it. He was alone and always would be; it was all his own fault. And Harry had to accept this, come to terms with this, stop living in the past, or he'd never be able to live again.
A/N: Hope you liked it!!! If you really liked it, go ahead and ready my novel-length chapter story, Stranded in Darkness. It's even better!!! WAY BETTER!!! Or read the first chapter of my Draco fic, Cruel Irony! Oh, and PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT BY LEAVING A REVIEW. IT WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED!!!