Disclaimer: I swear that I am not J.K. Rowling and therefore do not own any of the companies involved or affiliated with Harry Potter. Nor do I stake a claim in the boy wizard or his universe.
The Power the Dark Lord Knows Not
The rain lashed relentlessly against the window pane of the smallest bedroom, of Number Four Privet Drive. The darkness in the room was a welcome companion to it's solitary occupant. If any one had looked in through the window, they would not have been able to see a single thing. But that was how Harry preferred it these days.
After returning to the Dursley home after Dumbledore's funeral, Harry's mood had only fallen further into the bottomless pit that the depression was now ravaging his soul in. He had thought it would be a simple chore , returning here for a few days, just to let the wards re-energize themselves.
Simple. The word laughed menacingly at Harry now. Once he had entered the tiny room, with the peeling plaster, he had lost all hope. Dumbledore was gone. Dumbledore, the one who knew more about the Horcruxes than anyone else, the one whom Harry could always count on in times of need, the one whom his thoughts fled to whenever there was something looming in his path, was gone.
Dumbledore had left not only Hogwarts, but the Order, and Harry himself, blind and leaderless. Anger swelled in Harry's chest as the lightning from the storm briefly lit up the darkened room, creating harsh lines on his face. Anger at Dumbledore, anger at Snape, anger at Voldemort, anger at the world. He wanted someone to blame, and Snape was not fuel enough for the fire of rage within him.
Tears leaked unwanted from his eyes, and he roughly swiped them away. He had believed that his plan to find the Horcruxes with Ron and Hermione would be easy to fulfill. How very wrong was he. As soon as the Train had pulled into the station in London, all hope of having someone to accompany him to the Dursley's vanished. Hermione, Ron, and even Ginny, were hauled away by a stern Molly Weasley. Harry hadn't expected Ginny to try and follow them to the Muggle suburban parked out front, but looking back, he should have known better than to believe she would go quietly away.
The ruckus caused by her and Ron's argument over her joining them had led a frantic Molly and Arthur to them. The trio had snuck past the awaiting parents, only to have their location revealed by a double dose of the famous Weasley temper.
So it was that Harry returned once more to his desolate little hole, and lost hope. He had tried reasoning with himself, that since he had endured so much death in his life, from his parents and Sirius, to poor old Cedric, that he should be immune to such volatile emotions such as grief. He tried to hold it in, tried to forget. He told himself that Dumbledore's death was nothing. That he shouldn't get so worked up over such an unimportant thing as that.
All it did was make him feel even more hollow inside. He felt inhuman, and with a shiver of disgust, realized that that was how Voldemort must feel all the time. A sudden wave of compassion for the young Tom Riddle, alone and cold, surged through Harry uncontrollably. He could not help but feel sorry for the man who had killed his parents.
Nausea swept over him as he tried to control the feelings of regret for the way his enemy's life had turned out. He couldn't help but picture, a lonely child, with jet black hair, and intelligent eyes, shivering in a drafty room, no bigger, and no fancier than the one he was in now.
He knew that the memory of Tom Riddle that had been housed in the pages of his diary had spoken the truth to him back in his second year. They were similar, startlingly similar. But Harry felt as though they were still miles apart. He didn't understand how two boys, from almost the exact same background, could end up so dis-similar. He knew that Voldemort didn't feel any remorse when one of his Death Eater's was killed, he wondered if there had been any emotion in Tom when he committed his first murder.
He knew that Voldemort thought his ability to care for others was a weakness, one that he would enjoy exploiting. Unbidden, images of Ron and Hermione, Neville, Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, and countless others that he cared for, lying in pools of blood, eyes glistening in death, ran through his tortured mind. Shivering again, but this time in fear, he began to rock back and forth, his knees pulled tightly to his chest. Silent tears were streaming down his face, and an unquenchable desire, to just go to sleep, and never wake up, coursed through his aching body.
He hadn't slept in the three days since he had returned to his prison, and he could feel the protesting of his exhausted muscles. He wouldn't, couldn't let himself sleep, for with sleep, he knew, came nightmares. Nightmares where he would see his friends die, over and over again, each time in more cruel and gruesome ways than before.
The lightning flashed again and outlined the steady tracks of moisture that slid down his face. Dumbledore had once told him that his ability to love was one of the greatest weapons against Voldemort, and that it was also a great treasure that he should hold onto as if it were most precious, and it was. Harry knew that the feelings he had for his adoptive 'family', those he had become close to over the years was most definitely love. He could not, however understand how those feelings could be used against Voldemort.
The monster saw those feelings as a weakness, and exploited them as such. Harry could not, try as he might, grasp onto the understanding of how his grief over the loss of loved ones could be wielded against someone as powerful as Voldemort.
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The morning dawned bright and early, to find Harry fast asleep on the hardwood floor of his 'bedroom'. Unfortunately, he had not found peace the night before, but had collapsed from sheer exhaustion. The sunlight glared brightly, and Harry had to shield his eyes from it. Sitting up straight, he flexed the crick in his back from sleeping on the floor.
The thoughts of death came rushing back to him as he woke fully. Wiping a tear from his eye, he stood and changed into a fresher shirt. He had still not recovered from the losses he had suffered, but he was determined not to let those losses increase with the added casualties of his friends. He would do all that was in his power to stop them from becoming the newest editions to the Daily Prophet's obituaries.
Although, unknown to Harry's consciousness, he already knew how to use love against Voldemort. Because of his undying resolve to protect those he cared about, he would never give up, he would not fear his own death, but do all he knew how to save his loved ones, even if it meant sacrificing himself.
Wiping his glasses on the front of his shirt, a no more enlightened, but no less determined, Harry Potter set off to start a new day.
A/N: Okay, something a little different. I've never really tried to write an angst story before, and I'm not sure how this one really turned out. Any comments would be helpful, plus I always love reviews! Anyway, the part about Dumbledore saying love was a treasure most precious, I know that's not canon, but I thought it would be a nice thing to fit in there, even if the old man never really said it.