On the outskirts of Hogsmeade, there lies a dingy little pub- the Hog’s Head. The sign outside swings softly in the breeze, and the light in the largest room is dim and gray.
In an upstairs room, Harry Potter lay stretched exhaustedly on the bed, running one hand dejectedly through his untidy black hair. A large green backpack lay open beside him on the bed, several pairs of underwear spilling messily onto the bed.
He sighed, contemplating whether or not it would be safe to go down into the pub for dinner. True, he could keep his face hidden, but was it worth the risk? He had to be sure no one knew he was here.
Harry was tracking Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the very few known Death Eaters who had not been captured or killed after Voldemort’s fall. He had given up everything to do it. He had been planning on assuming the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. He had been planning on spending time with a certain seventh year redheaded girl… Ginny…
After the war, Harry had continued his relationship with the gorgeous redhead. Everyday, it seemed she could make him happier than she had the day before, and her absence was killing him. If truth be told, he had been planning on… Well, I can’t do that now, no use thinking about it, he thought.
Harry was lying on a scratchy, buggy mattress, his stomach aching with hunger and his mind buzzing uncomfortably. What wouldn’t he give to be at Hogwarts right now, eating dinner in the Great Hall, planning Defense lessons in the library, or playing chess with Hermione?
Harry had been out and about for two months now, and Hogwarts had found a temporary substitute for him. They had been two months of cold, two months of searching and searching and running around the countryside. His search had brought him finally to Hogsmeade, where he hoped Bellatrix was hiding.
Harry hauled himself off of the bed, brushed a bedbug away from a pair of his underwear, and pulled on his black cloak to go down to dinner. He slipped quietly out of his room, making sure his face was in shadow, before tiptoeing down the stairs and into the dingy little bar.
A few seedy looking witches sat in one corner, sipping fire whiskey, and a cloaked man sat brooding at the bar. Several warlocks with strong Scottish accents were playing cards at a nearby table, and there were several more hooded figures into the dimmest corner of the room. Harry sat heavily on a barstool, several seats away from the heavily cloaked figure. He ordered a butterbeer and some tomato soup, and the barman slumped over to the stove to heat his food. Harry let his mind wander while he waited, contemplating his next move.
When the soup was hot, the barman placed it in front of him with a grumpy expression on his face, slamming a bottle of butterbeer down next to him. Harry cracked open the bottle and drank deeply, savoring its taste. He set the bottle down and started on his soup.
A voice distracted him from his reverie. It was the cloaked man.
“Sorry?” Harry said, wondering what the man could want.
“I said, ‘Are you enjoying that meal, Potter?’” the figure said. The voice was not male. It was a cold female voice that sent chills through his entire body.
“Yes,” said Harry, his every muscle tensing.
“Good,” said the woman, reaching for her hood, “because it’s going to be your last…”
It was Bellatrix Lestrange.
“AVADA KEDAVRA!” she screeched, and Harry reacted instinctively. He flung himself off of the barstool, knocking over his soup and sending hot tomatoes flying everywhere. The jet of green light barely missed him, and he heard yelling somewhere in the back of his brain. He was flat on his back, under the stool. Without thinking, he let his experience from the war take over.
“STUPEFY!” he bellowed, sending a jet of red light to where he thought Bellatrix was. Scrambling to his feet, his wand outstretched, he saw the pandemonium that reigned in the bar. Bellatrix was firing spells everywhere, as if she was hoping no one would shout and give her away. The other cloaked men had pulled back their hoods and revealed Death Eater masks.
Several barrels of mead had exploded, and all the tables in the bar were sopping wet. The witches in the corner were shrieking swearwords mixed with hexes from where they were trapped behind a table that had gone flying. The masked Death Eaters were firing jets of multicolored light in every direction.
Harry dodged a Stunner and fired several spells in rapid succession towards the whirling black blurs the Death Eaters had become. Leaping over a stool and nearly slipping in a puddle of mead, he fought his way through the melee.
“Impedimenta! Stupefy!” he shouted again, whirling his wand towards Bellatrix.
She was faster.
“CRUCIO!” she yelled, and Harry doubled over, screaming in pain, as if hot knives were pressing into every inch of his body. He was surely gong to burst, to explode…
And then it stopped. Harry lay, breathing heavily for a moment, before stumbling to his feet. Gathering every last vestige of his strength, he spat in her face.
She grinned, and wiped Harry’s bloody spit away from her eye.
“Do you know what this is, Potter?” she said, hatred filling her voice, “This is your punishment. No one defies the Dark Lord. No one defies my master.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you,” said Harry disgustedly, “but I think I might have killed him. I’ll get back to you on that.”
Her eyes momentarily filled with anger and her nostrils flared, but otherwise, Bellatrix ignored his jibe. “And did you like killing him, baby Potter? Did you like becoming a murderer?”
Harry opened his mouth, and closed it again, biting back his retort. Was he really a murderer?
“No,” he said stubbornly.
“Ah, but you did!” she replied, “You liked killing him. I can see it in your eyes. I can read you like a book, Potter. There’s no need for Legilimency. You liked becoming a killer. You liked taking away a life. Deny it if you like, but I can see it. We’re not that different from each other on the inside, Potter, are we?”
Harry felt sick. Her words were boring into his brain like one of Uncle Vernon’s drills, feeling their way around the mental walls he had put up, feeling their way into all the crevices, until he could think of nothing else. The other Death Eaters were laughing, the sound muffled and distorted by their masks.
“You think the Dark Lord didn’t deserve to live, do you? You think you were right to kill him. But guess what, baby Potter? He thought he was right to kill you too. You’re just as bad as you thought he was… You’re a murderer too,”
“You liar,” he said hoarsely, “I…”
“CRUCIO!” she said again, and Harry felt his body slam against the ground. The pain was blinding him, filling his skin. Hot knives were pressing into his flesh, fire was all around him, he was writhing uncontrollably on the ground. He wanted it to end, to stop. He wanted to die…
He could hear himself yelling, but the pain was filling his brain so that reality and delirium seemed to meld together into a fusion of pain and suffering. Nothing could possibly be worse than this…
He was shaking on the ground, filth from the floor filling his nose and hair. Insane laughter was penetrating his brain, but he didn’t know if it was himself or someone else. He felt his legs hit a table, but the pain couldn’t even reach his conscious self; the rest of him hurt so much. His voice gave out from screaming so much, but his mouth remained open, red and raw.
His memory seemed to meld in with his dreams, his recollections were drowned in a waterfall of agony, so that he could no longer remember, could no longer feel. He briefly wondered if this was what had happened to Neville’s parents, but a second later, any thought he had was drowned in a wave of anguish, so awful he thought he might burst.
”Crucio, CRUCIO!
There was someone screaming inside his head, voices that were more terrible than anything Harry had ever heard.
The pain was sending him into a vortex of indistinguishable color and sound, where his conscious self seemed to leave his body, and could remember nothing but Bellatrix’s words to him…
“You liked killing him…I can see it in your eyes.”
Suddenly, the pain was gone, and the real world came flooding back in a spinning mass of color and sound. Harry didn’t know what was happening. His brain felt blank, empty and only two things could permeate his consciousness. One was pain. The other was an inescapable truth.
He was a murderer. So he ran, vanishing through the back door of the inn, and dashing through the streets of Hogsmeade, his own screams still ringing in his ears, gulping and coughing in pain. The moon was the only thing providing light when Harry fell, unconscious, by the cave on the outskirts of the village.
The Hardest Thing by smiley10792
Chapter Notes: Hey, this one will hopefully be up a lot quicker than the last one. I orginally hoped to make this chapter one, but the mods told me (and I agree) that it was too much happening too early on in the story. However, I think ch. 2 is the best spot for this scene, because I want this story to progress, and focus more on the aftermath of this scene, rather than the scene itself. Let's get the violence over with and get to the good stuff.
Enough rambling. Enjoy, and remember: I didn't make the characters!