Harry Potter and the Rise of Charon

Chapter One: Total Recall…

Hello my loyal fans! I realise I have been...somewhat tardy with additions to my stories, which I apologise for. I did not have continuous access to the internet and could not update my stories. However, this meant I could go back and see how rushed some of them were. Now, this one has been a real favourite for me and I'm enjoying writing the story no-end!

This chapter is mostly just corrections, but I would ask that you read it all from the beginning please! Enjoy!

Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: he was laughing at her.

"Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.

The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest.

It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch.

Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange's triumphant scream, but he knew it meant nothing – Sirius had only fallen through the archway, he would reappear from the other side any second…

But Sirius did not reappear.

"SIRIUS!" Harry yelled. "SIRIUS!"

Harry's eyes shot open and sat bolt upright. He was breathing erratically and shuddered. Looking down at his clothes, he realised he was drenched in cold sweat. He got off his bed and moved to his desk. Picking up a quill he added another notch on a piece of parchment.

'That's the twenty-third time I've seen Sirius die' he thought sadly.

He toyed with the idea that perhaps Voldemort was sending him visions to taunt him, but he knew the reality of the nightmares; it was his guilty conscience. Every time he slept it forced him to relive the horrible moment of his godfather's demise, silently blaming him for the D.O.M incident.

He should have been living with Sirius. This summer would have been brilliant. He would have been living with his godfather in Grimmauld Place, bonding, and catching up on the twelve lost years. As he thought about it, his face burned with a new wave of tears.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, his emotions all but disappeared. That was the consequence of quelling his thoughts of Sirius. He couldn't feel much of anything else.

There was, however one persistent emotion which bubbled up quite frequently; hatred, pure unbridled hatred. Yet there was never a focus for his hate. It was as though Harry had forgotten who he hated and what for, like it had been erased. It seemed, however, that his subconscious knew who he hated, and every time he became angry was his mind trying to tell him who.

Rifling through his draws and finding another piece of parchment, he began to write a letter. He wasn't sure who to at first, but he needed to talk to someone.

'Dumbledore perhaps'

No, don't be stupid his inner voice snapped.

'What about Remus?'

Can we trust him? Yeah he was a friend of dad's but he is an Order member first and full most.

'Ron?'

To quote Hermione, 'Ronald, you have the emotional range of a teaspoon!' Harry chuckled internally at his best friend's insult.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up in realisation. Dipping his quill, he began to write. After about ten minutes, he looked over what he had written to his best friend.

Dear Hermione.

Hi Hermione! I just want to tell you straight off the bat, to not tell anyone what I'm writing about here. I'm writing to you because I trust you.

I'm having a few problems. I'm still sad about Sirius dying, but that isn't the only issue. I know I was angry last year, but it's gotten much worse. It surfaces much more frequently than it did. The thing is, though, that I don't know why I'm angry. It just bubbles up. I feel as though I have forgotten who I was angry with…but that's probably me being silly.

I really need your help, Mione. It feels so wrong to be angry but there is part of me that just wants release. I need help Hermione and I'm turning to you because you're my best friend and always give me great advice.

I can't wait to hear from you.

Your best friend,

Harry.

Looking it over once more, he folded the parchment and walked over to Hedwig's cage. At the moment, she was sleeping, holding her head under her wing. Unsure how to wake her, Harry gave a little trick he found in a book he read a try. Whistling a shrill but beautiful attempt at birdsong, Hedwig unfurled and looked at him with those huge amber eyes. Harry smiled, giving his owl a little scratch under the beak and an owl treat.

"Hiya beautiful, can you take this letter to Hermione for me?"

The owl hooted softly and gave Harry an affectionate nip to his finger. Tying the letter to her foot, Hedwig swooped out the window and into the morning air. Harry watched her go, and sighed. He glanced around his empty room. It was extremely lonely. Not that he wanted any of his relatives for company, but it was depressing being left to his thoughts.

After a few minutes had passed, Harry laid down on his bed. He stared at the mucky white ceiling, not really seeing it. As he lay there, he began to reflect on his life.

'To be perfectly honest,' Harry mused, 'it's been shit, hasn't it?' He shifted uncomfortably on the lumpy mattress. 'I mean, stuck here for eleven years, being abused, emotionally and physically for being a freak; then I get told I'm actually not normal but 'special'.' The last word was laced with sarcasm.

As he thought, he remembered when Hagrid had first told him what he was:

"Harry – yer a wizard." Hagrid said proudly.

"I'm a what?" gasped Harry

"A wizard, o' course, an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit."

Harry smiled wryly. That was the day everything had changed for Harry Bloody Potter. In the space of a day, he was thrown into the wizarding world, surrounded by people who wanted to shake his hand. 'Oh mercy me, it's Harry Potter!' 'Ooh, look, it's 'The Boy Who Lived'!'

Sometimes he felt like he was trapped in some glass case in a zoo. His mind wandered to the day he went to the zoo with his relatives and unleashed the snake from its glass case. He laughed slightly remembering his cousin's face when he fell into the enclosure.

He hated every minute of his fame. He would give anything to blend into the woodwork, live his life peacefully and enjoy one normal school year.

'And don't get me started on Hogwarts!' Harry thought angrily. 'Every year I get roped into some stupid fight to 'protect the wizarding world' and all that bollocks.' He lay on his bed, fuming quietly.

'I wonder if Voldemort would consider leaving me alone if I just left.' He thought curiously. He shot down that thought as quickly as soon as it had left his subconscious. 'He would never leave me be. 'Neither can live while the other survives…' Sometimes I just want to bludgeon Trelawney.' He thought darkly. 'I couldn't abandon everyone either…especially Hermione.' He smiled in contentment.

Whenever he thought about Hermione his angry thoughts just dissipated. He wasn't sure what it was, but he felt unusually calm and happy around the bushy haired witch.

'Her hair isn't bushy,' he mentally berated, 'it's just…untameable and wild!' He smiled as he thought about how beautiful his friend looked the last time he saw her. 'Wait a minute! Where the hell did that come from?' He thought, surprised at his mind. The inner voice began to question him again.

Well, do you think she's beautiful?

'I – I – she's my best friend! I shouldn't be thinking about things like that.'

That wasn't the question. Do you think she's beautiful? He stopped and thought deeply for a moment, before sighing.

'Of course she's beautiful. She's bloody gorgeous, and with a mind to match!' Even though he had just thought it, he was still surprised with himself. If he could see his inner voice, he was certain it would be grinning smugly.

Have you ever told her that you think that? I mean, she IS a beautiful witch. ANYONE could snap her up before you get a chance. Harry sat there, deep in thought. Finally, he responded.

'Well, no, I haven't; I didn't think she would like me.'

Well, you don't know until you try, do you? He nodded reflectively. The voice was right. He sighed again, before addressing the voice.

'Fine, next time I see her, I will tell her. Are you satisfied?'

Yes, but I'll be making sure you follow through. Pushing those thoughts away, he began to reflect once more on the topic he had chosen before he got side-tracked.

Before he could do any more musing on the unfairness of his life, a beautiful golden eagle swooped into the room, carrying a package. Needless to say, Harry was a bit surprised, which made him fall off his bed and hit the floor with a thud. Rubbing his spine with a grimace, he looked up at the beautiful bird before him, which was looking at him intently. He gingerly retrieved the box from the eagle, which, giving a shrill squawk, took off flying out the window.

He blinked for a moment, at the spot the bird had just vacated, before looking at the box in more detail. It was wrapped in brown parcel paper and tied up with string. Not seeing a note, Harry gently pulled the string, allowing the wrapping to fall. He went to touch it but paused for a moment.

'What will I do if it's cursed or something?' He thought nervously. His inner voice piped up.

God, you're a bloody coward! Won't talk to Hermione, won't look at the mysterious box… take a risk; live a little! On the last word, he knew the voice was right. Yes, it COULD be a trap or cursed, but no one who would curse it knew he lived here. If any death eaters did know, he saw sure they would just storm in and kill him.

With a deep breath, he gingerly lifted the lid of the box and looked inside. There was a small stone bowl, five small vials, four filled with a whitish liquid, and a letter with a wax seal. Picking up the letter first, he broke the seal and began to skim the page quickly.

Greetings Harry James Potter,

Yes, I know who you are and yes, I know where you live. Do not worry though, my friend, your secret is safe with me. I'm sure you already considered this box to be some sort of Death Eater trap, but don't you think if they knew where you were, they would just kill you? Anyway, back to the letter.

I have some very disturbing information for you, which is contained within the box. Inside it are four vials along with a stone pensieve. The four vials contain memories you should place into the bowl.

The pensieve, however, is not an ordinary one; once the memories of a specific person are placed into it, it will try to replace them in the consciousness of the correct individual when they use it. Yes, I am insinuating someone has robbed you of your memories. But not just you; your friend Hermione has also suffered. When you get the chance, she should do the same as you will be doing soon enough.

Simply, you should place the memories into the bowl and stick your head in. The memories will replace the gaps in your subconscious, performing a total recall. You probably won't see anything during this process, unlike a normal pensieve in which you review memories. You should feel a rushing sensation and may see some blurred fragments. You should have a slight headache afterwards.

Once these memories have been reviewed by you and Hermione, they will evaporate and the bowl will disintegrate. Receiving these memories is vital; it will implicate a person who you used to trust, but you now are beginning to question.

Just to further confirm that I'm here to help you and not hurt or kill you, by doing this you will get an answer to a question which has been plaguing you. You know that anger you've been feeling, the misplaced hatred which has no target? This procedure will give you the cause of that anger, a person you will hate for the rest of your days.

Good luck, Harry Potter.

Your anonymous friend and ally

After finishing the letter, he read it several more times, before dropping it to the floor. His hands were shaking and his face was pale.

'How could someone know all this?' Some of the information in that letter he hadn't even realised himself until a few hours ago. Was someone watching him? His inner voice piped up.

It's entirely possible, but somehow I doubt it. Maybe they just know you really well? They could pick it up before even you knew yourself? Harry considered this for a moment before nodding.

'It's a possibility.' He glanced to the box. 'What about the pensieve?'

Well, memories can't really hurt the mind, not physically. The images could be disturbing but that's about it. With these sorts of pensieves, if the memories don't belong, they won't attach themselves to the user. I think it's worth the risk. Thinking about this for a moment, he nodded. His inner voice was sometimes impulsive, but it often produced a logical argument.

Opening the box, Harry lifted a stone bowl out and placed it on his desk. As he pulled each vial out individually, he looked at the contents. A swirling white cloud which never seemed to settle floated around the flask. After a moment of silent contemplation, he uncorked one of the vials and poured it into the stone bowl.

It swirled around for a moment, before it settled into a flat pool of water. Harry was unsure how to proceed; in the meetings with Dumbledore, they could only watch one memory at a time. Listening out for his inner voice for some advice, it was silent. With a shrug of his shoulders, he uncorked another and poured the ethereal contents into the basin. He watched in anticipation. The two memories intermingled before separating and swirling on opposite sides of the glassy surface.

Taking this as a good sign, Harry proceeded to empty the two other vials in and waited. They all settled and swirled around the bowl in a clockwise direction. Preparing to use the basin, he placed his hands on either side of the bowl, bracing himself, before he paused.

'What am I doing?' He thought nervously. 'This is probably some stupid trap! God, I wish Hermione was here…' Harry jumped when his inner voice snapped at him.

For pities sake, just put your goddamn head in the bowl, you bloody wimp! He waited for a moment before giving a loud sigh and dunking his head below the surface.

As soon as his face was immersed in the liquid, he felt excruciating pain. He instinctively pulled back, but was unable to disengage from the bowl. Suddenly, his mind was swamped with hundreds of images flashing past his eyes. The pain was beyond anything he had experienced in his life. His body tried to let out a scream but it was silent below the surface of the water.

All of a sudden, he was ejected from the bowl and landed on his back completely immobilised.

Tears poured down his face while his mouth opened and closed, with no speech coming out. His reaction, however, was not from the pain, but from the memories that had shot past his eyes. As he lay prone on the floor, the words of the letter floated through his head:

"You know that anger you've been feeling, the misplaced hatred which has no target? This procedure will give you the cause of that anger, a person you will hate for the rest of your days."

His face contorted into a look of pure fury and his eyes burned with intense anger. The letter was right; one name and one name alone came up in his memories. Harry growled and spat out the name like it was poisonous.

"Dumbledore…"

He stood up and his hands began to shake uncontrollably. His fists clenched tightly and after a quick glance he noticed they had begun to glow an ominous green. Remembering his occlumency, he forced his emotions down and began to calm immediately. After a few soothing breaths, he grabbed a towel from the side of his room and wiped his sweaty face.

Walking over to the pensieve, he removed the various memory strings and placed them back into their vials. Finishing that, he packed the items back into the wooden box, placed it at the bottom of his trunk, before he flopped back down to the bed.

While he lay on the bed, looking through the memories, he didn't notice his bedroom door slam open. A large, purple-faced Uncle Vernon stood blocking the doorway.

"BOY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING UP HERE?"

Harry looked toward the door; giving his uncle a fleeting glance, before hundreds of memories rushed past his eyes, all involving one Vernon Dursley. Collapsing to his knees, he screamed in pain and terror as he relived every one of the memories in a flash. As the memories flew by, he was able to single out a particular one and focus on it.

Harry sat crying in his Cupboard-Under-The-Stairs, curled up in a foetal position. He knew it was only a matter of time before his uncle would come thudding through the house, tear open the door to his room, drag him out and beat him.

Soon the unmistakeable noises of the man he feared more than any other footfalls echoed. Soon the door was wrenched open and he was dragged out by a purple faced, maniacal looking Vernon.

"You can't hide from me, freak. Now you'll know what happens to little freaks that run away and hide!"

Usually, when he was beaten, Harry let himself go limp and accepted the punishment. He was able to push his mind out of his body, so as to not feel the hits as they came, but watch the event from afar. That was how it had been for years.

This time, however, was different.

In the back of his mind, all the hatred he had for his relatives pooled together uncontrollably, making him blind with rage. For the first time in his life, he felt powerful, able to fight back.

Harry's eyes changed colour and began to glow an icy blue. His hands began to radiate a green aura, visible to his uncle. He smiled evilly, stood up, his hands glowing with this new found power. Raising his left hand he pointed a single finger at his uncle. Vernon backed away, completely terrified by this change in events. He laughed at the fear on his face, before speaking.

"My turn," he whispered in a melodic sing song voice.

All of a sudden, his uncle screamed in pain, as what felt like hundreds of needles stabbing into his skin, tore through his nerves. Harry cackled evilly as his uncle writhed and bellowed in pure pain. While he held the torture, the front door crashed open and a bearded man stepped in.

Harry's eyes shot to the newcomer and narrowed. The old man, wearing bright purple robes with colourful patterns smiled warmly at him. Bringing his hands together, he clapped patronisingly.

"Congratulations Harry, wandless magic at your age! It's brilliant; you would be a prodigy before you arrive at Hogwarts!"

Harry was unsure what the man was talking about, but his mind told him not to trust this deceptive man. Before he could react to the presence, the man flashed a stick and Harry fell paralysed to the floor. Unable to do anything, he heard the man speak to his uncle.

"The spell will end in half an hour. Do what you need to do." He looked to Harry. "Harry, my boy, I hope you realise this is for your own good; Obliviate."

As he recovered from the flashes of memory, he stared at his open palms, crying as the pain of his childhood came flooding back. How could he have forgotten? His uncle had given him the worst beatings he had ever received after that 'outburst'. He could recall that he had received many serious injuries; three broken ribs, a broken arm, seven broken fingers and belt lashings across his back.

The venerable headmaster had simply waited for his uncle to finish, before taking him to Hogwarts to be healed. After all, his precious weapon couldn't be injured beyond use. That would be unacceptable.

His eyes stung with burning tears and his hands clenched once more, shaking violently at the graphic memories he had just received. His anger was shouting out in his mind, calling for blood of those who had hurt him, called him freak, stopped his revenge and then stolen his memories.

"I said, what are you doing up here, freak?"

Remembering he was not alone, his eyes trailed to the door. His walrus of an uncle stood blocking the doorway with a smug smile on his face. All the years of abuse and neglect finally rushed forward and merged into one super charged emotion.

His uncle, meanwhile simply watched the boy writhe in pain after they had made eye contact. It made him feel powerful; watching the freak squirm on the floor and a large smug smile crossed his face.

'Maybe I've finally broken him.' He thought cruelly. He watched as the boy stopped screaming and stared at his hands. Vernon's eyes narrowed when he saw him tense up and shake for some unknown reason. Remembering why he came up, he addressed the boy again.

"I said, what are you doing up here, freak?" His voice was dangerous sounding, promising future beatings if he did not answer.

Finally, the boy's head turned to meet his own, and he nearly fainted in fear. His entire body began to glow an eerie green and his eyes were a stark icy blue; just as they had been when he was eight. Harry struggled to his feet and stood facing his uncle, admiring the aura surrounding his hands.

Like the bony finger of the Reaper, he pointed his hand accusingly at his uncle, just like he had done all those years before.

Vernon backed out of the room as far as possible, before hitting the opposite wall in the corridor. As Harry began to advance on him, he whispered something to his uncle, making his blood freeze and a whimper pass his lips.

"My turn,"

The Dursleys sat in the living room of number four watching the national BBC news. The sound of the television was only interrupted by various comments made by Vernon on the current subject the newsreader was discussing.

This year, Vernon had been adopting an 'ignore Harry' attitude, which was summarily adopted by Petunia and Dudley. The boy only came down to do his chores (which had been substantially reduced after the threats they had received from those other freaks) and eat, before he retreated back upstairs.

As per their agreement, Harry wouldn't make any noise and they would generally leave him alone. This had been the case for the last few weeks, but for the past ten minutes a number of loud noises had been coming from the boy's room. Finally reaching the end of his tether (which wasn't very long) Vernon's face turned a dark purple and he stood up.

"That ruddy Freak and his noise," Vernon growled dangerously, "I'm going to make that little bastard regret irritating me today." Having alerted all to his intentions, he waddled out of the room and thudded up the stairs.

Petunia vaguely heard the bedroom door slam open and her husband shout, but she was ignoring what was happening. For a few minutes, the house was silent, with only the sound of the television breaking it.

"In other news, the weather in England has experienced a sharp drop in temperature, and become extremely unpredictable, despite it being the middle of summer. The country has been witnessing some of the worst weather for nearly ten years, while experts are at a loss to explain why the meteorological conditions have changed so dramatically these past months…"

"AAAAAAHHH" Vernon's petrified scream echoed throughout the house, covering the sounds from the television set.

Petunia turned her head to the doorway leading to the stairs, just in time to see her husband rolling down the stairs and hitting the floor with a sickening thud. Her hands shot to her mouth and she stood up. Was he dead? A painful groan came from the body lying tangled at the bottom of the stairs suggested otherwise and she raced to his side.

Kneeling down next to the prone body of her husband, she glanced up the stairs to see a sight which made her heart skip a beat. There was a glowing figure, with an ethereal green aura surrounding him stood at the top of the stairs, staring at them both.

His face was contorted into a demented smirk and his eyes were icy blue. Unsure who it was, she gasped when she caught the sight of a lightning bolt shaped scar. She started shaking in terror, as he began to descent the stairs toward her. Forgetting her husband, she stood up and ran back into the living room, eliciting an evil cackle from Harry.

As he reached the bottom step, he sneered at his uncle's battered, unconscious form. Purposefully stepping on his arm, putting his full weight on it, the bones made a sickening crack which made the man cry out in agony. With a demented smile, he moved on, stepping into the living room after his aunt.

Both she and Dudley sat huddled in the corner, completely terrified by the boy they had abused for most of his life. He grinned sadistically, pointing his hand at them.

"P-please Harry," His aunt said tearfully, "w-were sorry, just p-please s-stop." His hand dropped slightly as he considered her plea before a voice interrupted from behind.

"Die you f-f-freak!" His uncle spat.

Harry span around to meet the voice, but was stopped as a sharp pain passed through his chest. Looking down, he could see the handle of a kitchen knife sticking out, with only a small portion of the blade showing.

Ignoring the blade, he looked back up to see his uncle shuffling back in fear. He panicked when he realised his entire plan to stop the boy had failed when his face contorted into a look of rage and hate. With a flick of his hand, his uncle flew from one side of the room to the other, hitting the wall with a sickening crunch, smashing a large mirror.

Harry turned to face his relatives, his teeth gritted and his eyes filled with fury. With a flick of his wrist, his uncle was picked up and pinned flat against the wall. Looking at his aunt, he sneered in disgust before speaking.

"No Aunt Petunia, you aren't sorry. You could never be sorry. After the way you have treated me for fifteen years you expect me to be merciful?!" He spat. She whimpered and sobbed quietly. "No. I won't stop." Turning his attention back to his uncle, he grinned evilly.

With another flick of his wrist, his uncle screamed in pain. His nerves endings began to burn as sharp stabbing sensations racked his body. Tears poured down his moustached face as he bellowed his lungs out. Letting down the torture for a moment, his uncle began to plead with him.

"B-boy, p-please stop, please…I'll d-do anything." He cried. Harry stepped right up to him and looked into his eyes and whispered in his ear.

"You're too late uncle…fifteen years too late." The torture began again and his limbs flailed around as they burned in pain.

While he tortured his uncle, Dudley realised he could escape. He crawled across the floor, moving slowly toward the door and freedom. However, as he neared his goal, he felt his feet being dragged back by something, crushing his ankle as it did.

Harry used his magic to drag the fat teen back to his spot next to his aunt, before placing them both in tightly tied magical ropes. He manoeuvred them so they were forced to watch their uncle under torture. Ceasing the man's torture for a moment, he stepped over to Dudley and punched him in the face, knocking him to the floor. Pulling him back up he glared angrily at his cousin.

"Come now Dudley, you wouldn't want to leave before your turn, would you?" He said in a childish voice, sporting a maniacal grin.

Turning once more to Vernon, he continued his torture. While he had been doing this, his uncle's heart began pumping uncontrollably fast, verging on a heart attack. Before that could happen, however, after the years of abuse from greasy foods and lack of exercise, his veins and arteries began to rupture across his body from the strain.

In a few moments, his skin turned a dark crimson as the blood pooled beneath the surface. With a final rattled breath, Vernon Dursley breathed his last and he fell limp. Dropping the fat carcass to the floor, he turned to his other relatives.

Petunia and Dudley stared unbelievingly at the corpse of their husband and father respectively; unable to comprehend he was actually dead. As she looked at his cold, empty eyes which stared at her, she let out a cry and screwed her eyes shut. Harry looked at the two terrified individuals and laughed a demented and maniacal laugh.

"Don't worry Auntie; we're just getting warmed up." He announced with a grin

It took Harry eight minutes to destroy his relative's both mentally and physically. Feeling the pent up anger from fifteen years of abuse bleed away as he got his revenge, he let out a contented sigh. As he glanced at a piece of the broken mirror, he noticed that his eyes had turned back to their normal emerald green.

After looking at the corpses of his hated relatives for a moment, he realised he was severely injured from his uncle's knife. Harry gently tugged at the blade, before wincing in pain.

"Yeah, that's staying in for now." He said with a sigh.

It was then that the severity of what he had done finally caught up with him. He had just murdered his relatives, brutally and without a care. Of course, no one knew that, aside from himself, as he had spelled the house before his rampage. He realised that he had to hide his actions for the time being, lest he find himself in Azkaban.

He paused for a moment and began to think of a way to indefinitely hide his actions. Finally, after a few minutes, he had a brainwave and smiled evilly.

He had a plan.

Remus Lupin sat in the lounge of 12 Grimmauld Place reading a book he had recently bought from a muggle bookshop nearby. After losing James, Lily and now Sirius, he desperately needed something to distract himself from his thoughts.

He had remembered Lily mentioning this series of books back during the first war, which she persuaded James to read. Written by some bloke called 'Tolkien' they were about another world filled with magic and creatures called 'Middle Earth'.

The books, 'The Lord of the Rings' were, in fact a very good read, and he could understand why she had told James to read them. It was surprisingly similar to their world back in the days of Merlin and King Arthur. It astonished him how blind the muggles could be to things around them, and how close the two worlds came without colliding.

As he read, he noticed a flash of white in the corner of his vision. Looking up, he noticed a stag bounding across the room toward him. Recognising it as Harry's patronus, he frowned as he realised he shouldn't be casting magic outside of school. Sitting upright and putting his book to one side, Lupin listened as the projection delivered its message.

"Moony, I'm in danger. Privet Drive was…attacked and…and the Dursleys are dead. I'm in…injured. Please send help..." Harry's pained and tired voice faded.

As soon as the patronus vanished, Lupin bolted from his seat to the fireplace. He had to alert the Order. Throwing the green powder into the flames, he bellowed 'Hogwarts headmaster's office' before sticking his head into the flames.

"Albus; we have an emergency."

Five minutes after receiving the message, a group comprised of Dumbledore, Tonks, Lupin, McGonagall and Moody arrived on Privet Drive. As they made haste to the house, they noticed an ethereal projection hovering in the sky; the dark mark.

Breaking down the door with a 'reducto' the Order members spilled into the house and made their way into the sitting room. Their eyes met with a horrible sight: the three Dursleys had been brutally murdered.

Vernon Dursley was lying in a pool of his own blood, his skin crimson from the leaking fluid. The whites of his eyes were black, having filled with blood also, which dripped out from the various orifices of his body.

Petunia Dursley was terrifying; she was crouched in the corner of the room, hands on both sides of her face, which was forever contorted into a silent scream. She was dead, but her body suggested that she may have only been cowering in fear from what she had witnessed only a few hours ago.

Dudley Dursley may well have been what scared Petunia to death. His body was arguably the most gruesome of the three; he had been pinned to the wall, with what appeared to be kitchen knives, by his limbs. Not only that, his chest had been cut open and his entrails dumped unceremoniously on the floor by his feet.

However, it was surprising to note that the area had surprisingly little blood on it around Dudley's corpse. It seemed as though someone had cast a spell preventing him from bleeding out, so as to feel the full pain of his disembowelment before dying.

Upon entering, Moody and his magical eye surveyed the gore indifferently. In all his years as a dark wizard hunter, he had seen things which were many times worse than this. His line of work made it a necessity to have a strong gut.

Tonks, however, immediately placed a hand on her mouth and ran out the house, vomiting onto the grass. She gave a hacking cough before throwing up a second time as the images crept back into her mind, burned into her vision.

McGonagall looked at the faces of the deceased individuals, looking at the terror in their eyes, before tears began to pour down her normally stern face. She knew how badly the Dursleys had treated Harry, but no one deserved to be brutalised like this.

Dumbledore looked at the bodies and let out a long sigh. He was disappointed and slightly saddened that they had been murdered, but was silently glad for their demise. He realised that these three individuals could have easily ruined all his plans had the wrong people interrogated them. Now they were dead, it meant three less loose ends.

Lupin stared at the corpses with a righteous gaze. If half the stuff Harry had let slip over the years had been true, and he didn't have any reason to think it wouldn't be, these three individuals deserved every ounce of what they had just been given. He was the first to break out of his thoughts, suddenly realising that they were there to help Harry. Turning away from the living room, he bounded up the stairs and walked over to his room.

As he approached, he noticed the tell-tale signs of a fight. The door itself had been caved in by a strong spell and the room was lined with burns from undirected spell fire. Outside the door, the corridor had received its fair share of burns, suggesting Harry didn't go down without a fight. As he fully entered, he saw the body of Harry lying flat on his back with a large blade protruding out of his chest. With a gasp he ran to his side and cast a spell stopping the blood around the wound. Grabbing his hand he tapped his cheek and squeezed his cold fingers.

"Harry, come on Harry, wake up! I got your message, we're here!" He checked his pulse and grinned when Harry gave a loud groan.

"M-moony?" He asked weakly.

"Yeah it's me Harry, now come on; you're not dying on me!" He began to lift Harry before he let out a small yelp of pain.

Putting him down, he realised he couldn't move him without doing more damage. Sensing someone entering the room, he turned to see Dumbledore surveying the scene. Giving him a brief nod, he activated a port-key and disappeared in a blue flash. Looking at the signs of the battle, Dumbledore sighed tiredly.

"Why can't something go right for a change?" He asked no one in particular.

With a flick of his wand all Harry's belongings were placed into his school trunk, which he cast a bottomless charm on and shrunk to put in his pocket. He knew the wards at Privet Drive would fall shortly, if they already hadn't. His mind wandered ruefully to the remains of the Dursleys downstairs.

"Who could have brutalised them like this?" He asked with a worried frown on his face.

Since the Dark Mark had been cast, Albus realised that the ministry would soon be in attendance. Hearing the faint 'pop' of the Ministry Aurors, Dumbledore sighed.

"Speak of the Devil." He muttered. Ordering the group to apparate away before they were seen, he vanished with an almost silent rustle. As the first Auror walked through the door, only two words passed his lips.

"Sweet, Merlin."

I'm sure many of you will read it and only see it as a repeat. It has been, however, worked on quite a bit, even just minor corrections! I hope you enjoy reading on! More chapters are coming, rather than just regurgitated content!

This is the Quill, signing off!