Author's Note: Set after OoTP. It's basically canon through that point. This was meant to be a oneshot. It no longer is. I blame my muse, who, I'm quite certain, is psychotic.

Warnings: Dark!Harry, Insane!Harry, rated M for language, violence, and smut, but not in every chapter.

Disclaimer: As per usual, I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter, universe, characters, etc. The plot is mine. Not sure if that's something to really brag about, but there it is.

Acknowledgement: Great big hugs for my lovely beta, bluefirefly5. Thanks so much for all your help. And your unending patience with me.

***Minor rewrite. The plot has not changed, but some more minor details have. I was particularly displeased with the first chapter, so that has received the most extensive work. Also Harry's POV is now 1st person. All others remain 3rd***

Chapter I

"I'm Done"

x_x…H_P...x_x

18 July 1996 – Thursday

"All right, you three," Mrs. Weasley said, waving her hands in a "shooing" motion as she beckoned me, Ron, and Hermione out of the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. "Get off to bed."

"Aw, mum!" Ron predictably complained, already heading for the door as he subconsciously acknowledged the futility of his argument. "Really, we're nearly of age…"

"Nearly is not close enough, Ronald," Mrs. Weasley said in her best don't-question-me voice. "Off you go."

Hermione was frowning slightly, but she was getting up to follow Ron.

I hadn't moved from my seat at the table.

"Harry," Remus prompted gently, as though he thought I merely had not heard the eviction.

"Come on, Harry," Ron said glumly.

"No," I said quietly, startling myself slightly at having finally said it aloud.

"What?" Remus asked with concern in his voice.

I rose from my chair and looked around the room, feeling oddly calm even while my mind was racing. "No," I said again, louder this time. "I will not leave the room so that you can all discuss the war without me."

Everyone in the room seemed utterly stunned at my simple statement. I felt my lip curl into a sneer the likes of which I was convinced I had never before worn. I was quite simply disgusted with the lot of them. "I am the 'Chosen One', as you are all so keen to remind me whenever it suits you." I glared particularly at Dumbledore, who was watching me with grim eyes and a calmly thoughtful expression. "I am the one who will most likely die in the process of trying to end this war."

"Harry-" Remus argued predictably, but I didn't think he believed his objection as much as he wished that he could.

"No, Remus. It's true," I cut him off, my voice still oddly calm even as I felt an inferno building inside me. "From the time I was a year old, everyone has been planning out the course of my life for me. Planning how to shape me into the perfect tool to destroy Voldemort." The sneer returned when several people in the room flinched. Honestly, these were the wizards and witches most capable of fighting Voldemort and they couldn't even hear his name without flinching? Fucking pathetic.

"You sent me to live with the muggles, who hate everything associated with magic, especially me. Even after I started Hogwarts, you sent me back there every summer," I accused, again focusing specifically on Dumbledore as the man's crimes began to line up in my mind. They were crimes of which I'd been aware previously – particularly since the admissions he'd made after the Department of Mysteries fiasco – but for some reason, I'd never quite been able to fit them all into the puzzle. For the first time, I was beginning to get a clear idea of just what picture all those facts truly formed.

"Even after I killed a basilisk and destroyed a horcrux when I was twelve. After I won the Triwizard Tournament when I was fourteen. And, oh yeah, fought Voldemort in the flesh. Still, you kept me in the fucking dark."

Mrs. Weasley opened her mouth, no doubt to comment on my language, but I cast her such a glare that she actually stayed silent.

"Last year – mostnotably – you decided that it would be a brilliant idea to ignore my existence altogether. And then order me by proxy to study Occlumency, something I'd have had difficulty with under the best of circumstances, under a man who hates me probably even more than I hate him." Luckily, Snape wasn't currently present to be offended by the comment.

"Sirius is dead because you lot couldn't keep me in the fucking loop. So yeah, I'm done being ushered into the next room whenever there's an Order meeting." My voice was still deceptively calm even as rage began to climb up my spine and grip my mind in a choking grasp so harsh that I could barely even see. "You want me to continue following your orders; I'm done doing it blind. I'm done feeling my way through the dark while you lot try to simultaneously protect my innocence and plot for me a battle to the death against Voldemort." And this time I reveled in every single flinch. Weak. All of them.

"I'm fucking done with you all."

Though I'd started this whole thing because I hadn't wanted to leave the room, I suddenly didn't want to stay there another moment. No, I couldn't stay there another moment. If I did, I was sure that my fury would destroy me utterly.

So, still wrapped in an outward calm that I neither understood nor cared for, I turned and walked out of the room, leaving a deafening silence in my wake. I walked up the stairs and straight out the front door.

I looked around at the quiet street, reality hitting me like a slap in the face as I realized that I literally had nowhere else to go.

And I suddenly felt trapped. Back in the cupboard, at the mercy of my family. Helpless and afraid and angry and completely fucking impotent – a child in an adult's world, completely suffocated by such mundane restrictions as having no house, no place of refuge call my own.

The rage began to boil up again. These people expected me to fight and kill a man heralded as the most powerful and terrifying Dark Lord of all time, when the truth was that I was just an ignorant fifteen-year-old with next to no understanding of either the wizarding or muggle worlds. I couldn't even use magic outside of school yet.

But that was Dumbledore's plan wasn't it? Oh, yes, it was all so very clear now. He wanted me ignorant. He wanted me weak. He wanted me entirely dependent upon him. Because if I needed him, then he could control me. He could decide how I lived and when I died.

I'd heard the term blind rage before, but I'd never understood it until now. I was so consumed with fury that I literally couldn't see. Or maybe I just wasn't processing what was right in front of me. All I wanted to do was let go of my magic. I wanted to rip down that street lamp that was cheerfully glowing across the street. I wanted to knock down those trees that lived and died without ever a care in the world. I wanted to tear down all the buildings on the heads of their occupants and scream my fury to the world that didn't seem to give a shit about whether I lived or died.

I wanted to destroy the world. Anything to tame this impossible rage inside me that was screaming for violence.

And then my magic finally slipped free, and the world shifted around me in the blink of an eye.

With a small frown, I looked around the room now surrounding me. That all-consuming rage sank back into a simmering rest, stymied by pure shock. Had I just apparated?

And then I processed what I was seeing. I was in a darkly decorated ballroom, surrounded by figures in black robes, all staring at me in perfect pictures of surprise. These people were familiar by varying degrees, I noted with a strange sense of detachment that hovered above the quietly boiling rage. Three people stood out most distinctly.

Draco Malfoy was kneeling on the floor, twisted around and staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. Snape was standing just a bit to the side, his composure utterly absent – for once with shock rather than rage. And then there was Lord Voldemort himself, probably looking more astonished than he ever had, and in his crimson eyes, I saw a hint of fear.

My mind slowly processed my situation in the moment of unnatural stillness. I'd evidently managed to apparate myself right into the Death Eater's den in the middle of some kind of ceremony.

A low, humorless chuckle rang out through the silence. A moment later, I realized that it was coming from me.

The noise seemed to snap Voldemort out of his shock, for he was on his feet an instant later, his wand trained on me. His gaze darted briefly around the room, perhaps expecting Dumbledore and the Order to show up behind me. Or maybe the Auror Corps.

"Well, this is a surprise," he said, his voice a quiet hiss. "Has the Boy-Who-Lived come to die?" he inquired derisively.

I shook my head slowly, wondering at the answer to that question myself. Seriously, of all the places my accidental apparation could have taken me, surely this was more than could be explained by coincidence. Right?

My mind still seemed to be working too slowly, as it took an awfully long time for me to get around to wondering at the more important questions. Namely, what the fuck was I supposed to do now? No one was going to swoop in and save me this time. I was in the middle of Death Eater Central, standing two meters away from Voldemort, and surrounded by a couple dozen of what were probably his best men considering the number of Inner Circle Death Eaters I recognized.

Should I try to apparate away again? I didn't even know what I'd done the first time. Where would I end up this time? I vaguely remembered that it was dangerous to apparate if you weren't trained. That was the whole purpose of making people get a license before letting them do it. Or, at least, it was the Ministry Approved Explanation. Probably also had something to do with monitoring or controlling the population.

I looked up into blood-red eyes, still bearing that hint of fear, then glanced around a room filled with stunned-silent Death Eaters.

And, abruptly, the simmering rage roared back to a full boil.

The people in this room were responsible for killing my parents, my godfather, and generally destroying my life. What kind of collective death count must the residents of this room possess? Thousands, surely, considering Voldemort was here. These people were the reason that I had no parents. They, like Dumbledore, were responsible for my growing up with the Dursleys.

I had all my enemies together in one room. No, wait, check that. There was still Dumbledore, but this was certainly one coalition of my enemies, at least.

So many people that I wanted dead, and they were all nicely grouped together, completely at my mercy.

A cackle bubbled up through the rage, but it didn't make it passed that strangely calm exterior that I couldn't seem to shake if I wanted to.

Then I felt my wand slip out of my hand, and I looked down to watch it fall, as if in slow motion. It hit the floor with a surrealistically loud clatter in the silent room.

When had I even drawn my wand? Shouldn't I be concerned that I wasn't holding it anymore? I wasn't though. I didn't seem able to feel fear passed all this wonderful fury that was raging inside me like an inferno. It was liberating. I never wanted it to end.

A collective nervous shuffle disturbed the silence, but no one spoke. No one attacked. They wouldn't dare while Voldemort continued to watch me in silence.

"Have you finally given up then?" Voldemort smirked in amusement. But that ghost of concern remained in his eyes. Could anyone else see it? Voldemort didn't know why I was here, or how. He didn't know why I wasn't shivering in terror. That, evidently, was enough to unnerve him. But then, I'd established something of a precedent for doing impossible things, particularly when he was involved.

I smiled. I liked it that I was making him nervous. Some part of me knew that I should probably be the jabbering wreck that Voldemort was expecting. I had cause to be, given my situation. I just couldn't quite get there.

"I'm right here, Tommy boy," I heard myself say, though where the words had come from, I wasn't quite sure. Obviously, I'd gone mad. I was strangely okay with that. "Are you afraid of me?" I goaded.

For just a second, Voldemort hesitated. Then he threw back his head and laughed the laugh of the truly mad, one part amusement and one part hysteria.

His rabid glee sent the familiar blinding agony through my scar, but rather than sending me to my knees, the pain worked to clear and focus my mind.

My eyes drifted closed, and I could literally feel Voldemort raising his wand. I knew what he was about to do, but I wasn't afraid. On the contrary, I wanted him to do it. I wanted to see him try. I embraced that ocean of fury rising within me. I let it submerge me. Consume me. Become me.

My eyes opened once more and the Dark Lord stopped laughing instantly. His red eyes widened, and he screeched, "Avada Kedavra!"

The Killing Curse hissed from the length of yew in a fury of brilliant green that enveloped me in a sweetly silent embrace. I felt the icy rage of the magic wrap itself around my soul and all became blessed silence. Perfect stillness.

My body became lighter than air and all that remained of me was my fury with the world that had disappointed me at nearly every turn. Rage for Voldemort and his minions who only wanted to take from me the pathetic excuse for a life that I struggled to make for myself. Dumbledore, who'd taken from me almost everything else. The wizarding world for turning its back on me in response to pathetically unsubstantiated rumors. Hell, right now, I was even mad at my parents for dying and leaving me to face this stupid world alone. The only person I wasn't mad at was Sirius. I'd already killed him, so I figured my revenge there was done.

I looked down, and I saw my own body, lying on the marble floor, green eyes staring vacantly up at me.

And I got angrier. No. This wasn't right. I wasn't going to die now. I absolutely refused to die now. Not while the monsters got to live.

My fury doubled. Then redoubled. Expanding exponentially at the speed of thought. I felt my body. A distant, intangible thing, but there. Not yet beyond my reach. I wrapped my fury around me like a cloak and clung to it as I gave a metaphysical yank on the line that still connected me to my body.

Weight hit me again, and I blinked as my eyes focused upon the elegant ceiling of this fashionable tomb. I was back in my body.

I could feel the world around me as I had never before imagined. There was nothing like dying to make you feel alive… The rage consumed me, and I reveled in it. I would not die while my enemies lived.

I was on my feet again, though I didn't remember standing.

Silence reigned. Heavy and oppressive, and fucking orgasmic. Mouths gaped. Eyes bulged at me. Really, it was like I'd never survived a Killing Curse before.

The fear in Voldemort's eyes was stronger now.

"You don't get to live anymore," I heard the words leave my mouth in a voice that may have been my own had it not been cold as the grave, devoid of any and all of the life that was burning within me.

I tilted my head as I studied the creature before me. "You don't get to breathe anymore," I decided, while the monster continued to befoul the world by expelling his fetid breath. I took a step toward the Dark Lord that could not frighten me anymore. "I would kill you a thousand times for each life you have taken, Tom Riddle." Another step. The monster's wand pressed painfully into my chest, but I was leagues beyond caring about something so mundane. "Once will have to be enough for today," I allowed.

Impossibly wide red eyes stared into my own, lipless mouth gaped open, working with the semblance of a familiar curse that he did not dare to utter.

"Avada," I whispered for him. "Kedavra."

The world turned green.

It was astonishingly quiet, the death of Lord Voldemort. No screams. No shouted curses. No weeping, begging, or raging. Just blinding green light, and the soft thud of bodies hitting the floor.

When my vision cleared, I looked down at the crumpled, unremarkable body of Tom Riddle. He'd be back, I knew. He still had horcruxes. But it would take a while. I'd bought myself time to prepare properly. I'd definitely need Hermione. If anyone could find a way to destroy him before he reached full power again, it would be her. I'd need Ron as well, since he was one of the few people that I believed I could fully trust. In anything.

As for the rest…

I stepped over the now meaningless corpse, and turned before the throne to face the room. A room littered with corpses. There were only a few left alive amongst the carnage. Snape stood exactly where he had been, though he'd turned to follow my every move. He was now staring at me with wide eyes. Draco yet knelt on the floor, quite alive, gaping at the body of the former dark lord. And Narcissa Malfoy was standing in the middle of a ring of bodies, the only one left standing in that lot.

I wondered why she'd lived. I hadn't really meant to kill anyone except for Riddle and Bellatrix. Well, maybe Dolohov too, as he'd come close to killing Hermione. But maybe I had subconsciously made out a hit list. I wasn't sure. I'd left Draco alive, which was mildly surprising. But Narcissa?

I shook the unnecessary concern for the moment. It didn't seem to matter.

"Harry?" Snape finally spoke, his whisper echoing in the silent room. He didn't sound like he was at all certain that he was, in fact, speaking to me. Like maybe someone else was in my body.

I hesitated just a moment before sinking down onto Voldemort's vacated throne, shoving the man's body out of the way with my foot as I did so. The rage wasn't quite gone, but it was buried down deep again. That rage had seemed a permanent part of me ever since the graveyard, but I'd never let it out completely before. It had been surprisingly enjoyable.

And effective, I added with a glance at Voldemort's body. I liked it.

"I'm done taking orders," I informed the room, then looked at Snape. "You can feel free to run and tell your master, if you like. Or…" I added thoughtfully. "I do believe I'm going to need some followers of my own. Is anyone interested?" I asked of all three.

[Edited: 19 Feb. 2014]