Vengeance Will Be Mine
Chapter 1
Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to J. K. Rowling.
- - -
Harry Potter was on the train back from Hogwarts, lost in thought as his mind spun its wheels, the same thoughts running through it over and over again while Ron and Hermione attempted to make conversation, only to be rewarded with small grunts.
Dumbledore's death.
Snape.
Malfoy.
Lestrange.
Other Death Eaters who had hurt his friends and attacked the one place he had always called home, even more so than that pitiful excuse for a home called Number Four Privet Drive.
He remembered the hour or so after Dumbledore's funeral.
Under the pretence of having forgotten something in Gryffindor Tower, he had made a mad dash for the Room of Requirement, scrambling to find that Potions textbook that had previously belonged to Snape; along the way, he noticed a very familiar Vanishing Cabinet. He remembered with sudden fury how Draco Malfoy had managed to slip something like that right under everybody's noses, and Harry whipped out his wand, snarling, "Reducto!"
Smirking at the smithereens peppering the area, he thought, see if you can repair that, you little traitorous bastard.
With just a few moments' more searching, the bespectacled teenager had found the book in question, and before long had secreted it among his belongings in his trunk. He then waited with his friends for the train home.
Harry then remembered the bloody Horcruxes. Merlin, what sick bastard would make not just one, but six of them? Remembering the diary and his discussions with Dumbledore, he was suddenly jolted by a horrific thought – what if Voldemort moved his Horcruxes, or increased the protections on them? After all, he had apparently been very angry with Lucius Malfoy over that little titbit of information about how careless he had been with the diary.
And certainly, if Hogwarts leaked like a sieve when it came to owl post (as evidenced by the way the Weasley twins managed to sneak love potions into the school), then it was almost certain that a Slytherin, or even a non-Slytherin pureblood with an interest in wizarding artefacts, would have remarked on Dumbledore's injured hand and the nature of the ring on his hand. All it would take would be a casual letter home from a student to a Death Eater parent or relative, and that could only mean that Voldemort might put two and two together and realise Dumbledore had got another Horcrux and destroyed it.
Not good.
Not good at all.
And on top of that, he had had his arse handed to him by that bastard Snape. If he was to be honest with himself, he had to admit that being crap at Occlumency and equally crap at nonverbal casting would get him killed in short order. Lying to oneself about one's capabilities was a job for Draco Malfoy.
After all, Mister Little Death Eater Wannabe only found out he was not psychologically prepared to use the Killing Curse on another human being when it came down to the wire and he couldn't go through with it.
Bad form, that.
But his vitriol was saved for Severus Snape, and that day, Harry swore that he would find a way to rip the man into many, many little pieces.
From such decisions, the pathway to darkness emerges, and Harry Potter was about to begin walking it.
- - -
At King's Cross, Harry made another decision.
He said to Ron and Hermione, "Look, I appreciate you guys coming out here with me, but I need to ask you to wait until I get back to Privet Drive before you come barging in with me. I need to get things sorted out with my relatives first; I may be able to convince them to leave me alone, but I won't be able to do it with Dudley eyeing you up, Hermione, or being scared of you, Ron."
The bushy-haired witch's indignant cry of "Men!" was almost lost amidst the confused statement uttered by the redhead.
"But, Harry, I don't get it. It's not like I'll ask to use their fellytone or something."
Right, the other boy remembered. His best friend had not seen what happened that year when Dudley ate the Ton-Tongue Toffee.
"You look a lot like your twin brothers, Ron. They played a rather mean prank on Dudley and it took your Dad forever to convince Uncle Vernon to let him reverse the prank. I won't be able to get a thing done when Aunt Petunia will be busy comforting 'her little Dudders'."
The trio laughed at his imitation of his aunt's unbelievable tendency to coddle his cousin, even at the age of sixteen and seventeen.
"And besides, Dudley's a pig, figuratively and literally. He talked about girls last summer like they were… I don't know, just toys to be played with or something."
With any luck, Harry thought, maybe Cousin Duddy Dinkydums won't be at the house most of the summer.
It took a bit more arguing for him to convince his friends to come over the next day, but finally they acquiesced and the former went with Ron to greet Mrs Weasley, who enveloped him in a nearly bone-crushing hug before admonishing him "to come to the Burrow as soon as you possibly can!"
He then exited the wall hiding Platform Nine and Three-Quarters from the Muggle world, and politely greeted the Grangers, then waved good-bye to Hermione. He resignedly noted Uncle Vernon waiting impatiently by his car, and stonily, he put his things in the boot and said not a word to the man as he drove them to the Dursley residence.
Once at the house, Harry unpacked, equally non-communicative to his Aunt, and left everything he owned in the smallest bedroom; whilst he was there, he wondered if he would be able to get the Ministry off his back. He had need of his wand in self-defence, and there was no telling what Scrimgeour might make him do in order to quash the charges if he cast spells while underage.
He kicked himself for not having had Amelia Bones send him a waiver after that idiot Fudge lost all credibility as Minister for Magic. Back then, they'd have given him nearly anything, seeing as he was "The Chosen One".
Ah well. Water under the bridge, he thought.
After going back downstairs, Harry summoned up his Gryffindor courage and went to speak to his relatives.
"Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, I have some things to discuss."
His uncle fixed a beady gaze on him and said, "About ruddy what? That girl with that ridiculous pink hair came knocking on our door to deliver a letter. Seems that school of yours isn't so safe, eh? Headmaster dead and all that."
Bitterness flowed through the adolescent wizard as he once again remembered Snape killing Dumbledore.
"Yeah, he's dead, all right. That still doesn't change the fact that I need to stay here until I'm seventeen. Then I'll be gone and you'll never have to see me again. In the meantime, I'll be having friends of mine visit at least once a week, maybe even once a day. One of them is over the age of seventeen, which means she's allowed to do magic outside of school."
Aunt Petunia shrank back a bit, and Uncle Vernon turned a rather interesting orange-red colour.
"Yeah. You get the idea, so if we'll all just stay out of each others' way, I think we can make the next four weeks pass by rather tolerably. My friends will visit tomorrow, and I expect to be allowed unrestricted access to the telephone. Don't worry; I won't call the Page Three Girl Hotline or anything like that. I'm not interested in driving you bankrupt."
His fat uncle replied stiffly, "Very well. But mark my words; you put one toe out of line—"
Harry rolled his eyes, saying. "Yeah, yeah, you'll do this, that and the other thing. By now I think we've flogged that horse quite dead. I'll get out of your way now."
He turned his back on his uncle, and headed upstairs to remain in his bedroom. He decided to leaf through the book of the Half-Blood Prince. It was hard to believe this same book, which had somehow become a sort of… friend… had belonged to Severus Snape.
The odd thing was, even though he'd seen the man's handwriting on enough of his essays and assignments (usually with the requisite, "Potter, if you have a brain larger than a flobberworm's, use it," sample of corrective assistance as to just what he did wrong), not all the spells and corrections to the Prince's textbook were in that printing.
He wondered who the other person (persons?) could be; even so, those spells could be useful, if he could master nonverbal incantations. He desperately needed a place to test them out – he was not going to get caught unawares like that again with the Sectumsempra curse that he had used on Malfoy. He was going to know what each curse did before he used it, that was for sure – and he would damn well find a place to practice magic!
Author Notes:
I kept the title, but I've ditched most of the premise from the previous incarnation of this fic, which I just couldn't make work. So here, we have a post-HBP dark!Harry fic, who decides that he's been hurt enough to lose his scruples and go no-holds-barred with anyone who gets in his way. :)
Thanks go to Maddevillechilde for the beta work. :)