TITLE: JERUSALEM (1/2)

AUTHOR NAME: Soz

AUTHOR EMAIL:

CATEGORY: Angst/Darkfic

KEYWORDS: Ron, Harry, Hermione, Post Hogwarts, AU

RATING: R

SPOILERS: All books

SUMMARY: March, 2002. AU. Voldemort has taken over the Ministry, yet Harry Potter still doggedly remains the Boy who Lived. It's up to his best friend to bring about his death.

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This was largely inspired by Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and I do not own the rights to that either. Jesus Christ Superstar was in turn inspired by the Passion story from the Bible, which I am making no claims of ownership upon.

A/N: I found this scribbled on some notebook paper under my bed when I was cleaning my room.

JERUSALEM, Part 1

March 28, 2002.

Somewhere off the coast of England.

There are murders and then there are mercy killings and I sat convincing myself the former was the latter as I stared into the eyes that would nail you up and run a spear through your side before their conscience so much as blinked.

They take hate seriously, those grey eyes. So seriously, Harry, I'd take a care, because they are pale with hate, a hate tempered to a point so razor-fine its beautiful and seductive and I have trouble remembering I came here because I myself wanted to, no that's wrong, that's not what I meant. I came here because I myself needed to.

I'm telling you, Harry. Know thy enemy, Harry, for thy enemy knows thou—he knows thou like a man knows his own brother—and he hums with the expectation of fratricide.

He knows where you lived, how you look, what you do. He knows your birthday and your telephone number too.

He knows that you can't drive and he knows how you take tea. He knows when you're asleep there's no waking you up. I don't have to tell him this. He knows how you walk, a shuffle step, shuffle step loping forward easily, an equally natural grin on your face because you're loved and you know it and it twists you, twists on the inside until even your lips begin to show the disease, twitching upward in the perversion of a frown.

He knows that you believe in love, hope and other fallacies. I don't have to tell him this. He knows you spread the doctrine of forgiveness because you're too afraid to take the bull by the horns and vault over the stretch of sea that separates you from perchance your death, but at least your honor (old sport, old chum, old buddy, what what) because your words of peace are a poor excuse for cowardice. You see, Harry, I'm telling you, Harry, if you don't seek out vengeance, vengeance of a sort will find you.

And vengeance of a sort knows your favorite movie (It's a Wonderful Life) and that you still dream of catching the snitch faster than him. He knows what kind of jam you prefer (none at all, just a little pat of butter), and when you first awake (6 AM) and who you fucked the night before. It doesn't matter much on that front, Harry? Hermione or Hermione or someone else. You like her for one night of monogamy as long as she's sweet and clean and giddy.

You have to see, Harry, beneath that scarred head and waxen green eyes, all he can see if empty hypocrisy, truth eaten away by the whispering voices of a thousand adoring apostles, drunk with your glory, sheep in your flock. But you're not just the shepherd, Harry. You're the pasture, and you've been eaten bare.

I don't have to tell him this.

You disgust him, you know. He can hardly bare to watch you but he, like Hermione, like the rest of them, is drawn to you like moth to flame—aware and unable to avert his own destruction, damnation, whatever, that's not what I meant to say, who cares, they both start with D.

Every single inch of him is piqued, piqued and primed with the expectation of fratricide for if he himself must die then you will go with him, if not for his own sake then for the sake of the others you have yet to convert and lure into your snare.

Or is it me that I'm talking about?

That's not what I meant to say. I don't have to tell you this.

Draco Malfoy gets out of his wingback chair (leather), walks to his plate glass window (floorlenght), sweeps a hand over the skyline and says, "I can give you any of this."

"I'm just here to talk," I reply. "I don't want it."

And he repeats, "Any of this."

And I say, "I'm just here to talk. I want nothing."

Malfoy's smile stretches across his gums. "Nothing?"

That's what I say.

And he says, "Thirty pieces of silver?"

When I get back to your house, Hermione is up and dressed and you're not and she makes me toast and I give her a jar of marmalade and she asks me where I got the money and I tell her that I'd spent the last two hours shoveling garbage.